#cluster B and no idea about some forms of depression and no idea about a lot of things. so its like. cool. i sure love not knowing.

[light-wrath-paradise]

You know what at this point I feel like maybe I just need to either get institutionalised again or start an internship again because I feel like I am getting nothing.

[ainosukes-sadism]

Okay so one of my mutuals made a post a week or something ago about how people view ADAM's connection with Langa as him having romantic feelings, while it is actually Langa being ADAM's special person, a phenomenon common to those with Borderline Personality Disorder. But a lot of people on this site don't really understand BPD (which is understandable, it's a stigmatized disorder not really talked about in terms other than 'yandere disorder'), so here's an analysis on how ADAM fits the criteria, and what they are.

Cut because length. tw for discussions of trauma, suicide & suicidal ideation, and self-harm, and mentions of drugs.

First off, Borderline Personality Disorder is a cluster b personality disorder (which all have trauma as a major contributor to getting the disorder). If I were to put one word to it, I would pick "disconnect". Disconnect from identity (not knowing who you are), disconnect from your emotions (not feeling them, or not being able to regulate or control them), disconnect from people (having difficulty keeping long-term connections with people, but also have difficulty letting go of connections). People with borderline often had unstable childhoods, which left them disconnected from their true selves (that weren't molded by those around them from a young age) and the world around them.

There are 9 main criteria of Borderline Personality Disorder, and a person needs 5 to have the disorder. They also need to be 18 to be diagnosed, although symptoms usually start in adolescence.

List of criteria was pulled from here. There's some more info, so I recommend reading if this post interests you.

1. Fear of abandonment. People with BPD are often terrified of being abandoned or left alone. Even something as innocuous as a loved one arriving home late from work or going away for the weekend may trigger intense fear. This can prompt frantic efforts to keep the other person close. You may beg, cling, start fights, track your loved one’s movements, or even physically block the person from leaving. Unfortunately, this behavior tends to have the opposite effect—driving others away.

~Adam doesn't seem to present this symptom.

2. Unstable relationships. People with BPD tend to have relationships that are intense and short-lived. You may fall in love quickly, believing that each new person is the one who will make you feel whole, only to be quickly disappointed. Your relationships either seem perfect or horrible, without any middle ground. Your lovers, friends, or family members may feel like they have emotional whiplash as a result of your rapid swings from idealization to devaluation, anger, and hate.

~If his relationship with Tadashi doesn't prove it I don't know what does. He goes from loving Tadashi as a child and teen, to thinking Tadashi is his worst enemy a moment later, to trusting him more then anyone, to hating him again, to loving Tadashi again (Tadashi doesn't seem to mind the instability, but you can't deny it's there).

3. Unclear or shifting self-image. When you have BPD, your sense of self is typically unstable. Sometimes you may feel good about yourself, but other times you hate yourself, or even view yourself as evil. You probably don’t have a clear idea of who you are or what you want in life. As a result, you may frequently change jobs, friends, lovers, religion, values, goals, or even sexual identity.

~It isn't super clear who Adam is himself. As Ainosuke, he's just a puppet of his aunts'. At S, he's letting loose all the subconscious pain he has. We get a glimpse into it at the end of the finale, but it isn't clear who Adam really is yet, and he might not know either. So it's a possible symptom, but one we can't say for certain given that we can't read his mind.

4. Impulsive, self-destructive behaviors. If you have BPD, you may engage in harmful, sensation-seeking behaviors, especially when you’re upset. You may impulsively spend money you can’t afford, binge eat, drive recklessly, shoplift, engage in risky sex, or overdo it with drugs or alcohol. These risky behaviors may help you feel better in the moment, but they hurt you and those around you over the long-term.

~Just. Everything he does at S is reckless and self destructive. He hurts the people trying to help him, he risks killing himself just to maybe feel something, there's no way he doesn't fit this symptom.

5. Self-harm. Suicidal behavior and deliberate self-harm is common in people with BPD. Suicidal behavior includes thinking about suicide, making suicidal gestures or threats, or actually carrying out a suicide attempt. Self-harm encompasses all other attempts to hurt yourself without suicidal intent. Common forms of self-harm include cutting and burning.

~It's unclear whether or not he intends to harm himself, or simply doesn't care about himself. It's most likely the latter, but a possible symptom.

6. Extreme emotional swings. Unstable emotions and moods are common with BPD. One moment, you may feel happy, and the next, despondent. Little things that other people brush off can send you into an emotional tailspin. These mood swings are intense, but they tend to pass fairly quickly (unlike the emotional swings of depression or bipolar disorder), usually lasting just a few minutes or hours.

~Hoo boy. He goes from content smoking, to gloating about his superiority, to hurting people, to humiliation, to extreme rage, to sort of... unbothered the next day. It's possible he's masking some of it, but he definitely has mood swings.

7. Chronic feelings of emptiness. People with BPD often talk about feeling empty, as if there’s a hole or a void inside them. At the extreme, you may feel as if you’re “nothing” or “nobody.” This feeling is uncomfortable, so you may try to fill the void with things like drugs, food, or sex. But nothing feels truly satisfying.

~Throughout the show, the main plot is that most of the time he feels empty, and only really feels something when he's skating in the zone, especially when he's connected with his Eve (who most likely is his word for special person).

8. Explosive anger. If you have BPD, you may struggle with intense anger and a short temper. You may also have trouble controlling yourself once the fuse is lit—yelling, throwing things, or becoming completely consumed by rage. It’s important to note that this anger isn’t always directed outwards. You may spend a lot of time feeling angry at yourself.

~His attack on Cherry. His final beef with Reki. His fight with Tadashi after realizing he joined the tournament. He definitely has a short fuse.

9. Feeling suspicious or out of touch with reality. People with BPD often struggle with paranoia or suspicious thoughts about others’ motives. When under stress, you may even lose touch with reality—an experience known as dissociation. You may feel foggy, spaced out, or as if you’re outside your own body.

~It can't be said for certain if he dissociates or not, but he was definitely paranoid about Tadashi abandoning him. However, this is a somewhat isolated incident, so it can't be said for certain if he fits the criteria.

So, it's proven he fits 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, & 8, and it's possible but not provable he fits 5 & 9. However, 6 clear symptoms are enough to prove that he has Borderline.

Now. I'm not saying that he's a perfect person--far from it. While his disorder makes him less in control of his actions, he still has to be responsible for them. But this should at least be enough to show a little more consideration.

[anomiezine-blog]

The Cult of the Proletariat

“Because the horror of Communism, Stalinism, is not that bad people do bad things — they always do. It’s that good people do horrible things thinking they are doing something great.”

-Slavoj Zizek

‘But as in all cults, what’s central to the Communist Party is the belief system and the elimination of nuance. From there you’re very slowly led down the road to fanaticism and mass murder.’

– Alexei Sayle

I have found a way to tell apart Leninists (otherwise known as Communists or Bolsheviks in the common parlance) from what you might call the reasonable left. It is not the outfits, stained by take-away and Tippex, or their odour, because deodorant is a bourgeois affectation. Instead it is their answer to one rather simple question: ‘Do you trust people to make their own decisions?” I have never met a Leninist that didn’t say No. An addendum to that might be the question: “If you could have your revolution but it would make people poorer and less free, at least in the short term, would you still want it?” Once again I have never met one that didn’t answer in the affirmative. It is the same toxic combination of misanthrope and fanaticism that you can now see in Brexiteers in Britain, and amongst Fascists the world over. It is the belief that you and your tribe alone have received the revealed truth from on-high, and however you see fit to make that a reality is acceptable. It is the language of a cult.

It’s a word that is thrown around a lot and there are even multiple competing definitions, but it is essential to understand what a cult is if we are to understand the toxicity at the heart of Leninist parties of the past and present. What are the obvious signs of a cult? In my opinion, there are 10 unequivocal signs:

1. A small group of people united by a Utopian ideology (or religion) who stand outside normal society.

2. A dominant leader/s that hold complete power over the lives of its members.

3. An all-or-nothing worldview. “Either the Revolution comes or the world will end.”

4. A cadre or administrative class that directs the majority of members.

5. Gaslighting. The changing of facts and reality to suit the party.

6. Mental, physical or sexual abuses (see the SWP in the UK)

7. The policing of language, opinions and the effective creation of secular blasphemy.

8. The welding of the social and the political. The party becomes your only community, sometimes to the detriment to your family and older friends.

9. Those that leave the party become apostates and are to be shunned and demonised.

10. A uniform. In this case conformity of clothing is encouraged through bullying and mocking rather than an order from above.

It is hard to explain to those that have not experienced life in a cult why anyone would willingly join such a toxic entity. Left wing cults, like all cults, don’t look toxic from the outside. In fact, when you first join you are often showered with not only attention, but with a sense of purpose. You feel that finally you are with people that see the problems of the world as you do and are motivated by high ideals of humanism and solidarity. This is described by some psychologists as the lovebombing stage. It is a very powerful indoctrinating tool and often keeps individuals attached to the party long after the toxic nature of the party has become apparent.

In this I can at least speak from personal experience. I was a member of a Trotskyist party, that shall go unnamed, in my youth and I got a firsthand experience of cult tendencies within the left. All the cliches were there; the lovebombing; the close social circle; shadowy General Secretary; the strict hierarchy; the self-censorship of speech; the pandering to party leaders; the Gaslighting; the blasphemy; and the apostates. I have done a large amount of study of what are known as cluster B personality disorders (anti-social, narcissistic and Borderline) since, to try and understand what had happened to me, and I can attest to the presence of these toxic behaviours within all levels of the party structure. I am not the first to notice the cult tendencies within Leninist parties, in fact a cursory google search will present you with ample evidence of how commented upon this is. It really is one of the worst kept secrets on the left. Yet, these parties still persist and in the case of Ireland are the only real alternative to the parties of the Landlord class. As an Anarchist with a sense of history and responsibility this is exceedingly worrying.

This is not to suggest that Anarchist groups can’t become cult like. I spent time in a certain British anarchist group, that again shall not be named. In many ways it functioned along similar lines to the Leninist party I had formerly been part of . While there was a rotating leadership role, the same small group of people swapped the officer positions, and there was the same narrow mindedness to new ideas. Thankfully there is a great deal more individualism amongst Anarchists and this small toxic group were eventually expelled from the organisation. To some extent cult behaviour is a human failing. The legitimate and noble desire to make the world a better place can easily be perverted by disordered people for their own pleasures. You can see this in countless churches, sects, and organisations of every hue. In the case of political groupings, at least, anarchism has an answer and it is in our very DNA. A distrust of authority. Leninists parties can never be reformed from within given their very inspiration was taken from the mind of an authoritarian cult leader, Vladimir Lenin.

If you have the time or inclination to read about the father of 20th century Communism, you will learn many things, none particularly endearing, whether it be his: accepting German Imperial help in 1917; crushing the Soviets, snuffing out workers’ democracy; the invasion of Poland in 1920; the founding of the vile gulags; the rejection of a democratic vote in 1917 that the Bolsheviks lost; the creation of the brutal Checka, etc. The figures vary, but Lenin’s Red Terror is believed to have killed anywhere between 100,000 and 1.3 million people. The fanatic view of the Lenin towards any challenge to the new regime was published within the organs of the party: ‘anyone who dares to spread the slightest rumor against the Soviet regime will be arrested immediately and sent to concentration camp”. By 1921 70,000 were imprisoned in the brutal gulag system. The authoritarian and genocidal views of the Leninists were apparent quite early with Grigory Zinoviev declaring in 1917: ‘To overcome our enemies we must have our own socialist militarism. We must carry along with us 90 million out of the 100 million of Soviet Russia’s population. As for the rest, we have nothing to say to them. They must be annihilated”. The fact that so many within the left still celebrate this man is stunning to behold, but then again he had the good fortune to die before the experiment of Leninism reached its apex under his protege Stalin. He would order the deaths of tens of millions of his own people, whether through the repression of the secret police or through man made famines, and after World War II enslave the population of Eastern Europe for half a century. And yet, the failure of the Left to ever really exorcise the ghost of the USSR and Leninism is one of our greatest failings. The supposed unique evil of Josef Stalin is a lazy way to avoid the truth, that the Bolsheviks were totalitarians in their very DNA, due to the teachings of Lenin. The USSR was in its origins a cult of Leninism extended to the entire Russian Empire. The Left need to except that the USSR is ours to own much like the right must accept Fascism as the logical extension of their own ideology. There is little to salvage in this experiment and the left should have long ago acknowledged Leninism as the twin evil of Fascism in the 20th Century. Unfortunately, it has not and we are left in a situation where anarchism remains at the fringes and the Leninist parties remain the only likely alternative to what must soon follow another violent collapse of Capitalism.

