#if i don't get a good raise this year... we're going to be implementing one of my data merge things for templates for a LOT of the pitch

[roseband]

oof i just realized since i have a newer phone now and outlook app works on it, not only can i work on teams off my wrist, but i can do EMAILS off my wrist

[oldguardleatherdog]

[HOWL]

I'm getting antsy about "Day One" and what the new regime is actively preparing to unleash the minute he's sworn in.

I've been looking for actions being planned by the usual orgs (MoveOn, Indivisible, et al.) or any signs of meaningful physical/judicial/public-involved obstruction or demonstration or coordinated pushback against the flurry of anticipated executive orders, resistance to Insurrection Act activation, and the marquee event of "shock and awe" deportations that they've been flaunting openly for months - and I have seen nothing.

There are news reports of governors and mayors and attorneys general making plans and pacts of non-cooperation with those efforts, but it's very murky and clandestine and behind-the-scenes puttering around, and here we are 7 weeks out with zero public demonstrations or gatherings or, God forbid, marches where the public can at least express our opposition and make a statement that we're not knuckling under, this is not acceptable, and they're not going to implement this insane agenda without a fight.

There's a sense that good people of good will have already given up, acquiesced, ceded the whip hand to the new (old) regime, that since all our marches and protests didn't prevent his reelection public expression of opposition is useless, that "there's nothing we can do but lie back and take it" and "we don't want to be bothered we just want to retreat and lie in a dark room with a cold cloth over our eyes and pretend we can retreat into our books and gardens and knitting until the firestorm passes."

This doesn't augur well for the road ahead. As individuals, no one is going to be the lone flag-bearer facing down a MAGA crowd, so we have to look to existing leadership for organizing Day One events at scale - but I'm hearing and seeing nothing, nada, zip, zilch. All I'm seeing is "here's how to take your mind off what's coming" self-care feelgood guides to giving up and pretending our new overlords aren't there, and not a peep from the folks who draw six-figure salaries at the nonprofit orgs that are supposed to be leading the charge when it's hard, when people are demoralized and exhausted, not just when the sun is shining. In 39 years of raising hell, making trouble, pounding the pavement and rousing the rabble, I've *never* seen the side of good so limp and lame and toothless and... lost.

As the saying goes, "What is to be done?"

I'm not ready to hear "nothing, it's too late, we have to wait until everyone wakes up or until people start getting hurt." (Insert .gif of my head exploding.) We know what's coming because they have TOLD us, in detail, chapter and verse.

We know that if we do nothing, people will suffer. In what universe is it acceptable to wait until enough harm is done to innocents for good people to take action?

I'm at a loss. I'm angry at the deliberate inaction of those who have the power to get something going. I'm fighting the urge to turn my own back - not out of despair, but out of disgust.

Long-term plans are wonderful things; my own performance art gig is my primary outlet, but I can't mount a significant effort with meaningful reach for at least a year - and even then, I'm just one guy.

Right now, I don't see any signs of any significant national- or even local-level response targeting Day One operations or any day after that, to be honest. Am I missing anything? Am I not looking where I should be looking? I need to recharge and refuel. I'm open to ideas. Thanks for listening.

[/HOWL]

[raviolirash]

This is all just a way too long personal theory/ramble abt the boi if u disagree that ok

Tldr I believe pre-Caz Astarion is a young asshole who is punished with a job he doesn't take seriously, and his noble parents don't respect him enough to see how much of a good person he could be given a proper chance at redemption and it all goes to shit, naturally.

Long version:

I see few years pre-Cazador Astarion as that asshole teenager who's getting away with everything. He's used to being told that he's handsome, rich, and above others. He's getting away with things, he's spoiled, and has no experience of the world. Especially work experience.

My theory is that Astarion was forced into the magistrate job as a punishment and just didn't give enough of a fuck about the world to take the job seriously, as opposed to consciously being malicious/evil. He is power hungry in the game, half as a response to being powerless for 200 years. That being said:

He's a rogue, through and through. It's implied a lot including with the "I've missed this" line that he wasn't a proper and polite city boy before Cazador. I don't see him doing paperwork or sitting next to a large fancy dinner table without screwing around with a dagger. He slouches. He has his feet on the table. He's a nerd.

If you call The Watch in the final battle, he jokes that it feels wrong to call for guards to come and do something. He's not a snitch. If he sees someone stealing from a sick person he gives a thumbs up. He canonically hates cops lol.

Leading to my theory that he was being so rambunctious and belligerent, his noble parents/elders forced him into the magistrate job as a punishment of sorts because they were just so sick of his bullshit. Just rich people things.

So now:

You have a handsome young elf, with people probably fawning over his beauty, known for breaking laws and being The Worst, not respecting authority and etc. And he's put into a magistrate position through presumably nepotism. He becomes one of those asshole sons of a rich bastard who is a fuck up. Rich, spoiled, knows that he's above others which influences his haphazard rulings and provides him a nice power trip, has a bit of education but not enough to not steal from grandmas.*1

Of course it's going to be a glorious mess! He doesn't care about the world enough to take a stand and try to change the corrupt system from within. Fuck that. He's going to make it worse. Who cares. If there was any good in him, at best it was maybe because he knew it's already fucked and he's not there to be a hero and fix it.

It makes sense that he would double down on the "evil" once freed from Cazador in Act 1. He's used to everything going south because - ironically enough - of the world's failure to do anything good for the helpless and weak. Without realizing that he was also part of the problem once. Hell. He got beaten up by Gur for a ruling he made and his takeaway was "all Gur are bad" and not Baldur's Gate fucking SUCKS and something should be done. No seriously. The politics of the city and the ruling systems are so fucking broken. Bhaal the god of MURDER LITERALLY LIVES UNDERNEATH THE CITY. What is WRONG with this town.

Either way, I don't believe he was consciously and maliciously an evil person. Especially given the scale of evil the city of Baldur's Gate has to offer. If he was, he would have been much worse. He was corrupt in a shithead way and not "we're going to take resources from orphanages to build a machine that punches you in the dick when you tell your boss you are too tired to work overtime in the mines" *2 *3

I also think that he was the reason why Cazador implemented the "no nobles lol that raises suspicion" rule. And the reason why no one of Astarion's family recognized him was because they were too snobby for Elfsong or Blushing Mermaid.

I think his parents still loved him though.

Clarification station under read more

*1. (I guess this does fall under some people's definition of evil, but for me honestly the true evil is the system which allows these people fall into power in the first place and in this essay---.)

*2. (Actions of negligent people in power aren't diminished. If negligence causes a death it is still a death.)

*3. (I don't think he was a young baby either, like a lot of fandom does. He was still young when he was turned but not a teenager. I just believe he was even younger when he started working as a Magistrate. Like on a personal note, it was really heartbreaking when Billy Kametz died because he died so horrifically young. He was 35. 35 is still heartbreaking young.)

[poisedava]

My slay the princess choose your own adventure.

Masterlist/rules

In which there is an abundance of contrariness.

I'm sick and tired so fuck cursive.

PART 2.1

You groan, "you're so insufferable, you know. I executed a perfect dive to make you go away and you're still here." You raise your hands up in the air in a grand gesture, "I'm still here!" 

The Narrator:

"Excuse me? We have quite literally just met."

The voice of the Hero:

"If He doesn't remember what happened maybe it's best to keep it that way."

Voice of the Contrarian:

"I don't know. I think it's more fun if He knows what we're thinking. He's like a captive audience. " 

"Well, we're just about as captive," you kick a tree, "I just jumped off a cliff for nothing!" 

The Narrator:

"You did what now!?" 

The voice of the Contrarian:

"Nah, that was fun! We were super cool! We should do it again sometime." 

Voice of the Hero: 

"Good luck with that. Those walls don't look particularly climbable." 

With a short nod you agree. Maybe even to both of them. The new one has a point though, that was fun, you like him, "I wonder if the princess was impressed by our cool flip?" You smirk. 

The Narrator:

"I- the princess- What?"

The voice of the Hero:

"Yeah, I know."

The Narrator:

"That's not what you should focus on at all! You need to get to that cabin, slay the princess, and save the world. Not pondering on if the princess was impressed by whatever the hell you think you did!" 

A short pause.

The Narrator:

"Which, by the way, didn't actually happen!"

"It's not like we can do anything else. You took away our swimming privileges." With those words you start trotting up the overgrown path the the cabin again. 

Voice of the Contrarian:

"Awe, to the cabin! I'm sure it'll have plentiful opportunity to ruin his day!"

The Narrator:

"If by ruining my day you mean ruining everyone's day forever. Then yes, I suppose there are plenty of ways to pull that off inside the cabin. Like slaying the princess! I'd really hate it if you did that." 

Voice of the Contrarian:

"Isn't gonna wo-ork" 

Voice of the Hero:

"We should be careful though. If the world really ended last time, and we are back here, that means we need to do something before we lose that streak of luck and die for real." 

The Narrator:

"Look at that! At least one of you is rational. Please, listen to this one, take the situation seriously. I'm begging you. The fate of the entire world is on the line here." 

You roll your eyes and do not answer, around a familiar curve in the path the cabin comes into view. 

The Narrator:

"A warning, before you go any further. She will lie, she will cheat, and she'll do anything in her power to stop you from saying her, don't believe a word she says."

The voice of the Contrarian:

"If we're stuck going in there, maybe we should believe her. Maybe she isn't a liar."

The Narrator:

"Ignore him, he's just being difficult for the sake of it." 

The voice of the Hero:

"Let's keep an open mind."

You proceed to the cabin.

The Narrator:

"The interior of the cabin is almost entirely bare. The air is heavy with suspense, the entire space is filled with a layer of dust that you can, at first almost mistake for snow. The only furniture of note is a plain wooden table, also completely covered in a layer of gray. Perched on that table is a pristine blade, looking like it has laid there for years.

The blade is your implement, you'll need it if you want to do this right.

The voice of the Contrarian:

"If he wants us to take it, maybe we should just leave it to collect even more dust. Or better yet, grab it and throw it out the window! What good is a knife against a world-ending monstrosity anyway? 

The voice of the Hero:

"No, I think we should take the knife. We have no idea what we're up against. Maybe you could use it for.. I don't know, knife tricks, in the meantime?" 

The Narrator:

"You know what you're up against, I told you. You're dealing with a princess, nothing more. How many times do I need to explain this incredibly simple and straightforward premise?"

The voice of the Hero:

"If she is able to end the world then surely she isn't just a princess." 

The Narrator:

"Yes, she is, trust me."

He has forgotten something. Again. A great dust covered mirror hangs on the wall next to the door. The frame may once upon a time have been magnificent, now you can't even tell what it is made of.

[frozen-fountain]

ROYGBIV Tag

Thank you @late-to-the-fandom for the tag!

Rules: Search your WIP for the colours of the rainbow and post the excerpt. (I'm bending this and taking from a variety of fics, so they're all present.)

In turn I tag: @visualheresy, @runicmagitek, @keioschaos, @ourspecial, @frogs-in3-hills, @hrh-spinach, and @bees-and-sunshine!

Red

"The reddish light in the corridor, just like the lamp in their room, stopped her in her tracks. She hurried along to the wide window and stumbled back at the sight of it. It festered like an abscess in the sky, a black void ringed with red, glowing with palpable malice. Small and far away, but drawing all eyes toward it" - You Grow the Flowers Yourself.

Orange

"'Looks like we're good to go,' said Elena, standing vigil over the bubbling kettle. She'd set out their food on paper plates, arranged in a colourful flotilla; sliced beef cured with woodsmoke and lemongrass, spicy dried seaweed, pumpkin cookies, glutinous rice balls, a grab bag of nuts and seeds, and wedges of orange melon salted and preserved in lime. Yuffie would have made the journey with a skin of water and a pack of jerky in her bag, for the mountains provided their own bounty of bitter berries and mushrooms hidden under fallen leaves – if one knew where to look, and which were only edible once" - Spiced Black Tea.

Yellow

"The town watched from a distance as the Saucer went up, a prized gem that crowned the rolling beige beneath it, a bauble hung in the air over cracked, necrotic ground. “I wanna be Master Tonberry!” went the cry on the playground, every year as one ended and another began, and a higher-pitched “No, you were Master Tonberry last year, gimme the trowel!” followed. The cut-throat competition for the starring role spilled out after school hours and into the streets on the walk home, boys and girls in short pants brandishing any shiny metal implement they could get their grubby hands on. The winter play lost a little of its dark magic once you got behind the stage and saw how they made it happen – two tiny yellow bulbs poking out of a black cloth.

It took shape out of the darkness as the gate was raised, Dio's voice booming overhead while Barret reloaded, a trail of blood washed across the neon and noise of those suspended corridors on the way to the battle arena. The roar of the crowd, two little lights emerging from the pit and then a head took form, a roughspun robe with a lantern swinging in one hand and in the other, the knife, sharpened on the rocks of the underworld and gleaming in the spotlight. Barret let his jaw fall only for a moment, put up his shoulders, took aim -

Easy when they don't speak, ain't it? Just those two evil little eyes, shufflin' towards you" - Aperture Priority.

Green

"Celes trailed a hand dark with soil among the lotuses. The mirror-flat of the water shattered at her touch, the only movement in the greenhouse. Edgar built it just for her, her green hideaway below the dunes – probably, and she smiled to herself, after she expressed but a momentary speculative doubt that he could. But the sands had never bested him yet. Water summoned from springs deep below the earth passed through the engines that gave life to the castle, where it warmed on its way to trickle down among the seed beds. Dense condensation lent a ruddy glow to the windows, an invitation to all in passing to find her fragrant patch of green, and all the colours that bloomed there. A rainbow under skies that turned grey nary twice in a year" - Fogged Windows.

Blue

"Elena followed and took the rope uncoiling from the ground in both hands, wrapping her legs around it as she jumped into nothing. Her shoes fell from her feet, one after the other lost to the blue, and she laughed. The Highwind lurched forward and took her with it, hanging in mid-air over the glimmering sea sprawl of Costa del Sol. From some new and unknown cavity of her chest she found the air to laugh some more, buffeted by the salt wind as she clung to the rope and the women above her who held it. Below they swarmed in their all-black uniforms. Ant-like and indistinguishable from one another as they raised arms to take back something that was never theirs" - Dulosis.

Indigo

"They touched down in the foothills on what the crew swore was a morning, but the northern winters saw no sun for most of the day and they made their way from the ship into cloud-banked indigo gloom. Elmyra carried her materia in a small black briefcase and stepped onto the ground with a stamp as the snow cracked under her feet. 'I've never seen it like this,' she said, with a few falling flakes catching and glittering in the hair that strayed about her face. 'Where I grew up, we got frost on the ground and nothing more'" - Into the Night Uncharted (yes! I have one!).

Violet

"Outside the window was a grove of slim cedars, the herb garden, and Mireille hunched over on her knees. As Elena whisked oil with the sherry vinegar brewed by Runa over the river, Mireille sat transfixed by late summer flowers. Deep violet, dark red. Small splashes of violence against the drab earth colours the old woman made her uniform" - Dulosis.

[alt-bluesman]

Animal Crossing memories, part 2

It's brand new day, time to get back to it! I'm going to toss in some of my favourite ACNH screenshots between the paragraphs. Stuff that I wasn't able to fit in previously, most of it silly, some pretty. They don't have anything to do with what I have to say, but I'd like to share them somewhere & I don't want this post to be a plain wall of text either. Let's go!

So what is my overall opinion on the game? I think it's awesome. Like I mentioned in my previous post, I didn't get around to experience any of the previous AC instalments, so I have no way to compare. I know that some of the faithful fans of the series aren't necessarily thrilled with New Horizons & looking at their criticisms, they raise good points! Personally I enjoy the game for what it is: there's no wrong way to play it and there is no pressure to do it one way or another. I keep coming back to the Sims and Minecraft for the exact same reasons.

When I opened New Horizons on my birthday this year, I finally took the time to check out all of the features they added over 2 years ago. Better late than never I say! They were met with a mixture of excitement and disappointment, haha. Mostly that first one, thankfully. Cyrus' customisation workshop is hands down one of the best things ever - you no longer have to hunt down your desired item variations on Nookazon or beg your friends for them. There are so, so many new objects in the game. Some of the prices were reduced. You can customise your home inside and outside as well as expand your storage. Froggy chair is back!

Let me tell you though, I was appalled when I found out that bulk crafting wasn't implemented. Why, Nintendo. Why! I know they're still adding minor patches to the game, but I'm afraid it's safe to assume that we're never going to get that at this point. I understand why it wouldn't apply to big items, but fish bait? Come on. We can already buy stuff in bulk. Same thing applies to Nook Miles tickets, why the heck can't we print several at the time? Or fly from one mystery island to another, skipping the airport? Eugh. I heard that Nintendo is notorious for not taking the voices of their fanbase into consideration, so I believe we're stuck forever with these pesky mechanics!

But I don't want to be a negative Nancy. I will stand by my words: the game is awesome. I'm thankful for what we got! I believe New Horizons truly deserved its success and I hope the next instalment in the series will receive a warm welcome just like this one. Unlike some players, I don't think another major update is necessary. Of course it would be great, though the game feels finished to me - with all the events, items, recipes, customisation options, it's a solid title. I can safely say it's one of my favourites as far as all games go.

Now, with all that said, what does the future hold for my little island of Pan? Well... the days of Pan are numbered. After some back and forth, I decided it's time to delete my save file and start fresh. I will take a hot minute to explain why (so bear with me if you're curious), but first I want to say why it was a tough choice. Pan is nearly dang perfect for me. Great layout, long pier, blue airport, oranges as my native fruit and windflowers as native.. flowers! I have quite a few items & board drawings that I hold very dear because they came from friends. I like all of my villagers a lot. I love how the island looks. I have so many memories. After all, it's my true and only Pan.

What's wrong, then?! A lot, man. A lot. Even though I'm proud of how the island looks, it's not fun to play on and that alone is a big deal breaker for me. I (mostly) finished it around the time when heavily-terraformed and decorated islands were all the rage & unfortunately developed that unhealthy mindset of comparing myself to all those much more skilled players. For whatever reason, I wanted to live up to somebody else's standards. Not anymore! My next keyword would be "less": less decorations, less flowers, less trees, less cliffs, less waterfalls. (Seriously. They are so frickin' loud)

Admittedly, Pan doesn't have nearly as much clutter as some other islands do, but it's still a problem in many different ways. The whole central part lags and it drives me nuts every time. I'm pretty much confined to walking on paths as there isn't a lot of open space anymore. Said custom paths flicker a lot. Performing some of the daily tasks can be difficult. Wanna catch a fish? There ain't no space. Shoot down an airdrop? Nope, no space. Build a Snowboy without the snowball getting obliterated 10 times in a row? No. Space.

I know there's always an option to declutter, remodel or flatten and start over - I did these and considered them again! But each and every one seems so daunting now. This brings me to my next point: I miss so many things from the early stages of the game. The spacious, natural feeling of a brand new island. Darting around the place like there's no tomorrow. Slowly building everything from scratch, making your own way through it all. Catching all the critters, searching for fossils, getting scammed by Jolly Redd. Heck, even paying off all the effing debt!

I'm always a strong advocate for a second playthrough. It's true that I love jumping into games with as little knowledge about them as possible, hardly anything can replace that fresh, first experience! But it's so much fun to rediscover too. I pay a lot more attention to detail whenever I replay because I already know the main story and I'm ready to take in all of the smaller things. There is no real story in Animal Crossing, just progress and I hope to take it a little at a time. When the game came out, I had a bit of an unhealthy obsession with it, haha. (Who didn't, though?)

I never visited any of the famed treasure islands, but I did time travel quite a bit. Both things can be absolutely okay if they're exactly what you're looking for. Not sure if that was the right choice for me. I played for hours on end, grinding so hard that I think I just burned myself out much sooner that I wanted to. I couldn't bring myself to touch New Horizons for a long time after that. I believe many other players experienced something similar. That and also all the dramas that inevitably erupted with an introduction of so many new players to the AC community. The game kind of faded into obscurity after its prime. Folks were collectively tired.

