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kieraelieson · 24 days

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Can Contentment be Bad?

Oh look, I’m writing another weird essay thing in the wee hours of the morning. ~Insomnia~

This will involve details of my childhood, which may be triggering to people with similar experiences. Open the read-more with this knowledge.

My mother was a staunch Christian. She believed that in what she read in the Bible, happiness was never promised. However, Christians were commanded to contentment, and if they could manage that, they would be rewarded with joy (something somehow different and better than happiness, in a nebulous way).

Now her life was Hard. She had an abusive mother she grew up under, and barely had she left her when she met a man she would marry and would discover to be an abusive husband. She lived in poverty, and had eleven children, making the poverty much harder to cope with. She overworked herself to the point of physical illness, and eventually death. Her life was one truly difficult to find contentment in.

But she believed that God told her she must find it. And that she must find it in a very particular manner. For instance, she could not demand or fight for a better situation for herself. She told a story often of the first time she learned this.

‘When I only had the first two of you kids we were living in a trailer. The room we had you in was so tiny we couldn’t open the dresser drawers fully cause they ran into the baby bed, and I had to slide my way in and out sideways to get you in the mornings. Now I never wanted to live in the trailer, so one day I told your father, “I will not have another baby living in this!” And I heard God say to me, “Oh, what was that? You won’t?” And sure enough, your little sister was nine months old when we finally moved out.’

So she believed that her contentment must be found without altering her situation. Her ultimate solution ended up being twofold.

First, she began regularly reading books about martyrs, and about Christian missionaries that became prisoners of war or were otherwise in horrific, life threatening situations. She read them herself and aloud to us, comparing the horrors they survived to her life, and measuring her hardships as small in comparison.

Secondly, she ignored things too negative to accept. This started intentionally, and grew to become subconscious, and she forgot that she had ever done it. She began to get brain fog, and gaps in her memory. Often one of us would come to her, asking for help with Dad, he had hurt us, and had been doing so for a while. Her eyes would go wide and fill with tears. ‘He’s been doing what? I haven’t seen it.’ But in a day she would have forgotten again. She couldn’t stand to know her children were being hurt, so she didn’t.

I remember having a friend, and in one of the rare times we had a long conversation, she told me about what her parents did to her. I was horrified and enraged, recognizing the different abuse for what it was. I told Mom, seething. But she answered me very calmly.

“You need to be really careful not to hurt your friend.”

“Hurt my friend?! I want to hit her parents, not her!”

“If you talk badly about someone’s parents, and you’re correct about it, it could hurt them very badly. They could then see the badness in their parents for what it is. They’ll lose any contentment they had in their situation and just start fighting. Then they might slip into rebellion, and both their parents and God will be fighting them back. All because you made them aware of how bad their parents are.”

At the time, I believed Mom.

Now? I regret so badly not having told my friend how angry I was on her behalf. How much I hated what her parents did to her. How it was clear and horrific abuse. How someone needed to tell the authorities.

How a good life should be fought for.

It was several years later that I got a few therapy sessions with a wonderful therapist. I told her of my struggles with hopelessness, escapism, and dissociation.

She gave me the best advice I think anyone could have ever given me.

“Pick something, anything, that you know you can do that would be a bright spot in a day.”

At that point in time, I could drive, and knew the location of a nearby Sonic. I suggested I could get myself an ice cream.

“That works perfectly. Start doing that, say every Friday evening. Every single one you can, go get yourself that ice cream.”

I certainly wasn’t going to pass up ice cream, but I wanted to understand the why.

“Your life is very dark and difficult, so much that you can hardly stand living in it. So you need some bright spots. This is your first goal. Once you’ve got it down, we’ll add in another. And once you can manage a few things that could brighten a day, I’m going to have you plan things within your control that could brighten up a week, or a month, or a year. The ultimate goal is to change whatever you can to make your life worth living.”

I started getting ice cream. Then I bought myself a coloring book and began coloring on occasion. I already read fanfiction, but I began pursuing friendships with the people who wrote the stories I liked. I prioritized texting my new friends. I even planned and pulled off a meeting with some in person.

Finally, I made the biggest leap ever. I left my abusive home to live with my boyfriend.

Now, I remember her advice when I slip into depression.

I make small bright spots: I’ve started adding cheezits to my grocery orders. I play video games a few times a week that make me happy. I have a few creative hobbies, and I make time to do a little of one of them every day.

I make medium bright spots: I plant and water seeds so that I can watch the flowers grow. I’m working with a group to make an audio drama. I go on dates with my partners.

And I make bigger goals that will brighten my life considerably: I’m saving up for a new laptop that can handle the editing programs I want to use. I’m planning and looking forward to a house with a larger yard one day. I’m working on painting my apartment in brighter, happier colors.

Life gets better. And true contentment and happiness is fought for and won.

#my own work #i should come up with a tag for this #religion #child abuse

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ultraviolet-techno-ecology · 4 years

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TW: Suicide / Apologies if this is upsetting or distressing to you, and ofc please ignore if you don't want to talk about it, but I saw your post about suicide prevention and wanted to ask if you have any thoughts on how it might be improved? bc to me it sometimes seems like it's a deeper problem, like there is no amount of social prophylaxis that will be effective in a capitalist society bc the problems are embeded deep in society itself and unless we work on those, what we can do is limited

TW Suicide / Same anon as before, I just wanted to clarify that I'm asking because I've had the bad luck of experiencing some aspects of mainstream suicide prevention and that's the impression I had. I had the luck of having the support of a pretty good therapist, but even so, I felt like *nothing* she said could help, because even though being suicidal is partly *my* mental health issue that I can work on, most of the reasons why I felt like I did were bc of how society is structured today

Almost everyone I know has seriously contemplated suicide at some point, and as a result I have become very resistant to any suggestion that individuals experiencing this despair have an atomized problem in isolation from others.

What I mean is that there is a sort of collective depression, a collective trauma, a collective anxiety, and so on. And that aspect is completely missing from any conversation about mental health.

Instead we get statistics about how many individuals have any given diagnoses within a population, without any analysis of mental illness as a sort of memetic-network with a life of it’s own responding to material and social conditions.

Therapy is the chiropractic care of the emotional state, what I mean is that while it offers temporary relief it is rare for a person to have a problem cured by an adjustment. (Physical or mental.) Likewise I have many things to say about the efficacy of psychiatric medication, but that’s another conversation.

Alienation under capitalism is real - and it has serious mental consequences. Bigotry is real, poverty is real, climate change is real. Any effort to improve mental health which does not alleviate these material and social problems is actively harmful to individuals.

The harm I reference is the learned helplessness that comes from the suggestion your perspective is wrong, and that you must convince yourself to accept current troubles rather than fight against them. (Can you tell I absolutely hate the recent popularity of clinical Mindfullness? Did you know it’s a popular way for clinics to tell chronic pain patients to stop complaining and accept that they won’t get medication to relieve their suffering!?)

Suicide prevention requires us to address the collective despair which reinforces whatever individual despair might exist. It requires us to recognize that things are indeed unhealthy - that it isn’t just you. And there is no meaningful next step without revolutionary efforts to change our material conditions by fighting against the sources of collective despair and suffering.

Again this does not deny the existence of conditions which can lead to suffering. Obviously I’m disabled, and my disability will not magically go away in some post-capitalist society. However at the same time eliminating ableism and the cultural idea that I am fundamentally worth less due to my disability will certainly go a long way to improving my own experiences.

Living in a world where I cannot point to capitalist practices and say “See! There is the proof I am worth less, I cannot function in a normal work environment and that means nothing I contribute is of value!” Will reduce my experience of this collective suffering which every disabled person is inundated with due to very real social and material conditions.

#tw suicide #mental health

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tonya-the-chicken · 3 years

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I’m not going to change your views but it does feel a bit dismissive when you say it wasn’t that bad because he had rich parents who neglected him but hey they got a maid for him and he probably wasn’t outcasted or bullied so hey it’s not that bad right 🤷‍♀️! I don’t know he definitely didn’t have the worse out of the villains but I don’t know it felt a bit dismissive is all. Although we need to all remember these are fictional characters so have no idea why the other anon needed to get so aggressive! Also the person in the notes I don’t know how to say it but uh the whole the Todoroki’s had a rich father they didn’t have to work a day in their life take is not a good look. Just because someone has parents with money it doesn’t derail the fact that neglect can cause trauma.

Anyways for the real reason I sent this, you wonder why Dabi is so insane. Well take into account the neglect alongside the fact that he burnt to near death up on that hill alone at the age of what 13? That’s got to be extra traumatising, especially for a child that was already not mentally ok. We also don’t know what his circumstances were like after that fire, like was he homeless? Or picked up by someone nefarious? Kind of like AFO(not him exactly but someone nasty) who maybe fed on his brewing anger and hate instead of positive healing. I’m sure we will find out at some point? I don’t think it was just what happened in the Todoroki household or the fire that broke his mind? There had to be other factors after the fire after his “death”!

[[WARNING!!! I love Dabi as a character but I am not a woobifier so if you are too much into him don't read!!!! No complaints taken, y'all will be blocked for being rude I am too old to deal with people unable to interact with me in good faith (anon it's not for you, you are good and I can't understand your point of view I am just not as good as a person and too old for that shit)]]

I don't think I will change my mind either but I feel like the belief that every trauma is equally bad is just... Simply wrong. Like, we can legit compare this stuff and how badly it affects our brain, what do y'all think psychologists research 🤷‍♀️ Like, your therapist won't tell you this because it's not their job to make you understand you not the centre of the Earth (and it won't help because it is a legit trauma response that is very valid but is annoying you're fucking 25 yo). And to say that, neglectful parenthood is probably the worst parenthood style, as far as I know XD I wrote coursework about this (neglectful bitches are having a lot of need to make us the biggest victims (the bitches is me))... It also feels really American to me? Like, are we going to pretend people who got to live in a nice house and were neglect somehow got it as bad as people living in poverty or warzones? Hello? Imagine telling some orphan "I know you have no parents but actually, my trauma of my father not spending enough time with me is just as severe as yours". Bruh couldn't be me sorry... Like, even taking into account the fact that we can have weaker or stronger nervous systems or be more prone to depressive episodes *looks in the mirror and cries* I simply wouldn't find the guts to say my trauma is as severe as idk people who had physically abusive parents or no parents at all or who were disowned for being gay

And like **again** I am not saying that neglect is not traumatic I WAS NEGLECTED THIS IS TRAUMATIZING AS FUCK. I just am living in a country at war and with lots of discrimination problems and I like... Can't say I am the biggest victim. Sorry I can't though there were times when I was a lot more bitchy especially before being in therapy so I understand where you are coming from and I know what I am saying won't resonate with everyone (it's ok go on your own healing journey I believe in you) but this doesn't mean it is garbage and won't help me or someone else... I've already talked once about it but as a person, I am very easily irritated and envious and really not your local Jesus and partially my trauma turned me like this so being more humble about my sufferings helps me not be a complete bitch (believe me or not but people with traumas and mental illnesses are often insufferable *looks in the mirror* not me though I am perfect... BUT IT IS OK TO BE INSUFFERABLE OK??? like, bitch, that's normal. That's normal to stink when you are depressed it's ok to be a bitch when you are hurting. Forgive yourself because I forgive you (when you are not being an abusive asshole but if you apologize and explain yourself I will forgive that too)