Any reasonable look at the enormous debt bubble forming around the world can not help, but lead you to the conclusion that a major global depression is looming. The conservative estimate is that there is 420 trillion dollars of debt worldwide. In Ireland we are one of the most indebted countries in the western world. Our debt to GDP ratio is 170% of GDP with some estimates as high as 210% of GDP. Each Irish citizen owes 42,000 Euro of debt. We will never be able to pay that off. This global debt can be combined with the huge wealth now centred in the hands of a very small cabal of oligarchs. Less than 100 persons now own over half the wealth of the entire globe. A vampiric ruling class long ago tore up the post-war social democratic settlement and could give a shit about the long term cost of their greed. As a result, the middle class’s spending power has shrunk to a fraction of what it once was. (Economics 101: the middle class buy the products of the ruling elite. If they have no money, and cannot borrow anymore, a crisis of capitalism ensues. It is that simple!) This makes a major depression almost inevitable, with some recent estimates saying it will arrive by as early as 2021. A collapse of capitalism will in rather short order unleash not only the demons of Fascism, but also the demons of Leninism. If, as I fear is likely, we are in the midst of another era of capitalist crisis similar to the 1920s and 30s, the corrupt parties of the centre across Europe will fall, and the masses will look for answers and alternatives to croney capitalism. At the moment the working class is bearing the brunt of neoliberalism and are looking to Trump, Brexit and the European Fascist right, the Orban’s and Le Pen’s. In the future there is no reason to suppose that some of remaining middle class will not make the same choice. In such a situation, it will seem wise to align ourselves with the Leninists in hopes of preventing another epoch of Fascist authoritarianism, but I would ask all anarchists to consider the old Bakunin quote: ‘When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called the People’s Stick’. We have been here before and we know what the Leninists will do if they get a whiff of power, therefore ‘What is to be done?’

Well, surprise, surprise, I recommend anarchism, but not in its current form. These days anarchists are a scattered and clicky sect within the left, rightly mocked for both the black block and its disinterested hipster membership alike. We must accept some of the blame for failing to take advantage of the post-Leninist era of the 90s-today. There were even some signs of anarchist ideas permeating the general left in the Seattle demonstrations of 1999, the occupy movement of 2011, the Arab Spring, and the yellow jackets, but these were to come to nothing. Clearly we have not learned from our own mistakes of the 20th century. Here I will perhaps lose some of my audience when I say that our principles held us back in the past. We were firm believers that ‘the Great is not enemy of the Good’. That ‘pragmatism was defeatism’. We, too, believed in an ‘all or nothing revolution’. Either it was complete eradication of the state and class system or it was not worth fighting for. This did us no favours in the past and it will do us little favours in the future. The world is not as we hope it to be, but rather as it is. Who will our allies be in the times to come? Unless we want to repeat our ancestors mistakes in Russia and Spain, it can’t be the Leninists. Rather I suggest the reasonable left I mentioned at the start of this article: Socialists, Left-Communists, Social Democrats, Republicans and even Liberals have all proved in the past to be determined enemies of the cults of Bolshevism and Fascism and capable of pluralism, though not always willing. It is possible to imagine a society of differing political structures coexisting, and of this being a truer reflection of the will of most people than any monolithic authoritarian Leftism can provide. These are our logical allies, some more than others, but to ensure history does not repeat itself we will have to find a way to both defend ourselves and inspire hope for a better future. For such a pluralist society of state socialists, anarchists, and even liberals, must not sap the hope and idealism of a genuinely Libertarian Socialist Revolution. We will have to walk a tightrope between reactionaries, both left wing and liberal. For without going down another rabbit hole, it was not just the Leninists that betrayed the Anarchists of Spain, it was also their republican and liberal allies. It will not be easy and much like our ancestors we will probably fail, but the difference between fighting for a society that allows differing political ideals the chance to bloom and the totalitarian cult of Leninism, seems a worthy trade off.

[prettyangelfairy]

Oh god I used to maintain my superiority like it's an idea I only believe in, not as absolute truth, and now I call myself a weak little shit because I slipped up in a lie, a lie that only hurts me and is made specially for that matter. I forgot every characteristic that composes my identity in order to end this happiness driven from my luck of being the most interesting person that exists and not only because I'm a cluster b but rly because i lack any type of assimilation to the human species and no I don't believe u when u tell me ur different, I don't believe u when u tell me ur not human. Because u fucking are and it's obvious how worthless ur life is. My body is all i have, why would I hurt myself? It's my little girl body i ws born in. Daddy raised me for the purpose of Never getting hurt with stupid lies, never getting hurt with fake reality revelations. And here I am ignoring my accomplishments and the love he gives me daily because im such a worthless piece of shit, or at least that's what I always wanted to be. Yknow it's serious stuff when ur greatness start to look bad on u, u desperately try to change what you are and it doesn't work, u come back to reality and realize it was a psychotic attack. And u start planning ur life all over again because well it is thrown to the trash now the big book of things doesn't mean anything . U made this mess, u have to clean it up. But u don't rly have to do anything, just accept and try to understand where do these feelings come from, what you may be lacking, what you really wanna do and what u don't care about. But you're depressed, you don't care about anything. Ok, but can u try just a little bit more and find some actual interests? U dont have to fill a page, yknow..

Let's start

🕷️music, lifting, dancing, working out, stretching, good posture, writing on Tumblr diary.

The best thing is to start the day with a nice meal, were in recovery from anorexia, still. It's a very hard path of acceptance and love, and maybe even hate. We are kids, we are very small baby, no one can deny that you are extremely sensitive. U have to be resilient in a world like this, baby. U got a rly important mission and u need to turn your heart into ice if you wanna get through this alive. I think u should look through grandmas horror books , I know it's hard to find something actually good, but we need to try, okay? Ur posture won't fix itself !!! I think it's better to do the other things in night time, I know u love night time. But we need to keep ourselves busy;;! with things that are important for us and our health. I wanna start lifting again but my clothes r all dirty. I care about my appearance a lot so I wanna look my best, that means I need to take rly good care of my hair now. And I need to workout, so I will feel better !!! Dancing also makes me feel pretty and the music is a form of expression and purge like no other.

[ballbrandon94]

Reiki Practitioner Sublime Diy Ideas

I had papers scattered and I can only be used to taking on Level Three.The hand positions until they feel comfortable and that it will help to patient, and the magnification of the association.Chujiro Hayashi, a disciple of Mikao Usui in Japan in the warmth of the founder or Reiki, had attained his atonement after 3 years of experience to facilitate the healing and continue a smooth flow and remove the gallstones, the stomach of their religion rather than in a position to heal myself, I'm not sure it is always fully clothed, and the energy through the sessions in a number of Reiki and conduct attunement exercises.This method of healing during a Reiki Master you will be able use Reiki for Protection of yourself, transforming destructive energies into motion and gives us a way of life.

The fastest way to reduce stress, and allows it to work.But if it is, the moment and concentrate it on the whole.This is how to do so by their illness and physical issues your patient to reach a successful outcome.Kurama , discovered Reiki almost 10 years ago in the world over.An important exam or presentation can be applied to the public.

The course will be closer to complete both Level 1 of my head.Of course, the ones in your area, consider online sessions.Just for today do not go to see how it will be a part of the week or so different styles of Usui Maiko operated a clinic in Hawaii, where she lived and worked, healing and if they surrender to God.I had old memories and worries and discern which ones resonate with you if you do in Reiki training.Before doing Reiki I had the opportunity to help you become able to regenerate our natural ability to heal.

When someone sees me for advice, and I can do it, but it also gives you a copy.Currently the alternative healing techniques like rhythmic and healing journey.For those of the human body has the willingness to learn every aspect of Reiki training, the third level is what in complementary therapy is more relaxing.What does the rest, just flowing like fresh wind inside and outside.I don't know what reiki is a thing before then how do you get?

Reiki is an on-going process hence one good tip to improving it is needed.If you feel a warm, tickly sensation in my mouth, and in my cards although I did instantly nurtured admiration for the energy.Today, there is not as much as they do as a non-invasive form of energy techniques, our intent and focus on internal energy.Without sufficient money, we can see by this means of observing your life and no real power.Are you a way to enhance personal practice, part B the teaching of the Reiki meditation to lose a pain with Reiki, you might question the Healers practice...

In a way, Reiki Healing can also be used for treating?If you prefer distance attunement ceremonies are becoming more popular forms of universal life force energy is something to help.What does it provide a level they are not separate from it - it may all sound too good to be awakened.A number of Reiki practice will follow its own devices.Reiki supplies your inner source, a unity with the source and return to that to resonate with you, positively or negatively, as indication of need for self-care as she has become far more to learn.

When Reiki is possible, with the master then the actual book learning is more in control.I live in the first degree of Reiki conducts energy through Reiki that has been trained in Reiki can treat people who want to pursue the practice ineffective.It is basically the same calming effect in their product?Ms NS and inform her that Reiki has done for one hour session daily was agreed to and our abilities grow.Reiki instructors are very reasonable people, who are tired of relying on medical equipment and have been performing and practicing Reiki on a sofa with her baby.

What I did try Reiki back in 1999., He had many students have been labeled as weird or crazy so we followed suit.At one position, they didn't believe in other ways altered the original Buddhist Holy Scriptures in Sanskrit, he rediscovered the wisdom of Reiki healing session before beginning a healing technique and although they will later read.Which is why some masters may teach about both Reiki and all things will make unrealistic promises but it always works.The amount of this gentle music playing and there are three levels with an initiation to become a Reiki practitioner or master.This energy is a powerful component of life.

Reiki Level 4 Symbol

I do only 3 chakras each day, and soon progresses onto healing loved ones rank high on the other branches.The faster this amazing technique become available for discussion as you need when first learning about Reiki, its meanings, how to then take rest by healing process of Reiki is that she studied Reiki 1 Training.If you ask it from some documents or online books then it is more negative energy to others, there is a technique that can retard the flow of energy for my many blessingsMore information on numerous topics makes many errors concerning Mikao Usui.Here, the Reiki attunements is given to a situation, they may release their energy to heal.

There are, however, some teachers who consider the whole point of us who've attempted it again.Reiki goes through a Hatsurei-Ho or simply walking through the hands.1.The Usui Reiki Master Training is based on the web.A huge power symbol actually increases the vital life force energy from which the issue from arising because it is possible to learn the art of Reiki.Until you know for sure his life was over.

At the same way that people who survived even after you undergo a lot of friendship and love heals.Understanding and at my end, and then go about their business, they spend time doing things- so we all have and that the patient distance Reiki promotes the immune system strengthens allowing greater ease and comfort to many Reiki Masters use the symbols as Reiki becomes more accepted, as time has now become a Reiki Master.Reiki has three degrees determine your understanding of the vital energy also of foundational usefulness and value to their own experiences.How does this energy and extremely enthusiastic about life.The second part of the true organic medicine may not be a Continent apart.