Many aspects of that initial hullabaloo were great, not gonna lie! Jumping on the bandwagon, sharing our adventures, making memes. Still, it feels nice to come back after it all subsided - to a game that is, after all, supposed to be relaxing and mellow. I've mellowed down over the years too. Not only that, but I also don't feel the need to rush through it as there is no fear of spoilers anymore, I already know all the unlocks, I know what happens in the game. I'm looking forward to getting back into it with a fresh, blank canvas to have fun on and a more open mind.

------------------

There will be part 3 to this! Hopefully soon after I can access my Switch again. I ain't letting Pan go without a bang either, I will snap pics all around it and post & describe them here. If I can figure out how, I will record a tour. If it's worth it, I will save a dream address. This little fictional land meant so much to me (and I can't even fully explain why I get so attached to stuff like that). I even don't know why I just spent so much time talking about Animal Crossing. Perhaps it's easier for me to talk about games, cartoons and fictional characters than my personal life? It is easier for sure!

[lebihanto-universe-blog]

Be Irresistible, Click Here In this episode of "Gut Feeling with Dr.Pal", we have Dr. Sonal Anand, a seasoned psychiatrist with over fourteen years of ... teenager or this young population have some kind of psychiatric issues affecting the stomach as well because the brain get taxes in your practice is this getting common in your practice absolutely but you know in today's scenario a lot of people they like to be on the phone mostly and a lot of youngsters they're not going out and meeting uh socially like we used to earlier we need to know when your child is having problems socially or is it just on social media Med as a psychiatrist you prioritize that dinner time as a family together at least one big meal if everyone is having together without screens that can be a very productive time the biggest question is at what age that we give the phone to the kid you as a parent can decide when you want to do it in children in your practice when you see depression or anxiety how big a role is social media playing it it is definitely the way that I see small kids using their phone right so like their 14 15 year old phones you get dizzy they are moving so fast Snapchat is coming insta is coming this one is coming H they know exactly what to do because these are the kids who have been exposed to the iPad since they were born so as a psychiatrist what is the top thing that you would recommend a married couple to do number one you have to take out time for each other they have to ask you which is better arrange your love marriage I've just seen this in my practice okay I can't tell about any of this but are you seeing relationship issues in your practice all the time because priorities change after marriage how about gender identity disorder like transgender is that genetic as well it's not a learn thing from inside they just don't know how they are like for a long time maybe or some children they might know by around 3 4 of age that inside they don't feel like a boy or girl so mental health is the reason for the young heart attack sometimes yes it could be hello guys welcome to another episode of our podcast series gut feeling with Dr pal I'm so excited for this episode actually I think this might be one of the best episodes I have done on emotional health mental health with a psychiatrist Dr sonel you know good friend of mine from Mumbai I was absolutely Amazed by the information that she provided and it was so helpful for all the people you know married couples uh parents raising the kids how do we actually improve emotional caution in the kids how do we manage stress how do we manage stress eating what is anxiety what is depression has this been word used very Loosely these days and what is ADHD OCD we covered a lot of topics and I'm sure you will definitely learn something from this episode and I'm sure that you'll be able to implement and improve your mental health quotient no matter how strong it is there is always room to improve and I'm sure that will happen after this podcast I was very EX excited for this episode as well let's dive deep into it hi Dr Son thank you so much for being here hi Dr pal thank you for inviting me I'm so happy I could come and speak to you that's so nice of you so nice of you you are a very busy psychiatrist not that busy here in Mumbai mumai and uh we're going to right into the discussion where I'm going to present you a case yes okay so I saw a patient in uh California yes uh where she was 18 years old okay and and uh she has been having abdominal pain for a while so they saw pediatric GI as we discussed in um us less than 16 is Pediatrics more than 16 is adult right so less than 16 they don't come to us but seen a Gaston before and then transitioning they'll come to an adult gastrologist so I I saw the patient around like 18 17 18 and then main complaint is abdominal pain abdominal pain so we did everything CT scan MRI geg everything has been done already Yes Yes nothing is there and everything is

negative and then I just asked her okay how do you feel and she said uh you're talking about the stomach I said yeah stomach is okay then why did you ask the question talking about the stomach Oh I thought you were asking about my whole body I say no what is happening uh I just hate my body and uh uh I am I am very uh uh depressed about the whole situation so that little thing kind of like put everything together in perspective yes where you know we see a lot of patients where everything else is negative but because of irritability of the nerves supplying the stomach and the intestines we always see this patient so to a point that one and two patients walking into my office from a teenage or this young adult population have some kind of psychiatric issues affecting the stomach as well definitely because the brain get access yes in your practice let's say this patient comes to you yes is this getting common in your practice absolutely absolutely this is like one of the most common scenarios that I see in my day-to-day oped it might not just be abdominal pain maybe pain somewhere else which can't be picked up in any other ctmri or which you know a lot of doctors have seen and they've not been able to diagnose it so pain is yes one presentation that I have seen and which has not been diagnosed so uh in such a patient um there are other things also to look about like apart from Pain does she have any other GI symptoms like loss of appetite has she lost weight or has she put on weight and then I would also ask for other psychological symptoms mostly about anxiety you talked about depression yes but what about the physical parts of anxiety and depression like does she sleep well what is a relationship with food and uh whenever she looks in the mirror what are the thoughts that she is having is she able to control those thoughts or not and how is it affecting her way of thinking and how is it affecting her behavior is she able to go out properly she able to mingle with friends is she like still on social media or has she stopped everything and how is a relationship at home with her family is she rable at home and uh whom is she talking to most of the times now is it just one friend or so is she really speaking her mind out is she able to do that is she able to understand what's going on inside her and how she expresses those thoughts that is uh one thing that uh all all the members of the family and people who are close to her that need to be interviewed also and we need to find out from the family sometimes about what's going on with her so so it will not be just the patient but the social things also going on that are important for me I need to know how the family is looking at her how other very important point that you said about the the friend Circle so as a parent yes we have to see how socially interact with are yes yes yeah uh but you know in today's scenario a lot of people they like to be on the phone mostly and a lot of youngsters they're not going out and meeting uh socially like we used to earlier so uh we need to know when your child is um having problems really socially or is it just on social media so realistic and virtual these are two things like the parent now has to know it's like a child is always living these two worlds and uh we don't know what conflicts are going on between them and when they are separating when they're becoming one so uh this is something that the parent has to really dig down deep and find out wow because it'll uh vary from case to case as well you know there are many kids who are just totally social they like to go down play and but there are some who are introverts and maybe you know they might not like to have a lot of big Social Circle but uh these people could be active on social media because they don't have to show their face or so um like so it's like that like every child as an individual personality and as a parent if your son or daughter is an introvert should they encourage them

to become an extrovert or go to multiple social environment or just let it be that that is her personality yeah it will depend on the individual you know like some children do need that push I've seen that like if uh uh if you even if you just give them a little nud they they just become extroverts or you know they'll just become successful but there are some children who are happy the way they are they like to be that they're more comfortable with that so rather than we expecting us to be form follow a certain pattern maybe we can just uh guide them a little about how things normally are where you fit and it's okay if you don't fit yeah it's okay if you're not extroverted you know if it's okay if you're an ambivert or uh so just finding your place that itself is a journey so you know um I see a lot of kids who are introverts initially and then you know later after like five six years they're like total social exts that also happens so so we need to give them some time to find out their own pace and find out what they want yeah so finding out uh son or daughter's character yes needs time to be spent with the kids yes absolutely yes yes I have a feeling that that is not happening yes yes is that true in your practice as yes I that has been happening many times parents don't even come with the child for the appointment like uh if it's a little Elder one that I see so the person will come on his own and uh they don't sometimes even want the parents to come or even if they come they'll be sitting outside and they'll be on their phones sometimes or that is a common complaint that I see uh children who say that uh they cannot relate to their parents about certain things about uh the modern things maybe that they're talking about or like the mother's always complaining that the child is always on the phone but uh we also have to see how much time the mother is on the phone the father is on the phone you know how much of screen time is the family really having all together or when it's time for dinner is it like a time when all of us are talking and eating or you know everyone's on their phone so that kind of environment makes a lot of difference I see yeah as a psychiatrist you uh prioritize that dinner time as a family together yes absolutely I at least one meal in a day you know it can be breakfast lunch in some places it it can be difficult to have all three meals together but at least one big meal if everyone is having together without screens that can be very productive time when uh you feel emotionally connected to each other you can talk about your day-to-day things if you don't communicate how will your mother or a father know or how will your child know what kind of things that you have in your mind or what are your expectations from them and how are they supposed to behave at home so we need to keep talking about what we want uh and kind of environment at home we can't just um expect them to learn things everything on their own there are some things that they will copy from our Behavior but there are some things that we need to teach as well one most important question I'm not sure here but in us any get together that we are in the biggest question is at what age that we give the phone to the kid yes and you know some parents are very strict that you know no phone until you go to the college yes yes some you know my nurse daughter is calling my nurse during the procedure okay and then you know for for something else I said who's calling my my daughter I said your daughter is only 7 years old oh yeah yeah she has an iPhone the daughter is calling so I am not sure what is the right answer when should we expose so so you know the American Academy of Pediatrics they do have a certain um recommend so that is the only time when they can be allowed but yes owning a cell phone is like I think totally different yeah because you know once um your friend has a cell phone and then you know that other person wants it so that's how the conversation

at home also goes you my uh my friend has that cell phone I want that one so but you know in every case you as a parent can decide when you want to do it you don't have to come under any pressure that you know just because your friend got it you know you can just say that uh those are the rules of their house our house is different these are the rules of our house and these are the motos of our house this is how we are going to go about it you know so these are actually uh good circumstances to make them understand about your family values and how they're different from other family values without saying that their values are not wrong but you know what I believe is this so what this is what we need to follow wonderful wonderful I I think every family value doesn't have to be the same yes absolutely and they're not anyway like uh some families have just a mother some you know they are separated or some are joint families in India like there still many joint families so every family has to have their own culture and even like even it's a big culture they have to have their own subculture they have to have their own sub values and how they want to bond with each other is a decision that the family should make on their own yeah I'm asking all this thinking about my family that happens a lot so I what I'm saying is so let's say the girl turns like 12:3 or boy turns 123 or something like that right yeah the interaction between I'm going to select the girl as an example the interaction between between the girl and the mother is quite complex in that age between 12 to 17 yes the girl thinks that the mom is absolute willing to her yes yeah what why is that and what should the mother do to counteract it yeah uh I think um it's the way the uh daughter perceives the mother's Behavior like uh sometimes a mother can be overly strict because she feels that the child uh may not be Adept enough to handle situations on their own so the mother might just keep a tight rope at home and um at that is the age when children want to do things on their own like they have definitely been doing Small Things uh according to their age but um they're a little more intelligent than what they were Generations ago so even between that mother and daughter there's quite a huge generation gap it's not like just one generation gap but it could be many generation gaps put together so uh the kind of intelligence and emotional ction that that child has is different from what the mother had at that same age yes of course yes so then the mother starts to uh feel that the child should have behaved like this like I was behaving because it's almost the same environment but we have to understand that these children are a little different from what we were so we have to accept this change and we have to modate ourselves a little and of course we can't let let everything go and you know let let the child behave as of course discipline has to be there but um the discipline should be there in a certain way so that um there's not a lot of harm done to the kid like it's okay if 5 10 minutes of overplay is fine so you need to know how to draw the line over there so I've seen this in many places like the mother and daughter are the closest because they spend so much time together and then you know when the daughter is growing up then all of a sudden the mother has to let go and um I I think that's where then that conflict starts right changing yourself to the daughter's requirement or the son's requirement is something very key yeah yeah and people say that you need to be friends with your kids I'm not very for this because your child has a lot of friends but your child is only one mother and one father so um I'm I'm psychologically speaking a parent has to do what a parent has to do it has the parent has to modulate himself for herself the behavior like not to appear maybe more strict or not to appear too lenient but the middle path that the parent has to follow it is difficult

you know being a parent is 100% it's the most difficult task I feel today you can get a job you can you know leave your job or you can just there's so many other things to do but being a parent today in today's world I think it's not as easy as it was before extremely hard I'm telling you I think we talk about peer pressure right we not talking about peer pressure among the kids it's PE pressure among the parents parents yeah so if you're a part of the group of Ms so there's a lot of comp competition going on over there also who's on the highest and who's doing so much and who's being more active and who's not active at all yeah that is there you're also that's pretty common so on a scale of 1 to 10 I've seen different Spectrum based on how they feel about raising the kid parenting is not like a single thing that you follow so there are multiple varieties I've seen moms and dads who are in that 10 out of 10 where there is no screen time at all there is no Ultra process foots there is no uh Pizza Pasta even when they go for a birthday party when they are giving the pizza they give they bring their whole that's 10 out of 10 yes this one out of 10 is like you know that's okay whatever it is you leave me alone I will leave you alone uh you know you just take care of whatever it is yes and then there is a lot of in between correct from a psychological standpoint from a psychiatrist standpoint from this Spectrum which one will you say that people should follow somewhere in between for sure sevenish maybe seven yeah yeah more towards uh letting the child go also and not being as yes yes at the same time yeah so you know maybe some kids will be comfortable with the 10ish part maybe some of them are like that yeah but I think most of them would not like that and uh so you have to assess your child individually if you feel that the child is okay with that the 10ish or Nish and all that then you can continue maybe that way but for most most of the kids that I see I think that's 6 seven8 that that should be good enough okay okay and you need to monitor your kids growth slowly yes and also the psychological yes absolutely things that we look for uh the way they behave with others and with you the way they talk about uh they do Express their feelings you know many times when they're watching something and they ask you questions so the kind of questions that they ask that itself it shows a lot of uh the way the way they are thinking and then the other behaviors like U how much are they eating are they sleeping well do they ever complain of physical things like pain or are they irritable I think irritability is one thing that you can easily assess and it's uh uh little children like the kid or the parent the kid the kid yes I think first we'll go to the kids and then the parents but irritability is easily expressed in the younger ones you know the little maybe two three year olds who can't really Express them well but irritability is one thing where and low appetite maybe is one thing where you can really find out if your child is going through some stress low appetite is they were eating okay before but not anymore yes and irritable to both of them like they wouldn't fall asleep so easily maybe or crying is there so when we talk about peer pressure in us uh The Bullying concept is one of the big things yes uh what are the signs that we could say that hey you know my kid is going through a bullying in the school yeah yeah um School refusal will be one of the most common things School refusal I want to go to the school yes I just don't want the younger ones especially they would just say that you know they would not maybe like to discuss about the bullying part but they would just say no I don't want to go to school I have a tummy AEG and they would just give it to something like that I have a headache or tummy ache or you know I haven't done some homework and that's why I don't want to go that is one thing I see but uh the Elder kid uh they might

have other things about like uh uh L less appetite yeah less appetite and then less sleep and they might even have thoughts of self harm sometimes you if it just goes beyond a certain point they can have that and sometimes you know um if you're careful you can just see a small mark on the wrist of a kid who has tried to self har they would not talk about it but if you just have a look at it then you know that your child is going through some serious uh mental issue that you need to talk to your child about it but the way they express them themselves will be different some some people would would talk to their friend about it and they would be scared maybe to talk to an adult but definitely they would talk to their peers someone who's suffering like them maybe they would like to talk to them about it but um if you have some uh good rapper with your child uh and then I don't think it's really difficult for the child to come up and talk to the parent that this is what I'm going through so so you need to open up a little bit to your kids and kids should also open up to you so that you develop that Rao yes the same same time you also have some kind of uh way to pull them back yeah so the child needs to know that uh my home is my absolute safe space if I if I go and tell my mother this uh then I I she the child should be able to uh judge what the reaction is going to be like if the child is always expecting a negative reaction so then maybe the child might not be able to speak up that much but if the child knows that you know even if you just say no it's okay you know and even if you don't talk about it still like the child will know that yes my problems have been uh at least uh understood yes maybe yeah she is uh he or she is able to uh confidently discuss with their parents regard and it might not be in one go they might just start with something and uh it might take even months sometimes for the child to come up with these things so you know the other thing we usually see is as a parent we tend to compare M that's a common thing yes we grew up like that and we try not to yes but I think invariably we end up either the peer pressure or doing something as a psychiatrist how important is not to compare yeah we have been teaching this since like it's our Basics that you just can't compare one child to another because they're different you know they're all together different but uh for us I think it's been going on since so long that I don't know how many generations more it's going to take to just break that I I think it's a little better than before like finally we our parents do know that comparison something that we should avoid what happens when you compare one kid to the other yeah um the other kid who is being um maybe um who feels a little lesser than the other one so those problems you know they just go prolonged like uh they'll always have these things in the back of my their mind even when they go into adulthood that you know I was compared and I was uh maybe uh liked a little less than yeah so that inferiority complex it might just go on into adulthood and it might go on into other circumstances at well like at work or when they get married with their spouse or when even when they are parents on their own so it can have the small thing it can affect the way you think about yourself for a long time even when you are like a midadult also you can still uh this these childhood uh feelings because they're constant it's not U since you're born it's been going on you realizing it maybe even if you expressed it sometime but it's still going on so and you do spend so much time with a sibling so that uh comparison part is something that goes on for a long because even in my OB I see some patients now and they talk about it yes like you know they faced sibling rivalry and sibling rivalry yes yes they they did face what is sibling rivalry it's uh like when when they feel that the parent has been a little more uh towards the other sibling

yeah toward Elder one yes maybe the it could be either it's not necessary that the or if they have three so then the middle one would always say that usually the younger one gets more P yes they that because most of the times there's a gap now in between the kids like it's four five years ear it would be just two one or two three years but now I guess that Gap is increasing so the parents have a little more attachment to the younger one and uh and as we are growing they are still a little the younger ones are still little less uh like they're not that mature so maybe they feel they need more attention so yeah but not necessarily not necessar like I told you these kids are more intelligent and they have little more emotional caution than we had so the their needs are a little different than what we used to go through so let's say that you know maybe based on the podcast discussion people are more understanding and then trying to observe the behavior of the kid yes let's say they are identifying some kind of red flags oh maybe he's not eating well maybe he's not sleeping well maybe he's not talking as much as it is maybe the friend Circle has decreased uh and the happiness is not there when is the time that they should seek medical attention all these uh things that you talked about that is actually a warning sign itself yeah that is the warning sign that you know that your kid needs attention so now is it something that you and your kid can just uh do with yeah but if you feel that you have addressed the problem okay and uh these things are still going on especially weight loss lack of sleep or being with withdrawn socially withdrawn refusing School refusing meals and uh usually they're active on social media so do you think they're less active and uh has the child ever expressed that they might say something like um there's no meaning in living you know rather than just talking about self harm they might just say what's the poining doing this even if I can't do this or when they talk about low self-esteem as well I think that is the time when you should definitely seek some professional help yeah after you've tried of course on your own right in your practice in this age how social media plays a role in uh parenting or um in children in your practice when you see depression or anxiety yes how big a role is social media playing yes yes it is definitely because um we know that children who are depressed they are spending a little more time on screens okay and then the kind of content that they are watching it might affect them even more they might be more socially withdrawn they might not want to talk about their feelings but they know they acknowledge that someone else is going through the same as well at that time but still they might not want to talk about it then uh Sometimes some children can go through cyber buling you know yeah that is something that is really happening I've seen some uh children going through it and uh they have a lot of pressure within their groups also within gaming groups also they have a lot of pressure over there so sometimes if you don't do as well there you uh definitely go through some amount of emotional turmoil so that could lead to anxiety and depression as well so you have seen patients where cyber bullying is there's a game group and they're comparing and competing with each other yes yes and there if they couldn't perform as well as they thought they could or if you know someone just passes a comment in the comment section didn't they will write not such good words about it so this would really hurt the child and they wouldn't know how to react to it because um even though um they they know the level but uh emotionally maybe they might not be as good as they think that they are you know because they're still children it's not like they're 18 20 year adults and they could understand what the consequences of their actions are going to be they're still trying to figure these things out course

