#alexithymia explained

[my-autism-adhd-blog]

Alexitthymia

The Autistic Teacher

[roachemoji]

shout out to everyone who has trouble identifying their emotions. who struggle putting their thoughts into words. who have a hard time communicating what's wrong because their thoughts are more like abstract concepts than anything tangible. who take hours or even days to approach issues because you werent even aware you were upset to begin with, or even understood what was wrong.

[hasellia]

Pokemon Headcannon.

Cyrus doesn't want to purge emotions because he lacks empathy or is a literal cartoon villain and master manipulator.

He just has Alexithymia and never got diagnosed.

[metronn]

uhh weird little scribbles about empathy and what i was thinking listening to the legend of chavo guerrero this morning

[mystical-cinnamoon]

there are so many terms that describe my experience so well as a human being but i don't like using them bc it's tied to/is a diagnosis that i don't have

[tiredfoxtf]

.

[maudsaysstuff]

When some of the things you struggle most with in life can be explained with one personality trait that apparently exists

[bee26s]

[haute-pockette]

The Doctor being disabled part 2.

Eight has a bit of trouble recognizing other people using sarcasm or asking rhetorical questions. He'll take them more literally than the speaker intended, especially when a literal response would require an explanation. He gets excited about explaining things.

Aside from the memory difficulties, the anesthesia during regneration left him prone to seizures. Usually atonic or absence seizures.

Eight has synesthesia. He usually connects sounds with colors and movements and shapes. He loves to sit with a record player and watch the air dance with it. The war made him start to hate it though and the combination of input would bring him closer to his stimulation limit.

Other than the autism baked into his biodata, War doesn't have much going for him. The elixir he drank from Karn allowed him to regenerate into a body that was suited to face the war. Meaning no disabilities.

Alexithymia is giving him trouble again. It hasn't been this bad since about Three, but he struggles to identify all his grief and frustration from the war. So he compartmentalizes all his feelings and ignores them.

PTSD for poor Nine. Just look how he handled seeing a Dalek after the war. He sleeps even less than his other incarnations cause he wants to avoid nightmares.

He stims when thinking, and keeps a fidget cube or two in his pockets to fiddle with. Otherwise he'll fiddle around with his sonic and the last time he did that he accidentally broke something.

Rheumatoid arthritis makes his hands really achy after doing fine motor work. He keeps little pocket warmers to use as heat packs.

Ten does lots of fidgeting and tinkering to stim. And he hates the feeling of being uncovered, hence the full suit and trench coat. Very particular about fabrics.

ADHD, lots of impulsive decisions and doing what's interesting in the moment. He's terrible at keeping to plans, and will absolutely forget what he was doing when he walks through a doorway.

Eleven loves his verbal stims. Echolalia, humming, making popping sounds. It just feels right to fill the space with sound.

ADHD, postural sway and hyperactivity for days. Making a million plans and only gets 12% done with one before he jumps to the next. Someone put this man on a leash.

All of his floppy gesturing and swaying and falling over comes from inner ear problems not muscular problems. Raggedy man gets carsick and seasick so easily, but somehow is fine in the tardis. River thinks it's ironic.

Eleven also has synesthesia. It's a lot more varied than just sound and sight associations. But overall, a lot of things that are considered his favorites are linked to tardis blue.

Twelve is less social than his other incarnations. He likes lecturing because he can talk at people instead of to them. He doesn't have to worry about the conventions of holding eye contact or reacting properly in conversation.

Music is a huge comfort for him, especially when he gets to play the music himself instead of just listening. He can control the sound around him that way and it feels so good.

Hates his sciatica. Will insist he uses a cane only because his nerves are pinched and not because he's old.

Thirteen tries so hard to mask her interests and stims. She wants to be normal for once and feels like she's failing miserably when caught flapping or fidgeting.

Tinnitus. She blames Twelve's guitar habit for it. If it persists long or loud enough she will start humming or singing in an attempt to drown it out.

She has some back pain she also blames from her fall out of the tardis. She wears orthopedic insoles to help.

Also forgot to put in the last one, but Five absolutely has asthma. Man is wheezing after every scene he runs in.