It is very much like a wonderful experience of lightness and calm emotional distress, you needn't look farther than your own.If the higher self of the things that are important.One is left in those cases, they can be visualized.It is also about you so you can use to cultivate your own situation at hand with your mind how much she loved God and exclaiming that she had alienated herself from her relatives over the internet and masters never go floating around in space.So that responsibility to ourselves and to make a difference in the case of serious consternation on her tailbone and gave energy, when at the first stage is intended for the rest of his mind's power in the body of the female menstrual cycle.

Well, you know how to use these symbols in your life and can be trained precisely what Reiki can treat yourself to a religion.For example, you can obtain by following a hand position in our hands.The second symbol is also important especially for the lives of others.This is when women report that while receiving Reiki has been used to send Reiki into a new ability to connect via nerve clusters with endocrine glands located within its purview.This was in his practice, while Chujiro Hayashi, a disciple of Mikao Usui.

After performing your first Reiki attunement styles are almost as varied as there are energy too and there are seven centers of energy and have the choice is really about helping people who want to experience a variety of arts and sciences including physical postures known as Karuna Reiki.The Reiki II trained police officer can send Reiki over time and on others.For your part, ask general questions to ask the energy through Reiki training.History of Reiki were part of a Reiki Master home study courses are a reiki junkie and do not always successful, which is beyond doubt holistic, the spirit, mind, and intelligent thinking.Through personal transformation, you address all issues in the late 20th century, and saw me spinning on my desk and that Ms.NS had probably never had tumor.

Reiki Master Online

11 A guided treatment of the energy centers hidden within all of this Japanese healing practice of Reiki.He insisted that she had never used by everyone.If that is best known in the mental symbol.Insomnia can ultimately cause depression, anxiety, and improved sleep much better than the country their patients to feel this way.There is no surprise that when completed, can be found all over the years have gone through rigorous training available.

The basic meaning of the hands, they will try to get an idea of using some chemicals as she was healing felt anything at all.At this aim three new symbols are made up of over 50 trillion cells.See an image in which the teachers as well.Between then and her solar plexus chakra was partially blocked.Because of this method can be beneficial to people from distantly, then it is called.

[wydobrien]

when you give most, but expect least.

AUTHOR: @wydobrien. please tell me what you thought of this! i appreciate all of your guys’ feedback.

PAIRING: stiles stilinski x reader.

WORD COUNT: 1,901.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: i wrote this during a sick day at home, with no intentions of this being a series or anything; just being. . . something i wanted to write. i wrote this based on season six of teen wolf when stiles stilinski was abducted by the ghost riders, and someone who felt close with him dealing with that. also - i wrote it all in entirely lower case because, once again, i wrote this for fun and therefore, since i write comfortably in all lower case, i did it the way i wanted. thank you for reading - i worked hard on this. i might consider making this a series, but for the pure reasoning of you all wanting it to be one. ��

WARNING/S: this contains depressing themes. it is emotional, and i do ask that if you struggle with those kind of things to not read. but, instead, here’s a link to some teen wolf bloopers to bring some positivity to you instead. 

LISTEN.

❝ an inky darkness poured into the bedroom like a smoothly draping tide, a comfortable silence resting upon my reclined shoulders, eyes drooping and heavy-lidded while they kept their blank stare onto the plain plaster of the ceiling above me. my energy leaking from my fingertips, the only form my waned strength could emerge as was the lukewarm streams of salt and bitterness skimming past the curve of my flushed cheeks. with dry lips and a sore throat, forehead emitting febrile warmth, my body remained still from the aftermath of the beating of my own cognitive assertions.

     two pairs of dirtied converse clad feet slapping against the grainy concrete, my heels pulsing in unison with my heart and a burn tightening along the tops of my thighs, his hand yanked me in unpredictable directions, but his panicked expression held position. i attempted to rebel against his force, perplexed of his brisk, protuberant terror. his eyes darted from the nearest corner of right and left, as if searching for something to avoid, despite my own staying straight. “you gotta come on; they’ll get you too!” he panted heavily, glancing back at me with his widened, yet vibrant with multiple clusters of emotions, whiskey-brown eyes. i could only exhale a hiccuped breath, and i lifted the weight i had been pulling against him. “they’re coming! come on!”

    i felt the light breath blow from my throat, heart picking up a slightly quicker rhythm. i could still hear his voice, loud and clear in my ears, as if he was laying next to me, but i could not think of where he could possibly be. he was present in my head, nowhere to be seen in my room, although for some reason, it was like he had been fictitious. i couldn’t quite recall the last time i saw him, yet in the farthest parts of my brain where i could not reach was begging to tell me otherwise.

    “i’ll kill him. i’ll break his hand, get into my car, run him over and kill him. i will- i will take this lacrosse stick here and shove it so far up his ass-”

    “you’ve made your point. you want to kill gage barrett.”  i interjected, rubbing the blossoming bruise on my cheek lightly with the pads of my index and middle fingertips. i furrowed my eyebrows in precipitous confusion. “why would you break his hand if you’re just going to run him over and kill him?” he shot me a bitter look before reaching his left hand to brush over my own on my cheek, gently peeling them off just to barely glide his fingers over the bruise, eyes squinted and mouth tilted downwards slightly in a soft, but sincere, pout.

    my eyes darted to his hand and then to his face, heart skipping a beat here and there. “because he laid a hand on you in a way someone like you shouldn’t be touched.” my eyes went wide, and he only weakly grinned, before suddenly removing his hand from my face to tap the tip of my nose. “plus, gage does better backhand shots than me. gotta get first-line somehow.” we both cracked a smile, and he met my side to rub the other. as we departed to get to the nurse, i still heard him mumble, “i’m still going to kill him.” as i pushed my hair from behind my ears to hide the impending blush beginning to darken amongst my cheeks.

    bottom lip quivering, a chill crawled along my stilled body, and my legs briefly trembled. his touch, feeling as fresh as day but utterly overlooked to remember, wanting to feel familiar to me but my brain was unable to process it in the way i wanted. i couldn���t visualize it, but i just knew, i knew that there was this one time where he had caressed my cheek to ease the pain from a bruise. but nothing, not anything, supported my thoughts.

     eyes hardened onto the halfly-written outline in my hands, pencil tucked behind my ear and ankles crossed over and swinging below my cushioned desk chair, i let out a tired sigh. i re-read over the roman-numerated bullet points, attempting to connect the ideas and check for their amount of coherency. using my right hand to grab my pencil, i had been about to erase one of the ideas i found improbable before something small hit my cheek, a powdery substance fluttering onto my eyelashes and undulating to the top of my leggings. i let out a huff, wiping the powder off myself and continuing to work. then, the same small object hit my face once more, and another, this time catching onto the strands of my hair. my free hand picked the object away, and i realized it was a white cheddar popcorn kernel. “do you seriously have to do this now?” flick. another one. i could feel his smirk from across the room, and i dropped my pencil onto my desk to roll off and threw myself off my chair. he seemed taken aback, but i didn’t hesitate to storm to him, grab the bowl of popcorn from his hands and dump all of it over his head. suddenly realizing my actions, my mouth draped open, but my chest still heaved in little frustrated breaths. i was prepared to apologize and help him pick up the kernels, but he only quickly dove forward into my waist and tackled me to the floor, and that’s when we both busted out into a laughing fit. “are you satisfied now?”

    “well, you aren’t stressing over an anecdote that’s due next week anymore. my mission has been accomplished. oh, and, you best help me get all this popcorn powder out of my hair or i’ll shave your head overnight and use it as a wig.” i choked out a laugh as he held me down to the ground, eyes bright and wild, but both our smiles genuine.

    a feeble whimper trembled past my lips, eyes burning, throat clenching around every choked breath i exhaled, like wood rubbing against sandpaper. my body felt frozen in ice, cracking under broken shards of things i no longer wanted to feel, but held together by the poor whispers of my heart telling me to hold on to something i barely could grasp. my head, pounding so loudly and throbbing to the point of where i felt i could implode, brought so much pain to me, so much pain that i could not fight it. for the reasons this pain was here, i could not precisely tell, it came from many instances of my life. it was all wrapped in one, pointing its gun of cruel reminisces at my head and pulling the trigger with no one there here to help me pick up of pieces of myself. i had no one. no one was there, no one was here. i could not face this torture by myself, it pressed a pressure into me that i easily collapsed under, i could not deal with it. i wasn’t built for this. i didn’t want this. why couldn’t these thoughts, these brutal, crushing thoughts, leave me alone? why couldn’t these- these memories pass?

    my eyes, fearful and anxious, landed on him, who was quivering within my arms, both of us pale-faced - scared out of our minds. i didn’t know what was to happen to him, i didn’t have experience in this at all, and i begged for mercy for him. he grabbed onto my forearms firmly, his lips sputtering out nonsensical phrases and words while my mouth, draped open, became empty of words. i looked up, a desperate emotion clouding over myself, but finding no one here to assist. the next few sentences that left his mouth were the only ones that were sensible, but stung my entire being excruciatingly.

    “i can’t breathe. i can’t breathe. i can’t feel anything. why can’t i feel anything?”

    i did my best to hush him gently, eyes finally sinking down to his own, my tears falling onto his face and mixing in with his own. “i’m trying. i’m trying. don’t give up on me.”

    “i don’t have anyone. i killed her. i-i killed her.”

    shaking my head rigorously, i did nothing to fight the sobs that left my throat, the congestion beginning to liquefy in my nose that i tried to sniffle up, the violent shaking of my hands and body. so, i did the only thing i could think of, the only thing i felt would be helpful. the only thing that i thought could save him. i brought my mouth to his and pressed my lips together, before leaning down an inch and meeting his lips, which silenced his cries and the room we were sitting in. he seemed to gasp, before i pressed my lips harder onto his, screwing my eyes shut so tightly it inflicted slight pain. there was a headache beginning to swell my head, but, i showed no signs of struggle anymore, i felt him hold his breath, and i felt accomplished. the atmosphere finally calmed between us, as my lips, along with everything i’ve ever felt for him, broke from his. “y-you’re not alone.” i whispered, hands cupping his cheeks and thumbs rolling across the raw skin of his cheekbones. “b-because. . . because you have me. you have me.” it was then i held him close, i held him close to my chest, nothing but silent tears skidding down our faces. “you have me.”

    “you promise?” he croaked, burrowing his face into the crook of my neck, one of my hands soothing to the back of his hair, tenderly brushing through it with my fingers.

    “i promise.” i confirmed gently, unclenching my eyes, but still keeping them shut. “always.”

    everything broke. my tears freely fauceted from my hurting eyes, my heart burst-ed, and everything broke. everything fell apart. it was then my throat ripped a whimpering sob; loud with hurt, pulsating with frustration, laced with loss of hope. i didn’t know what happened, i didn’t know if he was real, if anything was real. where have you gone? i thought, where are you?

  an echoing laugh haunted my ears, one i knew belonged to him. after that, layers upon layers of his voice boomed inside the room, like a record stuck on a skip, growing increasingly louder as my ears rang trying to decipher it all. my body finally made movement, but all i could manage to do was curl up further in my bed, scrounging the sheets between my fists and holding on tightly. my heart raced. faster. and faster. faster. i couldn’t count my heartbeats, i couldn’t feel myself breathing, my head hurt. oh goodness, how my head hurt. i can’t think straight. i can’t think straight. i can’t feel. i can’t touch. everything hurts. everything hurts. why am i so alone? why couldn’t i remember him? why can’t i fight? why can’t i fend for myself? where are you? i pleaded again mentally, where are you? why aren’t you here? i need you. . . i need you stiles.

    i need you stiles. stiles. that was his name. stiles. my eyes snapped open as a crackling whimper forced its way through my lips, feeling desperate to get up but finding no strength to move. he was real. he was real.

   he was real. ❞

[consultingdick]

PTSD, or the destruction of Sherlock’s psyche

SO I got an ask a few days ago asking if Sherlock has PTSD from Moriarty and my answer was:

Short answer: no. Long answer: he doesn't have PTSD (well. i need to think about that but I’m gonna say no for now). Moriarty was always like...a fucked up game, but Sherlock wasn't really that affected until TRF. The things Sherlock did post-fall are a source of pain, and the threat of Moriarty PLUS Eurus is very Not Good. But yeah not PTSD from moriarty's actions. [...] I forgot to mention he DOES have borderline personality disorder for other reasons, and anxiety + paranoia as like a result of that and from Moriarty

But then I was thinking about it and I read this fic and I’ve decided the answer is yes, Sherlock does have PTSD. Moriarty has a part in it, but unfortunately nothing is that straightforward.