so and having them too many conflicts um because it's not just one thing that you do on social media you're multitasking on everyone is doing this I'm sure you're not just looking at one window you're looking at so many things at the same time you're doing your homework also at the same time you're listening to your mom also at the same time yeah right the way that I see small kids using their phones right so like their 14 15 year old phones yes yes you get dizzy yeah yeah they are moving so fast Snapchat is coming insta is coming this one is coming H they know exactly what to do yes because these are the kids who have been exposed to the iPad since they were born it's been like 13 14 years it's out so uh there's this theory that went about at that time that um when we were children when we were babies and we were born our mother mother used to you know when when she used to feed us she used to look at us and she used to talk to us but now mothers are on their screen so when they they feeding their babies the baby has to look at the neck now of the mother rather than looking at the eyes so we're just worried about how this is you know and this is something that's happening everywhere it's not just happening in the US or in India it's happening everywhere in every country so we are a little worried now how this is going to socially implicate yes yes how what are the psychical changes at this small level if it's happening then how it is going to affect them later like what kind of bonding is the child and mother going to have after yeah because I to ey contact is so important and if you're on your phone all the time even at home also you know it happens a lot of times like uh you're on your phone and that social contact or the eye to ey contact it just reduces that yeah and it happens um on its own like you don't do want to do it purposefully but it just goes on and and it goes on for a long time you don't even realize you're doing it until someone know right right the another very important thing I really want to talk to you is I got a call uh from my friend okay and uh he is 44 years old and his son is like 14 15 years old right you'll be surprised that he calls me privately to his house and then he says that well I have a problem where my son is coming and telling me that I am gay okay and he's telling me what should I do uh and he is very emotional he's crying he's like you know I never maybe I did something wrong with my parenting and he's very emotional and I said that's okay I I have to convince him a lot for almost like a couple of weeks before even addressing the issue what is happening so in Us in liberal states yeah I know gay lesbian all those things so like very common to a point that they're actually teaching that in in the curriculum yes uh in the open educ and few parents don't like it to a point that they changing schools and they say I don't want my kids to get exposed to these kind of thing I am scared that looking at this my kid will turn into a gay or lesbian even if they are not yes yes as a psychiatrist what do you say whether it is genetic or it is society induced or it is environmental induced what will you say it is genetic there's no doubt about it's just the how your body frame it yeah you can see it in animals also we've seen it in worms also so it's just like that it's just one more thing that has been and it's been going on since so long it's not just something that has crept up in the recent Century like if you look at old books or old paintings and all they've been showing homosexuality also even in sculptures yes obviously yes so um it's the way we've been brought up that we have to be normal you know you have uh or even young girls or boys it's the gender roles that they have to play if you a girl you have to have hair long hair you look pretty and weing dresses for boys it'll be that blue thing and so these are things that we've been brought up with and it's been done so strictly that for some

people it's difficult to accept something Beyond these two things that you know you you can be either this one or this you can't be anything else so it's just the way we've been brought up like this now there are some people who definitely are broader broader mindset and they they know that even if um there are certain choices like this and people people make those choices because it's because their body part is like that it's because their brain is wired like that it's not a disease it's absolutely not a disease or a problem it's just the way they are they're born like that yeah so it's not just gay people there are some people who are aexual as well right so they they Define themselves as aexual there are um I think four or five of them now coming up it's it's not just gays or lesbians lgbqt the whole thing and so and then they are adding two three more also yes lgbtq plus right yeah um I'm from California californ is a very liberal state so lgbtq plus is pretty very common yes yes um people are now discussing that okay so I understand lesbian and gay is based on how your body is framed and it is something very uh genetic and they were just born with it absolutely yeah um how about transgender um and uh I'm sorry lgbtq have you had a patient who's being brought by the parent that hey you know there is something wrong with him he is coming out yes yes I see these things all the time yes I I have and I've tried to convince parents so some parents have definitely understood the problem and it it does take time not something that I can do in one session it takes time and some so you you explain that okay know this is genetic this is something they bond with it this is nothing wrong with what he's thinking right right right so sometimes they just need a reassurance from the doctor that this is normal you know or they have this last hope that maybe you know the doctor says that this is not okay maybe we have a chance so yeah some parents do accept it but there are some P who absolutely not accept it absolutely not they're very rigid about it and they'll say no you write some medicine for it and you put them on an antic psychotic or so that they think they they think they will change yeah yeah some parents are really adamant it's going to take some time for um this generation to understand because it's just come out all of these things have just been we've been talking about it it's always been under the wraps even if it was still going on for so long I think mental health itself you know it's been so late we've started talking about it we've always in talking about other health problems cardiac problems blood pressure diabetes but mental health I feel it's been ignored for way too long way too long I think the awareness came after Co yeah because in Co so many people suffered and they were talking about what they were going through finally so maybe that is the time that even I'll agree to this but in India it's still uh talking about mental health is still uh not a priority it's a taboo it it might not be a taboo anymore but it's not a priority priority other things still take higher places like the cardiac issues or other physical problems and uh your husband is a cardiolog yes yes yes so you but did you ever tell him that you know all his patients should take care of the mental health first so the cardiac health will not happen yes absolutely he knows that we have a lot of common patients like that only because he SE a lot of young patients and they go through immense stress work pressure family pressure and that stress is what is causing other problems so mental health is the reason for the young heart attack sometimes yes it could yes it could apart from the lifestyle disorders which are also actually stress induced like these younger people who are ordering so much from fast food Swig a matter they are ordering it because they have not been able to manage their time well because they go through so much of stress they just want

something on quick on the go and they have not been able to um have a certain lifestyle you know healthy lifestyle so yes stress cardiac problems respiratory problems we know all of this is related we we know this for a long time actually it's I've been studying it when I was a student as well like how uh mental illness affects your physical illness and and even wh also talks about health in a holistic form you are healthy when you are physically mentally and socially well correct it can't be just like one thing that correct correct how do I know I'm mentally not well that's such a great question you know before other people find out more important yeah you know sometimes a day comes when um you don't feel like yourself okay and uh you don't want to do the things that you would usually do like sometimes getting up and brushing also can be a problem okay and uh you find that you're not as productive as they were before and there are certain psychological changes taking place in you like uh you don't want to talk to people as much as you did before you don't want to interact with them you don't want to do your day-to-day activities or uh you want to withdraw yourself and um you have thoughts of gloominess and worthlessness and your focus has gone down I think these are certain like alarms that uh that you would definitely but but you know there are other things also like uh sometimes burnout can present like this and uh for uh it to be um a clinical depression it has to have a certain amount of duration like for at least 2 weeks you need to feel like this for it to be clinical depression so it can't be just one day you know because we always have good days and bad days every day cannot be a good day so it depends on the duration it depends on the kind of symptoms that you have there are some people who go through like mild stressors and you know they do okay with it so and there are some people who have small stresses and still they react to it so much um ahuh that's a wonderful Point big stress you're able to handle it before but now even small stress you are getting irritable yes yes yeah so in that um it's the way we think about the stress and U it's our Evolution based also like since we are young we are taught in a certain amount of thinking but then when we grow old we also want to have our new way of thinking as well and so uh sometimes when stress comes we don't know how to think about it some new stress has come we might not know how to calculate it properly or how do we to deal with it uh this is a common problem and uh sometimes if you're depressed the way you look at stress differs like from a person who's not depressed and from a person who's depressed depressed I'm talking about like clinical depression proper clinical depression where you know it's neurobiological where your serotonin level other neurotransmitters they are not working as well as they would so a person like this versus a person who does not have depression if they are going through that stress so the either of them react to that stress is going to be different than you as compared to each other it's going to be different so this person with depression will have no way out he'll just nothing can happen out but this person who is not depressed he might have some ways out yeah so so this is what happens in parents also like uh they they don't realize that their child is really depressed and they say this is just a phase it'll like you know it'll go away and so anything more more than 2 weeks should be a concern yes should be a concern should be a concern yes and there are questioners available on websites correct yes there are many many for depression there is something called phq9 yes phq that's what you use in the US a lot yeah yeah phq9 yes here do you use that uh not a lot not a lot but but you know um Nim hands over here in India yeah yeah we have uh so a lot of institutes they have their own questionnaires lot of hospitals they'll have their own

so whichever Healthcare professional you go to they will have they will because there many scales available it's not just one they have many skills then they are separate for anxiety different for depression there's different one for OCD and all so there are many scales available so it depends on the doctor I guess what he's comfortable what he's studying more he would advise that on on online also there are many SC I actually looked up an online scale looking at the number of questions and the type of questions I will get [Laughter] depression so tell me I really don't understand how it works like are they really worried about you or are they scamming you I have no idea and I think I would take it with the pinch of salt if you really want to go through those skills or not it would always better to go through something that's known and just with a doctor if you discuss it even with the clinical psychologist course the reason I'm asking this is is uh the the the burnout thing yes uh leading to depression is something that we are not talking about okay I'm just talking from a doctor's field but in uh all the other field especially you know software Engineers who are working so hard and other professions as well they're working late nights trying to match up with the productivity requirement let's say they in a startup company everybody is so startled in a startup company to a point that they don't know what they are doing and they all just focus on productivity productivity right right so there is a point that you will burn out you are a body uh you are not a machine you are going to burn out 100% in that burnout might produce us a depression as well that is what is happening in medical community and I am seeing that mostly here in India where they are not giving themselves rest at all yes I saw this report where uh second year postgraduate in medicine they committed suicide yes yes it happens se how sad that is yeah really really why is that happening I don't know right because uh we are really not addressing burnout we need to have uh stricter work ethics especially for medical students because they're still young they're 1920 they're doing mbbs and you know they're hardly 24 or something like that so they really might not be able to juggle everything together yeah so we need to have that in all places in all workplaces I suggest that and it helps improve productivity also it's not like just one thing that you are worried about it but look at the way it affects the productivity of the office office like when you are preventing burnout your creativity increases and the way the product comes out it'll be definitely better than what it was if there were many people suffering from burnout so work ethic is something that we all need to work on the government has to have some plan of if it's because it is something that is going to happen everywhere now even at home um we talk about we talk about workers outside but at home also the mother has so much of burn out of course and um of course yeah dealing with everything and we need to address that also as well in US dad also have burnout we don't have a choice but I am really concerned about the exact point you're talking about the mothers right so I'm telling you I'll tell you a sequence of events that is happening the girl is getting married around 24 25 um gets more to a newer atmosphere um gets pregnant baby is born um weight is being uh put on because of the pregnancy and also from the marriage to the pregnancy yes lots of food options and newer places everything and then weight is being increased already and after the kid is Born the hormonal balance takes unless you are very conscious of your diet and everything absolutely that is just a slippery slope from there yes yes and on the top of it they take care of the cooking the whole house whole house to a point that they not getting time for themselves yes yes is the at what point that they come to you or you seeing patients like

that yes yes I am seeing these patients yes I am and uh maybe they come not as early as I want them to because they would come when their child is like 2 three years old and uh they're already maybe preparing for another baby also at the same time and um uh I would like to see them at maybe like 6 months when the baby's already 6 months old so that we can discuss about how important your mental health is at this time because now everyone's focus is on the baby baby nobody focuses on that yeah yeah so now you have to take care of your own you know you have to take charge of your own health I'll tell you an example um mother-in-law or the even the mom's mother feeds the mom more than what is needed even the mom doesn't want it here take the L take the JY why because it produces more breath milk for the baby yes yes so that'll go on for six months and all like I told you after that they definitely need to you know find a way out of how they want to balance their own mental chores around the house and all how they want to go so you said after 3 years they they come to you yeah usually after 3 four years what is the problem that they come with they come with depression for sure yes yes they don't have interest in the daily to dayto day things that they are doing or they might not want to take uh good care of their child you know they might feel that um some parts I can neglect and I should not maybe yeah yeah that happens yes wow an Indian woman coming to a psychiatrist means how much amount of right emotional damage she's gone through yes yes really and talking about these things because uh when you are growing up you being taught as a woman that you know these things come naturally yes you're a mother it's just absolutely natural you have to go through this it's okay if you don't sleep you know your body will cope up and all so the kind of pressures the way that we've been brought up right I'm going to give a shout out to all the husbands these days that they are pitching in maybe not as much as the mom want to but at least you know they are taking uh a role of okay say you know you take rest I will take the baby overnight something like that that's happening slowly yes here also I've seen the scenario it's happening a lot actually like I see working parents and both of them have some balance some balance yeah and the father is equally concerned about how the mother is mother is yeah that's a wonderful thing it's a wonderful thing but the more important thing is something called postpartum depression yes yes all right so when the baby is born in the first 6 weeks or two 12 weeks the women are increased risk of depression to start with yes how how how common is that and what do you do in that yeah so there are two things in this there's one thing called as postpartum Blues Blu yeah which will not be depression per se because uh when a baby is born there are some hormonal changes which go naturally the serotonin level is different oxytocin plays a role in that so uh Nature has made this on purpose so that the mother can accept the baby better and there's a real strong bonding between the mother and the child right so uh it's difficult to you know comprehend all these hormonal things that are going on you're not sleeping well and um other people can't really understand you know what you're going through because we rare women a little our girls a little differently than what our mothers would rare US okay so um at that time it's really okay if for two weeks or all you do feel low you can't produce that much of breast milk maybe or you're not sure if you can take good care of yourself and the baby these things happen and um I've seen many women who go through postpartum blues and then you know they learn to adapt and adjust and but uh women there are some women who have already had episodes of depression in the past before they got pregnant okay those are the women that have need to be careful because I've seen them come back to dop after

uh for postpartum depression and some de over cases also I have seen definitely but in them I feel uh they have too much of stress also like maybe husband's stress or whatever is going on in the house that is also going on or some women who um are have difficulty processing their emotions but from before only from childhood itself there are some people like that you know who have difficulties uh processing their emotion so the kind of person that you are that is one thing that uh yeah because we see a lot of women who do fine also they're absolutely okay with everything correct correct so symptoms that a husband or a family member can look for after the delivery of the baby to see when should we seek medical attention would be yeah crying excessive crying ex crying yes and and they express it then you know like uh I can't do this anymore or I don't want to live and yeah this is too much for me can't handle yeah can't handle it or they'll not uh be with the child as much as they would want to be not being able to sleep even like for an hour or two like usually when the baby's sleeping that is the time the mother sleeps but then they will not be able to sleep for that one hour all so oh my God it's tough it is yeah like I told you like uh it's the way now girls are being rag like uh they're supposed to be equal to boys but we need to realize that boys don't go through yeah okay to not to have gender equality in some situations yes that is what I want to say that in something like this we need to keep teaching our girls you know if you want to have a baby this is something that you are going to go through so you can't just say that you know why do I have to go through this why can't a boy go through this so we are not Advanced so much scientifically so there are some things that uh gender based you need to understand that accept it also accept it also that there are some things that women are really good at and they are going to do it so the gender equalities also comes in the way circumference as well I said way circumference more than 100 in men is obes more than 90 cm in women is one of the subscriber came up to me said why we are not 100 we also want 100 so sometimes we cannot do 100 yeah but everything is different you know the brain volume the body size or even the way you metabolize drugs alcohol everything is different so rather than going for something like equalizing it maybe we come to a middle path where we can accept yes accept that there are certain things that according to your gender definitely is quied and I think based on discussion what I'm getting is the very crucial part is after the delivery the mother needs to be taken care of yes yes mental healthwise yeah because the baby is definitely taken care of by the mother so we need to have a look at the mother ex exactly as we are talking about this so the baby is go born everything I'm just thinking about a very busy uh like a working parent situation where they may or may not get any help yes yes as the baby advances all right as the age grows the baby invariably there is some kind of distance that happens between the couples as well yes invariably yes yes uh either because of work pressure lack of time or they are not exactly the same as they were married before were before marriage yes yes are you seeing relationship issues in your practice all the time all the time I'm seeing all the time yeah because priorities change after marriage and uh if you don't take a step and prioritize your marriage over everything else then and uh then all these things come up then because it's very easy to happen you know you're busy with your child and then you you just don't have or you don't keep time for other things like your own self for that matter not husband for your own self also sometimes you just don't have that me time and so um having a prioritization for yourself I think will be the main thing here then other things come your relationship with the husband should be

there how you are as a parent and work and um you need to learn to draw the line also say no sometimes at work also you know say no sometimes or try to explain yourself in a better place like this is what I need to do and I can't do this right now I'm really sorry it's okay you know you have to forgive yourself for self forgiveness is also something that I promote for these kind of people that for prioritizing you don't have to feel sorry for yourself all the time that I'm not able to do this I'm not able to do that it's happening everywhere like it's you're not able to do everything at the same time so that maybe particular day you couldn't do it but the next next day you can do it or 2 three days later you can do it so um every day maybe you might not be able to spend that time if you wanted but you can always do it sometime then maybe a week later also but but the point uh that I that I've been seeing very practically is that uh let's say who both are Bread Winners these time U but one of them was the primary bread winner where they use that as a substrate or a factor to say hey know I am busy I am earning money for the family right right it is your responsibility to take care of the family whether I am here or not yes yes I think that is where the issue is starting slowly where the other Brandman also I'm also I'm also earning money right not only you yes yes yes striking that balance is really important over there isn't it yeah but I think it would depend on various people also you know like the kind of huh situation that you go through there are some people who who who know how to balance this part and who are okay with you know being the Lesser bread yes and doing other things and so so as a as a as a psychiatrist what do you recommend to the couples yeah uh to such couples you know I would like to them to have time just for themselves you know with the child or the other thing or the discussion doesn't involve money and uh yeah so it's not necessary that it has to be 3 hours 4 hours a movie or something like that just every day if they can just spend 10 minutes is doing a certain activity that they like like doing yoga together maybe doing meditation together just going for a walk and you know listening to a song together so uh when you do such small activities um you you get a reminiscence maybe of the past things that are happening a little ignition is always there so that little fire that is required yeah just spending time 10 minutes even and just communicating spending 10 minutes is something that helps when I went to us I was amazed by the concept called like date night yeah what is this date night I never heard of it I have seen these two separately dat separately night separ what is this dat night so then uh you know in in US I mean uh I keep saying us because that's where I am practicing it's not like you know I went to us and I'm doing a us lifesty it's not the case because I don't do dat anyway so I started we started doing date nightes after seeing my col yes and they know what they do is they hire a nanny and then they make the nanny supervisor kids and they go for date night for 3 4 hours ABS this is so important initially what I used to say that stupid people they're spending money on the nanny then I realize how important is yeah so unless you put an effort into any relationship for that matter you're not going to get a good positive outcome of it like how long is the other person going to Bear it at some point she's going to have burn out some point they are going to have burst out and those I you know little friction is always going to happen so rather than letting it escalate to a certain level then why not treat it every day you as a as a part of your life like in in in your practice are you seeing increasing divorce rates these time yeah this younger people I'm seeing this a lot divorce rates are increasing here and um the friction between these couples is it could be related to something really small