[my-autism-adhd-blog]

Alexithymia

I CAN Network Ltd

[fernlessbastard]

im the psychotic wilbur anon (forgot to note im paranoid schitzo and i see myself so much in him ANYWAYS) BUT CWILBUR BPD FOR THE WORLD. (< ALSO BPD.) hottest take is that him and quackity are bpd4bpd and a huge part of their relationship is a learning curve figuring out how to navigate communication with each other and each others splits and such. i also think that wilbur tends to black split on HIMSELF more often, and quackity tends to black split on OTHERS more often. i also think that wilbur white splitting on quackity would be a whole nother thing they have to deal with, with wilbur suddenly being like "you are literally god to me and the only person who loves and cares about and understands me you are the greatest human being alive please let me worship you i love you so much" and quackity just being like "woag dude" LIKE. also im so so so for real wilbur has so much paranoid schitzo swag i dont know how to explain that this man is fucking TEXTBOOK paranoia and he has so many paranoid anxiety habits that make me feel insane. i think he always makes sure to lock the door and check the lock like six times when he comes home and he cant sleep at night if hes alone in the house so he barely slept in paradise and didnt sleep right until he moved in with quackity, i think he has really severe paranoia about imposters and intruders and also barely slept and was constantly on high alert in pogtopia and he could only really sleep when quackity visited or if tommy or technoblade shared a mat with him, i think he also has delusions of grandeur that he has to deal with a lot and reality checking him can be really dangerous especially coupled with his bpd because he then SNAPS to black splitting on himself so hard he makes himself sick, ohhhh cwilbur my sickly man i adore you so sorry for being insane in your inbox

The first ask in question

(Ok so as a disclaimer obviously headcanons are personal and there's no wrong ones and you're valid for reading it this way)

With Wilbur I very much agree, but I don't see bpd in Quackity tbh. It more so looks like ADHD alongside shit like abandonment issues, being invalidated his entire life, being generally overworked and having no healthy outlet for his feelings, having trouble identifying said feelings in the first place, etc - all of which are very common in/characteristic of ADHD. I don't remember him ever splitting. His shitty love life makes sense with ADHD too - deficiency of dopamine makes it very easy to mistake the dopamine boost from "new person to talk to" for a crush (believe me). Hypersexuality is also common in ADHD, as well as emotional dysregulation, alexithymia (difficulty/inability to identify one's own emotions), overstimulation, shutdowns, etc, which can occasionally resemble splitting, but is very different, and works through exhaustion and frustration rather than delusions. Various types of paranoia as well as heightened irritability are also very common, especially when your senses are clouded by sensory/information/emotional overstimulation. And especially the splitting outwards part just doesn't sit right with me - maybe i missed a stream or sth but I haven't seen anything like that in him. Furthermore I'd actually say he generally points negative feelings/breakdowns etc inwards for the most part - and when ADHD is being pointed inwards it usually leads exactly to developing/heightening shit like paranoia, rejection sensitivity, hypersexuality, emotional dysregulation, alexithymia, etc. He can snap and isolate himself, but it's very different to splitting. ALSO - very important part - Quackity doesn't exhibit mania episodes. He occasionally exhibits the type of hyperactivity and excitement representative of ADHD, but it's never this state of delirium with feelings of grandeur, delusions, etc. Wilbur does exhibit mania episodes - pretty heavily at that - and the contrast makes it pretty apparent that Quackity's case is different.

THAT BEING SAID I don't have bpd, so for a perspective from someone who does, here's a rant from @octobre-ackedia: <<On so many levels, Quackity doesn't show bpd symptoms. Not all abandonment issues are borderline personality disorder. I don't think I need to say it, but bpd takes over the entire life of a person, it's not just trauma. And I don't really have much to elaborate on with the ask, mostly showing Wilbur's bpd traits but that's for an entirely different rant, and I need to chill out. Quackity doesn't black split on others. It was not shown a single time. He slowly loses trust in people, he builds walls, but that's not splitting. He doesn't start to irrationally hate everyone around himself, think that people are just cruel and bad, and more importantly don't care about him, suddenly becoming aggressive towards them. He backs off a little bit more with each disappointment in people around him, ending up not so much hating, as avoiding human relationships. And he doesn't have a favourite person, not even Slime who was just so perfectly there to be an example of that. Quackity learnt how to trust the guy, building a friendship, but never became truly "obsessed" with him. He grieved his death, tried to save him, but FFS, that's not a favourite person, that's how human relationships work (or more so, hybrid relationships haha). He doesn't get manic. You could say he becomes strongly confident, hypersexual or overworking himself, but the important part in it is the reasoning. He doesn't start believing he is some sort of a saviour for the world and can build a perfect country, or that he doesn't need anyone for that. He starts a project and might go overboard with it, but it's never this... aggressive as with bpd. With the 9 most visible symptoms, he has maybe 3 of them, which are all clear reactions to specific situations. Unstable relationships? Schlatt became an abuser, Karl and Sapnap abandoned him, he never really influenced any of that happening. The abandonment issues and feeling of emptiness are simple reactions to that trauma. His moves are calculated, he doesn't really show any mood swings, he has a quite clear image of himself, he doesn't experience any suicide ideation or shows extreme examples of self harm/putting himself in danger. And what about the part of splitting when he pushes people away after getting scared of becoming too close? He always stays, in the end. Even when he tried so hard not to get attached to Slime. Where's the white splitting? Where's anything, really. I still stand with the headcanon of them having to navigate a hard relationship, with both of them experiencing severe mental issues, but it's not bpd4bpd. Q is my depressed ADHD bitch, who struggles with trauma.>>

