#anyway! my personal experience is that it has the word disorder for a reason and also it sucks

[starlene]

I think for every feelgood story about a person who got an ADHD diagnosis later in life, tried out meds and found them incredibly useful, and is now thriving, probably runs their own business and maybe even thinks of ADHD as their superpower, Finnish media (and maybe international media too, I dunno if these stories are a trope elsewhere) should be obligated to publish two stories about people who are long-term unemployed, unable to work and/or in prison because of their ADHD.

Just saying.

[adhdtsukasa]

tsukasa tenma has ADHD!! except it's an actual analysis because 1. look at my url 2. i'm mentally unwell (and i started to love tsukasa mostly because i immediately recognized my ADHD traits in him). which is a thing i should probably leave for ADHD awareness month, HOWEVER!! it was my birthday yesterday and i wanted to spoil myself (i just kinda overlooked how much time writing it from scratch would take me, so i'm a bit late with it). and i reaaally don't wanna wait until november when i finally wrote it down because i'm so HYPED because i was preparing for it like what? two years? somewhere around it. and that's a LONG time.

please keep in mind that i'm no psychologist, psychiatrist nor a neurologist and while i do use some sources (cannot really confirm if they are true, though... because i forgot to write credits down... so i'm really sorry for that), most of this analysis was just based off on my personal experiences with the disorder (and i don't really have the full professional knowledge of what i struggle with i'm just a Boy). i mean, i am analyzing a character from a hatsune miku game. i think i'm already putting way too many effort than i should.

also the examples of tsukasa's behavior here are not all of the things, because i wrote down only the things i remember off from the top of my head. sorry, guys. my hyperactive ass is not sitting thru all the stories again just to get my crumbs, unfortunately.

anyways, with this a little bit unprofessional and messy introduction, let's get it started!

1. THE MAIN PART OF THIS WHOLE THING, AKA HOW THE ADHD SYMPTOMS CORRESPOND TO TSUKASA'S BEHAVIOR

i wanted to write it down in my own words, but i think the screen above has summed it up perfectly; there are some established symptoms of ADHD, but to be an ADHDer you don't have to experience them all. and this is going to explain why i'm gonna show a lot of these symptoms later, yet gonna connect only some of them with tsukasa. it's only these i have evidence for, and yet i think they're good enough to point at tsukasa and already say woah! an ADHDer!!

in short, there are three types of ADHD: hyperactive, inattentive (ADD) and combined. the combined one is the most common iirc, so that's also what i'm going to focus on today. especially since for a rep of the other types, i could say that shizuku's a rather great representation of ADD — but that's not the point of my ted talk today, so i'm not going to go into the detail about it. i'm sure some momojan or shizuku oshi would do better than me in this field, so i'm leaving it to the experts.

these are the symptoms that i managed to gather — the first two screens being about the symptoms viewed in children, the last one being about the symptoms viewed in adults. "in which one of them tsukasa belongs to?" that's a good question, because i actually don't know. calling a high schooler a child doesn't sit quite right with me, yet a freshly turned 17/18-years-old is not exactly an adult, either (although most of the symptoms i'm analyzing come from these that are viewed in adults). and while i do think tsukasa has more of the symptoms viewed in adults, we're gonna analyse them all! because i'm putting my all into this.

FORGETFULNESS

i believe there's not much left to say, as this is the most obvious one and everyone already knows that. even though it's not touched that much anymore for some reason, tsukasa's forgetfulness is his very apparent trait. it varies in severity a lot of times: from him basically forgetting both his childhood and true feelings in the main story to him, for example, forgetting his own phone and lunch (in the same day!!) in hinamatsuri. even saki in the same event, while they were arguing, called him a "big, dumb forgetter" and assumed that he forgot what happened the day he brought her the hinamatsuri dolls to hospital. while forgetting basically half of your life is not exactly normal and can be a sign of something bigger, like dissociative amnesia, his forgetting of just the ordinary things and it happening a lot definitely still fits this trait.

EXCESSIVE TALKING/PHYSICAL MOVEMENT

while this is something that you'd rather connect to emu (and for a good reason), it's not like tsukasa is completely devoid of it either; he talks a lot. he moves a lot. it's not on emu's level of hyperactivity, but it's also not "a lot" that's taken as a social norm, based on how the people around him react. he's putting the 1 in oddball 1 2, after all.

in holy night or some side stories connected to it (it might be meiko's side story? but i'm not exactly sure) it was also said that tsukasa moves in his sleep a lot to this point that his parents have to leave his christmas presents under his door instead of next to his bed.

oh, and he also talks to himself a lot. even in class, which was confirmed in chapter 6 of dazzling (or maybe even earlier, it's just the one moment that i remember). (but i'll get to this moment later on)

he says his long monologues, he strikes his poses at every occasion — and while i don't think that's the first thing you think of when you have "excessive talking/movement" in mind, for me it sure does count as it.

LITTLE OR NO SENSE OF DANGER

this point can seem rather weird, because "isn't tsukasa always riddiculed at rui's weird inventions"? well, yeah, he is, that is not a thing to deny. but he also agrees to try out most of them, if not all, if it's for the sake of the show. he's aware of what can happen, but he also doesn't back away if it means that he'll be one step closer to achieving his dream of stardom.

does it count as "little sense of danger"? well, i'm actually not sure, for me it doesn't, but maybe for someone it does. i'd say that's a rather weak point, but i wanted to include the explanation for the counterpoint of it — that's why i even mentioned it in the first place. i don't have a lot to say about this tbh.

update: oh, actually no, wait, i just remembered. remember how tsukasa in phoenix decided to not eat anything for three days just to be able to resonate with rio, while also having to do straining exercise on top of that? you certainly cannot say that's a safe thing to do, but he still went along with that in order to get the role. it makes me come to a conclusion that tsukasa actually has a sense of danger, but sometimes chooses to willingly ignore it if only it makes him get closer to fulfilling his dream. i think it's coming close enough to the little/no sense of danger to be actually considered an ADHD trait.

DIFFICULTY KEEPING QUIET

while i'm not sure if what i'm going to talk about is a difficulty keeping quiet in a traditional sense of way, it definitely counts as it, somehow: tsukasa is loud. like, really loud. and that's another obvious fact both for us and for characters in-universe, especially when thinking of tsukasa shiho's first thought is that he's kinda noisy, which can be seen in the "a friend's brother" 1koma. (and probably a lot of other cases. free shiho.)

tsukasa doesn't seem to realize that he's way louder than he should be and that him being loud is his first impression in most of the cases, though, or at least i don't remember any moment where it happens (and it's a possibility. then that's on me, i guess.). and yeah, i know what's the reason for it, obviously — he's supposed to be a comic relief character. because wansho's stories are mostly supposed to make you smile, as this is what wansho's aspiration is. however, as much as being intended to make the viewer laugh it wouldn't be, it still is a part of tsukasa's character, and a rather important one on top of that. his constant loudness is something that's definitely not considered normal by the society and could very well fit into this symptom.

and since i promised to elaborate on the mentioned before scene from dazzling chapter 6: when tsukasa talks to himself in class, it always ends up to be loud. and it already happened a few times.

(tl by tsukasa's #3 fan on youtube because i don't have proseka on my phone wah)

if it's not a difficulty keeping quiet, then i don't know what is. bro can scream up to 120dB as measured by robonene for god's sake.

IRRITABILITY/QUICK TEMPER

again, this is something that was more apparent with early game tsukasa, maybe he just got medicated. idk man. but even if it happened three, almost four years ago, it still happened, i don't make the rules. back in the early game, tsukasa was really easily losing his temper and getting annoyed, mad even — i mean, that was the whole point of the main story argument: tsukasa's first response to nene accidentally messing up their show, which was not even her fault, was to shout at her. and while this was obviously very important thing to him and being upset at this is a rather understandable reaction, taking this as far as screaming at a poor girl for not being to face the audience because of her anxiety is not something a person who can control their anger would do.

it could be also easily seen by his reaction to emu and rui's antics back in the early game, which were often stained with irritation.

another example is his hinamatsuri argument with saki, where, despite loving her so much, he still got slightly mad at her for not liking the new dolls he bought her. he started to regret his harsh words and actions soon enough, obviously, but it doesn't change the fact that it was rather easy for him to get him across.

INABILITY TO DEAL WITH STRESS

if i'm not mistaken, tsukasa has once said something along the lines of "is it anxiety? there's no way a star like me would feel anxiety" — but i cannot recall for the love of my life in which story it appeared, so i don't want to take it as a face value when i don't have a solid proof for it.

other than this vague mention of "something that's in the story but i don't remember where", i'll admit, i don't really have anything backing me up for this tbf. i mean, i guess maybe tsukasa doing his best to appear strong as a child to not worry his parents could work? because the stress of saki being in the hospital definitely was also present here, although i just see this more as a coping mechanism for his situation than a reaction to stress, so that's not a solid evidence either.

so, yeah. take this one with a grain of salt, actually.

from the symptoms that weren't listed here, i remember reading something about people with ADHD enjoying to show off more, which is certainly what tsukasa does often — and while it actually applies to me too, it wasn't on an english site so i didn't screenshot it and i cannot really find it anywhere in english... so even though i treat it just like my whole argument for the inability to deal with stress, i thought it's just worth mentioning.

however, there is obviously one more thing...

HYPERFIXATION/SPECIAL INTEREST

obviously, i'm talking about acting here: for tsukasa, acting aligns with all these criterias. it is his deep passion; it is something highly engaging for him; it is sometimes all-consuming for him; he tunes out the world around him when he thinks about how can he possibly improve his acting (see: the dazzling moment i showed earlier. yeah, i like to use it as a backing point a lot, as you can see.); and it is something that is his life-long interest.

is it his special interest or his hyperfixation, though? well, it's hard to tell...? because while according to screen two, spinterest revolves around a topic and hyperfixation revolves around an activity, so it would qualify what tsukasa feels towards acting as a hyperfixation, it's still kinda hard for me to call it so because of its length. yes, screen three clearly says that hyperfixation can last years, but they mostly revolve around shorter periods of time, after all (my longest hyperfixation was just a year long, for example). i think it's up to you to determine whether you'd call tsukasa's love for acting a hyperfixation or a special interest, but it's something from these two most certainly.

i'm also a big fan of the headcanon that tsukasa's other spinterest is kaito ww it's in no way a canon evidence (unfortunately!), but kaito's 1* side story, where tsukasa and emu are watching kaito's show and tsukasa is explaining to her why kaito's wearing a scarf somewhat implies that tsukasa knew a thing or two about kaito before the main story. and i'm all for it. colopale let tsukasa be a kaito fanboy pleaseee.