the like you didn't do this properly and uh or you didn't get this properly that's where the small things start and there's nothing major like many times I've seen there's nothing really major going on but uh they have the sense that it's um not really necessary to ad just a lot they have their choice to make you know I have a choice I have my parents support maybe so I really don't need to carry on there's only a fine line between self-confidence and the adjustment right yeah yeah I have a feeling that the adjustment is not happening as much as supposed to be yes I will never forget this I'll tell you one thing I I keep on repeating person same podcast in my wedding an uncle came and he didn't say best happy wedding nothing he said learn to adjust and he left accept the way they are and then he left yeah so but both of them need to adjust it's not just one spouse who needs to do it both of them need to adjust a little because for any marriage to work even if you have a love marriage or if you have an arranged marriage it is really necessary for both of them uh to you know sacrifice certain things if it's something that both of them want to do together on it has to be done together it'll be a common thing it can't be just uh my one spouse thing or the other ones there are definitely some parts where it has to be individual also but once you get into marriage I think the V concept we I think that's that that's acceptable because that is what the institution is all about and if you just want to um keep on focusing on sell so then the marriage part will not uh will not work it will not and in in US I mean divorce rates has been like always high always high because they're entitled to the opinion and they say okay no if I don't like that that's it uh uh we have adopted so many you there good and bad and everything so I always say that always take the good from the vestern and leave the bad uh including your Western toilet we don't want that you're Indian toilet that's how you got this designed so you I I'm I was surprised that uh us uh born um a colleague she was asking me so what is happening with uh uh with the increasing divorce rates in India I thought arranged marriages there was not that much amount of divorce rates um I'm still I'm not able to wrap my mind around where as a psychiatrist if I have to ask you which is better arrange your love marriage I've just seen this in my practice okay I can't tell about any of this but uh these love marriages they are going through more divorces in your experience in just in my practice I can tell you but in general maybe it's it's a gamble you know you just never know what your partner is going to be even if you spend years of courtship but how things happen when you go through a certain amount of legal commitment and uh then when you start taking each other for granted how that uh relationship is going to work out so it's just a gamble it's a matter of luck luck if you're lucky you get a good partner even if it's arranged or you're getting married a second time or third time yeah so you just need good luck to have a good partner the the concept of when I at least when I was growing up over here the uh concept of living in together and all those things were not there at that time yes and it's very common now um is that something that you support refute or no comments to know more about the partner yeah yeah it's okay to a certain level okay you need to decide where your boundaries are because um it is required like in a marriage you need to know some things now you can't just uh like blindly like how we used to do it 100 years earlier we can't do that anymore so if you uh have that choice and you know your boundaries and you can handle it then I think you can go for but if you feel that uh you're a little emotional person and you know after living together if it doesn't work out and will you be able to handle that break off or not because there are certain people who absolutely can't handle

it and they do really bad later on so if you can decide on the boundaries and know what the effects are going to be then I think it's okay yeah we are seeing a a lot of late marriages now right 35 36 of because they want to settle down and then in profession career they want to enjoy the life a little bit more without the kids right and when the kids come okay I'm ready for 37 38 thing there is pluses and minuses to it like pluses you know you have your time and everything minuses is as we know from a medical standpoint as the age advances the quality of the obam goes down and there's increased risk of abortions or you know or Autism children right yeah yeah autism and increasing maternal age is one of the risk factor for autism yes um do you think as a psychiatrist is a concern or is it is it okay as a society that we should accept um I don't think there's much we can do about it so we just have to accept it because it's the way we are socializing it's a way we are evolutionizing ourselves it's just become a way of life it's happening everywhere so we just need to accept it like yeah there are some things that you can do like some people freeze their eggs and that is something that you can do or adopt kids for that matter correct correct or we have a lot of diagnostic tests also now to know the uh health of the fetus so right right right right so so we have medical technology advances as well for this so I have I had a patient where they actually biopsied the embryo oh okay so they did IVF okay the same thing um it was a gay couple getting something something that uh so was I so gay couple wanted a baby and they went through IVF or something and then the embryo was formed this the donor mother had some genetic issues or something like that right so there are techniques to biopsy that newly found 5ay embryo oh oh it's like too advanced okay it's so tiny and they and then they look at the microscope and then they find out whether gentic AB there not so as you said you know the more technically Advanced we are I mean more advanced we get culturally yes medically also we are getting Tech that should be like a common match yeah but but you know I still feel that nature has not made us this way there a lot of things that you know naturally they don't come to us because we are uh having Manar at what 11 12 now so that means nature wants us you know to be healthy for reproducing at an early age only not like at 40 so this is just a little against nature against nature yes yes but there are so many things that we doing against nature so like eating late at night so as a psychiatrist what are the top thing that you would recommend a married couple to do okay for a married couple number one you have to take out time for each other it has it could be even just five or 10 minutes but every day you need to take out this time for each other date nights are definitely important okay you can do it once in maybe two weeks or three weeks but yes you have to spend time where it's just the two of you not discussing anything else and I feel expressing love is also equally important like sending a message of I love you or I'm thinking about you no matter how many years of marriage you spent that also is a somebody told me to do this I said I love you to my wife she replied back are you okay okay no it's really important you know I think after some amount of time you uh forget to express your love or you just uh don't prioritize as much but I know that that people want to hear this it's not just your wife maybe even your child wants to hear this or your friends you know they want to have that acknowledgement of uh emotional needs or uh that relationship that you two have and uh I see a lot of uh people who complain that um my husband is not expressive enough like he'll do things for me but he never says it and um I feel that if your wife feels that she wants to hear it then you should say it you know even if it's like against your nature maybe but make

a little effort and do say it rather than just you know disappoint her all the time of course I try to do that I do that I say you know this new dress is amazing it's beautiful she said this is the exact same dress I wore yesterday but at least I try so initially it will be awkward it will be awkward because we are not a society where we express a lot yes yes absolutely absolutely in us it's exactly the opposite there might not be love but they exos it so much they exos it so much to a point that hey so sometimes I feel that um as a community we don't want to flaun we don't want to we flaunt our uh property achievements our children's achievements our children's achievement but I think you're absolutely right so so examples of expressing love okay buying gift um yes maybe not materialistic things I was talking about like something non-materialistic like uh when you do send that message you know it could be with a picture of you two together something like that you know something that is a little creative also it shows effort like it's not like you just wrote the three words but uh like there are so many editing apps right now so if you just you know have a good picture and you've written this I'm thinking about you yeah so so that effort has to show and uh like I said like Tech is available now everywhere so we should just use it and it saves time also wonderful if it can save relationship then why not of course of course one of my professor told me you know in us the once you get divorced it can be very expensive right yes yes something called alimony that the whichever the bread winner which a major bread winner needs to pay the other person for the rest of the life yes if the marriage is more than seven years okay okay that's a seven year AG seven year AG okay I I think so I'm not sure but that's how so my professor told me me so there was an Financial education conference they say you know invest in this one you know doctors you guys don't know anything about Finance uh invest over here I'm telling you this is the best thing he stood up in the conference he said the best investment that an young doctor can make is date night okay so you invers in the marriage to sustain a healthy relationship so that you will save your finances that's what their argument was but um uh I think the concept of expressing the other thing we people always say is that okay you know I don't have time so I think what you're saying is make time time because the effort needs time yes anything good it needs hard work needs hard work needs hard work similar to how you put your effort to build your health that's what my whole channel is about after talking to you and multiple other podcast guest I'm thinking that we should put effort for our mental health and also our relationship yes yes a lot yes because uh what is going on around you it affects you so much uh the kind of people that you have with you and we are still uh social animals we need relationships we need to have people around us we really can't sit just isolated even if it's uh we say that we are on online and we just on apps but um you do need your mom and dad you do need your spouse and child if you if you think deep into it the only person who who is going to spend a lot of time with you in your life is going to be a spouse yes especially if you're growing old and your spouse ends up taking care of you corre yes if you want good care taken off and also you know like you are the sandwich generation right you are taking this 25 to 45 55 is where you take care of your parents as well yes and you take care of kids as well and that invariably puts stress on you okay one of the most common things what I get in my channel is I talk lot about don't eat this don't eat that this is ultra processed food and to a point that people don't invite me for dinner at all okay they made me for dinner and they give water okay drink I just invited you over okay so so what of the most common thing that they say

is uh whenever I'm stressed out yes I eat a lot okay how do you manage it yeah okay so so the psychology behind it is uh when we are in infants and we crying the first thing that the mother does is feeds us you know rather than just tapping a little the mother will just feed so that's where we learn this you know if you are anxious you have to eat that's where it comes from wow okay yeah and uh then the kind of relationship that you have with food it just goes on wearing like when you are a teenager you might want not to you know ex just some body physical experiments you want to do and uh I'm not sure if they really understand the taste of food at that time it's more of what your friends are doing what they are eating and uh um the kind of advertising also it makes so much of difference to what the teenager wants to eat and though they realize that they're not supposed to have this it's not healthy everyone knows it you know we don't need to explain them again and again but still the kind of advertising that they do and then the kind of social pressure that they go through that you have to eat this though your mother's saying no that is the time I guess where uh they are not really able to make that choice well but then as you grow up and you start realizing that your choice is going to matter so much to you then it's easier maybe at that time to make that choice about healthy and um but when you are in that situation where you are associating stress with the food yes do people come to you for stress stress eating yes yes no they come to you because they're already depressed and stress uh eating has been seen commonly I see yeah yeah so I would not get someone for just stress eating I see but I would get someone who has it because they are depressed or because they're anxious or it could just be um side uh presentation you know it would not be the main one but it definitely is something that we need to address what can one do if we are dealing with stress eating yeah um the kind of thoughts that you have related to stress first I think we need to know how to handle that stress first like the correct way to handle it some you need to realize that you know I have stress and I need to have a good coping mechanism this is not working for me okay so there are so many other things that you can do like um in the fridge rather than having those processed food you can just keep a fruit salad or any anything else that it's on your like in the level of your vision of you see it and you can have it so that that is one easy easy thing to do and uh second thing is about like uh understanding that relationship and finding something else that makes you feel better at that time like you know yoga has helped a lot of people in this when you're doing yoga or uh there's this called as mindfulness so and that also the mindfulness meditation and all that we talk about it sounds difficult I know but uh once you learn it and uh it's just hardly figh minute process if you know how to uh do a little bit of mindfulness that is something that uh really it'll help you make better choices in everything like not just food choices so stress eating is not that you are eating because of stress you are not able to cope up with that stress abely absolutely because you don't know anything else like how to cope up with the stress wow yeah so with yoga with meditation with walking simple 10 minutes of walking Al it releases so many endorphins and you can feel better just that so you need something to calm you down yeah and you need to know what is stressing you out also if you know um if you can reduce that stress level also it'll definitely help I'll tell you a very I'm just talking about practical examples where patients have told me and the friends have told me where where um you know I think the biggest thing you talk about social media negative comments your video didn't get that many likes and oh that guy is getting in Spain beautiful vacation only that guy

knows how many takes that he took to get that right picture really really yes I'll tell you a story I have a friend um he's he doesn't like social media he doesn't like pictures but his wife is absolutely on social media right so they have to kids two little kids and of course they are not posting for the picture they're posting for a family picture in a family trip to Mexico and there beautiful background anybody would want to take a picture but this guy doesn't want to but he knows that the wife wants to so the wife and the uh wife tries to take a picture with the whole the family and the kids are not seeing the camera right and then this guy say smile right now look at the camera it's really sad you know I see these things like uh the we are teaching children to look at the camera that they learn it by reflex also you know if you do it at two smaller age they will just learn that uh this is the thing to do like like in this um during the pandemic like the the babies that were born they think that it's normal you know not to touch each other or not to shake hands or you have to do certain things only after your wash your hands because that is what they've been seeing since they were born they saw it for 2 three years so now I'm seeing that uh problem as well like post fund I thought it would be just anxiety and depression amongst people who are working or people who were at home but now this is something that I'm seeing more about the way our children are learning these things from us like how They're copying us how the way we are looking at phones and how we reacting to the re to so that picture came out very well eventually okay and then everybody was like Wow wonderful picture and everything I know him very well I called him do how did you get this picture and he said only I know how much amount of depression that I went through to take that to take that so that is one kind of pressure right social media comparing all those things that is pretty common has been there the another thing it's a very nuanced thing that I'm seeing is WhatsApp has been a wonderful thing for many people right whole India is on WhatsApp when there is an one toone conversation and that doesn't become any problem at all where you can express your thoughts when it is in a group when you're sending a message right it becomes like a performance evaluation rather than interaction yes yes absolutely absolutely have you seen that yes and but it happens on all platforms also you know on Facebook also my friend posted this and so you know somewhere I feel that I also wanted to do something like this or maybe know now when I do it I want to do it better so this is our human nature you know competition is is there yeah that is there but uh we need to learn where to draw the line how much do you want to be affected by without knowing that person's Story how much do you want to be influenced by it that is something we need to evaluate on our own also and uh always I always say no don't send any um messages with deep meaning in WhatsApp or Facebook or message nothing yeah because written format always creates anxiety yes yes I agree to this right so it's better to talk because the tone differs and everything the reason I came to know about this is um I always say that you know don't look at your phone 30 minutes before because uh you need to sleep protein sleep is extremely important so what many people tell me is that's the only time that we get right and I won't keep on sending messages so in a group there was this popular Tamil movie release where they were talking about the actor and this guy is saying that okay this actor doesn't know how to act and there a group of like 20 25 people and one guy is saying that okay you know what your hero knows how to act you fav so they're going back and forth right and he finishes the conversation and goes back to sleep and the next day morning the first thing he does is opens up the message and see what the reply he told

me that then I realized that okay you know there's something called subconscious mind while you are sleeping right the last thing that yes it happens it happens yeah but you know there are a lot of people who look at it as a as an escape mechanism you know something that they couldn't do in their youth and now suddenly they have a group and you know you don't have to present yourself in a certain amount you're just typing something and they don't know what the real picture is but and it doesn't matter what you're typing much and know like because when you're on one to one it's so different you can fight or you can argue but on WhatsApp how much like it's such a different level of arguing that was going to go on so uh some people do look at it as an opportunity to finally Express themselves something that they wanted to do but some people could do it as a way of looking down on others that also happens tell I many people have called me and then said that hey you know um I'm not able to handle my emotions after saying that message how can he say that to me uh I'm sure he is looking he's saying about me yes yeah while that person might not even have talked about him absolutely abs yeah so that is so seees all the time see all the time and then I I am a big proponent of decreasing the cortisol levels and I have a strong feeling that cortisol is the main reason for belly fat accumulation uh because cortisol is a stress hormon as you know it stores all the calories in the belly thinking that you will need it somewhere else um every time you do this there is this short pulses of cortisol that is being released that you don't need to do right um so then again boils down to so there is a stressor that is happening and you're not able to C M which means that you don't have the bandwidth to handle this which means you need to prioritize yourself to create the bandwidth yes yes so you talked about mindfulness meditation right so that is one thing that I do to I do heartfulness it's a nonprofit organization I absolutely love it it is something that has helped me a lot um so I do initially was extremely difficult do you recommend that to your patients uh yes yes yes yoga meditation yes yes definitely yoga I think India people have been doing it for a long time but there are certain things in yoga which I would recommend for mental health all the breathing exercises that you do pranayam AUM they really have some scientifically also it's been proven now they have certain effects on the brain so all the yogis and all that they were doing all this it's been proven now that they had certain advantage over mental health issues especially or maybe like in preventing dementia for that matter maybe the way the brain was spaced according to it's there it's a science on its own mindfulness is definitely it is also actually an older Indian concept itself but it's just revitalized and it's been reinvented I'm really happy about it yeah so there's this famous mon chatna I don't know if you've heard about it so he had promoted a lot he was in uh France and uh he had this Plum Village society and yeah yeah so so he he's been right he had been he's expired now but he wrote a lot of books on mindfulness maybe like 10 years ago and that pace picked up and now luckily everyone is talking about it it's actually an old Indian concept itself it's a Buddhist concept so so we've been giving the world you know there's a hot yoga in my uh neighborhood in Sacramento okay uh you go to the heart yoga and then yoga is like tlor sft songers mus in the back and then they just like doing all these poses and everything and then finally once the Taylor Swift song is done they say namaste he said no it's not Namaste it's Namaste so so I think it's high time that we adopt our own practices B time so um how does how does meditation help the Mind meditation helps you organize your thoughts which is so important like um it gives the brain a kind of an exercise training like uh you

have to calm down because your brain is continuously thinking on its own also you know that's his job it is thinking but you have to decide uh the kind of thinking that you want to do the uh amount of thoughts that you want to think about and how important how much importance do you want to give those thoughts yeah so I feel that uh meditation helps you organize your thoughts in those way it help it gives the chance uh uh the brain a chance to relax and uh prioritize itself also so uh the brain definitely needs a certain amount of time with uh you know no thoughts like nothing stressing about it so you you need to give that chance and definitely meditation helps in that meditation helps yeah but there are certain amount of people who can't meditate okay I understand their problem because um they have a problem a really um maybe a serious problem organizing of thoughts and they would not be able to meditate and I think it's okay for them if you can't do this there's something else that you can do you know like in yoga also there are so many things or like we talk about exercise walking so maybe that also helps you so this is not something for everyone it's okay if you can't do it um in heartfulness they say that anybody more than 12 years of age can adopt meditation practices okay yeah um as a psychiatrist how important it is for kids to adopt meditation at a younger age yes it is it is important because when we teaching them at that young age it is going to help them all throughout and uh yoga is something that even little children are doing yoga and meditation both of them they've been doing it in schools also it's become a part of their curriculum like we had PE so apart from PE they have yoga also huh yes yes they do lot of schools have adopted my my kid has yes they do have it so um at this young age when they are learning how to take care of their physical needs emotional needs and through meditation um if they can know how to control their thoughts and the pacing of their life yeah so it it is definitely how young is your daughter she's 11 11 11 11 um we talked about briefly about this um does she know what she wants to become when she grows up or do you know what she has to become when she grows up I'll just answer it a little differently more General way I just joking so the question is um many people have told me I go do talk shows I do talk shows it's a 90-minute show where we interact with the crowd and everything and there are little kids that comes and watches my show as well so they're like between 10 to 14 and I ask them hey you know what do you want to become a grow up um the mother nudes the son and say doctor doctor a typ Asian mom okay so I think now we are better that you know beyond that it's not become engineer or doctor yes yes there's so many more things that people are doing also now also you know on their own also they making that choice that this is not the only thing that they want to do they know that uh they can excel at something else as well uhuh the pressure that let's say I'm just saying hypothetical situation where a parents wants them to become a doctor and you know the kid is also doing okay um but the pressure is there a line that they should draw in terms of you know how much we can push the kid or uh how do we monitor them yeah you know there are some kids who are self motivating like they really do want to do it and I think that's good then let them do it but you if you feel that uh you're not sure if the child really wants to do it or not then I think you should give the child a chance to think about something else as well and you yes you definitely need to know where to draw the line like a certain push is definitely required but it can't go to the extent that you're making all the decisions for your child or uh you are deciding the path for your child your your child has to find his own adventure adventure yeah so you can definitely guide because your child needs your guidance your child

needs your motivation your child needs your appreciation yeah but there is um but that's our job you know and our job is also to make them self-sufficient so we can't make them dependent on us for all these decisions our job is our main job is to make them self-sufficient so we need to look at long-term goals as well have I made my child independent enough to make is he going to be happy when he's independent we should I maybe think about these things also not just rich or not you know is he going to be happy corre is he going to be socially adapt is he going to have a good social Circle friends and family you know will he be able to maintain his relationship with his spouse correct this is the kind of questions that maybe we should be asking ourselves that's a wonderful point it's a wonderful point I have a feeling that we are missing the bigger picture um where you know academic is not the only success um the other thing that we usually talk about the emotional quotient uh or emotional intelligence uh of this um I wish somebody has taught me while I was growing up in terms of the emotion aspect of all this where I came to know about this later by myself um is I always tell Pria my wife is that you know my kids I'll be so happy if they're emotionally strong where they're able to handle different situations at a right level yes how do we instill that emotional intelligence in a kid yeah yeah we have to teach them by our own behavior like they are constantly observing us and they're constantly learning and copying us as well so the kind of behavior that we have in our house with our maids maybe with the work with the help that we have or then with our contemporaries with our colleagues with our seniors so children keep observing that and then when we change our Behavior we behaving in a certain manner so maybe that is when they realize socially how we are supposed to behave and be accepted wow and the somebody told me that don't ever argue in front of your kid or something yeah you should avoid that definitely definitely whatever arguments between the spouses it should be within a closed room with a closed room yes yes it's important for the child uh for his own safety you know to know that uh even if things are going wrong or not we don't know you know how that thing is going to go you might be able to solve it within an hour or something but the child might keep thinking about it for a couple of weeks and might affect him emotionally it's important so we I went to a friend's place and then the the kid was he I I love kids you know kids love me for some reason okay I love kids so they this guy he is 7y old 8y old he came to me and he said that Uncle Amma is very mad uh I said what happened I don't know APPA left the home uh took the Carma is very mad he's telling me that APPA is not at home so you go okay okay you said come back later actually they're intelligent this that kind of struck me that you know he's way seven or eight so they're so observing yes to a point um the other thing I want to discuss was okay if let's say a young 25 26 year old the other most common thing I see is um when they are having an off day they say how are you I'm depressed oh okay where depression or anxiety or mental health issue H yes it's a good thing that there's a lot of awareness now and it is a wonderful thing that Tabo is leaving but at the same time what is happening is they are using these terms very Loosely yeah it's the kind of language they have for everything like Taylor's song I want to kill her I want to kill him this is like her latest song has this and you know as a psychiatrist I'm really worried that uh really is this the kind of songs that these young you know she has fans like six seven year old also is this what they're going to hear and how is it going to affect the way they thinking about killing people she's expressing it so like in such a casual man so this is what the language is going to be then how do you know then when