Also I'd say Wilbur's heavily autism coded too - as a bonus it does frequently "strengthen" bpd cause of the type of trauma autistic people experience. Q I see as very much ADHD but I also low-key hc him as somewhere on the spectrum too, though I'm not as heavily set on that

Tldr while Wilbur absolutely clearly has some severe mental issues, Quackity's seem (to me at least) to be more easily and consistently explainable by a combination of ADHD (maybe low support needs autism) and some (pretty damn severe (canonically - looking mainly at all the abandonment + sa hints)) trauma

[hyperfixatedbean]

Why I think Eddie Diaz is autistic !

(As an autistic individual)

- Struggle with emotional expression:

He often struggles to express emotions, particularly in his relationship with women, (look at the way he acted with Sharon, Ana and Marisol, never communicating clearly, or doing it VERY straightforwardly (-> “you should go”)

He struggle with articulating his feelings, to name his emotions and process them (seemingly alexithymia) and he close off a lot, even with his therapist !

- Literal Thinking:

He tend to interpret language literally, (interactions with his colleagues and fast problem-solving, keeping a cool head under very stressful situations, the way he react to jokes, the way he doesn’t believe and ‘judge’ the way they fear superstitions, only believing what he can prove)

It seems to me like he experiences challenges with understanding figurative language or sarcasm and only believe what is proven, he’s very closed off about the idea of superstition which can be seen in some autistic people who struggle with theses concept

And he can be really straightforward (see the “you should go home Ana” or the “last time he wore that was at his mom’s funeral”) -> stating facts straightforwardly without processing it first and without realizing how stating it like that can be ‘awkward’ to others

- Meltdowns and Coping Mechanisms:

He experiences moments of intense frustration and resorts to unhealthy coping mechanisms (-> fights and destroying his room, hurting himself and other in the process (as in a lot of autistic meltdown and the way a lot of us turn to violent coping mechanisms to fight against sensory overload and the complexity of understanding our own emotions -> resorting to violence)

He parallels experiences of sensory overload and regulation, also his panic attacks and the way he avoid addressing his trauma and feelings by brushing it off and ignoring his own mental health, struggling to understand his own feelings about what he’s experiencing

- Difficulty with Trauma and Normalcy:

His reluctance to address trauma and persistent efforts to appear "normal."

It reflects challenges faced by autistic ppl in processing traumatic experiences and blending in with neurotypical society (force conformism and such)

There’s something about the way he and his father approach emotions, keeping it hidden and close off, that resonates a lot with my own experiences as someone autistic raised by someone who’s (probably) autistic too ‼️

+ the way he quickly connect with Buck exemplifies the ‘neurodivergent link’ : ADHD and autism solidarity is a reality ! Neurodivergent people tend to feel more secure, comfortable and friendly with other neurodivergent individuals!!

He basically just give such a autistic energy, like- I really connect with his struggle and the way he interact with the world around him, but please tell me what YOU think 🫶‼️

To have a better view of this part of him we would need more of his pov, sadly we rarely get it so I’m basing this of what I remember, what I personally see in him, what I connected with :’D

(Keep in mind that I probably projecting and it’s just an headcanon, not hate please <3 constructive criticism is welcome tho !!)

Credits it to @thisonemaniac that helped me make this post :D !! We talked about it a bit, I highlighted in orange what he remind me off ‼️

(Since you asked me about it you might want to read this :D !! I explained it better I think xD @lesbianphoebespengler )

[lefluoritesys]

So I, as an alter in a semiverbal system and therefore sermiverbal myself, will! :D

Welcome to ways our system communicates that are not voices!

