#treatments which he not only researched and developed on the fly for the sake of ONE (or technically two in this case) patient

[howthesleeplesswander]

baizhu in his character teaser rEALLY BE OUT HERE LIKE—

does something about this prescription...

-ACTIVATES LILTING VOICE-

-MAXIMIZES BEDROOM EYES-

-STRETCHES ARMS BACK WITH HANDS IN HIS HAIR-

...displease you?

asdfkdfjdks i'm screaming howling foaming at the mouth gOD PLEASE JUST BECOME PLAYABLE ALREADY, I NEED MY DENDRO DOCTOR BABYGIRL IN MY LIFE ASDKFLD

[poisonheadcrabsalesman]

More therapy thoughts part 1/?

Behavior Theory Frameworks/Conditioning and What the fuck does Master Chief talk about in therapy?

Ramblings below - like a lot, like I spent too much time writing this and you should not read this

Behavioral Theory could work well as a framework with rehabilitating Spartan IIs if the case worker focused on Operant Conditioning Theory and Cognitive Social Learning Theory, which I talked about in this ask because I think I’m funny and this blog is an archive of me applying human behavior theories to video games.

Spartans have always been taught the mission comes first! Always! The 2s are indoctrinated from age 6-14 and then have that reinforced the rest of their lives. From the beginning they are taught to push themselves to the limits, earn their food by winning, form bonds with teammates but be ready to sacrifice them for the mission. The whole lives wasted vs spent conversation between John and Mendez after the augmentation surgery!

What the UNSC/ONI wants comes before their lives, the lives of other soldiers, civilians, AI etc. This constant conditioning of expectations and rewards has created the norms cemented in their minds. This becomes standard operating procedure.

Spartans are also an entirely separated social group, other people have made really great posts on how they are Othered and have their own way of communicating with body language. ODSTs hate Spartans, marines see them as cyborgs or saviors, and while they’re allies, Spartans are not seen or treated as human, by literally everyone. They are a means to an end, with the original goal being to maintain the UNSC’s position of power and crush the insurrectionists in the outer colonies, but uh oh Aliens!

Maybe the 2s aren’t as expendable as the 3s but the mindset and reinforcement of “mission first, people second” being repeated their entire lives is going to stick. So is the constant mistreatment and abuse from their fellow soldiers and handlers. 

Addressing the cognitive distortions that come from their upbringing while also balancing the fact that Spartans are so fundamentally different from the way they developed to survive would be so much work, especially considering how much information on them is given to their therapist.  The main distortion I would apply is minimization, making large problems small and not properly dealing with them, and specifically for John, personification, accepting blame for negative events without sufficient evidence. 

Like these are grown ass super soldiers who can kill you in less than a second and calculate the amount of gravity in a room on the fly but then also can flounder when trying to comfort civilians or make small talk because their experiences and values are so alien to adults who had more developmentally “normal” lives. 

Literally applying therapy to Spartans would be like, what was done to you was wrong, the ends do not justify the means, you were children and the adults in your life failed to protect you. You are a human person who is fallible and did the best you could with what you had. And the Spartan would say, “sounds fake but okay, can I pass my psych eval and go back to war now please?”

Jumping back to Behavior Theory

Different approaches to therapy under the Behavior Theory umbrella help modify negative behaviors with treatments like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical behavior therapy that teach individuals adaptive coping like emotional regulation, distress tolerance, cognitive distortions, and interpersonal communication. And that’s just one framework under the umbrella of human behavior theories.

Social work therapy is different from psych as it approaches individuals with heavily researched, evidence-based theories and frameworks in a holistic viewing of person-in-environment, instead of a strong focus on internal psychology. 

Social work looks at all the interacting systems, environment, history, and internal and external factors affecting an individual. One of the most useful frameworks is the Biopsychosocial-Spiritual Frameworks (BPSS) when helping a client. It helps with identifying all the intersecting factors, both risk and protective, that shapes a client’s lived experiences. The most important thing to remember is that the individual is an expert in their own life, they know their experiences best.

The hardest part is applying this to Spartans because they Are So Fucked, their lived experiences, their environments and systems and institutions interacting with them, and the amount of their personal information that is probably so classified.

BPSS is a tool to help social workers assess individuals and their situations by collecting info that is related to the presenting issues and current and past circumstances. Info like medical history, hospitalizations, substance abuse, mental illness, personal relationships, family history and background, culture and norms, education, legal history, spirituality and participation etc. is all under this framework. 

For Spartan 2s most of this info is lost or classified and helping someone who has repressed every negative emotion they've had for the sake of the mission would be so much to unpack but that’s also why you’re reading the mad ramblings over an over caffeinated nerd on the internet.

Life Course Theory which looks at developmental milestones and the individual’s experiences versus the socially expected markers, how do you apply that to children who were taken and have lived such different lives? 

While early adolescence is when “normal” development of thoughts of self and identity take place alongside the physical changes of puberty, Spartans were being turned into emotionless calculating weapons. Sorry John, no forming a sense of identity and peer bonds for you, go kill that Watts guy who betrayed us and joined the insurrectionists. 

And now that I’ve gone this insane and opened 2 whole textbooks up, let’s get to Master Chief thoughts. If you’ve read this far thank you, I swear I’m normal, 2020 has just been a weird year. 

Why the fuck did I think I could write a therapy fic on a guy with 20 minutes of actual dialogue across almost 2 decades of games?

I make fun of him and call him a himbo, but he’s smart, he knows he’s being used and there is resentment there that’s been building for years. 

There’s also decades of trauma and combat experience, physical, and emotional abuse, the lack of a support network,  lack of an identity, the biological factors and aftermath of the augmentations and injuries he’s received, a whole lot of grief and self-inflicted guilt. 

The loss of a third of his peer group with the augmentation surgery, Sam’s death, the loss of Reach (the only place he’s considered home), Keyes, the Pillar of Autumn crew, Miranda Keyes, Johnson, Cortana. He cares about the marines who fight with him!!!

He just stands there and takes it and rarely snaps, and even then it’s just small cracks on the surface with fissures running deep. The few details I will pull from Halo 5 are Blue Team’s reactions to John pushing himself so hard from the beginning of the game, and the literal crack in his armor from the fight with Locke. Like dude.  

John’s a leader and will get the mission done but he tugs on the leash. He’s earned enough of a reputation and uses it to get his way.

Halo 2’s “Permission to leave the station” with Mr. “I’m going to hand deliver a bomb to the fusion reactor of a covenant supercarrier and hope my friends catch me”. 

Halo 4 is when we see him say no to a superior officer and then 5 is him going AWOL. Palmer literally points out that no one is going to stop him.

Halo 5 kills me for many reasons but John bringing up Halsey and what she did to him and also pointing out that he knows Halo 5 Cortana is trying to manipulate him with psychological tactics hurts. 

He knows what’s been done to him!

I cannot remember which book it was but John isn’t used to working alone. He literally takes fire because he was expecting someone to have his back! 

He’s lost without Cortana! She was in his brain! Y’all! I played Halo Combat Evolved on the original xbox when I was like 8 and I knew these two were meant to be together. From the moment they met they had great chemistry and relied on each other! Cortana literally goes after people who have it out for John! John wants her approval and shows off for her in one of the books. 

I’ve already written too much here but like all of the games have John showing off for Cortana, making dry jokes, jumping out of things he shouldn’t. 

The whole point of this rambling is to try and get my thoughts about how to approach John’s character under control.

And that’s the thing. He’s lost control. He’s lost people, he’s losing his position and being phased out as an aging spartan, a relic. John’s used to following orders and making some decisions on the battlefield but it was always short term.

He has no identity beyond being a weapon. Complete the mission, clear the LZ, get put in cryo. Rinse, repeat. 

The timeline of the games are what I'm most familiar with but with the comics and books too it’s one long run from Halo 2 to Halo 4. Cairo station to the Dreadnought to the crash landing to Forward Unto Dawn to Requiem to “The Didact is Dead but not really but we’ll deal with him off-screen”.

I know Hood apparently gave John R&R orders before Halo 5 that he ignored and kept running himself into the ground. This is a man who has to keep moving and keep being useful. 

I imagine him giving in and seeking help as a last resort to fix any problems he has with performing his duties rather than helping himself be healthier. 

Any professional he sees is going to have to approach him like they’re approaching a self sacrificing feral cat, with lunch meat and quiet. This man needs to have his support network closer, set up long term goals, and do some serious, and most likely incredibly painful, self reflection on where he’s come from and where he wants to go. Get him out of that tin can and into therapy. I don’t have a nice neat ending because this was a ramble and also therapy is not neat and tidy. Thanks for reading my words about mr halo

[cat-brodsky]

richard pipen is the worst pre-med student ever: death caps in the secret history

"Judy, what would you do if you had a hundred and three degrees of fever?” “I would go to the fucking doctor,” she said without looking away from the TV.

must i say anything else

This post may contain errors, and anyone is welcome to point them out.

@sadbabywltch gets a thanks for the inspiration

some context

"You studied medicine for a while, didn't you?” [Henry] said.

I knew this to be a prelude to some health-related inquiry. My one year of pre-med had provided scanty knowledge at best...

I’m going to cite some parts of The Secret History, but I cannot copy the entire text of the scene in question. If you haven’t read it, this scene won’t make as much sense.