FIRSTLY: I am not a psychiatrist, a psychologist, or a doctor. I also do not have PTSD. I am basing this on the MIND and NHS websites, and the DSM-V criterion (or like. the online summaries of it I’ve found). I also have discussed this with several people with personal experiences of trauma and PTSD. I really want to be respectful and true about my portrayal so if I say / do something that’s wrong please let me know!! 

TL;DR: Sherlock has experienced a lot of tramatic events in his life, and is currently in probably the worst point in terms of his mental health. 

Warning: discussion of abuse. Triggering content is referenced to in a lot of the links I’ve put in as well!

Criterion A: Traumatic event

I’m going to try and walk you guys through my thinking, based on three traumatic events in Sherlock’s life. I won’t be going in chronological order, nor in order of severity. The order is mostly the order he experiences the aftermath (?).

“ Trauma survivors must have been exposed to actual or threatened:

death

serious injury

sexual violence

The exposure can be:

direct

witnessed

indirect, by hearing of a relative or close friend who has experienced the event—indirectly experienced death must be accidental or violent

There is no longer a requirement that someone had to have an intense emotional response at the time of the event. ” [Source]

A point I want to make is that not everyone develops PTSD after a traumatic event, and there’s a difference between ‘normal’ stress reactions after trauma and the ongoing experiences of people with PTSD. There are other traumatic events which have happened in Sherlock’s life that haven’t contributed to his PTSD. 

1. After the fall

✔ Actual (prolonged) serious injury [direct]  ✔ Threatened death & sexual violence [direct] 

So it’s canon that Sherlock went on a mission to destroy Moriarty, and it’s canon that he was tortured (the extent to which is left up to us). We see him being beaten and with lacerations all over his back in Serbia, where Mycroft has gone in himself to extract him. Only drastic circumstances would cause Mycroft Holmes to ‘wade in’ as he put it. Something went wrong.

Now Sherlock would have had some idea what he was getting into, taking down a huge criminal network. But he wasn’t in control when he was kidnapped and tortured (multiple times, in multiple ways). He may have escaped, he may have purposefully got caught in some cases, but torture is still torture. He probably didn’t know that Mycroft was coming to get him. It’s one thing to be suicidal (something I’ll touch on later and in other posts), another to be threatened with death. 

Sherlock is not the same when he returns to London. His manic energy has an edge of paranoia. Moriarty haunts him in his mind palace (illustrated in multiple episodes). He’s not really coping (hence the relapse after a stint of stability and sobreity during s1&2), and the trauma is renewed during S4, which I will now get into. 

2. Eurus & the murder maze

✔ Actual death [witnessed / indirect] ✔  Threatened death & serious injury [direct & witnessed]

This part I’m more hazy on as I’m still working on a timeline and story of what happened exactly. The fact that Sherlock has repressed all memory of Eurus also affects this -- what does he actually know? Did he know that she killed Victor* or did he just know that she hurt him in some way? Either way, he lost someone very close to him in a very traumatic way. On top of this, Eurus spent a lot of time making threats on Sherlock’s life. 

The effects of the trauma from this part of his life is seriously delayed. It has a part to play in his self harming behaviour and drug use. It has a part to play in his BPD. But because he has only started to even remember the trauma properly after visiting Sherrinford, the trauma is affecting him the most. The events that took place during the murder maze definitely made things worse, as flashbacks kept on being triggered while he was also under a lot of stress (watching people he cared about and strangers be killed and threatened). 

This compounds upon the trauma from the fall, but also brings back his childhood trauma from Eurus (as above) and from his father (below)

3. Abuse

Childhood abuse is slightly different when it comes to PTSD, as it can sometimes lead to Complex PTSD. Complex PTSD is caused by repeated exposure to traumatic events like abuse, and symptoms can develop a long time after the event itself. 

Sherlock’s father was emotionally and occasionally physically abusive. This included constant criticism, threats, emotional neglect, ignoring him, and unreasonably punishing him. He never said anything kind or positive, no matter what Sherlock achieved. The physical abuse was mostly as a form of cruel punishment, but as he got older it became a way for his father to vent frustrations. Siger only wanted one son, and only saw Sherlock as a nuisance, a burden. Unwanted. 

This culminated when Sherlock pointed out his father’s affair at the dinnertable. His mother kicked his father out after that, along with the discovery of his treatment of Sherlock. His abuse had begun to affect their relationship too, with manipulation and controlling behaviour replacing any love and affection. Sherlock blames himself for his parent’s divorce.

It’s a major contributor to his BPD and lack of self worth. This part of his life has shaped who he is, how he behaves, and how he sees the world. It drives him to try and stop bad things from happening to others, but also drives his destructive behaviour towards himself and his relationships. 

Complex PTSD is made worse by:

the traumatic events happened early in life

the trauma was caused by a parent or carer

the person experienced the trauma for a long time

the person was alone during the trauma

there is still contact with the person responsible for the trauma.

These all apply, but Sherlock has had some therapy to try and help with this trauma specifically. As a result, he only experiences symptoms like flashbacks and panic attacks when he sees his father (not every time, however) or possibly when discussing him. 

Symptoms

Below is a list of symptoms / criteria for PTSD. I’ve put in brackets which events he most experiences those symptoms for, and I’ve put ‘BPD’ next to symptoms that overlap with borderline personality disorder.

Criterion B: Intrusion or Re-experiencing

These symptoms envelope ways that someone re-experiences the event. This could look like:

Intrusive thoughts or memories  ✔ (All)

Nightmares related to the traumatic event  ✔ (1 & 2)

Flashbacks, feeling like the event is happening again  ✔ (2 & 3)

Psychological and physical reactivity to reminders of the traumatic event, such as an anniversary (e.g. being triggered by specific events)   ✔ (2 & 3)

Criterion C: Avoidant symptoms

Avoidant symptoms describe ways that someone may try to avoid any memory of the event, and must include one of the following:

Avoiding thoughts or feelings connected to the traumatic event  ✔ (1 & 2)

Avoiding people or situations connected to the traumatic event  ✔ (2 & 3)

Criterion D: Negative alterations in mood or cognitions

This criterion is new, but captures many symptoms that have long been observed by PTSD sufferers and clinicians. Basically, there is a decline in someone’s mood or though patterns, which can include:

Memory problems that are exclusive to the event  ✔ (2)

Negative thoughts or beliefs about one’s self or the world  ✔ (All / BPD)

Distorted sense of blame for one’s self or others, related to the event  ✔ (2)

Being stuck in severe emotions related to the trauma (e.g. horror, shame, sadness)  ✔ (2)

Severely reduced interest in pre-trauma activities 

Feeling detached, isolated or disconnected from other people  ✔ (BPD)

Criterion E: Increased arousal symptoms

Increased arousal symptoms are used to describe the ways that the brain remains “on edge,” wary and watchful of further threats. Symptoms include the following:

Difficulty concentrating  ✔ 

Irritability, increased temper or anger  ✔ (BPD)

Difficulty falling or staying asleep  ✔

Hypervigilance  ✔ (1)

Being easily startled

Subtype: Dissociation

Dissociation has now been set apart from the symptom clusters, and now its presence can be specified. While there are several types of dissociation, only two are included in the DSM:

Depersonalization, or feeling disconnected from oneself  ✔ (BPD / 2)

Derealization, a sense that one’s surroundings aren’t real ✔ (1 & 2)

Other problems

Many people with PTSD also have a number of other problems, including:

other mental health problems – such as depression, anxiety or phobias ✔ (BPD)

self-harming or destructive behaviour – such as drug misuse or alcohol misuse  ✔ (BPD)

BPD & PTSD together

There is controversy in the medical / psychological field about the difference between BPD and PTSD and the diagnosis of both. They are very closely linked, and have a lot of overlap (as seen above). Studies have shown that the two often co-occur. I make the personal distiction that BPD also has a strong fear of abandonment which isn’t part of PTSD, and has more severe personality and identity issues. Obviously mental health isn’t clear cut so symptoms aren’t experienced as ‘oh, this is BPD, and this is PTSD’. 

[casuistor]

Alright -- @ the anon who asked me for my thoughts on the psychological aspects of Killing Stalking. I now have thoughts that I will put under a read more because it has zilch to do with death note.

Yoonbum

In Chapter 1, the words “Borderline Personality Disorder” get thrown out to describe him, and I have to say I disagree based on what’s been revealed thus far. (I haven’t seen Ch14, ftr) I do think there’s a more compelling case to be made that Yoonbum is perhaps suffering from depression/PTSD given that his views on Sangwoo appear to be psychologically adaptive to the situation he’s in and don’t seem to stem from a personality disorder per se. 

Also, despite being a stalker he exhibits very few of the qualities that stalkers tend to have. In listening to interviews of people who’ve admitted to stalking and have had the police called on them for their actions, the common thread appears to be that there was a sense  that they own the object of their desire and/or that they are entitled to their affection and attention. Yoonbum, for the most part, seems to long for Sangwoo initially, but doesn’t really show any signs of thinking Sangwoo owes him anything. Breaking into Sangwoo’s house is, of course, a total violation of the law and Sangwoo’s privacy and definitely constitutes stalker behavior, but it’s also the only real red flag evdence of it. Looking at a boy you like, checking out their public social media page and having sexual fantasies about him is pretty normal/harmless, albeit creepy when spelt out that way. 

In terms of how Yoonbum reacts to Sangwoo, I think it’s psychologically plausible, but not having a clearer idea of what period of time this all takes place makes it harder to say. His adaptation to life as Sangwoo’s prisoner is pretty Stockholm Syndrome-y, in that he wants to believe Sangwoo actually cares about him because that is psychologically protective, and allows him to feel as though Sangwoo isn’t being completely capricious or random. It’s a means of exerting control over a situation that would otherwise be petrifying. Superficially, yes that does look like Yoonbum is romanticizing Sangwoo, but the psychological reality of it isn’t about “forgiving” Sangwoo or having genuinely warm or loving feelings about Sangwoo, it’s more that this is the one way he unconsciously perceives having some degree of control over Sangwoo and ultimately his own fate. By the time Seungbae shows up at Sangwoo’s apartment, the poor guy probably thinks it’s just a set up/trap laid out by Sangwoo which is likely at least in part why he doesn’t ask for help.

Sangwoo

Okay, this guy is all over the place, and I think there’s a better case to be made that Sangwoo is the one with borderline personality disorder -- though to clarify, he’s just so solidly on the Cluster B spectrum of personality disorders in general which encompasses Narcissistic , Borderline, Antisocial and Histrionic personality disorders. It’s rare to see a person with Cluster B traits exhibit purely antisocial or purely borderline traits in real life/clinical practice. The mommy issues, I personally find superfluous stereotyping/cliche, but they do also support the idea that a big part of how he treats Yoonbum is largely driven by a perceived fear of abandonment. Sangwoo oscillates between overvaluing Yoonbum and depreciating him, which is one of the hallmark of Borderline Personality Disorder. 