@dei-rising

Music. One of the first ways we learned to communicate was through music, songs, and beats! Sometimes certain melodies and lyrics help us communicate what we feel better than words do. Obvious enough, but when it comes to communicating through music, it's a bit more complicated than that. We have music channels with everybody who we talk to so we could "call each other out" or send songs to each other that we think others might relate to, which is our way of saying "we hear and see you." Our alters also associate with songs, and sometimes, when one of them is coming over, we can hear the song play in our head. Or sometimes even whole backstories and memories can be explained in songs and work the same! Our robots are, by far, the most interesting. Our co-host, also an alexithymia holder, has a feature "installed" in them that plays songs that explain their emotions since they can't do it on their own. Not out loud, only they can hear it, but it's effective and helpful for them to identify what they feel. We express whole stories and personalities through music.

Feelings. Easy one, or so it seems, but still needs to be explained to a lot of people as we figured it out. For us, it feels like feelings are being passed on, and as though you got the opportunity to, say... touch a ball with something inside, but there's a capsule that doesn't let you touch it or feel it on your hands. We're dissociated from the feeling and would forget it when it's taken away, but we won't forget the understanding that we got as to what it is. Sometimes, that capsule breaks, and we're covered in sticky emotions that are not ours, and it's hard to get it all off, especially since it breaks in so many pieces. Like pieces of slime that you keep finding all over the apartment and clothes after you drop it. Some of it may never go away, hidden in the darkest corners of your mind, but there nonetheless. A lot of the times, the feelings we get from other alters help us identify who's coming. Some of their energies feel cold, dark, and low for some reason, some are completely different. Those same energies, but mixed with feelings of excitement and satisfaction come when we're scrolling through same Tumblr and see something that alter likes. They basically go, "Reblog this! Save this one for me!!"

Images. The amount of times I was talking to someone in the system or outside of it and had images shoved into my head for one reason or another... I can't express just how much lmao. Whether it be memories or images of inner world places... sometimes, when one alter fronts, they ask for memories of what happened before they fronted and have them shoved in their head by the previous fronter. We don't communicate via images much. But there are definitely times when it's easier to just shove something in another alter's head than have to explain it, especially if you already explained it once.

Videogames. Don't even get me started on how much we used FNaF as a way to communicate and understand the world around us. It wasn't even about making others understand it as much as it was for us to understand ourselves. Explain the world around us to ourselves when nobody else seemed to be able to. We always felt different from others and had a different langauge than others, our favorite games, especially FNaF, became that language that helped us describe to ourselves the things we couldn't describe verbally. All those "silly made-up storylines" that typical people would enjoy as a show and move on, but that we would put in our own small world (which we now know as our language and our inner world).

Inner world sign language. Or just simple inner world language that is inaudible or impossible to translate to the outer world. We have our own sign language and regular made-up languages, and for both, we don't hear voices! Actually for the most part, we feel emotions, since our main inner world langauge is very much emotion-based. We can't hear what another alter is saying, but we understand them perfectly clear. It's an amazing way to communicate emotions. Same with sign-language, except we also have movements that we also may not see but understand. Many times, when I was mute in literally every way possible, somebody else would watch me sign and translate it for others around me. Some inner world (including ours) also have telepathy, which technically counts as voices since the perosn is making their voice known in your head, but some may count it as nonverbal communication.

Looks and body language. You know those action movies or books where the main character and their sidekick give each other those "special looks" and silently understand each other? Some of us who have spent a very long time around each other in the inner world do the same! It's probably only happening because we share a head, but it's really effective when you're talking to someone outside the system. I (host) could give our co-host The Look,a nd they'd know exactly what I want from or want to say to them.

Co-consciousness/co-fronting. The co-con feeling of sharing memories, feelings, and emotions (and others). That passive influence that you get from another perosn in co. That's also, at least for us, nonverbal communication! Cause when it does come to talking to someone outside the system, or even isnide, you may sometimes need to know the other person's boundaries or limits or memories. What best way to find that out than to aks that person to step in co and feel waht they're feeling or remember what they remember and better understand how to go about the situation or what to say, amr?

Continue if you have any more ideas!! I'd love to hear other's methods of communication that are not voices!! /g

-host

[sukunasbabygirl]

So I began writing this post a few days ago while on the verge of sleep, and it is now I’m here to finish what I started. Do not expect this to be organised as it is just a messy ramble.

And this particular ramble is about why Adam Murray has Alexithymia, explained by someone who has Alexithymia <- Me!

For anyone who doesn’t know what Alexithymia is, here’s a brief explanation. Alexithymia is essentially emotional blindness. It’s fairly common, being present in about 1/10 people if I recall, and while it varies from person to person, it typically entails a difficulty recognising, distinguishing and acting on emotions.