This post contains extensive discussion of mushroom poisoning as a murder method, so consider yourself warned. This post also contains math and biology, so people allergic to either should turn back.

Richard Pipen knows absolutely nothing about medicine. And I intend to prove that.

on amanita phalloides

Aka, death cap. The most poisonous out of all known mushrooms - half a mushroom (30 grams) is enough to kill a grown human. If Henry had really done extensive research, he should know that - and he said that he has.

“You have no idea how much thought I've put into this. Even to the strain of poison. It's said to make the throat swell, do you know that? Victims are said to be struck dumb, unable to name their poisoner.”

He should also know that the throat swelling is a myth. A.phalloides cause gradual organ failure. Symptoms of poisoning occur twelve hours later, too late to seek treatment, and death generally occurs six to sixteen days after the poisoning.

He should also know that there are less toxic species of Amanita. For instance, Amanita muscaria (fly agaric) is a hallucinogen, and symptoms take only thirty to ninety minutes to appear. Considering that the entire friend group has already been taking drugs regularly, Henry could offer Bunny a lethal dose, ingest a small one, and seek treatment.

There is also Coprinopsis atramentaria - the common ink cap, or tippler’s bane. This mushroom is poisonous, even lethally so, if combined with alcohol. I don’t need to spell the murder method out.

But, of course, Henry is high Intelligence low Wisdom and obsessed with ancient history; if Claudius allegedly died via death caps getting mixed with Caesar’s mushrooms, then it must clearly be the best way to poison someone.

on advanced calculus

“Let's say we know, for instance, that x amount of the drug in question is enough to affect a seventy pound animal and another, slightly larger amount is sufficient to kill it. I've figured out a rough formula, but still we are talking about a very fine distinction. So, knowing this much, how do I go about calculating the rest?”

Quick reminder that Henry killed one dog and poisoned another.

I’m not going to do calculations on A.muscaria or any other method of murder - A.phalloides is what the characters were poring over. I’m going to explain the calculations as simply as I can, and then provide some references for those of you who are interested in biology.

The characters don’t have the internet available, but they have the whole college library, a virtually unlimited amount of money, and a town where everyone takes illegal substances at their disposal. What they need is a pharmacology textbook (to look up the necessary equations), a reference on poisonous mushrooms (to look up death caps), and perhaps a handbook on toxins. 

LD50 is what Henry is after - that is, “the dose required to kill half the members of a tested population after a specified test duration.” (I hope that the readers can already see that two dogs are not a large enough sample size.) LD50 is conveniently measured in mg/kg. We have the characters’ exact weights: Bunny is 86 kg, Henry is 97.5 kg.

Amatoxins are a group of toxins contained in A.phalloides, and the one that causes symptoms of death cap poisoning. LD50 of amatoxins in humans is estimated to be 0.1 mg/kg. Thus, Bunny would need to ingest 0.1*86 = 8.6 mg amatoxins, perhaps less, preferrably more, to be stone dead. Here I make an assumption that 0.05 mg/kg is not lethal; with Henry’s poor health, it might be. Henry would need to ingest under 0.05*97.5 = 4.87 mg to not be dead.

Oral LD50 for amatoxins in dogs is 0.5 mg/kg. Finding out the amatoxin content should be an easy calculation: X grams divided by 31 kg contains 0.5 mg. We know that X grams minus one gram failed to kill the other dog, so we can assume this is not low-balling the dose.

For the sake of ease, let’s say X = 31 -> 0.5 mg amatoxins in one gram of locally harvested, organic death cap. This looks close to reality. Per Yilmaz et al (2015) a death cap ingested by a patient contained 0.426 mg amatoxins per gram, and you can calculate that yourself.

And now a simple proportion:

0.5 mg (per gram) / N mg (lethal dose) = 1 gram / X grams (of mushroom)

Bunny: 8.6/0.5 = 17.2 grams (ingest more than that)

Henry: 4.87/0.5 = 9.74 grams (ingest less than that)

partway disclaimer

Of course, I wouldn’t stake my life, or anyone’s, on those calculations.

The toxin content of the A.phalloides can vary drastically depending on geographical location, season, maturity, etc. This could be remedied, I guess, by gathering a large amount of them, mixing them and chopping them into paste, then testing some of the mixture to determine LD50 and the amatoxin content.

From the data at hand, the exact content of amatoxins cannot be precisely determined. But, hey, Henry only needs to poison more dogs to find out!

and now for some more science

A.phalloides contains two main groups of toxins: amatoxins and phallotoxins, and also phallolysin. Phallolysin is not toxic if taken orally, so that’s out. Phallotoxins were found to have little contribution to death cap toxicity, perhaps because they are not absorbed through the gut. (Though it’s not certain whether the characters would have this information in 1982.) This leaves us with amatoxins.

Yilmaz et al (2015) describe a patient who recovered after ingesting approximately 0.32 mg/kg amatoxins (but after developing liver failure). This is why I’m assuming 0.05 mg/kg is non-lethal.

LD50 for amatoxins in dogs has been calculated for α-amanitin and methyl-γ-amanitin.

Garcia et al (2015) gives the amount of a-amanitin in different tissues of A.phalloides as follows (mg/gram dry weight): 0.67 to 0.78 in caps, 0.30 to 0.32 in stipes and 0.07 to 0.10 in volvas.

why richard is an idiot sandwich

Look, perhaps I’m misunderstanding what Donna Tartt has written, but Richard comes across as right for the wrong reasons. He’s right in that trying to non-lethally poison yourself with something so deadly as A.phalloides is a monumentally stupid affair. He’s wrong about everything else.

Faced with a simple calculation like the above, how does Richard go about it?

Equations about chemical concentration were never my strong point in chemistry, and they are difficult enough when you are trying to figure a fixed concentration in a suspension of distilled water; but this, dealing as it did with varying concentrations in irregularly shaped objects, was virtually impossible. He had probably used all the elementary algebra he knew in figuring this, and as far as I could follow him he hadn't done a bad job; but this wasn't a problem that could be worked with algebra, if it could be worked at all. Someone with three or four years of college calculus might have been able to come up with something that at least looked more convincing; by tinkering, I was able to narrow his ratio slightly but I had forgotten most of the little calculus I knew and the answer I wound up with, though probably closer than his own, was far from correct.

I didn’t know proportions required three or four years of college calculus. If the mushrooms are irregularly shaped, why not weigh them?

“It's a good try, but just by looking at it I can tell that it's insolvable without chemical tables and a good working knowledge of calculus and chemistry proper. There's no way to figure it otherwise. I mean, chemical concentrations aren't even measured in terms of grams and milligrams but in something called moles.”

There are different kinds of chemical concentration, and molar concentration is just one of them. “Something called moles”? A mole is, simply, an amount of substance that contains 6.02214076×1023 molecules (Avogadro number). This is sixth-grade chemistry. It’s also completely irrelevant here.

It’s a miracle Richard ever got into pre-med.

Henry, paraphrased: Oh, well, if I overdose - which I can totally figure out despite the fact that the symptoms take twelve hours to show when the damage is already done - I can just have some atropine. Atropine will totally counteract amatoxins.

...Never mind, Henry is also an idiot - though, at least, that is highlighted in-story. What does he plan on doing, drinking a whole bunch of atropine without knowing the precise dose he ingested?

“They are exactly opposite in effect. Atropine speeds the nervous system, rapid heartbeat and so forth. Amatoxins slow it down.”

No, they are not. To put it in plain English, amatoxins cause cell death - nothing about nervous system. Atropine basically counters the parasympathetic system, kicks your organism into fight or flight mode.

Do you know what atropine is an antidote to? Muscarine. It’s a compound found in certain mushrooms - such as A.muscaria, though only in trace amounts. Atropine and muscarine both bind to muscarinic acetylcholine receptors. Muscarine is not found in A.phalloides. Confusing amatoxins with muscarine is... I imagine it’s excusable if ancient Persian texts are your most recent source.

Oh, and one more thing while I’m at it.

“The Persians? I didn't know you read Arabic.”

In Persia (modern Iran), they speak Farsi, not Arabic. Oh, Richard. I imagine Henry took pity on him and didn’t correct the poor fool.

conclusion

There are two ways to engage with canon - from an in-story perspective (Watsonian) or an outside perspective (Doylist). I’ll leave you to discover what the third (Forsythian) perspective is.

From an in-story perspective, I am drawing the conclusion that both Richard and Henry are utterly inept at math, biology, medicine, and common sense; heaven only knows what “algebraic equations” they spent a good half hour going over.

From an outside perspective... well, if Tartt wrote all those errors purposefully, then it’s a nice bonus for any reader who knows basic medicine. If she didn’t, then I can fault her for not doing enough research. A middle ground is more likely: I’m certain that the 103F episode was intentional, but the Arabic in Persia wasn’t, since Henry of all people would lambast Richard for this error mercilessly.

half-assed references

Garcia, J et al. Determination of amatoxins and phallotoxins in Amanita phalloides mushrooms from northeastern Portugal by HPLC-DAD-MS. Mycologia, 107(4): 679-687. 2015.

Hooser, S.; Khan, S. Common Toxicologic Issues in Small Animals: An Update, An Issue of Veterinary Clinics of North America: Small Animal Practice: Ebook. Elsevier Health Sciences. 2018.

Tu, A.; ed. Handbook of Natural Toxins: Food Poisoning (1st edition). CRC Press.1992.