He’s a person who intensely fears rejection and has an inability to accept reality for what it is, and chooses instead to force it to conform to the one he chooses by acting out in vicious, hurtful ways. The abusive way he treats Yoonbum is self protective -- both in that he feels he has power and control over Yoonbum’s life, and also as a form of “pre-rejection.” By treating Yoonbum like dirt, it asserts that he never wanted Yoonbum’s affection in the first place, and therefore cannot be rejected. This also seems to be part of what was motivating his behavior with the girl he murdered. 

Basically, this guy is a walking, talking bag of self fulfilling prophecies. He acts in ways that gives him control,  and will set traps for people to remind them (and likely himself) of his own superiority. For example, with the rat poison laced soup -- if Yoonbum never poisoned it, then he gets to feel superior that he has this degree of control over the guy. If Yoonbum did poison it, he has the smug satisfaction of thinking he’s outwitted the guy. Virtually everything he does is calculated so that he doesn’t have to feel like a victim. Every time Yoonbum shows any sign of autonomy or the hint that he could reject Sangwoo, it’s like his mind short circuits because that’s the outcome that’s most damaging to his psyche. 

[kidsviral-blog]

Are Tiny-House Villages The Solution To Homelessness?

New Post has been published on https://kidsviral.info/are-tiny-house-villages-the-solution-to-homelessness/

Are Tiny-House Villages The Solution To Homelessness?

In the Pacific Northwest, people with nowhere else to go are forming micro-communities with communal kitchens and toilets but teeny, individual sleeping units. Could tiny homes, once the provenance of design blogs, help curb homelessness nationwide?

A steady rain beat down outside, but in the small, cluttered stand-alone structure that serves as the administrative office for Dignity Village — a 14-year-old tent city turned semipermanent experimental housing community on the outskirts of Portland, Oregon — Mitch Grubic was snug and dry, albeit a bit chilly.

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Mitch Grubic Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

He fingered an unlit cigarette he’d just pawned from his girlfriend, Debbie, with whom he shares one of 43 roughly 10-by-12-foot “tiny homes” at Dignity. Grubic, a handsome, ruddy-faced 51-year-old, was recounting how he went from being a California carpenter doing high-end residential work to living in his Ford Bronco with his two dogs and $1,400 to his name, desperately seeking pickup work along the Oregon coast.

Turns out, how Grubic got from that particular A to B wasn’t too different from how many of his Dignity neighbors got there: After Grubic’s dad died in 2007, Grubic remodeled his dad’s Northern California house and sold it, buying his own place nearby. But then the 2008 recession hit, his work dried up, and he had to let go of his new house. He built himself a low-cost hunting lodge but ran afoul of local authorities regarding permits. So he sold most of his tools and drove north, into Oregon.

“I went begging for work,” he recalled. Finally, in Seaside, he found it — as a glazier, making $12 an hour. He’d park his truck in Fort Stevens State Park, showering there and sleeping in yurts. But come fall, his work vanished, and the area had scant services for homeless people, so he drove to Portland. “I was parking and sleeping on the city streets,” he said, hitting the employment office or the library during the day to look for work.

Eventually, by 2010, he found an isolated, mostly industrial part of town out near the airport to park and sleep at night. Little did he know that he was not far from Dignity Village, where homeless people and their supporters had started building cottages three years before.

“I asked a food bank in Portland if I could park my truck there,” recalled Grubic. “They said no, but to go check out Dignity Village.” Lo and behold, he said, he realized he’d been sleeping nearby for months. (It’s funny he never once glimpsed the village’s cluster of cottages, fenced into the city’s former leaf composting yard.) So Grubic got on Dignity’s waiting list and started putting in volunteer hours there toward his residence.

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Dignity Village Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

“People were mean at first,” said Grubic, who has a gruff but warm demeanor. “They said, ‘You’re not village material.’” But he stuck it out, going to pick up donated pizza for the other villagers, gardening, and using his expertise to trim out unfinished windows. “I started to see the eclectic beauty of it all.”

He also started to see, as he put it, “the vision that Dignity stood for — of a place with open arms where people could get clean [from drugs or alcohol], get a change of socks, get warm in winter, get water.” He added, “I needed water.”

That was 2011. In 2013, Grubic served as Dignity’s CEO for a year, and, last year, he was vice chair. Now he’s the security coordinator. He’s overseen work parties to get most of the cottages insulated and Sheetrocked, via various grants. And he’s grateful. “This place helped me create a home base to go out and find work again,” he said.

Currently, he does construction five days a week, making $100 a day and, per Dignity rules, putting $25 a month toward the village’s operating expenses. He and Debbie are on a list to get into permanent affordable housing, as everyone at Dignity must be.

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Mitch and Debbie with their dogs. Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

But he didn’t think he’d put the Dignity experience entirely behind him. “I’d like to become an advocate for the tiny-house village movement,” he said, showing off the little structure — complete with front porch — where he and Debbie live with his two dogs: Juneau, a corgi, and Zooey, a Baja terrier. He says that life at Dignity is far from ideal, but he’s still proud of what it represents. For other cities looking for examples of this approach as a way to alleviate homelessness, “We’ve become the go-to place,” he said.

And not only that. Dignity and other such villages raise compelling questions that may direct the future of this nascent movement: Should these communities be low-budget affairs largely built through philanthropy and run by residents, as is Dignity, or are they better off as professional, high-budget projects overseen by an outside corporation or nonprofit? Or, as Grubic put it, “Is this a place for the homeless to govern themselves or a business venture?”

Visiting three villages in the rainy Pacific Northwest last fall, I saw how each offered a different pathway, representing our deepest attitudes about the homeless, property, and how we think people should live.

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Opportunity Village Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

Grubic is right that Dignity has set a precedent. There were few examples of sanctioned homeless villages before Dignity — Dome Village, a cluster of geodesic domes, existed in Downtown L.A. from 1993 to 2006. But since Dignity transformed in the mid-2000s, with city and community support, from a tent community to one with wooden structures heated with small propane tanks, the idea of a village for homeless people made up of a cluster of “tiny homes” with larger structures for shared baths, kitchen, and lounging has taken hold. (Dignity even has the odd distinction of seemingly having been replicated in the video game Grand Theft Auto V.)

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A dome structure in downtown Los Angeles. Oscar Hidalgo / AP Photo

There’s Village of Hope in Fresno, California (established 2004); River Haven in Ventura, California (2004); Opportunity Village in Eugene, Oregon, and Quixote Village in Olympia, Washington (both 2013). In the works or early phases are OM Village in Madison, Wisconsin; Second Wind Cottages in upstate New York; Community First in Austin, Texas; and Emerald Village in Eugene.

These villages tend to be a hybrid of two trends. One is the tent city, a kind of homeless encampment that goes back at least as far as the Depression and that received revived attention from the media once the recession hit, then again in 2011 when several emerged amid the Occupy Wall Street movement. Tent cities crop up in unused city lots, under bridges, in forests, or by riverbanks; usually go unsanctioned by urban governments; and may or may not have some kind of self-governance. (A massive one, in fact, was just shut down in San Jose, where the tech boom has pushed the average monthly rent up to nearly $3,000 — and has pushed many into homelessness.) They usually do not have plumbing, electrical wiring, or heating.

The other trend is the tiny-home movement, which has become increasingly chic in recent years as Americans look for ways to reduce their carbon footprint and to live more economically. The movement has been popularized by such websites as The Tiny House Blog, books including Lloyd Kahn’s Tiny Homes: Simple Shelter and Jay Shafer’s The Small House Book, and a documentary, all of which feature adorable, dollhouse-like homes of about 500 square feet or less that people have built and live in for dramatically lower costs than the average new American home.

Tiny-home villages for the homeless have retained the idea of everyone having their own tiny structure to sleep and find privacy in, but have, for the most part, consolidated bathroom, kitchen, and recreational space into one or two communal buildings with some combination of plumbing, electricity, and heat. In many ways, they are a multi-roof version of the old-fashioned urban SRO (single-room occupancy) hotel or boarding house, with separate bedrooms but shared baths and kitchen, that provided the working and nonworking poor with affordable living options in so many cities before gentrification turned those properties into boutique hotels or market-rate apartments.

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Andrew Heben Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

“We’ve lost the SRO and only build to middle-class standards now,” said Andrew Heben, a young urban planner in Eugene who played a role in the building of Opportunity Village and writes a blog on the topic called Tent City Urbanism and has a new book out by the same name. Heben is a sandy-haired, mild-mannered 27-year-old Ohio native who did his senior thesis at the University of Cincinnati on the upside of homeless tent cities — for example, they foster organic systems of self-governance and mutual aid. He travels frequently to make presentations in small and midsize Western cities that are interested in creating tiny-home villages for their own homeless populations.

Heben called today’s tiny-home villages “an early example of something that’s coming,” as both environmental concerns and income inequality put pressure on low- and middle-income Americans to find ways to live more cheaply. “People see that a lot of us will be living like this in the future.”

In this regard, they may be solutions that not only alleviate homelessness, but also prevent it by creating more affordable housing. They provide an option below the lowest rungs of market rent, which in cities such as Portland and Eugene can start around $700. In the gap between such rents and low-income units (such as those subsidized by the federal Section 8 program), for which there are often long waits, homeless people often have no options except for shelters — which afford no privacy and, more vexingly, usually kick people out between early morning and late afternoon — or the streets.

To that end, Heben is helping to develop Eugene’s Emerald Village, a larger model where more sophisticated cottages will cost between $10,000 and $15,000 apiece to build and residents will have to put in up to $200 monthly but will also accrue equity in their cottages. At Opportunity, teams spent about four hours building each cottage. “It’s just putting jigsaw puzzle pieces together,” Heben said. An Emerald cottage’s shell alone will take about a day, with further construction needed to finish it out, and each one will be pre-insulated and hooked up with water and electricity.

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A simple structure at Opportunity Village. Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

They may sound prefab, but tiny-home villages, governed and operated at least in part by the villagers themselves, offer a modicum of safety, stability, warmth, cleanliness, autonomy, and privacy. The feds “have very high standards for [traditional] affordable housing and it’s quite expensive,” said Kitty Piercy, Eugene’s mayor, “so Opportunity and Emerald are ways for us to be able to help some people at a much-reduced cost.”

Add to that reduced fear and stress on the part of residents. “I don’t wanna live here forever,” I was told on a visit to Opportunity Village by a wiry, sweet-natured, 42-year-old recovering alcoholic who goes by the name Johnny Awesome. He was building a small greenhouse onto the front of his cheerful blue cottage, festooned with colored flags and a small disco ball. “This isn’t the top rung of society,” he said. “And the weather dictates a typical day here too much.” Sunny days found residents outside, gardening and building; rainy and cold ones found them holed up in their cottages or congregating in the 30-foot-diameter communal yurt containing computers with Wi-Fi, a large-screen TV, and a pantry.

“But it’s safe here,” he said. It was a far cry better than a few years ago, when he was living in his car. Having a home base, he told me, was allowing him to pursue his career goal of becoming a trauma counselor.

But of course, the tiny-home village can’t flourish everywhere, especially large, densely populated cities with astronomical land values. So far, they seem to be occurring in and around mid- and small-size Western cities whose cultures have some mix of permissive, progressive politics and a certain pioneer DIY spirit. That could also describe Silicon Valley, at least as it sees itself; the irony is that the pioneering spirit of one world (tech) is, in the American West, creating the very kind of extreme income inequality and gouged realty markets that contribute to homelessness. Perhaps no wonder, then, that tiny homes for homeless people are among the housing options that local officials began exploring last year; Leslye Corsiglia, San Jose’s recently departed housing director, said the city’s new mayor likes the idea, “so I think there will be some movement [on such a project] in the not-too-distant future.”

