#and in terms of whether its grief or just a bad time or mental health or bad news

[cwarscars-a]

(( i’ve seen a lot of people lately on my dash going through rough times - i don’t entirely know the extent of each one, how you’re feeling or dealing with the situation. i haven’t reached out because of a combination of being ill lately (i’m feeling better now) and the grief still being pretty raw but,

 i want you to know that my askbox / ims / discord ( hanʕ ᵒ ᴥ ᵒʔ#3428 ) is always available should you need to chat. whether it’s screaming into the void, throwing a bunch of thoughts together, venting or just being distracted - you are absolutely and entirely welcome to come and talk to me. i will lend you an ear, i will try and offer advice (if wanted), i will lend you my virtual shoulder. 

lately, i know how it’s felt to grieve & i’ve come to realise that it’s a unique sort of sadness (different to depression but also...really similar) - i know it can feel like you look at your friends, family, online buddies, everyone & you might think ‘i don’t know /who/ i can speak to’ - well, as said, this is my post offering you that outlet. even if you want to write me an anonymous message unloading your thoughts, you can. i wont post or reply to it, i’ll save it or delete it if you want me to. just, i want you all to know that there’s a place here for you.

and for the peeps who aren’t going through anything right now, who are having the times of their lives or are getting good news. good. don’t feel guilty posting or gushing about it. don’t feel you can’t celebrate your accomplishments or good times because others aren’t doing too hot. it’s alright, we understand. we’re your mates or partners and all we want is for each to be content and be happy. 

so yeah, just keep it in mind. i might suck at replying to memes, general messages & plotting but if somebody needs to talk / vent / be upset / happy or anything else, i will absolutely listen to you & do my best to be there for you.

i’m sorry from the bottom of my heart that so many of my mutuals are suffering lately. my thoughts are absolutely with you all. ))

[beautifulterriblequeen]

Do you find Moonshadow culture becoming a little less... likeable? (but not less interesting) It seems like they hand out Ghostings like candy with no path to forgiveness and no belief in a person’s ability to change and reform themselves. The pressure and anxiety those elves must be feeling at all times has got to astronomical. What are your thoughts?

I have plenty of thoughts, as always! Less likeable than what, though, anon? Maybe you’ve missed most of my posts on Moonshadow society over the last year...

Moonshadow society is a disaster, poor thing. It’s a tightlaced corset, pretty but restrictive with long term consequences. It’s a queer neurodivergent elf who just wants to do their very best but all the rules that are supposed to help them out with that end up hurting them too and they don’t know how to stop or change and so yes they’re dancing gracefully in the moonlight and yes they express themselves through beauty but if you get close enough you can hear the constant pterodactyl screech of their soul too. (Did I extrapolate extra hard from “Runaan is the most Moonshadow of the Moonshadow elves”, maybe yes)

Moonshadow society is deeply flawed and it needs help, but it’s so big and pervasive that it may be impossible to change its course without severe consequences, just like last time (aka moving east across the border and becoming assassins that took out humans). The elves can only do so much to alter their own fates from inside their own society.

Some may leave and never return. Some get ghosted and want nothing more than to re-enter the fold because they still believe in its ideals, like Feathershawl. Some probably try to change things from the inside, whether subtly or obviously. And others embrace the rules with both arms and try to mold themselves into The Perfect Moonshadow Who Can Do No Wrong, in order to remain safe and to belong.

But that’s a spectrum you’re going to get when perfectionism is a big part of your cultural philosophy. Everything has to be Just So for so many aspects of these elves’ lives, and it’s Very Not Good for them. Yes, they’re pretty. But mandating prettiness is just as bad as mandating other aspects of personal choice and free will.

As for ghosting, I really don’t think Moonshadows just yeet those left and right with little care for the consequences. I do think they’re too harsh with their shunning! Shunning, giving up, turning their back in a relatively permanent way, that’s not a good solution. Learning and adapting are important, and knowing that you have time and room to practice and adjust is so important for mental health and stability in your society. Living in constant fear of minding the rules or getting even perceived to be doing something incorrectly is such a drain on your energy.

But I do think that the Moonshadows have strict rules for what deserves ghosting and what doesn’t, just as they do for other stuff. The details of Feathershawl’s ghosting are theirs to keep, and I assume any Narrator could flesh those out however they chose during a playtest, whether to make their situation more or less sympathetic for the players.

But my take is this: Moonshadow elves revere life very deeply, and they work constantly to serve each other and their whole community, as they hold themselves together and celebrate their continued existence on every level they can. When someone in a position of big responsibility for the health, well-being, and lives of so many Moonshadow citizens messes up in such a bad way that there’s a plague and lots of elves die--lose their precious lives, lose those connections with others, leave their families torn and distraught and unable to focus on their own duties due to heavy, soul-sucking grief--when one elf causes this level of arcanum-deep catastrophe, I can absolutely see why the other Moonshadow elders would be horrified and grief-stricken, and furious. It’s a very un-Moonshadow thing to have happen, especially with how hard they’re all trying to be so very Moonshadow all the time.

Feathershawl had a position that gave them authority over the food sources that kept a good number of the Forest’s elves fed and able to live their lives without privation. And they screwed that up somehow. They were trusted with a basic staple of everyday life--food--and they got it wrong in such a horrible way that there are a lot fewer Moonshadow elves as a result.

Moonshadow elves need each other’s support and presence as part of their communal network, and anything that tears at that fabric goes against everything that Moonshadow philosophy stands for. Feathershawl themself had literally dozens of family members, whose illusions were kept in their crystal. That’s a lot of family! If it’s common for Moonshadow elves to have that many family members, then a plague would probably touch every family multiple times and leave everyone multiply devastated. It’s just Bad All Around.

There’s probably a lot more to Rayla’s ghosting than we know, since we only learned of it from her POV and she’s not in the habit of sharing Moonshadow secrets with Callum just yet. Knowing that Moonshadow families are so thickly intertwined, and how heavily they rely on each other to help support and cheer each other through standing strong together and mutual services, it’s no big stretch to imagine that Rayla’s biggest crime in Moonshadow eyes wasn’t her supposed running away, it was that her actions cost the Silvergrove their assassin leader, one of their elders and one of the strongest moral guiding hands they had. Rayla cost the Silvergrove their most Moonshadow Moonshadow.

Without Runaan, the Silvergrove is probably reeling quite a bit, and Rayla’s failure is to blame, in their eyes. They’re all suffering, and they need to put the blame somewhere--other than themselves--so they can start to move forward again.

It’s far from ideal. It’s very shame and blame oriented. But it does hold to some internal logic that seems to bear out through the three ghostings we know of for sure so far.

Another things Moonshadows are very good at is quick action. The moment they think there’s been a “mistake”, they move to address it. Whatever feelings they have on the matter, they process it in half a second (if at all) and jump straight to rectification. You attack the Storm Spire? Lain’s gonna kick you down the stairs. You think the Silvergrove ghosted you unfairly? You literally run to Ethari for help. You see Rayla trying to stay on the mission? You grab her wrists so she can’t draw her weapons. You see your workshop doors open but no one’s there? You stop working and fetch a hammer in case you need to smash a vindictive ghost. You think your friends failed their duty and dishonored you? You take everyone you can to go uphold that honor, including a 15 year old girl. (Holy cats does that mean everyone on Runaan’s squad was family, oh god) Swift action is a reassertion of the rules, of what’s right, so no one forgets. That’s got to include ghosting for things that are really terrible.

What I do find interesting is that Eljaal, the homesick assassin who is afraid to return home, may not be worried about ghosting specifically? But it’s a little unclear. I think there is something else they fear, perhaps a lesser punishment? But still one they can’t yet bring themself to face, poor elf.

I do think Moonshadow society is very stressful on the mind, and all these elves have become very skilled at hiding, mitigating, and otherwise working around their stresses and traumas. The greatest illusion that Moonshadows play is the one that Everything Is Fine, because there is always more work to do, and they keep telling themselves that they’re the ones who must do it, for everyone elses’s sakes. Laziness and selfishness are probably the same thing to Moonshadows. Hmm, maybe that’s why Runaan lets his family drag him off to picnics on his birthday, so he doesn’t seem selfish for wanting alone time.

In very very long, anon, Moonshadows are a Mess tee emm, and they’ve been designed that way from the start: doing their best inside a flawed system. This is the heart of their imperfection. They will probably benefit from spending time with literally anyone else aside from just themselves. They really really need to get out more, or to let someone else in, because the strictest of their own traditions are actually ruining the life and beauty they work so hard to celebrate.

[rwhague]

An Overview of Major Depressive Disorder for Writers

Society as a whole is getting better at understanding mental disorders and sympathizing with those who experience them. I believe that much of this advancement is due to the arts and the fictional portrayal of characters who live these experiences. Fiction is a mirror on society. As we tell our stories, our readers see themselves and those around them reflected back. Which is why I believe having our information about mental illnesses correct when trying to create characters is so important. That is why I have focused so heavily on what mental illnesses really look like in my blog. Today, I’m going to share you a gross overview of clinical depression and what it looks like in a person.

Feeling depressed is something everyone experiences on occasion whether that be through prolonged stress or just having a bad day. It’s not unusual to have a day when you simply don’t want to get out of bed. Generally, pressures of society keep us going and we force ourselves forward to meet our obligations. Often, those around us know we’re having a bad day because we are irritable and just generally unpleasant to be around. This, however, is not clinical depression. Clinical depression is characterized by at least 2 weeks of continuous depressed mood or loss of pleasure in nearly all activities as well as four of the following symptoms: “changes in appetite or weight, sleep; decreased energy; feelings of worthlessness or guilt; difficulty thinking, concentrating, or making decision; or recurrent thoughts of death or suicidal ideation, plans, or attempts” (Videbeck p. 281). These symptoms also impact social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

This last part is key, because it separates being sad and having a mental disorder. We all have periods of sadness whether it be from the loss of a loved one, a loss of a job, or broken heart, but depression impacts day-to-day living with a significant impact on the person’s life.

There are many causes of depression: chemical, hormonal, genetic, or depression can come from an extended period of grief. Short term depression if left untreated can lead to chronic depression.

Depression can occur in tandem with anxiety which I’ve written about extensively. Basically, the body has used up all its reserves for the anxiety, so it crashes. It is rare to see chronic anxiety without some form of depression.

Depression does not always look like one would think. It’s not just someone who sits around crying all the time feeling bad for themselves. I’ll paint a quick picture for you:

Anna lays facing the wall, staring at nothing as she has done for the past twelve hours. Outside her door, she hears her youngest squeal with laughter and the thud of footsteps chasing after her. Anna cringes as she draws the covers in closer. Why doesn’t the sound of my own child’s laugh make my smile? I’m a horrible person.

“Mama, would you like some dinner?”?” Joel, her oldest cracks open the bedroom door, but Anna continues to lie on her side in the dark away from the door. She shakes her head, and the door closes back.

Joel shouldn’t have to make his own dinner. I should have made it for him. I just—I feel so tired. Why do I feel so tired? And why can’t I sleep? I’m a worthless burden on my family. I should just end it all so they don’t have to put up with me.

And that is often the case with depression. It’s a lack of motivation, a lack of energy, of joy. It’s not that the person experiencing it is particularly lazy. They literally do not have any energy. This inability to function takes a toll on the person’s self-esteem and the depression feeds into itself making it worse and worse.

There are some treatment options for depression. Unfortunately, these do require some energy expenditure, and there is no guaranteed cure, just management. Sunlight, healthy foods, and better sleep patterns are some of the treatments, but consider a person like Anna who doesn’t want to eat. She lies in bed most of the day, but has trouble sleeping. In order to get sunlight, she has to have the energy to get out of bed. As you can see, the spiral of depression can swallow a person whole.

This does not mean a person should stay in the spiral. Yes, it’s hard living day to day without a functioning incentive-reward center in the brain, but if you don’t get out of the spiral, it will consume you. It will take a bit of faith to get up day after day, sometimes for a very long time without results. But those suffering from depression are not alone. Others have gone before them and succeeded.

Exercising, removing junk food from your life, treating the underlining conditions such as anxiety, and receiving therapeutic help are key to getting out of depression. But you are worth it. Your life is worth it. Get help. Surround yourself with people who will hold you accountable—not by belittling you or abusing you, but by supporting you and your efforts to get better.

I write this last bit to the writer themselves because I have seen many writers speak about their depression and their battles with mental health. Writing is not just for the entertainment of the masses. It can also be a pathway to healing for the writer themselves. As you create these characters living their struggles, reflect on your own life as well. How will Anna get out of the depression cycle? How will you?  

Disclaimer: This is a writing blog and not intended to be used as a tool for diagnosing or treating anyone with mental illness.

Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing, by Sheila L. Videbeck, fifth ed., Wolters Kluwer/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2011.

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Okay, so my ask was about fanfics where either John or Sherlock hallucinates and sees the other one after him (allegedly?) dying. As in, actually hallucinates, not mistakes a real one for a hallucination. Have you encountered anything like that?

Anonymous said to inevitably-johnlocked: hi! i hope you're doing fine! i feel really bad for asking, but i really suck at searching, and as i see everyone asking you, i wanted to see if you could help me, if you dont want to, its fine, i feel like im taking adventage of you... im searching for fics post TRF in which John hallucinates with Sherlock, or fics in which Sherlock comes back but John cannot believe it because he hallucinated with him ... im sorry again for bothering you! hope you have a nice day

Hi Lovelies!!

Ahhh, I don’t have a LOT that have this premise, so I’m just going to give you all of the fics I have tagged with hallucinations :) I do suggest “The Quiet Man”, which has this as the primary plot point (down below) and it’s a long one so I think that will best suit you requests, but DO check out all of the others on this list! <3

And as always, Lovelies, if you have something more to what my Nonnies are looking for, please suggest them!

HALLUCINATIONS

Hallucinations can't open doors by Bespectacled dreamer (K+, 1,330 w., 1 Ch. || Reunion, Hurt / Comfort, Friendship, Hallucinations, John’s Wedding, Light Humour) – In which John gets married and Sherlock gets a broken nose.

Quite Contrary by Hollyesque (T, 1,805 w., 1 Ch. || HLV Fic, Sherlock Whump / After Mary Shot Sherlock, Hallucinations / Flashbacks / PTSD, Hospitalization, Hurt/Comfort, Lestrade POV, ) – A short one-shot, alternate scene to Greg's hospital visit in HLV. Instead of Sherlock disappearing, Greg is faced with an unexpected reaction to a hospitalized Sherlock and winds up figuring out something that he really would have rather not known.

Bitter Nights Turned Sweet by Hyliare (T, 4,076 w., 1 Ch. || Pre-Slash, Insomnia/Hallucinations, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, POV Present Tense John Watson, Cuddling/Snuggling) – Sherlock has always had trouble sleeping; he hasn't always had someone in his life willing to help.

Between Asleep and Awake by katydidit (K, 4,309 w., 1 Ch. || Friendship, Sick Fic, Post-TRF / Reunion) – John is sick. Incredibly, extremely, dangerously sick. Plagued by a high fever, he begins to hallucinate, start seeing things that aren't really there. Because they can't be there. Can they?

A Is For Aftermath by ElvendorkInfinity (T, 10,567 w., 1 Ch. || Injury / Whump, Hurt/Comfort, Friendship/Pre-Slash/Bromance/Platonics, Hallucinations, Introspection, Insecure / Worried John, Big Brother Mycroft, Alternating POV, Anxious Sherlock, Self-Deprecating, Mildly Possessive Sherlock, 3G Moment) – John is still hallucinating, Sherlock cannot sleep, and Lestrade has a new case for them. But will life at 221B ever be able to return to normal? Epilogue to M is for Moriarty.

I Will Take Care Of You by SailorChibi (T, 16,664 w., 15 Ch. || Hurt/Comfort, Sick Sherlock, BAMF John, BAMF Lestrade, Reunion Fic) – Two years after Sherlock's death, John comes to find him on the sofa. Wounded and ill, Sherlock is convinced he's hallucinating and refuses to share any details about Moran or the fact that Mycroft has been compromised. That doesn't stop John from stepping up and taking care of the last of Moriarty's web, BAMF-style.

Wonderful, Etcetera. by VictoryCandescence (T, 16,955 w., 3 Ch. || Wonderful Life AU || Alternate Timelines, Brotherhood, Homophobia, Suicidal Ideations, Mentions of Drug Use, Friendship, Different TRF, Sherlock’s Past, Victor Trevor is Past Boyfriend, Depression, Hallucination?, Love Confessions, Christmas, First Kiss) – Sherlock thinks everyone would be better off if he had never existed, including and especially himself. When he finds himself in a world in which his wish has been granted, he begins to think perhaps even he could be wrong – but it takes an unlikely chaperone to make him not only observe, but understand.