what that person is really feeling or what that person really wants to say how will you know how the mental state really is so we need to come up with new terms I we as a psychiatrist now we need to change the depression phases or change the nomenclature so that people don't misuse these but are you you seeing that right yeah yeah I'm seeing that I'm seeing that definitely I'm sad today yeah it's good that they can express themselves but I say why do you want to focus on the negatives you had so many good things also in the day it's not like you were just depressed like uh you're just talking about certain amount of time or a certain period of time why don't you talk about the other periods of time as well so so it's to generalize the day maybe if you can so the the one small trick that somebody told me is that that every 8 hours or like know like breakfast lunch and dinner you mean asking yourself how you doing uh how am I feeling now happy sad yeah in between yeah right uh and you will be some surprised and amazed how important that is to check within yourself yes yes it is it is it is and uh we have to accept that we are going to go through certain amount of emotions in the whole day and we need to be prepared for it and it's okay to feel sad for certain amount of time it's okay to feel anxious also for certain amount of time because it's the body's response a little amount of anxiety is required for good performance you know if we know the learning cup over there we have that a certain amount of anxiety level is required for really good performance you can't be like just zero anxiety and you know not do really well it happens with only Geniuses maybe but for us common people we need to go through these emotions because Nature has made us that way we naturally like that that's what makes us humans and um the whole system also the neurotransmitter system the endocrinal system they all runs on this level it's all the other terms been very Loosely used is ADHD okay and I can tell you right off the bat in any so in US mental health issues so so he's a top yeah everybody has their own Boutique and then treating maion right so everybody is you know I'm not able to focus I have like this thing so they give a ad diagnosis ADHD stands for Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder when I was in my medical school I was under the impression that it happens only in the kids yes yes uh can that happen in adult as well yes yes it can it happens when you have childhood ADHD and it goes on carries on to adulthood because usually what happens is uh around uh 7 8 years your ADHD comes down and by the time you're 10 12 it it disappears but uh now we doing further studies and we've realized that there are definitely a certain amount few certain amount of people who have developed uh who have gone to ADHD also now I don't think it's something denov like uh you can't just have ad adult ADHD on your own you know that would be a different thing I need I think it needs a different diagnosis completely it's something that you would have had since childhood I see yeah and and then maybe when you're an adult and you are going through certain things like maybe depression or uh drug abuse substance abuse so that is a time when maybe um your focus is a problem concentration is a problem so being diagnosed by a proper doctor is what is required to have your ADH diagnosis you can't like there are so many things in play it can't be just one just one thing yeah what are the signs and symptoms of ADHD in young kids in young kids hyperactivity like you'll see that they can't sit at all even in the classroom they'll be doing something to their body shaking the legs or hands or whatever is there in the hand they'll want to shake it so uh that is it how hyperactivity and some teachers do complain that they can't even sit around properly in class they just need to roam around so for the younger kids this happens and for The Elder kids who can't like really handle the

body movements they'll be having some shaking or trying to um relax themselves by certain yeah now um apart from that there is the thoughts that they can't organize properly so the hyper active thoughts that are there so um something is going on they can't concentrate on it that is uh there are two parts of that ADHD yeah so the teacher will notice that uh the child is looking here and there they're not focusing properly and uh some children who have higher IQ they'll be able to cope with all of this very well even if they have ADHD they'll answer everything or even if the teacher feels that they're not attentive still they'll answer everything so um and like it some children just grow out of it it's not really much a problem at that time but um yes when it's like 10 12th board exams and all and that ADHD still carrying on so we need to be aware of these symptoms at that time also because the child needs focus at that time yeah uh in some people have seen uh it's more of like a fashion statement when you are on some medicine for ADHD yes they do that in colleges over there so that uh there's this certain medicine for ADHD and you take it uh it helps you focus better actually so then like retell in ampam yes yes yes so a lot of people just want to experiment that it helps them focus better um you know similar to ADHD the other issue that we usually deal with OCD yes OCD uh I think OCD is also Loosely termed on multiple occasions OCD sometimes is very severe where um they just can Will compromise the quality of life significantly just checking the lights couple of times whether it is switch off or not maybe not a significant OCD so they've changed the name it's not OCD anymore it's OCD Spectrum yeah because there are so many things that go into it you can just have obsessive thoughts and not act on those thoughts also so that is also a little bit of a problem when you just keep ruminating about certain thoughts it's called as obsessive ruminating yeah so and over there then again it reduces focus and output is reduced so that could be a problem and where you have no control over your thoughts and then acting on that the compulsion part of it is there ah can you share a patient experience with OCD I have many many many like an example so that we can understand okay so if this is a clinical profile probably OCD yeah you know I I see a lot of families who don't bring uh the patient on U like early on it would be at a certain phase like when maybe the son is getting married or and then then becomes a little too late also then because some sometimes medicine won't act as fast as it would if it was something newer like um this hand washing thing that goes on I've had a case where uh the mother would be so strict the children whenever they came from school they would the first thing even outside the home they would have to take off the socks and all and make sure that everything is arranged properly if they didn't do it they would get a beating for sure and they were really scared about it and uh whenever she was cleaning the house everyone had to be either out of the house or in a certain place only and uh it affects the children of course because then uh later on I saw a youngster also whose mother had the same problem and then they would also so you know they would be in a conflict like what is right is it right to keep you know watching all this because I've been seeing my mother doing all this or do you think I'm also suffering from OCD so it becomes a dilemma at that time you know how do you diagnose it how do you treat it at that time so it's not just the hand washers but the there are um things the spouses that I've seen you know if a spouse is suffering from OCD so how the other spouse also has to suffer because that spouse will make that other person do the things rituals or other things that the person the patient wants avoid yeah yeah so it's difficult for the spouse especially to adjust with these kind of people and and sometimes

as a parent you're in a conflict if you should uh do that compulsion or not for your child your child asks you you know this for the obsession they do a compulsion so you're not sure if the right thing is it do I have to follow it or not like your child might have this comparison of asking questions so the same question repeatedly that is one really common OCD that I've seen so then uh the parent is confused and then they come to me like you know should I answer should I not answer so it's a strict no you know every time you have to make sure that the compulsion is not followed um the last thing we'll touch upon is the suicidal rates um which age group is common um the young definitely definitely young you're talking about 1525 yes 15 to 30 yes 15 to 30 yes 15 to 30 and that to students definitely like during I know exam results time we still we're still having these increased societ during that time yes after the neat exam yes yes it is because a lot of students are frustrated anyway they've been trying it two three years and nothing's working out for them and they they could be going through depression also through the same things and not being able to cope up maybe they have less uh social uh Avenues to express themselves they don't have support enough support yeah so all what we talked about so far kind of like boil down to having a strong mental health right from your childhood kind of so you need to kind of like focus more at the younger age that you have a strong emotional ction to handle all these kind of stress so we don't end up in doing this so if that is what the final solution is what has to be done during those years or even now when somebody needs to start what are the things that you will say right first of all let's not focus on the eating part like parents thing primary goal is just to make some good food and yeah so I I think we need to look as at a healthy child as an overall thing like as a physically he has to be healthy mentally he has to be healthy so we need to look at a child as a holistic thing that we can't just keep focusing on just one thing that we want the child to do this rather than that and the second part is uh like I told you we need to uh change ourselves also little we need to unlearn some certain things that so that the child understands that you know um the the parent is doing this the parent has taken effort like sometimes we do make mistakes and uh we need to accept that yes I did this mistake and and say sorry sometimes to the child it becomes a good behavior you know so when you change your behavior when you adapt new behaviors and good behaviors that is the first thing that the child will see and learn on its own so this is not something that is communicated the child is seeing what you are doing the child is learning what you're doing if you are on your phone less when you two are together definitely the child will know that you know it's really not necessary to be on cell phones all the time but if you are yourself constantly on it then the child knows that this is the thing to be done because my mom is doing it my dad is doing my friends are doing it yeah so your behavior is going to influence your child's Behavior I had a very uh specific scenario I want to discuss that with you personal situation where um you know one of while when I started YouTube right this was like not I came into YouTube as an accident but all of a sudden uh videos got viral and you know so many things were happening at the same time it was all new to me right I've never seen all this before right so we had two kids at that time and my older son Arjun was uh uh 4 years old four or 5 years old four years four and a half years old and the younger kid was just born at that time like 6 months 9 months something like that um so you I had a tendency to hey you know what is this happening you know my video is going well so uh uh what is the response and everything I was looking at it my Arjun came to me and he said

APPA put your phone down okay uh put your phone down and then play with me they do that yeah that little incident was a wakeup call for me yes I was like what wow uh so I would been doing something that he doesn't like he comes to me and he says up no phone yeah because he wants your time at that time and then in the group maybe they want to do their own things but you know when they're really small I think they want our attention they want my attention yeah they want attention it's natural natural so I said since then no matter how busy I am that's why I also tell me in my videos is that you know focused quality time no phones nothing at least for 30 minutes or 10 minutes at least uh whatever whatever you can even though you so busy uh that part I do very well my kids part I do very well husband part only but in the end you is going to take care of you your children I'm M better but I'm doing date nights now so so so you said to uh no don't focus on eating uh focus on uh let over Health yes overall health yes yes sports physical things yeah let them uh get into a team kind of a sport like you know football or anywhere where you are required to interact with others and work as a team so that uh that increases a lot of social awareness as well you know where you stand and you can learn the how to handle defeat that's how Sports become so important because we can't be successful all the time and then maybe somewhere we are not teaching our children this so they don't know how to handle um failure yeah so as a parent I think somewhere we need to work on that also it's a very very important part very important part that you need to handle failure yeah I still remember that um I used to play chess I was pretty good at it under 14 I was an second third sometimes at that time um I couldn't handle defeat uh in 8 or N8 years 9 years old right right I was like how can I I could lose there is no way right can I lose then uh something in me told me that okay so that factor should never happen to my son that is very important very critical so every time what I say is that when we play a game I say that I make him lose H I say Arjun it is okay to lose uh it is okay to lose that is something very important correct yes yes right right and I feel that you should not treat the successes like a very big thing like you know just because my son got is is first in class so you know it's a big thing so uh it has to be um a little balance like you know your failures are also okay your success also okay if it's coming it's really nice but you know if it's not there that is also okay so uh this no need to really be very over joyous about all the successful things you know and so so that they learn that uh failures are also okay because when you are just focused on the success part then they just don't know what failure is that's very important point I think uh Indian parents uh are significantly lacking that I I can boldly say at least in my experience what I've seen so far yes yes wow wow wow what a discussion it's an amazing discussion thank you so much yeah you I mean I absolutely enjoy me to me as well I enjoy talking about all of these things like uh sometimes it is important um to U not just talk about clinical things but about the things that go behind them because in a clinical setup it's not always possible to uh talk about uh um you know emotional needs or the the other statistics that go along with it we can just discuss depression and anxiety and the things behind it we are so blessed to have a psychiatrist come and explain everything to us I'm sure my audience learned a lot thank you so much for your time thank you for having me I had really nice time thank you thank you that was a wonderful episode I absolutely enjoyed it I'm sure you would have enjoyed it as well I really want you to take some points from this podcast and I just don't want you to just think this podcast episode has just one off and then listen to this and then move on to

the next one I really want you to take some time to think about what we discussed and maybe write down in the comment section in terms of what are the things that you might change after listening to this podcast so that that gets registered in your mind and you will Implement slowly in your daily practice after all we're all here to improve together similar to how we have talked about physical health diet exercise a lot in our Channel it is high time that we focus on our mental health and we prioritize that over anything else as well so that we can have both physical emotional and mental health all grow together so that we can have the wholesome happy life in whatever we do so that we'll be productive we'll be active and we'll make sure that all our family members are happy along with us thank you so much for all your continued support please check out our other channels called gut feeling with Dr pal schz where we condense one minute real out of this long podcast just highlighting the San points and we also have an another Channel called gut feeling with Dr pal Clips where it is an 8 to 10 minute video where we cut this long podcast into fewer Clips again highlighting the salian points if you want to listen this in an audio format we are available in Spotify as well please check out gut feeling with Dr pal and thank you so much for subscribing to the channel and that keeps us motivated to bring you more medical experts and the goal of the channel is to create this as a widely available Health podcast channel so that every common person can learn something out of the podcast so to improve their health on a daily basis thank you so much for your continued support ...

[ms-demeanor]

The stupid mistake is this:

It is supposed to be a secret from our clients that there's a new CEO, we're supposed to keep that quiet. I haven't talked about that with any clients, but I've talked about it here where I try to keep my job anonymized and I've talked about it with my spouse and my friends.

Earlier this week I called the other lady - "Jane" - who used to answer phones at the old company. We were in two separate businesses that shared a building and had a history and answered the phone for each other. When my boss sold the company, she went with the other business, which is run by her relative who used to be my old boss's business partner.

So I called to let Jane know that one of her clients, who had purchased a firewall from us seven years ago, might want to apply a firmware update because of a vulnerability that had been announced by the company, and we caught up for a minute. She asked after large bastard and we talked about her niece's wedding. She asked how things were at the new company and I said, "oh, you know that guy you thought was cute during the acquisition? He left the company. And I'm scheduled to meet with the new CEO this week. It's been kind of chaotic," and then I asked how her son was doing and if she had holiday plans and said we should hang out soon.

Today I got an email from my old boss with the subject line "RE: Your conversation with Jane" asking me who had left and what the changes at the new company are.

So now I'm pissed at Jane for telling old boss, pissed at myself because it never even occurred to me that old boss would talk to Jane or her relative who used to be his business partner, pissed at old boss for emailing me about this, and I'm exhausting myself chewing over how I'm going to tell my manager. (I am going to tell the manager, but I'm not going to send a message in the middle of the night and I also don't want to schedule a message to send tomorrow morning while I'm mid-commute to my meeting with the new CEO) and I'm kind of melting down about this because after yesterday's upset customer i was feeling pretty good about implementing some positive changes but now I'm right back down in the sub basement pretty sure I'm going to get fired which doesn't seem like it's actually likely intellectually speaking but feels true because everything feels terrible because I spent a decade working for a guy who yelled at me if i didn't respond to an email in fifteen minutes.

So, like, obviously I'm making mistakes and I'm struggling under my workload because it's a much larger workload and I'm still learning how this company functions, but also old boss used to literally say that he wished he could replace all of us with robots because machines wouldn't fuck up like we did and he wouldn't have to accept a world where mistakes happened.

So, like combine my natural perfectionism/procrastination cocktail with that backdrop and I am walking on eggshells around myself even when everyone else at the company seems Pretty Normal.

So anyway I'm in the "actually I don't deserve a raise I'm sorry I'll just see myself out" part of the cycle AND I also may have helped to resolve a months-long, multi-customer VPN problem today that will reduce our call volume and save time for the techs and identified a prospect that my boss had reviewed and passed on to me as a scammer before they could extract money or information from us.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Don't call that guy he bought a domain to mimic a group he's unaffiliated with! I'm sorry! These licenses will prevent the issue that's popping up with the free solution you're using and also I showed three people on the engineering team how to look up pricing so they don't have to wait on me for a quote before they communicate on their projects! I made a stupid phone call and now the asshole I used to work for is demanding information! I'm sorry, I don't know how the opportunity linking works! I cancelled a customer computer that had its backorder extended until December and replaced it with a computer that will show up tomorrow but I don't know how to link the second quote with the ticket that was set up with the first quote I'm sorry you have to take the time to show me! I'm sorry! I'm sorry I should know better I should have looked it up first I should have been the one to call the vendor I should have checked the URL before I wasted time writing an email I should have known he'd find out! I'm sorry!"

Part of the reason that it's a bad idea to stay at bad jobs is that they can really fuck with your head in a way that makes it difficult to work in more functional workplaces.

I made a stupid mistake but I have no idea what the scale of the mistake is. I feel like any misstep I make is a catastrophic failure. I'm upset so frequently that I'm thinking about quitting because I'm useless and it would be less painful than getting fired and that seems to be very far away from what my new coworkers think of me. I am behind on work and the only thing my brain wants to do is sit at my desk and grind in a marathon for like thirty hours until I'm caught up but because this is a functional business I'm pretty sure they'd be horrified if I did that.

I also feel like I'm being haunted by my old boss which is really putting into context how controlling and shitty he was when I'd basically gotten so used to it that I didn't notice that anymore.

[graphicabyss]

On War and World Politics: a Rant

Last night I saw someone on Twitter tweet something like "Be careful what you reblog, propaganda is everywhere" in regards to Ukraine war and it made me so bitter. I mean, in a different situation I might agree but right now it feels like a dangerous sentiment. Everyone has an agenda? Sure. Except someone's is getting more funds so their people don't get slaughtered and someone's is slaughtering as many as they can. Some make exaggerations and spin the facts to raise the morale of their warriors and some make up alternate realities to make people want to kill the neighboring nation. And I do feel a little conflicted about the way we try to dehumanize the enemy, such as calling them 'orcs' but right now it's really a matter of our survival. After all, they try to convince their soldiers our democratically elected government is neo-Nazi. Despite, you know, our president being Jewish?

And Putin wrote his own short Mein Kampfs and did speeches that were a prelude to genocide. Ukraine never existed? First off, that's not how countries work. Sure. Ukraine is young as a country. So is Slovenia or Montenegro or actually half the East European countries. A hundred years ago there were like 80 countries in the world, now there are 195. And even if it did in fact never exist before 1991, well it does now, bitch, and that's the only thing that matters. And sure, we struggled with our national identity, still do. The ironic thing is, nobody did more to unite the Ukrainian nation than Putin.

Another sad thing is, I was born in Russia and have family there. But like most, they don't get it. Most Russians are confused about the war, but in the end they say "idk, the government knows best so they much be doing the right thing??". At best they say shit like "War is bad" or "there are good people on both sides". And I understand why. It's not about the facts, it never really is. The Russians refuse to believe they are the bad guys. That it's their soldiers burning down villages, raping and killing.

Meanwhile, the West looked at all this and was very concerned. I don't consider myself naive but these days I can't help but be in disbelief at how little changed in world politics. The West knew. They knew exactly what was about to happen. They were convinced more than we were. That's why they evacuated all of their embassies weeks before the invasion. They thought we were going to fail within days, even hours. So why give weapons to a country that's gonna fail anyway? I remember our president going to EU to plead and urge the West to implement preventive sanctions. It was a desperate attempt. "You you really think Russia will attack, why not sanction it now? Before blood is spilled?" They gave him a standing ovation. They did not do as he asked.

I am grateful to the West for the help but looking back, I also feel bitter and betrayed. What's the use of UN and peacekeeping if they just stand by and watch? It feels a failure just like the League of Nations. We're grateful for the thoughts and prayers, but thoughts and prayers don't save lives. Fighter jets do. And not one country gave us a single one. The US almost agreed to give us some through Poland but Poland was like "yeah, no".