2. I REALLY LIKE ANALYZING SONGS, IF YOU CAN'T TELL

those who have already read a few of my things probably know what i love to do the most — analyzing songs!! so i wouldn't be myself if i just left tsukasa's commisions without analyzing them under the angle of neurodivergence, especially since the sole reason i became obsessed with the thought of ADHD tsukasa was that one sekahaji line (there's too much noise, so much noise and it keeps getting worse you will always be famous).

of course, remember that only the world hasn't even started yet should be taken as a canon value! producers are often given space to do whatever they want in the lyrics of the songs they are commissioned for, so they're not canonical in any way. i think it's still fun to look at their lyrics and ramble about them for a bit, though. i've already got too carried away anyways.

won't be posting photos of the lyrics since i'd hit the images limit, but you can check them yourself — all the translations i'm taking, as always, from the vocaloid lyrics wiki. (since filament fever has two tls on there, i want to clarify that i've only looked at and considered in my analysis the official english one, because it's, well, official.)

THE WORLD HASN'T EVEN STARTED YET

besides the mentioned earlier there's too much noise, so much noise and it keeps getting worse, which i think of as a representation of overstimulation (since i used to see people asking "oh but why tsukasa has something about there being too much noise in a song made out of his feelings when he's such a loud person himself". because he likes the noise he makes, not the overwhelming, overstimulating noise from the outside!!), sekahaji also has a rather good amount of quotes that could be read as something connected to neurodivergence (based on the fact that it's not supposed to be a song about this topic): the main theme of these are procrastination, which can be seen in let's cross the end of all of this, partying forever and the world hasn't even started yet line itself. the thought of the world not even starting implies that there's still a lot of time left to do something, while "partying forever" can refer to deciding to give up on doing the things you should do and going to drown in something that indulges only you and yourself for the rest of eternity. while procrastination is not counted as an official ADHD symptom, it's a trait that people with the disorder very often have (for reasons obvious).

other lines, which i couldn't entirely fit into a box of a certain symptom, are there's too much conflict, so much conflict and it keeps growing (a parallel line to the noise one, so it means something! right) and let's break the plans for a harmonious future. in my personal interpretation, they both can be viewed as your typical neurodivergent struggle in a neurotypical society — "too much conflict" refering to an internal struggle of not being completely normal, while the "harmonious future" that's going to get broken are just the social norms that are going to be broken because of an off-putting, neurodivergent behavior. something that some neurotypical people dooon't really like.

TONDEMO-WONDERZ

since i've just talked about breaking the social norms, "why?!" and "do it like this!!" aren't like you, huh? line from tondemo-wonderz is going to go first, because it revolves around the same topic. it's the same case: it's about (subconscious, not intentional) fighting what's accepted by the society by just being yourself — because you're neurodivergent, you're different.

from the other lines in tondemo-wonderz, i have only one and it's take an eraser to your memories?!, which is pretty much self explanatory. as always, a mention of forgetting something in tsukasa's commision. who would've thought.

88 SHOOTING STARS

another self explanatory line that i have written down as first: it's okay if you only remember a little part of it sometimes. another mention of tsukasa forgor™, and while it corresponds with what happened in dazzling, it's still a line mentioning forgetfulness — so it's worth mentioning.

aren't we just inevitably going around in circles? and it's okay if you take a rest for a little bit sometimes can be interpreted as another mention of procrastination and while it's not that apparent as it was with sekahaji, because going in circles can refer to something else and taking a rest sometimes is not a bad thing at all, i still wanted to mention them here. for the record.

you ought to slip and fall in panic in the final moment is connected to a symptom that i showed, yet didn't elaborate on it (because i didn't have anything to work with) — making careless mistakes. the same case, yet with another symptom goes with is this not enough yet again? is this not how it's supposed to be? couldn't we go even further than this?, which can be seen as a reflection of unability to listen to instructions. a bit of reaching with this one (like this whole part damn), but as i said earlier: for the record, i'm leaving it here. to show that i had some intense thoughts.

tbf, when i think about it now, maybe the mentioned earlier "why?!" and "do it like this!!" aren't like you [...] could very well fit this symptom too.

MR SHOWTIME

mr showtime you will always be famous, because this is a song that gave me a looot of things to work with. i was so flabbergasted when i read these lyrics for the first time. tsukasa tenma why are you like this. /aff

there are a lot of lines hinting being easily distracted, and these are basically the very first ones, too: you know what? i just can't make up my mind, it's so messed up that i can't put my thoughts together and a merry-go-round (my thought process) goes round and round are all about it. like you cannot deny it this time, if it's not about being unable to stay focused then i really don't know what is [insert the tsukasa don't look away stamp here because i love it and it's my biggest motivation to actually focus whenever i do something]. the more i mess around and waste time, the more i become hungry / and i can't handle it can be seen as about procrastination again, and even not "can be seen", it's literally being frustrated at yourself for wasting time, that's the sole outcome of a procrastination!! being bothered by feeling anxious, meanwhile, is resonating with the inability to deal with stress once again.

also jumping the gun. driving in a zigzag manner can actually connected with the little to no sense of danger. because, as far as i'm aware, driving in a zigzag manner is certainly not a safe activity. don't do it at home.

from the symptoms that i haven't yet mentioned to this point, am i taking a long way? am i making a fruitless effort? can be reflecting difficulty organizing tasks — since the poor planning of your activities can make you take a long way and can make you do a fruitless effort. then, where's the fun in taking shortcuts all the time? can be read along the lines of something coming close to extreme impatience and while a person that's extremely impatient would actually enjoy taking the shortcuts to get closer to their goal or destination, said impatience can be also connected with the desire for something interesting to happen. a task can make you impatient not because it's long, but because it's simply boring — avoiding shortcuts can make it less boring, even if it extends its duration. with this explanation, it makes the unexpectedness (unexpected program) is the best part of the show (my life) perfectly fit into this category, even though i wouldn't call this line a sign of impatience on its own.

i have some issues with i'm pathetic. i can't satisfy myself, because... at first i thought of connecting it with either mood swings or inability to deal with stress, however i'm not sure if that's really it. i'm pretty sure it connects to neurodivergence in some way, but i just can't put my finger on it, so... i'm just leaving it here for the record, once again.

oh, and there's also i got lost in the world (stage) and / the end credits rolled (the curtain fell), which also is pretty much summing up the experience of being neurodivergent in the neurotypical society. in the middle of trying to stay true to yourself and having to mask just to be accepted, it's easy to get lost — and once you do so, there's no going back. the curtain falls.

to end this part of the analysis, i'd show the lyrics from filament fever and sekai wo terasu tetrad here. i won't do this, however, and the reason for it is fairly simple — they don't give me much material to work with and i'm not really surprised, because mr showtime has succesfully sucked all of the neurodivergent coded lyrics into itself. there just won't be another song like mr showtime, i fear.

i can just say that in filament fever there is running away from the flow of time — which got me thinking of either procrastination and unability to stick to time-consuming tasks, with the former being more plausible as a potential interpretation... but that would be it.

3. NAKAYAMA IS A METAPHOR FOR NEURODIVERGENT MASKING AND IT'S THE STUPIDEST THING I'VE EVER SAID BUT YOU HAVE TO HEAR ME OUT ON THIS

listen, i know how it sounds.

i'm not actually a fan of trying to fit every thing a character does into a box of a metaphor, symbol or allegory, i really am not. i think some things should just stay as simple as they are, but this thought has been bothering me ever since i've first seen spoilers of what's happening in a story where you're the star for the very first time. i'm in no way saying it has any canonical meaning, but i just thought it would be fun to include. because maaaybe someone sees my vision.

for those who haven't seen tsukasa4 yet or want to have a recap of what has happened in it: the whole event story revolves around tsukasa trying to grasp his role (as always). wxs got recommended to shunmei-za by shousuke and went there to practice their acting skills, immediately getting thrown onto the preparation for their next performance. tsukasa, however, is not a lead this time — he got the role of a supporting character and has got basically three lines to say on stage total. since tsukasa's used to playing lead roles, he obviously has issues with grasping the role — it's hard to use method acting in regards of a character that says three sentences total and nothing more. with help of bakuno reki, one of the actors in shunmei-za, and the rest of wxs, he manages to create a portrayal of nakayama that would make him "come to life" and "be a protagonist of his own story", something that would make it easier for him to get into role, however...

he gets a little bit too carried away with his acting during the actual performance.

and this is not something that would ruin the whole play, obviously, he's just a supporting character, the less invested audience would probably forgot about his impact on the story after five minutes of his last appearance — but he still made a slip-up. he still resonated with his role, but didn't achieve the utmost perfection. he still did well acting, after all, he managed to receive praise from the director in the end... but it's still a very apparent mistake that was made.

(tl, once again, by the awesome tsukasa's #3 fan)

and that's where the nakayama masking metaphor theory (it's not even a theory but it sounds cooler this way) comes in.

nakayama is supposed to be just a man. from what we know about him, he's in his late twenties and works as an editor — and even though tsukasa makes up a whole backstory for him later on, he's still supposed to be ordinary. nothing special. he's coming nowhere near the other roles that tsukasa has played, he's not on the same level as miles, torpe and rio. and while you could possibly consider torpe and rio as rather ordinary, they still had something interesting to happen to them, the main reason why they were lead roles for their respective plays. in the tsukasa4 play, nakayama has nothing like that. he's literally just a guy, he's normal. and "normal" is a keyword here.

tsukasa did everything he could to fit into nakayama's role. he followed the script, he took the advice from a more talented and professional actor that is bakuno, he didn't do any mistakes during his preparations — and yet he still managed to mess up in the end. why?, besides of the fact that he just let himself become one with nakayama during the performance and it resulted in a supporting character outshining the lead?

if we take as a fact that tsukasa is, in fact, neurodivergent, it would make sense that he's having troubles with playing a normal person — because he's not exactly normal either. and this would very well work out as a metaphor of masking; even when you try your best, even when you mask yourself perfectly, you can still make slip-ups. you can still accidentally drop the act in middle of something that absolutely required it, or, similiar to what tsukasa did, can accidentally overdo it and end up perceived as even more weird than you'd be without masking. something something i got lost in the world and the end credits rolled. rings a bell?

and i'm not saying that tsukasa has a problem with masking, because he doesn't. he tries his best to pass as a normal member of society, but he also makes no effort in actively masking his weirdness (or else he wouldn't be a part of oddball one two). however, if you want to neurodivergent code your character, it would make sense to include a possibility of it in some way, right? especially since wxs stories' already had the theme of dealing with being perceived as weird (eg. rui's whole backstory, obviously). even if it's not affecting tsukasa directly, i think it would be cool to include something that indicates this issue's existence in his story and, in a way, his struggles.

however, as i said earlier, this is a very stupid thought and that's why i left it for the very end. i don't actually think that how tsukasa played nakayama was supposed to be a metaphor for masking, it's just a pure coincidence that it could be interpreted like that when you think about it too much.

aaand with this, we've finally come to an end!! (finally. i'm so exhausted.) i don't have anything more to say about this topic. maybe i'll retweet it with some more evidence in the future if we ever get more ADHDkasa content. for now, it would be all!

is tsukasa actually intentionally written as an ADHDer? Who Knows! there's a possibility that he is, but even if he's not, he's still one in my heart. regardless of the status of his possible neurodivergence, analyzing his behavior in this light was still very fun! and maybe i even converted someone into the ADHDkasa hell.

feel free to add something if you want to, and feel free to correct me if i got some things wrong! i still hope that even though of how messy this whole thing is written, i did tsukasa justice and didn't accidentally say too much nonsense lmao

...i hate ending analyses.