The reason why I talk about the fact he is rich is that I've got a disease called leftism and I am a person of several marginalized identities and since this fandom LOVES looking at characters like real humans, I looked at Dabi this way. And if Dabi was a real human, I wouldn't sympathize with him one bit. I would fucking hate him for being the biggest entitled asshole who commits crimes for the reason his Daddy didn't give him attention. Bitch, my Dad didn't give me attention either! But somehow I don't kill people! And I don't even have money!!!! But like... I am not denying that neglectful parents are not a problem. It is. But he is overreacting, bro. He needs to humble down and recognize the fact he is a fucking idiot (he is). He has inherently so much more resources to recover and heal himself than I had... Yes, I am just being jealous at this point but honestly. Making an entire country suffer for you is not a good thing and y'all need to stop using trauma and mental illness as an excuse for people. No! Being abusive to people because of neglect is not valid, is overreacting and you had no reason to do that. I am dismissing your trauma because you are exaggerating it to make me sympathize with your asshole behaviour. I won't judge people with different sets of standards as I judge myself

I bet it would be dismissive and bad if I said it in conversation with someone who is currently struggling with mental health and is not a murderer. But guess what! I don't talk with humans and my friends the same way I talk on my Tumblr about fictional characters 🤷‍♀️ Not to mention I don't have rich friends akabsksbxm

I think with Dabi there's this whole thing where we saw him at 14 (poor baby boy) and 24 (a grown-ass boy) and... Like, I am so sorry for 14 years old Touya not receiving the help he needs (bruh so relatable) but I am not gonna act like 24 years old bitch can't get his ass to a psychiatrist (extremely unrelatable and infuriating). We shouldn't apply the same standards to kids and adults. We can talk all day long about how society is bad and how our parents ruined us but at some points, you gotta take your life into your own hands and do something and be an adult. And it's fucking hard when you're born with a shitty brain that was fucked up by your parents even more in a society where no one gives a fuck but I sincerely don't know another way to live. You will feel bad and want to die but you either keep on recovering or keep on getting worse and at this point getting worse is Dabi's *choice* That's how I live, that's my framework and I am, of course, extremely fortunate in a lot of ways but I just don't know how are you supposed to survive without the notion that grown people are responsible for themselves and their mental health. We can't act like adults are babies

But as a character, Dabi is fucking hot ngl. Like, do I sometimes want to murder my entire family, make them suffer AND commit terrorist attacks? We all do. Dabi is the dark fantasy of us neglectful bitches craving some attention. Gotta kill the president and tell everyone that my Dad sucks. Imagine the entire country hearing your Dad sucks? That's the juice, that's the dream. Trauma makes you vicious. I get the sentiment. Imagine all those fuckers who made you feel like shit pissing their pants and crying? Imagine your Mom being afraid of you the way you used to be afraid of her? People do have the desire for some violent justice but like... Think of bullied kids committing school shootings. But instead of a kid, it's a grown man who graduated school and who also have a rich father

Ok too much about irl stuff and philosophy shit. I know my way of talking is kinda brute so just know the way I treat people is different from that I treat fictional characters, in particular, I don't call real-life humans submissive and breedable... And stuff...

Damn Dabi is kinda good to project your hatred of your parents in bruh, I should write a fanfic about that (would be cathartic)

To the plotline, I am also very interested in what the hell happened with him after burning because... How the hell he wasn't found? I kind of DON'T want him to be groomed at this point because I feel like it won't be as cool as him just more naturally evolving into what he became. Like, surely, he is an asshole but consider this: as a villain, he is morally obligated to be an asshole

I feel like someone hiding him and Touya overstating the gruesomeness of his living conditions to the dude so he feels *bad* for him and hides him and feels sympathy and Touya gets attention but also begins to reassure himself in the fact his Dad needs to be punished... Idk it's a lot of mystery but I feel like more suffering won't deliver the point the way I want it... I mean it CAN be handled this way and initially I thought a lot about Dabi being brainwashed a bit or having his memories altered so it seems worse to him or even him being groomed or lied too but nowadays I am not into it. I mean I believe in Horikoshi and that he will handle him well 🛐

I talk a lot so I will summarize

If we judge him as a real human

14 yo Touya - DID NOTHING WRONG IN HIS LIFE PROTECT HIM

24 yo Dabi - go fuck yourself bitch you older than me and act like a child and kill people, I couldn't care less about your trauma rich boy

If you want me to talk as his psychologist

Yeah, it is painful and sad, I understand him so much and surely, his trauma is valid as is his hatred but probably revenge won't bring him what he wants. And what he wants is love and attention. But he gotta make choices that will lead to his healing. He needs to *want* to heal. And we will step by step go to the healing because it is possible. He is loved and he is enough. AND YOU ALL MOTHERFUCKERS WILL HEAL I BELIEVE IN YOU BESTIES

Also his therapist (behind his back)

You won't believe it but my client is the most infantile attention whore I've ever met

But if we talk about him as a character... Very delicious soup

If you talk with your friends

Please, if your friends are being abusive to you or someone else don't even LET them say how their trauma made them this way. No. Nothing allows you to be an abuser. Call them out and stop them and make them talk to the therapist. Like, surely, there are extreme situations like severe mental illnesses or extreme neglect where we should be more forgiving but babying adults won't do you any good and won't make them recover

Yeah, I guess this is what I forgot to say. When I say "it wasn't that bad" what I mean is that I would be more forgiving to people who had it worse. It's more of a personal measure where I can tolerate stuff from people who had particular traumas or from those who suffered greatly (it's not my place to be a bitch here). I can forgive 14 years old or a poor person for stealing stuff but not the 25-year-old man who got no need for money and is not a kleptomaniac. I would be more forgiving to Shigaraki than to Dabi because Shigaraki was groomed a whole lot. Same for Toga, who is not even an adult or Twice who is a poor orphan. But that doesn't mean I would forgive them completely. All of them are shitty people. It's just that they had fewer resources and possibilities to not be what they became while Dabi had more but he acts like he is extremely hurt and the biggest victim which is like... There will be people like this in your life, please, don't make friends with them, they WILL abuse you

I talked a lot damn. It's adhd I can't shut up

#asks #bnha #bnha manga spoilers #todoroki touya #bnha dabi #killing people is a legit coping mechanism #I mean I possibly do sound dismissive I am very brute in my talking but I really can't be bothered #all I am saying that I am not dismissing neglect what I am dismissing is the idea that is is bad enough to justify Dabi's reaction #neglect was bad Dabi's reaction is disproportionate though #you. don't get to kill people because your Dad didn't love you #you do get to kill people if those people killed your family #just so you understand #I got tired of talking

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ourimpavidheroine · 4 years

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I’ve gotta say, I’m really enjoying these stories. Also, your late father sounds like an amazing man. I can really see the inspiration for LoLo come out in your mentions of him.

When my mother got pregnant with me - a planned pregnancy, they were young when they married but I was born 16 months later - my father knew from the get-go that he wanted a girl.

This was (and, I am sad to say, still is) an unusual thing for a father to wish for. Most fathers wish for a son. My Dad, however, was raised by a drunken, abusive, narcissistic man and he was afraid that if he had a son he’d just turn into his father. He thought a daughter would help him break that cycle of abuse.

When I was born he told the nurse who brought me out to him in the waiting room that I was an angel, and Angel was the nickname that he alone called me.

He and I were very, very close, something that made my mother and younger brother jealous. (I didn’t really see or understand that until after he died when I was 26.) There was nothing whatsoever or remotely sexual about it, which is what people usually assume when a father and daughter are very close. As my girlhood best friend said to me a few months ago, my father thought the sun rose and set on me, thought that I was his fairy princess. All of my odd, Autistic/ADHD weirdness was something he loved. I always knew he loved me not just despite my weirdness but because of it. (Something that my late wife did as well.)

My father was a brilliant man. He graduated high school at 15 and went into university to study architecture. Academically he handled it, but he was way too young to handle the social aspects as well as the responsibility of it and so he dropped out a year later. Things were apparently hellish with my grandfather and my Dad enlisted in the Army on his 18th birthday. This was 1965 and the US started sending soldiers to Vietnam. Not my Dad, though. He took some tests the military gave him and after boot camp spent his entire three years on a Nike missle base in the middle of Milwaukee, working on one of those huge old mainframe computers (you know, the kind with punch cards). I’m guessing they didn’t send the really smart ones off to be killed.

He taught himself how to be an architect through reading books at the library, including textbooks that he would sit and read at UC Berkeley’s library, even though he wasn’t a student there any longer. Then, after he had learned that, he read through engineering and physics textbooks. Then he read through every single book he could find that taught him how to actually build the structures he had learned to draw. He was completely self-taught, and the man not only designed and built complicated, Broadway-worthy theater sets he also designed and built houses from the ground up. He wanted to build a rock retaining wall at our house (which was located at the base of a hill and was on an incline) and so he went to the library and got a book about how Romans built walls and spent three years going to the local river to source variously-sized river rocks to build that retaining wall, which he did completely without any kind of mortar, just balancing the rocks perfectly. It’s still standing, 40 years later.

He always worked at very menial jobs - he was a line cook, a stocker in a supermarket produce department, an RV park manager, etc. He was terrible with money, didn’t understand it at all. We lived right on top of the poverty line. He had zero executive functioning and that caused a lot of problems for all of us and meant a lot of broken promises, too.

I am completely sure that like me, like both of his grandchildren, he had Autism and ADHD. Not diagnosed of course, they weren’t in those days, But he had them nevertheless.

He was a voracious reader and introduced me to sci fi and fantasy. On my eighth birthday he gave me his copies of The Lord of the Rings and had me read them. (This was 1977, trust me when I tell you those books were not a household name at that point.) He’d wake me up at 3:30 am and we’d go fishing together, him with a thermos of black coffee, me with a bottle of orange juice and a box of Entenmann’s mixed donuts and we’d sit there in happy silence together, fishing and enjoying each other’s company. He was a wonderful storyteller and only once did he get angry with me. He never laid a hand on me or my brother but the one time he got angry with me he slapped me across the face and then the both of us cried.

He taught me many useful skills, like how to jimmy locks and how to walk through people unseen and how to learn on my own how to do things and how to make the world’s best pie. He always told me that I could absolutely anything I put my mind to. When I asked him once if that meant I could be a father - I was joking - he looked me straight in the eye and asked me if I actually wanted to be a father. When I told him no he responded that he had said if I had put my mind to it, and he wasn’t vouching for anything I pulled when I didn’t care.

He also told me that I was the strongest person he’d ever met and when I scoffed at that he shook his head and said, “Angel, most people see you and they have no idea at all what’s inside of you and what you are capable of. There is nothing in this life you won’t overcome. Someday, when we’re both dead, you come find me and tell me I’m wrong.” (So far, he has not been wrong.)