I Think I've Come A Long Long Way To Sit Before You Here Today by ArwenKenobi (T, 18,251 w., 3 Ch. || Grief/Mourning, Passage of Time, Major Character Death, Alternating POV, Sherlock Whump, Pining Sherlock, Hospitalization, Coma, Revenge Murders, Hallucinations, Love Confessions, Brutal Accident, Mystrade, Ghost John) – One year after John is killed Sherlock starts to wonder whether John has actually gone anywhere.

A Home for Us by sussexbound (M, 30,581 w., 12 Ch. || Scars, Bedsharing, Grief, Doctor John, Hurt/Comfort, Post-TRF, Implied/Referenced Torture, Sherlock POV, Pining Sherlock, Suicidal Ideation, Heavy Emotions, Clingy Sherlock, Hallucinations, Disassociation, Emotional Turmoil) – He has been on the road for two years, and he is exhausted. He’s almost accepted that he will never see London (John) again—almost. But then there are nights like tonight, where he is weak, and all he can think of is the warmth of the flat they once shared, the crackle of the fire in the hearth, the teasing smile playing at the corner of John’s lips, the boxes of half-eaten Chinese takeaway balanced precariously in their laps. He aches at the memory of it, at the realisation that it is something he may never experience again.

Impossible to Feign by achray (M, 49,204 w., 12 Ch. || TRF Rewrite / Reverse Reichenbach, Suicidal Ideations / Discussions, Drug Use/Abuse, Mutual Pining, Friends With Benefits, John Accepts his Sexuality, Anxious Sherlock, Meddling Mycroft, Depression, Hallucinations, Secret Agent John, BAMF John, Reunion, Make-Up Sex, Ambiguous Ending) – Sherlock leant forward, his long fingers curving round to grip John’s.“I won’t let him win,” he said, eyes hard. “I will do whatever it takes to get you out.”

Lunar Landscapes by J_Baillier (M, 57,046 w., 21 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || S3/TAB Fix-It, Slow Burn Angst, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Confessions, Drugs, Pain, Medical, Injury, Sherlock Whump, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks, Romance, Secrets, Tragedy, Trauma, BAMF John, Doctor!John, Drug Addict Sherlock, Injured Sherlock, Grieving John, Idiots In Love, Protective John, POV John Watson, PTSD Sherlock, Sherlock is a Mess, Medical Realism) – An accident forces John to face the fact that Sherlock's downward spiral had started long before his flight to exile even left the tarmac.

The Vapor Variant by 88thParallel (CanadaHolm) (M, 72,684 w., 18 Ch. || Post-THoB, John Whump, Protective Sherlock, Guilty Sherlock, Anxious/Worried Sherlock, Virgin Sherlock, Angst with Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, PTSD John, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Suspense, Virus, Sickfic, Big Brother Mycroft) – They stood face to face in the middle of a clearing. The dim light of the moon barely allowed Sherlock to see the glassy terror in John’s eyes and the sweat that glistened off his forehead. His nose was bleeding again, blood dripping in a slow stream from his right nostril. They were both gasping for air, John’s eyes locked on Sherlock’s. There was no recognition there, just wild animal fear. Time stood still for an eternal few seconds, and Sherlock took a shaky breath. “John—”Spell broken, John spun and bolted back into the woods. Still heaving for air, Sherlock took off after him.

The Summer Boy by khorazir (T, 94,706 w., 6 Ch. || Post S3/Post TAB/Alternate S4, Friends to Lovers, Asexual Sherlock, POV Sherlock, Flashbacks, Bullying, 1980′s Kid Sherlock, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Inexperienced Sherlock, Grief/Mourning, Pining Sherlock, Case Fic, Sherlock’s Past, Awkward Conversations, Anxious Sherlock) – About half a year after the fateful events at Appledore, Sherlock and John embark on a private case in Sussex. For Sherlock, it’s a journey into his past, bringing up memories both happy and sad that he has locked away for almost thirty years. For John, it means coming to terms with the present – and a potential future with Sherlock. Part 1 of the The Summer Boy series (possibly Imaginary Friend)

Against the Rest of the World by SilentAuror (E, 151,714 w., 20 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Post-TRF, Hiatus Fic, POV First Person Sherlock, Present Tense, First Kiss/Time, Big Brother Mycroft, Escaping from Capture, Soft Sherlock, Toplock, Insecurity, Infidelity, Travelling, Introspection, Pining Sherlock, Depression, Fantasies, Yearning for the Past, PTSD Sherlock, Suicidal Ideation) – Sherlock has been away from London for nine hundred and twelve days and counting, and has no idea what sort of reception to expect when he finally returns.

The Quiet Man by ivyblossom (E, 157,369 w., 58 Ch. || Post-TRF, John First POV, Grief/Mourning, Angst, Present Tense, Imaginary Sherlock) – "Do you just carry on talking when I'm away?"

Proving A Point by elldotsee & J_Baillier (E, 186,270 w., 28 Ch. || Me Before You Fusion || Medical Realism, Insecure John, Depression, Romance, Angst, POV John, Sherlock Whump, Serious Illness, Doctor John, Injury Recovery, Assisted Suicide, Sherlock’s Violin, Awkward Sexual Situations, Alcoholism, Drugs, Idiots in Love, Slow Burn, Body Image, Friends to Lovers, Hurt / Comfort, Pain, Big Brother Mycroft, Intimacy, Anxiety, PTSD, Family Issues, Psychological Trauma, John Whump, Case Fics, Loneliness, Pain) – Invalided home from Afghanistan, running out of funds and convinced that his surgical career is over, John Watson accepts a mysterious job offer to provide care and companionship for a disabled person. Little does he know how much hangs in the balance of his performance as he settles into his new life at Musgrave Court.

[destielshippingnews]

Edvard's Supernatural Rewatch & Review: 1x05 Bloody Mary

In this review, I’ll be discussing suicide, survivor’s guilt, and bad dialogue.

1x05 Bloody Mary enjoys a rating of 8.4 on IMDB. It’s a strong, atmospheric episode embodying the horror-show vibe the show was intended to evoke. It was originally conceived as being episode two or three of the show, and would have made a better episode two than 1x02 Wendigo due to its themes of guilt and bereavement linking into Jess’s death and Sam’s role in it.

Mirrors are one of the defining symbols of this episode, something made painfully obvious by the incredible number of mirrors the family owns. They are both the means whereby Mary kills her victims and the means whereby characters reflect on themselves. Sam’s info-dumpage that ‛mirrors reflect our soul’ should make it explicit to viewers paying attention that Mary is a metaphor for guilt. This guilt, however, is not necessarily the guilt that comes of commission of a crime or a moral evil, but the feeling of guilt borne of not being able to save somebody, or survivor’s guilt. A person burdened by such guilt looking in the metaphorical mirror must face a metaphorical Bloody Mary waiting to pass judgement.

Quite rightly, this judgement is not just, as indeed feelings of guilt, self-blame and survivor’s guilt are unjust. A discussion of the subject on Supernatural Therapy podcast raised the topic of self-blame when in fact one is not to blame: blaming ourselves is an attempt to feel in control of something and to understand it a little better. The deaths which the ill-fated father and Charlie blame themselves for are incomprehensible.

I can say from my own experience that losing a friend or loved one to suicide is impossible to understand. Grandparents dying of age is natural, and older relatives dying of long-term illness is understandable, though unjust. But when our driving instinct is supposed to be to stay alive, a friend’s or family member’s commission of self-murder undermines completely our comprehension of the world and our reality. It’s traumatic, and the mind seeks to understand and cope with something it simply can’t handle.

Returning to Supernatural Therapy, our feelings of guilt are misplaced attempts to control and understand, but they are more negative than positive. Thus Bloody Mary is an apt villain to don the role of avenging spirit in this episode, as she attacks people who feel guilty, regardless of whether or not they truly are responsible for a death.

This episode ties itself into the Sam’s character particularly closely, as Sam feels himself to blame for Jessica’s death. At first, his guilt is depicted as completely natural: he watched his possibly-pregnant girlfriend burn to death on his ceiling and was utterly unable to help her. Anybody in that situation would be dealing with guilt on top of bereavement and trauma, so he is naturally somebody Bloody Mary would go after. However, the revelation that he had ‛dreams’ (read: premonitions) about Jess’s death for days before it happened add another layer to his guilt.

That layer, of course, being his actual guilt in taking no measures whatsoever to ensure Jess’s safety. Sam is not a blue-eyed baby in 1x01: he is a man with deep knowledge of the supernatural world and was reckless to ignore them. It is never made explicit – unless something has slipped my mind – whether Sam had any experience or knowledge of humans with psychic powers, but it is clear that he knows about the paranormal. Any Muggle would be disturbed by having exactly the same dream of a loved one dying night after night, but would likely pass it off as stress, anxiety or some such. Sam’s no Muggle, and knows better. Was having a ‛normal’ life so important to him that he dismissed and ignored warning signs that the abnormal was coming for his lady? Is Sam partially responsible for Jess’s death here?

Knowing what I know of the circumstances surrounding Jess’s death, he likely couldn’t have stopped it, even had he called Dean and John for help. But he should have called them, and chose not to. If he had done so, she might have been saved. This is death by negligence.

What makes it worse is that he is aware that keeping his visions a secret got Jess killed, but at the end of the episode acts as though he is perfectly justified in retaining his secrets from Dean. Dangerous secrets overtly related to their mother’s death and the demon responsible for killing her, information which would be very useful to Dean and John if shared, but a danger if kept quiet. He learnt that not divulging his secret is dangerous for people around him, and elected to continue not divulging said secret to Dean. Please, dear viewer, bear this in mind in series 7, 8, 9, 15 and every other time Sam gets pissy at Dean for keeping things secret from him.

He even knows in this episode that keeping his secrets almost got Dean killed by Bloody Mary, but ‛just because we’re brothers, doesn’t mean I have to tell you everything’. Sam is supposed to be the hero of this piece...

Yes, some people are genuinely like that, but that doesn’t mean I have to like them, and I sure as Hell don’t like Sam. In the first five episodes, Dean is established as a flawed, contradictory hero who actually brings something to the table. Sam’s an entitled, spoilt prick who treats his brother like a joke and an embarrassment.

Returning to the theme of suicide and guilt, one thing that is not addressed in the episode is the dad’s own relationship to the mother’s death. That she overdosed on sleeping tablets heavily implies suicide, but for about half of the run time the viewer is expected to believe the father was somehow involved in her death, i.e. that he killed her, especially as the second victim was guilty of a hit and run where a boy died. What is never addressed, however, is that his guilt and the reason Bloody Mary targeted him is that he blamed himself for not being able to prevent his wife’s suicide. Charlie is allowed the catharsis of expressing her grief to Dean and Sam, but the father is not afforded the same opportunity.

Apropos Charlie, her precise meaning when she said her ex-boyfriend got ‛scary’ is left occult. He clearly suffered serious mental health problems, something which a lot of people simply aren’t equipped to handle, especially when the one suffering is a close friend or partner. Young male victims of suicide also tend to have been very good at wearing a mask to hide: did he try taking the mask off for her, and she didn’t like what she saw? From what little information she gives us, the implication is that he threatened her with violence or that he used hard drugs or something, but the viewer is at no point privy to what she means by ‛scary’ or to the man’s side of things.

Whether or not the young man intended to frighten and manipulate Charlie by threatening her with his suicide is also unclear. ‛If you walk out that door, I’ll kill myself’ can mean different things depending on tone and context, ranging from a desperate plea for help against an overwhelming mental illness to abusive, sadistic mind games. Having lost more than one man to suicide, the idea that someone would use it as a weapon is inconceivable, but without further information I simply can’t say.

From what little information we have, the man’s suicide was not Charlie’s fault. If we assume he was threatening her to keep her with him, she was right to run. Nobody should be mistreated or burdened like that, and no relationship should be built on a foundation of such abuse. She is important, too. Even if it weren’t a threat, the situation was intensely unhealthy for everybody involved and she was very justified in distancing herself. It wasn’t her fault, and I just wish Dean had told her that in the motel room, rather than simply talking about it to Sam in the car afterwards.

Speaking of said conversation in the car, Dean’s heart was in the right place as he tried to get Sam to stop blaming himself, but he perhaps revealed his own lack of coping tools whilst doing so. Dean is intelligent and empathetic, and far more caring than people give him credit for, but he was raised in an environment where he was not allowed to talk about his fears and anxieties. Nor was he provided any tools whatsoever to facilitate understanding and processing his traumas and illnesses; John wanted him as an emotionally-dead weapon to use in his war against Mary’s killer.

Dean feels, but with no healthy tools nor anybody to acknowledge and help in processing his issues, he bottles things up and pushes them aside as best he can. Of course, the best he can is not all that best, wherefore the drinks and the sex and the gallows humour. This is John’s echo in Dean: John silenced him, and Dean therefore is not best equipped to process his own trauma at the beginning of series 1, much less counsel somebody else (though this changes as the years go by and he learns how to act without John stymieing him).

He meant well in telling Sam he can’t carry on blaming himself for Jess’s death, but the problem is Sam can’t stop blaming himself. Nobody in Sam’s situation can stop themselves feeling what s/he’s feeling, and has to simply feel it. I knew my friend’s suicide wasn’t my fault, but grief, bereavement, and survivor’s guilt are not rational and can’t be controlled by the cognitive mind. The feeling mind is the one in control, all the cognitive mind can do is make suggestions and hope for the best.

Regarding grief and Sam’s situation, Sam’s nightmare and his conversation with Dean at the beginning of the episode are about as explicit as Sam’s grief for Jess gets int eh show, and it’s not much at all. They were together for maybe two years, she was possibly pregnant with his child and died on the ceiling above him, but he doesn’t do any actual mourning or grieving most of the time. That itself is okay as some peolel take years before they’re ready to process grief and bereavement, but Sam behaves like a slightly disgruntled, moody teenager which we’re supposed to interpret as him grieving Jess’s death, but we see next to no actual grief, trauma or expression of loss.

His discussion with Dean is supposed to give us the idea that this is a recurrent event, but it is very, very far from sufficient to genuinely make us believe that Sam is anything other than a little bit sad for Jess.

We have, however, already established that Sam is partially responsible for Jess’s death, but Dean doesn’t know that. In spite of it not being the most productive thing Dean could have said, it was valid. Grieving is natural and uncontrollable, but how we react to it is at least partially within the jurisdiction of the cognitive mind. We can’t resist grief, as even denying it acknowledges its presence, but rather we have to accept it as a natural part of life to be endured and felt, but not be controlled by it.

Similarly, Mary is herself a victim of trauma, having been murdered by her lover. Understandably, her mentis is significantly non compos after the experience, and killing people she deems to be guilty is perhaps her way of trying to process what happened to her. Referring once again to Supernatural Therapy podcast, Jovanna Burke (who played Mary in this episode) states she believed Mary saw herself as a vigilante trying to get restitution for people wronged by killing their murderers, but her world-view became so skewed and she lost all concept of a grey area. For her, things were black or white: guilty or not guilty. Dean as good as says that there is only guilty or not guilty for Mary: if somebody thinks their actions or lack thereof got somebody killed, that person’s guilty. Sam, after all, didn’t kill Jess, Charlie didn’t kill her ex-boyfriend and I don’t believe the father had a part in the mother’s death.

I would add to this that such thinking sounds like a trauma victim’s survival mechanism. If things are easily understood as either / or, good / bad, safe / dangerous, the risk of danger is theoretically reduced. Think wild animals assuming humans are going to kill them: it’s safest to assume and run away.

This has been quite the lengthy discourse on mirrors, but it’s time to switch from the metaphorical and symbolical to the more practical, that being the exact nature of how the magic works. Mary was bound to the mirror she died in front of, but as long as that mirror remained intact, she was free to wonder the mirror world when summoned. In the climax of the episode, Dean and Sam summon her to her mirror in the antique shop, smash it, then face her manifest form in the real world. Dean defeats her by showing her her own reflection in another mirror, whereupon her own reflection deems her guilty of multiple homicides and kills her.

Hawk-eyed readers will have noticed already, but if Mary’s power was bound to her mirror, how then could her own reflection have killed her when the mirror binding her was smashed? Was the source of her power in her, then, rather than the mirror? If so, then how would her seeing her own reflection killed her? A ghost in Supernatural doesn’t have the power to destroy itself like that: it simply can’t. A ghost has refused the Reaper’s invitation to pass on, and can’t therefore pass on, yet Mary does. I can’t make this make sense.

One more thing about that scene is that Dean’s eyes began bleeding, implying he is also hiding a secret where somebody died. Fans made a big number out of this at the time, and Kripke promised us we would find out in due course… but we never did. This is the first instance of one of Dean’s storylines getting dropped by the show, and it’s far from being the last one.