[lolliepops-rox]

Hello 2024 Hetalia fandom. I want to talk about schizophrenic Arthur Kirkland.

Background: I myself is someone with psychosis, along with experience with schizophrenic family members. I'm not talking completely out of my ass. But not do I obviously speak for every mental ill person ever. Moreover, I am pulling on the way being a nation would affect his relationship with being schizophrenic.

I am extremely new to the fandom, but my best friend who has been here for a decade has talked with me about how the idea was handled in the past. I want to give this headcanon a genuine and sincere look at it, because I think it's interesting and I want to project onto Arthur a little.

One of the reasons he's a terrible cook is actually because of his schizophrenia. Disordered thinking means he struggles to follow steps in a recipe. The impact on his motor skills makes him even worse. Please do not give this man a knife. He will cut himself.

I think because of his own experience with cooking, he is prone to food related paranoia, things like it being rotten or poisoned, sometimes affected by the era/current events. During times of famine he's gonna lean towards rotten, verse maybe some civil unrest leading to him thinking his food is poisoned. Disordered eating is a huge problem for him. (We found out partly where Alfred gets it from lol)

Continuing with the food theme, smelling rotten food is a common hallucination for him. Olfactory hallucinations just make sense for him to me, so the smell of fire and gas is a common one too. (This is partly the effect of the many London fires throughout the centuries).

In terms of visional hallucinations, I don't think he'd be very prone to it. Reality checks for them he'd have to rely on his British Isles brothers for them, due to being able to see actual mythical creatures. This is made hard by the fact he's often not on speaking terms with his brothers. This has resulted in an incident where Arthur had assumed a creature following him was a hallucination, that turned out to be real and was HIGHLY offended at being ignored for so long.

In terms of delusions, being a public figure makes discerning reality difficult at times. He is super prone to delusions about being hated by everyone, or being the most popular person ever. This can be hard to reality check because well, he is famous, and sometimes the public does hate him, and people have tried to kill him. My poor man's ego can NOT handle being a public figure with schizophrenia.

England, circa. 2003, on the phone to his PA: Can you send someone over? Either someone is trying to kill me, I'm having another episode, or both. I am not leaving my house until this is resolved. Thanks.

In terms of disordered movement, he would get slapped with that very 'childish' label. Arthur holds himself and moves in a way that looks weird to others. He moves way too much, everything has more motion and steps than necessary, overly fluid. It often leads to people getting accidentally hit by a stray hand from Arthur.

Arthur is NOTORIOUS for his word salad. I feel like Francis over the years has adjusted to understand a lot of Arthur's word salad but still sometimes it's like

Arthur: -gibberish-

Antonio: uhhh what did he say?

Francis: Don't look at me, this is even beyond my understanding of England.

Alfred is the worst of the native English speaking countries when it comes to understanding Arthur's word salad. Like Ludwig is better at guess what Arthur meant than Alfred is.

Anyways, that's some of my thoughts <3 I would love to hear other people's ideas & feedback. Thnx xD

[randomfoggytiger]

Revival Mulder Was Diagnosed with the Wrong Depression

In My Struggle I, Sveta reveals Scully diagnosed Mulder with "endogneous depression", which is a type of major depressive disorder (MDD, also known as clinical depression.) However, the clues provided in canon don't quite add up.

According to healthline: "Endogenous depression occurs without the presence of stress or trauma. In other words, it has no apparent outside cause. Instead, it may be primarily caused by genetic and biological factors. This is why endogenous depression might also be referred to as “biologically based” depression." And verywellmind explains: "People with endogenous depression often feel that their symptoms occur “for no reason”—at least in the sense that there is no apparent external cause.... For example, a person with a family history of mental illness may be more likely to develop depression."

From the get-go, those descriptions don't fit Mulder; but they make less sense when compared to exogenous depression.

Again, according to healthline: "Exogenous depression happens after a stressful or traumatic event takes place. This type of depression is more commonly called “reactive” depression." And verywellmind further clarifies: "Exogenous (or reactive) depression is triggered by an outside stressor such as the loss of a loved one, getting divorced, or losing your job. People who experience or witness a traumatic event may develop depression as a direct result of that exposure."

(Although current thought lumps both "types" of depression together by their similarities rather than their differences, the show went out of its way to highlight which depression it picked. It chose... poorly.)

The cherry on top? Scully didn't have the expertise to diagnose her partner with endogenous depression, regardless. healthline: "To be diagnosed with MDD, you must meet certain criteria listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). This manual is often used by mental health professionals to diagnose mental health conditions." And verywellmind: "Your primary care doctor may evaluate you for depression in the office, but they might also want you to see someone who specializes in diagnosing and treating mental illness, such as a psychiatrist." (Even though Scully also "diagnosed" a side character's mental state in Founder's Mutation, the fact that she was unqualified to do so in either circumstance remains.)

Lastly, verywellmind gives us a clinching little tidbit: "Another difference is that people with exogenous depression don't always have the physical symptoms of depression, like having trouble sleeping or change in appetite, which is common in other forms of the condition." (Which would fit Mulder's seeming "normality" during the early Revival episodes. Mulder already had odd habits to begin with, anyway-- it would be easy to tuck away his symptoms from casual observers.)

So, we're told that Fox Mulder-- a man who only canonically displayed depressive symptoms after a traumatic event; and who had, apparently, no recollection whatsoever of a predisposition towards depression before Samantha's abduction-- collapsed inwardly due to... biological or genetic factors? Rather than collapsing because of, I don't know, the countless losses and failures he suffered through the years (which would be in-line with his pre-established trauma response?)

Sigh.

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

[pineappleciders]

heyy first of all its me the fucked up dream anon (now going by dream anon how original) second of all ive decided im going to learn about south park purely through your work so can i get some tweek (ive latched onto that boy) and whoever else you want (probably the main boys) with a reader (all platonic ofc) who's got that #anxiety? thanks even if you dont do it <33

🌌🌟/dream anon

main 4 + tweek with a reader who has anxiety; platonic headcanons

A/N: haii :3 i apologize if this like, distorts your vision of the characters or something. i am so glad you are being converted to the religion of tweek!!!!!!

TRIGGER WARNING: anxiety disorders, light mental health topics, paranoia, panic/anxiety attacks, death mention on kennys part

stan marsh

i think stan has a normal amount of anxiety. like he's so regular. he's your average joe

like he gets anxious over tests, and giving speeches, and over wendy. other than that he doesn't experience it to the extent of a disorder

so it might be a little difficult for him to imagine getting anxious over simple things like ordering food and stuff like that

he'll try his best to listen though, although he'll probably try to kinda reason with you, esp if you're feeling paranoid or something

"dude, i checked twice, it's locked. relax, man."

he'll try to distract you, by playing games and watching stuff, and just generally kinda trying to be funny to take your mind off of things

if you're having a panic/anxiety attack, he kinda panics too at first, before quickly pulling you away and asking what's wrong. he is sweating very hard

if you're unresponsive, he tries to stay calm but is honestly considering calling an ambulance. like he thinks you're having a stroke

"shit, a panic attack? uh, okay, errr.... take deep breaths, okay? in.. and out. in.. and out. okay, that's good.."

he looks up grounding techniques on his phone and relays them to you until you calm down and catch your breath. he like sends you images off of google of the 5 senses technique randomly and says he figured you'd need it someday

he tries to keep your anxiety in mind, and might slip up sometimes, but for the most part he tries to be careful with his words and actions as to not worry you. he shows his care in subtle ways!!

kyle broflovski

he tries to kinda. logic it out a bit. like if you're feeling insecure he tells you how unrealistic it is for someone to think about one random passerby's appearance forever

he does feel bad though. he doesn't completely understand, but whenever he's feeling insecure he tends to get really anxious about people at school

he usually gets anxious whenever he's doing something wrong or sneaking out. like he's actually sweating and shitting his pants thinking about what his mom will do to him if she finds out

he'll encourage you to order food for yourself, to get yourself out there more, and if you succeed he'll pat your shoulder and smile a lil

if you don't want to, he might dramatically sigh but he'll do it anyways. cuz he knows how hard it is

i do think he'd get a little anxious about asking workers for help and stuff, but he'll be the bigger person... he supposes... smh my head...

when you have an panic attack for the first time, he's like really confused and gets super concerned that you're having a heart attack, and pulls his phone out to dial your parents or 911

"i'm here for you dude! listen- hey, listen to me. it's okay. can- can you-"

he tries to talk to you to de-escalate it, but he gives up and has his hand on your back, while looking up what the fuck to do

'friend havign panjc atgack what to do'

if you're okay with it, he probably talks to your parents about it. he doesn't really trust himself to be able to always calm you down, so he encourages getting outside/professional help

he does try though, and he'll always be there for you in different ways!! like when you need help with something or just need company to distract you, he's at ur door with his xbox 360

eric cartman

you can tell that eric gets a little uncomfortable if you're freaking out or feeling anxious. whether it's because he actually feels bad or just doesn't know how to handle your emotions, you'll never know

but either way, he'll probably just like. sit next to you like "dude, what's up with you?" or in other cases he'll sneakily slip out of the room unseen

he does try to be kinda logical about it, but that's solely because he physically can't speak words of comfort.