He was a functioning drunk; he only drank after 8 at night, however. Just enough to make sure he’d not be hungover in the morning. He was a night person and all his life only needed about 4 hours of sleep to be completely rested.

He loved movies but he hated to go alone and usually took me. Not all of these movies were appropriate for kids my age but there it was. When I was eleven he took me with him to see The Elephant Man and I broke down completely, devastated and sobbing, horrified at how cruel people were to the lead character, just because he was different. After the movie we sat in the car and he held me until I was done crying and when I was all done he told me to never forget how the movie had made me feel and to remember that no matter how different people were from me they were all human and deserved kindness, compassion and understanding. This was a lesson I have tried very hard to live throughout my life. He took people at face value, and that included everyone. I don’t think he was particularly woke based on 2021 sentiments but he tried very hard to treat people equally and that included queer people during the AIDS crisis, too.

He was a feminist and believed women should be equal to men. He walked the walk, too: he cooked, he cleaned, he changed diapers, etc. And by that I mean he did them as par for the course, as part of his daily life. He did not rely on my mother’s emotional labor to remind him to do shit. He just did it because things needed doing and he was a grownass man, not a man-child. He did not consider caring for his children as babysitting, either.

He liked to sing. My mother and brother have opera-quality singing voices - for real, both of them are quite gifted - but his wasn’t like that, it was just a perfectly ordinary, passable baritone, just like mine is a perfectly ordinary, passable alto. He sang and he whistled when he was happy and I do the same. He used to make up funny little songs and rhymes on the spot, he had a gift for improvisation that way. I wish I had inherited that but alas! No.

Even when he was a boy all of the neighborhood kids would come to him with broken toys to be fixed. He quite genuinely liked kids and even teenagers and spent a lot of time working with the local high school drama department, building the sets, working as the stage manager and setting up and working the lights and soundboard (he taught himself to do that as well) and even directing some of the plays when the drama teacher was out on maternity leave. To this day I still get contacted by people who were in school with me or my brother who tell me what an influence my father was on them, the special things he did for them to make sure they knew he was paying attention and cared. One guy a couple of years ago contacted me on Facebook and told me that he got into some trouble after high school, even got imprisoned for a few months. My father visited him in prison and afterwards took him to AA with him, became his sponsor, helped keep on the straight and narrow. He named his oldest son after my father, in fact. I hear a lot of those stories.

He loved books and he loved music and he taught me to love those things as well. He fell in love with my mother when he was seventeen and married her five years later and came to regret it - like his father, his wife was an abusive, narcissistic person. He stayed with her, though, until my second year of university, when he abruptly walked out on her, went to AA and quit drinking. I asked him about it later; he told me that he had wanted to leave her for years but knew that if he did he’d never see me or my younger brother again. The courts in those days automatically gave kids to the mother and my mother was an accomplished liar and would have told the courts anything and they would have believed her. Once I was out of the house and secure, then he was done. (The fact that my brother was only fifteen and left to fend for himself with my mother was...not good. Not good at all. My father was not perfect and he was not a saint and that was a mistake that still has repercussions today.) He did not do enough to protect me from my mother while I was growing up, however. He regretted it, he told me later. I understand now that he was constantly walking a knife’s edge, trying to keep her satisfied enough so she wouldn’t try to take me away from him, but it took therapy long after he died for me to really understand that.

His special interest was model railroading and he built these amazing, intricate landscapes, all by hand and by scratch. The man took latex molds off the sides of rocks to build mountains with and built buildings out of tiny pieces of wood and such. I spent many hours with him as he built, listening to music and reading or just laying there, thinking my thinks, or sometimes chattering nonstop to him.

He called me, every single Friday night, right after the X-Files ended, right after the child’s voice said “I made this.” My phone would ring and we’d chat for hours, talking about the show (we both loved it) and whatever else. He lived about 5 hours away from me at the time and we did talk at other times during the week but that was our standard date. He died in the middle of Season 2 and to this very goddamn fucking day whenever I hear that “I made this” I wait for my phone to ring. And I cry every single time because he will never call me again.

I absolutely think that meeting my late wife via the X-Files was my father, watching out for me. When my twins were newborn and pretty much all I did 24x7 was breastfeed them I re-watched the entirety of X-Files on the DVDs I had and I’d talk to my father in my head, telling him about his grandchildren.

He’d always buy the new Stephen King books in hardcover and read them and then give them to me to keep. He especially loved the Dark Tower series but I haven’t finished the ones that were published after he died. I bought them myself but they are still sitting on my bookshelf, unread. I just can’t.

He died in the hospital after being in a coma for a week. The ICU nurses were very kind and showed me how I could turn off the life support machine if I wanted to and told me that I could be in there with him as long as I needed. They very considerately closed all of the curtains and closed the door to the room. I was alone with him in there and I turned off the machine and I held his hand and I sang to him as he died. I didn’t want him to be alone.

He was right. I was strong enough to do that. It hurt, though. It still hurts.

He’s buried in California with a free military headstone because my comfortably upper middle class grandfather refused to shell out for a headstone and I was flat broke. Many years later I had a regular stone engraved with the words, “Go then, there are other worlds than these” and I placed it at our summer cottage here in Finland for him. I like to think that he and my late wife are keeping company. They never met here, but they would have liked each other very much, that I do know.

#impavid storytime #my father #long post #I loved him very much #in case you didn't get that from this #Anonymous

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whomturgled · 3 years

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also since I’m on the tgcf brainworm rot express again,, when xie lian says he doesn’t feel pain anymore i think it’s bullshit and what he means is that he’s lived so long and suffered much more painful things (ex: the thing that made hua cheng ykno Materialize or w/e) than being stung by a scorpion snake or falling from the sky into a bunch of trees so in comparison it’s nothing. he’s just used to it and knows he won’t die and if he can tolerate it then it’s fine and he’d rather ppl didn’t worry bc at the end of the day; it won’t kill him. and he’s seen other ppl suffer so much, especially during the human face disease plague, and he was powerless to help (except that one time) like he even cut that one guys leg off or w/e which didn’t even end up fixing it- if it could kill someone else, then he may as well take it for them. bit of a martyr complex. he is quick to want to change subjects/not talk abt the pains he’s endured, like being trampled to death, saying he doesn’t remember (and whether or not that’s him repressing traumatic memories or him just saying he’s forgotten or genuinely bc he’s 800 fuckin yes old) and then that he’d rather remember eating a steamed bun the other day than being trampled. also the “DOES IT HURT” w/ jw. also a less meta thing that was prob meant more as a joke and a way to show that xie lian is the equivalent to ur 70 y/o grandpa on fb sharing minion memes but he literally shares Pain Relief for Backs and Joints :) or whatever in the heavenly dm’s.

he has become desensitized over time to pain to some degree, sure, just like how someone with chronic pain will become used to it over time and discount their own pain (ex; i have fibro among other things but why list them all out lol and am constantly in pain but like that’s just how it is and I’m used to it as my base level of existing so it’s Normal and i’m Fine but my Fine might be intolerable for someone else, etc etc.) i think it’s really mostly a mentality thing. he wanted to save the world, the common people and he continues to be a compassionate person. also probably recognizing .. essentially.. privilege in like. again he Won’t Die and he came from such luxury and all that ??? idk how to word where I’m going w( that one. the losing sense of Dignity or caring abt that stuff and his years living as The Common People (see: poverty and How The Real World Workstm and cruelty etc) i bet he also just got used to essentially being a pincushion whether that be in the sense of physically or insults @ him or ppl hating him, him taking blame (that one thing w the prince of yong’an and fangxin), w/e. he’s gone beyond humbled lol

anyway what i’m saying is xie lian it’s okay to admit things are unpleasant and you should care abt your own well-being and please go to therapy

#that thing that’s like I’m genuinely so upset he’s a fictional character and I’ll never get to x #x being take him to therapy lol #tgcf spoilers #tgcf #long post #I call this one.... incomprehensible brain rot abt homophobic homos on main

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wxldchxld · 3 years

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🍎 : how stable is my muse’s mental health? have they been diagnosed with any mental illnesses and / or conditions? do they have any undiagnosed mental illnesses and / or conditions? do they or should they attend therapy?

🍇 : how would my muse describe their childhood? how much has it impacted the person they are now, or will become as an adult? around what age did they or will they start to mature, and why? do they wish to go back to their days as a child, or have they embraced adulthood?

🍌 : is my muse inclined to help others, or will they only do it when it benefits them, if at all? what makes them this way? has it ever gotten them into trouble, or inconvenienced them?

🍓 : how is my muse typically seen by others? does it ring true to who they really are? does their reputation matter to them?

🥝 : does my muse have any ‘ unusual ’ habits, interests, and / or talents? do they hide it, or are they proud of it?

🍋 : what kind of diet does my muse have? do they eat regularly, or the standard 2-3 meals a day? do they have to be reminded to eat, or are they likely to remind others? do they cook, or have others cook for them? do they eat healthily, or not so much?

Harper is pretty neurotypical. She does have some childhood trauma relating to her father leaving and her relationship with her mother. Her mom was an active service member and this led to a lot of instability in her childhood.

See Harper's mom and her grandmother weren't on great speaking terms. Her mother never told her father about the pregnancy, and that caused a rift between them before Harper was even born. Her mother also struggled with alcoholism when Harper was younger and while Harper was never abused, her mom did make some very poor decisions and her grandmother wasn't always sympathetic, usually blaming her mom for her bad choices with money, and then getting even angrier when her mom wouldn't accept help even as they were on the verge of financial collapse. This lead to her grandmother calling DHR and some very messy fights that Harper heard.

Harper didn't walk away from her experiences with poverty and family drama unscathed. Her mom did eventually go to rehab, and her grandmother did eventually try to make amends with her before she passed.

This isn't even touching on Harper's attempt to reunite with her father and his rejection of her or her mother's rejection when she came out to her as a lesbian.

So Harper definitely needs therapy, but I don't have enough knowledge to put the name of a specific diagnosis on her other than childhood trauma.

I think she would describe it as pretty average. Not necessarily pleasant all the time, but she figures everyone walks away from their childhood with some kind of problem. She is ok with talking about it, but she isn't really ok with reflecting on it for what it is. Normally when she talks about it she's very detached and purposefully cold.

I think the question about maturity is---not great? Like I could say Harper had to grow up fast and learn to do things on her own because of all the alone time she had---but that's not maturing. Even as an adult, Harper doesn't have a lot of emotional intelligence.

Beck had a lot of alone time as a kid and she has her own issues with trauma, but I do feel like her years in the wild, having her freedom and her happiness, gave her a lot of time to reflect and to grow up emotionally and to kind of decide how she at least wants to try to act.

This is in pure contrast to Harper. Harper's alone time as a kid didn't do anything but cause her more pain. Harper may not love how her mother acts, but it is one of her only models of behavior. She gained the veneer of maturity that comes with learning to suppress your feelings and get your shit done, but she had very little emotional intelligence. This is why she often resorts to yelling and mean comments when she's angry or hurt. And the fact that she essentially learned to never cry and to combat her vulnerability with anger and it helped her get where she is now in life did not help that.