Kripke didn't like Dean. Dean was supposed to be the dumb, womanising popular guy who always gets the women but 'treats them badly' in comparison to Sam's sensitive nice guy act. Sam was Kripke's insert, and Dean was just a character the audience wasn't supposed to like either, so he didn't bother giving Dean his own storylines. Even series 3 is more about Sam's anger and 'grief' than it is Dean's.

Now that the main points are out of the way, there are more minor points in the episode to comment on. One is the lovely cinematography, especially during the cold open / prologue. I began this review by stating that mirrors are important in this episode, and the camerawork in the beginning really drive that home. Moreover, seeing Mary reflected in so many mirrors – and indeed seeing so many reflections – blurs the line between the real world and the mirror world.

The children’s sleepover is also pleasantly lit, with very dark shadows and lots of candlelight evoking the feel of a ghost story. The shot in the library with the rays of light shining on the boys also looked wonderful, and the visual storytelling in the antique shop at the end was impressive. Said visual storytelling refers to the close up shot of a blinking red light, followed shortly after by the headlights of the police cars drifting across the wall. This is intelligent storytelling that expects the viewer to be paying attention, and it’s definitely appreciated.

In spite of my apathy for Jess as a character, the final shot of Sam seeing her on the pavement was fantastic cinematography: as with the flashing lights, it told us a story without needing to tell us anything. Sam saw her, and then she disappeared. Coming at the end of an episode about Sam’s guilt, and roughly a minute after his advice to Charlie about not blaming herself, this strongly suggests something has changed in Sam: the guilt that he was holding on to has begun to ease, or even vanish. It is, however, just a suggestion, and Sam giving Charlie a therapy session he sorely needs doesn’t mean he’s going to follow his own advice.

I wish, however, that more had been revealed about the kind of pills the father was taking in the cold open.

Speaking of the library – which we weren’t –do you remember when Wi-Fi didn’t exist? I remember. Currently I’m sitting about two metres away from my computer which is tethered to my mobile phone, typing on a wireless keyboard, using a wireless mouse in a room with no working ethernet cable or modem, listening to sounds of an oil rig on Bluetooth headphones, but in 2005 none of that was possible. There’s almost as much time between now and then as there was between my birth and ABBA winning Eurovision in Brighton in 1974.

Which is a nice segue into the soundtrack of the episode. The music in the opening is effective, being both reminiscent of the prologue of 1x01 with its minimalistic, slow piano track building tension and unease, but with an underlying hollow, howling wind sound that I can only liken to the dementors in Harry Potter.

Less impressive, however, was Mary’s dialogue, showing a complete lack of effort put into it. ‛You killed them, you’re guilty’, ‛you did it, you killed that boy’.

I rewatched this episode for the first time in 12 years in December 2020, by myself in a silent flat very late at night. I was 29, and this episode still creeped me out, making me hesitant to look at the window in case my reflection moved. Whilst it’s not my favourite episode, it’s certainly a solid effort with a memorable – if dated – antagonist in a self-contained MOTW story. Like the pilot, it showcased Kripke’s initial conception of the show as being about American folklore (although Bloody Mary is very much a British thing, too), and boasts a very atmospheric miniature horror show. It also offers character development and growth, even thought Sam’s claim that he would die for Dean is laughable in retrospect.

After once more exploring folk tales in 1x05, in next week's analysis of episode 1x06 Skin I'll be looking at how the show expands its daemonology by introducing a series staple.

[pinehurst]

My Take on the First 3 Episodes

Let’s talk about Fugou Keiji for a second because I’ve been dying to talk about it. 

After waiting practically 5 months, the long-awaited third episode finally aired. I remember back when Fugou Keiji was first announced the hype over Daisuke took over the internet. Good looking? Check. Rich? Check. Parted black hair? Check. Nonchalant? Sign me up. I also gave into the hype; heck, who wouldn’t? He’s practically the whole package; my dream man so to speak. The Jumin Han of another dimension.

Disclaimer: This discusses the only 3 episodes out at the moment and as new episodes come out I’ll most likely just create new posts so everything here isn’t really definite so to speak? My theories and beliefs are just based on the first 3 episodes so they may not be the most accurate thing out there.

Disclaimer #2: This is me just rambling on so things may not be in the best order so please bear with me (it’s mainly just my thoughts on how our 2 main characters have developed so far and any theories that I have)

Once the first episode aired, I was absolutely hooked on both the synopsis and the characters. Two detectives working together despite having completely different beliefs? Imagine the drama that would unfold! 

Haru Kato, our main detective, would put his life on the line in the name of justice, taking extreme measures to uphold his humanistic values. The first episode heavily emphasized this idea. He insisted he take part in the entire bomber mission even though he wasn’t apart of the First Division. Ranks mean nothing in the face of human lives. Once he and Daisuke, the richer half of the duo, closed in on the van bearing the bomb, without any hesitation he jumped onto the van only to warn the driver inside, who happened to be a thief. This seemingly innocent civilian’s life was in danger: they had no right to die from a terrorist attack. He knew well of the dangers as there was only a minute left until the bomb detonated, yet his morals took over. If nobody is going to save her, he must do it. Would he have still done this if he knew that the driver was a thief? We can’t be so sure yet.

Even in episode two Haru’s traditional values prevail as he continued to pursue Isezaki, the smuggler in question, despite being exhausted and practically lifeless. The first two episodes really painted Haru as this character who is willing to go to the extreme and literally kill himself for the sake of others. His work method basically revolves around these old-school techniques.

Kanbe Daisuke lies on the opposite side of the spectrum though. He is far more materialistic and uses his wealth to buy his way through every situation. In need of a car? Just buy it from the prince of the Abura Emirates. A tower is affiliated with a smuggler? Just buy the tower and do whatever you must. He marches to the beat of his own drum, refusing to cooperate with Haru and even ignores his complaints. Haru is very clearly repulsed by Daisuke’s ways as he views it as though he’s cheating at life. Using money instead of working hard? Pathetic. Daisuke, on the other hand, just doesn’t seem to understand Haru’s views. Why go through all that trouble when you could easily solve it through a few million bucks? He doesn’t necessarily value human lives in the same way that Haru does either. As seen in the first episode, he almost ran over a mother and her son if Haru hadn’t intervened. But Daisuke’s character is far more complex in my opinion.

This is where my theories come into play. I suspect that something happened in Daisuke’s past that caused him to lose trust in others or even respect for other humans if we could go to that extreme. The series began with Daisuke playing the piano while saying:

“I had a father, and I had a mother. I believe I had a happy childhood. However, ever since a certain day, everything had changed.” 

This led me to believe that maybe possibly his parents died from a tragic murder or anything that would cause him to lose sympathy or care for others. Or any type of sad backstory for that matter. Maybe this is why someone of his rank and wealth even decided to join the police/detective force in the first place rather than selfishly indulge in his wealth.

Anywho, the first episode really helped build my theory. This is especially notable at the end as Daisuke is driving the prince’s car up the bascule bridge to push the cleaning van with the bomb. He smirks that devilish smile that we all swooned over the first time we saw it as the van crept closer to the edge of the bridge. Once Haru jumps out of the car to save the “civilian” inside, Daisuke’s facial expression changes to a much more soft, almost confused expression. A few minutes later when Haru is hanging off of the bridge, Daisuke watches Haru helplessly hang. He’s the one who decided to help the civilian, now he’s suffering the consequences. Why help him? 

Episodes 1 and 2 really helped to establish the contrasting personalities and mindsets between Haru and Daisuke, which I really enjoyed. The fact that our two main characters are as different as night and day made the show much more comedic, which I absolutely enjoyed! The subtlety in the expressions too: stunning. *chef’s kiss*

The third episode elaborated on their personalities and really added a sort of “depth” to them. Oh boy was this episode chaotic and full of new information. This is the episode where we see their first step towards true partnership, Haru’s backstory, and even met grammy Kanbe. Let’s dive into it.

The episode started off with Daisuke, Haru, and Suzue visiting the Kikuko, or Daisuke’s grandmother. As of right now, it’s still unclear whether Suzue is Daisuke’s fiancé or sister, but either way she was in no way the focus of the episode. Daisuke seems much more submissive towards his grandmother, a side of him we’ve yet to see. This is even prominent in the opening song as Daisuke is seen smirking alongside the other members of the Modern Crime Prevention Task Force (MCPTF) yet he has a much more neutral face around his grandmother. Is it out of respect? Quite possibly. He is much more composed (even though he always has been) and compliant, furthering my case. Back to my theory, maybe his grandma raised him after his parents died and that’s where his respect grew from. The possibility is always there.

It’s also noticeable that Daisuke seems much more irritated towards Haru as in practically any screenshot from these first few scenes you could feel the pique radiate from him. Daisuke even gave Haru the stink eye a few times before Haru ratted him out to his grandmother (harsh). Whatever happened in Hong Kong must’ve been brutal, but it really helped throw a curveball in their relationship. 

After that bop of an opening, it’s revealed that Haru is sitting next to a student facing lots of difficulties early on ranging from his sister’s bad health to failing his college entrance exam. Haru very clearly sympathizes with this kid as he also failed his first college entrance exam, and heck who wouldn’t feel bad for a kid going through this much stress? Imagine the absolute grief Haru felt when he found out that it’s that same kid who held a woman at gunpoint later on. When calling Kamei later on, Haru shouted:

“No! Don’t tell him. Absolutely not.” 

Considering his relationship with his fellow peers, we can safely assume that he’s referring to Daisuke. At this point, we know that Haru doesn’t trust Daisuke at all. Like not even a sliver. That rich boy help him? No sir. No thank you. 

This scene also unveiled the tension between Haru and the First Division. Haru and Hoshino are clearly not on good terms as they speak formally to one another, almost as though they weren’t partners a few years back. A flashback plays soon after and its revealed that all went downhill when Haru misfired and ended up wounding one burglar and killing one innocent civilian (who held a gun at Haru most likely out of fear; I mean, who wouldn’t be scared in such a situation). This ultimately led to his demotion to the Third Division. Lots of drama. Lots of tears. This backstory revealed exactly why Haru is unable to shoot anymore: his past trauma is to blame. 

Haru still clearly cares for Hoshino though. When he and Daisuke listened in to the First Division’s call line, Haru practically prayed that the perp wouldn’t get shot, for both the sake of morals and for his friend. His “friend” is mentally incapable of shooting anyone and the perp just “isn’t a bad guy.” Haru is revealed to be an even greater advocate of morality and humanism than we previously thought. Even though this college student was hosting a stand-off, Haru refused to believe that he was any less human and hoped to find a way to prevent him from approaching death’s doorstep. So, to answer the question from earlier: yes, Haru would still save the thief if he was aware of it. He values human lives to the point that the First Division had the audacity to say that he “has no right to be a police officer.” 

Daisuke listened closely to Haru’s wishes and worked to make them come true. He worked to find a way to bring the perp down without any bloodshed and practically did anything to conform to Haru’s wishes, ranging from allowing him to use HEUSC to setting off smoke rockets to prevent the perp from getting shot by the police. When the First Division chief insists that Haru shoot the perp, Haru is clearly hesitant. What if things go wrong again? No, why should he shoot him when he wants him to live? Should he just throw away his morals in the midst of panic? Haru is shown to try to reason with the perp and just couldn’t bring himself to shoot him. Maybe there will be some development in the future? Who knows. 

Daisuke later on bribes the perp by stressing he’ll pay for his sister’s surgery in order to resolve the actual reason he decided to host the stand-off in the first place. Daisuke obviously did it for the mission and maybe he didn’t feel remorse whatsoever (heck who can tell what Daisuke is thinking) but I have a feeling that as the series progresses Daisuke will start to do these acts of kindness not only for the case but also out of authenticity. The perp seems intimidated (possibly by Daisuke’s lifeless expressions) and gives in and the day is saved! The third episode formally wraps up with another unforgettable bop. 

The takeaway from the entire episode is that Daisuke started cooperating with Haru and even allowed him to use HEUSC. Was this because he had a change in mindset? Or was he just following his grandmother’s wishes? Personally, I believe it’s both but leaning towards the latter. Daisuke, as mentioned before, has a different kind of respect for his grandmother and would submit to her wishes. Since she said “don’t trouble your coworkers,” he decided to work with Haru rather than just alongside him. She also insisted that Haru help coach Daisuke, so once again, he’s following her orders. However, I do believe that Daisuke is rather curious about Haru’s lifestyle. They are quite different as a matter of fact. He wanted to understand how Haru could easily put his life on the line for other people and maybe even wanted to change himself. That’s unlikely considering it’s only the third episode, but that possibility is still there. 

But I strongly believe that Daisuke had a change in mindset, even if it may be small. He jeopardized his life and walked towards the perpetrator only because he trusted Haru’s words: “He isn’t the type of guy to kill.” Maybe Daisuke did this only to follow his grandmother’s wishes. Maybe he did this out of sheer trust. Maybe he did this to try to better his relationship with Haru (the chances are, yet again, a bit low). Nonetheless, he still put his life at risk and this was one small step in their partnership (and one giant leap for fangirl-kind). That’s not to say that their relationship isn’t still iffy. Whenever Haru starts to speak in the car, Daisuke just puts the pedal to the metal and drives off into the distance.

Personally, I enjoyed this shift in character in Daisuke in the third episode. I've seen many comments regarding how it's sudden that his character changed, but I felt as though it made sense (as explained above). I see where they're coming from as we were robbed from the Hong Kong trip, and it’s evident that something happened in Hong Kong that caused a shift in their characters; however, I felt as though the third episode put emphasis on the fact that Daisuke is changing whether it be by his free will or his grandmother’s, or both. 

In conclusion: I cry over pretty boys so much to the point that I wrote an entire review on them.

EDIT: So it’s been confirmed that we’re going to learn about what happened in Hong Kong in a drama CD. All I can say is yes

[albatris]

Hello hope you're well on this Saturday may I ask what the deepest fears of each of the ATDAO cast members is, thank you and goodnight

oh you’re just gonna dive right in with the hard-hitting questions I see

thank you for the ask!!

under the cut because rambles, of course, I literally do not know how to be concise I’m so sorry, you probably already knew this was coming HAHAHA

Tris’s deepest fear aside from Literally Everything In The Universe would be uhhhhh....... being somehow responsible for harm coming to the people he cares about? either directly or indirectly. I think on a big scale the whole concept of the butterfly effect stresses him out hahaha. on a small scale, he spends a lot of time stressing about his friends and family, he has a lot of intrusive thoughts about what horrible things could potentially happen to them, he worries about accidentally hurting them, etc. etc.

n I haven’t really talked in depth all that much about the specifics of Tris’s psychosis, but there’s definitely aspects of it that become pretty intense and aggressive in terms of commands and orders and “some terrible and/or violent thing will happen to your friend / sister / neighbour if you don’t do this thing”, lots of prickly parts of it that like to make threats to his safety and the safety of the people around him if he attempts to ignore or resist them. so even on good days he’s got this constant background-hum anxiety that if he chooses to disobey something or if he misinterprets a sign or if he steps out of line, his loved ones are going to be punished for it, which is just.............. a lot

a fear of helplessness and a lack of control also factors into it, like, ever since he was very very very small he’s had this idea ingrained that you can do literally everything right and the universe can still squash you like a bug at any second, n he had absolutely no way to even begin processing that in a healthy way so it just manifested in the fact that he pretty much only ever feels safe when he’s accounted for every tiny detail and is following very specific routines and has left as little room as possible for anything unexpected to catch him off guard. he’s got these rules and systems and rituals he clings to ‘cause they offer him some illusion of safety and control even though they kind of........ won’t actually do anything to stop the universe fucking his shit up

Noa’s is................. I’m not sure if “being left behind” really covers it

if we’re talking in a real broad big scale sense, I think it’s a fear of being forgotten or brushed over or not being seen, or more, people refusing to see her? it’s a fear of, like, fighting her hardest to make noise and be seen and the world just completely and utterly turning its back on her. she’s spent a whole lot of her life trying to carve out a space for herself and make her voice heard, n between illness and financial difficulties and a piece of shit dad, she and her mum have struggled to stay afloat in systems that have just consistently, consistently failed them and whose best advice is “just try harder” and “we can’t help you if you don’t help yourself”

and, like, Noa’s very full of rage about it and has made some restless peace with the fact that she has to look out for herself and the people she cares about, because no one in any position of power is gonna throw them a stick, but it’s not something she’s comfortable with and it’s a horribly alienating and frightening experience

n I guess a fear of being left behind does play out on an interpersonal level too, though it’s not really in the same vein as the other stuff? I’ve talked a lot in the past about how she’s resistant to people getting close to her ‘cause she’s got a lot of paranoia and fear and doesn’t wanna be vulnerable, but there’s also just............ a whole lot of impostor syndrome in the friendships she already has, she’s always on some level convinced that she’s somehow tricked people into liking her and one day they’re gonna wake up and realise she’s not all that special or that nice or that fun to be around. I don’t think she really views herself as someone who’s allowed to be loved just for who she is, or that “who she is” is someone who already has value or anything to bring to the table in terms of friendship