"i mean, dude, be seriously. nobody cares about you that much to notice." you speak such kind words eric!!

he doesn't really like it when things get serious, so he'll generally try to transition the situation into something more casual. like he'll try to ease your (his) mood by getting snacks and playing games together, or even begging his mom to take you both to KFC

if you have a panic attack, all of his alarms are blaring and his brain is screaming flight!!!!! flight!!!! run the fuck away!!!!

and he probably tries to, but when you notice him and call his name he physically deflates

he awkwardly turns around and slowly strolls over. "Y/N... heeeeeeey... what's up... duuude..." you can hear the strain in his voice

if it gets to be too much, as in you won't stop hyperventilating or can't breathe, he'll probably alert an adult or take you to the nurse or something. he tells himself it's because he doesn't want to be a suspect of your death

if ur having trouble ordering food he'll gladly take ur place and make a scene to get all eyes on him. "erm excuthe me they athed for no pickleth🤓"

other than when you're voicing your anxiety, he probably treats you the same. i don't really think he'd take advantage of your anxiety unless you were like. butters or heidi or something and he was really trying to get you to do something for him or just trying to. stick himself in your mind. because he's a narcissist and he loves that!!

kenny mccormick

he doesn't relate necessarily, but he definitely understands.

he lives a lot of his life in fear of his next death, and is constantly praying it be quick and painless

kenny is more of a reserved fella, but not really shy or anxious. so if you're having trouble speaking up or ordering something he'll step up and do it gladly!!

i think he'd be pretty decent at comforting. like he'll pat his hand on your back and speak assuring, muffled words

"mm, mmph mmph mmmph! mmph mph mph mmmfmf mmf mph mph mmph!" (aww, it'll be okay. i'll walk you every step of the way, buddy!)

he tries to take your emotions into consideration more, and grabs your hand and squeezes it sometimes if you need a boost of confidence. sometimes he forgets your anxiety and says something rude and feels really bad about it

when you're having a panic attack, he's honestly really scared and expects you to start foaming at the mouth or something

he'll hesitate, but he'll pat your back and try to help you with grounding techniques. the 5-4-3-2-1 in particular is his favorite, and he'll tell you how to do it in like a rlly sweet and calming voice

he's still spooked though, and gets you a water bottle and like a washcloth. he's incredibly thankful you aren't dying or anything

kenny is very good at comforting! sometimes all it takes is a simple moment of eye contact and seeing his eyes crinkle that gives you a surge of calmness you didn't know you needed

tweek tweak

tweek is no outsider to anxiety and stress. he's literally a living beehive with all that damn vibrating

to anyone else, it would seem like tweek had a severe anxiety disorder, or even ADHD. but it turns out it's just a result of his crippling meth addiction and caffiene overdoses

he tries to think about what craigs taught him, about grounding techniques and how to handle a panic attack, and tries to apply those for you

he's shakily take your hand and wrap you in a blanket, making you hot cocoa and helping you slowly come back to your senses

"okay, okay, what are 5 things you can touch? or- no- AGH! was it 5 things you see- hear? no, ACK! i can't remember!"

most of the time if you're feeling on-edge about something, his main goal will be to just listen to you talk and validate your feelings. he doesn't really make it a point to give you advice or try to be logical, unless you directly ask for it

he's great at listening!!! he also doesn't trust his own advice enough to say it to someone else.

he really tries to think hard about what comforts him when he's anxious, and so he tries to use the tactics for you. for instance, he tries to help you get into a hobby like painting to have a bit more control over yourself

hc that tweek loves to draw with crayons so he'll make little drawings of you and him as stick figures being all happy and give them to you. as a treat

overall he is very attentive, and cares a lot. he tries his very best to be there for you, and a lot of the time that results in you two just hanging out or gaming together, so you can both get your mind off of things for a while. it makes him happy to be able to be there for someone else like craig was for him

[focusfixated]

in my quest to archive old fandom works i have been peeling through old livejournal entries to find links to fics and fanart, and i came across this entry dated july 2007, when i travelled way out of town to meet some fandom friends:

the reminder struck me that i used to refer to my anxiety disorder as "my adrenaline", because i had no knowledge at the time that it was a disorder, or what being anxious even was, except a word that came up in the thesaurus next to "nervous" or sometimes "keen".

all i had was the experience of what felt like high levels of adrenaline pumping, needlessly, around my body. i would notice the tight stomach, the tight chest, the way my fingers would go cold. i knew what an adrenaline rush felt like, so i called my anxiety the same thing. a big burst of adrenaline that made me feel shaky and strange.

it's interesting to me. because i don't think i necessarily saw it at the time as something connected to psychological or mental health. by not having the language to describe it as a disorder, i simply made a pretty bang-on assessment of understanding what was happening in my body - an excess of adrenaline that would sometimes "go fucking crazy", that i was aware of and simply had to live with.

i guess my observations from this are twofold:

this is, demonstrably, evidence for the concept that we do not have "more" people with various disorders these days, but that the language to describe the disorders that had already manifested has evolved, and both become standardised enough to be a recognisable descriptor, and also nuanced enough to cover a range of experiences.

there was certainly an interim period when i discovered i had an anxiety disorder, where the ability to label it as such and both seek support from other people and allow grace for myself was an incredible relief and extremely useful. however, i do often think about the sentiment outlined in this post, as below:

depathologizing your own responses to things means no longer worrying about which symptom matches which diagnosis matches which branded treatment model and instead practicing gentle non-judgmental curiosity about what you’re going through

that is, having gone through the labelling phase (for multiple things, "becoming" - i.e. finding the language to describe myself as - neurodivergent, autistic, nonbinary, genderqueer, a person with anxiety), i feel like the end result of leaning on the label as an explanation for what i'm experiencing is no more practically useful than simply describing how it felt.

saying now, "the reason i find this difficult is because i have an anxiety disorder", while comforting initially, can kind of engender a give-up response. whereas, "my adrenaline is off the fucking charts right now" also asks, "well, why? can you do the task anyway? do you need a sit-down first? maybe we can try again later."

(to be clear: these are personal observations and not universal statements about anyone else's experiences at all. i think there are mixed positives and negatives around these concepts, and it's more an observation of being subject to the changing trajectories of science, language and culture, rather than really trying to discover the correct practice.)

[transhawks]

I know you're writing a fic with Twice is in (and also actually appreciate his character), so do you got ideas, rules whatever, on how to write his dialog? Ll the fics ive read never feels right unless it's straight from the source material 😭

Hey! So, I've definitely played around with this in writing. Let me show some examples and word vomit about Twice. I will say that while I often return to the manga and observe how he talks, I also have developed LOTs of head-canons, so much of this is my own ideas/fanon. When I wrote You in 2020, it was very much an experimental fic, stream of consciousness kind of fic. And I encourage people to play around if they are doing something like solely focusing on Jin. In this case I essentially wrote it in Second person, to emphasize the idea of a fractured mind/depersonalization or the feeling as if "I'm not the real one" that Twice had. Here's how I showcased the split:

This is how I described Jin's initial "split" by the way. Note there's actually THREE different ones - I have a personal theory there's actually three personalities, the dominant Jin who is incredibly traumatized and slightly regressing in maturity, the older, quieter maturer personality who shows up only when we see into his thoughts, who seems pensive and contemplative (most of 115 is his narration) and kind of gives Twice's manga international narration a film-noir like quality, and the vocal "negative" voice that I guess either contradicts voice 1 or functions like an id to the ego.

Before anyone chimes in with "FREUDIAN PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY IS TRASH AND DEBUNK-", yes, I know, but I find the idea of splitting the mind like this useful for literature, specifically, not real life. And I suspect a lot of writers do as well, so the idea of a "split" mind where a voice voices the things no one should want to say or think as Horikoshi has created here works well in that framework. Hence, when I write the split in Jin's mind, I use it as a way for me to figure how what's with his mind.

One of the biggest issues is that Jin's issues are very much pop-culture/fantasy mental illness because no disorder fits him well. For one thing, Jin's trauma is also a neurological one because he clearly had brain damage from the whole experience that cause his scar. And then it's like Horikoshi decided to take elements of schizoaffective psychosis, tourette's, BPD, DID, and OCD and PTSD and throw in "actual force blunt force brain damage" into the loop. That's not to say Twice's struggles aren't realistic/relatable - they totally are, but whatever he has isn't exactly an accurate depiction of anything out there (especially since it's so quirk-based). Personally, tailoring it to fit something neatly, I think, would do a big disservice to his character so I don't strive for that sort of realism and just work with what Horikoshi outlines for us.

Anyway, that is to say that often when I try to depict mental illness in writing, especially from the perspective of the ill person, I try to incorporate elements of disorder into the writing itself stylistically (I sometimes do this with writing Hawks as well). A lot of people just only strictly stick to this past-tense (or present) third person limited way of writing, and I think there's fun in throwing that out and using characters like Twice as reasons to do it. Or just playing around with formatting.

Anyway, this is how I try to depict it from a Third Person Limited perspective in Irreversible.

So first off, I distinguish between the spoken voices Jin has by bolding the contradictory voice. Internally, I depict intrusive thoughts by keeping it bolding, putting in parenthesis, and then justifying the text to the right. It breaks up the paragraph and creates the "element of disorder" I spoke about earlier. Here's what that can look like at it's most disordered, where there's essentially a mental conversation written out.

There's also a clear difference in spoken vs internal because while internally the voice addresses Jin himself to create an element of insecurity (questioning if he even deserves Toga's kindness), it's only in speech that he'll contradict Jin after he says something. This doesn't always happen, and I don't think every sentence needs it. Jin has moments in-manga where he doesn't speak like this and I also think it correlates with emotional state (interestingly a really upset Twice can be more "together").

But it's not as simple as "Jin says something, bold immediately contradicts it." That would make it boring to both read and write. My suggestion to have an actual reaction by a Jin to the bolded words - because it happens in canon (sometimes he tries to stop himself from talking further).

In this sentence, I make Jin immediately refute the previous sentence. It's not a full on back and forth, but it does show that he's aware the other voice is saying things and what it is saying. Lastly, this is more me on how to actually make it matter besides keeping it accurate to canon characterization. First, Jin is funny. Naturally he's funny and very blunt, but his illness is also used by Horikoshi for tension relief and to kill the seriousness or somber mood the LoV scenes can evolve into. Do not be afraid to use this for humor because as a character, Horikoshi DOES do this HOWEVER, this is not all Jin is, and when showing his internal life, there's far more seriousness to it all. But if you just want to write Jin instead of focusing on him, I think acknowledging he has a (wacky, immature and slapstick-y) sense of humor and in turn can be a funny character is not a bad thing. He lends himself well to physical comedy so don't be afraid of writing him doing weird things or making funny gestures.

Two, make the words count. At the end of the day, you're writing a story. You are not only conveying personality through these words, you are hopefully moving plot forward, or using the space you have carefully. Do not be afraid to have the contradictory voice say something poignant, something no one else would say, or ominous that can be used as foreshadowing for later parts of your story. Remember, these are characters that are meant to tell stories so use them.