All that being said no. Harper would not like to go back to being a child. She might want to go back to being a teen. At the time she had Beck, her first love, and she also had actual friends that appreciated her and liked her for who she was. That's not something she really gets anymore. Idk if it'd be enough to make her want to go back tho.

🍌 : is my muse inclined to help others, or will they only do it when it benefits them, if at all? what makes them this way? has it ever gotten them into trouble, or inconvenienced them?

Harper is inclined to help when and if it gets her her way and given that the payoff is good enough. She's pretty self centered and apathetic to the general plight of humanity. In Marvel verses she lives in New York at the time of Loki and the most she'll ever say about the invasion was it was an irritating distraction that caused an inconvenient amount of damage to the roads.

She WILL help the people she cares about with no boundaries though. If someone she loves has a problem or a need she will attack it tirelessly and ruthlessly. If they're in danger there is no line she won't cross to protect them. But there are very, very, VERY few people Harper would do this for. And not to sound cliché but currently all of those people are ---- well it's actually just Beck lmao.

The reason she's like this could go back to her childhood and her experience losing her grandmother but I'm honestly not sure it's that deep? Harper is kind of selfish. She dislikes most people and distances herself from them in order to not feel guilty for her selfishness. It's not a great look, but that's the current state she's in for any verse you'll meet her in. Sure this does change in stories where she has time to grow, but never enough to make her a humanitarian.

Also no this doesn't really get her into trouble. She's pretty safe on top of the world.

🍓 : how is my muse typically seen by others? does it ring true to who they really are? does their reputation matter to them?

Most people see Harper as a shrewd business woman and or a downright bitch. I won't lie and say they're totally wrong, but there is a genuine person in there and her flaws are usually exaggerations of the things that are good about her mixed in with her trauma. So yes, they technically see who she really is, but they lack the context to understand her fully. And she both allows and encourages this misunderstanding because it's advantageous to her. It helps her maintain control in the business world but also in the magical one. She employs and is followed by a lot of incredibly dangerous supernatural beings. Literal thousands of vampires, witches, and werewolves do as she bids and submit to her lead in large part because they respect her power. So she kind of has to let people think she's a bitch, but honestly she kind of likes it too. She has taken the label with pride.

🥝 : does my muse have any ‘ unusual ’ habits, interests, and / or talents? do they hide it, or are they proud of it?

She's a necromancer so... Like that's pretty weird right? Specifically her research is focused on creating the perfect vampire in hopes of one day turning herself into a vampire without losing any of her magical abilities or having to be vulnerable to "silly" things like sunlight and garlic.

She also really really likes snakes and reptiles in general.

I think Harper genuinely tries to eat healthy. She doesn't have any like sensory issues with food and while she isn't immune to worrying about weight, also doesn't obsess over it. I mean she doesn't have to because she spends so much time and energy on working she probably couldn't gain a pound if she ate a literal weight. Magic can be very draining, and she very often gets so focused she doesn't eat for hours. Then she feels sick and doesn't want to eat anything and she sure as fuck isn't about to cook.

This was one of the great ways that she and Beck fit together. Beck loved to cook and would drop by the office or the lab with snacks (so long as she didn't have to get near anything dead or nasty) and she always made enough dinner for two even when Harper said she wouldn't be home in time. And Beck eats pretty healthy (usually) so it worked well.

She does have a cook who makes meals for her. She usually takes them for lunch and if she remembers to will take a break and eat. Harper certainly doesn't cook. She thinks it is tedious and all too often has burned something because she was trying to multitask and forgot and nearly set the penthouse on fire.

Her favorite is when she gets the chance to eat with someone else that she likes. She absolutely adores French food and has a go-to place for meet ups.

#bet you weren't expecting a goddamn book lmao #i'm sorry i'm just really excited to talk about harper #bokketo

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brandossss · 4 years

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( tommy martinez , 24 , cismale ) i just bumped into brando esparza the other day while walking down east kingsboro , where he lives . i hear they can be brave and impatient , but when i think of them i immediately think of ( venezuelan pride , curly hair , going to the gym literally everyday )

tw : communism , corruption , poverty , violence , death ( suicide )

full name : brando nicolas estefano esparza

nicknames : just brando , if he really fucks with you you can get away with teasingly calling him brandy , but not even lolol

gender : cismale

height : 6 ′ 2

age : 24

birthday : august 4 , 1996

zodiac : leo ( aries moon , capricorn ascendant )

right handed or left handed : ambidextrous , but basically right handed

eye color : light brown

hair color : dark brown

piercings & tattoos : no piercings , this tattoo of venezuela right here , but on his left wrist

languages spoken : spanish ( native tongue ) and english

sexuality : pansexual / panromantic

place of birth : maracay , venezuela

last 3 songs listened to : llueve sobre la ciudad by los bunkers , yo te esperare by cali y el dandee , soñe ( unplugged ) by zoé

so brando was born to yessenia olivares and bruno esparza in maracay , venezuela . originally , he wasn’t supposed to be named brando . a fun fact & random little headcanon is that his mother & father had the full intention of naming him brandon , after his grandfather ( or father’s father ) , who passed a week before he was born . being both parents’ first born , his father got super nervous during his mother’s labor & basically ? got really wasted because he was practically crapping his pants about his son being born . when he went to sign his birth certificate , he was so drunk , he literally forgot to write the ‘ n ’ in brandon . once they realized the mistake his father had made , they didn’t want to go through the annoyance of changing his name , so , they went with brando , and surprisingly ? it really stuck & everyone loved it more than brandon kdjvcndfkcmn

he was an average kid tbh . his family was middle class & even though his country had been struggling ( for the lack of a better word ) for years now , he didn’t fully feel the economic fall at first , of course . now fast forward a few years & shit is changing right before his eyes , and he’s really ? just a kid

pretty much communism coming to it’s finest point tbh . all these restaurants , stores , businesses , all these places brando used to go to when he was younger ? done with , or just government owned & a blink away from breaking completely . it’s actually really sad because he’s literally watching it all happen , watching his country go down the drain & there’s really nothing he can do to stop it

his father becomes an active protester , along with many other angry venezuelans , but this does more bad than good . eventually his father gets arrested at a protest when brando is 11 years old . that was over a decade ago & up to this very day , present time , brando has no idea where his father is , if he’s well , or if he’s even alive tbh ( talk about trauma ? ) . it’s like one day he’s coming home , giving his only son a hug , & the next day , he completely vanished from planet earth , as if he’s some high profile serial killer when really , he was just protesting the shit communist government they’re living in

it’s just brando & his mom from that point on . of course , things just get worse with time . i’m not gonna get into details but basic poverty & communism tbh . they’re hungry , they’re broke , the country is just getting worse & worse with each passing moment ( hyper inflation , food scarcity , severe corruption , government abuse , do i even need to go on ? ) . all these things anger brando to no extent & he finds himself releasing his anger with his fists . it’s getting into random fights for no reason & screaming at anyone who even looks at him weirdly , pretty much becoming an angry ass kid

TW : SUICIDE , READ WITH CAUTION !! things are bad but they really hit rock bottom when his mother , surprisingly , commits suicide . brando finds her foaming at the mouth , a clear overdose , but by the time they make it to the hospital , she’s pronounced dead . literally a 15 year old boy , alone , in venezuela .... honestly terrifying . brando literally doesn’t know where to go ? on top of the trauma he’s holding he’s worried about his living arrangements as well . luckily , a friend of his allows him to stay at his house a few nights but this is just temporary

he just really wants to leave his country but he feels completely stuck . he’s depressed & angry as fuck but he’s determined to get out somehow . brando eventually contacts a family friend on facebook ( aka claudia’s mom ? ) & tells them his situation . it seems to touch this woman’s heart so much , she , wait for it , brings him over to the states . he spends his 16th birthday in america , with claudia & her family . the year is 2012

very slowly , but things begin getting better for him . he’s enrolled into school & pretty much gets guided through everything thanks to claudia . they are not blood related , but their families were so close at one point that they’re pretty much ? cousins tbh ! literally not blood related but still family

with his dedication & ambition he pretty much catches on completely in less than 3 years ( learning english of course ) , he loses his accent completely after 4 . he goes through a whole adoption thing with claudia’s family until he thankfully gains american residency thanks to them , which of course , eventually leads him to citizenship . instead of picking fights with people for no reason , brando takes out his anger with physical activity , becoming very much involved in going to the gym , or even just exercising by himself . whether it’s leg day , boxing , whatever it is , he loves any type of physical work , since it keeps his mind distracted

this has pretty much lead him to have quite a #body tbh . like .... it’s hella obvious he works out kdndjndjvnfd

he also developed a hobby for piano , after taking piano classes in high school , beginning of freshman year . he’s been playing since he was 16 , eventually buying a crap keyboard when he was 17 . he does piano covers on youtube , but again , this is really just a hobby of his

DEATH TW !! after the passing of claudia’s parents , her & brando move to kingsboro when they’re both 19 ! they share an apartment with lemon

on top of that , he’s a bartender @ blue ! he’s also a personal trainer . literally lifting 24/7 for him .... bless

he enjoys drinking on weekends & letting loose every once in a while but i don’t think he’s crazy about weed tbh . he thinks the feeling is nice , but he hates how it makes you hungry . would never go out of his way to buy weed & basically only smokes it if he’s offered , preferring alcohol , but again , he mostly just exercises & eats right , not really having any addictions of any kind , just little hobbies every one in a while

brando honestly ? considers himself lucky , despite all the terrible things he’s been through . he feels lucky that he left before things got really , really bad , even though they were already pretty awful tbh . anyone who hears his story would think he’s anything but fortunate but the truth of the matter is that he’s one of the lucky ones . not every venezuelan has had the opportunity to leave & he just feels very fortunate that he was one of the few that did

he’s not the type to take anything for granted tbh , very much the type of person who appreciates everything he has , no matter how small . you could literally get him a present from the dollar store for christmas & he would still be super happy about it . for him , it’s the thought & time put into something that counts , not the price , or the brand

he very much struggled with his sexuality for years . not because he was in denial or ashamed or anything , but for the longest time , he kind of just didn’t know what he was ? sometimes he thought he was straight but undergoing a phase , other times he wondered if he was gay , then he considered himself bi for a really long time . the truth is that he didn’t fully understand his sexuality up until not too long ago , when he began hanging with an lgbtq+ crowd . eventually , he realizes society basically labels him as ‘ pansexual ’ , but he doesn’t even really like to label himself ? brando just falls in love with the person , with their soul , & he doesn’t care what they have underneath tbh

i haven’t fully figured him out yet because he’s a new character but i picture he can be such a stereotypical leo sometimes , but , his whole #capricorn ascendant really does take place for him , in the sense that he can be a very difficult person to read sometimes . like is he happy ? is he upset ? is that just his face ? is he planning something ? you will rarely ever know tbh

he’s a very humble person , probably because of his childhood . he hates show offs tbh , or very rich people with no consideration for anyone . literally .... miss him with that bullshit lmfao . he finds the entire snobby or ‘ i’m better than you ’ attitudes to be so unattractive tbh ? you could be the hottest person on the planet but if he hates your attitude you really just don’t matter to him lolol

over all he’s a lot calmer than he was before tbh . he still has his moments but he’s a pretty stable guy in the sense that he no longer wants to beat up everything or anyone he see’s . he still has a ton of issues to work on but basically just doesn’t wanna go to therapy & doesn’t really talk about his past at all , preferring to ‘ live in the present ’ even though talking about his issues & sharing his pretty shitty story would definitely help him clear out his head but 🥴 it honestly probably won’t happen & he’ll probs just keep burying shit LMFAOOOO

very very hard working guy , ambition like crazy , always gives his all in anything he feels strongly about , he’s very good at persuading people tbh , usually gets told he’d make a ‘ great lawyer ’ because he just has this way of convincing you like ? he would never become a lawyer but the truth is that he would make a great one , persuasion skills like a MF

this is all i can think of now but i did his birth chart ting 🖤

#kingsboro.intro #everyone is asleep n no one is gnna read this but kjsfjvn yee

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ryanmeft · 5 years

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Movie Review: Parasite

It’s a crying shame that the ad campaign for Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite put such emphasis on the idea of the movie’s mesmerizing tonal shifts. Like your first Kurosawa or your first time in a new city, this is an experience that is best if you have absolutely no idea what you’re in for. It’s a class satire, and a family drama, and a mystery, and frankly I’ve already said too much. It is one of those films that cannot be adequately reviewed, because the best things written about it will come years after the fact. If you haven’t seen it, stop reading now.