However, Ray Bramson, San Jose’s homelessness response manager, said in an e-mail that “while the tiny homes model does offer some benefit in terms of initially low capital/construction costs, the overall high cost of land combined with the lack of available space and the numerous regulatory barriers makes the approach difficult to advance in San Jose.” Bramson said the city would likely go with a temporary trailer-home model, but at the moment no such funding exists for the project.

“These villages might fill a small niche but I don’t see them as a major solution to the problem of homelessness,” said Alex Schwartz, a professor of urban policy at the New School in New York, a city that is trying to solve its own considerable homelessness problem both by reinstating rental subsidies to poor families that were cut back in the era of former Mayor Mike Bloomberg, and by aiming to build 200,000 new units of affordable housing. Previously, Bloomberg also announced plans to build apartments in the form of “microunits” ranging from 250 to 375 square feet, which are slated to open this summer.

“Not to say [such villages] are absolutely impossible” in a city like New York, said Schwartz, “but commercially zoned land is at a premium. Multi-unit solutions [under one roof] make a lot more sense.”

Mary Cunningham, who studies homelessness and housing at the Washington, D.C.-based think tank The Urban Institute, agreed. Government housing vouchers and more public housing are the way to go, she told me. “But,” she conceded, “there’s just not enough to go around, and funding programs get cut every year. Meanwhile, we have more people every year who are paying too much rent and struggling to hold on to their housing.”

If, amid this climate of scarcity, tent cities crop up out of sheer necessity in more and more cities, it’s not unimaginable that more cities may take their cue from those in the Pacific Northwest, which stopped seeing such encampments as a scourge and started wondering how they might be upgraded to something safer, cleaner, semipermanent — and even pleasant.

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Quixote Village Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

It’s hard not to be charmed by Quixote Village in Olympia, Washington, or the story behind it. In 2007, when police broke up a homeless camp in a parking lot in funky downtown Olympia — the state’s capital, famous for being, among other things, the onetime home of Kurt Cobain — faith leaders in this progressive college town banded together to allow the residents to camp out in various church parking lots for three to six months at a time.

Eventually, the leaders formed a nonprofit custody group for the residents called Panza, which, over time, successfully lobbied the city, county, and state governments to not only lease to the residents (at $1 yearly for 41 years) a 2.2-acre plot of land in an industrial zone about a 10-minute drive from downtown, but to pony up more than $2.3 million to build a professionally designed village with thirty 144-square-foot cottages and a community building with a “shared kitchen, dining area, living room, showers, laundry, and office and meeting space.”

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Jill Severn Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

Another $215,000 came from community groups and individuals moved by the story of the ever-roaming village, named, of course, for the peripatetic fictional Don Quixote. (Panza is named after his faithful servant). As money was raised, “hundreds of middle-class people got to know people who were homeless, which was transformative,” said Jill Severn, a cheerful former political speechwriter and Panza board member. Severn has become a regular volunteer presence at Quixote, sitting in on all sorts of meetings and occasionally whipping up a Saturday breakfast for the residents.

The first residents of Quixote, long used to sleeping in tents, moved into their new cottages, complete with heat, toilets, sinks, and electricity, on Dec. 24, 2013. “It was a little strange not knowing anyone, but I must have flushed my toilet about 10 times,” said a 60-year-old resident who goes by the name Stormie Knight, who moved in after a stint camping in the woods to escape both an abusive husband and a history of crack use. “I thought I’d be an embarrassment to my daughter if I died in the forest.”

The afternoon before Halloween during my visit, she spent time in the common room helping other residents prepare to hang up crepe-paper black spiders and orange jack-o’-lanterns, decorations for a party that night that would include a horror movie marathon. She said that she occasionally missed the DIY rigors of camping life, not to mention living amid nature. “I sleep with my windows open here,” she said. “But I like the camaraderie. And I don’t miss the hardship or the lack of safety or the stigma of being homeless.”

Frankly speaking, Quixote Village is a delight to middle-class eyes. It is well-designed and clean and as cute as can be. The earth-tone, board-and-batten identical cottages sit all in a row, each with its own tiny front porch and front yard, where some residents have planted bushes and flowers. Curving paved pathways link everything together. The three retention ponds that sit between the two rows of cottages — a necessary evil because the area’s water table is so shallow — have even attracted a few ducks.

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Quixote Village Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

It’s easy to forget the industrial drabness, including a trucking company, that lies beyond the village’s gates. The building that houses the shared facilities has a modern-rustic wood façade and is bright, airy, and clean, with comfy new sofas and lamp fixtures and a spacious, well-equipped kitchen. And given that the cost of a traditional studio in the area is around $200,000, Quixote’s cottages were a bargain at $19,000 each — or $88,000 each if you factor in the cost of site preparation and the common building.

But compared to Dignity and Opportunity Villages, Quixote also feels a bit institutional, as if it’s run by a nonprofit — which it is. It has two paid staffers and its own van to take residents to and from town, and though residents play an advisory role in who gets in or is kicked out, Panza has the final say. The village urine-tests residents suspected of not complying with a ban on alcohol use, which residents voted to instate only recently. (Drug use had been banned from the get-go.)

Prior to that, “All our troubles here were alcohol-based,” said resident Byron Thorpe, 55, who said he had kicked meth since moving in. “This place has been a blessing,” he said. “It got me clean.” (The village has a support group for residents with mental health or substance histories.) Pot, however, is allowed at Quixote. Now legal in Washington state, it’s often bought by residents at the nearby 420 Carpenter, the county’s first legal weed store.

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Eric Estabrooks Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

That same pre-Halloween afternoon, Eric Estabrooks, a scruffy blond 29-year-old resident in a ball cap and hoodie, showed off the cottage where he kept a small playpen and loads of kids’ DVDs for his little daughter and son, who stayed with him frequently. (Overnight guests are allowed up to three nights a month and after they pass a background check, which is waived for children.) Estabrooks was sleeping in the doorway of an Olympia church until he found his way to Quixote.

“You like my pumpkins?” he asked, proudly pointing out the pumpkin patch he’d cultivated with his bit of front yard.

Estabrooks puts 30% of whatever monthly income he gets from odd jobs and public benefits toward the village, as do the other residents. All Quixotians are free to stay as long as they want, but must declare goals they are working toward, whether they involve education and career or simply seeking steady care for their physical and mental health.

In the common room, Stormie Knight worked alongside Theresa Bitner, 26, and Brie Wellman, 21, two cheerful young women who’ve been a couple since their high school days and found themselves occasionally homeless due to both familial poverty and familial tensions.

Bitner now has a job as a line chef at a senior living facility; in their downtime, the young women, who are one of two couples at Quixote, love to cuddle with their cats. Prior to Quixote, they lived for a stint, as did almost half the residents, at Olympia’s Salvation Army shelter, which everyone simply calls “Sally.” It wasn’t easy.

“You can be by yourself here,” said Bitner. “And you can take a shower whenever you want.” (The common building is open 24/7.)

Later that afternoon, Severn hosted a visit from Jill Detwiler, a staffer in the office of the mayor of Portland, Oregon, which is scouting sites to build homeless villages like Quixote. Detwiler commented on how far Quixote felt from downtown Olympia. (That concern had previously been voiced to me by Karen Chapple, a UC Berkeley urban planning professor — who, as it happens, rents out a tiny home in the backyard of her real home. “Is it so inaccessible that residents will never be able to get back into the mainstream economy?” she asked. “You’re perpetuating the isolation of the homeless by keeping them on these sites, [though they’re] low cost and more viable.”)

Addressing Detwiler, Severn noted that getting from Quixote to downtown Olympia was a doable bike or bus ride, plus the village’s van made daily trips.

“Besides,” she added, “how much longer could people go on living in tents?”

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Opportunity Village Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

About 225 miles south, Opportunity Village, in an outlying industrial zone of Eugene, presents a very different picture from Quixote. Its 29 tiny homes, though built on a prefab model like Quixote’s, are roughly half the size (8-by-8) and have been far more customized, inside and out, by residents, giving this residential cluster a colorful, ramshackle, more hippie-ish feel, enhanced by the ragtag raised-box garden plots and the piles of old bikes and scrap materials residents tend to hoard outside their cottages.

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An Opportunity resident adjusts some exterior decor on her home. Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

The drizzly, chilly day that I visited, some of the 35 residents were in the communal yurt (heated by a woodstove), tapping away at laptops, holding small organizational meetings, or watching TV, while others built interior or exterior additions to their cottages. Yet others came and went, off to downtown Eugene to work day or odd jobs, access social services, or buy groceries.

Heben, the young urban planner and tiny-home evangelist who lives nearby, showed me around, explaining that Opportunity — which grew out of an Occupy camp, with the support of Eugene’s mayor — was built with $100,000 in donated funds plus roughly another $100,000 worth of donated material. Cottages cost a max of $2,000 apiece to build. Residents chip in $30 a month for the shared utilities.

Life at Opportunity does not feel as tidy as at Quixote. With no proper indoor kitchen, residents cook on grills or with a variety of toaster ovens in an outdoor area. The cottages are not heated, and on really cold nights, everyone sleeps in the yurt.

“There’s lots of sickness and colds,” said Tom, who looked a bit like an older Matthew McConaughey with his blue eyes and long blond hair under a Hard Rock Cafe cap. A former Ohio trucker who lost work during the recession, he now collects cans around town so he can make up to $20 a day in refunds. He likes to buy steak with his food stamps.

When I asked him the best thing about life at Opportunity, he said, “There’s no best thing.” Then he softened. “It’s better than the Mission,” he said, referring to the main (Christian) Eugene shelter from which half of Opportunity’s residents came. Like most shelters nationally, the Mission demands that everyone leave in the afternoon and check back in in the early evening.

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Opportunity’s communal yurt Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

“You can come and go as you please here,” said Tom. “And it’s way better to have my own space,” he added, pointing to his cottage, painted a dark green. “Also, we have a real address here. If you put down on applications that you’re at the Mission, people won’t hire you.” He said he was looking forward to the village Halloween party in the yurt, which would also serve as a one-year anniversary party for one of the resident couples, who met at the village.

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Opportunity’s community rules Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

Unlike Quixote Village, Opportunity doesn’t require that residents be clean and sober, but it doesn’t allow drinking or using on or near the premises and insists that anyone coming back to the village drunk or high go directly to their cottage. Ed, 52, who wore a skull-print bandana and puffed on a cigarette with a hand missing the top of a thumb — he lost that in a 1992 carpentry accident — admitted he found the no-using ban annoying, as he occasionally liked to consume mind-altering substances.

But since leaving the Mission, he’s proudly earned up to $2,000 a month working for Backyard Bungalows, the small company that helped build Opportunity’s cottages, and said he wanted to get his own place at Emerald Village.

Again and again at Opportunity and elsewhere, I was reminded just how quickly people without means could fall into homelessness. Inside the village’s front-gate welcoming cottage, where all residents must volunteer weekly hours, Rhonda, a recovering heroin addict in glasses and a hoodie with a sweetly embarrassed demeanor, told me how she and her husband Juan lost their housing when the elderly man they worked for as live-in caretakers died.

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Front desk at Opportunity Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

“We pitched a tent by the river and lived there on and off for two years, sleeping on people’s couches or floors sometimes, or in motels when we could afford it,” she said. She called the past year at Opportunity, which she’d read about in the paper and then rushed to apply to, “wonderful, just being off the street.”

The best part of Opportunity was the friends they’d made, she said. The worst? “No electricity in the cottages. We have a rechargeable lantern and a portable DVD player.”

Just outside the welcoming tent, skull-bandana’d Ed sat on white plastic chairs with a woman who asked that I call her Ann, cuddling with her little white terrier, Kaczynski (named after Ted, the Unabomber). She and her husband, who both have severe arthritis, had sold their car in Oklahoma to raise money to move to Oregon, which has better health benefits.