[sophieinwonderland]

H-hey,,, i-i'm on anon because this is very e-embarassing to ask for... b-but i found this v-very long post basically fakeclaiming a lot of systems online and claiming that being plural is a trend. T-they also said that pluralkit is anti-recovery and a bunch of other stuff. I-i feel destroyed inside and I know i should not care about haters that much, b-but i was wondering if you can respond to the post in some way, by debunking it i-or maybe just saying that it is not valid. I-i understand if you cannot do this and i wouldn't be mad at you, i just thought that i might try. /gen

This is the post: https://www.tumblr.com/nbhdsc4ss/742946435586277376/im-tired-of-this-boom-of-plural-trend?source=share

Yikes! That's such a terrible post!

Alright, let's go over this.

First, just another reminder that if 1.5% of people have DID as is estimated, over a hundred-million people in the world should have the disorder.

Just on this alone, I find fad claims to be nonsense. We aren't actually seeing anywhere near the numbers of people with DID online who should have it. And that's without touching other forms of multiplicity.

This is an incredibly unhealthy outlook.

A system shares their life. The life doesn't belong to any single headmate. Hosts can change over time. And many systems don't really have a true "core." The very concept of the core is largely outdated.

What?

I think this post is killing my neurons! I can feel my brain cells dying as we speak! 🙄

Anyway, just in case anyone was worried this might be true. It's not. I don't know what they're talking about. There's nothing about switching killing neurons anywhere.

As far as I can tell, any association with cerebral palsy is also made up.

Honestly, I could spend eons unpacking the misinformation in this paragraph alone.

I made this blog back in 2021.

The Plural Association was founded in 2020.

"Endogenic system" was coined in 2014.

The Natural Multiples movement dates back to the 90s.

And "system" has been in the vocabular of all these groups since even the beginning.

And while it's not quite a medical term, it does at least originate in medical contexts. The only difference is that the plural community uses it as an identity label for plurals while most academic sources refer to a personality system as something everyone has, with the personality system of multiples being composed of dissociated parts. (Sometimes called "subsystems" in DID literature to denote alters being personality systems within personality systems.)

Words make communication easier.

Calling a headmate an "introject" is easier that referring to them as a headmate based on a source.

Also, blurring and blending generally mean that multiple headmates are, well, blending together. It's hard to know who is fronting because there are multiple headmates who feel like they're mixing, and it makes it confusing.

But another reason for not knowing who is fronting could be a sort of autopilot like in DPDR. Differentiating between these experiences is useful.

Wait... Affection between alters is anti-recovery?

You know, this really puts the earlier lines about non-host alters stealing the life of the host into perspective.

Not only does this draw a picture of an adversarial relationship between alters, but they're treating that adversarial relationship as being good for recovering, and feeling affection for them as a bad thing.

This is possibly the most harmful take I've ever seen.

As for the rest of it, subsystems (as we use the term) are just headmates more closely linked. I've never heard anyone phrase it as an alter having DID. But I guess I can see the parallel. And again, splits and switches don't damage braincells. Having a bigger system isn't going to make the "days of the body count down."

Wait... weren't you just claiming switching literally kills neurons? I mean, I agree that alters can't permanently die (under normal circumstances) but this feels kinda contradictory.

As for having different disorders, this depends a lot on the disorder. By and large, I believe any condition that can be psychogenic can be experienced by some alters and not others.

But what conditions could be psychogenic would probably surprise you. Look at the woman who had some blind alters and some sighted alters.

Polyfragmented systems were traditionally systems with upwards of 100 alters. (And "highly complex" isn't a medical term.)

And again, splitting and switching doesn't kill neurons. Having a bunch of alters isn't going to kill you! Nor will it allow your rights to be stripped and get you forcefully institutionalized against your will so you can be studied like a lab rat!

Why would you just assume the doctors are misdiagnosing you though?

I mean, typically, DID is incorrectly diagnosed as other disorders far more often than you have people be incorrectly diagnosed with DID.

Again, there's this disturbing emphasis on the alters existing for the host and being bad for wanting things of their own, which bring back to mind their assertion that affection between alters is anti-recovery.

And I just... feel really bad for the other alters in this system. This is just so... sad...

If they're not real kids, then what's wrong with them being on the internet?

I mean, yeah, all alters need pronouns. If any identify as a different gender, it's important to have pronouns for them so you know what to refer to them by. Why is this controversial? 🤷‍♀️

And what does the part about alters becoming useless mean?

Talk therapy isn't magic. Yes, it can help to speak to a professional, but I don't understand the view that it's impossible to fuse without seeing a therapist.

Oh, and the line about how "knowing things about another alter is impossible" is nonsense too. Most DID systems don't have total amnesia all the time every time they switch. And many who do experience amnesia can still communicate. They can learn about their alters by asking. And even ones who don't communicate internally can learn to communicate through notes and text!

...

Yeah... this post is just... so... so... SO bad. In every way! Just mountains upon mountains of harmful takes and misinformation!

[autisticdiluc]

yandere simulator ramble (mostly ab ayano)

see my thing is with yandere sim obviously there are a bunch of problems from alex himself being the developer, the panty shots in the game (because eventho it's used as blackmail with info-chan and sold to those who want it or wtv there could be a way easier way to blackmail the girls for points), the depiction that the bullies are gyaru giving the impression most gyaru's are mean/bullies, the fact that oh everyone is 18 even though they clearly arent?? amongst other things

yet even then there's something still addicting about the game especially with ayano being a yandere, or to consider: someone with obsessive love disorder (the highest 'level' or intensity of this). even then, although obviously everyone in the aishi family just has to be a yandere, it was gonna be obvious that ayano was gonna be one too rightt?

First Part: Emotions

ryoba fed into the mindset that ayano needed that special someone to be complete so she could finally feel something and she's 'reassuring' ayano that ryoba was the same way when she was younger as well until she found jokichi. ayano, as a child, knew something was wrong with her. there is no doubt that something continues to be wrong with her especially after her own mother teaches her to get rid of blood to use it later to "get rid of future obstacles." Obstacles which refer to the rivals; rivals who are just girls that have a crush on taro (minus muja kina and mida rana because theyre just creeps i fear). even so ryoba's words lingered in ayano's mind. that was ayano's reason to live - something to look for. which btw is kinda fucked up cause she's a child thinking this but also fair anyway,,

Jokichi has attempted to make ayano's life better. he has tried to be a good father; he has tried to be the best that he can be in order to make his daughter feel normal. but with how ayano is - how she is broken from the start - it was impossible. it didn't help that ryoba encouraged the behaviour almost, saying she was exactly the same as ayano AND how she wasn't worried at all. jokichi didn't like that (normal reaction cause hello??) but ayano is nothing but an empty girl. however what i find interesting is that she felt pity for her father. despite everything she felt pity, and that!! is an emotion!! why i find this interesting is how she can feel something for someone else but not for herself. as a result of her pity, she began to act like other children pretending to be normal and happy for jokichi, despite how she knew that he didnt really believe her happiness himself.

and then!! ayano began to pretend all the time. to stop the bullying, to fit in with everyone because it was simply more convenient even if ayano didn't really care if it happened or not. she had friends (though she didnt care about them) and she had a routine established by pretending all the time. she grew resentful of being 'broken'. as funny as that is because she was supposed to broken, yet, she felt emotions to a mild degree. resentment (some might also say bitterness) is like more complex emotion rather than your typical joy sadness etc but it's still an emotion. and ayano WANTS to feel and have emotions anyway. she craves it, ayano longs to feel, its almost painful itself because she can't experience it to a high degree. HOWEVER!!!!!!!!!! as small as it is she's felt emotion, she's felt pity and bitterness and she wants and wants and thats so interesting. what's even more interesting is her length to have emotions. in her lore video, she is seen killing a cat to see if she felt something like guilty or remorse but nothing happened. this is where it (chronologcally) is seen that ayano is willing to do extreme things to see if she could feel something, so it's not a surprise when she's willing to kill her 'rivals' to keep taro.

now ayano is described as someone who has no personality, no hobbies, no true friends, nothing, just an empty husk of a person. however, when she meets taro that changes drastically. she has clearer and obvious emotions; she finally has the feelings she always wanted. although, i believe that she wouldn't react to having feelings the best even with finding osana talking to taro etc etc. if you lived your entire life having no emotions (not any major or obvious ones anyway) until you find your someone (someone who you've been dreaming of, waiting for, needing) and all the emotions finally comes crashing down all at once,, don't you think you'd be more than a bit overwhelmed? she's been missing out on all the sensations people had since birth. she's always felt incomplete and then all of a sudden she meets taro and it fits like a missing puzzle piece finally being placed down. it was clear that taro made her feel happy, wanting love and all positive emotions. although, now that she has emotions: she's going to have to experience the 'bad' ones too. she'll experience anger, annoyance, fear, anxiety, jealousy, desperation, envy, hatred etc etc.

as soon as she sees osana talk to taro yeah you can tell she feels all the negative emotions all at once. she finally has emotions, she finally can experience what everyone else takes for granted, but osana comes in and threatens her. osana talks to taro, has a crush on him, and that sends a spike of fear and anger through ayano because ayano should not be striped away of her newly found emotions. she needs the emotions. and as a result she needs taro because he is the one allowing her to feel this way. she's in love with the emotions. it's not love that she has for taro, not really, but she is obsessed. she has the overwhelming obsessive desire to protect and possess taro (which is literally the description of obsessive love disorder). she needs taro like how she needs air now that she's met him.

as i said like 3 paragraphs above she's going to be overwhelmed, like it or not, and whenever people are overwhelmed they tend to take an unnecessarily drastic and extreme path because when you're overwhelmed you aren't in the best mindset. ayano is still a human even if she was "broken" before. she makes mistakes and she's going to be overwhelmed by her emotions for a while especially because she feels like she's is almost dead when she's not near taro. taro is a trigger for her essentially. when he's near, the overwhelming feelings all come back. she felt dead before, now she doesn't and these feelings repeat over and over every time she's away from taro and when she goes near him again.

on another note l, although ayano "has" taro currently, she still feels broken and incomplete when not near him as mentioned. yet, this incomplete feeling hurts MORE because she knows who her someone is. im going to bring up the fact that ryoba and jokichi went to the states for a 'vacation' (to kill the journalist) without warning. i find it interesting because ayano is most likely to experience negative emotions more intensely than before. taro has brought the emotions to light so i believe she still feels them when she's not near him but it's so mild that it's barely there. however with negative emotions those are easier to feel. ayano was shown to be angry that osana has a crush on taro (and she wasn't near taro at the time) after finding out from info chan in the opening cutscene,, in fact she was at home meaning she was not close to taro at all. as i mentioned though taro is almost like a trigger so its most likely just that. anyway the intensity of negative emotions may be easier to give into. so.... going with an idea that they are easier to give into, it's easier to feel even when not around taro. i believe the feeling of loneliness is something that is practically overtaking ayano's very mind.