Shara’s deepest fear is the idea that there really is Absolutely No Meaning To Any Of This

that the universe is all just chaos with no purpose and no direction, that there are no bigger forces at play, that there’s nothing good and right and loving at the centre of it all, that it’s all just chance and machinery and completely unfeeling

I think one of the main ways she processes the world and is able to feel safe given the collapsing nature of reality is her desperate and adamant belief that There Has To Be An Answer, that it’s all something that can be untangled and solved, and that if she can manage to figure it out then she’ll be able to make some peace with it and things will make sense again

there’s a lot of stuff from her past that she has no real closure for, particularly the loss of one of her close childhood friends as a result of some unfortunate interdimensional fuckery, and she’s still trying to sort out her feelings about it and find a way to live her life in relation to it, she’s still trying to find a way that something so cruel can make sense

Kai has............................ a lot of fear. many many fear. I will not talk about all of it. I will talk about two of it

one of the main ones is this idea that the only reason they try so hard to care so much and help people and have a positive impact on the people around them is because deep down they don’t actually care at all, that they’ve kind of just fooled everyone into thinking they’re a good person when in reality they’re the worst, they’re a liar and a fraud

which is just kind of......... I mean, they’re not really someone who’s ever considered their own mental health at length so they haven’t really got any point of reference for what’s happening to them post-time-loop, which is basically just. panic attacks, dissociative episodes, blacking out for days at a time, not recognising themself in the mirror, feeling completely numb, not even fully convinced that this is even real life. all very understandable reactions to what they’ve just been through

but definitely the thing that hits them the hardest is the fact that they can look at the people they’re supposed to love and care about and just not feel anything at all, which fuckin terrifies them. they spend a lot of time in crisis about it, feeling like they’re an actor trying to play the part of their own life, they’re doing what they think they’re supposed to but they’re just completely disconnected

(they eventually open up to Noa about it in a full breakdown and are like “I’m a terrible person” and she’s just like “you’re traumatised you fucking dumbass let’s get you some therapy”)

and on equal footing to this and one that deserves a mention is the fact that they’ve been psyching themself up to Go Back Home for the past year and then psyching themself out again, repeat x infinity. A Lot Fucking Changed in the years Kai was gone, and their family had a funeral for them and mourned them and had to deal with all the grief and the fallout of losing their sibling / child / family member and their mum broke down in a real bad way and they’ve all spent the past seven years trying to claw their way back to anything resembling a normal life

and Kai is kinda A) unsure whether it would be selfish of them to try and re-enter their lives now, whether it would be disruptive and confusing and more pain than it’s worth given how much work they’ve put into trying to move on and create a new normal and B) fucking terrified that they won’t even know these people anymore because they’ve all changed so much and Kai hasn’t, they’re not going to fit here or be welcome anymore, and that no matter how much they try to return to normal they’re never going to have a home again

and that is just

kind of a :( note to end on but here we are, at the end

thanks for coming to my ted talk?

!!! thank u for reading if you read this far in my rambling please have an excellent night

[shy-magpie]

RQG 142

I used up all my delayed gratification avoid spoilers and not listening to a season a day; so in an act of optimism over evidence I am going to listen before bed instead of waiting for my lunch break at work. Come on dead!Shoin! It would be the perfect punchline to Zolf refusing to play, if Yoshida was killed by his own trap. I think I was wrong about Zolf's spell sobering up Skraak but we've got to be nearing the 24 hour mark in the next couple episodes. They have to sleep sometime. Eep! Streaming promo! Rusty Towers has to be doing well if they can branch out, good for them! What can I say I like rituals? Thank yous followed by the theme and intros make my brain light up. Alex went 3rd person over the stress of the series being up to 142? Time to poke the corpse. Exploding 20s sound fun but a pain to plan for. Body is in a state of disrepair. Panel open in the room indicates the bolt came from a trap Body is gross Adventurer not Shoin? We can't search the corpse? Not even for Alex's traditional wallet of backstory? Can't picture the layout (ETA  Babs you are amazing, and your map is my RQG post for tomorrow.) Explanation for this area having power, I just like hearing Cel talk. Locker by each door. No Alex, we don't trust them to be normal lockers. Fire ax, weird wrench, box. Box contains: Solvent, glue, a dead potion, means of applying glue/solvent Cel sounds like they are consoling themself for this not being a puzzle Zolf is not a public speaker, but I think I got the gist of it. Take the tool kits: we will need them whether this is a puzzle or not. Another dead trap. Thanks for the careful wording, Alex *Foul water pool surrounded by a walk way *2 dead kobolds :( *Killed by acid in the face from a creature I am tempted to mark the turnings but given the weird layout I don't think I could track it right even if I could juggle my MP3 player, this post, a pen and paper. Once again just going to trust them to spell out what's important. Yeah they would check for traps at every door. Ooh active trap. Its a well balanced team, nice to hear them give eachother credit for their respective strengths so readily. Dark hall way of options They are honest, and admit they are probably not checking for traps as they walk. Oh good Zolf doesn't actually have a Thing about Dancing Lights. It really was just a "could we not make it easier for people to shoot us?" coupled with a possibly IC trouble relating to how much moving around in the dark stinks without Dark Vision. Ha they immediately spot a tripwire they would have missed if they just had Zolf & Azu lead them in the dark. Chalk marking, ensuing discussion of what it means. Is that Zolf or Ben who is losing it over the puzzles? Cel, do you need a variation on the "a live dog is better than a dead lion" speech I nearly wrote when Hamid went after that ooze? Because dead scientists can't write up their findings. Love ya both, if you have to die, please not to something you could have just walked away from. Of course Zolf is going to indulge them; he took to Cel fast as Sasha and Cel is less squishy than L1 Sasha. Oh darn I have to be fair, learning what the symbols mean could be life saving later on. The glaive really is a 10ft pole, I was joking when I asked that. I hate the word "seemingly". Alex, don't break Ben. Hmm, this is actually pulpy fun. Getting us back to base levels after really intense beginning of the season or being readied for more emotional content? Most of the beats I'm expecting can't hit until they get off the island; could be the answers to the what's going on around here are intense. Final bets on it being Mr. Ceiling mark 1? Weird room with weirder floor. Clearly another puzzle. Once again how rich is this guy? That's a lot of money to go "I'm smarter than you are". Genre savvy is rewarded Dead wizard "I'm giving you this for free" is Alex implying that other info given without rolls has a price normally? Other room is completely flooded? Zolf suggests we mark the door.  Kinky Azu. Hamid switches mark to clearly writing the issue. This team backs a play,  so its now a Rosetta Stone of warnings Partially flooded room but no real danger? Ah Zolf catches that we could lose our path back if we keep doing letting water out. Flooded & trashed lab Speakers burst to life Break time Its Yoshida, arguing with himself. Cel is a delight. Azu is "going to shake" Yoshida Swimming sounds like a bad idea. Oh, caught that tone from Zolf, does he think Poseidon would mess with them? Worrying since Alex keeps tossing water related potions at them. Zolf and Hamid are making decisions as equals. Hamid no longer sounds nervous and Zolf still isn't pulling rank crap. Even Skraak is worried about Zolf. Oh right, better is a relative term. Still pretty depressed (mechanicaly grief stricken). Ok not to get to into it, but Zolf's mental health arc is really good. Like no show is perfect but Zolf going from the Paris breakdown to clearly putting the work in on changing how he talks about himself and relates to the team, but it not being a cure all? All while still being a fully contributing member of the team? Pretty damn good to see. Back to first room. Cel does not understand where Zolf is coming from. Cel, Azu, and Zolf have a brief conversation about Zolf's mood. Have I mentioned how great Azu is lately? Player vs Character thing? Because even without Alex lamp-shading it, Lydia doesn't strike me as the "you must be chipper" type. Zolf and Cel interaction. Zolf wants to put a pin in this and have a proper conversation later. Not sure how I feel about promising to "keep a lid on it". On the other hand its hard to balance expressing the emotion vs ramping yourself up vs the needs of the rest of the team. So much for me not getting into it. Flip-side: hey, turns out I can acknowledge an actual flaw in Cel while still thinking they are awesome overall. Crates of potions, including the stuff from the syringe spears. wanna grab a sample this time? Because I'm thinking the stuff in the spears is the stuff that makes the Kobolds so docile and may be a prototype for the alchemical side of the blue veins. That sounds cathartic for Zolf. (looting the place then letting Zolf smash the rest) Azu smashes too. Good for both of them. Ah point Cel, stuff could have airborne effects. Point Zolf, 2 way street, Cel should let people know that kind of thing. Speakers, what is up with Shoin? Assuming this isn't a pre-programmed contingency (which I wouldn't have thought possible until watching Alex), why is he using the script from the puzzle party while half of the traps are broken? Getting meta again Well maintained nasty trap with really obscure poison 2nd trap?! Isn't going to kill anyone, thank Alex. What in the Magnus Archives? Dancing mannequin room with weird heavy gas? Going to crawl on the conveyor belt. Its trapped too. Acid damage to Azu. Into initiative.

Skraak got a nat 20

Azu was hit with a syringe arrow of acid. 

Azu backs out past Hamid & Skraak

A second trip wire drops a grate! Hamid and Skraak are trapped on the conveyor; everyone else is back in the room.

Zolf sees Cel dithering and directs them to deal with the grate. No effect

Azu takes 7 damage

Hamid uses acid splash on the grate.

Oh cool, there is an actual rule for how long it takes to get armor on and off. It makes sense too, the better the armor is the longer it takes. From what I picked up, better armor would have more straps for better fit and have more thick overlapping bits rather than gaps

All Zolf can do is a heal check and help Azu get her armor off.

Cel offers the antidote potion, but we don't know what it does.

Hamid reassures Skraak, continues to splash grate

Cel can't really do anything

More damage to Azu

Sweet out of initiative

Zolf cleans Azu off, Azu takes a couple healing potions and that’s dealt with. The acid splashes didn't do anything to the grate. Lift the grate attempt one. Ah "come on Skraak,  we're going to help" so wholesome Zolf wacks it with his glaive, it has some effect but not a viable plan Speakers again, Cel points out they might need to meet Hamid on the other side. ...long story short lever attempt has no chance of working. Zolf: Hamid, mate, you're on your own Hamid: I've got Skraak. (winks at Skraak, Skraak blinks at him) Is it having little brothers? He is good with Skraak! Zolf: chin up, don't die on the conveyor belt. Hamid: yup gonna try Zolf: cool anything we can give you? Hamid: I'm pretty well equipped I think. Zolf: all right well we'll see you on the other side. Azu: Yeah, we'll meet you there alright. We'll see you soon Hamid: yeah Azu: alright Hamid: stay safe Azu & Zolf: you too And the end of the episode out takes are always fun

[cannabisrefugee-esq]

Benefits Attorneys are Professional Gaslighters. Language Itself is Gaslighting. Discuss.  Or Don’t, It Really Probably Doesn’t Even Matter.

March 29, 2019

I spent my entire brief career as an attorney trying to get income- and disability-based benefits for vulnerable people.  It was a grueling and traumatizing career track that I realize now (and kind of realized at the time at different times) was based not in actually helping people by understanding their circumstances and getting people what they desperately needed, but in cruelly gaslighting them and wasting their time and energy doing “intakes” and whatnot when they could least afford the expense.  I have written here before about one potential client that was referred to me by a medical provider because he said people were threatening and following him.  Turns out, this man was quite mentally ill and was having delusions and it was left not up to his doctors (who palmed him off on me) but to me, a young attorney, to put the pieces together for him and to figure out what was really going on, but not before wasting a significant amount of his time.

Of course, even if there were people following and threatening him there is little to nothing a lawyer could’ve done about it.  I told the man to call the police if he felt threatened, and as was the policy of the nonprofit I was working for at the time, got the man’s consent to speak with the referring medical providers about his “case” when what I really wanted to do was punch the lot of them in the mouth for failing their own patient so egregiously and palming him off on me like he was garbage and I was a can.  Don’t even get me started on how much I hated that job.  I wasn’t well liked either and after 10 months was invited to leave.  To be fair, if I hadn’t needed the money myself, having just quit a perfectly good job at a for-profit law firm (which I also hated) in order to take that one, I would’ve quit my dream job at this nonprofit after a couple of weeks once I realized what really went on there, and that “case” with the elderly Spanish-speaking mentally ill man is a decent example of what a day at the office looked like there.   Here’s another:

Another of my clients was a Spanish-speaking woman who was about as bad off as anyone can get.  I had gleaned from the referral paperwork that she had a couple of young kids and was close to being homeless in New York City (or was on either side of the homeless/sheltered line at different times, which is so common, I don’t even remember now).  For readers who have never attempted to survive there with no resources and no money, and so don’t know what it’s like, New York City is something like a concrete meat grinder, with Satan himself at the controls, and pimps and “mental health” enforcers in every nook and cranny soaking up the blood and making sure the victims — the “meat” if you will — are never allowed to fully die.  To say that these living and working conditions were brutal only underscores the problems with language that I will attempt to address in this post.  “Brutal” and in fact any word or word-combination does not even come close to describing the reality of what any of this was actually like for myself or surely for my clients.  Hellish isn’t enough.  Suicidal isn’t enough, but it’s close.

What I remember about this woman, besides the fact that I wasn’t able to give her anywhere near the kind or degree of help she actually needed, was that it was almost impossible to communicate with her.  I didn’t speak Spanish but in that situation it wouldn’t have mattered: her normal speaking voice was literally screaming and what she was screaming were not even fully formed words.  My employer utilized an expensive, top of the line translation service that provided telephone translation for dozens if not hundreds of languages but in this case the translator was unable to tell me what she was saying because he couldn’t understand her himself.  She was just screaming, screaming, Jesus.  If she hadn’t been referred to me by a medical provider, and if we hadn’t already been conducting the interview in a hospital setting I probably would’ve called 911.  Medical and social services providers just swished past my open door like what was happening in there was completely normal and not an emergent medical issue, but from what I could tell it wasn’t a legal issue either so this woman received no help from me or anyone.*

I had no idea what to do or how to help this woman because my job was to get information from her, have her sign paperwork and to “get the ball rolling” on emergency, short and long-term legal services for her.  What I know now, as a hopelessly ill and unresourced person myself, is that my even asking the questions and wasting her time insisting that she talk to me was just gaslighting her, and she surely did not have the energy and mental or physical reserves/resources to be gaslighted just then.  What I know now, because I am mostly there myself, is that the only relevant question for someone in her situation is “Do you need protection from any man in particular, or just all men?” and the only relevant action on my or anyone’s part would be to then assume she needed EVERYTHING and to get her every benefit available with no further discussion or delay including shelter, food, medicine, childcare, peace and quiet, and a permanent place to rest her head. 

Because that’s what all women and all oppressed people need, and the fact that she was alone in my office screaming was the only type and degree of communication I should’ve needed and the only kind she should’ve been expected to provide, but it doesn’t work that way.  Also, I wasn’t a fucking social worker but referring her to one would’ve just been more gaslighting since they, along with her medical providers, were the ones who referred her to me in the first place, but they never actually told me why or hinted at how or why they thought the law could help.  They probably just needed/wanted the incoherently screaming Spanish-speaking lady out of their hair.  And on it goes.

Do you see what I am saying?  Just asking oppressed people what their situation is is fucking gaslighting on its face when we know their situation is that they are oppressed and everything that flows from that including poverty and extreme physical and mental strain.  Utilizing an expensive “translation service” means that providers can maybe sometimes — but not always — gaslight people in their own language but it does nothing to get them what they actually need, which is a respite from hell and an emergent, short and long-term plan to not be oppressed anymore.  But that “plan” and that kind and degree of help does not exist nor will it ever.  And in that situation with my client, we were both left with the impression that she received no help that day because of her failure to “communicate” with me but in reality, she was telling me everything I should’ve needed to hear.  Just being there exhausted both of us because being gaslighted is exhausting and gaslighting oppressed people is exhausting, or at least it’s exhausting for providers who actually want to help but are stymied at every turn and all the straightaways too where “communication” and “information” is absolutely required to do our jobs but our clients are too far down the grief-hole or chronic illness-hole or hell-hole to give us what we need.  Of course, there is no guarantee that benefits or services will be available at all depending on the information we receive.