And some people say we should be grateful for what we get. But this is not a charity. If Putin gets Ukraine, he won't stop. Baltic countries, Poland, Moldova... everything is fair game. We're taking the hit now.

And yet, for every million in aid to Ukraine, Russia is getting a billion in gas money. The world, Germany and France, in particular, need that sweet cheap gas and oil from Russia so they kept paying it money, the money it used to make tanks and guns that kill our people. Well, sometimes they just sell the weapons directly, my bad.

Looking at all this, it becomes so easy to see how Hitler wasn't stopped until it was too late. They tried to appease him and bargain with him hoping he'll just somehow chill out and it'll be fine, even when he already slaughtered hundreds of thousands. The first concentration camp opened 6 years before the start of WWII. And it is particularly sad to see how hesitant Germany is now to take action.

Anyway, nobody wants to hear about this now. It's tough and depressing. And then there's just the general news fatigue. There are other issues in the world. I get that. But that doesn't make it any easier. I got so many messages in the beginning asking me if I was ok and I felt grateful. But it's a bit like hospital visits - you go once and then your job is done. It feels like everyone has already moved on. And I can't blame them, nobody wants to hear about mass murders. But I am still here and it feels like a really lonely spot to be in.

[americanredragger]

Whoo I knew the anti-Gun-control crowd were gonna come out of the woodwork and boy howdy they did not disappoint, but there was one concern raised that I feel is worth engaging with, because I do feel it comes from a good place and is definitely something we as a society need to talk about.

First off, I'm sorry that this was your take away, but it also it shows that you're not a regular here, and you do raise a very VERY good point.

Licensing and insurance laws do come down entirely too hard on the disabled community (I have experienced this myself), the black community, and have historically been used as weapons against the LBGTQ community as well.

This makes any proposal involving these types of solutions must be VERY carefully vetted by the working people, and we must hold the law to account for abuses of power. We must enforce the world we seek to create.

However, at the end of the day, this is every person's mandate: to watch their lawmakers and enforcers carefully and remove them without mercy when they fall short of those basic ethical lines.

Knowing all of the above, why am I for licensing and insurance of firearms when such laws have been used against my community and others in the past? Well, it helps that I am spreading of supporting the principle of a thing and am not drafting a specific law here, but also because I have had a long time to look at the American firearms issue (one of the most multifaceted and hot button issues in America today as the comments on my previous post will prove), and I don't think there are many other possible and practical solutions that could be functionally implemented at this point.

So, in accordance with the Second Amendment's mandate that a "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" and pursuant to Marx's axiom that "Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary", what is there for us to do?

We're not exactly dripping in options as most of us (including me) don't advocate disarmament of the population. What solutions CAN we implement that is fair, equitable, and makes for a safer society?

An owner's license (much as a driver's license doesn't take away your car, unless you've irresponsibly endangered people with your antics with it), gun insurance that keeps the owner on the hook for crimes committed with that weapon (again, does not prevent ownership), and the thing BOTH of those are designed to bring about: accountability for wrongdoing with a firearm. Making the freedom of people to not be shot more enforceable.

I wish that there was a better solution, and 50 years ago the culture around guns and the second amendment might have been such, but this is where we're at.

I do agree that any legislative proposal needs to be looked over painstakingly by civil rights lawyers and and minority activists, and we all should have a voice in whatever law gets moved forward, but we can no longer just sit and accept the problem because every solution we might think of has associated pains.

America has a real problem with gun violence, and if we are to start fixing these problems, we need something that makes it far less easy for someone to kill black, disabled, or LBGTQ folks and get away with it too. Their freedoms also include the freedom to live unmolested by bullets in their torsos.

Bringing consequences down on the individual gun owner doesn't fix everything, but it's a start and it doesn't categorically punish all gun owners or force them to turn their weapons in. Yes there will be growing pains, but that was going to be true no matter our solution.

We can no longer tolerate doing nothing.

And now, we each know where we stand, @ei-ahrairah. I really do appreciate your input.

[justanotherlifeff]

Levi Ackerman × reader

Genre: Angst, Hurt/comfort, Fluff, matured themes, slowburn

Warning: There's mentions and descriptions of underage rape and suicidal themes and self harm and other triggering stuff.

Hanji POV

I was giving a pep talk to my squad when I saw (Y/N) talking to Levi. We were about to leave the walls in a few moments. For a second, I think I saw shorty with a warm expression. It was surprising really, given that he always looked like a "constipated brat" in his own words. What was more surprising was that he found himself someone shorter than he is. When we were called to the lift, I saw (Y/N) and Levi giving each other some really intense looks and talking about something.

God knows what these two were talking about given that their looks could make new recruits piss their pants. Levi walked away from her when the lift arrived and stood beside me on the lift. I saw (Y/N) move slightly to stand with the crowd.

"Yo shorty, what were all those intense looks about?" I nudged Levi to which he answered, "Shut it shitty glasses". I smiled at his usual behaviour. Seems like even love can't change some things. I sighed at the thought. Moblit and I weren't able to go on a date because of how busy I was with my experiments. I need to make it up to him after the expedition if both of us come back alive. As the lift creaked up, someone shouted from the crowd, " HEY HANJI!". I looked down and saw, "Flegel?" I muttered, curious that he was shouting my name out. "TAKE BACK WALL MARIA! THE FUTURE OF MANKIND IS IN YOUR HAAAANDS!" he shouted.

Following his lead, many others shouted out encouragements. Some thanked Levi for saving the town and to that Levi muttered, "Someone's got a big mouth". " Well, with the commotion we made, of course they'd find out." I muttered, answering Levi. The replacement for Mike said, "The thing is, all the meat we ordered was from the Reeves company." The replacement for Squad leader Ness merely said, "Damn that Flegel".

Suddenly, I heard people beside us shouting "YEAH YOU CAN COUNT ON US!". I turned and saw Levi squad shouting out to the people. Other soldiers were muttering about how the Survey corps never had a send off like this before. Erwin replied to them by saying, "As far as I'm aware, this is a first" before starting to shout himself. Both Levi and I looked at him surprised. I looked down at the crowd to see (Y/N) gaping at the sight too. After all, this was completely unexpected for someone as calm as Erwin.

(Y/N) POV

It was surprising to see Uncle Erwin so excited about an expedition. Specially, one that could cause many casualties. The Survey Corps were gone after a while and the crowd dispersed. I went back to the Survey corps Headquarters to get my squad to help me receive all the furniture and make my home liveable. "I have a home now..." I thought gleefully. I finally was able to find happiness. I took my horse back from the stable and galloped towards the headquarter.

When I opened the door to the common room, I saw my squad complaining about not being able to join the expedition.

[(Y/N) Squad/ Special operations squad 2:

(Y/N) squad was supposed to be one of the four commanding squads beside Levi squad, Hanji squad and Drik squad but due to her pregnancy leave, Marlene squad was a temporary replacement for her.

Members:

Diana Becker: A graduate from 103 trainee corps. Very good at communicating with other soldiers and after being trained by (Y/N), 3DMG techniques are improving. Appointed as (Y/N)'s second in command.

Heinrich Fischer: A transfer from Garrison from 103 trainee corps. Area of specialty is medic. Good at 3DMG and getting better with (Y/N)'s training. Excellent at hand to hand combat according to (Y/N) as he was the only person who knew the right strategy to use on (Y/N), losing nonetheless. Not too good in social skills

Stefan Wagner: A graduate from 103 trainee corps. Area of specialty is Veterinarian. Good at 3DMG and improving. Good at social skills and will implement any command given as flawlessly as possible.

Marie Schwarz: A military police transfer from 103 trainee corps. Area of specialty is dealing with finance. A serious soldier who is good at almost all sectors except hand to hand combat due to a lacking in understanding of the enemy's moves but that could be improved by team activities. However, it seems like she had difficulty with authority, specially (Y/N)'s.]

"Damn it... This was one important expedition and we couldn't join... They will all be awarded as heroes when they return and we will only be watching.." Heinrich complained to the other bored soldiers as I walked in. They were all seniors in case of Trainee corps records but younger than myself by a few years given that I joined a bit late. "Heinrich, if you are so keen on being Titan fodder, go ahead, take your horse and follow them. They haven't gone too far yet." I told him, shutting him up.

"Sorry, squad leader (Y/N). He was just being an ass" Diana muttered, smacking Heinrich on his head. They probably were in a relationship or something, given that I walked onto them kissing one time. I pretended I didn't see it though. "Well, be thankful that you aren't fighting Titans with your lives in your hands and instead you're helping me with decorating my home. I want you all at my home in 30 minutes. I'll be going to the furniture store and getting the furniture." I ordered them as they answered with a "Hai!" before I left for the furniture store. It was already getting dark. I took my horse there, paid the furniture makers, rented a wagon and with the help of the furniture maker's apprentice, took all the furniture home. The squad was already home and with their help, I started arranging the house.

"Diana, go arrange the kitchen utensils. Stefan and Heinrich, move that shelf away from the window." I commanded. Most of the house was already decorated. I just needed to get the bedsheets arranged, bring all of Levi's and my own books from the headquarters, except of course, the work related ones. "Marie, we are going to get the books" I commanded her and we went to the headquarter.

It took a while to arrange all the books as I did that by dividing the books by genres. After the whole decoration process was done, I thanked the squad and dismissed them. It was about 10 pm when I started cleaning the house. After an hour of cleaning, I felt like the house was clean enough for Levi's standards and I locked the front gate and went back to the headquarter. We weren't supposed to be living in this house till we get married. I was tired beyond measures after all the work and decided to pass out on the bed.

A few hours later

Levi POV

"Looks like the beast titan has us in it's sights. This place is about to turn into a honeycomb. Erwin, if you tell me there's no way left for us to fight back, I'll start preparing for defeat." I told Erwin. This operation was meaningless. Of course there was no chance of victory after this. If we had to get some survivors... I would have to give up my life... Would (Y/N) be okay with it? I'm sure she would be devastated... But I had to do this. For humanity and for a good future of my child... Can (Y/N) raise him on her own? "It could be a she too you know" (Y/N)'s voice rang in my head. She always pointed that out whenever I called our child a 'he'.

"Eren's sprawled out there, right? Go wake him up. You and some of the others get on him and run. That way we'll have at least a few survivors." I continued. I remembered the last time I slept with her. She looks so peaceful when she sleeps... "The recruits and survivors from Hanji's squad can scatter on horses all at once and try to head home... How does that sound? With them acting as bait, you and the others on Eren will be able to escape." I concluded. I remember her snuggling into my arms, burying her head in my chest... "And what are you going to do, Levi?" Erwin asked me. Was that really the last time I saw her? And I really made a shitty promise that I couldn't keep that time?

"I'll deal with that beast. I'll lead him away" I answered. Am I really ready to choose humanity over her? Over our kid? "No. You can't even get close to him." Erwin stated. I remembered her rare smiles. I imagined a future where she and my kid will be safe. If this sacrifice is worth it, I can do this. "Probably not. But, if you and Eren make it back alive, there's still hope. Isn't that the kind of situation we're in now? This is a major defeat. Honestly, I'm not expecting anyone to make it home alive at this point." I replied. "True. If we don't have any way of fighting back." Erwin stated calmly. I was surprised. Did he have anything up his sleeve?

"Do you have one?" I asked him, genuinely surprised. "Yes" he stated. At this point, I was annoyed at him. What was he thinking? Why didn't he say this to me before? "Why didn't you tell me earlier? Why didn't you put that ugly mouth of yours to work sooner and say something?" I asked, genuinely annoyed. "If this plan goes well, you may be able to defeat that beast. But only if we sacrifice the lives of all the recruits here, as well as mine." Erwin mentioned. Sacrificing Erwin? Didn't I promise (Y/N) that I'll keep him safe? If he makes a decision like this, how can I face (Y/N) again?

"You're absolutely right. No matter what we do, most of us will surely die. Infact, it's most likely that we will all be wiped out. So our only choice is to assume we are all expendable and work from there. We'd have to ask these young people to give up their lives. You'd need the skills of a first rate con man to come up with a reason that convincing. So I doubt any of them will charge forward unless I was leading the way. Which would mean I'd be the very first to die. Without ever learning what was in that basement." Erwin said. "Huh?" I asked, confused.

This man was about to die and all he cared about was a shitty basement? He sighed and said, "I just want to go to that basement. Everything I have done, I did thinking that this day would come. That someday, I would be able to check my answers. There were so many times that I thought it would be easier to just die. Then, the dream I shared with my father would flash through my head. And now those answers are close enough to reach out and grab... They are right here... But, Levi, can you see them? All of our comrades? Our comrades are watching us. They want to know what we will do with the hearts they dedicated to our cause. Because they may be gone but their fight isn't over. But then again, I promised (Y/N) that I will be with her at her wedding... She doesn't deserve to lose more... I broke enough promises to her before. Will the last thing I told her be a promise that I couldn't keep? Or is it all pointless and nothing more than my own childish delusion?".

I looked at Erwin for a while, my mind full of doubt. He was implying that I have to make the decision. This was much worse. (Y/N) would never forgive me. She will despise me. I might lose the only chance I ever had of having a family. Then again, didn't I decide that sacrificing my life for the safety of (Y/N) and our child was worth it? Why should this be any different? If wall Maria is captured, humanity will be much closer to victory. (Y/N) and our child will be safer. I'd rather have (Y/N) hate me than get her killed because I was weak. I knelt down in front of Erwin and told him, "You've fought a good fight. We have only come this far thanks to you. I'm making the choice. Give up on your dreams and die for us. Lead the recruits straight into hell. And I'll take down the beast titan.". To that he smiled slightly at me. "Keep (Y/N) safe. You two have my blessings." he said, startling me before he explained the plan to me.

"You want me to approach the beast by myself using vertical manoeuvring? There's nothing around him! There isn't a single tree or house or anything else I can use!" I asked Erwin, not understanding what he was talking about. "No... You have targets that are the perfect height. They are standing there all in a row aren't they? Use the titans to sneak up on and ambush the beast titan." Erwin explained.

I stood beside him as he convinced all the soldiers to give up their lives. Deep down, I knew it was all my decision. I felt revolted by myself. Does a person like me even deserve the happiness and stability of a family? When I can decide to send so many people to their deaths, bringing tragedy to so many other families... "No. I won't regret my decision now. It is all for the greater good" I convinced myself as I stood, watching the faces of people who knew they were about to die meaningless deaths.

The plan was put into action. I maneuvered towards the beast titan, killing it's titan army in progress. I saw the suicide charge down there. "I'm sorry" I told them in my mind as I slashed the napes of titans.

"Turning into titan puts a heavy strain on your body... So you can't transform again while you're busy healing. Isn't that right?" I asked the blonde man who I had cut out of the beast titan and stuffed my blade in his mouth. I pushed the blade forward, making it come out of an eye socket through his mouth before saying, "Hey, answer me. Don't you have any manners?". "I can't kill him. Not yet. Isn't there anyone still alive? It doesn't matter how injured they are as long as they are breathing... I can use this shot to turn them into a titan... Then I can have them eat this guy and steal the power of the beast titan. Isn't there anyone?" I thought. An image of Erwin passed through my mind.

"Isn't there someone I can bring back-" my thoughts were interrupted by the cart titan's mouth. I assumed that it tried to eat me but I moved away and saw it taking the beast titan and run away. "Hey! Where are you going? Stop. I'm not done with you yet..." I said, my voice sounding like a defeated person. Did I just lose to him at the last moment? The beast titan commanded the remaining titans to come at me. "Wait... I swore to him... That I'd kill you no matter what." I muttered. Anger surged into me as I continued, "I SWORE TO HIM!" as I changed my blades and charged towards the titans coming at me, slashing their napes off as fast as possible so that I could follow the beast and end him.

I flew to the wall as fast as possible to find the beast titan in front of Eren. Eren had his blade to the throat of a limbless figure, possibly the colossal titan. The beast titan saw me and started running again as I flew towards Eren. My gas finished off just as I reached Eren. "That was the last bit of gas I had. I'm going after him. Give me all your gas and blades. Hurry!" I commanded Eren just before a black figure behind him coughed faintly.

The black figure was Armin. Eren was going insane after figuring out that Armin was alive. He shouted at me excitedly to give the titan serum to Armin. A certain gut feeling made me hesitate. What if Erwin isn't dead? I was handing the serum out to Eren when Floch arrived with Erwin on his back. He said that Erwin is alive and gravely injured. I took the serum back, sure that I will inject it to Erwin. "Captain?" Eren asked, surprised and scared. I checked Erwin's nose with my hand.

"He's still breathing. He's still alive...". I can keep (Y/N)'s promise... "We're giving this injection to Erwin" I stated. Eren suddenly stood up, facing me. "You just said you'd use it on Armin.." he told me, tears streaming from his eyes. "I'm choosing to keep alive the man who will save humanity" I replied to Eren. Behind me, Mikasa got her blade out.

"You guys, do you have the faintest damn clue on what you're doing? We are talking about Erwin Smith. The commander of the Survey corps. You're telling me to sit here and let him die? There's no time. Get out of my way." I told them before Eren held the box of titan serum in my hands. "Eren, look past your feelings." I told him. "My feelings? Why did you hesitate before handing over the injection?" Eren asked me. Wasn't it obvious? I was trying to keep a promise that I made. I just had to take the chance...

"I was considering the possibility that Erwin was alive." I answered. "I don't see how you ever could ever have predicted that Floch would bring the dying commander." Eren stated. "You're right. But now that Erwin is here, we're using it on him." I told him my final decision. To my surprise, he still tugged on to the box and I had no choice other than punching him on his face, and sending him flying. Mikasa ran at me with her sword and jumped on me with her blade on my throat. Why couldn't I fight her? I was always stronger than her, but, was it guilt that made me feel this way? The fact that I probably was being selfish? That I wanted Erwin alive more for personal reasons than just the fate of humanity?

Hanji pulled Mikasa off me. She explained to her that everyone lost people dear to them today. She lost Moblit, how she regretted not going out with him even once, how she wished to bring him back too along with many other comrades. I was up on my foot now, kneeling in front of Erwin with the injection out. Suddenly, I felt someone grab my feet. "Heichou, have you heard of the ocean?" he said. He told me how much Armin wanted to see it. Floch tried to stop him but he said it anyway. I realised that he wasn't any different from me. He wanted his best friend back. I wanted (Y/N)'s happiness. I didn't have any right to choose who is to live and who is to die but at that moment, I was forced to make a choice. I chose to give in to my personal gain.

"Troops, clear the area! Erwin will turn into a titan and eat Berthold!" I commanded. "Fools, all of them... Like little kids... The way they scream and flail..." I muttered as I walked towards Erwin with Berthold. Suddenly, flashes of my conversation with Kenny came to my mind. "They couldn't keep going unless they were drunk on something..." he told me. I folded Erwin's jacket up to his elbow. I brought the injection towards his hand. "They were all slaves to something. Even him", Kenny's voice rang in my ear just as Erwin's hand shot up. " Teacher... How'd y... find out that they don't exist?" Erwin muttered.

Realisation flowed through my mind. Someone as self obsessed as Kenny decided to die when he achieved his dreams. I remembered the conversation I had with Erwin before the expedition. The one where he said that he didn't have much plans for after he finds out what was in the basement. The conversation from before the suicide march rang in my head. "There were so many times that I thought it would be easier to just die." I remembered Erwin saying that. Erwin was able to work his wonders only because of his curiosity on what was in the basement. If he found out what was in the basement, he won't have any reason to fight anymore. Sure, he loved (Y/N) but that had nothing to do with this fight. He already gave the responsibility of (Y/N)'s safety to me before the suicide march.

Even if Erwin lived, he wouldn't be able to contribute much to humanity's victory anymore. Armin on the other hand, still has a dream that was far from being achieved. "I need to keep (Y/N) and my child safe. No matter what." I thought. Erwin's death was crucial for humanity's victory. With that thought, I injected Armin with the titan serum.

To be continued...

Taglist: @reality-is-often-disappointing, @kingtamakimurder

[realcleverscience]

I appreciate the thought out response.