ayano has always been lonely, before she met taro and after. she's been lonely in the sense that she never had been able to connect with her peers on a genuine note. lonely in the sense that jokichi only worried about her wanting her to be normal and ryoba was the opposite, not worrying at all. lonely in the sense she always felt incomplete, lonely cause she knew she wasnt normal, lonely because she needed to be fixed, lonely because nobody other than her mother and all those who suffered from the "aishi conditon" would understand her. and even though those with the "aishi condition" would understand they already found their someone, they werent "broken" anymore. and speaking of the those finding their someone it is highly likely that ryoba devoted more of her time to jokichi than she did to ayano. the reason i believe this is because although ryoba has jokichi, she needs him to love her as well. gonna leave it there but!!! ryoba and jokichi are away in the states currently. so if ayano did feel lonely before she's going to feel lonely in that empty house. a house too big with your own thoughts, own freedom and doing whatever the hell you want. ryoba actively encouraged ayano to do whatever she needed to do to get rid of the 'obstacles' in her life if she found her special someone. its no surprise with the eliminations you can do one of them is torturing your rivals (or even just mind breaking a random student). (On a side note Japanese houses don't have built in basements so ryoba had to literally custom add that)

anyway I bring forth another thing: neglect. however I'm going to go into detail with this with the second part: OLD

Second Part: Obsessive Love Disorder

Obsessive Love Disorder is something that Ayano has. Obsessive Love Disorder as said earlier is a disorder where a person feels obsessive over another person and feels the need to protect them. this isn't really looked at as an 'actual' disorder to psychologist but i couldn't give two bare fucks about that. let's break it down with SOME of the symptoms of OLD:

overwhelming attention to someone

obsessive thoughts

feeling the need to protect the person you're in love with

possessive thoughts and actions

extreme jealousy over interpersonal relationships

low self-esteem

may not take rejection lightly/easily

ignoring personal boundaries

overly controlling

being overwhelmed with emotions about a person that is disrupts your daily function

threatening the other if they leave

monitoring the others actions

blurring or crossing boundaries

anxiety

inability to tolerate time away

most if not all of these things can be easily associated to ayano's behavior. ayano stalks taro, occasionally fantasizes that he kidnaps her, dislikes all the girls who try and talk to taro, wants him all to herself, feels dead when he's not near, follows him home so she can spend more time 'protecting' him, cannot see a life without him (evidenced by 'snap' ending as when she kills him, she kills herself not long after), her first interaction with him shows her finally feeling emotions and as i said she's going to feel overwhelmed with them, anger and anxiety that a 'rival' may be able to take taro away from her, based on ryoba where she tortured jokichi i doubt that ayano would take lightly is taro tried to leave her, finally rejection results in quite literally being heartbroken AND snap so it's obviously not taken easily nor lightly etc etc

anyway!! those are some examples that relate to the symptoms now here are two of the many causes.

some of y'all (if anyone reads this actually but the group council in my head will suffice) may not like this one but number 1 is neglect.

neglect is one of those things that can be in several forms. the more common forms would be emotional neglect (AND!! physical neglect), e.g. not telling your child you're leaving to go away to take care of some 'business' until you're already gone. (even worse when the business is to kill a man but yk). with this neglect you're emotionally unavailable (and in this case also physically). to understand better emotional neglect it is when a child does not receive the stimulation and nurturing they need. ayano has not received stimulation or the necessary nurturing from ryoba because ryoba fully heartedly believes that all ayano needs is that special someone. in a sense, she is right but she was actively neglecting ayano by not helping her instead just repeating that someone will come to complete and fix her. as said in the example it can also be physical neglect as ryoba left a teen (because no way you're a junior and 18, fuck you Alex the highest you can get is 17.) all by herself in a house whilst indirectly promoting the use of the basement through vague post cards and childhood lessons.

(And yes! Encouraging negative behavior is neglect because you do not care what happens to those around you!)

another form of neglect that ayano experienced was medical neglect. this form of neglect isn't as obvious but can be picked up in ayano's lore video. at the very beginning, it is stated that her first memories are that of hospitals, doctors and everything medical wise. this was most definitely jokichi's work as the best ryoba has stated on the matter was how they were similar and how ayano will find her someone to complete her. now later (but before ayano pretends) the hospital etc weren't mentioned again. it can be thought and implied that ryoba decided it was a waste to focus medically on ayano because she'll simply find her someone to cure her later. this can be thought out to be medical neglect because there could've been a small chance if ayano kept doing, if she visited more happy places there's a possibility something could've changed. even then this neglect isn't so obvious so it's easy to ignore. to add on though teaching your child how to clean up blood for not so good reasons is encouraging negative behavior and could be a contribution to her messed up mindset.

another reason would be delusional jealousy. this is inhibited by an instance or things that are false. this delusional jealousy can also make one believe someone is in love with them even if there are obvious signs that is not the case.

okay for this reason I believe the delusion itself is fostered by the fact that ayano needs taro so she believes he must need her. it's a common mindset even without OLD that if someone needs something, others must need it too making possessiveness and jealousy to form. because the game isn't complete and is likely not going to be complete in the next decade, it's hard to tell if taro would actually like ayano as a genuine person. (and I would say that it's kind of obvious that he doesn't but in game taro is a pussy? if you even stand near him for more than 5 seconds he's like "oh she's strange" "stay back get away from me!!" even when ayano isn't doing anything?? like in game I wouldn't be close enough where the pink love thing pops up and taro would still be like "get away from me!!!") but if ayano hypothetically talked to him like all of her rivals, then taro would maybe like her.

once again these two are not the only ones that can be associated with ayano but these are the only ones I wanted to discuss.

anyway ending this section to go to the next important one!! drumroll... Pacifist vs Murderer

Third Part: The Endings

this is the third part of my rant that consists of pacifist ayano vs murderer ayano which could be "Good Ending" Ayano and "Bad Ending" Ayano.

starting off with something a good bunch of yan sim fans don't actually agree on is that pacifist ayano is a completely different person than murderer ayano.

and you might be thinking "wrap it up luca,, pacifist is different than a murderer no shit"

but really it's more than that. pacifist ayano is different because she actually truly expresses her emotions when she's a pacifist. even if you gossip about the rivals or expell them where they don't show up to school anymore, ayano can be seen as a person who expresses her emotions because she's so much more than a murderer. this is even more vividly seen if you befriend the rivals. once again this is based off the two rivals that are out, osana and amai. if you decide to befriend osana and she comes to your house in the morning, there is the infamous talk where osana talks about her stalker and how she can't believe that someone could fall in love without knowing them. this, to ayano and the player itself, can be associated with ayano herself especially considering how she 'loves' taro without knowing him and has stalked him. now when ayano decides not to betray osana, giving her normal tea, it can be seen how desperate ayano is to keep taro without actually harming osana. osana may like taro, but ayano needs him. the desperation expressed through the befriend route shows the most human ayano ever. this desperation and longing for taro is carried through the same befriending route with amai (although her conversation involves jabs at having a "rival" and "eliminating" them).

the most human and realest part of ayano is when she befriends the rivals and begs them not to confess to taro. (if it isn't obvious I love the pacifist ending because I like the raw desperation and human form of ayano compared to the murderer route)

in contrast to pacifist ayano, when ayano murders the rivals, her sanity obviously decreases. unlike in game where you can giggle or go near taro to increase your sanity, it's not that easy irl.

keep in mind if ayano doesn't increase her sanity and it goes below 20% then ayano starts hallucinating and murdering those around her. even if ayano could realistically easily increase her sanity after killing a rival that is to show that ayano will only be a murderer (something the headmaster and megami saikou thinks her to be). if ayano were kill and regain her sanity quickly she is as broken as people think her to be. she is truly nothing but an empty husk who follows her mother. she may have emotions but she isn't someone you can love. she isn't someone who can be seen as a human. like ryoba, ayano would most likely follow the path that ryoba led where ayano simply kidnaps taro at the end torturing him and making him her husband. as said earlier, negative emotions are easier to form so it would be easy to give in to the pestering intrusive thoughts to kill her rivals. it's the quickest way out and it's the true emotionless thing most want her to be. being violent seems to be the easiest way out and most often people take that route, however, in the very end ayano simply follows her mother's path of decay and destruction. murderer ayano is easier to conform, though, is that the real ayano? is she someone who can't be proven not to be broken? another thing is that if ayano does go this route and she doesn't get caught, all she ends up doing is create a cycle. she continues down the path that ryoba had laid out for her since the beginning. (which honestly is the lousiest route and ending to take because people just loveee the trope of repeating the cycle)

personally I don't care much for the murderer ending but I will admit it is interesting to see how ayano spirals and ultimately decides to kill off every single one of her rivals.

the next two endings are going to be briefly the genocide ending and "snap" ending.

genocide ending is simply the ending where ayano is a murderer but instead of just applying that to just her rivals she does it to the entire school minus taro. it's the 'darkest' ending depending on how you look at it because it proves that ayano couldn't stand anyone else coming between her and taro. she needed taro all to herself and she did just that by killing every single person in the school all in the first day of the week (minus the headmaster, taro, infochan and the guidance counsellor). in this ending you can tell that ayano's sanity is completely gone by the way she says "so..i killed them all" in the cutscene that plays. ayano says it in such a manic and inhuman way its obvious that she doesn't regret it now that she can have taro all for herself. at the very end of the cutscene it pans to taro being in the basement tied up. this is where its clear that ayano follows ryoba completely (if not surpassing her in terms of violent nature and sense due to how she killed every one instead of just her rivals) to keep taro as her senpai.

and finally, snap ending. Snap ending is by far the most interesting one in terms of endings. Before ayano kills taro with the knife, when she walks to every student she kills them with her bare hands. in this ending I believe that she's more "broken" than her other endings. she's given up on this world and she's willing to take out others who get in her way (literally). the others are so terrified to the point where they can't even move, they just watch until it's their turn. ayano feels nothing but heartbreak and there's no other option but to kill taro then herself. even before she kills herself with the same knife she used to stab him, the insistence of voices saying "do it" continue to loop giving her no other option but to join taro. this ending is so interesting because it shows how ayano physically cannot live without taro and how she's willing to make sure that nobody else has him. another thing interesting about it is the trope of "if you die, I die". this trope is placed into things like Romeo and Juliet where Juliet pretends to die and Romeo kills himself to "join" her. when Juliet wakes up and finds Romeo dead she soon follows killing herself actually to join him.

anyway I think I'll stop for now cause I've been at this for hours LOL

The End (for now..)

idk I like yan sim a lot and I love ayano's character (I doubt yandere dev was smart enough to do it on purpose but whatever.) Ayano is literally my girl and I love her so much ❤️❤️ ayano is just a girl

[lady-shadow-and-darkness]

The constant need to compete with others is exhausting. I get a beautiful fic idea, I desperately want to write it, but I stop myself. "You already haven't finished 4 of your projects, why bother with another one before you finish them?", I look at others and see that they have several fics and a regular update schedule. "They must be bad writers, then." And some of them are, but some of them aren't. I don't know why I feel this way, the need to scrutinize their works and determine their value to reassure myself that I'm fine and just average and not a horrible mockery of a writer.