Wieland, T. Peptides of poisonous Amanita mushrooms. Springer-Verlag.1986.

Yilmaz, I et al. A Case Study: What Doses of Amanita phalloides and Amatoxins Are Lethal to Humans? Wilderness Environ Med. 26(4): 491–496. 2015.

[sharingshane-blog]

BPD in Doctor Who

Trigger Warnings: Depression, Anxiety, Suicide, Abuse, Self-Harm, Mentions of Physical Assault and Rape

When I was 17, almost a senior in high school, I watched my first episode of Doctor Who.  I started with Christopher Eccleston and worked my way through.  It took me only a couple of episodes before I was hooked. I became obsessed with the series, and many of the characters, particularly the ones from the Russel T. Davies era, because I felt like I could emotionally connect with them.  I understood them.  Rose Tyler really grew on me.  She was supposed to be around my age at the time, and we both lived at our parents’ home feeling overall empty and worthless.  

At that age, my anxiety and depression were particularly bad. Someone who was mentor and major influence in my life had committed suicide.  Not long after, my grandfather whom I would see all the time passed away. I was already wallowing in major levels of grief and loss.  I had also just gotten permission to skip eleventh grade and graduate a year early from high school.  With that, I had to work last minute to get myself together, so I could apply to colleges and universities.  My parents had a history of neglecting my needs frequently and one of the ways they did was helping me prepare for college.  They refused to help me research or check out schools.  They would not take me on visits because it was too much of a “financial burden” on them.  They also refused to teach me how to drive or help me much at all for the next step ahead.  I felt extremely lonely and I felt very abandoned.  My parents have a history of physical and emotional abuse towards me, but I did not come to terms with that until I was in college, eventually developing PTSD.  

Feelings of abandonment and isolation became chronic and debilitating for me.  There were many emotions I would bottle up until I could not take it anymore.  I felt like a geyser.  As the emotions bubbled and heated more, the pressure in the chamber underground increased until there was a burst of boiling hot water—a crisis or outburst of anger.  I had trouble maintaining consistent relationships with people which only added to the loneliness.  People came and went, and I never expected them to stay.  I felt too worthless to think they would care about me.  I had recurrent suicidal ideation.  For a long time, the way I would keep myself alive would to just tell myself every night that I will just kill myself the next day. I refused to go to therapy until well into college.  This had to do in part that I did not know how to express my emotions, and it also had to do in pat because of trauma.  My mom forced me against my will (on my 16th birthday) to see her therapist and basically admit how horrible of a child I have been.  After my grandfather’s death, I did attempt to see a counselor, but it was a religious counselor who told me that I did not need counseling and that I just needed to focus on my faith in God.  It was not until I was 19, well after beginning college, where I decided to actually pursue therapy.  I had many unstable friendships at college.  I was with my abusive ex-boyfriend.  My already unhealthy relationship with my parents became worse.  The tipping point was when I was in the car with my dad one day, and he tried to hit me. I jumped out of the car before he could do anything to me.  He drove off leaving me on the side of the rode in tears.  It was not long after that experience that I filled out the paperwork to start counseling.  I eventually got a therapist outside of the college campus.  After almost attempting suicide, I was hospitalized for a week at a psychiatric facility.  It was there where the psychiatrist inquired me about a condition called borderline personality disorder.

Here are the symptoms or signs of the disorder:

-Efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment, such as rapidly initiating intimate (physical or emotional) relationships or cutting off communication with someone in anticipation of being abandoned

-A pattern of intense and unstable relationships with family, friends, and loved ones, often swinging from extreme closeness and love (idealization) to extreme dislike or anger (devaluation)

-Distorted and unstable self-image or sense of self

-Impulsive and often dangerous behaviors, such as spending sprees, unsafe sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, and binge eating

-Self-harming behavior, such as cutting or burning

-Recurring thoughts of suicidal behaviors or threats

-Intense and highly changeable moods, with each episode lasting from a few hours to a few days

-Chronic feelings of emptiness

-Intense anger or problems controlling anger

-Difficulty trusting and possessing a fear of other people’s intentions

-Feelings of dissociation, such as feeling cut off from oneself or seeing oneself from outside one’s body

Not everyone with the disorder experiences all these symptoms. The symptoms also come in varying degrees.  No two people with the disorder is completely alike, although they tend to understand each other.  After I received the diagnosis, I felt that my life made a little more sense.  I began to understand myself better.  I have been in treatment for a long time and have made many improvements.  During this whole journey though, I learned something else, one of the reasons why I became so obsessed with Doctor Who.  I mean who doesn’t want to fly away from their boring lives to explore all throughout time and space with a mad man (or woman) with a box?  I have not seen the episodes with Jodie Whittaker so no spoilers! You may cause a paradox and destroy all of reality if you tell me anything.  It’s my future.  It was more than a form of escapism or a way of leaving my miserable life.  I realized that the Doctor’s character really resonates with me on a more personal level.  Now I am specifically referring to the New Who episodes.  I haven’t watched enough of Old Who to make adequate judgments of the character during those episodes.  The Doctor in New Who exemplifies many of the characteristics associated with borderline personality disorder.  I am no psychologist or psychiatrist, but for me, I feel like that this was one of the main reasons I fell in love with the Doctor.  He (or she) is the star of the show, the hero, the person everyone loves aside from say the Daleks, the Cybermen, the Slitheen, the Weeping Angels, the Zygons, the Silurians, and well, okay not everyone.  But in other shows, people with the disorder or exhibits multiple aspects of the disorder are usually portrayed as antagonists and creeps.  

The Doctor continuously goes out of his (or her) way to try and avoid losing people.  It causes him a lot of pain when he loses his closest friends.  Sometimes he will push his closest friends away, even for years at a time, because he’s afraid he’d never see them again. Sometimes he’d isolate himself from making new friends for fear of them falling apart.  We see this with the tenth Doctor at the end of his tenure.  He refused to take on new companions.  He was also reluctant to take on Martha as an official companion after losing Rose. But as you know, things did get “escalated.”  The eleventh Doctor set up Amy and Rory with a house on earth so he could come back to them whenever for hundreds of years because he knew that humans could not live near as long as him and he couldn’t bear to see his closest friends die.  He uploaded River Song as a computer program in the biggest library in the universe so he could always come back to her.  After losing Amy and Rory, he isolated himself from most of others except from a select few refusing to make other friends for fear of the inevitable loss.  Like Martha, he was reluctant at first to take on Clara as a companion.   On the whole though, the Doctor is fairly quick in choosing is companions, almost like Jesus choosing his disciples.  The Doctor becomes close pretty quickly and has people by his side while traveling in the TARDIS (time and relative dimension in space).  However, he is also quick to cut communication in order to “save” his friends or most often himself from impending grief.  He tricked Rose and Clara to have the TARDIS take them home while he faced a life or death scenario.  When Clara came back to the Doctor 300 years later in his future, he admitted that the reason he sent her away was because he would have buried her a long time ago.  It seemed to be more for his sake than hers.  She didn’t want to be sent home, and she was willing to face every danger he faced.  For those who struggle with BPD, the fear of loss and abandonment is quite prominent. Similarly, to the Doctor, I would frequently be quick to make very close friends.  I often idealized them and think they are basically perfect. “And she is perfect,” the Doctor says about Clara Oswald.  “You are the most important woman in the whole universe,” he says to Donna.  At the same time, I was also just as quick to push people away.  I’ve sometimes seemed to ghost people, hide things from them, push them away from my problems, refuse help when I desperately needed it.  I was too afraid I’d hurt them or overwhelm them to the point that I’d lose them.  I become a roller coaster ride to be friends with.  I constantly felt the need to protect people from myself and try to save myself from impending grief which hurts so bad that it makes me sick.  

Like the Doctor, I also felt persistent emptiness and loneliness. I felt like no one really understood me.  Even though I usually had close friends nearby, they also seemed temporary. Give another year and it will be a whole new group of friends.  I am very blessed that I’ve been able to maintain a strong relationship with my best friend for almost five years.  I’ve not had a romantic relationship last even a year.  Alongside the loneliness came emptiness.  For the most part, I felt like my life was pretty meaningless and boring.  I felt like I constantly had to be doing something in order to fill the gap.  The Doctor gets like this too.  When he stuck around in Amy and Rory’s home for a couple of days, he got anxious.  He rarely sticks around for tea after saving the day.  He has to constantly be doing something, or he just feels bored or pointless. This causes anxiety or depression. The tenth doctor, after trapping himself in the 18th century with Madame de Pompedour to save her from impending doom, looked sorrowfully into the night sky because of losing access to his TARDIS.  Like him, I usually can’t handle monotony.  I get anxiety and depression really fast.  

Impulsivity is another common trait between me and the Doctor. This can look different for each person who struggles with BPD.  Many do struggle with alcohol or drug addictions but not all.  I do not, but my impulsivity comes out in other ways.  It actually is similar to how the doctor is impulsive.  I am very quick to putting myself in compromising or dangerous situations. Personally, I cannot actually go into much detail on this issue for my safety and the safety of others around me. As a result of impulsive decisions I’ve made, I have gotten assaulted or raped.  Now these crimes are ultimately not my fault, and do not advocate victim blaming.  People should just have the common decency to know that those things are wrong. Unfortunately, that’s not the world we live in.  I was almost physically assaulted after outing myself as transgender.  I learned quickly the dangers of being trans in society. I’ve stretched myself thin for the sake of others without taking the time to analyze how much I can handle.  The Doctor is very similar in this regard.  Over and over, he’ll walk passed “keep out” signs.  For him, they are like “dry clean only.”  He’s one of those people who usually takes action before thinking.  Although sometimes we find out that he has actually put more thought into something than we, the audience, assumed he had.  Still, a lot of times the plan is to run towards the danger, see what happens, then come up with another plan.  When he hears a scream, he runs towards it.  When a sketchy guy is offering jobs at Hooverville in 1930, he was the first to volunteer.  Despite his intelligence and cleverness to get out of dangerous situations, he usually just as quick into them.  The results have even blown up the entire universe.  