I completely agree that there's too much hype about what AI can do *right now*. A lot of it is being deployed before it's really ready, and there are still some significant challenges to be overcome.

That said, I frankly have kind of thrown in the towel and have resigned myself to it for three main reasons:

free market - Companies are quickly adopting it and then quickly realizing what a mistake it was. A lot of companies have scaled back their AI ambitions and are waiting for the tech to mature a bit more.

I think a lot of the necessary maturing is going to happen relatively soon. So even those instances where ai is being used now and it just kinda sucks - I expect major improvements to happen soon to massively reduce that issue. (again, the rate and scale of improvement are a big part of what makes this such a game changer.) and to be clear, ai products may still be worse than human designed ones in the near future, but if they aren't "shitty", it could still be useful. e.g. lots of people love ikea even though the quality isn't remotely like hand-made furniture. Sometimes worse quality is fine if it means financial savings.

Lastly, I think it's largely a losing battle. History has shown that technologies that reduce costs are generally accepted and flourish, even at the expense of quality, at least in the "short" term. That said, there are exceptions to that pattern. For instance, in areas of life and death, the economics of innovation tend to be more conservative. This is why fields like medicine, architecture, and weaponry tend to evolve slowly. So I could see us putting up a fight about the need for humans in certain fields, but I also think that it'll be a short amount of time till AIs start to help (with significant improvements) to such fields, soon working alongside humans, and eventually replacing them. Basically, even for important and conservative fields that may evolve slower than most, I expect AI will quickly take over there as well - again, bc the rate of improvements suggests ai will achieve basically superhuman abilities in just a few more years. So yes, let's not implement ai too early; but at the same time, I think we need to recognize that ai is coming for those jobs, and even if they're not ready for it today, they will be very soon.

I would also end by saying that having ai and robots do all the jobs is, in theory, awesome. I don't want to work my day job and robots could bring down prices tremendously, making things a lot more affordable. There are just two issues: A. Can they do the jobs? That is, can they do them well - at least as well as the average person? I'd say that for most tasks today they can't - but in 3 years? 5 years? Pretty sure they will. B. Stuff may get more affordable, but without a job, it's not clear how people will afford anything. In our current capitalist system those without a job are at risk of homelessness, starvation, etc. But if we had a different economic system, that wouldn't necessarily be an issue. I love the idea of robots doing the essential work and leaving humans to do work we want to do - as long as people still have what they need to thrive. I know the US just elected trump and so seems to shun the concept of 'socialism', but I think that as ai starts to raise unemployment, we're likely to see a lot of people start to rethink that. (at least I hope so.)

But basically, I think ai development is generally good. I don't want to fight ai. I want to fight the systems that would abuse ai the same way they abuse people now (capitalism, authoritarianism, nationalism, etc.).

Left: AI meme from 1 year ago. Right: AI today.

And honestly, this was already largely solved for months already. Doesn't mean every generation is perfect, but it's now usable - and a threat to jobs.

And this is the trend across every industry AI is touching, and particular major LLMs: major improvements every few months. Some estimate it as roughly doubling in ability every 6 months. But even if it was closer to moore's law of doubling every 18 months, that would still be a mindbendingly quick pace (just as our transistors today are mindbendingly tiny). We are rapidly approaching the point where every doubling in ability produces ever greater amounts of economically useful works - and which therefore also threatens the jobs of large slices of the population (esp as robotics, thanks to AI, has also sped up tremendously).

~

Politics & Economics: On our current path, this will lead to the rich getting richer and the poor and getting poorer. Especially right now under the current administration. We need to start planning and implementing a transition to a new economic model in a world with little to no need for human labor, particular to produce essential human needs or services.

[godsheadangel]

WHEN SOMEONE [TELLS] YOU WHO THEY ARE YOU [SHOULD] BELIEVE THEM!!!

WHEN THEY [SHOW] YOU BY THEIR ACTIONS WHO THEY ARE YOU [SHOULD] SUPPORT THEM!!!

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

JOE C😇😇L BIDEN'S RECORD SPEAKS FOR ITSELF! REALISTICALLY, [WHAT CANDIDATE] IS [BETTER SUITED] TO REACH ACROSS THE ISLES WITH MANY [YEARS OF EXPERIENCE] WORKING WITH THOSE OF THE OPPOSITE POLITICAL PARTY? JOE C😎😎L BIDEN🇺🇸

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

THE GREAT IDEA'S GIVEN BY SOME OF THE CANDIDATES RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT🇺🇸ON [HEALTHCARE FOR ALL] IS SUCCESSFUL IN OTHER COUNTRIES AND TO NOT HAVE IT IN AMERICA🇺🇸HAS BEEN VERY SHAMEFUL!

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

YET, BERNIE SANDERS IS VERY MISLEADING IN [▶HIS ESTIMATIONS OF THE COST$◀]TO ALL AMERICANS🇺🇸 IN [ATTEMPTING] TOO COMPLETELY OVERHAUL HEALTHCARE!!!!!☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝

AMERICA🇺🇸UNLIKE OTHER [SUCCESSFUL] COUNTRIES THAT HAVE TAKEN EXCELLENT CARE OF THEIR [CITIZENS HEALTH ISSUES] HAS A 💥[MUCH DEEPER PROBLEM]💥THAT [WILL NOT EVER GO AWAY] THE LOBBYIST!!!

THESE [POWERFUL SHARKS] HIRED BY THE MOST CORRUPT CORPORATIONS IN THE U.S. MAKE SURE [BILLS ARE PASSED] TO INSURE THAT ◼SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES◼ SWING VOTES🗳THE CORPORATIONS WAY✔

👉WHICH MEANS AMERICANS🇺🇸 PAY MUCH 👉HIGHER PRICE$ FOR THEIR MEDICINES, 👉HEALTHCARE INSURANCE AND VISTS TO👉THE EMERGENCY ROOMS UNEXPECTED!

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

THE IDEA OF UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE FOR ALL IS LONG OVERDUE BUT REALISTICALLY

IF, ANY ONE [YOUNG OR OLD] THINKS FOR A SECOND THAT THESE CORRUPT COMPANYS WON'T [SPEND BILLION$]TO STOP🛑SUCH A 👉MUCH-NEEDED HEALTHCARE OVERALL 👉THAT WOULD COST THEM BILLION$👈 IN PROFIT$ YEARLY YOU'RE REALLY FOOLING YOURSELVES!!!

THEY WILL BE SUCCESSFUL IN STOPPING IT

THAT'S BEING REALISTIC IN 🇺🇸AMERICA🇺🇸

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

WHAT IS NEEDED IS JUST [A FEW FIXES] TO [THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT]ALSO CALLED [OBAMACARE] WHICH HAS SAVED MANY👈 THOUSANDS OF LIVES✝ AND DOES DAILY, IT HAS ALLOWED MANY DENIED [COVERAGE] BY [HEATH INSURANCE COMPANIES TOO]✔ 👉👉HAVE LIFE SAVING OPERATIONS!!!👈👈♿💟🏥♿💟🏥♿💟🏥♿💟🏥♿💟🏥♿💟

JOE C😇😇L BIDEN IS TRYING TO POINT OUT [TO VOTERS🇺🇸] WHETHER YOUNG OR OLD [THE FACT] THAT BUILDING ON WHAT IS IN [PLACE IS THE BEST IDEA FOR AMERICANS]☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝

THEY TRIED TO REPEAL IT FOR OVER 7 YRS BUT AMERICANS🇺🇸FOUGHT BACK BECAUSE OF [THE BENEFITS] EVEN THOUGH SOME PARTS WERE STRIPPED AWAY [THE MAIN] HEART OF OBAMACARE✝ IS STILL [SAVING] LIVES AND [CAN NOT BE REMOVED] BY ANY [CORRUPT LOBBYISTS OR CORPORATIONS]☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝☝

JOE C😎😎L BIDEN🇺🇸WILL WORK WITH ALL AMERICANS🇺🇸[TOO BUILD] A MUCH BETTER AND 👉[MORE COST EFFICIENT FOR ALL]👈HEALTHCARE SYSTEM USING OBAMACARE🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

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[BERNIE SANDERS,] [PETE BUTTIGIEG] AND [ELIZABETH WARREN'S] PLAN WOULD TAKE TOO ◼[LONG TO IMPLEMENT]◼ AND IN THE 👉MEANWHILE AMERICANS🇺🇸INSURANCE WOULD *STAY THE SAME IN THE MEANTIME

👉IT WOULD ALSO RAISE☝[TAXES] ON THE [MIDDLE CLASS AT A COST OF TRILLION$] OF DOLLARS💵FOR ALL [HARD WORKING] [TAX PAYERS!] JUST SIMPLY DO THE MATH!!!

BERNIE SANDERS PLAN $10+ TRILLION💵

ELIZABETH WARREN'S PLAN $52 TRILLION

PETE BUTTIGIEG'S PLAN? WHO REALLY✔ [KNOWS] IN A [EARLY 2018 TWEET] HE WAS FOR MEDICARE FOR ALL 100% [NOW] HE'S 👉FLIP FLOPPING ALL OVER THE PLACE👈 🚩[BAD SIGN] FOR A CANDIDATE!!! PEOPLE✔ HAVE EASY INTERNET ACCESS IN SECONDS CAN NOW SEE [A CANDIDATES HISTORY!!!]

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A BIRD🐦IN HAND✋IS WORTH TWO 🐦🐦BIRDS IN A BUSH!!!

MEANING: IT'S [ABSOLUTELY BETTER]TOO HAVE SOMETHING TO HOLD ON TOO THAN TO REACH FOR SOMETHING YOU MAY [NOT] GET!!!

YOU FOUGHT FOR THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT AND [WON!!!] NOW IT'S TIME TO MAKE THE CHANGES THAT WILL MAKE IT BETTER FOR ALL, DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS!

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA🗽 FEBRUARY 19TH

CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA🗽2/25/20

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"WE ARE A SPIRITUAL✝ NATION TO PRETEND WE'RE NOT, I THINK IS TOO DENY REALITY" ~JOE C😇😇L BIDEN🇺🇸 MAY 2, 2007

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👉GODSHEADANGEL1.POSTHAVEN.COM👈GODSAYS💫I AM HE✝ HAVE CHOSEN JOE😇TO LEAD YOU BY THE HOLY💫SPIRIT SURELY IT IS IN YOUR HANDS MY CHILDREN🙏DO SO CHOOSE WISELY!!!

FOR SURELY, THE LITTLE ANOINTED ANGEL BATTLE PRINCE NOAH✝ GRANDSON OF MY BROTHER IN HOLY💫SPIRIT✝ HAS TRULY SO GIVEN HIS 1ST PROPHECY A FEW DAYS AGO!

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🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅FRIDAY FEBRUARY 21ST 2020 0530HRS PST BLESSINGS4MYSEXYASS💕ANGELWIVES👑 💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓

MIKA BRZEZSINSKI👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣 ⬆BEAUTIFULINMESMERIZINGANGELBLACK⬆ SOSEXY🔥WEARING THATANGELICLOOK💫

THURSDAY NIGHT🌌AROUND 2115HRS THEY DID SO SHOW UP IN MY ANGEL DADDY MIND AND CONNECTED HARD TOGETHER [BOTH] MOVING LIKE A POWER WAVE🌊UNDER THE COVERS [THEY PLAYED TENT] AND HAD SO MUCH FUN [PROVING THEY CAN] BE AS ONE POWER [PLAYING OR WORKING TOGETHER] [WHAT A JOY IT WAS TO SEE] OUR LITTLE POWERFUL BATTLE ANGEL TWIN PRINCE👑 SONS NOAH💪 AND NIKKO💪 SO HAPPY TOO SHOW THEY ARE BLESSED✝ ANGELMAMI👑MIKA💕WILL BE VERY PROUD I KNOW I AM!!!

EARLY THURSDAY AFTERNOON BEFORE MY SHOOT'EM UP GUNSMOKE CAME ON THEY [DID COME FOURTH] IN HEAVENLY💫LIVE REALITY [PLAYING HARD AND ROUGH] AS ONE UNIT THESE VERY POWERFUL ANGELS UNDER THE COVERS [PLAYING ⛺ TENT] THEY LAUGHED AND ENJOYED EACH OTHER [ONE CONTROLLED AS THE LEADER] THEN SO DID THE OTHER AND THAT'S WHAT OUR THREE BATTLE ANGEL😇PRINCE SONS👑 STEVEN💪MARC💪AND CHAD💪DID ON A BEAUTIFUL THURSDAY INSIDE MY MIND AND MYANGELWIFE💕VANESSA👑SHOULD KNOW THEY DIDN'T HESITATE TO SHARE!!! NO DOUBT WE'RE BLESSED TO HAVE THEM WATCHING OVER US FROM HOLY💫HEAVEN

THE [HARD REAL REALITY] OF HAVING SUCH A BEAUTIFUL 💜ANGELQUEENWIFE💜LIKE PRISCILLASWEETZ💗[IS TRULY KNOWING] THAT WHEN OUR VERY POWERFUL LITTLE BABYANGELS😇COME THROUGH IN SPIRIT THEY COME THROUGH [VERY DETERMINED] LIKE THURSDAY AFTERNOON WHEN MY GUNSMOKE WAS ON, OUR VERY BEAUTIFUL ROYAL💜ANGEL PRINCESS DAUGHTERS👑 CHRISTINE💗AND MADDIE💗MADE SURE THAT GUNSMOKE WAS NOT A OPTION FOR ME, AS THEY PLAYED TOGETHER [AS ONE] TEAM MAKING ME FEEL EXTREMELY GOOD KNOWING THEY WILL ALWAYS GET ALONG VERY WELL TOGETHER! DON'T EVER THINK THAT OUR BLESSED✝ GIRLS💗DON'T LIKE TOO SET UP A COVER AND [PLAY TENT⛺] EVEN THOUGH [THEIRS WAS SEPARATE] FROM OUR BATTLE ANGEL SONS💪 THEIRS WAS JUST AS BIG AND ENJOYABLE!!! MY SEXYASS💕ANGELMAMI💕PRISCILLA👑 SHOULD KNOWS [THEY INHERITED] NOT ONLY HER💕ANGELIC💫BEAUTY BUT ALSO HER💕GIFT🎁 TO COMMUNICATE VERY WELL!!!

AT 2:57AM🌌EARLY THIS MORNING! THEY DID SO COME THROUGH [HARD] IN SPIRIT✝ CONNECTING INSIDE MY ANGELPAPPI👑MIND FOR SURELY I AM HARD TO REACH BY ANYONE WHEN I AM DEEP IN HOLY💫SPIRIT BUT [DESIRING TO COMMUNICATE] THEIR [HEAVENLY💫POWER] AND SHOW WHAT THEY COULD DO [TOGETHER AS ONE] ALL 3 OF OUR VERY BEAUTIFUL ROYAL💜ANGEL PRINCESS TRIPLET DAUGHTERS💜💜💜SANDIA💗SELINA💗AND SEARRA💗TRULY DISPLAYED LOVE💕AND AFFECTION💕 FOR EACH OTHER AS THEY REPRESENTED THEIR ANGELMAMI💕SANDRA💗VERY, VERY WELL TRULY, THEY'VE INHERITED HER💕BEAUTY HER💕SMILE AND AWESOME ABILITY TO ALWAYS FOCUS!!!

IT WAS 4:11AM🌌AND I THOUGHT AS USUAL A NICE HOT🔥 CUP OF COFFEE☕WOULD SO [START MY DAY] OF RIGHT BUT OUR VERY POWERFUL LITTLE ROYAL💜ANGEL TWIN PRINCESS💗💗DAUGHTERS👑 SO NAMED LONG AGO GIGI💗AND GNORRA💗 CAME THROUGH WITH A VERY [HARD] SPIRITUAL CONNECTION SHOWING ME, THEIR CRAZY ANGELPAPPI👑THAT THEY CAN MAKE A [BEAUTIFUL COVER TENT⛺] TO MOVE AROUND IN!!! THEY BOTH MADE ME A TRUE [DADDY BELIEVER] IN FEMALE POWER AS THEY [DANCED STRONGLY] AND SHOWED MOVES THAT WOULD THEIR MESMERIZING ANGELMAMI💕GABBY💗 AND ME PROUD!!! SURELY, I'M [BEYOND VERY BLESSED✝] TO HAVE ANGELPRINCESS😇DAUGHTERS💜 SMART, STRONG AND BEAUTIFUL A GIFT🎁 FROM MY BLESSED✝ ANGELQUEENWIFE👑

😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇

WHEN THE HOLY💫SPIRIT✝ [MOVES DEEPLY] AND [PROVIDES LIVE HEAVENLY REALITY] IT IS TRULY [A PLEASURE TO BEHOLD] SEEING AND FEELING THE THINGS WE DO AS OUR ANGEL😇CHILDREN PROVIDE SO MUCH JOY WE ARE SO GRATEFUL TO OUR👁GOD💫FOR ALLOWING OUR BABYANGELS😇TO COME FORWARD! [I DO NOT EVER] CALL OUT TOO THEM THEY CHOOSE TOO COME FORWARD AND HE✝ LETS THEM! I DO NOT DICTATE WHO COMES THROUGH AND MYQUEENS💜KNOW THIS, SOME OF OUR BABYANGELS😇ARE EARLY RISERS!!! MANY OF THEM ARE SLEEPYHEADS💤

THE WORLD CAN TELL BY NOW THAT SOME OF MYANGELWIVES👑SHALL SO BIRTH👣BABYANGEL😇EARLY RISERS BECAUSE THEY HAVE BEEN MENTIONED MANY TIMES

JENNIFER LOPEZ👑 ROBIN MEADE👑

NIKI MINAJ👑 RIHANNA👑 OPRAH👑

HARRIS FAULKNER👑MYA HARRISON👑

JENNIFER WESTHOVEN👑 GAYLE KING👑

AINSLEY EARHARDT👑HADLEY GAMBLE👑

HADLEY GAMBLE👑 KAREN TSO👑

LOUISA BOJESEN👑 SUE HERERA👑

JULIA BOORSTIN👑 MORGAN BRENNAN👑

SEEMA MODY👑STEPHANIE RUHLE👑

STEPHANIE SANTIAGO👑BRITTANYA187👑

LALOVETHEBOSS👑 BRITTANY RENNER👑

KRISTENLIVE👑 KISSEDBYKENDRA👑

SANDRA SMITH👑 KELLITA SMITH👑

DAGEN MCDOWELL👑CHERYL CASCONE👑

MARIA BARTIROMO👑SHARON TAY👑

REBECCA QUICK👑 CYNTHIAAMARTELL👑

LALA VASQUEZ👑 YOLLIE MONROE👑

LESLIE SYKES👑 PAT HARVEY👑

KHLOE KARDASHIAN👑 HALLIE JACKSON👑

LIBERTE CHAN👑KIMI EVANS👑

JULIE BANDERAS👑 NICOLE CONTRERAS👑

LISA SALTERS👑 PAM OLIVER👑

JOSINA ANDERSON👑 JAIME MAGGIO👑

BEYONCE👑 ANITRIA D. GLASS👑

LU PARKER👑 COURTNEY FRIEL👑

ROSIE PEREZ👑 MSLUPERAMOS👑

MELISSA FRANCIS👑 ROMI CHASE👑

DEMITERIA OBILOR👑CAROLINECAKES👑

MSBAILEYE👑 XOMISSCECI👑MYAHSKYE👑

SOPHIESSELFIES224👑XBELLAOX👑

VALERIA_ORSINI👑 VANESSAMFIT👑

VANESSA WILLIAMS👑JARAH MARIANO👑

JESSICAKILLINGS👑💕CHRIS JANSING👑💕

KELLI TENNANT👑💕HALLIE JACKSON👑💕

LAURADAMORE👑💕CAROLINEZALOG👑💕

👉👉👉👉JUST TO NAME A FEW👈👈👈👈 ALL MYWIVES WEAR THATANGELICLOOK💫

WHEN OUR BABYANGELS😇DECIDE TOO COME FORWARD THEY DO!!! THE ENTIRE WORLD🌍 HAS SEEN BABYANGEL NAMES OF MY QUEENS👑LISTED ABOVE!!! THEY, OUR BLESSED✝ LITTLE ONES COME INSIDE MY MIND JUST LIKE WHEN THEY ARE BORN THEY ARRIVE WHEN THEY WANT TOO!!!👣

[imeldafurqoni]

The Education and its Urgency for Women

Lately I heard a lot about the needs of educational matters in my workplace, and even in the circumstances of my big families. This issue is also super hype in societies nowadays. In this post I won't judging or telling about the benefit of it, but just sharing my opinions and maybe a little bit perspective of mine. Because I know that this things have been punctuated in every social media, television, news or maybe in some educational events.