In this case, yes, Adam is an alternate, and his behaviours can be chalked down to that, however I’d argue what he experiences is still Alexithymia, biblical horror or not.

Oh, and, before I actually break it down, some of this will be based on my own personal experience, although, I will also be using general information and the likes.

Alright, now let’s actually begin.

When it comes to Alexithymia, it may sound simple, but in actuality its a complicated personality trait with various factors involved and can cause a lot of problems for those with it. It can, in many cases, lead to feelings of apathy and emptiness, because when you can’t recognise emotions, it can at times feel like they aren’t there at all.

We see this with Adam. He experiences very clear apathy in situations where you’d expect panic or upset etc. He has a difficulty connecting with people because of this, and it gives the impression that he really doesn’t feel much at all outside of his search for his mother and his obsession with alternates, but thanks to the diary entries we know that isn’t the case.

The diary entries show us clear as day that Adam is confused by his own emotions.

This part in particular sticks out to me. ‘Really bad’ can mean a lot of things, the iceberg of negative emotions is a vast one, but ‘really bad’ is how I used to explain my own negative feelings when I couldn’t properly understand them. It could absolutely be that he’s never felt this before, but it could also be he’s never registered it before, which is very possible. Hell, I only learned what being upset felt like a few days ago.

Maybe he’s feeling guilty, maybe he’s feeling grief, we don’t know, and neither does he.

He also does it again here, with an added descriptor. I do this a lot myself. You’ll say something along the lines of ‘I feel really good, like X just happened!’ And then someone will say, oh so you’re feeling relieved (as an example), and like oh shit, that’s what the good vibes are?

Another thing very common with Alexithymia is inappropriate reactions that don’t match the situation. It’s especially worsened when you can’t register the emotions of others either or understand why they’re feeling the way they are. If that sounds familiar, it’s because Adam demonstrates this twice. He shows excitement in a situation that should by all means be terrifying, and he shows a complete lack of concern towards Jonah’s death, which, based on the diary, he seems to have a delayed response to.

And with delayed responses, especially in regards to death? I’ve been there and done that. Adam may be apathetic to his death at first, but give its a few days and some reminding (the screams), and the reality of his own feelings hits.

Speaking of Jonah actually, another notable trait found with Alexithymia is relationship avoidance. Interpersonal relationships are hard as it is, and Alexithymia adds a new layer of difficulty. How he handles relationships may also be influenced by his upbringing, which we don’t know much about, but I think we can assume it probably wasn’t the best. He says ‘I don’t have friends’, but I think what he really means is he doesn’t know how to make friends nor does he know what counts as a friend.

As far as he’s aware, friends will only hold him back (Gestures to Sarah and Jonah being too scared to help him), and he’s better off without them. There does some to be some desire of connection with Adam, even if he struggles, but every time he’s been let down by people who don’t think the same as him.

As a note though: Alexithymia doesn’t mean you’re blind to every emotion or are some kind of robot, even if it feels that way sometimes, I’m very capable of recognising the difference between platonic and romantic love for example, or I’m able to to identify things like happiness, anxiety, confusion etc. sometimes I can get them mixed up, but I know what they are, how they feel, I just can’t describe them any further. Typically you can determine whether something is negative or positive, although on rarer occasions, at least for me, you can get those mixed up too because of similar bodily responses/similar emotional vibes.

But good luck experiencing both positive and negative emotions at the same time: seen again Adam’s response to Jonah’s death. He knows that’s a bad thing, but he favours the positive outcome of the investigation. This is something I do as well. Because there’s a disconnect between you and your own feelings, shutting down the negative ones is… surprisingly easy if there’s a positive one you can ‘choose’ instead. Also it’s just overwhelming to feel both at once, and the truth is the negative feeling is still there, you’re just gonna get jumpscared later on when you least expect, which of course, happens to Adam.

There’s a sort of logical thinking pattern that commonly comes with Alexithymia, it’s hard to handle problems emotionally or help others emotionally when your own thought process is ‘how do I solve this issue entirely?’ Adam is without a doubt a logical thinker, however impulsive he may be. I’ll have to elaborate on this at a later date though, because it’s difficult for me to explain the subtle behaviours of logical thinking, but the way he handles relationships and how he weights out situations is almost never emotional. For example he doesn’t consider Jonah’s distress as a reason not to go into the basement, because the basement holds answers, and why wouldn’t he want those?