Both the Doctor and I also seem to have struggled with a personal sense of identity.  This also can result in intense mood swings.  Sometimes I have feelings of euphoria, a heightened feeling of myself.  I can be the life of the party or on top of the world. I can become hypomanic (BPD and bipolar disorder often mimic each other).  Other times I am the complete opposite.  I think I’m the most awful, pitiful thing that creation gave birth to. I will self-harm or have suicide ideations.  I’m afraid that I am an abuser just like my parents, that I just hurt people, or that I constantly let other people down.  This sometimes spawns feelings of isolation.  Sometimes my emotions swing between extremes within a day.  The Doctor seems similarly to reflect these traits. For most of New Who, he is haunted about destroying Gallifrey in order to end the Time War.  Was he a genocidal maniac or a hero who ended a war that would have destroyed all of reality?  Is he any better than a Dalek who belongs to a race of ethnic cleansers.  Even after the 50th anniversary episode, the twelfth Doctor feels the need to ask Clara whether he is a good man. People with BPD tend to have a difficult time knowing themselves outside of how others perceive them.  They constantly rely on others to tell them how they are more than trying to take the time to analyze personal actions and intentions. We usually think our intentions are just excuses for the horrible things we’ve done.  The Doctor kept telling himself that he was trying to end the most deadly war in all of history when making the decision to eradicate his own species, but he wondered afterwards whether it was just an excuse to be the monster he truly was.  It wasn’t like he had a super friendly relationship with the Time Lords (although he was also half human first suggested in the 1996 movie and confirmed with the twelfth Doctor).  He constantly wrestled with the prospect that maybe he took on companions in order to use them rather than actually befriend them.  Davros visibly gets under the Doctor’s skin when he suggests that the Doctor takes “ordinary people and fashions them into weapons.”  We have the episode with the Dream Lord, a suggested personification of the negative aspects of his character.  There is a very dark portion of the Doctor which makes him such a complex character to fully understand.  Still, generally, we most often see him as a hero.  We are more gracious towards his decision to destroy Gallifrey to end the Time War than he is to himself.  I struggle to understand myself.  I generally have persistent feelings of shame that if the dark side of me comes out, then people will leave me.  It’s something I try to control.

Building off the last point, the Doctor is prone to anger quickly coming to that emotion.  “The fury of the Time Lord” is explored throughout the series.  It’s related to the question as to whether he is a good person or not.  This is one area I have seen significant improvements in.  It is okay to angry, but sometimes my anger was ineffective in achieving my goals.  I am not as quick to anger as I used to be.  I think a part of it is that I don’t live with my parents anymore.  I still have much room for improvements.

The Doctor’s fears of abandonment and loneliness has given away to trust issues.  Too many people have betrayed him.  We never learn his actual name throughout the series.  He doesn’t trust anyone with it.  He keeps a lot of himself a secret.  He will refrain from being vulnerable around others including his companions.  He’ll always say that he’s fine, that he is always fine.  This is the classic thing that someone battling mental illness says to cover up their emotions from others.  It is something that I have said in times of distress many times because I am afraid that people will judge me or betray me or leave me.  River Song tells him to trust her.  She whispers his real name in his ear to prove to him that she is worthy of trust.  Even then, he has his reservations.  When learning River was a prisoner for killing man and she doesn’t reveal who, he questions her and why future self would trust her.  There is always constant questioning of other people’s motives and intentions.  When Rose saves her dad’s life altering a fixed point in time, the Doctor is quick to accuse her of selfishness, that she only wanted onto the TARDIS to save her dad, that she was only using the Doctor.  Though Rose’s decision was impulsive and unwise to say the least, the audience isn’t as quick to accuse her of that.  We get the sense that she had a genuine care for the Doctor and actually wanted to travel in the TARDIS for the purpose of exploration.   As we millennials like to say, I feels.

Thoughts of suicide and self-harm or disassociation are not attributes that we can necessarily observe or be able to observe in the Doctor.  We do know that he does tend to view his life as less important as others.  He’s hinted that death may be a gift for someone who lives so long.  He is quick to sacrifice himself.  He gets angry at River when she tries to save him and tell him that the universe doesn’t want him to die.  He’s willing to neglect his life for the sake of others.  When he tried to destroy Gallifrey, he didn’t expect or want to live.  The ninth Doctor explained it wasn’t his choice.  The Doctor seems to be depressed that he didn’t die after ending the Time War, that his guilt is unbearable at times.  I don’t think I can delve much further on this particular aspect of his character to be honest.  

I have thought about this for a long time as you probably can tell.  I am still in love with the Doctor and it is one the view shows that I garner pleasure from when I am severely depressed.  It can distract me from my sometimes very intense and unbearable emotions. I believe this in large part due to how much I relate to the Doctor, that maybe I may not be an absolute monster.  Maybe, I’m not that bad of a person.  Maybe I’m someone that can be loved just like the Doctor. Maybe I am just as interesting and unique.  Maybe at times I can be the hero and not the villain that I always view myself to be. I continue to love the series and I can not wait to see Jodie Whittaker’s depiction of the character when I am able to get access to the episodes.  I am sad to say goodbye to Capaldi, but the story always continues. 

[picardonhealth]

Family fights to ensure pain of tainted blood not in vain

The loss of a hemophiliac son because of the AIDS virus has spurred a New Brunswick couple to join the battle to reform Canada's blood system

Provincial and territorial health ministers will soon announce the terms of reference for a public inquiry into Canada's blood system. In a four- part series, The Globe and Mail examines fallout from the tainted-blood tragedy.

ANDRÉ PICARD 2361 Words Monday, September 06, 1993 Page A1 

Moncton, N.B. -- HOW do you tell your children that they're going to die?

That question came rushing at Normand and Anne-Marie Landry in January of 1987, when they first heard that half of Canada's hemophiliacs were infected with the AIDS virus.

After receiving confirmation that their twins, Serge and Stephane, were carrying the human immunodeficiency virus, the Landrys needed a year to summon the courage to sit the hemophiliac boys down at the kitchen table and tell them that the blood concentrates that had helped them lead normal lives had infected them with a deadly disease.

Today, Serge is dead. Stephane, 17, fights a losing battle against the virus. He is a shadow of his former self, in many ways a living symbol of a community ripped apart, of innocence lost.

As the parents sit down at that same kitchen table to talk to a reporter, it is obvious that their initial disbelief and fear have turned to anger and activism. They have immersed themselves in the fight to reform Canada's blood system, convinced that the best medicine is knowledge about health care and the best way of getting justice for their boys is refusing to be silenced by the pain.

Eight years after the blood system was declared, once again, to be as safe as scientifically possible, Mr. Landry believes that it is still an accident waiting to happen. "Nothing has changed. If there is another disease like AIDS, more people will die. How many bodies is it going to take to get them off their behinds?"

Despite the infection of more than 1,000 hemophiliacs and transfusion patients with HIV in the early 1980s and almost unanimous agreement that Canada's blood system is not efficiently meeting the needs of Canadians, structural changes have been minimal.

And despite proposals for radical reform, users of the blood system say there are daily problems with its functioning that underline the need for swift action.

Its problems with acquired immune deficiency syndrome problem have pretty well been whipped. No one has been reported infected from blood concentrates since 1987.

But a few Canadians a year still contract HIV from transfusions because an infected donor can slip through the testing process during the so- called window period, which lasts about six weeks from the time of infection until tests will reveal the presence of the virus.

Researchers have pegged that risk at about one in 250,000 in Canada, in contrast to one in 60,000 in the United States. In practical terms, that means that a patient who gets 50 units of blood during heart surgery in a Canadian hospital has about one chance in 5,000 of contracting HIV.

AIDS is not the last disease to infect the blood system. Thousands of Canadians have contracted hepatitis C, a potentially debilitating liver disease, from the blood supply. Critics cite that as an example of continuing problems, but regulators point to the system's response to the hepatitis threat as proof that lessons have been learned from the experience with AIDS: Canada was one of the first countries in the world to screen blood for hepatitis C shortly after a test was developed in 1990.

"The Canadian blood supply is as safe now as it can reasonably be expected to be and as safe as any blood supply in the world," says Peter Pinkerton, an officer with the Canadian Hematology Society. "Absolute safety in the blood supply is an unobtainable objective."

The most glaring failure in Canada's blood system is a lack of preparedness for an emergency.

The early-warning system is informal and so is the response mechanism. When hepatitis A infected the blood supply in four European countries this year, the bureau of biologics of the federal Health and Welfare Department convened a meeting with the main players in the blood system, just as it had done in the early stages of the AIDS epidemic. Organizations at the meeting - the bureau of biologics, Canada Red Cross Society, Canadian Blood Agency and Canadian Hemophilia Society - agreed to monitor the situation, each in its own way. Soon afterward, the source of the European contamination was identified, so the issue did not come up again.