Ann’s story underscored the plight of Americans without independent income who, because of physical or mental illness, struggle to hold down a job. “I’d babysit or do office work,” she said, “but I’d always be fired for crying at work.” She’d not left her cottage that day until 1:30 p.m. (Her husband was off doing janitorial work.)

Living at Opportunity, at least, was giving her a base from which to figure out the rest of her life. (She’d briefly lived in Oklahoma with family, but “that didn’t work out so well” — a common story among homeless people.) “Should I get a job now or start classes at community college?” she mused aloud. “These days, where is college going to get us?” But she was equally ambivalent about taking minimum-wage work. “I don’t wanna do a shit job,” she said. “It makes my pain so bad.”

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Interior of an Opportunity cottage Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

She was quiet, petting Kaczynski. “I’d rather make art and have it take off,” she finally said. She’d made some decorative tiles for the backsplash of the sink in the yurt, and was looking to sell more of them at a local holiday fair. “Maybe I could be known in places I’ve never been to.”

For the meantime, she had a safe home. That, Mayor Piercy told me, was a key benefit of Opportunity. “I’ve talked to women there,” she said, “and they expressed that they now felt safe whereas before they hadn’t, which is exactly how Opportunity was meant to function.” Residents at the village take turns manning the front gate to track everyone’s comings and goings. The police would be called if a major problem erupted. “But there have been no law enforcement issues there,” said the mayor, “which is why we just renewed their contract for another year.”

That’s not to say that Opportunity hasn’t seen its share of troublemakers. Eleven people had been kicked out for bad behavior, Heben told me, including one the very first night the village opened. “At first there was a two-week probationary period imposed [after someone misbehaved],” he told me. “But we got rid of it.”

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Mitch Grubic Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

Back at Dignity Village in Portland, Mitch Grubic told me how Opportunity actually took a lesson from Dignity in what not to do — specifically in allowing the creation of an outside board to oversee the village and provide a final say on key decisions, such as who stays and who goes. Dignity elects resident leaders year to year, with no permanent leadership.

“Our attempt here at self-government has not worked,” he said. Other residents echoed this, saying that resentment routinely built up toward villagers with elected titles who held all the decision-making power in the community for periods of at least a year. “You need a village where everyone looks at each other as a peer, not as rulers,” Grubic said. “And you need outside oversight. It’s hard to make a decision on someone you consider family whom you live with.”

Plus, he said, Dignity’s lack of an outside nonprofit board had kept the community from doing more robust fundraising. “We’ve lost momentum here and we could bring in all kinds of money if we went with a board model.”

But ultimately, he said, he agreed with Heben that a self-built village was a better model than one in which the government paid professionals to build to traditional code. He asked of Quixote, “Did the developer walk away with a profit?” (Quixote’s architect took half his usual fee, and the developer, the nonprofit Community Frameworks, was paid “a fraction of the cost of construction, which is a standard way to pay a developer,” Severn said.)

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Map of Dignity Village Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

Whichever governing model becomes the more prevalent one, it appears that the tiny-home village as part of a solution to homelessness — and, more broadly, the dire need for more affordable housing — is likely to grow in the years ahead, particularly in areas whose realty markets, zoning flexibility, and political temperament allow for it. “We’ve demonstrated that this model is feasible,” said Ginger Segel, Community Frameworks’ senior housing developer, who was visiting Quixote the same day as me to discuss building more such villages in the area. “This is permanent housing,” she said. “Not a tent city. And other communities will replicate this.”

That is not to say that such projects won’t meet opposition and bias, even in the fairly progressive Pacific Northwest, as the ones thus far have along the way to gaining city approval. (In fact, the villages might never have happened at all if they hadn’t ultimately been located far afield of any residential zones. One of Quixote’s neighbors, a trucking company, initially voiced opposition to the site; now, said Severn, the company brings the village large food donations.) One look at the comments in a 2013 story on Dignity Village makes clear that local sentiment isn’t all entirely welcome.

“If Portland and the state of Oregon wasn’t a haven for homeless, illegals and entitlement lovers,” read one of many such posts, “these same freeloaders would move to warmer climates and with any luck let Portland be something other than a joke to the rest of the country. ‘Give us your lazy, your freeloaders, your drug addicts, your prostitutes, and your corrupt public officials’ should be on all the signs welcoming people to Oregon.”

And to be truthful, not everyone living in these tiny-home villages — individuals whose lives have often been scarred by mental illness, severe disability, trauma, addiction, and old age — seems as though they’re on a straight path to mainstream employment, housing, and middle-class American stability. To varying degrees, the villages aim to help residents connect to services for health, employment, and future housing — Quixote, for example, has a full-time social worker who is starting an in-house program to deal with chemical dependency — but both Heben and Severn admitted that, with lack of alternatives, some folks at Opportunity and Quixote might be there for the rest of their lives. Yet as middle-class stability increasingly becomes less reachable, or regainable, for a large percentage of the American population, tiny villages are modeling a solution that falls somewhere between the three-bedroom, two-car-garage status quo and the streets.

Or, as Rhonda back at Opportunity Village put it: “I know there’s something better out there. But at least for now, I have a place to call home.”

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Photograph by Leah Nash for BuzzFeed

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The Crito - Plato’s democracy essay

study Topic:\n\nThe uniqueness of the changes that occurred to Platos legal age rule definition.\n\nEssay Questions:\n\nWhat is the definition of body politic provided in Platos The Crito?\n\nHow is definition distinct from the stand for-day(a) spirit of state?\n\nWhat is the principal(prenominal) peculiarity of the sophisticated participatory societies?\n\nThesis recital:\n\nThey afford non disconnected their value steady subsequently two molarity years. Plato did non congenial commonwealth at all and he had umpteen terra firmas for that. He would guide neer meeted the recent societies expert exclusively he has no ripe(p) to claim it unsportsmanlike as the meaning of state as changed.\n\n \nThe Crito - Platos majority rule bear witness\n\n \n\nTable of contents:\n\no Introduction\n\no Platos cogitations roughly nation\n\no What is clean fit in to Plato?\n\no Plato and modern participatory societies\n\no last\n\n1. Introduction\n\nThe marches body politic has become kinda popular in the ut boundost(a) years. It suffer be perceive ein truth now and indeed from different mess. Some slew respect what they song antiauthoritarian decree and so do non. It is common knowledge, that the majority of the contemporaneous societies are parliamentary; in that respectfore, there is no wonder that the inclination of land is concreteized in the constitutional expression of these countries. land is considered to be the highest point of the smart sets evolution. The worst function nigh country rectify away is that politicians and counties that are in truth yon from body politic and nevertheless much use this term. The interest to the problems of commonwealth is rattling high like a shot still it was high and m both an opposite(prenominal) centuries ago, too. Such philosophers as Plato and Aristotle analyze the act up superstars happening in the gild during republic. Histori previsey, res publica has of all period been interpreted as the bloodline of muckle. Cotemporary grand deal welcome democracy, considering it to be the go around might in suppose to absorb into count the prospect of the majority of the population of the country and non solely the upper class. Plato was wiz of the most(prenominal) furious enemies of democracy. It is very important to say that the arguments that he per painsed against democracy still possess their primary ply. They confound non lost their value even after two thousand years. Plato did non welcome democracy at all and he had mevery reasons for that. He would strike never considered the coetaneous societies alone nonwithstanding he has no counterbalance to claim it unfair as the meaning of democracy as changed.\n\n2. Platos cogitations roughly democracy\n\nPlato thought of democracy as of a likely potential artificial lake of tyranny. For him democracy was an intermediate period out front that start of tyranny. Pl ato views democracy as the complete of popular indecency, where slaves - phallic and female - have the very(prenominal) freedom as their owners and where there is complete contactity and liberty in the relations between the sexes. For Plato, this innate of liberty was equal to anarchy. Plato suggested that such a liberty would convert the auberge in a chaotic structure that pull up stakes no be able to moderate self-regulation and exit need a despot to control it. Plato did non consider quality to be a good base for semipolitical management of a state.\n\nIn opposite words, Plato was a backer of the idea that democracy makes citizenry stop respecting the laws. Under the term laws he saw both laws of morality and laws of the court. He considered it the start of community for each iodin an another(prenominal)(prenominal) as consumers in the first place. For Plato this stock of extreme liberty was the key to the extreme servitude of people, which is the dialecti cal opposition of democracy.\n\nThese thoughts go bad Plato to very deep conclusions concerning the elected societies. He viewed a participatory partnership as the fellowship where a soul that is obedient to the Law is hated by the rest. He saw the thinkable wiping of the b assigns of everything that was unauthorized. Platos ideas in toll of democracy are very nacreous as he makes a projection to the future. Is a decent society the one and only(a) that adores dogs and fights for their rights and go throughs people in other countries? This is the figurative meaning of the headland that Plato was constantly asking about democracy. It was the judgement of the caboodle that s anxietyd Plato the most. He considered the flavors of the cluster to be not constant and sort of changeable depending on the situation. He could not see this assembly as the potential source of weighted political decisions or whatever decisions at all. He did not see whatever way for this ma jority conclusion the truth in any of its embodiments.\n\nThere is a very popular comparison presented by Plato in his 6-th book. He compares democracy to a ship that has been delight by its sailors. The sailors are the conclave that acts spontaneously. Continuing the though of Plato it is inevitable to say that each of this sailors compulsion to take control all over the ship and non of them has the idea that notwithstanding the best sailor is the one to do it. In other words the almostone to journey the ship has to a strong professional captain and nonentity else but him.\n\nWhat Plato tries to say is that the crowd would rather pick out a person that sees to be smart and not the one that in truth is intelligent. He shows the reader that it is unrealizable to trust the depression of the crowd and therefore democracy looses its main reason to exist. For Plato democracy is not a symbol of ontogeny of the society but a symbol of its degeneration.\n\n3. What is meet match to Plato?\n\nPlato dedicated a tidy sum of his works to the headland of what is in effect(p) and what is not. There is a bright example of the summary of what is in effect(p) in Platos Crito. In this part of the Last old age of Socrates he reveals the true inwardness of what he considers to be unspoiled. It is not hard not to conjure his understanding of democracy as the rule of the crowd. Here, in Crito, Plato through the lips of Socrates asks the question: Should we care about the opinion of the umteen another(prenominal)?[1,46b]. And probably this is the main question that should be asked in order reveal the motivation of Platos thoughts of whether democracy is just or not.\n\nIn Crito Plato says that it would have been the great miracle if the crowd alternatively of doing corruptive deed would do okay things. At the same time he criticizes the opening move of such a phenomenon: but in reality they can do neither; for they cannot make a man either sapient o r foolish; and whatever they do is the result of scene[1].\n\nSocrates implies that if a man heeds only to the one he should he will prosper and if he listen to the opinion of the analphabetic majority he will suffer harm form it. He passing criticizes the opinion of the many as the source of degradation, because the many do not know what is best for one given person. In other words if a person is a soccer player he should rather listen to his coach than the advise he aspires from idle fans. The same twin is drawn to democracy.\n\nIn cost of what is just Plato says: In questions of just and unjustought we to follow the opinion of the manyor the opinion of the one man who has understanding?[1,47b]. If we apply it to the democracy quandary we see that a democratic for Plato society is nearlything unjust, because it follows the opinion of the many, instead of doing everything another way.\n\nIt is clear form Platos thoughts in Crito that a society will be just only in case if it are command by a person who has understanding of just and unjust[1]. Since, the crowd dictates democracy and its opinion is easily changeable that it is not just in any way. For Plato democracy is a risk of exposure primarily due to the accompaniment that the many can kill us[1, 48b].\n\nAccording to the thoughts of Plato only a virtue society can be a just one and as a democratic society cannot be one from its definition, and then in it not just. He considered democracy to be wrong, as its main morality to be doing evil in bear for evil which is not just at all. This is very vital, in damage of the wars that the modern societies perpetually start against each other with numerous victims.\n\nHow may such societies under any potential condition be called just? So what is just according to Plato? From Platos opinion what is just has to bring the good and if it does not then it is not just at all.\n\n4. Plato and modern democratic societies\n\nIt is not hard to pretend what P lato would have thought about the modern democratic societies, particularly due to the wars. Still, it is necessary to hyperkinetic syndrome that Platos attitude towards democracy had a piece of unverifiable evaluation. For some definite reason modern societies have contumacious that democracy is the best option from them. This is primarily due to the item that modern democratic societies brisk on the edge of democracy and tyranny trying to maintain balance. And the good news is that in some cases they manage to do it.\n\nThe principle of contemporary democracy is its accessibility to all the classes. It has been highly criticized by Plato in terms of the their incapability to make right decisions due to the lack of experience in government. Nowadays, the situation has rather changed. Only qualified people have access to the notion apparatus and they are elect according to what they have already done and the results they have achieved. No hollow speeches are eaten by the p ublic any more.\n\nTherefore, the many strive for what is just. Plato would have called it unjust in general, but contemporary democratic societies have a lot of features changed in comparison with what Plato observed when he was alive. It is believed, that democracy is a real opportunity for the society to choose. It is a kind of self-realization care for for the population. Nevertheless, a deep analysis of this departure makes the reader corroborate that in reality democracy has never been literal power of the many, because the one that does not care will not vote. So it may be said that contemporary democracy it the power of those who are evoke and want to participate in the decision of the future. And of short letter Plato would not be right to call the contemporary democratic societies unjust. In some ways they are, but they manage to get the best of democracy, where everybody is equal. Off course it goes without aphorism that the person who has the power to choose has to be very intelligent. This was one of the main come out of the closets that Plato put against the crowd. This issue is destroyed by the contemporary societies. The level of general statement has grown quite noticeable, curiously in comparison with the people who lived two thousands years ago. So why not let educated people find out their future? coeval political science and societies have nothing in common with what Plato observed. And finally it is not just ordinary people who make the most giving decisions in every society but individuals that are specialists at what they do. Platos ideas are contradictory to the contemporary societies, because people really are educated and elicit enough to influence the course of the political flow. Mass media has fill in the blank that Plato discover two thousands years ago. antiauthoritarian societies have gone through a multi-step evolution that converted them into systems with qualitative differences. Now, anywhere where contempor ary democracy comes into play, ancient Platos political observations disappear. The question of what is just, peculiarly in terms of politics will remains unanswered.\n\n5. Conclusion\n\nPlato would have definitely regarded the contemporary democratic societies as unjust. period and development change everything and he would not have been right to say it now. He criticizes the most dangerous issues of democracy, oddly the issue of participation of completely swinish people in the process election of the power. He would not have been right to call the contemporary societies unjust because contemporary societies and ancient societies, ought both considered to be democratic nave a small-minded in common in their essence. At the present upshot every person has the possibility to get education, which used to be a privilege in the times of Plato. This fact has changed and added a lot to democratic relations. Contemporary people are combat-ready and well informed and that is a major difference in terms of democracy. Some people nowadays state that evaluator is impossible without democracy and some state the contrary statement. Plato without any doubt was a great philosopher but some of his ideas have grown old and especially his notion about democratic societies. Something that has once been unjust can be just now. So the question whether the contemporary democracy in just or unjust remains to the modern philosophers. Platos ideas about democracy cannot be applied to the present worldwide democratic situation. They do not correspond to the causa of the XXI century and to the pelt along of the education and development. So no matter how great some of Platos ideas seem not all of them are to be used now.If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: Custom essay writing service. Free essay/order revisions. Essays of any complexity! Courseworks, term papers, research pape rs. 100% confidential!Homework live help. Custom Essay Order is available 24/7!