On a final note, there’s one last piece from the diary that, while not an indicator of Alexithymia; is neat to talk about if you believe Adam has it. The way this is described is very vivid, at least to me, because often when you can’t describe feelings you resort to metaphors and very out there comparisons, to a point you get very good at it… and Adam is very good at it, at least to me. I know exactly what he means by this! Who knows, maybe he could make a great poet.

As a whole there’s a very… alienating feeling with Alexithymia, and it’s easy to feel inhuman at times, especially when you feel such a disconnect with your own emotions, to a point they don’t feel real. In Adam’s case he’s literally inhuman and you know what, those kinds of characters are very relatable to neurodivergent people for those feelings of alienation. I mean, Alexithymia has a lot of overlaps with autism and ADHD, being more prominent in autism but also in ADHD as well!

I had a lot more to add to this post but I think I may come back to that once I’ve actually researched Adam’s scenes because I wrote almost all of this at around 4am before falling sleep again, so I’ve completely forgotten half of what I planned to write. Alas.

[coldresolve]

My grand thesis on sadism

I'm not an expert on anything whatsoever, and studies on sadism are sparse to say the least, so I'm basing this on squinting at concepts I've seen elsewhere and a layman's gut feeling. Here's my thesis:

Introduction

Sadism is when someone feels emotional pleasure as a result of someone else suffering. That's about it, afaik. And yes, this does mean that that one time you said something mean to someone else in the heat of the moment to hurt their feelings, you were behaving sadistically. Sorry lol, sadism isnt a mythical creature, everyone is capable of it

Obviously, some people are more inclined to experience sadistic pleasure than others, which is where we draw that largely arbitrary distinction between sadist and non-sadist. My thesis is that this distinction is a tad more complicated than a binary spectrum: there are (at least) two different types of sadism, both of which play a role in what type of sadist a person is. Those two types are a) emotional sadism, and b) cognitive sadism. I made these terms up just now for the record

Emotional sadism

This is a type of sadism experienced by people who have alexithymic tendencies. Alexithymia affects about 20% of people. It's that thing where you're not very good at distinguishing or expressing different emotional states; distinguishing emotions from non-emotional bodily sensations such as hunger or fatigue, and; distinguishing between your own emotions from those you feel through empathy. (Loads of alexithymic people think they don't experience empathy; they do, they just don't attribute their feelings to other people.) Alexithymics will often have difficulty describing their emotions beyond negative, positive, or neutral. But some alexithymics, in certain regards to certain emotions, will have difficulty even doing that.

By attributing sadism to alexithymic tendencies, what I mean is this: You see someone suffering, and you feel a rush of adrenaline. But because you kinda suck at distinguishing this rush as the negative emotions felt by the other, transferred to you through identification and/or empathy - your brain interprets the rush as a positive experienced by you, which is influenced by, but still independent from the suffering experienced by the other. I hope I'm explaining this okay lol but this is the most plausible explanation I could come up with as to why sadistic ppls brains will interpret other people's suffering as a source of pleasure, because there is a significant correlation between alexithymia and the dark tetrad.

Cognitive sadism

Cognitive sadism can be summerized very sussinctly by this quote from C. Fred Alford:

Sadism is the joy of avoiding victimhood, though that puts it too passively. Sadism is the joy of having taken control of the experience of victimhood by inflicting it on another.

Cognitive sadism is an expression of control over the role of victimhood by imposing it on another person. I view this as the sub/conscious justification that drives sadistic actions, seperate to the emotional state experienced by the sadist after the act has taken place. These are, in my opinion, two seperate processes.

K, but so what?

Viewing these two things as seperate processes might help us distinguish between different types of sadists, by simply adding or subtracting. Here are some terms for what I mean that I also literally just came up with lol:

The Opportunistic Sadist: Experiences emotional sadism, but has no inclinations toward cognitive sadism. This means that they will experience sadistic gratification at witnessing the suffering of another, but they have no desire to be the one inflicting said suffering themself. (A good portion of yall are like this from what I've seen)

The Remorseful Sadist: Seeks control by imposing victimhood on others, but can distinguish their empathetic response as other-oriented and distinctly negative, leading to intense feelings of guilt/shame/remorse/whatever after the fact. (Industry secret: a large portion of people who broadcast themselves as hardline sadists secretly fall into this category. They'll never admit it lol)

The Pure Sadist: Experiences both the alexithymic empathy response and control-seeking inclinations. What most people think of when they conceptualize sadists; people like this are pretty rare in my experience? But I also have no data on it so like.