I have noticed (and experienced firsthand) that particularly women don’t even ask for help until they are not just drowning but going down for the final time because particularly women know what happens when women ask for help of anyone, and that the “help” they need is just not there.  They know their friends, families and communities are frequently unable or unwilling to help in any meaningful way if they are able to offer anything at all; they either know because they were never helped/supported at all from day one, or because they’ve already asked for help/support at different times and been denied.  On some level I imagine women are also clued-into that fact — that there is no help available no matter how badly it’s needed and even if you ask — by the objective, observable reality that if this was a society that freely offered “help” this society would probably offer “help” meaning, food, shelter, medicine, childcare, peace and quiet and a permanent place to rest our head in the first place without us having to fucking ask for it.

And finally, I will point out that just asking for help under these conditions and all that “asking” requires is so depleting that it makes oppressed people legitimately need even more help even more than they needed it before.  It makes them worse.  There simply are no words for how evil and life-sucking and tragic this all is and that’s kind of the point: words fail.  They fail women all the time.

*I hadn’t yet recognized that medical and social services providers often palmed hopelessly physically and mentally ill patients off on legal service organizations, nor had I realized that doctors seem to think that lawyers are fucking social workers but that’s probably what was going on there.  My directors didn’t mind any of this because just getting warm bodies in the door equaled funding for their program whether we were able to actually help these people or not.  I, of course, was only there because I wanted to “help people” and elevate both my soul and my career but I failed at all of that.

[marshmallowgoop]

I can’t think of anyone else who does this kind of year-in-review compilation for writing, but I put one together for 2017 and would like to continue to do so. It’s just nice to get a sense of what I’ve accomplished in 12 months, especially when I feel that I haven’t accomplished much of anything.

Unlike last year, though, I’m including all kinds of writing I’ve done this time around. My non-fiction work is important to me, too.

Mental health talk and text versions of these snippets under the cut.

To cut right to the chase, 2018 was rough. No matter all my flowery pep talks trying to be positive and uplifting, my feelings of inadequacy skyrocketed. I drenched myself in my own self-depreciating “humor,” and I ridiculed my hopes and dreams. Every time I felt my work was poorly received, I’d tell myself, “Well, what did you think would happen? That people would actually like what you do?”

But I never wanted to stop “keeping on.” I wanted to continue what I loved no matter what, and I threw myself into my writing. There would be days where I wouldn’t eat or do anything else until I’d finished an essay. I spent practically the entire month of November sleeping on my couch because I never wanted to “go to bed” until I had written more, posted more, done more. My head became filled with a constant mantra of, “You’ll never be enough.”

And I wanted to prove myself wrong. I wanted to be something—even if that something was just being happy with myself. But all the proclamations that I’m “getting better!” and “improving so much!” never did much for my confidence. What good is progress, after all, if I still feel like I’m nowhere?

Still, I tried to be productive about my failure. So I wasn’t satisfied with what I was doing. What could I do to be satisfied? I took different approaches to my content. I asked for advice, opinions. But that feeling of being nothing remained.

And yet, I’d always say things like, “I’m okay. I’m just frustrated.” Or, “I felt better after I binged some Netflix, haha.” I wanted to be helpful, inspiring. I wanted to tell people that it’s hard, but it gets better. I wanted to come off as the happy person I so wish to be, and I felt guilty every time I revealed any of my insecurities. Nobody wants to hear that stuff. Everyone suffers. I’m not special.

So maybe that’s why I feel it’s important to say now that I’m not okay. I’m hurting. I’m in pain. There are times I hate myself so much that I can think of nothing but how I’m ugly both inside and out, that I’m selfish, ungrateful, a total bitch.

And I want to be better! Of course I do. And I want to continue to work to be better.

But right now? I’m not okay. And running away from that fact and trying to hide it won’t help me or anyone else.

It was a rough year. I feel I made a total fool of myself more times than I would care to admit. But I also created a lot of art. I shared a lot of art with the world.

And you know what? I am proud of myself. I did impact people with what I did. I answered over 100 asks! I added more than 17 pages to my “replies” tag! I’m not nothing, and I need to stop treating myself like I am!

On to a better, healthier 2019!

Texts

January

Yes, DARLING goes way further than I’m comfortable with, but in doing so, and in doing so seriously, it tells the viewer in no indirect terms that the relationship between Hiro and Zero Two isn’t a joke. This ain’t another Ryuko and Senketsu, where all the blatantly suggestive themes between a human and a non-human are easily neglected and there’s the insistence that the relationship is akin to that of a child and their parental figure (yuck), because unlike Ryuko and Senketsu, there is 1,000% the sense that this series intends for its leads to be like that. There’s practically no other way around it. Just look at the title.

DARLING also doesn’t seem to be following in the footsteps of a run-of-the-mill monster movie, either, where a relationship between a human and a non-human is treated as something terrifying. There have only been two episodes so far, but I would say that there is something genuine in the relationship between Hiro and Zero Two already.

February

So, I don’t have a “bad” section this week. While DARLING might have tonal problems as a whole, as far as “Your Thorn, My Badge” is concerned, there’s little to complain about. The episode is serious, and it stays serious. For the first time ever, there’s a distinct lack of gratuitous fanservice, and other issues that plague the show are also wonderfully absent. No awful cockpit set-up can be seen here, abuse from a woman isn’t depicted as funny, quirky, and cute, and what’s unsettling is portrayed as unsettling.

March

Senketsu’s story—intentionally or not—has easy parallels to stories of marginalization and “otherness.” Like Akira Fudo of Devilman, Senketsu has the body of a “monster” but the heart of a human, and consequently, he can’t fit well in either world. No matter how silly Kill la Kill is, there’s something incredibly worthwhile in a narrative where someone who feels worthless and as though they don’t belong anywhere finds love and comes to understand that they matter. The fact that Senketsu’s story gets so neglected is beyond disappointing for exactly this reason.

But the erasure is also disappointing because Senketsu’s story is plain good. Throwing out everything I just wrote, isn’t it sweet, for a girl to decide that she cares more for a kind, compassionate person than what anyone thinks of her for being with him? Isn’t it heartwarming, that she would push herself to be as strong as she can be to return him to full health when he’s injured? Isn’t it worthy of praise, that there’s the depiction of a relationship built on communication and respect between the two, without either of them unhealthily idolizing the other even though they are both among each other’s first friends, and where they openly discuss their thoughts and feelings and concerns together? Isn’t this all something to be celebrated?

April

To make matters worse, the almost-final version of the script (as included in The Complete Script Book) doesn’t even include that tiny moment of Ryuko’s grief in the end at all! To quote:

街(数ケ月後)

可愛い服を着てマコとデートしている流子。ソフトクリームを買おうとショップによる。そこにもう一人の手が伸びる。買っているのは皐月。彼女も私服だ。驚く流子とマコ。はにかむ皐月。三人、笑いあう。その姿は屈託のない１０代の少女だった。

Incredibly rough translation:

City (a few months later)

Mako wears cute clothes on her date with Ryuko. The two go to buy soft-serve ice cream. Another person’s hand extends, and it’s revealed that Satsuki is buying the ice cream for them. She’s wearing normal clothes, and Ryuko and Mako are amazed. Satsuki is shy. The three laugh together. It is the image of carefree teenage girls.

May

Of course, as I’ve said before, I do think it’s important to talk seriously about media, because media is important. Media constantly impacts and influences us. #TheDiscourse definitely has a place.

But the goal of these kinds of discussions should be to improve. We should strive for better and more inclusive media. We should strive for better and more inclusive fandom. When #TheDiscourse instead becomes more about who’s the most morally superior and who’s the most garbage, it’s failing at this goal. Instead of being about bettering our art, #TheDiscourse seems to, more often than not, be about bullying other people under the guise of righteousness. And it’s utterly repugnant.

June

But what bothers me most about the argument isn’t really the argument itself. What irks me more than anything else is how this widely held belief emphasizes a disheartening trend: whenever something as popular as Kill la Kill comes along, there’s perhaps an eagerness to accept some of the most negative interpretations possible, almost as if there’s a desire for something awful.

And, sure. Maybe I’m just “reacting in shock and horror” to interpretations that are separate from my own. It’s not like there’s anything inherently wrong with a negative view of a work. It’s not like any of my more positive readings are “more correct.” I can’t claim to “get” a piece of art more than anyone else does.

But I can’t help it. I wish things were different. I wish negative interpretations weren’t seen as “more valid” simply because they’re negative. I wish more people weren’t afraid to disagree with popular negative interpretations for fear of sounding like they’re “reacting in shock and horror,” as though there’s really something so wrong about being passionate about art and finding a negative interpretation of art to actually be negative in itself. I wish for more nuance. I wish for more discussion. 

July

I mean, just imagine this. You’re fighting a battle whose outcome will literally decide whether or not your entire planet explodes into a billion pieces in like two hours. It’s not only your life on the line. Everyone you care about have their lives on the line, too. 

To make matters worse, it ain’t going well for your side. You’ve been rendered basically immobile by a cheap attack from these world-destroying baddies… and so have all your allies. Things are looking pretty grim, to say the least.

And then one of your big-name enemies goes and does it. She laughs at your efforts and taunts you and—get this—she says something that totally insults your OTP.

Now, a normal person would probably not be thinking about OTPs during a fight to save the Earth from turning into confetti. 

A normal person is not Mako Mankanshoku.

August

But I find Grosz’s thesis compelling in regards to Kill la Kill because, in a lot of ways, Ryuko and Senketsu do rather embody typical positions of men and women in fictional stories both East and West… except, the roles are reversed. Ryuko is the unruly, aggressive, and hot-blooded protagonist just as a man often is, and Senketsu exhibits many traits that are traditionally associated with women; he’s sensitive, emotional, and a considerable worrywart. Further, while I find the term “love interest” both degrading and unfitting for Senketsu in a series that Word of God denies any romantic intention for, I have to admit that he fits many of the conventions. In an anime with a cast primarily composed of women, the fact that Senketsu is arguably coded as male makes him, just as the standard heteronormative “love interest,” the most narratively significant character of another gender in the show (for just a few other examples, see Ran from Detective Conan, Sam from Danny Phantom, Katara from Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Tuxedo Mask from Sailor Moon). Whether I’m watching an anime or an American cartoon, I don’t think I’d be too surprised to see a scenario like the one from the end of Kill la Kill’s thirteenth episode, where a man tells a woman that he’s afraid of losing control and needs her to be there for him so that he doesn’t.

September

The official website for Kill la Kill the Game: IF is now up.

As of this writing, the site details gameplay mechanics and other general information regarding the game. There are also short bios and new game-specific artwork provided for the four confirmed playable characters: Ryuko Matoi, Satsuki Kiryuin, Ira Gamagoori, and Uzu Sanageyama. The “Video” section features the trailer from Anime Expo 2018 and the original 30-second commercial (which now has English subtitles available).

The “Top” page also includes a link to the Arc System Works Event Portal Site, where any potential players can download a detailed Play Guide for the game. Additionally, the site provides a schedule for the upcoming showcase of Kill la Kill the Game: IF at Tokyo Game Show 2018:

October

She catches their reflection in the long mirrors that line the gym walls and asks how in the world it all works.

He does not know what she means.

She holds a hand to her hair. The strands are bright and red, leaping into the air like fire.

His voice is a low rumble. The sound fills her as though it is her own.

We are one now, he says. Your skin is my skin, and mine is yours.

The words remind her to once more return to herself.

But when she looks to the glass, she still sees him.

November

Gridman is also quite stunning from a directorial and visual standpoint. As I wrote up some notes for the premiere while waiting for my multiple-hours-delayed Greyhound bus (hey I can’t not recommend that service enough, but those of you who were in full-out cosplay at the station are so much stronger than me), I made sure to mention how much I enjoyed the focus on scenery and environments. A lot of anime will rely heavily on stale shot-reverse-shot conversations in which the characters hardly move, but Gridman mixes things up. When the characters talk, viewers get these wonderful glimpses of their world. Sometimes, you’ll hardly even see the characters at all! This choice feels so fresh and different, and I was particularly taken by how the opening moments of the show are just about entirely background shots.

Takeuchi mentions in the interviews that Gridman director Akira Amemiya is incredibly skilled at what he does, and everything in a cut—from objects to angles to facial expressions—all have meaning. I think I could definitely see that from episode 1, and it’s a real treat. That’s exactly what visual storytelling should be doing.

December

Jiro’s Mubyoshi is neat, but Ryuko’s? It’s sweet as all heck. No matter Houka’s complicated info dump about what she’s doing, the actual scene simply plays out like one of the purest expressions of love. There’s a reason that there’s nudity here, and it’s not for fanservice or titillation. It’s to signify the closeness of Ryuko and Senketsu in this moment—to say that, right here, the two of them are uniting as one.

And it’s beautiful. Intimate. Absolutely heartwarming. Ryuko openly shares a part of herself that even Senketsu hadn’t known before, and he adores it. He loves being with Ryuko so much. He loves her so much.

And Ryuko? Shy, closed-off, keeps-her-distance-even-from-her-family Ryuko? She’s completely unabashed. Senketsu has always paid attention to her pulse and breathing and so on and so forth, and she doesn’t even hesitate to reveal more. This is her sound, and she wants him to listen. She wants him to hear nothing else. She trusts him, fully and completely—and this trust is so breathtakingly powerful that Houka even unzips his hoodie in awe of it.

[nonamememoir]

Grief and Its Better Alternatives by Tori Bloom

It makes little sense to define grief only in terms of sadness upon recognition of the loss of a loved one. This perspective is dismissive of the other feelings associated with grief such as anger, anguish, and regret (Goldie, 2011). Therefore, in this paper I will first address what grief is and how it can encompass this range of feelings. I also wish to present the idea that while grief involves loss, one can feel loss without grief. Through an analysis of several texts, I will argue that grief is a narrative that is saturated by a fear of mortality. This fear of mortality is the key difference between feeling loss, and more particularly sorrow, and feeling grief. Furthermore, this distinction is often overlooked in arguments concerning whether or not grief is bad. In the case of sorrow at the loss of a loved one when feelings of anger are involved they are usually aimed at the circumstances of the loss, whereas with grief the anger is directed at death itself. This difference means that sorrow allows us to more easily focus on the reality of losing our loved one, where grief separates us from reality and can have detrimental effects on the psyche, leaving us with a disposition for anger, sadness, and depression.  Based on these distinctions between grief and sorrow I intend to argue that grief is something that we should overcome and the only way to do that is to accept our own mortality and to embrace feeling sorrow as a more reasonable and healthy response to death.  

Peter Goldie (2011) presents a picture of grief that explains how the emotion can envelop a multitude of feelings and yet still be identified as a single emotion. Goldie fights the conception of emotions as episodic feelings, judgements, perceptions, or mental states and suggests that emotions are narratives. He compares pain and grief to show that emotions are not simply feelings. Where it might make sense to say that someone experienced pain for a brief moment, we would question whether or not someone could feel grief for only a moment. Grief, unlike pain, is not just a sensation. Goldie mentions some other conceptions of grief, such as Martha Nussbaum’s. She identified her grief as recognizing that someone valuable to her was dead. This conception of grief concerns Nussbaum’s judgment that the person was valuable to her own eudaimonia (flourishing and wellbeing). Goldie also presents several other accounts of emotion in less depth, but ultimately concludes that they have a similar thread. This common thread is that most philosophers identify emotions with a particular mental state or event and that they look at these emotions in the context of how they present at the time of the event. Goldie argues that emotions are actually dynamic and unfold over time and that grief, as such, is actually a process rather than a state. He gives the example of writing a check to explain this. The process of writing a check is temporal. It involves the consecutive laying of ink droplets on paper. Just by looking at a single instance where an ink droplet falls on the check we would be unable to determine if a check was, in fact, being written. Furthermore, we would not know much about the entirety of the process itself just by looking at a particular moment. Goldie argues that grief is the same. He says that grief follows a pattern that involves judgments, feelings, and actions that unfold over time. None of these things are grief in themselves, nor are they necessarily essential at a particular time, but they are a part of the process. Goldie, unlike Nussbaum, would say that someone who has realized that their loved one is dead and makes the judgment that the deceased was valuable for their eudaimonia cannot use this particular judgment itself to determine whether or not they are experiencing grief. To explain his narrative account of grief, Goldie discusses how grief impacts not just the present mental state, but our perception of the past. Take, for instance, a dinner guest who gives the host a compliment that, under the surface, is actually a slight. At first, the host may see the comment as harmless. However, upon later realization that the comment was a slight, the host no longer remembers the comment as harmless. The memory itself changes. The same is true of grief. We might, for example, remember the last time we saw a loved one as more gloomy and sad than we had perceived it as at the time. Our new knowledge and emotions actually change our memories of events. Goldie also points out that grief is not only concerned with particulars, like particular memories, but that general descriptions play a role as well. When we recall experiencing grief we do not typically define the experience as particular moment. For example, a husband who lost his wife and was grieving might recall, years later, how he would wake up and pour her a cup of coffee before realizing she was gone, or that he would stay up late and cry or have trouble falling asleep without her. We call this grief. Of course, grief relies on an event, a real loss of a loved one, the judgment of that loved one as valuable, but this is only one part of the process of grief. Goldie’s account of emotions, and particularly of grief, is unique in that it explains how it is possible that an emotion could involve different feelings. It also suggests that emotions have an effect not just on a particular mental state at an exact moment but that they can affect our past, present, and future.