Films from Asia often focus on the plights of a working class that lives in conditions all but the worst-off U.S. citizens can’t compare to, and that’s true here. We zero in on a family of four living in a basement that passes as an apartment. The area they live in is a place where such spaces are piled on top of one another like broken blocks. Drunks piss right outside their window, which they leave open to get free pest control from the city cleaners. They work menial jobs, such as folding pizza boxes, to make ends meet. Kim Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho), the father, actively encourages his family in taking full advantage of any opportunities they can seize, because there is no other reasonable way to live. His wife Chung-sook (Jang Hye-jin) is skilled in cooking and cleaning with very few resources or space. His daughter Ke-jeong (Park So-dam) is a gifted artist, a talent with little application in a ghetto. His son Ki-woo (Choi Woo-shik) is smart enough to be in university, but that is of course a pipe dream.

That changes when Ki-woo’s friend Min-hyuk (Park Seo-joon) leaves for university and suggests Ki-woo pose as a university student to pick up the English tutoring he’s been doing with the daughter of some rich clients. They live in a house designed by a famous architect, who built himself an Eden in the same city where so many live in abject poverty: the yard is larger than the Kim’s entire house and each room is big enough for an apartment. The Park family that currently owns it lives as if their help is invisible. The daughter Da-Hye (Jung Ji-so) falls for her new tutor, while younger child Da-song (Jung Hyun-joon) runs around playing at his idea of American Indians (the Indians are both the good and the bad guys; there are no cowboys). Dong-ik (Lee Sun-kyun) runs an IT company, but it could be any type of company, as he’s never shown to do much besides be chauffeured around in expensive suits. When asked about his relationship to his wife (Cho Yeo-Jeong), he says “We’ll call it love”, but in other scenes, especially a rather sexually explicit one, they do seem to care for each other. That’s important, because there’s no denying both families in this film are human.

That’s important, because neither is ideal. Ki-woo initially takes the tutoring job in apparent good faith, and I thought I was watching a simple domestic drama, sort of like Downton Abbey in Korea, where the lives of both served and servant are examined. Then Ki-woo gets an idea: manipulate the family’s existing servants into being fired, then have his family take their place while hiding the fact they are all family. They’re also hiding the fact they aren’t technically qualified for the work. They set up fake headhunting services to convince the Parks they are hiring highly vetted professionals. Ki-jeong, who has some skill with art but mostly with forging, becomes the highly respected art teacher to young Da-song, reading about “art therapy” online and then faking her readings of hidden meaning in the child’s scribbles. Chung-sook, who spends her days keeping her own house, becomes a maid of long experience. Ki-taek, who can drive, becomes an expert driver who has served many wealthy clients. The family starts merely wanted jobs that aren’t folding pizza boxes for spare cash, but their ambitions grow, and soon Ki-woo has ambitions of marrying Da-hye so he can inherit the mansion and all the money, he begins to refer to it as their house.

I couldn’t feel really sorry for the Parks here. The movie has morphed at this point from a drama about domesticity to one about economic desperation, and the Parks are capable of being rooked by the Kims in the first place because of the value they place on status. The Kims, of course, are excellent at giving the family exactly what they want, and no one would be likely to question that they are what they claim to be. The illusion of high class is as valuable here as the real thing. At the same time, the Kims grow greedy themselves. They are not, it must be noted, striking any bold blows for equality among the masses, but for advancement among themselves. After all, they got other poor people fired and turned out on the streets to claim their positions. This is not a simple story of outcast lower class heroes sticking it to arrogant rich overlords; neither family is shy about using and abusing others to get what they want. The standout performance here is by So-dam, whose character proves to be the most adept at manipulation.

The thing about stepping on others is they are very likely to step on you back. The movie seems at this point to be about a really clever con job, until one of the former servants (Lee Jung-eun) returns begging a favor. At this points the film morphs yet again. The Parks have gone on vacation, and the servant catches the Kims in the act of using the house (and the booze and food) as if it were their own, reveling in the possible excesses of being wealthy. Since the former housekeeper also has a secret, the movie becomes both a comedy of errors (naturally, the Parks have their vacation spoiled and return early) and a vicious satire on…well, on many things. Power. The limits of ambition. Class struggles. The idea of being trapped by wealth rather than freed by it. The layers of subtext here are so many that it may take years to dissect them all.

Joon-ho and co-writer Han Jin-won approach all these things with a breathlessly rolling dark comedy, so that in seconds we go from laughing to horrified. That it all stays tonally true---that the movie never feels like it is cheating or taking shortcuts---shows remarkable control over material that could easily become chaos in less skilled hands. Credit for this needs to go also to cinematographer Hong Kyung-pyo and composer Jyong Jae-il. The former chose the site for the mansion, which was built for the film, with angles of the sun and other factors in mind, so that once the camera rolls each shot is perfectly placed. This becomes especially important during the finale, in which the locations of doors and stairways between which characters are moving become a visual poetry of their own. The latter reigns in the score when needed, and hits creeping notes when they are needed, balancing each scene. Characters move from floor to floor in ways that visually represent the divide between classes. It is notable that none of the upper class folks ever descend into the basement, which is the one area of the house that is not perfectly organized. The door to it leads to a darkened stairwell, whereas other areas are lighted, a cue as to how the high-powered CEO and his family see their servants.

I haven’t even begun to say everything I could about this film, and I suspect I won’t be able to do so for some time. The curse of reviews is that you must write them before your thoughts on a film are fully formed. I won’t pretend I fully understand the film, as I’m both not Korean and not smart enough, but I can safely say it’s a rare case where “You’ve never seen anything like this before” surely applies. It’s possible you never will again.

Verdict: Must-See

Note: I don’t use stars, but here are my possible verdicts.

Must-See

Highly Recommended

Recommended

Average

Not Recommended

Avoid like the Plague

You can follow Ryan's reviews on Facebook here:

https://www.facebook.com/ryanmeftmovies/

Or his tweets here:

https://twitter.com/RyanmEft

All images are property of the people what own the movie.

#bong joon ho #park so-dam #jang hye-jin #parasite #movies #Korea #park seo-joon #choi woo shik #song kang-ho #jung hyun-joon #jung ji-so #lee sun-kyun #cho yeo jeong #jyong jae-il #hong kyung-pyo

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therapy101 · 5 years

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What can therapy do in the face of climate change & fascism?

I’ve received several requests to comment on how worry about existential and sociocultural threats impact therapy and therapeutic approach. A couple of people have linked me this post as an example.

The question is: what can therapy do about real, objective threats to the individual therapy client and the world? For example, the linked post mentions climate change and the rise of fascism. Can therapy do anything? Is therapy only for minor problems, or issues that the client is ‘blowing out of proportion,’ so to speak?

I have a few points to make, so this may be a long post.

First, I want to acknowledge clearly that the earliest conceptions of psychotherapy- yes, like Freud –were built for rich people, and mostly those without acute or chronic threats to their wellbeing (I say “mostly,” because Freud and his colleagues saw a lot of women, who were still rich, but often lacked power due to their social status). Because of the target population for therapy in those days, therapy was not necessarily made to recognize or help with tangible, sociocultural threats that negatively impact mental health, like poverty or bigotry. That might be partially why psychodynamic psychotherapy is largely not evidence-based: it doesn’t target tangible outcomes, like symptom severity or functioning. So we would not expect those types of therapies to be helpful for people facing these sociocultural threats to their wellbeing.

I think the post linked, though, is mostly hinting at a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) approach (“are you sure that’s rational?”), so let’s talk about CBT and tangible sociocultural threats. It’s important to remember that a thing can be real, AND a person’s thoughts/beliefs about that thing can be distorted. Examining thoughts, and how they connect to feelings and behavior, can be helpful in many situations, not just when a person is completely misinterpreting/misunderstanding a situation. So for example, in that example post, there are two beliefs that are worthy of examining in a CBT context: 1) the belief that if you might not live to be 60, your life is pointless; and 2) the belief that there is nothing you can do to prevent the threats that might limit your lifespan.

That first belief (if you might not live to be 60, your life is pointless) really caught my eye because it’s so clearly in need of some Socratic questioning. Like: which lives are worthwhile? Is lifespan the main determining factor? How long do you need to live for your life to have a point? If you die the day after your 60th birthday, was your life worth more than if you die the day before your 60th birthday? If dying before age 60 renders your life pointless, was MLK’s life pointless? Joan of Arc? Jesus? (Insert your own examples of historical figures who died before age 60 here). If you knew you were going to die the night before your 60th birthday, would you just give up now because the years you do have left are pointless?

Or: if you knew you would die before age 60, how would you want to use the time you do have? How could you use it in the most meaningful, most worthwhile way?

That second belief is all about powerlessness, a common theme in CBT. For many people, one of their core beliefs is about lack of power or lack of worth. Core beliefs impact the decisions people make throughout their lives, the emotions they feel on a day to day basis, and their ongoing thoughts. Beliefs about powerlessness are also called defeatist attitudes, because when people believe “I am powerless,” or “There is nothing I can do to help myself/the world,” they act that way. They don’t try to change things or to help. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy- if I believe I can’t make an impact, I don’t try to make an impact, and therefore I don’t make an impact, proving to myself that I am in fact powerless.