Anyway here's a graph I made:

The graph means I'm basically an academic about it lol idk

Conclusion

Fuck if I know, I'm just thinking thoughts about it for now tbh

[thegirlwhorideslikeasamurai]

YOI meta: The mechanics of reigniting your love for skating with the help of a childhood friend and a gay love song

During my latest rewatch of Yuri!!!, the missing pieces of why Yuuri chose, of all of Viktor’s programmes, Stammi Vicino (aka Stay By My Side And Never Leave) to get his love for skating back and what part Yuuko plays in the scene he skates it fell into place. Spoiler: there are some beautiful symmetries, be they unintended or by design.

Of course, Stammi Vicino is Viktor’s current free programme; picking it seems convenient at first glance. However, apart from obvious plot reasons, Yuuri didn't choose this routine on a whim.

If this were the entire point, Yuuri could have chosen a programme he and Yuuko copied together as kids—something they enjoyed tremendously and still have fond memories of. Would make more sense than skating one of Viktor's recent programmes, wouldn’t it?

A recurring theme in Yuri!!! is the skaters’ artistic expression through a piece of music that resonates with them, and this holds even more true for Yuuri, whose entire character arc features his struggles to understand and voice his feelings and how he improves his ability to express them on the ice (the alexithymia is strong in this one, hehe).

As discussed at length, Stammi Vicino is a gay love song (this post explains how you can recognise the gayness*), and there's absolutely no way Yuuri doesn’t know this. As an avid watcher of figure skating and taking the subtle sports commentary in Yuri!!! into account, i.e. Morooka saying that this programme brings out a new side in Viktor** (curiously, the same wording describes Yuuri's performance On Love: Eros), the entire skating community knows by now.

Let’s take a closer look at the lines we see Yuuri skate to (check this post for lyrics and translations):

Con una spada vorrei tagliare/With a sword I wish I could cut Quelle gole che cantano d'amore/Those throats singing about love Vorrei serrar nel gelo le mani /I wish I could seal in the cold the hands Che esprimono quei versi d'ardente passione/That portray those verses of burning passion

The bitterness in these lines mirrors the conscious and subconscious layers of Yuuri’s current struggle quite brilliantly, and both are linked to Viktor:

1) Yuuri’s frustration about his career: His love for skating is hanging by a thread, the results of his last two competitions smothered his passion for the sport, retirement is a tempting option, and he missed his chance to meet his idol (according to his memory). The poor boy has hit rock bottom and returned home. To him, it must seem absurd that so many people around him are hyped about skating and celebrate him as a star while all Yuuri sees is the shitty season he just had. And as if that wasn’t enough, they don’t tire of referring to Viktor like “But Viktor would do this, look Viktor is on TV…” (looking at you Minako in particular), which is not the kind of reminder he needs right now.

2) Very literally unrequited yearning for love or, more precisely, gay love. At this point in the story, Yuuri is far from being in love with Viktor, but seeing him sets Yuuri into an instant swoon,

and, after drowning his anxiety with champagne, he hit on Viktor at the banquet and made him fall for him, not to forget this totally-not-subtle display of physical attraction

(I'd love to know what was going on in Viktor's head at that moment lol)

It hardly can get more obvious than that.

This is the second set of lyrics Yuuri skates to:

Stammi vicino/Stay close to me Non te ne andare/Don’t go Ho paura di perderti/I’m afraid of losing you

Le tue mani, le tue gambe/Your hands, your legs Le mie mani, le mie gambe/My hands, my legs I battiti del cuore/The heartbeats Si fondono tra loro/Are fusing together

(Both Yuuri and Viktor skate the parts of the programme that reveal their strengths as skaters and their current situation to the audience. Interestingly, we don't see Viktor, who remembers the banquet, skate to these intimate and pleading lyrics, but Yuuri.)

Again, there are two layers:

1) Keep pursuing Viktor as a competitor: Ever since Yuuri saw Viktor skate for the first time, he emulated Viktor, worked hard to become like him/his equal, and wanted to compete against him. However, to continue pursuing this goal, Yuuri needs his love for skating back. The better part of his life revolved around this, and he's desperate to preserve it.

2) Finding his soulmate: These lines above refer to Aristophanes’ soulmate theory from Plato’s Symposium, which appeared in the context of Yuri!!! before. For instance, Kubo-sensei herself referred to Yuuri and Viktor as soulmates. Here’s an excerpt from Wikipedia:

people in love say they feel "whole" when they have found their love-partner. […] in primal times people had doubled bodies, with faces and limbs turned away from one another […] these original people were very powerful. […] Zeus […] decided to cripple them by chopping them in half, in effect separating each entity's two bodies. Ever since that time, people run around saying they are looking for their other half because they are really trying to recover their primal nature. […] when two people who were separated from each other find each other, they never again want to be separated.