I look at my grades and hear the surprised "congratulations!" From my dad, and when I asked why it was surprised, he told me he expected an 80%, and 91 was more than good for my circumstances. I've never gotten anything less than it. I scoffed, saying there are several others who managed to score more, much more, and this was a worthless pathetic attempt. I don't bring myself to bother anymore, I can't, but the words are automatic, hard wired.

I see something I want to draw, then stop myself, because why bother trying? There are people already much better than me and they'll continue to be there while I scrape away at the floors of achievement in a craft. I can't even stay up once I get home from school, let alone do anything worthwhile. "I'm sick." I use as an excuse, but am I really? Because there are people who are better than me at that too, and yet somehow still I fail.

And somehow, the cherry on top always seems to be when people around me mention their mental disorder or disability. For some reason, I only manage to surround myself with those types, and while they are lovely, far lovelier than the masked devils who claim to be normal, each time they mention it I'm left at a loss for words, because I don't have that excuse. We were talking about the same struggle, and they have a reason, I don't. I'm just being stupid.

"teenage hormones", on a purely logical basis, yes. But the cause being teenage hormonal fluctuations doesn't make it any less real. I'd say, "I want to kill myself.", but if course, again, there will be someone better at it than me. I got fucking lectured by someone on a suicidal character's personality because they had firsthand experience, and therefore their claim must be true. I don't have the energy or the time to argue with idiots, but the problem is, these days, I don't have the time or energy to argue at all. My parents seem to disagree, seemingly never running out of topics to argue over while I turn my volume to the highest and pray that it'll block it out, block out all out, and for once I'll have a good year at school instead of one that ended in heartbreak of some kind.

And of course, in the end, no one takes me seriously because I'm younger than them. Because of the aforementioned teenage hormones? Perhaps. Maybe it's the condescension. Or maybe it's the notion that they struggle more than me. It's probably true, anyway.

But if the world will never accept the struggles and difficulties of its children, then it has no right to question why they grow up to be stone cold adults.

[thebumblebeesystem]

(Spoilers for the Endwalker magical ranged role quest)

So, I'm finally working on the Endwalker mage quests. And I did not expect to have a "wow, this reads different as a DID (dissociative identity disorder) system" moment during them. I figured I'd post about it because I know a lot of systems don't talk about their experiences with playing ffxiv, for good reason - we often get taunted, threatened, etc. quite a bit when we go public. That hasn't happened to me yet, thankfully - the ffxiv community has been kind to me about it. And every time I post, I get comments from systems who are glad I spoke up. So I'll keep doing it.

Anyway, the moment was this one - when Vaindreau was trying to answer the seemingly simple question of what his name was.

Long before I knew I was a system, I had multiple name changes as an adult. Every time I'd go through something big or traumatic, I'd feel like I changed so much that I became a different person, and my old name didn't feel like it fit anymore. This seemed completely normal to me, despite never having met anyone else who changed their name repeatedly like this. And now I know why I did it. These were host changes.

For the unfamiliar, when I say "host" I mean like dinner party host. The host is the system member (my system's word for "alter") who is around constantly and manages most things. Other system members come to and from the dinner party table (called "co-fronting" or "co-conscious," depending on what they do while at the table). But the host is always there.

When a new host in my system asks themself a seemingly simple question - what do I want people to call me? - there are many options. "So many names, swirling in my mind, and voices that reject them." It took us weeks to settle on our latest name of Bee, a few months ago. Different system members came to and from the table, giving their input. We took occasional polls of our system depending on who was around. It was a big group decision.

But that's how it went as a self-aware system. In the past, when we didn't know we were a system? When we didn't know that each individual voice in our head was a real person, with their own name and personality and likes and dislikes and all? We reacted exactly like Vaindreau did in this scene. What is my name? Why are so many names racing through my mind? Why can't I settle on one of them? Why can't I answer such a simple question?

And then the asker gets impatient - can you tell me your name or not? Either you remember your name or you don't. Everyone's got one, whether they got it at birth or they changed it later, so what's yours? I don't know. I don't know, because my mind can't agree on one. And so, to stop the odd stares and repeated questions, I'd spit out the first name that felt the most... passable. The one that the voices didn't object to, or perhaps, the one that the least amount of voices objected to. It didn't feel quite right. Quite accurate. Quite... complete. But an answer was expected of me, and so I gave one.

We've learned, over time. Our system is called "the bumblebee system," because each of us in the system is like a fluffy bumble bee flying from flower to flower... and occasionally slamming into a window, repeatedly, and being really confused about it. When someone calls us "Bee," they're referring to either all the bees in the system or to one or a few specific bees, depending on the context. Bee is a catch-all, inclusive name. Our past names (like B'Elarra, which was my name when most of you met me) were the name of the host only, while the other system members went largely unspoken to. Choosing the name of Bee this time was our way of correcting that.

Anyway. This isn't my first time having a "wow, this reads different as a DID system" moment while playing this game. Two others that come to mind are Fray and Ardbert - especially the way that fanfic writers often write them. So many of you have written amazingly good accidental system representation and didn't even know it. Maybe I'll talk about this sometime, too. But for now... I just wanted to get this out of my (ha) system.

(Pardon any typos, missing words, etc. I proofread this a few times, but I have a migraine and words are hard.)

[kaaaaaaarf]

Posting this behind a cut in case you don't feel like listening to me ramble about what it means to have bipolar ii and be a fic writer.

Being a fic writer with bipolar has turned out to be a weird experience. I certainly can't speak for every person with bipolar disorder, but this is what it's been like for me:

I can't write well unless I'm hypo-manic. When I'm having a "normal" day, my writing doesnt flow. I can't think of obvious words—but when I'm in it, I can pop out an entire chapter in a matter of days—and the fuck of it is, often it's even good.

But see, even though I intellectually know that this only happens when I'm manic, when I'm in it? Game off. I am flying high and often don't even realize it. It takes a certain amount of determination to stay in the "zone" for enough consecutive days to get something completed, and this only feeds the mania.

So, I will push through the week I'm feeling inspo, ignoring my responsibilities, forgetting to take care of myself and then—it's posted. The high of completing something usually lasts for half a day before I crash and fall straight into the depression pit.

It happens nearly every time I post a fic, and I'm so ill prepared anyways. I still can't go back and read hatefuck two because I wrote it in a manic frenzy, and then the next day, I experienced the worst dip of depression in a long, long while. There are a few reasons why I can't read it to be honest, but a lot of it is that I associate that fic with that dark day.

Everything is clearer the day after, when the mania subsides, and the shame you feel for being manic is nearly inescapable. I become convinced that whatever I wrote is terrible and that I should quit writing all together.

So, right now I feel like shit, and I'm mad at myself for being excited about something. I'm embarrassed that it means so much. I'm terrified because if I lost the ability to do this I would be lost.

Anyways, just going to continue to spiral, wish me luck.

[skyler10fic]

Public journaling because I need to get this out:

I'm having reflux/GERD induced by my anxiety disorder among other stress related things.

This anxiety is often triggered by spending time engaging with how awful the world is.

I do want to help raise awareness, make the world a better place, be a more informed voter, and do my duty to give everyone resources to do the same.

I cannot keep engaging with this reality at the current rate.

I struggle to set boundaries with my scrolling because it's my highest level/easiest accessible connection point with other people and something for my ADHD brain to focus on.

I cannot simply stay focused because of the ADHD. It is an inability.

At home, I do other things, like household tasks.

But I'm required to be in the office three days a week. Half days are an unofficial/coincidental accomodation.

When I'm at the office, I don't have little tasks to do. Everything is (honestly quite boring) deep thinking, high concentration work.

I cannot "just get a new, more interesting job" in a field that was always highly competitive and has been dying for 20 years. My job is very good for pay and benefits in comparison to others in my field.

So the key is I need a way to engage with people and work with my brain that isn't working against it: neither doomscrolling nor shaming myself into just staring at the screen and forcing myself to work at a slower pace so I don't have so much extra time. I can't just tell my brain not to be bored or not to need distractions.

If I get up from my desk at the office, I'm supposed to count it as break time. So I can't go on walks on the clock. If I take lots of breaks, that adds to the amount of time I'm physically at the office and cuts down on free time. (I do take 30 minute lunch and occasionally 15 minutes here and there.)

My group chats are great, but my friends have busy lives with lots of other things going on so it's not the frequency and volume of Twitter and Threads.

Almost all of my friends are far away, and the people physically close to me have resisted my efforts to increase emotional closeness and depth. They are all in for hanging out, but uncomfortable with emotions or vulnerability or friendship beyond "people I do preorganized activities with."

I can't eliminate the brain need through ADHD meds because of my liver problems (thanks for that, Strattera extremely rare side effects) and other medical risks the doc is not willing to take. Psych doc also says I need to show a positive result on the computerized ADHD $5k test my insurance doesn't pay for (created for hyperactive boys, not high achieving adult women who perform well on tests) to really consider my "attention issues" as for sure ADHD despite EVERY other medical professional verbally diagnosing me. I definitely have ADHD. This is not a question. But there doesn't seem to be a med solution anyway.

Possible solutions I'm working on:

1. More library books I can sneak glances at or listen to on my phone

2. Lists, curated social media experiences, joining more happy/low-stress groups

3. Boundaries, muting words, blocking abundantly

4. Under desk bike helps a lot when I'm not too tired

5. Standard GERD reduction tips and other physical health care

6. Mental health care

7. Listen to soothing ASMR at night

8. Physical self care (food, exercise, hydration, sleep, etc)

I think if I didn't have the ADHD creating a need that the doom sites solve (and by solve, I mean meet the immediate need by creating different problems), this would be easier. It isn't simple "addiction." It's higher up the logical food chain than that.

Today this came to a head with some emotional dysregulation: there is a big personal issue with someone I trusted potentially being a bad guy, and I can't talk about it with my local friends because they won't understand OR they are his coworkers, who can't discuss the situation with me for understandable HR reasons.