Look: there are real, tangible threats in the world today, including climate change and fascism. That being true does not mean that all associated beliefs a person might have about the world or the future is also true. Steven Pinker, an experimental psychologist at Harvard, would say that overall, the world is better today than in the past. He would mention that lifespan is increasing, female education and literacy rates are increasing, and crime is decreasing worldwide. He would mention that the hole in the ozone layer has mostly mended. With more fact gathering, I think we would find more evidence that is more optimistic than that post- for example, the record number of women elected to the House of Representatives last year, or the (small) reduction in CO2 use in the US. I’m not saying that existential and sociocultural threats aren’t real, or that being worried and anxious and sad about them is wrong. I’m saying that any black and white belief about the world is almost always wrong (I say “almost” because if I didn’t, I’d be engaging in black and while thinking!). And that when we engage in black and white thinking, it often leads to us ignoring other, more nuanced information that might help us make better or more helpful decisions. If someone thinks, “things are terrible and there is nothing I can do,” they won’t do anything. But if someone thinks, “things are terrible, but I can vote/donate/volunteer/run for office/protest/etc,” they might do something that makes a difference (and might feel more hopeful and have a sense of purpose, both of which can really help with mental health). So considering whether your beliefs are fact-based, and then, whether they are helpful, is a really important therapeutic strategy.

But let’s also think beyond CBT. Sometimes people’s beliefs are totally rationale and there is no need to examine evidence. (Alternatively, sometimes people’s beliefs are not rationale but it won’t be helpful to examine the evidence.) Grief and loss is often a good example of this. Trauma can also often fit into this (although not always, which is why nearly all evidence-based trauma therapies include examining thoughts).

When that’s the case, other approaches, like Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), can be really helpful. I think sometimes people think of evidence-based therapies or manualized therapies as being totally divorced from existential or meaning-focused questioning. CBT can actually do a great job of integrating those sorts of things too- like above, you can totally use CBT to delve into a question like, ‘what makes a life worth living?’ But ACT is developed with a specific orientation towards value-based living. The question the ACT might help someone answer is, ‘what are my values and how can I live my life in accordance with those values?’ The idea is that people experience less distress and feel more fulfilled when their actions are congruent with their values. That approach might lead the client from that post into a direction like: how can I use my values to integrate more meaning into my life, so that I don’t feel like my life is pointless?

Another thing that ACT does that can be hugely beneficial is to help people accept thoughts and create distance from them, instead of feeling so attached to thoughts. The central (VERY simplified) concept in ACT is that we as humans tend to see thoughts are core aspects of ourselves- innately meaningful and emblematic of our identities and truths, but that this is not actually true, and over-attachment to thoughts can be distressing and ultimately harmful. So creating that distance, and seeing a thought as just a thought, can help people feel less trapped in those thoughts and more able to take value-based action. In this case that might be having thoughts about life being pointless, or the rise of fascism being unstoppable and personally or universally fatal, and continuing to move forward and engage in meaningful action. So while in CBT, we often want to change unhelpful thoughts, in ACT we want to leave them as they are, but be less attached to them and less motivated to action by them.

There are other approaches that I haven’t touched on, but I’m realizing how hugely long this post is.

So my point is: therapy is not just for minor issues or irrational thinking. Therapy can help a person tackle existential questions, tangible sociocultural threats, and other big, real issues. Is it perfect at this? No. Is therapy able to stop climate change or turn the political tide? No. Can therapy always fix individual level experiences of sociocultural threats, like poverty or bigotry? No.

But: can therapy help people navigate overwhelming, difficult, tragic, traumatizing experiences? Yes. Can therapy help people feel more empowered to take the actions that are available to them within that sociocultural context? Yes. Can therapy help people feel less distressed and more able to pursue the life they want? Yes. Can therapy sometimes even help people change or fix those individual experiences of sociocultural threats? Yes, particularly when we’re talking about things like getting housing, disability payments, and other community supports and access.

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#therapy101 #mental health #therapy #psychology

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misszarves · 4 years

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this isn’t meant as like, a judgment anybody should take personally. but the range of feeling most people seem to have about homeless people goes from outright genocidal hatred up to a frustrated, patronizing kind of concern. the general but unspoken agreement seems to be that homeless people are a nuisance who can’t be trusted to take care of themselves, that public funds directed towards them should be used carefully and sparingly lest they be misused or otherwise “wasted” on this intractable population that just won’t Help Themselves. examples of the latter abound: detox beds, needle exchange centres, and naloxone kits used by or for people who don’t stay sober; low-income housing that, especially if privately-owned, deteriorates in condition for various reasons which are then often blamed on the occupants; policing, policing, policing that these goddamn ingrates keep complaining about even while they continue to steal cars, get assaulted, be on drugs, be poor in general: bring it on themselves, essentially. and don’t get me started on homeless camps in parks that, as one sugary-sweet ignoramus on facebook opined the other day, should be reserved for the enjoyment of families.

that was a longer introduction than I intended to address the shelter issue specifically: even people who genuinely care about homeless people often think that a tough-love approach is warranted and justified. generally, it goes like this: forced detox and rehab, perhaps “for as long as it takes”; forced housing either in modular cabin-type units (designed to replace tents), or in low-income apartments (both, though the latter more than the former, dependent on continued sobriety); then some fuzzy ideas about helping some of them get (back) on their feet, and policing the others to continue behaving and being grateful. the bare bones version of this involves simply forcing them into shelters after going to every effort to make adequate space available. and one step down from this is just telling them to “go to a shelter” whether one exists and is available or not.

so here’s the straight skinny on all of that! addiction is a complex and lifelong mental health condition, not a temporary loss of control one can be snapped out of with a bit of support and hard work. even the lucky few who stay sober after only one rehab attempt will remain addicts for the rest of their lives, and whatever underlying trauma, inner imbalance, or outer chaos led to the substance abuse in the first place will still need to be dealt with. if that second step is not taken, relapse is a virtual guarantee. even with the best support, many addicts lose their fight. see every rich and famous person dead from an overdose or suicide.

all mental health conditions, including addiction, can be helped with therapy and medication, but these are still no guarantee. and the really good shit that gives someone the best fighting chance? no homeless person is getting it. not one. they’re lucky if they get an appointment with a counselor once every two weeks, and god help them if they miss a couple of appointments and have to start the whole application process all over again. and to reiterate: generally these conditions are chronic. I’m talking about things ranging from PTSD to schizophrenia to traumatic brain injuries* that likely contributed to the person ending up on the streets and pose a serious if not insurmountable impediment to them making it in the straight world.

I promise I’m getting to the shelter thing. basically, people do not choose to be homeless, and there are no simple solutions to ending homelessness (free housing for all would be great, but it would still not adequately meet this population’s needs). but homeless people are not inert lumps who should be grateful for scraps, no matter how counter-productive they are. people may resist staying in shelters for a variety of reasons. they may justifiably feel unsafe there because of violence or harassment from other residents. they may not want to leave their neighbourhood or community to stay in a shelter in a different part of town. they may be unable to meet a shelter’s requirements for abstinence from drugs and alcohol, and no matter how much the Concerned Public pouts about this like it’s a genuine choice that should be punished by withdrawing support entirely, addicts are still going to act like addicts. they may not want to give up all or some of their personal belongings, which are all they have in the world. their pets, who are their family, may not be welcome. and I haven’t even addressed the basic problem which is a lack of beds, time limits sometimes of hours (ie dinnertime to sunrise or something similar) and sometimes weeks or months after which they have to leave the shelter anyway. some shelters are in squalid condition, some have discriminatory policies, some don’t have room for kids. I could go on and on. the upshot is that while no one chooses to be homeless, some people do choose to live outside or in some situation (squatting, etc) considered to be detrimental to people with homes who have to look at it.

you cannot just shove homeless people around like bags of garbage. they do not have to be grateful for “help” that harms them in the long run. they should not have to sacrifice their autonomy and dignity as payment for the crime of being annoying, depressing, or bad for tourism. they are simultaneously the experts on their own lives and a population that quite literally cannot “help themselves”. the usual paradigm of blaming them for imagined bad choices that led to their situation while talking down to them, surveilling them, and dictating their movements should be flipped around. their profound needs should be funded and addressed as fully as possible, but only with their consent, and with the utmost respect for their life experiences and wisdom.

this ended up so long and I’m sorry. I also want to throw in a disclaimer that the homeless population is made up of all kinds of people, not all of whom are addicted to drugs or who commit crimes for any reason (not that this protects them from police harassment or even violence). I may have drawn too great an equivalence between addicts and the homeless, but I would rather go too far in that direction than not far enough. there are people on the street with advanced degrees, who had long careers, who have amazing talents. probably more than a few have even won the lottery. but on the whole, the homeless population disproportionately suffers from extreme trauma, poverty, instability from childhood onward, mental health problems, other disabilities including a shocking incidence of traumatic brain injuries, addictions, and exploitation in various forms (prostitution being the most obvious example). I think it is important not to tokenize those extremely unlucky people who fell the furthest from middle class success to destitution, both because they are not representative *and* because their number overlaps with those suffering in other ways. addiction, for example, does not discriminate. as stephen king said, “we all look pretty much the same when we’re puking in the gutter.”

anyway homeless people are people. you can’t shove them out of sight and expect them to be grateful.

respectful corrections and additions are very welcome to this messy post which I am publishing in its rough draft form. I didn’t even get into race or austerity measures for ppl on disability and other social assistance.

*I guess it’s not technically correct to lump those in with “mental health” issues but I’m painting with broad strokes here and do not have a degree in this, pls forgive me

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theweirdwideweb · 6 years

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My Life Moving Forward

Well, the temp agency didn’t call me. It appears I’ve been fired and left on my own to find another position.

Last night I wrote a long post about where I hope to go now. In the past three years I have gone back to school, graduated, and gained full time employment in my field. Despite all of this (and a dozen self help books, hundreds of hours of motivational tapes, regular exercise, moderate consumption of substances, expressing my feelings, and cutting all toxic people out of my life) despite all of that---I don’t think I can move forward without professional help to treat my PTSD. It is something I fight daily. It is present in every interaction and in every move I make. I have structured my entire life around trying to manage my PTSD and the fact is: I have failed to recover. I’m very much a Type A person and I was raised to believe that if I worked hard enough and didn’t take any weak excuses from myself, that I would be able to overcome this on my own through sheer will power. It’s compounded by the fact that I was hospitalized a half dozen times before I was 20 and the shame of that experience haunts me. I want to believe that I am recovered and able to take care of myself. I am wrong.

I am going to take a month to get the help I need. Here’s what I want:

A social worker

Talk therapy

Behavioral therapy

Neurofeedback therapy

I want to see a doctor twice a week. This has all been recommended to me by professionals in the past and I’ve never listened. Now I find myself at a point where everything in my life has come to a screeching halt---but in that there is freedom to choose my path forward. So I’m going to take a break from employment for one month, set up an actual, medically recommended treatment plan to combat my brain damage (and it is brain damage...that’s a hard one for me to write down).

For the next little while, fixing my mental health is going to be my full time job. I’ve spoken with my family and they emphatically agree this is the right decision.