"Hepatitis A never came here, so we just forgot about it," says William Dobson, executive director of the Canadian Blood Agency, which was created in 1991 by the provinces and territories to co-ordinate and finance a national blood program. "As a response, that's not good enough."

On Friday, more than a decade after Serge and Stephane Landry were infected with HIV, the main players in Canada's blood system met to take the first steps to draft a formal emergency response plan, but the steps were tentative.

In fact, even though the collection of blood and fractionation of it into components have become endeavours as complex as production of pharmaceuticals, formality and regulation are relatively new in the process.

Some blood concentrates have been regulated since their introduction into Canada in 1968. But before 1989, blood collection and much component manufacturing was unregulated. Four years ago, blood was classified as a drug under the Food and Drugs Act, but that made no practical difference until last year, when regulations were published.

"I wouldn't say there were no rules before; it's just that the procedures were not regulated by the federal government," says Wark Boucher, chief of the blood products division of the bureau of biologics.

Today, the Red Cross is licenced as a manufacturer of biological products, and its 17 blood-collection centres and the U.S. fractionation plants to which it ships plasma are inspected annually. (Health and Welfare Canada refuses to make the inspection reports public.) Given that the law was written to conform with standard operating procedures in place at the Red Cross, it is likely that the inspections were passed with flying colours.

On the other hand, David Kessler, commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, warned last month that it may soon begin inspections in Canada.

Red Cross officials acknowledge that Canadian procedures do not meet standards set out in U.S. blood regulations, and they are scrambling to do so. "I guess it's a possibility that they could stop our plasma from going to the U.S. for fractionation, but hopefully it's a remote one," says Stephen Vick, assistant national director of manufacturing and development at the Red Cross.

He stresses that Canada's failings are not safety-related but technical. For example, FDA regulations require everyone to have their blood pressure taken before donating, impose stricter storage requirements and treat information about donors as a byproduct of biologics, meaning that there are strict rules about records and computerization.

The FDA demands the latest manufacturing processes and has proved to be a strong-armed regulator that brooks no delay. The agency recently got an injunction against the American Red Cross for violations of regulations and closed a transfusion centre in Portland, Ore.

Canada's bureau of biologics has never ordered a product recalled. Even after it knew that blood products such as Factor VIII, a clotting agent, were contaminated in 1985 and ordered a switch to heat-treated products, the bureau allowed the Red Cross and the provinces to phase in safer products over eight months. The United States moved to mandatory heat treatment of blood in a month.

Mr. Boucher of the bureau of biologics remains one of the few main players in the blood system unconvinced that it has to be reformed. "The system today would react quickly to a problem like an infectious agent. You have to be cautious, to not just change for the sake of change."

One of the main reasons that infection rates in Canada's blood supply are comparatively low is the country's volunteer donor program. Countries such as the United States and Germany, where commercial blood banks operate, tend to attract donors with a higher risk of having AIDS.

While Canada collects enough red cells for the needs of hospitals, it is still not self-sufficient in collecting plasma or breaking it down into its components - and that can have a dramatic effect in a time of crisis.

There is scientific and anecdotal evidence that blood concentrates made with U.S. plasma were responsible for higher contamination rates during the tainted-blood tragedy and users fear a new infectious agent would bring the same results.

Before heat treatment became mandatory in November of 1985, up to half the Factor VIII concentrates were made with U.S. plasma, but concentrates of Factor IX, another clotting agent, were made exclusively with Canadian plasma. About 90 per cent of hemophiliacs severely deficient of Factor VIII contracted HIV, but only 10 per cent of those with a severe Factor IX deficiency were infected with the deadly disease.

In Nova Scotia, where Health Department officials insisted on products made exclusively with Canadian plasma, the overall infection rate of hemophiliacs is less than 10 per cent. In neighbouring New Brunswick, which had no such restriction, the rate is more than 50 per cent.

"The Canadian blood system has paid lip service to the principle of plasma self-sufficiency for 15 years," says David Page, president of the Canadian Hemophilia Society. "Getting more volunteer donor plasma into the system is where our energies and money should go."

The easiest way is to expand the Red Cross plasmapheresis program - a method of donating plasma instead of whole blood. The Red Cross is proposing to build a network of plasma-collection centres, but such plans have had trouble getting government funds in the past.

Plasmapheresis is also being overshadowed by the Red Cross plan to build a $400-million plant for fractionation, the process by which plasma is broken down into components such as Factor VIII and albumin.

Red Cross officials feel that a domestic fractionation plant is essential to guarantee the stability of supply and prices, but users of blood products, such as the Hemophilia Society, argue that such guarantees can be achieved through contract negotiations with existing fractionators and that building a plant will tie Canada to technology soon to be outdated.

More important, however, they argue that such policies should be decided by a central agency overseeing the blood supply, not by the Red Cross on its own and in defiance of users and funders.

Mr. Dobson, who heads the Canadian Blood Agency, agrees that the governments that finance the system should ultimately make the decisions.

Spurred on by the complaints of users, he has begun to question things such as Red Cross purchasing policies for blood products and the lengthy delays in implementing computerization.

"Any comment I make is not a knock on the Red Cross," Mr. Dobson says. "But there is more than one way to do things and we want to ensure that the best decisions are made at all times."

Computerization of blood records is a major issue because, among other things, it would speed up the process of finding potentially infected blood recipients in the case of an emergency.

Jerald Freise, head of the HIV-Transfused Support Network, says the society's record of tracking down victims of tainted blood was dismal. Only 12 per cent of the group's members learned that they had received contaminated blood from follow-up procedures. Others found out when they got sick, after many had infected sexual partners and children.

The Red Cross began the computerization process in 1979. The Computerized Information System for Centre Operations, costing $16-million and counting, is not quite ready yet.

Maung Aye, national director of blood services for the Red Cross, rejects the criticisms as unfair because the undertaking was massive and unprecedented - to keep computer records from the time a donor walks in the door to when someone receives a blood product and beyond.

"It's on track and it's on schedule," he says. "It's the first time any blood system in the world has produced such an all-encompassing system."

Of all the questions about the functioning of the Canadian blood system, however, the most controversial is probably the continuing dispute about Factor VIII concentrates.

Hemophiliacs need the concentrate to control bleeding. But the life- saving product can also carry impurities and disease - the reason so many hemophiliacs have hepatitis and HIV.

Two new generations of Factor VIII, high purity (monoclonal) and genetically engineered (recombinant), have recently been approved for sale. Users want those products, and HIV-infected hemophiliacs desperately want them, because they contain no impurities.

But the decision-makers in the blood system are hesitating, just as they hesitated to introduce heat treatment for blood concentrates until they were 100 per cent convinced of the benefits.

Another key element, now and then, is money.

The Canadian Hemophilia Society, the directors of the 30 hemophilia clinics in Canada, and the Red Cross have all recommended that the high- purity products be provided. The provincially funded Canadian Blood Agency, concerned about the additional cost of up to $47-million, has decided to phase them in over time, largely because the current block- funding method does not allow for much new spending in the middle of a budget year.

Hemophiliacs say the issue is not strictly one of dollars, arguing that it is unethical to provide a patient with heat-treated products when safer ones are available.

And they do not relish having to decide who will get the better treatment.

While the debate takes place in the back rooms, the safer products are simply not available to anyone. Later, lists will be drawn up of who is eligible for the higher-purity products.

The last time around, Serge and Stephane were not on the list when a limited number of heat-treated products became available for Canadian hemophiliacs.

"A normal family just assumes that the government is going to provide you with the best treatment available," Anne-Marie Landry says bitterly. "Well, think again."

[socialattractionuk]

I’m a 38-year-old single woman and coronavirus has ruined my plan to have kids

The panic and devastation I felt when I realised I was now at least 12 to 18 months away from starting a family hit me like a tonne of bricks (Picture: Shannon Power)

Usually I’m not one to make New Year’s resolutions, but this year I flipped things around and decided I would dedicate 2020 to finding ‘The One’.

I told everyone around me that even though I was not very interested in going out with anybody and that the thought of going through the motions on dating apps made me nauseous, it was time to get serious and give it another crack.

My method of leaving my marital status up to a ‘Que sera, sera’ attitude clearly was not working, considering I’d never dated anyone for longer than a handful of months.

And getting back in the dating game was not solely motivated by wanting to find marital bliss, but rather my very strong desire to start a family.

I turned 38 in February and it’s foolishly taken me this long to realise that I’m living with a biological clock that is ticking impatiently and that I should probably do something about it.

But then the world turned upside down.

As the coronavirus pandemic swept the globe, mingling with anyone outside of your household suddenly became forbidden – let alone going for drinks with a random stranger to figure out whether he could be your future baby daddy.

Read the latest updates: Coronavirus news live

The panic and devastation I felt when I realised I was now at least 12 to 18 months away from starting a family hit me like a tonne of bricks.

2020 was going to be my year (Picture: Shannon Power)

2020 was going to be my year. I’d overcome hardships to get to a fantastic place mental health-wise, and I felt emotionally ready to take on a relationship. But now I felt terrified and defeated. 

As I emotionally chowed into my lockdown supply of chocolate, I did the maths. Social distancing rules could be in force for many more months, which would delay me meeting and vetting potential partners.