Add that stress on to the national / global doom written on the wall for political reality and history and life as we know it, and then there are Oppression Olympics competitors yelling at us that we're privileged , spoiled brats if we're upset because THEY have been marginalized worse than us and THEY aren't fazed or distressed because they are so morally superior to us BABIES who are apparently new here....

Blah blah blah

Anyway. I would very much like to get rid of this stress response in my digestive system so I can eat normal food.

[goorehound]

this is solely me rambling about social anxiety, adhd and König. nothing exciting sorry folks!

König’s social anxiety - my thoughts

okay so firstly my qualifications here; I am diagnosed with social anxiety, generalized anxiety and ADHD. (I didn’t end up getting into his adhd at all oops)

i just want to speak to like the experience of being a grown man with mainly social anxiety, because idk I see some posts that just feel upsetting to read? like people complaining about certain ways König is written?

like I do agree that he is not some blushing little uwu babygirl kitten (bc you know he is in fact an adult and in the fucking military), but I’ve never actually seen anyone write him as that. I think what gets me are the complaints about people actually writing him with traits of social anxiety, which he canonically has, and kind of treating it like writing him that way makes him seem weaker? Or less dominant? Or like uhh less of a man? There’s a chance I’m just taking this super personally for no reason but I’m gonna ramble about it anyway.

Just because someone has a stutter due to anxiety, or blushes due to anxiety, or gets embarrassed easily due to anxiety, that’s not a sign of weakness? Or of submissiveness?

Personally for me a huge thing with my social anxiety is getting embarrassed and feeling embarrassed. I will go to extreme lengths to avoid being embarrassed. I turn bright fucking red and I will stumble over my words and I will shut down if I feel like I’m embarrassing myself or have been humiliated by something. That’s not because I’m a soft uwu little subby bottom, that’s not because I’m a weak guy, my traits of anxiety are not anything to do with strength or dominance or that shit. It’s just because I have a fuckin disorder that has me react intensely to certain social situations. Does that make sense? I’m losing the plot a bit here. I know there’s a point I’m trying to make but I can’t seem to make it.

Treating social anxiety traits like a shameful thing to have, especially acting like it’s unattractive in a grown man or pathetic for a grown man to exhibit traits of their disorder is fucked up.

It’s hurtful. It sucks to read that. No, König is not going to show traits of his anxiety 100% of the time. Yes, people with social anxiety can be confident in some scenarios. But let’s just quickly remember this part of his cod wiki;

Severe social anxiety throughout his life. As in ongoing. Not just in childhood. He didn’t just “get over it” and suddenly become confident. Throughout his life he suffered from severe social anxiety. That means yes. He likely is pretty quiet. He likely does blush. He likely does get embarrassed easily. He likely does stumble over his words. There are things that he probably doesn’t do often (if at all) because of his anxiety. He probably still is anxious even around his partners. Hell dude sometimes I get so anxious around my boyfriend of about a year that I physically cannot speak.

Anyway idk. This shit just been rubbing me the wrong way lately and I wanted to give my two cents lol. This might not stay up long unless it hella resonates w people but yeah!!

TLDR;

Don’t be a dick. Don’t shame people with disorders for exhibiting symptoms. Even if you think those symptoms are unfitting for a 6’10” military man. It’s fucking rude.

If social anxiety symptoms are a turn off for you don’t simp after people who canonically suffer from severe social anxiety.

[stardust-sunset]

100% agree with your ED post, considering how he makes dramatic changes to himself whenever he feels there is something wrong with him, like World Wide Privacy Tour, where he tried to change himself from clothes to personality to make appear more laid back (or mentally stronger in his words) when he felt his friends didn’t like those aspects about him in the episode, so it would make sense if he felt there was something wrong with his weight, that he would do everything he felt would make it idle in his eyes (though unfortunately a lot with ed’s don’t ever see that :( )

Also when you said he would be scared of not maintaining his body even after he was more satisfied with it, I honestly felt that, as someone who was chubby as a kid and criticised for it, then lost a lot of weight as a teenager, I was also scared of gaining weight again so I would also skip meals if I felt I didn't eat right (along with other stuff).

(also, sorry for being so venty over here and dumping this information about myself on you, what you said was just really relatable to me)

Anyway, I love your takes and I hope you have a lovely day!

tw: eating disorder

hey. you’re okay. i hope you’re doing better now, first of all. second of all; i kinda based it off of my own experiences too where i was afraid of not being able to maintain a “perfect” body. to the point i resorted to some things too. so i did kinda base it off my own experiences and i also like to do my research before making such a bold(?) take because i like to make it as accurate as possible. but yeah. i have seen some fics where people portray kyle as someone who would be obsessed with his appearance and in some more desperate measures, he takes really bold action, in a way.

i do kinda think that it stemmed from his middle school days. i headcanon that kyle was really thin? like he just ended up being really tall and lanky with no visible muscle mass (not discrediting him because he was strong but looking at him you wouldn’t know it? so at first he wanted to gain weight so he didn’t look so thin. so in the beginning it was a lot of binging. and then when he finally stopped growing and he did gain weight he was thrilled. but then he never really saw himself as like ‘oh i’m heavier because of muscle because i exercise’ but more like ‘i’m fat now’ kind of way. i don’t think hanging out with cartman made it easier. i don’t think he would be chubby per se? but looking at pics of him in eighth grade cs pics of him in say the end of freshman year he was noticably kinda heavier? not chubby but not like a stick figure either. and sheila also was probably no help. she’s probably load him with the whole ‘oh kyle, you’ve finally got some meat on your bones!’ type comments and eventually he kinda just snapped.

he probably kept some sort of diary and tracked what he was eating. likely in his phone in a locked note so nobody could find it. he honestly probably ended up tracking his calories that he took in vs the calories he burned and he would probably be out late at night if he didn’t seem he had enough exercise. after a while he started skipping meals if he didn’t eat something he seemed healthy. he gets help in the end but he ends up staying like this throughout most of high school. up until graduation i’d argue. eating disorders are no joke; they can last a while. he started getting help in college. he never told his mom. he knew it would break her heart so he just never told her. i also don’t think him being arguably the person with the most presence on social media helps.

it’s another reason i like to headcanons him as a child psychologist in the future. he wants to prevent the things he went through. i know oftentimes stan is seen as the one with the most ‘angst potential’ but looking at kyle it’s pretty clear he has some potential too. it’s honestly probably something i’ll incorporate into future works, like comics and such.

thank you for the lovely wishes. ditto <3

[poindexters-labratory]

Uhhhm, vent, I guess? I'm just trying to put my feelings into words because it bridges that gap between my thoughts and verbalizing.

Um, there's a bit of a breakdown, and I start talking to myself. Also, talking about emotional trauma. I just kinda wanted to get out somewhere. Sorry to use a public platform, but I don't really have a safe person to rely on.

I'm a very slow thinker. I always have been. I'm not witty or able to absorb information very quickly. I can pretend like I do, and it seems like I do, but my mannerisms and patterns of speech are a result of me desperately trying to keep up. Trying to keep my head above water.

My processing speed has always made me vulnerable. I can't keep up fast enough in open conversation when it comes to groups of people. On top of that, I have mild deafness in an ear on top of autism and ADHD, which makes audio processing extremely difficult. Over time, I've learned to become agreeable, easy to manage, and quiet.

But that life gets lonely. Listening in on conversations you'd like to be a part of, being the last one included, the last one invited, the last one considered, the first one abandoned. I wouldn't say that the experience has made me bitter or cold, but I do have some level of expected disappointment. And I get stressed when there's no attention put on me.

I've always been the kid who has been overlooked in class or at home. My family hardly knows what I want for my birthday, I don't have close friends, even when I like to say that everyone I talk with is my friend, I don't have a best friend. Everyone deserves to have a best friend, right?

It sucks to feel like I should apologize for being sensitive, for being quiet, for being naive, but I am. I feel like I'm no fun as a person. I'm literal, and we're living in an age where all our insecurities are hidden behind a layer of sarcasm and jokes that I just can't seem to wrap my head around. I'm easily scared by the jokes people say.

Not to mention traumatized from a life in an emotionally unstable environment. Terrified that if I made the tiniest mistake, the people around me would blow up in my face.

I weep for the child who learned how to open his school binder silently in class or hide in his room to avoid the potential of screaming downstairs.

The child who hid his entire personality for years to avoid conflict.

The child whose lost friend after friend, in every single location he's been to and left.

And I'm enraged. I had no other choice. And I'm scared. All my life, I've taught myself that if I just shut up, then no one will ever hurt me. If I just shut up, then I'll be safe from everyone.

"I'm too stupid for conversation anyway, I'm too slow to be a part of a group, to have a seat at the table, and I will finally be safe because the only things anyone has ever been interested in are shoving things that in the way and stepping on things that are too small."

That is a horrible thing for a child to convince himself of.

All of this is probably why I have NPD (narcissistic personality disorder). I convince myself on especially bad days that I'm obviously just better even though I consciously know it not to be true, and everyone is jealous, and that's why no one is talking to you. I have this deep desire to be admired in impossible ways, and I struggle immensely when I have absolutely no attention.

I need people to love me. I shouldn't give a reason because if I was loved and given attention properly, then we would be here.

"Am I really that awful? I can't possibly be. I'm positively normal and well-mannered and polite. I'm almost too nice. Sickeningly sweet. If people see how good I can be, then there's no reason why they wouldn't want to be my friend, right?

But I don't want to be too overbearing. I don't want to be too chatty. People hate people who talk too much. Especially when they talk about the same thing for hours. Especially when they can't take the joke. Don't be so serious, don't be so concerned, just fade into the background, and be as unremarkable as possible.

But I'd like to be noticed. I want that attention. I want the attention for saying something, doing something. Make the conversation about me, talk to me. Please talk to me, don't you see me? Don't you know how cool and remarkable I am, I can do all these amazing things, and I know all this information. Won't you like me?"

I also expect people to read my mind because that's what I do for them. I wait and pray that someone will notice the person sitting in the corner by himself. It hasn't quite worked yet.

So, now I imagine myself sitting in a field surrounded by people rushing around me. And I'm waiting. I've been sitting in this field for a while, envious of the people who walk by with someone in tow. I would like to be someone's someone.

It would be a lie if I said I didn't think about it often. I'm not interested in romance, I just want someone to be silly with, who I'm safe with, who likes to fool around sometimes, who's just there with me. Hell, it doesn't have to be one person. I just love people. An extrovert who's all alone is so depressingly ironic.

I don't have the answers or the steps to find the answer, but I know that it will unfortunately take time. Life will continue, and I will continue it by myself until I fortunately don't have to anymore. Until I won't be alone anymore. I feel like it will take as much time as it needs to.