My first stop is tomorrow, Friday June 8th, at a general appointment I’ve already set up for myself. It’s a resource center which sets up other appointments with doctors, social workers, and people to help with government assistance. This is a huge step down for me. I was out here working in a cubicle in a fancy office tower and now I am basically throwing myself back into poverty on purpose because I skipped an important step. It’s like assembling a whole IKEA cabinet and then realizing you placed the first piece wrong. You can’t just replace the piece, you have to disassemble the whole damn thing and do it the right way. If I don’t fix my brain I won’t be able to do anything else.

If you would like to assist me with some money during this period, I would greatly appreciate it. What I’m doing is a gamble but I’m following my gut. My gut says get better and do it the right way, then build your work life around the treatment plan. Thank you. paypal.me/WeirdLindy

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toycarousel · 6 years

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Thank you for answering my ask about pro-life. Sorry if it made you uncomfortable. Now, I want to be pro-choice too. Because, it sounds kinder and more open minded. I think it's not right to judge people's choice to use abortion. They are the ones who have to live with that choice and it's between them and whatever god they believe in. So just love people and use compassion and leave the heavy stuff up to God. My religion says it wrong. My feelings say to hate it. But my faith says to love ppl.

Hi there~! I think there’s always an overriding issue in that people can group any sort of “pro-something” and “anti-something” social movement -- whether it’s a fringe group born in tiny corners of the internet (like the whole shipping/fandoms VS cyber harassment of real people debate I was talking about), or something much, much larger on a global scale, like abortion rights.

Because there will inevitably be people who think slapping an “I’m anti, uh, bad stuff” label on themselves holds enough nuance to work out well or apply to literally any and all situations, and people who think “I’m pro... all the good stuff, then” is a politically reliable way to counter that. And for most arguments, it becomes a semantic signifier for anything the person in that group decides it means (and it gets difficult to tell what it is people are actually fighting for; it’s so generalized that it becomes a social performance, rather than a genuine desire to help people or better society).

I wanted to tell you that I think it’s great that you’ve shifted your stance to be more widely accepting of people who bring up conflicting emotions within you. Because I think that’s an issue we have as humans, is that when something makes us feel bad, we no longer take it as a cue from our brains to step back and think “yikes, that felt bad, so... was it bad? What exactly happened there, what are the facts? What specifically needs to change?” Instead we tend to go “yikes, that felt bad, which means it was the worst thing on Earth, it is definitely what it feels like to me, screw the facts -- the people who caused the unpleasant feeling Needs Be Evil.”

And I know that pitfall intimately, because I have borderline personality disorder (BPD), and black-and-white thinking as well as intense emotions, and impulsive behaviour based on those emotions are all huge issues for us. :’) My initial response to anything that hurts me (because I feel things so, so intensely), is to hate anything and everything associated with that thing, or person. I’ve had to learn -- through a long, arduous process of self-discovery and therapy -- how not to do that. Because the problem is that always reacting like that is not only extremely self-destructive, but also extremely harmful to other people. We all need to be able to engage in self-awareness before we react instinctively to everything that incites any negative emotion in us. And I think it’s fantastic that you’ve taken a step back and done that here, Anon~!

Wrt abortion, the problem, again, isn’t ultimately in the words we use to label ourselves and how positive those words sound to other people -- because as I said previously, pro-life people can be described as anti-choice, (and pro-choice people are typically just described by pro-life people as “baby killers”, while they throw graphic renderings of bloody, dead fetuses at us or something; neglecting any of the conclusive science behind what a fetus actually looks like at the legal cut-off point for abortions). So I’m up for mentioning more of my personal feelings about this topic, btw, bearing in mind that I do not have a uterus, or the relevant gender-related experiences, so I am not an authority. (However, I do feel I have valid concerns about anti-abortion, and many of these concerns are shared by a massive number of people who do have the relevant bodily experiences).

I’m p obviously fully on board with people having abortion rights. It’s a basic right for women (and non-women with the related bodily autonomy issues in society) to have access to good abortion clinics. We as a society should at least realize that, for absolute certain, fully developed women and girls have feelings and fears and lives -- we cannot say the same for a fetus at the stage of development in which legal abortions are conducted. It’s sad that so many powerful men, and their allies within our society, seem to have to be constantly reminded that Women Are People.

That brings me to my main concern about anti-abortion sentiment and especially legislation. Abortions won’t stop if they’re made illegal. For as long as rape, poverty, misogyny, familial abuse of daughters, and other systemic issues exist, there will be women who (for a massive variety of specific reasons) cannot afford to be pregnant, who cannot care for a baby, and who will be desperate enough to have an abortion that they’ll end up getting one done illegally. This will mean that a) A whole lot of women will die from botched abortions, and b) Many pro-life folks’ worst nightmare will occur a whole lot more often: Legal abortions have a cut-off date for the development of a fetus, to ensure that the practice is safe for the mother, and that it causes no pain to said fetus. Illegal abortion practitioners do not have the same restrictions. The more legal, safe abortion clinics there are, the fewer unsafe, illegal abortions there are.

In any case, to close off with -- Anon, I think it’s genuinely awesome that you’re practicing compassion for others~!!! And though I can’t judge anything spiritual for certain, I feel very strongly that being kind and compassionate to other human beings, particularly ones who are disadvantaged, who you may disagree with or even feel animosity towards, is a beautiful and admirable way to practice religion~! Take care~!!! : D

#abortion rights #abortions #pro choice #pro life #religion mention #misogyny #anons #toyqueries

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escapismkidnappedme · 6 years

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Doctor Emile “Sanders” Picani

“I dunno, I wasn’t planning on getting this far in education, so why care now?”

“Can you explain?” Patton asked,

“Obviously, Emi, education is the solution to poverty, without knowledge one cannot advance in life,”

“But I’m a dumbass and I got a fucking family or whatever so, i guess I went up the caste system pretty well,”

“LANGUAGE!” Patton said, giving him a hug, “you’re not a dumbass, so stop lying to yourself, otherwise uncle Roman will come over and tell you his stories on Broadway,”

“Fiine,”

“Now,” Logan began, “these are simple, once you find the formula,”

They spent the entire night going over the homework and finishing it at nine o’clock.

“I think I get it now,” Emile yawned, thanking Logan.

“You’re welcome, but repeat after me, ‘I am not a dumbass, I just limit myself’”

“I am a dumbass and limiting myself helps,” he replied sarcastically.

“Uh, okay do I need to get Patton out here?”

“Fined I am not a dumbass, j just limit myself,”

“Good, now go see other dad,”

“Patton what are you doing?” Emile asked, seeing Patton on the floor watching old cartoons,

“watching, see look,” Patton got him to watch and Emile fell in love, he understood all of the issues and realized he related to too many of the issues,

It soon became his therapy, occasionally Patton would watch, which originally he hated, but soon he didn’t mind, eventually they found each other in their company more often when Logan had to work for longer, but when he came back, they would be asleep on the couch beside each other,

Logan would somehow muster the energy. To take Emile to his room, tucking him in, and then heading for his husband, tucking him in with a bit less care his thought process “if you’re awake to complain, walk to bed, and do it yourself,”

Mysteriously, Patton would always move when he was layed down, which gave Logan fun game ideas such as, lift the husband as high as possible before he notices or tuck the duvet over the sheets, for science of course.

One day when Virgil was over, ranting about his own job, he was the younger of him and Patton and somehow managed to marry a handsome “prince” or at least he was a prince from seven pm to twelve am. He couldn’t visit much, but when he did he talked for long hours with Emile.

They had a bit of a learning curve but soon bonded over their hatred for the American adoption system, them bothe being adopted after age ten.

Virgil heard weeping, not loudly, but enough, and before he knew it, he was in Emile’s room, seeing the boy crying over a new cartoon, “Do you think, I’m broken? Don’t you think I know theyll leave me? I’m useless, they even deny that I’m a dumbass, I know I am, but they have the audacity to lie to my face, I know I’m being taken back, I’ve seen the adoption papers, they’re looking for a loophole,”

“Okay Emile, first of all fuck you for making me reveal their secret,” Virgil started, “Now I hafta buy the cake or something, but anyways, they’re trying to figure out your birthday, for a party,” he added, “But you’re not broken, because guess what? Broken means it’s ruined, and you can’t break a human being, you’re not a toy, okay? Please don’t compare yourself to a toy, okay?” Virgil gave him a hug, something he hated doing at the best of time, but Emile needed it, badly.

A few weeks past, and he had another breakdown, nothing more than the first but this time Virgil wasn’t there, instead it was just Logan and Patton, trying to calm him down, Emile freaking out because “this is the day I’m returned, not even these guys want me,” he was watching his favorite sad cartoon for when he was feeling hated by the world, “Avatar, the Last Airbender” Emile felt a strong connection with Ang, being different, except he never felt as powerful or important.

“Hey kiddo you okay?” Patton asked, seeing him upset, he rushed to his side, which unknowingly made him worse, “Hey it’s gonna be okay, what’s the matter?” He asked, hoping to get some form of an answer, but cared more about his son than a stupid answer.

‘I’m fine! Just don’t leave me alone, let me stay,’ He wanted to shout these words, but only mananged to get one word across “Leave,”

Patton frowned, “I’m not leaving you, okay? What, what episode are you on?” Weirdly this was a good indication of his mental health, if he was on one of the beginning episodes, he wasn’t doing as badly, but would be unwilling to talk, but if he was on one of the further episodes, the initial shock has worn off and he is more likely to listen, but he couldn’t respond well, sometimes the words were too hard for him to muster.

“It’s okay, if you don’t love me, I understand, but just, give me time to pack everything up,” he mumbled after a while, “I won’t take long to leave, only a few minutes, I’m not normal, and you deserve an infant, a happy baby boy, not a broken teenager,” Emile started to well up inside, mentally planning how he would leave everything and forget, forget everything that had happened here, everyone he met, after all, he was expected to do it so many more times when his “family” found out he didn’t just like girls.

Patton wanted to cry, “Do you think me and your dad are some form of crazy?” He asked, “We’d never get rid of you Emi, even if it means you believe you’re broken, sometimes people need the proper environment to flourish into the lovely, talented, precious person they are, okay?”

Emile didn’t know what to say, was he being rejected? Accepted? Patton was giving him a hug so he must care even a little bit.

Logan soon appeared back from work, it was late and he entered quietly. Seeing the two hugging and Emile’s tear-strewn face he knew how to react. “Emi, please drink some water when you feel up to it? Dehydration is no laughing manner,”

Patton gave his husband his hand, holding it out and forcing him into the hug, “Patton I must work-“

“Shush, we never get to see you during the day,”

“It is twelve am, Patton,”

“Shhhh, my son is here, and he is up, our son, the son, the son is up, therefore it is daytime, but only for us,”

“Doesn’t that make it sad?” Emile asked, “no one else is awake, we’re alone,”

“That is one approach however, yes it is late and you have school, but, the entire world is asleep, except us three, we get to spend this time together, while the rest of the world sleeps,” Logan offered, “That said, it is time for bed for all of us,” Logan gave Emile a quick hug and followed Patton to their bedroom to sleep.