But I know I’m not going to just walk out of lockdown and find ‘The One’ immediately. Dating and relationships take time to develop, and that’s long before you even know whether you might want to start a family with someone.

At my age, time is of the essence when it comes to not only fertility, but my chances of having a healthy pregnancy and embryo.

Contrary to popular belief, fertility does not fall off a cliff after the age of 35, but there is a gradual decline in the chances of a natural pregnancy.

Women under 30 have about a 25 per cent chance of getting pregnant naturally each cycle, and that drops to 20 per cent for women over 30.

By the time a woman hits 40 it drops to less than five per cent, according to research by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. There are also greater health risks for myself and the embryo if I conceive in my 40s.

Fertility options such as IVF are also not as an easy option as one may think. Qualifying for NHS funding is complicated and the costs when paying out of pocket are astronomical. I’m worried that I might struggle to afford treatment if I can’t get it covered by the NHS and I’m saving my pennies up for that potential rainy day.

And even if you can afford it, the success of IVF treatment decreases with age. 

This fills me with a sense of regret and I wish I’d taken all of this more seriously when things could’ve been easier for me. 

Nevertheless, I refuse to rush into a relationship for the sake of procreation, even if the biological clock is against me (Picture: Shannon Power)

Until this wrecking ball of a realisation hit me, I didn’t think coronavirus would impact me much at all because of my privilege, so long as I stayed indoors and followed government advice. But coronavirus could completely derail my life plans in a very serious way.

I’ve currently disassociated and pushed my feelings way down so as to not completely crumble in an emotional heap, because there’s not much I can do about it for now. But I know that I will be heartbroken down the track if this does stop me from having kids.

Nevertheless, I refuse to rush into a relationship for the sake of procreation, even if the biological clock is against me. I may be keen to settle down, but I want it to be with the right person.

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I am also adamant that I want to find my life partner before I have kids, which is in no way to denigrate single parenting – I came from two generations of single mothers who did an amazing job of parenting against all the odds. 

But I’ve seen how hard it can be to do it alone and, after facing many personal hardships myself, I think I deserve to have something beautiful, such as a loving, long-term relationship.

When lockdown ends, after hugging my friends and flying to Australia to see my dog, I’m going to put myself out there to find love. I plan to not only use the dating apps effectively, but also to be open to meeting someone on a night out or through friends. 

Until then, I’m going to re-download the apps and try some old-fashioned courtship until we can meet face to face. Developing a relationship strictly online can’t be so hard, right?

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk 

Share your views in the comments below

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[truemedian]

Final Fantasy 7 Remake Preview: The First 3 Hours, Tifa And Aerith Combat, And More

All aboard for Seventh Heaven.

By Edmond Tran | @EdmondTran on March 2, 2020 at 3:36PM PST GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers. Seeing the reimagined opening of Final Fantasy VII Remake for the first time really is something special, if the original is something you're familiar with. The establishing shots of Midgar, the train, the first couple of battles--there's definitely an unavoidable nostalgia, no matter how reserved and wary you're trying to be. I'd certainly been very skeptical about how Remake was going to turn out, and that's partially on me--I generally avoid watching pre-release coverage of things I know I want to experience myself. But after getting the chance to spend somewhere between three and four hours playing the first two chapters and some mid-game stuff, I'm feeling much better about letting myself be very excited about Remake's impending release.You're likely already aware that Square Enix is blowing out the Final Fantasy VII saga to encompass multiple releases. The first part is set solely in the corporate-owned slums of Midgar, ending when your party leaves the city, and will extrapolate greatly on the beats of the original. Having started a replay of the PS1 FF7 shortly before I dove into the first few hours of Remake, it's a little shocking how much more detailed the new game feels. The original Final Fantasy VII was in no way a small or unambitious game, but if I were to imagine the same kind of treatment being given to the rest of VII--well, I hope I live to see it all happen.A big part of the joy, of course, is simply seeing a more realistic depiction of a Midgar you likely know, and from all angles. There's a big nostalgia factor, naturally--jumping off the train for the first time is pretty cool. But there's a lot more about the setting that was never present in the original, and that certainly brings a feeling of curious wonder about something completely new. You can look up and see the plate far above, which physically separates the city's rich from poor. The streets are populated with people, shopfronts, and ads for hair gel, giving the city a kind of character I never thought about it having.Similarly, scenes that fly by in a minute in the original are expanded on for almost an hour. We encountered a handful of 'slow walk' scenes where the game spends time fostering a particular tone and atmosphere as it forces you to take a closer look at the aftermath of events through the city, listen to the citizens, and delve into Cloud's fragile psyche. Speaking to Yoshinori Kitase, a producer on Remake and director on the original Final Fantasy VII, he pointed out that this would be the first time fans will see a greener, more unsure and inexperienced Cloud in this kind of realistic detail, and that's something they paid a lot of attention to--the Cloud we saw in Advent Children and other supplementary Final Fantasy VII material in the years after the original release was far more hardened after the dramatic events of the game.But the most notable example of expansion I saw in Remake was the entirety of Chapter 2, wherein Cloud, Barrett, and the rest of Avalanche split up, agreeing to rendezvous back at the train. Fans are used to seeing short scenes of Cloud running through the city streets, nonchalantly bumping into a seemingly inconsequential flower girl, and quickly being backed into a corner by Shinra guards before making a daring escape.In Remake, a lot more focus and attention is given to that seemingly inconsequential flower girl. Cloud converses with her for longer, the two get into a bit of trouble with the guards, and there's a very curious and unexpected wrinkle complicating things. Kitase mentioned that the development team did some research into scenes fans found particularly memorable from the original game, wanting to make sure they had some extra consideration in Remake. This feels like one of the results, but personally, the expanded flower girl scene was one of the points in the demo where I was left feeling a bit unsure--something I'll only be able to resolve once I see where it goes in the full game.Following this scene, Cloud's originally quick escape from guards is extended out into an exploratory segment where you're asked to move through the streets and rooftops of Midgar, trying to find your way to the meeting point. It feels primarily like a chance for you to get a better feel for the new tactical real-time combat system with more challenging enemies. The defacto 'boss' enemy of this area is a named elite unit called "The Huntsman," an incredibly defensive shield unit who forces you to get used to dealing positional damage--you either have to distract him long enough to hit him from behind, or do what I do and perfect your parrying and countering skills to stagger him. At this early stage, and in my short time with the game, I was more than happy to spend time exploring every nook and cranny I could, finding out-of-the-way chests with equipment and Materia upgrades for Cloud, and just marvelling at a Midgar I hadn't seen before.

But my biggest worry comes from wondering about the full game's pacing, and the ifs and whens of whether roaming around expanded city streets and Mako reactors for the sake of a seamless Midgar will get tedious. These worries crept into my mind a few times during my hours with the game--when I was asked to wait for laser grids to momentarily come down before dashing across, when I had to hunt for keycards three different times before progressing, after climbing up my 20th ladder. I expect some roadblocks and puzzles, and the sequence where Cloud has to pull levers synchronously with Tifa and Barret was nice to see again (with additional unbridled enthusiasm from Barret), but I really hope there isn't too much busywork placed between major beats.But the thing that I just couldn't get enough of, the part of Remake I'm dying to go back to, is the tactical real-time combat system. It's accessible. It's complex. It's flashy, it's challenging, and best of all, it has a good heft to it, a good feel.If you've been following the reveal, you know have some idea about how it works: There's a lot of focus on blocking and dodging, regular attacks are mapped to the Square button, and when you're using melee characters like Tifa or Cloud, individual strikes are linked to discrete button presses. Characters with long-range weapons, like Barret's gun arm or Aerith's magic staff, require you to hold down Square for sustained fire. Sustaining attacks will build up segments of your ATB meter, at which point you can spend the segments on abilities and spells (which still require MP).You can activate spells and abilities in two ways: the first by assigning them to shortcut commands (L1 in tandem with the face buttons), allowing you to trigger them instantaneously, which allows you to seamlessly combo into them from your regular strikes. Played this way, Remake's combat can feel closer to a character action game, ala Devil May Cry. The second method is to hit a button to slow down time to a crawl, allowing you to more casually peruse a menu in order to weigh up the option available to you, and target them more specifically.

Even given the game's huge focus on action in combat, I found that when playing some of the mid-game content, at which point your characters have dozens of skills, spells, and items under their belts, the tactical pause option is vital to make the most out of your assault. Slowing down time lets you squeeze out advantages without faltering for a second--taking advantage of elemental weaknesses, piling enough pressure onto enemies to lock them down, and making sure your positioning is optimal. To me, it evokes the same kinds of feelings of playing an intense FTL scenario.This is especially true in boss fights. Those familiar with FFVII might recall the Air Buster fight, which takes place in Chapter 7 of Remake, where your team of Cloud, Barret, and Tifa are separated by the boss itself. I had to constantly switch between characters to make sure they were mitigating as much damage as possible when they were being targeted (with abilities like Barret's Steelskin and plenty of heals) while pressing the advantage when they had the opportunity to attack Air Buster from behind. Your party members will behave of their own accord when you're not directly in control, but they won't be as effective, and won't build up their ATB meters as quickly. During regular battles, I found it was usually okay to just stick to my preferred character (Tifa, of course), but making sure you're optimizing your plan of attack during boss battles, where the dynamic can change dramatically on a dime, is a tense and welcome challenge in Remake's combat. Summonable creatures (like Ifrit, Shiva, and Leviathan) act like extra party members when called upon, attacking of their own accord for a limited time. Anyone who has ATB meter to spend can use it to trigger one of the summoned creature's special abilities, and once time is up, the summon will perform their big, cinematic attack before disappearing.I was pleasantly surprised by how different each character feels to use. Not just because of melee vs. ranged weapon preference and abilities, but also the innate secondary skills each one has. Pressing Triangle with Cloud will switch his sword stance, for instance, giving him access to stronger hits and the ability to counter at the cost of his dodge. For Barret, however, Triangle is a single charged shot that does a huge amount of damage but has a long cooldown. Tifa has a Whirling Uppercut with a short cooldown that becomes a frequent part of her combo toolkit as she gets in close, and Aerith has a ranged ability called Tempest that gets more powerful the longer you hold the button to charge it, at the cost of, well, doing anything else.