While grief is a process, and therefore no one particular event can determine if grief is present, there are certain features of the emotion that differentiate it from the experience of loss without grief. Jane McCracken (2005) says that the perception of grief as a reaction to loss is not completely accurate. Grief is not simply about the loss of something, but it is an emotion that one has for the object that is lost. We say that we are angry at someone, or we love someone, but with grief we say that we grieve for someone. McCracken says that this suggests that we grieve not just for the loss, but that we do it in honor of that thing. This is what she says differentiates grief from just loss. The loss of a relationship for example, even if the separation is permanent, does not have the same sense of obligation and dedication for the lost object. McCracken points out that often, in trying to get over a lost relationship, a person’s family may remind her that the loss is not one of “life and death”. This suggests that loss in itself does not entail grief. Death, then, is intimately related to grief. In particular, when we make the initial judgment that a valued loved one has been lost we must also recognize that the loved one has been lost to death. Furthermore, we have to judge death to be a bad thing. McCracken, drawing on Donald Gustafon’s distinction between grief and sorrow, says that a daughter who is grieving for her father truly desires, despite her beliefs in what is possible, that her father was alive again. She demands that the world change the way that it is, perhaps facing denial and anger at the fact that her father died.  This desire ultimately puts her into turmoil because it cannot be fulfilled. According to Gustafon, sorrow, unlike grief, involves wishing that, for the sake of one’s happiness, the deceased person were alive. It makes no demands that the world change how it is, but only wishes that things could be different, and so sorrow does not create the same turmoil that grief does.

When a loved one passes we feel as though time should stop, and we are arrested by the hopelessness, fear, and anxiety that our conception of death brings with it (Bilimoria, 2011). Purushottama Bilimoria analyzes several philosophies concerning the loss of a loved one and the reminder of mortality. He mentions, first, Heidegger who says that the anxiety in the face of death stems from being placed in a position of the realization of becoming nothing, which is always a possibility but is then affirmed by the death of a loved one. Bilmoria also mentions Robert Solomon, who says that the fear of dying is entwined with the loss of the loved one and that, in this relationship the death of the person becomes one’s own burden. Bilimoria notes that Solomon believes grief to be a moral emotion, reflective of one’s love for their lost loved one. He says that grief is indicative of the fact that one has endured a serious loss and, therefore, it should be felt and is good. We might question the emotional health or morality of someone who does not grieve for their dead loved ones. The literature I researched, in fact, had a similar thread. Bilmoria himself argues that, in some cultures, grief and mourning allow the person who is grieving to connect to the greater community and share in the experiences. Janet McCracken (2005) said that grief is something we participate in to honor the dead’s wishes. When we cry at a funeral, for instance, we feel as though justice is being done for the deceased and in doing so we give up our grief to the dead. She argues against Gustafon’s idea that grief does not motivate action, and she says the grieving motivates people to dedicate themselves to the deceased. I do not wish to argue against the idea that grief can have benefits, such as social connection and a dedication to the dead which helps to relieve one of their grief; instead I would suggest that the benefits of grief are also found in sorrow as it relates to loss. Grief is not necessary to reap these benefits, and responding with grief is a sign of one’s judgment of death as bad, a judgment which leads to the impossible desires of grief and which make one more vulnerable to anxiety, regret, anger, and other feelings.

The distinction between grief and sorrow is where I form the basis of my account of grief as a narrative that is pervaded by the judgment that death is bad and that it should not happen to us or our loved ones. We grieve for our loved ones as though something terrible has happened to them in death, not necessarily in relation to the circumstances of their death (although that is sometimes involved). Terence O'Connell (2009) presents an analysis of the morality of death through narrative, though I will focus only on a few key points for the sake of argument. First, Terrance outlines the argument that death is deprivation of the good things in life and is therefore an evil. He says that deprivation is intrinsically evil because it involves the taking away of good things. Though it could be argued that the dead are unaware that good things have been taken from them, this does not mean the death is not evil. O’Connell argues through this narrative that life has intrinsic goods that should be sought for their own sake, so whether or not the dead person is aware that they have been deprived it is evil that the person has been deprived of what would have occurred had they not died. As I see it, O’Connell’s argument is contingent upon the idea of death as deprivation. Let’s suppose that O’Connell’s conception of death as deprivation is true. It makes no sense to conceive of death as evil for the dead because of what would have been had it not occurred. If we assume death means non-existence, how could we say that death deprives the non-existent? An apple that is destroyed cannot have anything done to it because it no longer exists. In response to this, O’Connell says that deprivation does not require existence, because we are also deprived before birth and before we come into existence. This, however, is still contingent upon existence. We cannot even fathom the notion of deprivation of something without it existing. If that were true then we might say that something which never comes into existence is deprived.  If anything, death could be argued to be evil for the living as it is the living, and not the dead, who are deprived, but ultimately this argument is contingent upon one conception of what death is. In the case of a Christian person, who is fully certain in their beliefs, they may say not to grieve for those who have died for they are in a better place. In order to defend his notion of death, O’Connell would first have to prove that death is deprivation, a task that I would argue is impossible based on the notion of the transcendent, but which I will not address here in favor of brevity. In the end his argument only stands if we claim to be certain about what happens to a person in death.

Grief is difficult to overcome as it involves the desire to change the inevitability of death (McCracken, 2005). The reality is that we do not know what happens when we die and this leaves us vulnerable to anxiety and anger. O'Connell (2009) presents another argument in his book in which he addresses death’s inevitability as consolation. Not only does he say that the inevitability of death does not provide comfort, as he believes that death is intrinsically evil, but he says that fear of death, which I have suggested is an essential judgment involved in grief, can have instrumental value in prolonging life. Concern with postponing death often helps to prevent it, such as in the case of suicide. Without concern for death, there might be no reason to put it off. I disagree with this. All we know about death is that it will happen to all mortal beings one day. We can try to think through it logically, but as of today we have yet to come up with a conception of death that is, without a doubt, true. If we allow the fear of death to pervade our reason to live, we will be bombarded by the constant anxiety of the inevitable. I may know tomorrow that I will be fired, and that there is absolutely nothing I can do to stop it. Should I avoid my boss to avoid being fired sooner rather than later? That would be irrational, as I am prolonging the inevitable for no good reason. That being said, I believe that we can both embrace the inevitability of death, and subsequently do away with grief, while also having an appreciation for life.  Life is reliable. We know that life has good things, the possibility to make memories with loved ones, happiness, sensations, love, and more. Death is unknown. It may be good, and it may be bad. This mystery is precisely why we should enjoy our reliable, good life while we have it.  

Finally, there is the question of whether or not grief itself is bad. Loretta Kopelman (1995) put forth her own perspective of grief by analyzing the arguments of other philosophers who believed that grief is either good or bad. The problem in my addressing Kopelman’s work, however, is a difference in our conceptions of what grief is. She says that normal grief begins with the realization of losing a treasured loved one, object, limb, life goal, etc. However, as I have outlined grief with its relationship to death in particular it makes little sense to critique her argument, as I am inclined to agree that it is not bad to feel sadness at the loss of a treasured person or object. However, this very difference between our definitions of grief points to a problem in the literature in differentiating between the loss of a treasured object and the loss of a treasured person. Furthermore, Kopelman does still present relevant points on the side of grief being good versus it being bad. On the side of it being bad she discusses philosophers like George Engel, John Bowlby, and Myron Hofer who argue that grief is like a wound, in that it is associated with pain, morbidity, dysfunctioning, low productivity, and more. These philosophers argue explicitly that grief is a disease. Like a disease, grief impairs the individual’s ability to function and is a pattern that can be studied and used to make predictions. Kopelman points out that this definition of disease, however, is not suitable because it makes room for things like poverty, forgetfulness, and bad manners but also does not include diseases that do not cause dysfunction, like symptomless cancer. The idea that grief is a disease because it is predictable and can be studied is also flawed, as this can applied to many things that aren’t diseases. I agree with Kopelman that grief is not actually a disease, but it is still possible that grief is bad despite this. She addresses this as well in her discussion of whether or not grief is nonmorally bad. The first question is whether grief is instrumentally bad. Certainly grief is associated with pain and loss of function and therefore might not be considered useful. However, as Darwin, Freud, and Pollock pointed out, grieving allows for a period of inactivity and adjustment to the new circumstances in order for the person to adjust to their changed world without the lost person. A period of reflection, brought on by grief, can be useful for overcoming the pain of loss. Then there is the question of whether grief is inherently bad. The contemplation of grief, Kopelman says, can actually help one in overcoming the loss and survive. Someone who does not grieve, either because they are unwilling or unable to create a new life without their treasured loved one or because they feel ambivalent toward the deceased are at risk for pathological grief. Kopelman says that the narrative of grief requires intentionality, coherence, and closure. The notion of the intentionality of grief is particularly relevant. Intentionality is involved in the placing of value in something and, in particular, the lost loved one. This is an important defense for grief, as it means that in going through the process of grieving a valued thing, the person is overcoming that loss, accepting separation, and establishing new values. If a person goes through the grieving process in the manner described by Kopelman, I do not disagree that it can be beneficial, in that it can help a person overcome loss, through reflection. Rather, it is the fixation on death and particularly the fear of it, and all of the impossible feelings of anger, denial, regret, and anxiety that come with that fixation that make grief bad. The productive part of grief is not inherent in grief itself, but in the emotion of sorrow that often accompanies it.

The difference between grief and sorrow according to my understanding is that, in grief we often direct our feelings toward both the circumstances and death itself, and in sorrow we direct our feelings toward the circumstances alone. That being said, grief often entails sorrow, but sorrow does not entail grief. We may feel sorrow over the loss of a beloved object, such as a childhood home, but any feelings of anger we have would be directed toward the circumstances of the house being destroyed and not typically destruction as some intrinsic evil. According to this understanding of sorrow, then, we might still have much of the same pitfalls that grief has including unjust anger toward oneself or others. However, in grief we feel angry at death itself for taking our loved one, as if death were a person capable of slighting us. This, unlike anger at the circumstances, has no outlet. In anger at the circumstances we can reason and say that we did not know, at the time, that we might have been able to prolong our loved one’s life. We can explain our anger toward the circumstances by trying to understand why those circumstances occurred.  Anger at death, however, has no answer. We cannot explain why death took our loved one, but we must just accept that it happened and that it was inevitable. Second, in grief we feel anxiety over our own mortality and the mortality of our loved ones. In particular, we have an irrational desire to escape an inevitable fate that we have little knowledge about. We grieve for the dead as though they are suffering, when in actuality we do not know what death is like. One might compare this anxiety to post-test anxiety. After handing in an exam, the anxiety might eat away at you. You could let it affect how you behave, whether you go out that night, if you get enough sleep, or you can simply accept that, good or bad, you cannot affect the outcome of the test. All you can do is enjoy yourself in the meantime. In grief we may go through denial, unable to accept that death could happen to our loved ones, or depression and a sense of hopelessness in the face of a fate we believe to be bad but with little evidence to support that. In sorrow sadness, depression, regret, and anger are all still possible, but they are easier to cope with because they involve the real loss and absence of the beloved person or object. Sorrow without grief allows for the person to feel and overcome the loss of their loved one without feeling anger and anxiety concerning death.

Grief is a narrative that affects the past, present, and future of the grieving person’s life (Goldie, 2011). The difference between grief and sorrow is that, while sorrow has much of the benefits of grief, grief requires the judgment that death is a bad thing that the deceased person is suffering through. I made this distinction through an analysis of what we might feel at the loss of a treasured object in comparison to a person, a distinction which is not made in much of the literature discussing whether or not grief is bad. Grief can be beneficial, allowing the grieving person to reflect upon their relationship to their lost loved one and create new values to move forward, build bonds with the greater community in certain cultures, and give up their grief to their deceased loved ones (Bilmoria, 2011; Kopelman, 1995; McCracken, 2005). However, the fixation on death can lead to anxiety about the perceived nothingness we face, as suggested by Heidegger or, as Gustafon suggested, it can lead to turmoil because the desire to overcome death is impossible. Ultimately, grief is a reflection of our misguided perception of death as bad. The truth is that we do not know whether death is good or bad, and feeling bad for those who have died and allowing that anxiety to affect the way that we view our past, present, and future can lead to frustration and, ultimately, pathological grief. For these reasons I believe that sorrow without grief is a more healthy response to loss, as it gives us an outlet, the circumstances of the death, for our feelings. Furthermore, sorrow would allow us to still show that we cared about the loss object, displaying our human capacity to love and form social bonds. In the end, the best response to death would be acceptance of the unknown and inevitable, and the impossibility of changing a past death, but a love for other people that might bring us pain when we learn that they are gone.

References

Bilimoria, P. (2011). On Grief and Mourning: Thinking a Feeling, Back to Bob Solomon.

Sophia, 50(2), 281-301. doi:10.1007/s11841-011-0257-1

Goldie, P. (2011). GRIEF: A NARRATIVE ACCOUNT. Ratio, 24(2), 119-137.

doi:10.1111/j.1467-9329.2011.00488.x

Kopelman, L. M. (1994). Normal Grief: Good or Bad? Health or Disease? Philosophy,

Psychiatry, & Psychology, 1(4), 209-220. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Retrieved

from muse.jhu.edu/article/245026.

Mccracken, J. (2005). Falsely, Sanely, Shallowly. International Journal of Applied Philosophy,

19(1), 139-156. doi:10.5840/ijap20051917

O'Connell, T. (2009). Dialogue on grief and consolation. Retrieved from

https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

[we-nothing-but-hemp]

CBD Oil for Depression: How to Deal With Depression Naturally

Sadness, emptiness and loneliness are normal aspects of human life. But for 18% of Americans, feelings of sadness and grief can last far longer than normal and become overwhelming. They develop depression.

The bad news is that depression is a serious illness that can keep you from living a normal life. The good news is that non-medical interventions can be as effective as medication for depression, so you have a wide range of options to begin healing.

If you want to learn how to deal with depression in a natural way, and whether CBD oil for depression is the right choice for you, this is the guide for you. We will walk you through what depression is, how to recognize it, and what role natural interventions can play in your recovery.

What is Depression?

Depression is a diagnosable mood disorder. That means it has some elements of a medical condition, and also some elements of the human experience of negative emotions.

If you are experiencing depression, it’s important to recognize that it is not your fault. Many people feel guilty for not being able to “snap out of” their depression, but depression is a serious illness that affects your mind, body, and emotions. You will need treatment in order to heal.

Left untreated, depression can lead to more health complications. The most serious consequence of untreated depression is suicide. This is why it is important to get help as early as possible and find ways to treat your illness.

What is Depression Like?

Depression can take many forms. It’s often thought of as just feeling sad, but it can also be experienced as feelings of numbness, emptiness, and total absence of emotion.

It usually can come with other emotional disturbances, such as anger and anxiety. You may also find yourself fixating on things in the past that have gone wrong, and lacking energy and interest for simple daily tasks.

Signs and Symptoms of Depression

Depression can be difficult to diagnose because all of its symptoms can be normal at certain times. However, when you have depression, these symptoms persist for an abnormal length of time and keep you from living a normal life.

Physical Symptoms

Extreme tiredness

Having trouble sleeping, or sleeping too much

Eating too much or too little

Headaches and other pains

Mental Symptoms

Difficulty concentrating and remembering facts

Fixating on past failures

Repeated negative thoughts

Emotional Symptoms

Feeling guilty

Feeling worthless or useless

Feeling irritable or angry

Numbness or emptiness

Depression is different for everyone. You may have all of these symptoms or only a few.

What Causes Depression?

Where does this depression come from? Is it biological? Or is it emotional?

It’s both.

As human beings, our emotions are processed by our physical brains as neurotransmitters. This means that our physical bodies influence our emotions and vice versa.

Depression is caused by an imbalance of neurotransmitters (the chemical messengers that carry messages between parts of your brain). When there are abnormally low levels of the neurotransmitters that tell your brain to feel good, such as dopamine and serotonin, you experience depression.