“Lo? Do you think he’ll be okay?” Patton asked sleepily,

“What happened is my question,”

Once Patton explained Logan took a deep breath “I believe with therapy, he may recover, not fully, for one does never forget, but let us hope, that he is able to forgive the world that forsake him,”

Eventually, with a lot of coaxing from Uncle Roman, Emile went to therapy, meeting a Doctor Menique,

“Hello Emile, I understand you have some emotional issues with the past,” he began calmly, “it’s fine, whatever you say here, stays here, everything stays in this room okay?”

“Okay….” Emile mumbled, slouching and trying to hide,

“I understand we share a few things, mainly, we’re both adopted, now tell me what age were you when you were adopted?”

“About two months younger,” he replied sarcastically,

“I see, well, I was adopted, not by any legal means, you see, I aged out of the orphanage, I was adopted, not by a group of relatives but by friends, people who loved me, and people I loved,” he began,

“The reason I’m telling you this is because I learned something very important, family, is not someone who you’re born to, yes it can be part of it, but only a small part, family, is what you make of it, the people who love you, and the people who you love, they’re your family, but the important thing is, you get to chose,”

At that last phrase Emile’s eyes lit up, out of pure joy.

No it didn’t take him one miracle session but in fact a ton of sessions, ranging from eye contact to help with homework, if he absolutely needed someone to rant to about his life getting harder, and him being ‘too dumb’ which often resulted in Doctor Menique making him stop on whatever he was saying and tell him to re-word it, giving himself some form of pride.

After a few months Emile finally did flourish into the person Logan hoped he would become and Patton knew he would be, in fact, it was now his senior year of high school, graduation day, he had chosen a major, psychology, and was already going to college to become a psychologist, in which Doctor Menique was proud to watch.

College hit and Emile had never felt so much relief, taking the classes he wanted. Learning how to help people like his family had helped him, and eventually it was the big day, graduation day and he was to give the valedictorian speech.

(Part 2/3)

@vaugleysassygrunt @darknightvirgil @softestvirgil @ilovemygaydad @the-incedible-sulk @virgilsblogofanxietys @randomslasher @virgils-hoodie @pangryffindor @nerdy-as-heck

#sanders sides #thomas sanders #sanders sides au #picani #emile picani #logicality #patton sanders #logan sanders #remy sanders #remy sleep #virgil sanders #roman sanders #prinxiety

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marthaa19-blog1 · 6 years

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70+ Common Online Scams Used By Cyber Criminals & Fraudsters In 2018

The way ammonia works in order to get rid of rats is quite simple. No way really to block it off because as you know most living in Bali is open living to outside areas. Under some POS plans, a covered person can go outside the plan's network without informing the plan of this fact. While variations within each type of plan exist, some generalizations can be made. Other insurance companies continue the group coverage only if the employer has not replaced the plan. The firm says so-called 'Online pharmacies' are exposing consumers to huge risks and are creating problems for pharmaceutical companies produce a great deal of deprived nandrolone about betrayal and fulton. How are they going to deal with this? The resultant information includes whether the doctor has been sanctioned within the past few years, but no details are provided. Information on growth hormone, PGF2A, insulin, DNP and more, we got them all covered. See County Market’s store services page for more information. 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Too many special interests game the system by seeking exemptions to paying their taxes, resulting in millions of dollars being cut from our classrooms and local economies, and often pay poverty-level wages that force Coloradans to rely on public assistance. She is instead being persecuted and tortured by her own government—to which her college (like all the others) is accountable. We never had rats until this summer - suddenly they are everywhere! Drugs are just another market, and on Silk Road it was a market laid bare, differentiated by price, quality, point of origin, supposed effects and lavish user reviews. This is geared toward businesses and targets high-level executives within corporations who have access to the email accounts of someone in authority. I went to have a shower one morning, and she was curled up on the shelf of the bathroom window, in the sun, right next to the shower. I am presently encouraging the joy of eating off the traps Having caught one under our deck and maimed something ,as there was blood everywhere ,but no one in the trap. There is a movie called Limitless. None. Whereas before I could mildly tolerate stupid and/or weak people, on Modafinil I cannot tolerate any stupidity and I have zero patience for it. That doesn’t mean you won’t be accepted if you have pre-existing conditions. As governor, I won’t be afraid to roll up my sleeves and do it again so that our kids can get a world-class education that prepares them for the workforce. This is an old house I’m renting with a lot of character but also a lot of holes for the rats to go thru to get into the house. This piece alone can save you several hundreds of dollars! On the other hand, if a chiropractor provides medical treatment or prescribes work restrictions, the case would be recordable. A major attraction of online pharmacies abroad is that nearly every country, except the U.S., online canadian pharmacy controls its drug prices. Stage 3 expands this to 20% in common specific languages. This specific review shows that controlled use is safe and non-toxic for humans. I don't use the word "compliance" to be "insulting" or to imply that a patient must be "subserviant". Stockpile both long-term storage food and heirloom seeds for family use and bartering. Ozone. Front Street, Hamilton. The Earth dodged a big bullet during the summer of 2012 when an X-Class Carrington Event size solar storm brewing in space just barely missed our orbit. I'd look into red light therapy. In addition, interested visitors might participate in other smaller theater and dance groups. 1 billion in profits over this period. Please provide any and all suggestions, your help is greatly appreciated - thank you!

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247krp · 6 years

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— Rejoice, little lambs! We have recovered our own Oh Heejun, spotted prancing about in the Northeast Side. I don’t remember seeing him with any clique back in high school, but I’m not here to spill yesterday’s tea. So straight to the rundown: can you say ambitious and kind? Apparently now he spends time as a waiter at Nocturnal Music Club, student and a forensics investigator in training, and keeps skeletons buried at Banjeom Apartments, 501. But those won’t stay hidden for long, if you and I have any say on it. Welcome back, Lilac; we missed you so.

TW: mental disorder, mention of death

In case you don’t remember the devil’s name, here’s to refresh your memory:

Heejun has always been a bookworm, a helpful and optimistic boy. He took extra classes in high school, and advanced science classes, falling in love with chemistry. Although people liked to be around him, either to take advantage or actually be his friend, there were some who hated his guts. One of them was certainly GG, who had to search every unwanted corner to find something negative about a predominantly positive person. Heejun admired their perseverance in a way, and never spoke ill about them. After months, they finally found some old records from Heejun’s therapy sessions. Those described his memory loss, his hard condition at home and between the lines, his mother’s disappearance. Heejun’s subtle but strange obsessions led GG to think that he suffers from a mental disorder due to his memory loss, and poverty. She called it OCD, and because of his obsession with lilac, she gave him that name. The rumours affected some of his relationships at school, people started to be more careful around him, some dissing him because of his so-called disease. But Heejun never got affected by it, not even when his P. E. teacher shamed him in front of the whole class. He wore his smile, and kept his mind occupied with things he loved, like chemistry. Strangely, his teacher disappeared two weeks after the event, and his words were soon forgotten. He graduated first in his class, and got the chance to obtain a scholarship at a renowned University.

Nevermind the memory lane though, the present is always the ripest fruit:

Heejun is still a student, but he has a bright future ahead. He is admired by his teachers, he works extra hard to enter the field he desires to work in. Luckily, a forensics investigator decided to help him train for the field, thing that has gained Heejun quite a respectable reputation. However, his financial situation is still shaky, so he has to work in order to support his studies. His grandparents can only give him this much, they are both old and only his grandmother still works. Heejun’s dream is to earn enough to help his grandparents, as he owes them his life. Once he has a stable job, he can start to pay for his therapy sessions, and finally pay for a way to meet Morphius. He keeps his life private, and nobody he knows seems to care too much, especially because his kind personality overshadows all negative things that might lurk beneath the surface.

But we are nothing if not open books – my job is to ensure you get to the best pages:

Touched by the heavy wings of fate, Heejun was born in a poor house, barely surviving his first winter. His mother carried him at her chest from house to house, imitating the Christmas story, until she laid down in the snow and cried. He was all she had, the only reason she kept going, the only reason she was still trying. And in a flicker of hope, he found her, on the streets begging like Maggie for a new home. Heejun scarcely remembers his rough features and stern voice. Although she fell in love, the boy never approved of his presence. He would cry crocodile tears whenever he stepped closer, and for some unknown reasons he always reacted violently. A part of him blames him for her disappearance. However, his other voice screams that her disappearance just happened. Everything after the age of three until his early teen years was just a blurry past. He had no recurrence of any event, something his doctors called selective amnesia, and his psychologist an awakening. It felt like waking up from a long dream, with no mother, no father, and in the care of two loving grandparents. No event made sense for a long time, he had no idea why he had to go to therapy, no idea why his mother was missing. One thing was, however, certain: at one moment during that period Morphius was born. One single moment determined his decay.

Morphius is what his doctor called his alter ego. Heejun never met him, but he always wanted to. He does not know who met him, he cannot recall anything his alter ego did. For him, it feels like pieces of his memory were intentionally taken out. Nevertheless, the big changes that occurred were in his personality. Despite going through hard times, Heejun remained an impossibly optimistic boy, always smiling and looking for what ifs, for a better solution, for ways to help everyone. Naturally, people took advantage of him, but he never gave up. His quick-witted personality, and abnormal life drive impressed nearly everyone he came in touch with. He has been admired and envied for his motivation and intelligence. Not even the nasty rumours about him brought him down. However, he always feelsan indescribable darkness live within him. Most of the times he chooses to ignore it, for the sake of his sanity and health. He cannot explain it, he cannot explain his violent art. Heejun, the nerdy boy with glasses, the straight A student, would never hurt anyone. But he ‘wondered’ if Morphius would. This question remains ‘unanswered’ for Heejun, and answered by everyone who met Morphius.

Lilac was Heejun’s first coloured pencil, and Morphius’ first victim. A girl in his neighbourhood, who dared call his mother ugly. Morphius was quite active at the age of six, and once Heejun’s parent was shamed, he stepped in. He feels morbidly attracted to his positive alter ego, seeking to touch his reflection, the embodiment of purity. Yes, he is a narcissist, and a protective ‘friend’. He buried the girl under the family’s lilac tree, Heejun’s favourite flower. He knew Heejun will appreciate the disappearance of that annoying burden. He was satisfied, for a while. But Heejun never found the body, Heejun kept ignoring him, Heejun wasignoring him. Morphius felt neglected. His positive alter ego never patted his head and told him sweet nothings. His alter ego never acknowledged him. Youexpect him to be nice? No. From age six to age twelve was show-time. After Morphius got rid of all things that could distract Heejun, he disobeyed all rules. Mentally he was about twenty at that time, despite his small frame and childish smile. Once Heejun woke up, he found the notes he left behind. The only records Heejun actually has, the proof of Morphius’ existence. He hides them, because he does not know what to make of them. Pages, and pages of graphic descriptions, deranged comments and the ending note of I love you, friend. Like most negative things in his life, Heejun put that aside. But if someone would find those, his whole life might and would crumble before him. He lied about them. Yes, Heejun actually lied. Whenever he was asked: Do you remember?, he would answer no. But the pages he has, those are his memories. He just refuses them.

#247: accepted

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