Sounds a lot like Viktuuri and “Stay by my side and never leave”, right?

All this makes me actually wonder whether Yuuri's subconscious mind remembers the banquet and had a part in his choice.

Besides being a gay love story, Stammi Vicino reflects Yuuri’s and Viktor’s current situation as athletes or, more precisely, their loss of passion for their sport. Yuuri’s feelings for Viktor and his love for the ice are closely intertwined, whereas Viktor is drawn to Yuuri because of his beautiful skating, which ultimately reignites his own passion. Both can't be without one another, and both cannot turn their back on skating. We call everything on the ice love, indeed.

Now on to the last set of lyrics:

Ora sono pronto/Now I’m ready

Yuuri is not yet done. He has fought through the slump and battled his depression. A part of him refuses to bid his desire to skate on the same ice as Viktor again goodbye for good. He still yearns to become Viktor's equal, maybe even surpass him, although he cannot yet admit this to himself. And he returned to where it all started: his home rink.

And that’s when Yuuko enters the equation.

While Minako suggested trying figure skating to Yuuri, Yuuko plays an active part in Yuuri becoming ambitious about the sport and pursuing a career in it.

Yuuko introduced Yuuri to Viktor. Together, they fangirled over Viktor, watched competitions, devoured every piece of news about him, and copied his programmes.

Yuuko protected Yuuri, she encouraged Yuuri, and she believed in him. She never made him feel bad about himself or blamed him for his failures. She doesn't patronise him. Ever wondered why she’s the Madonna of Ice Castle? That’s why.

Not her

But her

(Yes, there’s Christian symbolism in Yuri!!!)

Yuuko is an integral part of Yuuri's support system. He looks up to her, he trusts her, and she knows how he feels about Viktor and shares his crush,

so it doesn't come as a surprise that he shows her his version of Stammi Vicino. In a world where everyone celebrates Yuuri while he perceives himself as a loser, she is a safe space, someone whose approval means something to him. His performance is, to some extent, about her, too.

Because Yuuko introduced Yuuri to Viktor, because she believed in him, he was motivated to pursue a career in figure skating and chase Viktor as a competitor. If he can revive these memories, he might revive his love for skating. And he invites her to share this love with him and be a part of his journey as a skater again.

Yuuri is good at conveying his feelings through skating but sucks at verbalising them. The press conference of the Worlds' medallists that interrupts his conversation with Yuuko hints at what he cannot get across in words. In real-time, Viktor would sit on the kiss and cry and wait for his result (the press conference is 15-20 minutes after the event, actually). Yet the cuts in this scene suggest both happen simultaneously, and that choice isn't random.

Characters supplementing meta-information for other characters' thoughts and emotions through a POV switch is a frequently used technique in Yuri!!! We see this a lot during the competitions, and episode 1 follows the same pattern. Both Yuuri and Viktor are confronted with the loss of their passion and its impact on their future. While it's implied that Viktor cannot let down his guard, Yuuri feels safe enough around Yuuko to try.

(I cannot decide which of these precious boys looks more miserable)

Until recently, Yuuko's role in this episode was a bit obscure to me. Her detailed introduction suggests a more significant role throughout the series, but she fades into the background after three episodes. What's the point in showing a detailed childhood montage of her and Yuuri obsessing over Viktor when she's a minor character with only little screen time, especially since the creators had to boil down their script to the relevant bits in order to fit it into 12 episodes? It's because she plays a significant role in setting the story in motion.

Twelve years ago, Yuuko helped Yuuri pursue his dream through her undying support and their mutual fangirling over Viktor. Now that Yuuri has returned to the start, she takes over her old role one more time by watching Yuuri's very intimate performance of Stammi Vicino. And that's just the beginning. While she still gives Yuuri the support he needs to carry on, her daughters take over the active part of her former task: acquainting Yuuri with Viktor—with the result of making Yuuri's dream come true and bringing him and Viktor together for real.

If you enjoy my meta posts, please consider giving my blog a follow or checking out my works on AO3(link in bio). You will find the results of my meta musings in there!

*OP and I have different interpretations of the lyrics, but they don't contradict each other imho

**this wording is from the corrected subs in the Blu-ray version