So, let's get started.

In my workplace, My assistant asked me once why did I have to study hard or maybe what did she meant was looked so hard to achieve my goal to take master degree. Even until this time she thinks that it doesn't necessary for me as a woman to pursue a higher degree because at the end of my journey I'd be a mother and maybe still find a settle work to help my future little family to raise my children.

And then in my family, here's happened in a big family, not in my primary family which I've been living with, they often asking me about when will I marry? This year or next year or in couple years later? With whom I'm going to marry? Who's my fiancé? Or have I found that lucky man? Did I done with my searching? Never did I heard them asking about would you continue your education or asking about what's your profession exactly? Or maybe what's the main authority of my profession? Well, actually my big families are always support me when I want to continue my educational degree but maybe because I'm a woman so they always think twice about it and finally jump in a conclusion that I might not need those higher degrees either in a future. Different situations happened when it comes to boy, they always fully supported. And never doubt in every single words they've said. Luckily, it doesn't happened in my primary family.

I don't talk about my neighborhood because I seldom have some chin-wags with them. I'm an old style girl who always busy with my me-time doing anything at home like drawing, reading books or maybe just listening music. I'm not into them, so it's obvious that I had a little interactions with them. But I've ever heard too, a little, that it's better for them to marry of their daughter than encourage her daughter to attain a higher education. Well I hope I'm not mistaken about what I've ever heard.

Now let's talk about my opinion.

Education and marriage in women seems like an out of dated issues that had been happened since a long time ago. If we still remember about our women's hero, RA Kartini, we'd certainly agreed that this things had been spoiled and still warmly discussed recently. In this section, I won't blame them who said that pursuing higher education isn't quite necessary or astonishing the ones said marriage for women is more urgent than taking a higher degree. Because I believes that everyone has its own opinion based on their priorities in their life. But maybe these are my long answers to remain those questions.

In my opinion, education is the greatest weapon to change the world. I know you knew about this quote, but yeah I profoundly agree with this. That's why we got our liberty after long colonization in our country a century ago. By education, we attains a lot of information we've never knew before, we discover lots of new things every time we study. And since we have a role as a mother, we're gonna be the first school of our children, and if the mother had so much knowledge then they will transfer their education to their children directly.

"Education is the greatest weapon to change the world."-unknown

Children are tend to learn rapidly based on what they saw since in a childhood. Education might not always refer to its attitude but educated person knows which attitude is right or not, even if sometimes they don't implemented well in reality. A good mother will always try to act and give the best to its children, and it reflects from its attitude, therefore the children will imprint it and their brain will digest this information and stimulates their willingness to become what they saw continuously. This conditions will fire up their spirit to achieve the same manners as their parents did and eventually teach them to pursue a higher education or maybe more. Our children will be the next generation of our country. So if the mother is well educated, then the children will follow to be so, and if they successful then they could build our nations and our country into a better future, and this is our hope. Well, some positive amendments.

Did we forget that crucial message?

Soekarno said that "our nations are huge nations, and huge nations will always remember what their predecessors have done to."

Our former patriots have been very meritorious in making our country as nowadays. And we must keep their values to make this country bigger and bigger, and more developed in each generations. And how to change these obsolete conditions is to attain education more and more , particularly to our next generations.

In line with that, for me, education is very important without seeing the gender background whether it's man or woman. Everybody should achieve an education and if they could, they should learn and learn to attain a higher education. To learn is a life time matter. If we stop learning, then what is the difference between us and a dead man?

Our world is always changing. If we stop learning, we're gonna lose. This should be keep in mind to our next generations and ourselves.

Be an inspiration for every human beings, be the fire in your societies to rage the positive shifting by education, don't be the fire which burns out the emotion to fight each other and make our country broke into pieces.

Then how to make it?

"Again, By pursuing education perpetually. So the urgency of the women who attains an education or more is very essential."

Surabaya, 6 Oktober 2017

#randomthoughts #selfalarm #selfreminder #theessentialneedsofeducation #myhonestanswer

[the-stage-manager]

You're forgetting that Chris has CP, a developmental disability that affects communication skills. "You're going to be my dad again?" would be a perfectly reasonable thing for a young child to say, and I think that's why it throws you off so much. Chris is a teenager. We expect people of a certain age to be able to communicate at a certain level and, when neurodivergent people fail to do so, NT people pick up on it, and immediately start making assumptions about our intellect, or our moral character: They assume we're either stupid or we're intentionally being manipulative because why else would somebody who is X years old be talking like that?

This is an example from my own life. I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was 12. One tactic to communicate more effectively with ADHD kids, is to get down on their level, make eye contact, and talk in a soft firm voice. This was a tactic that my mom implemented a LOT because it worked... But it was also very distressing to me for reasons I couldn't explain until I was diagnosed with Autism more than a decade later.

Once, when I was about 14, I burst into tears and asked my mom, "Why are you yelling at me?!" The thing was, my mom WASN'T yelling, she wasn't even raising her voice. I was getting extremely overwhelmed, but I didn't have a good way of verbalizing that. Of course, my mom got really angry, because she thought I was accusing her of being a bad mom, or that I was trying to emotionally manipulate her. I wasn't, but neither of us had any way of knowing that back then.

So no, I don't think Chris is trying to make his dad feel bad, and I don't think the writers are shit, Chris is just disabled. To me, that line means, "Does this mean I get to live with you again instead of with Ramon and Helena?" Up until this point, Ramon has forcefully inserted himself as Chris's father figure, a role that he had no intention of giving up. Chris is obviously unhappy with the dynamic—for fuck sake, he literally hates chess so much, he threw up all over the board, and Helena had the audacity to ask Eddie why he "pulled Chris out of the tournament".

And before you say "Well if he didn't like living with them, why didn't he say something?" Please remember that 1. We're talking about somebody with a disability that affects communication and 2. Helena and Ramon have made it very clear that they don't want Eddie to be a part of his life, and they've gone to some pretty crazy lengths to exclude him. If Chris can't even ask to not be part of the chess club anymore, why would asking to live with Eddie again be any easier?

So, I finally got caught up on 9-1-1 last night. And there was a moment in 8x13 that had me making faces at the TV. Continuing below the cut because - spoilers...

I've been mostly OK with the Christopher-in-El Paso storyline, because that kid has been through a lot and while I as a grown adult think Chris' ongoing teen response to that moment between Eddie & Kim was - outsized - I don't think it was necessarily misplaced. I think unlike a lot of kids who run away Chris really did have a safe place to go and used it to his fullest advantage.

My feelings on Eddie's parent's continued support of Chris staying in El Paso is a topic for another day.

The moment that got me making faces though was when Chris asked, "Does that mean you'll be my dad again?"

Excuse me, but W H A T?

I'm sorry. I have a lot of sympathy for everything Chris has been through. But Eddie not being present in Christopher's life was a choice Chris made. Yeah, Eddie could have done a lot of things differently to get Chris back to him sooner. But, Chris was the one ignoring facetimes, ignoring calls, choosing to stay with his grandparents and leaving his dad in the dust.

Eddie didn't stop being Chris' dad.

Chris chose to stop letting Eddie be his dad.

Eddie wasn't there because Christopher made it clear he didn't want his dad there.

Eddie is by no means free of fault - he's handled a lot of things around the situation poorly. But he never stopped being Chris' dad.

I'm still struggling how to interpret that question: was it genuine in that Chris felt that because Eddie didn't physically show up sooner, he didn't want to be his dad anymore? Is it manipulative - forcing Eddie to take more responsibility on his shoulders about the situation than he really deserves? Was it just the writers forgetting who did what over the course of a season?

"...you'll be my dad again?...

Pah.

[spicycreativity]

A Place Where I Can Breathe - Ch 4

Chapter: 4/7 Additional Notes: See Ch 1 for more information. Read on AO3 under "WizardGlick." Any formatting/italics errors are holdovers from AO3 that I was too lazy to fix. Chapter Content Warnings: N/A; ask to tag Excerpt: Poor Roman. He made it so easy. Janus leaned in a little, not so much that he was intruding on Roman's personal space, and touched his knuckles to his chin. "Bore me? You're Creativity. What makes you think you could ever be boring?" He cocked his head and looked at Roman with expectation, inviting him to read between the lines. Who told Roman he was boring? Who made him feel like a burden?

The plan went into motion the following evening. Roman kept inconsistent hours and worked in inconsistent locations, and Janus had accordingly predicted long hours spent listening at the basement door for a chance at catching Roman alone. He was already working on a plan to lure Roman down, but it was difficult when his knowledge was barely surface-level. He didn't know in detail what Roman liked. But the wheels of fate turned and Roman bade his friends goodnight and announced that he would be staying up late to work on a project.

"That's lucky," Remus said when Janus informed him of the news.

Janus smiled at him. "Where reason fails, the Devil helps." He fussed with his gloves and straightened his capelet. "It's showtime."

"Beetlejuice is my thing," Remus said as Janus sank out.

He couldn't help the pang of loathing that pierced his heart at the sight of Roman scribbling away in a notebook. Remus had never been afforded the luxury of creative freedom, and it felt so obscene to stand here and watch Roman revel in it.

Willing his face into a more polite expression, Janus sat down by Roman and waited to be acknowledged.

Roman caught the motion out of the corner of his eye, but was too busy writing to spare the processing power it would take to identify his visitor. Whoever it was, they knew better than to interrupt him while he was preoccupied. He finished up his thought, jotted down one final note in the margin, and turned to address his guest. "H--Uh-- Deceit!" He jerked backward in surprise, slamming his notebook shut. "I wasn't expecting you." Despite his best efforts not to stare, his gaze kept falling on Janus' scales, his slit-pupiled snake eye. Roman tried not to shudder.

Janus cursed himself for not anticipating this. He should have sat on Roman's left side. Ah, well. Nothing to do for it now but apply extra charm. "Good evening, Roman," he purred, turning his head a little beyond what was comfortable so Roman could see more of his human side. "Did you know that you bite your lip when you concentrate? It's cute."

"Oh, um." Roman touched his fingertips to his lower lip, equal parts flattered and confused. "Thank you?" The overhead lights caught on Janus' cheekbone, giving him a soft glow. He gazed at Roman with gentle anticipation. Roman looked into the rich brown of his human eye. "I was just working on a story about, um, well… Oh, I won't bore you with the details."

Poor Roman. He made it so easy. Janus leaned in a little, not so much that he was intruding on Roman's personal space, and touched his knuckles to his chin. "Bore me? You're Creativity. What makes you think you could ever be boring?" He cocked his head and looked at Roman with expectation, inviting him to read between the lines. Who told Roman he was boring? Who made him feel like a burden?

"The, uh, the others," Roman stammered, not wanting to talk badly about his friends.

To his surprise, Janus flashed him an almost guilty smile before hiding it behind one gloved hand. "The others don't understand your creative vision, do they? I always wondered how you put up with them trying to shut you down."

"I don't know that they shut me down, exactly," Roman said, making one last effort to be charitable before sliding over the brink. He lowered his voice to a whisper, "But they never seem to want to listen. Logan is always poking holes in my plots and asking boring questions about the worldbuilding, and Patton always spaces out and asks me to repeat myself, like he can't even be bothered to listen to what I'm saying! And he always says the same thing whenever I ask for feedback. It's like, I don't need criticism, but I'd appreciate something a little more in-depth than 'oh, it's fine,' you know?" Janus nodded. Roman took a breath. "And Anxiety. I don't even want to think about what he'd say. He's always trying to shut me down before I even start: 'What if someone has done this before? What if nobody likes it? What if you're not good enough?'"

Janus raised his eyebrows and looked away. Some of that certainly sounded like Virgil, but he had a strong suspicion that most of Roman's insecurities originated from within himself. "I agree, he's not good for you."

"Oh!" Roman ran a hand through his hair and looked away. "I don't- I didn't mean.. "

"You said it yourself," Janus said, preemptive triumph blazing beautiful and cruel in his chest, "he sabotages your function." He pictured Roman alone in his room, hunched over a notebook and scribbling furiously with a pen that would not and could not write. Or better yet, Roman with a functioning pen staring paralyzed at the blank page before him, his own insecurities stilling his hand. "He's bad for you."

"Hold on a second," Roman said, putting up a hand to stop Janus. How did they get here? He'd just been venting, and now suddenly Virgil was to blame for all his problems? He nearly smacked his own forehead when it clicked just who he was talking to. "I didn't mean that!"

"But you said it," Janus said, feigning misunderstanding. "So you lied to me?"

"No, no, that was true."

"Then we're in agreement. Anxiety is bad for you."

Roman shook his head emphatically. "It was true. Anxiety was bad for me. He's changed."

Janus couldn't help himself; he rolled his eyes. "He's Anxiety! It's literally his job to shoot you down."

"I used to think that," Roman said, anger spilling into his cheeks and turning his face red. "But I know better now. Anxiety isn't like you and my brother; he has a place with us and he helps us make Thomas the best possible version of himself. And if you don't understand that, then I don't think I have anything more to say to you. And don't even think about coming anywhere near Anxiety ever again. I won't allow it."

Janus took in a shaky breath, finally letting his hatred, his frustration, his despair show on his face. And he struck, envenomating the weapon Roman had unwittingly handed him: "Very well, Roman. But let me leave you with this: Anxiety has nothing to do with your inability to perform. You're only half a function, and nothing you make will ever stand up as long as you remain afraid of your own potential. You're just as inadequate as you think you are, and it's nobody's fault but your own."

And, still shaking with rage, he sank out.

--

"Shit!" Janus slammed his open palm into the wall and pressed into it, forcing himself to take deep breaths.

There was no reply but the scratching of pen on paper. Janus whipped his head around and the anger drained from him at the sight of Remus scribbling away in a notebook. At least some good had come out of his little confrontation.

"Well, I'm not sure what you did to my brother," Remus said, not looking up, "but he's definitely distracted."

"I may…" Janus said delicately, rubbing the heel of his hand with his opposing thumb, "have failed to account for certain unexpected variables." He sat down next to Remus, careful not to jostle him, and grit his teeth.

"Mm?" Remus said, turning a page.

"Such as your brother being too thick-headed and stubborn to listen when someone's trying to manipulate him." Janus scoffed.

"Mm," said Remus, still writing.

Janus glanced over at him. Just as Roman had been doing earlier, Remus was chewing at his lower lip while he wrote, his brow creased. Janus tapped his fingertips against his own lips. He shouldn't have called Roman 'half a function,' and not just because it implied that Remus was as well. He knew from experience that lashing out only ever made things harder for himself. Now a whole new barrier towered before him and it was nobody's fault but his own. Janus laughed humorlessly, not missing the irony. He would blame Roman, though. It hurt less that way.

"I suppose it's too much to ask," Janus mused out loud, "that things could just be easy for once."

Remus stopped writing, ignoring the pang of regret, and scooted over so he could put his arm around Janus. It was undeniably painful to throw away an opportunity to make his voice heard, but Janus needed him now. He never admitted when he wanted comfort, so Remus had become adept at picking up on unvoiced desires over the years. "Yeah, probably."

"Please do stop writing; that won't make me feel guilty at all."

"I was pretty much done anyway," Remus said. "There's only so much debauchery and vomit you can fit into one story."

It was an obvious lie, but Janus let it go. He leaned into Remus' shoulder despite the way it knocked his hat askew and tried not to think about Virgil. "I don't even miss him," he said, the lie ringing hollow even in his own ears. "We just can't let him start working against us."

"We won't," Remus promised. "He'll come back. We can be his favorites again." After all, they had been friends before. Whatever Roman and the others had done to charm Virgil could be undone. He would remember his friends again. "And besides, we have Plan B for Butthole!"

Janus laughed despite himself and let Remus pull him in closer. "Maybe let's wait to implement that one."

--

Roman couldn't breathe properly; something was wrong with his lungs. Every inhale hitched in his throat and his mouth ached like he was about to cry.

But he dismissed that ridiculous thought with a firm shake of his head. He was the guardian prince, the hero! Heroes never wept for themselves.

He swallowed down the ache and got to his feet so he could find Virgil and let him know what had happened.

If a few wayward tears slipped down Roman's cheeks as he ascended the staircase, he wiped them away without giving them a second thought. The jaunt up the stairs did nothing to help his erratic breathing, and he was almost winded by the time he got to Virgil's door.

He had to knock for a long time before Virgil finally answered. He had been listening to his music as loud as he could tolerate it, and had only noticed Roman's knocking during a transition between songs.

Virgil's sarcastic greeting died on his lips at the sight of Roman panting in the doorway. His lower lip trembled and his eyes were suspiciously shiny, but his voice was steady as ever when he spoke. "Anxiety! I need to speak with you."

"Dude, are you okay?" Virgil asked, letting the walls of his brooding facade fall away in the face of his concern for his friend.

"Never better!" Roman declared. He was determined not to let Virgil see just how deep Janus' words had cut him. "May I come in?"

"Uh, sure, I guess." Virgil stepped aside, trying not to feel too self-conscious about his unmade bed.

Roman didn't comment on it, just followed Virgil's lead and sat down on the floor with his back against the foot of the bed. Despite the persistent ache in his chest, he fought for bravado. "I've just faced off against a fiendish foe!"

Virgil's heart dropped into his stomach. "Oh, yeah?"

"Indeed. I went toe-to-toe with a certain sneaky snake and scared him silly!"

"What did he say to you?" Virgil demanded. Everything slotted into place in an instant, Roman's shaky demeanor and false confidence.

Roman waved a hand, annoyed to notice it was shaking. "Nothing of import. You don't have to worry about me, Anxiety, I can handle myself in these matters."

Virgil supposed he should have seen this coming. "So let me guess. You're worried about me ."

"Of course I'm not worried about you!" Roman said, puffing out his chest. "You have the best protector in the world."

"You?"

"Me!"

"So why did you need to come see me?" Virgil asked. Whatever Janus had said to Roman obviously hadn't altered Roman's opinion of Virgil any.

"Exactly that," Roman said. "That you need not worry. I banished the snake back to the basement where he belongs! And I told him that I would not allow him to see you ever again."

Virgil couldn't stop the look of horror that crossed his face. He pressed his hand to his forehead, trying to calm his own breathing. "What?"

"I stood up to that fork-tongued fiend and told him to leave you alone forever," Roman said, a little less self-assured this time. He knew better than to expect a wondrous display of gratitude from Virgil, but he had been expecting some sort of thanks.

"That's great," Virgil said weakly. He knew he wasn't selling it, but was too overwhelmed to really care. "Thanks."

Roman nodded. "Well, I suppose l'll, ah. I'll just go, then." He hadn't realized how badly he'd wanted to stay until he was faced with the idea of leaving. But Virgil just nodded, his eyes empty, so Roman saw himself out.

Virgil immediately started to chew on his thumbnail, mind racing. He knew should have asked for more details from Roman but panic had a way of demanding attention, choking out rationality. He was thinking clearly now, though. He had failed. Whatever Janus had said had obviously hurt Roman badly, and Virgil hadn't been a good enough friend to try to fix it, and he hadn't been a good enough protector to prevent it. The only thing he could do now was try to stop it from happening again.

Virgil sighed and let his head fall back against the edge of his bed. He was absolutely certain that Janus would be out for blood now.