This abnormal low in feel-good neurotransmitters can be caused by situational factors as well as biological ones. Very often, a person who is predisposed to depression goes through a stressful situation (such as a breakup or job loss), which triggers the depressive episode

Some of the risk factors for depression include:

Family history of mood disorders

Chronic medical conditions, especially chronic pain disorders

Childhood trauma

Substance abuse, including binge drinking

Certain prescription medications (depression and mood disorders are a side effect of many medications)

Thyroid or vitamin D deficiency

When Should I Seek Help?

You should seek help for depression if your symptoms start to impair your normal physical, emotional, and mental functioning. If you notice any of the following behaviours, it is time to get treatment:

Not being able to get out of bed in the morning

Being unable to concentrate at school or work

Being unable to motivate yourself to do normal activities

Not maintaining close friendships

If you or someone you know is considering suicide, you need to get help immediately.

Treating Depression Naturally

Natural treatments for depression focus on supporting your physical and emotional health so that you can start to heal. For many people, medication is also important to recover from depression.

Every case of depression is unique, and you will need to spend some time finding the solution that works for you. However, studies have shown that non-medical interventions can be as effective as anti-depressant medications to treat mild to moderate depression. That doesn’t mean that you should avoid using medication if you need it, but it does mean that you have lots of options.

Counselling

When you have depression, it’s easy to slip into the mindset that you are a burden to everyone. It’s common for people with depression to keep their problems to themselves because they believe that no one cares enough to listen to them. Of course, this only leads to isolation and deepening depression.

Counselling helps break this cycle. Talking about your experiences to someone who really cares doesn’t just help you get a new perspective on your situation, but reminds you that you aren’t alone.

Counsellors can help you process your overwhelming emotions and give you tools to combat negative thoughts. However, many people find that the real benefit of counselling isn’t the advice that the therapist gives you; it’s the experience of being listened to and understood.

If you are struggling to believe that your problems are worth talking about, or that you are worth listening to, counselling is a good option to begin your recovery.

CBD Oil for Depression

Cannabidiol (CBD) oil is a non-psychoactive chemical derived from the hemp plant. The benefits of CBD oil are caused by the fact that it activates serotonin receptors — the same feel-good neurotransmitter that are activated by natural mood-boosters like hugging, eating, or talking with friends.

When you have depression, you might not be able to find the motivation to spend time with friends, and you might not find it enjoyable even if you do. Others might be isolated from friends due to situational factors like lockdowns. Those situations can be the trigger for a depressive episode.

Whatever your situation is, CBD can be a natural way to get your mood back to normal. Research shows that it combats stress, so it’s effective against both depression and anxiety, both short and long term. It’s even been used to help sensitive elephants overcome anxiety and depression, with positive results.

CBD oil is not the same as tetra-hydro-cannabinoids (THC), another chemical derivative from the help plant. THC is the chemical that causes psychoactive effects (it’s what makes you high when you smoke marijuana) and increases appetite, which can lead to weight issues. CBD does not make you high or cause any appetite changes, and it is legal in all 50 states.

Plus, CBD oil comes in a wide range of strengths, so you can be sure to find one that suits your individual needs.

Get Some Sleep

Poor sleep has negative impacts on your emotional and physical health. In fact, sleep deprivation is so painful to endure that it has been used as a form of torture throughout history. But the emotional and physical problems of depression can cause disturbances to your sleep too, creating a vicious cycle.

People with depression often have disturbed sleep habits. They might struggle either with insomnia or with excessive sleepiness. And even if you are getting lots of sleep, but your sleep cycle is irregular, your mental and physical health will suffer.

Good sleep habits can decrease depressive symptoms even in severe depression. Make sure you have a set sleep and wake time that gives you 8–10 hours of sleep per night, and keep your phone and laptop away from your bed.

Turn off the Tech

Having your phone in your hand all the time can be devastating to your mental health. It’s not surprising, since some estimates claim that we scroll an average of almost 75 feet per day on our phones. Less screen time correlates with less emotional disturbance, so even if it is not a primary cause of your depression, it contributes to anxiety and poor mental health.

And that doesn’t even take into account how the content of what you see affects you. When you are scrolling through Facebook and Instagram, you are seeing the highlight reel of everyone else’s lives. This can reinforce the negative thoughts of depression, especially of not being as good as everyone else.

Exercise

Exercise is a proven mood-booster. Plus, good physical health protects you from mood disorders in the future.

However, many people with depression simply can’t find the motivation to put on their running shoes and head outside. But you can still get the health benefits of exercise even if you’re not up for a long run.

Try finding a video workout online, so that you can stop the workout whenever you have had enough. If that seems overwhelming, try something simpler: just walk up a flight of stairs, do a few stretches, or walk from one end of your apartment to the other. Even a little exercise will clear your head and help you get through the day.

Recovering From Depression

There are many options to deal with depression naturally, and your journey with depression will be as unique as you are.

At Nothing But Hemp, our team members are certified in Health and Physiology. With awards in CBD knowledge, we are experienced in helping individuals find CBD solutions for a wide range of health problems.

If you are interested in CBD oil for depression, contact us for a free virtual product consultation and find quality CBD products to meet your needs.

[ulrichfoester]

Building Tolerance to Find Comfort in Discomfort

“To stay with that shakiness—to stay with a broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feeling of hopelessness and wanting to get revenge—that is the path of true awakening.” 

-Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart

It has been a challenging time. Quarantine, necessary civil unrest, loss of norms, loneliness, lack of alone time, and financial concerns are just a few examples of the things we’ve  scrambled to cope with this year. We’re rattled. This is a once-in-a-century crisis that’s provided us with as much discomfort as we usually encounter in a few decades. You’ve likely found yourself, at one time or another, pinned against the wall by a pandemic moment. This sticky spot – this window into our unfinished business – is our chance, our opportunity, to know more. This place we hate is where we can heal and begin to befriend ourselves when we need it most. We can practice finding comfort in the discomfort.

This blog will explore the biological and cultural reasons we tend to stay away from difficult emotions. It will also offer an exercise that enables us to drop into our experience just when we want to flee.

LEARN MORE: myTherapyNYC clinicians address how to manage pandemic stress.

The biology of avoidance

“Social rejection and grief have effects visible in the brain’s anterior cingulate cortex, which is also involved in physical pain, and both types of pain affect the heart and hormonal systems. This is why we say ’it hurts’  when we feel rejected or unloved.” 

-Kenny Lomas, Science Focus

Have you ever stopped in the middle of a psychologically difficult moment to notice what’s going on in your body? Most of us are aware when we dislike what’s happening, but our frantic minds usually take center stage. Because unwanted emotional moments frazzle us, we’re distracted from messages coming from our bodies. These messages often cause us to run without realizing it. Imaging has shown our brains look similar when we’re experiencing bodily and psychological pain.

Alan Fogel, professor of psychology at the University of Utah, points this out in the article “Emotional and Physical Pain Activate Similar Brain Regions.” He explains that a person shown a picture of a partner they recently broke up with had activity in the same part of their brain as if they had been physically harmed. Mind and body pain are so neurologically entwined, Fogel reported, that patients who suffered psychologically negative events were able to diminish their hurt feelings with Acetaminophen. It turns out our evolutionarily-efficient bodies use the same neural system to notice physical and psychological stimuli. 

Handling your body’s response to stress

Knowing that rejection or loneliness can feel as alarming as an actual gut-punch, our conscious or unconscious desire to wiggle away from life’s less desirable moments makes perfect sense. All living things avoid pain.

In order to be effective amidst our brain’s aversion-carnival, it is usually helpful to slow down when we get a dose of unease. Doing so enables us to notice what’s actually going on. This helps us make good use of the information that’s waiting for us underneath our resistance. Of course, when we’re already feeling miserable, it can feel counterintuitive to say, “I’m in agony, I’d love to slow down and get closer to this seemingly unbearable experience.” You may find, however, after knowing the pleasure of not running, and finally riding the wave of your emotional encounter to its calm end, that your “instincts” change.

READ MORE: Pema Chodron on our emotional reaction to life’s unknowns.

Cultural emotion-phobia

“Emotion-phobia dissociates us from the energies of these emotions and tells us they are untrustworthy, dangerous and destructive. Like other traits our culture distrusts and devalues – vulnerability, for instance, and dependence – emotionality is associated with weakness, women, and children. We tend to regard these painful emotions as signs of psychological fragility, mental disorder, or spiritual defect. We suppress, intellectualize, judge or deny them.” 

-Miriam Greenspan, “The Wisdom of Dark Emotions”

Our society is built upon the concept of our unbridled agency. The “American Dream” purports that, with willpower, the sky’s the limit. Movies, music, social media, and advertising promises us that if we just try hard enough (and buy this product), we will live a life entirely on our terms; We won’t age, lose our health, or feel sorrow. These messages are not all bad. Being tuned into our agency can be very helpful. But hard power alone will not deliver wellbeing. Effectiveness looks different in different circumstances.

To be truly constructive we need to understand that a little receptivity and acceptance of the moment can deliver significantly better results than avoiding, fighting, or denying an experience. A culture that teaches you to avoid discomfort is not giving you the tools you need for the truth of life. Despite what the zeitgeist tells us, there are a few things we simply can’t elude in life; One of those is our inner world. So, having a plan for how to find comfort in discomfort, and finally beginning an effective conversation with our own minds can be a huge relief.

Let’s imagine…

Let’s imagine you’re back in the middle of quarantine homeschooling your six-year-old. You haven’t been outside in ten days, you lack the Master’s in Education necessary to teach common core math, and you want to throw your computer against the wall. Or you’re living alone in a studio, you haven’t been outside in ten days, you haven’t touched another human being in months and the loneliness may or may not remind you of how alone you felt as a child. Right in the moment of feeling terrible, whether you’re surrounded by children, a roommate, a partner, or your plants:

An exercise

Close your eyes and slow your mind by breathing deeply.

Get curious about what’s happening in your body. Where are you feeling discomfort? What is the nature of the sensation? Is it sticky? Does it have a color? If you could assign it a name would it be “shame” or “grief” or “anxiety”? What else might it be? It doesn’t have to make sense. Free-associate.

Ask yourself if you’ve felt this before? When was the first time you felt it?

If the first time you felt this was when you were eleven, try to imagine that eleven-year-old you in your mind.

Begin to talk with your eleven-year-old self (this is merely a way of interfacing with your mind so you can parse out your hidden emotional world). Ask questions like, “why are you worried/ashamed/shut down?” Or, “what do you need?” Or, “what would you like to tell me?”

Listen and be present to the emotional experience this elicits by staying with your body. Breathe deeply and feel the sensations of the emotion.

If the eleven-year-old you has a fantasy, allow your mind to play it out. Maybe that part wants to be held or to yell at someone. It’s only in your mind, so really indulge. Follow your fantasy through, until something inside you shifts.

If your body delivered a sense of settling or relief, honor it, however long it graced you with its presence. That moment is a “muscle” that you can grow by exercising it. The “muscle” is you staying with yourself when you’re vulnerable. It’s also you having the nerve to be present to the full range of your life’s experience. Beyond that, it’s you memorizing the payoff of allowing your emotions to flow naturally.  

LEARN MORE about self-care.

On being mammals

“When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,

The sturdy seedling with arched body comes

Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.” 

-Robert Frost, “Putting in the Seed”

As much as we think, achieve, build, and work to differentiate ourselves from the grass and dirt and bugs and apes, we are nature. Mammals, to be exact, and mammals feel as a means of survival. Diana Fosha, creator of the experiential therapeutic modality AEDP (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy) explains, “each categorical emotion prepares the body for a different kind of response. Emotions are in essence impulses to act, the instant plans that evolution has instilled in us.” So those times that feel dark, dully-negative, gnawing, or searing aren’t indications of some kind of failure. They may simply be your beautiful, deeply wired, essential messengers asking for your ear.

Using your feelings as a guide

Contrary to what our culture may have told you, feeling badly can be you, your body, and your mind working properly. Fosha emphasizes, “nothing that feels bad is ever the last step.” So, while it’s natural, normal, and sometimes helpful to experience negative feelings, they are not a destination. They are the launching point for your journey towards living solidly in your own skin, no longer skittish around your own mind. 

Finding comfort in discomfort is a tall order, but attempting to do so offers agency in a time when it feels like we have so little say. It’s not easy to stay with our experience when our bodies are flooded with a physiological response to negative thoughts. But, in doing so, we are building a tolerance. Now that we understand a bit more about what’s happening in our bodies, how normal it is to want to run, how to stay if we want to, and why our emotions are valuable and inevitable, we can rewire our response in a way that makes feeling less scary.  

READ MORE: Why Feeling Bad is Good.

Are you interested in learning more about how to explore your emotions and build tolerance for discomfort? Many of myTherapyNYC’s staff therapists are trained in AEDP therapy. Reach out today to find out which of our therapist is the right fit for you.

When was the last time you felt an emotion you wanted to avoid and how did you handle it? Join the conversation in the comments below!

The post Building Tolerance to Find Comfort in Discomfort appeared first on myTherapyNYC - Counseling & Wellness.

Building Tolerance to Find Comfort in Discomfort published first on https://familycookwareshop.tumblr.com/

[techcrunchappcom]

New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/trump-fumbles-during-tough-encounter-with-undecided-voters-cnn/

Trump fumbles during tough encounter with undecided voters - CNN

Trump appeared at an ABC News town hall in Philadelphia, and peppered a socially distanced audience with the rhetoric and talking points that delight his loyal base. But if his goal was to satisfy relatively small groups of voters who polls show haven’t yet made up their mind, the President appeared to fall short and rarely addressed the substance of questions about his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, race relations and health care.

It was an unusual moment of exposure for a leader who demands constant public praise from his subordinates. On Tuesday night, audience members granted him the respect due to his office but none of the adulation he craves.

Trump was largely cordial and likely came across as strong to voters that love him. But his performance offered Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden multiple openings only two weeks before their first debate clash — one of the last potential turning points of the White House race. First-term presidents who have spent years expecting deference from everyone they meet often get a shock in the first debate showdown with a challenger keen to get in their grill. Tuesday’s event suggests the surprise may be especially acute for Trump when he faces Biden on September 29.

Answers that normally draw wild cheers at Trump’s packed campaign events fell flat when he was confronted by voters who appeared to want to cut through bluster and propaganda. And his responses did little to recognize the magnitude of the challenges facing the nation in a fearful year, suggesting that the President has yet to find the language or the appeals that might turn around an election he so far seems to be losing.

On a day when America recorded more than 1,200 new deaths from Covid-19, Trump effectively told the country to ignore his own words to Bob Woodward downplaying the threat early this year even though he knew how bad it was.

He said he did a “tremendous” job on the virus, insisted “it’s going to disappear” and that “a lot of people think masks are not good.” Asked who said masks aren’t good, Trump replied, “Waiters.” He bizarrely said “herd mentality” would make it go away, in an apparent reference to herd immunity that medical experts say could cost several million lives. The President has pounced on Biden’s verbal slips as evidence that he lacks the mental capacity to be President. But his own confusing answers after six months supposedly leading the national effort to fight the pandemic failed to inspire confidence that he fully understands the implications of the emergency even now.

He also illogically complained that Biden, who has no power, had not followed through on a national mask mandate and claimed falsely the US response to the crisis was the best in the world. And the President denied any blame for how the pandemic has turned out — placing the entire responsibility on China, where the virus first emerged, and several times complained he is not getting the credit he deserves.

At the end of the night, the President was asked by a voter named Ashley West to cite the most difficult part of his presidency and asked what he had learned from it — and in a way that seemed jarring given that the 200,000th American will soon die from the disease, the President reflected on his own personal sense of loss.

“I learned that life is very fragile. I knew people that were powerful people, strong people, good people, and they got knocked out by this, and died. Six people. It was five until about two weeks ago. Now, it’s six,” Trump said.

Trump defends himself

The President became most exercised when denying reports that he referred to US war dead as “losers” and “suckers,” calling them “fake.” He made halting attempts to show empathy to a new US citizen from the Dominican Republic who lost her mother to breast cancer complications a month ago and asked him a question about immigration. Trump responded by telling her that it was terrible that people died alone in hospital due to Covid-19 — and turned the answer into an infomercial for his pandemic leadership. Biden, who has buried a first wife and two children in a life marked by tragedy, is highlighting his own empathy as a balm for the country at a grief-wracked moment.

Trump shrugged off questioners who asked him if he agreed America needed to reexamine its painful history on race, again arguing that there were a few “bad apples” in the police force who “choked” in incidents in which unarmed Black Americans were killed.

The President also falsely claimed that Democrats wanted to remove protections for patients with pre-existing conditions introduced under Obamacare. His own administration is currently arguing a Supreme Court case trying to destroy the Affordable Care Act, while Democrats seek to preserve the law. While Trump says he would protect pre-existing conditions, he has offered no credible health plan.