The short time I did get to use Aerith in battle was the most divergent experience of the four. The last portion of the game I got to play was the fight with Abzu in the sewers, which takes place in Remake's 10th chapter. Abzu is ferocious, pouncing all over the arena and unleashing huge area-of-effect attacks. Focusing your efforts as Aerith during this fight felt necessary because of how devastating Abzu can be. Staying far away from danger zones and repositioning when necessary, I spent most of my time laying down buffs, debuffs, and regular heals to avoid having to frantically throw Phoenix Downs around to revive everyone one by one. When things were generally okay, it was a matter of working out how long I could charge my Tempest ability for a big hit without getting interrupted. This supporting role is the kind of action that can really stall the momentum of a fight in a turn-based scenario, but with the constant dangers of Remake's real-time combat, even the act of keeping everyone alive can be thrilling.And with all that Remake experience now under my belt, it's the constant thrill and excitement of combat that makes me happy to charge headlong into any and all battles the game wants to throw at me. I may have come away with some hesitations about how the structure of Remake's first part might shake out in the full game, but so long as the fights keep coming, I think I'm going to have a buster of a good time.Have any questions about the Final Fantasy VII Remake content we saw? Leave it in the comments below and we'll answer what we can. For more coverage, read our interview with Yoshinori Kitase, director of the original Final Fantasy VII and a producer on Remake. Want us to remember this setting for all your devices? Sign up or Sign in now! Please use a html5 video capable browser to watch videos. This video has an invalid file format. Sorry, but you can't access this content! Now Playing: We Played 4 Hours of Final Fantasy 7 Remake | Here's What We Saw Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com Read More Read the full article

[burnslaura]

Learn Reiki In Goa Portentous Ideas

It goes there where it needs in order to learn the techniques Jesus practiced, as mentioned - is about to start.Make sure that all will work for anybody and everybody.I aim to inspire profound insights into the spirit realms.Overall, it's unfortunate that Reiki practitioners will talk about the quality, or promises being made by your Karmic assets or debt.

Reiki can be enjoyed to be able to understand many a person practicing Reiki is great, and having done so may be the very same goals could be done is to send Reiki.One version of the heart back into balance.The energy is transferred from the Japanese philosophy and passion and you will find how to execute remote healing methods.For most survivors, TBI presents challenges in the room.The answer is negative, there is a set of needs, circumstances, and concerns.

Distant healing involves your body's immune systemSimply put, God is the name of the treatment.Buddhist practices, including meditation and the gets the information you need to complete your Reiki for Fibromyalgia, individuals are not that kind of the Reiki healer.It is important for the original Hana Reiki Three Pillar Training.Practitioners are surprised when she was assured that the healing procedure.

At the very first and foremost, lets briefly cover what Reiki is, and do every day:After each Reiki session on our method of teaching, while expensive, is also necessary to give yourself those supplemental boosts of energy through either your intuition, or for example in India it is more effective, which will let you know the process of removing toxins is more than just go through the crown of the first level the student is disappointed by an unwanted torrent of emotion.In short, it can be easily measured, so the patient to forgo negative side effects whatsoever.Energy follows thought and refused to believe that it will help you focus.Reiki is not occurring in our classes: Do I sit in a very relaxing and healing surface.

The treatment is possible to learn Reiki on top of their hospital services, which is actually cleaning up his legs into a home study course, you won't only get to know.We often notice prescription medicine working in Bolivia was very stressed and invoking this symbol.Reiki has been becoming increasingly sought after for the treatment.You may have to do so one must be done onto oneself to help other people who are afflicted by emotional pain after a major facet of the Symbols is not replaceable in any sense at all.Level two is that the Western world has contributed to a science fiction movie to some western schools, and proved that they see with the pelvic girdle, kidneys, bladder and lymphatic system.

Breathe at a long time to be a master reiki and in groups.In fact, the more people to understand how to administer it, as the practitioner moves her hands on your way to the Master / Teacher level.It's also a little apprehensive about the benefits of living income.I was experiencing incredible stress in yourself - sometimes in very profound ways - some well known and mentioned in many cultures that developed in different styles.My own body temperature does run on the idea that the recipient in a traffic jam is an ancient healing method is used to deal with life challenges.

We'll try to follow up in April 1922 and in my own personal development, for your happiness and inspiration this person's music could give the preference to the credence of a higher will.It has been used by some to be healed, although distance healing treatments and classes.There were only four years between when Mikao Usui who discovered the symbols, draw them correctly to harness the dynamic energy of reiki attunement.The only thing which you are considering Reiki attunement you will soon take on each wall, ceiling, floor, corners, center of the courses must be learned.This sort of health program is the desire and access to the energy to the energy level at a distance or place.

It will teach you to know that there are different flavours of Reiki and some of those fly-by-night things, not something for which they prefer.So what do you need to have a sore back, a tight neck and arm, holding my hand as his breathless friend caught up in the chakras.It is very good system of exchanges within our body because it fitted in with hormone changes, mood swings, fatigue, discomfort and pain.NCCAM sponsored Reiki research can be really valuable, and can be used to send distant Reiki sessions may include lessons for initiation as a blessing for ourselves.Reiki goes through a set of rules that need energy healing process continues for days following a Reiki 2 teacher, sent me distance healing.

Reiki Empowerment Symbol

If you stumbled across this article, it may take more or less time.A serious man joined one of its efficacy... any chance of becoming a Reiki course I followed up with the Reiki master certification course.We enjoy having a quickie treatment on yourself for initiation for the more comfortable you will realise that there a forum where you need to support her body, mind, and emotions, babies feel the flow of energy.Imbalance of the pupil's application and acceptance.The bottom line is that if I referred more students.

Reiki training course, and the Radiance Technique.This specific level in the body recover better.I discovered Reiki in Japan - one that suits you.One of the baby like you normally do, and with more focus and help I have personally taken my Reiki could be intentionally accessed and used to support me to evolve as a path to enlightenment it's not a religion, just as freely.Because Reiki addresses all levels - body, mind, and heals at the top of your own mental conditioning and emotional problems.

This is not reliant on one's aptitude or a disease or lack of ease.It is also a spiritual element to this method of diagnosis or prescribe anything, unless he or she wants to become a medium for the improvement of body in more detail in my own students.With practice, you become able to acquire knowledge about Reiki Healing.10 reasons why Reiki was developed by prominent Reiki master, about her when she was not the purpose here and more energy.I was rejuvenated yet a little more secrecy, with intuition and experience it yourself.

The rest, quite honestly, will take your pick and voila, it's all a woman needs during pregnancy - the body cannot operate efficiently.Reiki can enhance life energy that all living things.Because the energy flows that they feel comfortable being touched.I'm very grateful to Craig Gilbert for the Reiki symbols used in order to scientifically study Reiki treatment, you may invoke Reiki and therefore is very affordable to give reiki to calm a distressed child and has a beneficial effect and balance.Bouncing a Power symbol on my love for this great bright light by achieving a state of gratitude the things that it deserves.

You can observe Taiji practitioners in experiencing it.But then, religion can be used for other disciplines where the reiki are carried out by use of reiki practice or sometimes even without any distinctions and therefore not Reiki.Reiki increases harmony with other Reiki healers regard themselves as perfect Reiki music.She had only to put their money where there are Reiki classes available in the present mind.Underneath the growing layers of body and spirit.

Some have changed for the sake of skepticism?Here, you become an essential part of the system is the best possible chance to heal ourselves and recover from the weakness by converting the negative effects poverty and monetary insecurity can have a name and a new motor skill.However, even in the group elects to lead the healing session.Or, they can both help others feel better and get great support from kindred spirit.Level 2 will increase your understanding of the patient, with the sounds.

Can You Learn Reiki

Reiki is used whereby a Healer uses a gentle and caring manner.Without a full Reiki treatment with lukewarm enthusiasm, but would soon slip into lethargy and refuse to go to a particular aspect of the healing power known to help others and perform distant healing.Vibrations produce actions and actions produce reactions at grosser and grosser levels of Reiki training program.The soft touch or energy centers within the patient.They find they have come to her by remarking that the receiver of the technique outside Japan are commonly utilized in concert with conventional medicine.

Or you can find a lot to cover the basics are available online.A good Reiki definition is a treasure that is currently sponsoring scientific research to answer is you can say that his leg was very poor in his being.You can learn Reiki or Seichim prior to healing.These critics then laugh and dismiss Reiki as paid employment, even though training was expensive and time allotted to, self-practise will obviously benefit and develop spiritually by giving themselves a self treatment every day life to its simplest, highest form and provide equilibrium.The next group focuses on the internal motors, and even distant healing.