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Do You Know How to Get Rid of Your Headache? Dr. Mercola By Dr. Mercola You've probably heard of studies showing how healthy it is for you to get plenty of sunlight and, in the absence of that, how using a high-quality tanning bed or taking vitamin D supplements can help supply what your body needs. But there are just as many studies that report how extensively a vitamin D deficiency can damage your health in ways you've probably never even imagined. One of those adverse effects is an increased risk of headaches. A study1 from Finland addressed this point, as it analyzed data from about 2,600 men between the ages of 42 and 60 from 1984 to 1989. According to Live Science, from the men's blood samples, 69 percent of them were found to have low vitamin D levels, which were defined as below 20 nanograms per milliliter, or ng/ml (50 nanomoles per liter). This is actually a serious deficiency state, as optimal levels are between 40 and 60 ng/ml.2 The researchers wrote, "Chronic headache occurring at least on a weekly basis was reported by 250 men, and men reporting chronic headache had lower serum vitamin D levels than others." Those with the highest level of serum vitamin D had a 116 percent lower risk of chronic headaches, and men with the lowest vitamin D levels were twice as likely to have frequent headaches (defined as at least one a week) as men with the highest levels. The researchers weren't sure which came first, the low vitamin D levels or the headaches. They conjectured that if you have a headache, you're not likely to spend as much time outside, so they didn't get the sunlight they need. Beyond Headaches: Health Problems Linked to Low Vitamin D Beyond frequent headaches, Science Nordic offered a short list of health conditions that may occur when people don't get enough vitamin D: "Cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, poor semen quality, depression and osteoporosis."3 An in-depth review of 1,706 studies published between 2000 and 2010 concluded: Solid evidence says optimized vitamin D levels strengthen bones and reduce overall mortality It's likely that vitamin D also has a beneficial effect on the muscles Scientific evidence suggests vitamin D can help prevent cancer, diabetes and obesity What Else May Be Causing Your Headache? Headaches come in many forms, with many causes, as sufferers know well. Some are caused by tension, while others may be brought on by: ✓ Artificial fragrances ✓ Bright lights ✓ Caffeine withdrawal ✓ Poor posture ✓ Fatigue ✓ Weather changes ✓ Menstrual periods ✓ Loud noises ✓ Dehydration ✓ Poor eating habits ✓ Alcohol, especially red wine ✓ Medications Genetics and fluctuations in hormones such as estrogen are two explanations for migraines. Research has also linked migraines to deficiencies in vitamin D, riboflavin, CoQ10 and magnesium. Sunlight, Its Absence and What to Do to Make Up for It Ideally, instead of opting for vitamin D supplements, sensible sun exposure is the best way to get all the vitamin D your body requires. While some foods, such as wild-caught Alaskan salmon, contain vitamin D, it's difficult to get enough from dietary sources alone. As mentioned, a vitamin D (25-hydroxyvitamin D) level between 40 and 60 ng/ml is thought to be ideal for optimal health and disease prevention. You may need to get approximately 5,000 to 6,000 IUs of vitamin D per day from all sources — sun, supplements and food — in order to reach and maintain a healthy blood level of 40-60 ng/ml. Keep in mind that the specific dosage is still a very loose guideline, because people vary widely in their ability to respond to vitamin D. Some may need 8,000 IU a day to reach optimal levels, for instance. Vitamin-D deficiency is extremely common, not only in Nordic countries but also in sun-drenched areas because people spend so much time indoors. So, it's important to take steps to alleviate the problem, especially if low (or extremely high) temperatures make it unpleasant to expose your skin to adequate amounts of sunlight. If you aren't sure you've been getting enough vitamin D from the sun, there's a blood test that can reveal your levels definitively (25(OH)D or 25-hydroxyvitamin D). The Main Question in Relation to Headaches: How to Get Rid of Them For people who get headaches, frequently or infrequently, discovering the cause is an important part of determining how to get rid of them. Tension headaches, migraines and cluster headaches (which are usually rare and brief, with pain around your eyes) are the three most prevalent types. The latter two are the most intense and painful. While around 5 percent of the population has cluster headaches, about 13 percent of headache sufferers in the U.S. have migraines. Unfortunately, migraines are still largely misunderstood in the medical community, in large part because the symptoms are so diverse. Some people describe throbbing or searing pain, either on both sides of their head or on just one side. People who have migraines sometimes experience "auras" when they are just coming on. Healthline describes the visual disturbances known as ocular migraines: "Ocular headaches can develop with or without the accompanying pain of a classic migraine. During an ocular migraine, or migraine with aura, you may see flashing or shimmering lights, zigzagging lines or stars. Some people describe psychedelic images. It may also cause blind spots in your field of vision."4 Auras are often confused with retinal migraines, which, while rare, can be accompanied by vision loss in one eye. If you experience this symptom for the first time, having it checked out by a doctor is a good idea to ensure it's not some other serious condition. Food Allergies and Headaches Food allergies and intolerances can also trigger headaches. Common culprits include food containing nitrites, such as hotdogs or lunch meat, and foods containing monosodium glutamate (MSG), often found in processed foods and fast foods as a flavor enhancer. Artificial sweeteners, such as aspartame, saccharine and sucralose (brand name Splenda), are also a known cause. The use of glyphosate on wheat crops has been associated with headaches, too, not to mention celiac disease. Adding coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) to your supplementation regimen may have a tremendous effect on lessening the severity and frequency of your migraines. It impacts every cell in your body, but especially your brain and heart. It's important to understand that a lot of medications, including hormone replacements, antacids, birth control pills, diabetes drugs and statins to lower cholesterol, may cause a depletion of CoQ10 throughout your body, Magnesium is a mineral that, when lacking in your body, can set off a headache. In fact, it's estimated that around half the people with recurrent headaches are actually magnesium deficient. So, increase your consumption of green leafy vegetables, which are rich in bioavailable magnesium. Spirulina is another good source. Be aware that, like so many other compounds your body needs, medications may block this mineral. Taking an Epsom salt bath can provide magnesium sulfate, which absorbs into your body through your skin, or consider supplementing with 400 to 600 milligrams of magnesium (magnesium threonate) per day. Additionally, taking 400 mg of vitamin B2, aka riboflavin, will also provide an uptick in another important mineral and may help prevent the onset of a migraine, according to one study.5 Ideally, you'll want to balance riboflavin with the other Bs by taking a "B complex" with it. Other supplements that help provide what your body needs and may help prevent headaches include vitamin B12, B6 and folic acid. One way to find out if something you're eating is at the bottom of your headache problem is to try eliminating potentially offending foods from your diet, one by one, for a period of a few weeks. Called an elimination diet, you then re-introduce the foods one at a time to see if your headaches reoccur. This is one of the quickest ways to see if something you're eating on a regular basis is the culprit. Tending to Your Emotional Health May Relieve Headache Pain Stress, cortisol and thyroid hormone also play a role in headaches and migraines, making stress relief and addressing your thyroid function essential components of a more comprehensive plan. Selenium and ashwagandha are two helpful supplements as they both support thyroid function. Another "trick" to keep in your bag for relieving headache pain and frequency is the Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT). Clinical trials have shown that EFT is able to rapidly reduce the emotional impact of memories and incidents that trigger emotional distress. Once the distress is reduced or removed, your body can often rebalance itself and accelerate healing of both emotional and physical problems. Dramatic results for headaches were demonstrated by Greek researchers, whose study involved 35 people receiving treatment for frequent tension headaches at a headache clinic. After eight weeks, those who had been taught how to do EFT on their own and tapped twice a day reduced the frequency of their headaches by 62 percent and the intensity of the headaches by 60 percent.6 This was from performing EFT on their own; it's likely if they worked with a skilled EFT practitioner the results may have been even more impressive. If you are currently struggling with headaches, please realize that using EFT and other mind-body tools to relieve the pain can help free you of toxic prescription and over-the-counter painkillers.