The President’s appearance came in a crucial swing state at a moment when he is trailing Biden by nine points in the CNN Poll of Polls as the country faces concurrent crises: a pandemic, the consequent economic crash, a racial reckoning and historic fires in Western states.

Nine percent of voters in a CNN/SSRS poll this month said they might still change their mind about who they will vote for. Trump’s task in the election appears to be to add less fervent voters to his coalition after spending four years incessantly playing to his base. But while his strongest moments Tuesday came on ending foreign wars and on the economy, and he likely pleased supporters with his unequivocal pro-police statements, the President offered few new policies or approaches at the event that differed from positions in three years when his approval rating has rarely climbed above the low 40s.

Trump’s campaign insists untapped seams of pro-Trump voters who sat on the sidelines in 2016 are being ignored by pollsters and will embrace the President’s hardline culture war rhetoric to sweep him to a second term.

Trump again denies evidence of his own voice

The town hall event exactly seven weeks before Election Day was a reminder of the kind of chaos, falsehoods and divisiveness that is a selling point for the President’s most faithful voters but is the kind of behavior that may prompt an undecided voter to turn away.

The stream of lies and alternative realities that the President promoted recalled a statement attributed to former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats in Woodward’s book “Rage” that was published on Tuesday.

“To him a lie is not a lie. It’s just what he thinks. He doesn’t know the difference between the truth and a lie,” Coats is quoted as saying to former Secretary of Defense James Mattis.

Such commentary was borne out when Trump responded to a question by a first time voter from Pittsburgh who asked why he was captured on tapes made by Woodward as downplaying the pandemic.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t downplay it. I, actually, in many ways, I up-played it, in terms of action,” he said.

In essence, the President is inviting voters to refuse to believe the evidence of their own ears on his early attitude to the worst domestic crisis since World War II that has now killed 195,000 Americans and pitched 30 million out of work.

He is implicitly arguing that not only does he not deserve any blame for a response that lags other industrialized nations — the US has 4% of the world’s population and more than 20% of the Covid-19 cases and deaths.

But such a view relies on an interpretation that distorts the traditional sense that the buck stops on the Oval Office desk and instead relies on voters to believe a flagrant act of salesmanship that defies the reality of their own lives.

After Trump told Fox News earlier Tuesday that he had read Woodward’s book on Monday night, and found it “boring,” Woodward said that the President was living in an “Orwellian world.”

“He was told, he knew, he told me about it,” the veteran reporter told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

“I don’t know, to be honest, whether he’s got it straight in his head what is real and what is unreal.”

[bdsawatsky]

This past week, Scott Berinato wrote a timely article in the Harvard Business Review entitled, That Discomfort You’re Feeling Is Grief. He explains how some of the HBR edit staff met online the other day (as so many of us are now doing). Before getting into the day’s business, the faces on the screen took the time to ask how everyone was feeling. As Berinato describes it, “One colleague mentioned that what she felt was grief. Heads nodded in all the panes.” The team decided now was as good a time as ever to take a deeper dive into the topic.

They turned to David Kessler, the world’s leading expert on grief, who co-authored On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss. Kessler is also the founder of www.grief.comwhich has over 5 million visits yearly from 167 countries. His experiences have taken him from Auschwitz concentration camp to Mother Teresa’s Home for the Dying Destitute in Calcutta, and his volunteer work includes serving as a member of the Red Cross Mental Health Disaster Team and as a Specialist Reserve Officer on the trauma team of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Kessler’s personal experience with grief is what prompted his professional journey. When he was a child, he witnessed a mass shooting while his mother was dying in hospital. In 2016, his youngest son died suddenly at 21 years old. In light of our common explanations for grief, the HBR staff asked Kessler if it was fair to label what many are feeling right now during this COVID-19 crisis as “grief”. Kessler was unequivocal in his response:

Yes, and we’re feeling a number of different griefs. We feel the world has changed, and it has. We know this is temporary, but it doesn’t feel that way, and we realize things will be different. Just as going to the airport is forever different from how it was before 9/11, things will change and this is the point at which they changed. The loss of normalcy; the fear of economic toll; the loss of connection. This is hitting us and we’re grieving. Collectively. We are not used to this kind of collective grief in the air.

I appreciate how Kessler highlights the need to honestly grieve the things that we have lost during this time. The pain is real and shouldn’t be ignored. He then goes on to talk about a special kind of grief he calls “anticipatory grief”. The term piqued my curiosity.

Anticipatory grief is that feeling we get about what the future holds when we’re uncertain. Usually it centers on death. We feel it when someone gets a dire diagnosis or when we have the normal thought that we’ll lose a parent someday. Anticipatory grief is also more broadly imagined futures. There is a storm coming. There’s something bad out there. With a virus, this kind of grief is so confusing for people. Our primitive mind knows something bad is happening, but you can’t see it. This breaks our sense of safety. We’re feeling that loss of safety.

Kessler demonstrates great insight into what is currently happening—what many of us are actually doing during this pandemic: grieving losses that haven’t yet happened. We suspect that they could happen, and so our minds, almost in an attempt to lessen the blow should our worst fears come true, put us on alert. Awareness of the possible dangers ahead is useful and can inform us how to act in face of threats like COVID-19, but I had to ask myself, Isn’t going so far as grieving future losses the same thing that Jesus called worry? I kept reading, and sure enough, Kessler makes that connection…

Unhealthy anticipatory grief is really anxiety, and that’s the feeling you’re talking about. Our mind begins to show us images. My parents getting sick. We see the worst scenarios.

It’s no wonder Jesus taught us to banish worry from our lives. Our minds and bodies were not meant to bear the burdens of days, months and years in the future. I’ve always thought of worry as interest we pay on money that we don’t even owe. It makes no sense! And we’ve all heard that unsubstantiated (but likely true) statistic that something like 95% of the things we worry about never come true anyway.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Jesus, Matthew 6:34)

Jesus knew that worry (a.k.a. anticipatory grief) breaks down our faith. It makes us question our security and doubt God’s promises. As Christians, we often differentiate between the faith that a person exercises to become a follower of Jesus with the faith that we exercise on a day-to-day basis, but faith is faith. Whether we are trusting God for the destiny of our eternal souls or to provide the money we need to buy groceries, it can all be reduced to the same two questions: Do we believe Jesus is who he says he is, and do we believe that he will do what he says?

As we get into the Easter season, we will surely hear the story of doubting Thomas, that disciple of Christ who needed to see the scars in Jesus’ hands and feet before he would believe that he had indeed resurrected from the dead. I can almost hear the seeker-friendly preachers across North America telling their listeners (whether in a physical or virtual services) that God accepts our doubts. It has become a popular mantra in today’s most welcoming churches, and I certainly appreciate the sentiment behind the statement. We need to bring our doubts to Jesus, knowing that he welcomes us no matter what. But we have to be careful about creating an expectation that people should become comfortable just hanging out with the people of God as they wallow in their doubts. Jesus accepts us with our doubts, but we must be clear (as Jesus was clear) that he expects us to dispose of our doubts. Repeatedly in the gospels we see him exhorting his friends in this way.

“Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”

“Come,” he said.

Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”

Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”  (Matthew 14:28-31)

These doubts continued even after Jesus rose from the dead…

When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. (Matthew 28:17)

In Matthew 14 and 28, Matthew uses the word distazo for doubt, a word that literally means “double standing” and invokes the image of someone not sure of which foot to stand on. When I learned French, I discovered that indecisiveness is often called être assis entre deux chaises—sitting between two chairs. It’s the same idea. Jesus wants us to make up our minds as to where we are placing the weight of our faith.

In another post-resurrection appearance to his disciples, Luke records…

He said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? (Luke 24:38)

Luke used the term dialogismoi for doubt. The word gives the idea of an internal dialogue that happens inside of us when we question Jesus’ claims. But I want to draw attention to the word John uses in his gospel when he records his account of Thomas.

Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” (John 20:27)

John, often called the Evangelist, wrote his entire gospel “that we may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.” As the disciple closest to Jesus, he understood Jesus’ resolve to see his followers leave doubt in the dust, and so he chose the most powerful word for doubt we see anywhere in the gospels. His word for doubt is apistos, and it actually refers to the character of the individual, not the action of doubting. His final statement to Thomas is literally translated kai me ginou apistos alla pistos: “Stop being an unbeliever, but a believer!”

Jesus said that the person who doubted was essentially an unbeliever. He didn’t differentiate between absolute belief and in-this-moment belief; to him it was all the same. Either we trust him all of the time, or we don’t.

Now, those of us who have committed to following Christ understand that this is a constant struggle, and we don’t live in fear of Christ’s rejection. But we relate to the brokenness of the father of the demon-possessed child in Mark chapter 9 who cried, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” The bottom line is that Jesus expects us to try. It doesn’t matter if we call it a resistance to the gospel, worry, or anticipatory grief—it is all contrary to exercising faith. Faith is not a feeling; it is a determination to walk in a chosen path.

So, whether you’re stressed right now about your finances or health, or just bending under the weight of the unknowable, act in faith. Pray. Change your outlook. Declare what you believe out loud so that the devils of hell can hear it. Do something that demonstrates your confidence in Jesus even when you’re not feeling it. Tell someone what you’re thankful for. Sing.

We can get through this by faith.

[supere1113]

The Conflict Within Myself - Track 11: Stretched and Compressed

Wow. What do you follow such a climactic song as Polaroid with? Well, it could go either of two ways: The conflict within the person consumes them and they are corrupted and destroyed (.ie dying by suicide), Or.... they are somehow saved from their darkness and led on a different path. Shall I continue the story?

****TRIGGER WARNING****... again. probably the last one, though.

So last time I left off, It was early October 2017, I had just survived the closest-call suicide attempt of my life. After I didn’t die, I knew that if I were to try again, I would get even closer, and closer, and closer till I actually died (didn’t have that far to go that last time, but still). I didn’t want that to have to happen, so I decided that if I was going to go on, I would need help. Of some kind. I doubled down on getting my parents to understand what was going on with me by writing a letter and printing it out for them to read that night. It blew up in my face, and I lost a chunk of hope a little bigger than most of the other ones I was losing almost daily (At this point, they thought I was trying to drop out of school, potentially to pursue music full-time. That couldn’t been further from the truth. I can’t give one passion up for another, I’m a renaissance man. I mean, have you heard my song Multipotentialite from the last album? It surprised me that that didn’t click for them. I imagine they were scared too, though; whether they’d ever say it out loud to me or not. Sad situation it was). All that happened during a weekend where I went home to visit my parents. After I got back on campus, my mood swings continued to intensify. I every time I was in an extreme state, I would quarantine myself in my dorm (I feel sorry for my sophomore roommate. Thankfully, he was out doing things around campus during my most rapid descents into madness. I won’t say his name here, but I love you, bro. Thank you) and I eventually only left to eat... occasionally. My psych evaluation finally came on October 17th. I was mentally close to death. My mom brought me over there, I did the evaluation, and then, knowing what she did about my current mental state, the psychologist asked me if I wanted to be hospitalized, saying she could make it happen, even if my mother still didn’t get it after that. I went in the car, waited for my mom and the psychologist to finish their conversation and then, after she got in the car, mom called dad and said she “wasn’t playing around with this anymore.” She was finally willing to go through with getting me the help I needed, the way I needed it at that point. The unfortunate part is that after you’re so far gone, meeting with a counselor each week just isn’t enough. Though I wasn’t in immediate danger, I was still quite suicidal, and my parents couldn’t guarantee to the psychologist that they could protect me from me, not long-term. So, mom drove me home, and that night brought to my family the full impact of what was happening with me. Since may parents couldn’t keep me safe enough, I was admitted to a psychiatric hospital near my childhood home the next day. My dad never wanted either of his children to be institutionalized in any way, so this was especially crushing to him. We didn’t know how long I’d have to be there, so for that reason, among others, I was medically withdrawn from school. While I was there, my results from my psych evaluation came in. I was diagnosed with Bipolar I Disorder with psychotic features and Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Crazy. In every sense of the word. You could smell the stigma on me.

I never wanted it to be that way. I mean, I got access to the help I needed, but at what cost?! Even over 2 years later, there’s a lot about that that I’m still, even if only a lil bit, angry about, which surprises me. It was just a crazy time. And in the time after the realization, I would hear for the first time my parents say to me that they missed something. That shook all of us.

~~~~~

Anyway, the end of Polaroid marks the beginning of a new phase, a new suite in the album (Act III: The Explosion). This song, along with the remainder of the album, takes place in a psychiatric facility, and, similar to Polaroid, kind of explores my thoughts while I was in there, and what changes were finally able to take root in me (fitting for an album titled ‘The Conflict Within Myself’ to explore inner thoughts, huh?).

Stretched and Compressed is really a song about the general realization that I had mental illness. My own, mostly. Even though that realization occurred long before I was hospitalized, I simplified the sequence of events on here to make the album more universal, as I stated before. As a result, S&C also explores my parents realization of my new mental reality. This was unintentional, but this song could potentially be divided into two distinct halves, The first being Stretched, the last being Compressed. The music even corresponds to those titles. The sounds of the Stretched half heave upwards as if they are being stretched by a magnet. It’s meant to channel the surprise and pain of realizing, and accepting, a new reality. In contrast, the Compressed half covers moreso the small part of you that dies in the face of that reality, and the grief, the sadness and the depression that can flood your life when you realize that this is not the way you thought your life was going to go, nor what you intended, or after something traumatic happens.

I put a little nugget in the Stretched half that I think will be looked on in awe in the future. Just before the second verse, you can faintly hear me say “I’ve been suicidal, you can’t kill me ‘cause I tried it.” This is a direct reference to a line by one of my favorite rappers, Itsdink! I call him Cody. He and I have been friends for over a decade in 2019, and earlier in the month of October of this year, he dropped on Soundcloud what I believe to be his best work yet: Want Me Dead. This album was therapeutic for him to make and for both of us to listen to because it showed all the struggles he had endured since we last saw each other face-to-face (as I stated in my song Normal off my last album, The Artist In Me, I had to leave our childhood school in 2010. Cody and I haven’t been in the same place together since then). I had been through different things than him, but much of the mental damage that ensued, we had in common. Anxiety, depression, paranoia, Suicidality, all that. It broke my heart that he had to go through that, and also blessed my heart to know that he went through it and it didn’t consume him. We were both survivors, and we were both going to drop the albums that chronicled and helped us through our struggles on opposite ends of the same month: October 2019. I wanted to connect these albums so that history may remember Want Me Dead and The Conflict Within Myself as transcendent projects, connected to each other.

The Compressed half of Stretched and Compressed is even more somber than the preceding half. This is when the stigma of having multiple mental illnesses (or even just one) really hits me; and it hits hard. When I was in the hospital, I thought I had lost everything, and in a sense, I did. My sanity, my grades, an important part of my relationship with my parents, my ability to be a good student (or any student for that matter), my scholarships, my certainty, and a whole lot of other things associated with those things. I was relieved I was getting help, while being frustrated that it got so bad that I had to be there, saddened by that fact and just in a general state of shock from all that I had endured. Those mood swings I was talking about, that was what people in the mental health community call Mania. I was manic ever since July of 2017 when Chester died. The Mania is the high end of those mood swings. Depression is the low. And being manic doesn’t always mean being happy. I describe mania as being an amplifier to whatever you’re feeling. So if you’re happy and Manic, you are ELATED! If you are angry or irritable and manic, you get beyond furious and so irritated that you may turn suicidal. Actually, though. I suspected I had bipolar, but who ever wants to be right about that?

I had a lot of fun making Stretched and Compressed, especially the last 2 minutes. That transition from Stretched to Compressed is crazy. You ever heard something like that? then when the drums and plucky mental, metal guitar kick in on Compressed.... it’s over, bruv.

Stretched and Compressed is interesting because, much like Synchronized Sound and When Your Brain Is Fried, its instrumental was thought out years before Conflict even came out (the idea, though not yet carrying the S&C name, is probably as old as songs off of Identity, so circa 2015)! The pain of the Stretched half gave me Stephen Richards and Aaron Lewis vibes from their performances on P5hng Me A*wy and Krwling respectively off of Linkin Park’s remix album Reanimation. So I channeled them in the choruses (sprinkled a little bit of Jonathan Davis from Korn in there, too. ;) He also featured on that album on 1Stp Klosr). The Compressed half is much more genre-fluid than the Stretched half. But among many others, I was really inspired by the work of MUNA and The Red Hot Chili Peppers for that part of the song.

So you’re admitted to a hospital. You’re getting help, but you’re still reeling from all that led you there. Where else could the mind take us, I wonder...