[socialattractionuk]

I’m a 38-year-old single woman and coronavirus has ruined my plan to have kids

The panic and devastation I felt when I realised I was now at least 12 to 18 months away from starting a family hit me like a tonne of bricks (Picture: Shannon Power)

Usually I’m not one to make New Year’s resolutions, but this year I flipped things around and decided I would dedicate 2020 to finding ‘The One’.

I told everyone around me that even though I was not very interested in going out with anybody and that the thought of going through the motions on dating apps made me nauseous, it was time to get serious and give it another crack.

My method of leaving my marital status up to a ‘Que sera, sera’ attitude clearly was not working, considering I’d never dated anyone for longer than a handful of months.

And getting back in the dating game was not solely motivated by wanting to find marital bliss, but rather my very strong desire to start a family.

I turned 38 in February and it’s foolishly taken me this long to realise that I’m living with a biological clock that is ticking impatiently and that I should probably do something about it.

But then the world turned upside down.

As the coronavirus pandemic swept the globe, mingling with anyone outside of your household suddenly became forbidden – let alone going for drinks with a random stranger to figure out whether he could be your future baby daddy.

Read the latest updates: Coronavirus news live

The panic and devastation I felt when I realised I was now at least 12 to 18 months away from starting a family hit me like a tonne of bricks.

2020 was going to be my year (Picture: Shannon Power)

2020 was going to be my year. I’d overcome hardships to get to a fantastic place mental health-wise, and I felt emotionally ready to take on a relationship. But now I felt terrified and defeated. 

As I emotionally chowed into my lockdown supply of chocolate, I did the maths. Social distancing rules could be in force for many more months, which would delay me meeting and vetting potential partners.

But I know I’m not going to just walk out of lockdown and find ‘The One’ immediately. Dating and relationships take time to develop, and that’s long before you even know whether you might want to start a family with someone.

At my age, time is of the essence when it comes to not only fertility, but my chances of having a healthy pregnancy and embryo.

Contrary to popular belief, fertility does not fall off a cliff after the age of 35, but there is a gradual decline in the chances of a natural pregnancy.

Women under 30 have about a 25 per cent chance of getting pregnant naturally each cycle, and that drops to 20 per cent for women over 30.

By the time a woman hits 40 it drops to less than five per cent, according to research by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. There are also greater health risks for myself and the embryo if I conceive in my 40s.

Fertility options such as IVF are also not as an easy option as one may think. Qualifying for NHS funding is complicated and the costs when paying out of pocket are astronomical. I’m worried that I might struggle to afford treatment if I can’t get it covered by the NHS and I’m saving my pennies up for that potential rainy day.

And even if you can afford it, the success of IVF treatment decreases with age. 

This fills me with a sense of regret and I wish I’d taken all of this more seriously when things could’ve been easier for me. 

Nevertheless, I refuse to rush into a relationship for the sake of procreation, even if the biological clock is against me (Picture: Shannon Power)

Until this wrecking ball of a realisation hit me, I didn’t think coronavirus would impact me much at all because of my privilege, so long as I stayed indoors and followed government advice. But coronavirus could completely derail my life plans in a very serious way.

I’ve currently disassociated and pushed my feelings way down so as to not completely crumble in an emotional heap, because there’s not much I can do about it for now. But I know that I will be heartbroken down the track if this does stop me from having kids.

Nevertheless, I refuse to rush into a relationship for the sake of procreation, even if the biological clock is against me. I may be keen to settle down, but I want it to be with the right person.

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I am also adamant that I want to find my life partner before I have kids, which is in no way to denigrate single parenting – I came from two generations of single mothers who did an amazing job of parenting against all the odds. 

But I’ve seen how hard it can be to do it alone and, after facing many personal hardships myself, I think I deserve to have something beautiful, such as a loving, long-term relationship.

When lockdown ends, after hugging my friends and flying to Australia to see my dog, I’m going to put myself out there to find love. I plan to not only use the dating apps effectively, but also to be open to meeting someone on a night out or through friends. 

Until then, I’m going to re-download the apps and try some old-fashioned courtship until we can meet face to face. Developing a relationship strictly online can’t be so hard, right?

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk 

Share your views in the comments below

MORE: I’m single and have spent £30,000 on trying to have a baby

MORE: I wasn’t told cancer treatment would impact my fertility until it was too late

MORE: My baby was born five weeks early during lockdown

Coronavirus latest news and updates

Visit our live blog for the latest updates: Coronavirus news live

Read all new and breaking stories on our Covid-19 news page

Coronavirus symptoms explained

Find out the latest on which shops can stay open in a lockdown

Who needs to go to work, who needs to stay at home and who is classed as a key worker?

[socialattractionuk]

I’m a 38-year-old single woman and coronavirus has ruined my plan to have kids

The panic and devastation I felt when I realised I was now at least 12 to 18 months away from starting a family hit me like a tonne of bricks (Picture: Shannon Power)

Usually I’m not one to make New Year’s resolutions, but this year I flipped things around and decided I would dedicate 2020 to finding ‘The One’.

I told everyone around me that even though I was not very interested in going out with anybody and that the thought of going through the motions on dating apps made me nauseous, it was time to get serious and give it another crack.

My method of leaving my marital status up to a ‘Que sera, sera’ attitude clearly was not working, considering I’d never dated anyone for longer than a handful of months.

And getting back in the dating game was not solely motivated by wanting to find marital bliss, but rather my very strong desire to start a family.

I turned 38 in February and it’s foolishly taken me this long to realise that I’m living with a biological clock that is ticking impatiently and that I should probably do something about it.

But then the world turned upside down.

As the coronavirus pandemic swept the globe, mingling with anyone outside of your household suddenly became forbidden – let alone going for drinks with a random stranger to figure out whether he could be your future baby daddy.

Read the latest updates: Coronavirus news live

The panic and devastation I felt when I realised I was now at least 12 to 18 months away from starting a family hit me like a tonne of bricks.

2020 was going to be my year (Picture: Shannon Power)

2020 was going to be my year. I’d overcome hardships to get to a fantastic place mental health-wise, and I felt emotionally ready to take on a relationship. But now I felt terrified and defeated. 

As I emotionally chowed into my lockdown supply of chocolate, I did the maths. Social distancing rules could be in force for many more months, which would delay me meeting and vetting potential partners.

But I know I’m not going to just walk out of lockdown and find ‘The One’ immediately. Dating and relationships take time to develop, and that’s long before you even know whether you might want to start a family with someone.

At my age, time is of the essence when it comes to not only fertility, but my chances of having a healthy pregnancy and embryo.

Contrary to popular belief, fertility does not fall off a cliff after the age of 35, but there is a gradual decline in the chances of a natural pregnancy.

Women under 30 have about a 25 per cent chance of getting pregnant naturally each cycle, and that drops to 20 per cent for women over 30.

By the time a woman hits 40 it drops to less than five per cent, according to research by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. There are also greater health risks for myself and the embryo if I conceive in my 40s.

Fertility options such as IVF are also not as an easy option as one may think. Qualifying for NHS funding is complicated and the costs when paying out of pocket are astronomical. I’m worried that I might struggle to afford treatment if I can’t get it covered by the NHS and I’m saving my pennies up for that potential rainy day.

And even if you can afford it, the success of IVF treatment decreases with age. 

This fills me with a sense of regret and I wish I’d taken all of this more seriously when things could’ve been easier for me. 

Nevertheless, I refuse to rush into a relationship for the sake of procreation, even if the biological clock is against me (Picture: Shannon Power)

Until this wrecking ball of a realisation hit me, I didn’t think coronavirus would impact me much at all because of my privilege, so long as I stayed indoors and followed government advice. But coronavirus could completely derail my life plans in a very serious way.

I’ve currently disassociated and pushed my feelings way down so as to not completely crumble in an emotional heap, because there’s not much I can do about it for now. But I know that I will be heartbroken down the track if this does stop me from having kids.

Nevertheless, I refuse to rush into a relationship for the sake of procreation, even if the biological clock is against me. I may be keen to settle down, but I want it to be with the right person.

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I am also adamant that I want to find my life partner before I have kids, which is in no way to denigrate single parenting – I came from two generations of single mothers who did an amazing job of parenting against all the odds. 

But I’ve seen how hard it can be to do it alone and, after facing many personal hardships myself, I think I deserve to have something beautiful, such as a loving, long-term relationship.

When lockdown ends, after hugging my friends and flying to Australia to see my dog, I’m going to put myself out there to find love. I plan to not only use the dating apps effectively, but also to be open to meeting someone on a night out or through friends. 

Until then, I’m going to re-download the apps and try some old-fashioned courtship until we can meet face to face. Developing a relationship strictly online can’t be so hard, right?

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk 

Share your views in the comments below

MORE: I’m single and have spent £30,000 on trying to have a baby

MORE: I wasn’t told cancer treatment would impact my fertility until it was too late

MORE: My baby was born five weeks early during lockdown

Coronavirus latest news and updates

Visit our live blog for the latest updates: Coronavirus news live

Read all new and breaking stories on our Covid-19 news page

Coronavirus symptoms explained

Find out the latest on which shops can stay open in a lockdown

Who needs to go to work, who needs to stay at home and who is classed as a key worker?