#crippling depression meme

[newtabfics]

You skipped a flufftober day, you okay?

I've just got the mad-sads that have decided to eat the writing juice. I'm...slowly recovering. It does unfortunately mean that AHA I HAVENT WRITTEN ANYTHING IN WEEKS :')

I feel bad that my queue is definitely going to dry up but I've been struggling to write. I just don't wanna put out bad product. I do still fully intend to write the flufftober. I just on that struggle bus.

[imsadperiod]

[horror-aesthete]

[palmsandpills-blog]

If you don't want me just say,

If you don't want to touch me just say,

If I'm not what you want just say,

If you've found someone better just say,

Please just tell me you don't want me anymore stop letting me think I could get that back...

[sapphicczaroftorture]

You can only be as happy as your least happy neurotransmitter

[brokenfoxproductions]

I remember back in the day I was hanging out and drinking with another friend of mine who also has ehlers-danlos syndrome (she has v-EDS, I have h-EDS) and we were looking for memes and YouTube videos that described what it was like to live with it, and we ended up finding this video that was the "glass bones and paper skin" scene from SpongeBob, but at the very end where the dude falls down the steps in his full body cast, at the last couple steps it suddenly switched to a clip of idubbz plunking into a wheelchair and going, "I have crippling depression!" And to this day I still think it is probably the funniest and the most accurate representation of what it's like to live with a connective tissue disorder.

"I have glass bones and paper skin. Every morning I break my arms, and every afternoon I break both my legs. I lay awake in pain until my heart attacks put me to sleep.... *Falls down stairs into wheelchair* and I have crippling depression!"

[in-aether-case]

Current mood:

[637lemonbelle637]

Tell me why I was searching up Gifs for Giyuu and I got this...

[bye-bye-miss-american-pie]

My state of mind back in 2021.

[imsadperiod]

[8archiveofdreams8]

I have no life LMAO

[whyisablog]

"Wow billy, how come your mom lets you have two drinks?"

"Because im indecisive and it eases the anxiety of making other people wait when i can have two drinks to choose from."

[mintesprig]

Feral Goblin MC

Some random feral MC moments that live in my head

-

sees Mammon suspended from the ceiling 

MC: Hey there Spiderman! How’s it hanging’? Here to keep the city safe?

Mammon: MC get me down won’t y’a?

MC: But then who will protect New York?

MC eventually walks off singing SpiderMams after kissing Mammon on the forehead

-

Lucifer: How is MC doing? I heard they were having a rough day…

Levi: See for yourself..

opens door to the parlour to see MC lying on the floor singing 

MC: ptsd, anxiety, crippling depression there is no question you should kill me, let me be with Harambe… *to the tune of under the sea (as per meme)* 

- 

Lucifer sees MC running down the hall with a sword. Who gave them a sword?!?

Lucifer: MC NO!

MC: MC YEES! 

-

Solomon dragging MC away from a lower demon who insulted Luke 

MC: I will bite you!

Solomon: No you won’t…besides I already cursed them 

[starcell00]

(warning: this post is mostly about silly little video games, but it mentions traumatic methods of teaching and their results. also, minor early-game spoilers for Outer Wilds.)

Outer Wilds and the Dark Souls series approach the problem of what to do when new players fail at the game from opposite directions, and (at the risk of pissing off soulslike enjoyers) I think Outer Wilds does it right, and Dark Souls does it wrong.

When a player dies in Dark Souls, the screen briefly flashes with the iconic "YOU DIED" before fading to black and putting them back at their most recent campfire. At first glance, this doesn't seem like anything more than the game telling the player the obvious, but...

"YOU DIED". There's so much emotional content packed into those two words.

The player already knows they've died when they see their character take the final hit and crumple to the ground dramatically, before those words ever hit the screen. Iconic though it is, the phrase is unnecessary; but it's also worded in such a way that it aims itself squarely through the fourth wall at the player themself. When you see it for the fiftieth or hundredth time, it starts to read as a judgment from the game, and the deaths start to feel like personal failings.

Coupled with the notorious, punishing difficulty of the game itself, Dark Souls' method of developing skill in the player boils down to "repeatedly demanding competency, until the player develops the ability to give it." If they develop that ability quickly, or by being persistent enough, they're rewarded with a slow trickle of lore and worldbuilding as rich and deep as amber - which is something that Dark Souls shares with Outer Wilds.

But if they fail to develop this ability in a timely manner, or even at all, a particular boss or area can quickly become a brick wall for the player to hit their head against. In this way, the game's teaching style is roughly analogous to a strict piano player rapping their student across the knuckles and saying "Again" every time they hit a wrong note; this harshness and lack of sympathy from the game is even a meme in the Dark Souls community, with many a comments section littered with "git gud."

(tw: this is where it gets heavy)

Although Western society has largely moved on from corporal punishment, this "just get good" style of teaching is still regularly practiced in almost all areas of real life, and - speaking from personal experience - the consequences for students are usually severe: from loss of passion for the material, to lifelong insecurities and anxiety disorders, to crippling depressive tendencies, up to and including suicide. The entirety of Whiplash (2014) comes to mind, but particularly the bit where the harsh band director gets physically attacked by his star drum student.

(ok ur good)

By contrast, Outer Wilds takes great care to frame the player's death as a natural inevitability. You can glean every bit of information from every NPC in your starting village and go take off in your wooden shack of a spaceship, you can land (very gingerly) on your home planet's moon and talk to the NPC hanging out there, you can take off again, land again at the places on the moon they suggested you go to, and translate some alien text, you can go to some more places, and rinse and repeat for twenty minutes...

...and then, you can look skyward and watch the fucking sun explode, turning you and every other bit of matter in the solar system into a glittering cloud of plasma.

The game unequivocally tells you, within the first half-hour of gameplay: "you will die, and that's okay." In fact, it proactively makes you die, at no fault of your own - without even saying any words about it, to boot. (Interestingly, this can sometimes be a major turn-off for soulslike enjoyers.)

You then wake up back where you started, and your ship's computer still has logs of the people you talked to and the text you translated in the previous life, ready for you to take off again and add to them. Outer Wilds defines success such that you only fail if you manage not to learn anything in a life - an exceptionally difficult thing to do, given how plentiful knowledge is in the worlds you visit.

In fairness, though, Outer Wilds does have areas locked behind requirements of lateral thinking, unusual cunning, or raw mechanical skill, and you will not be progressing into those areas until you meet those requirements. The game temporarily switches to the Dark Souls model of teaching: demanding competency until you develop it. Given some of the places it shows up, the switch usually makes sense, and the areas in question are still largely optional (let's not talk about the DLC), but it says something about that model of teaching that those moments are widely considered to be the worst parts of the game.

tl;dr Dark Souls demands perseverance and punishes failure, where Outer Wilds encourages perseverance and makes true failure quite difficult. Some people want Harder Battles, but some people can't handle them.

[nokingsonlyfooles]

Be Panda, Do Soft-Style

You know this guy?

I love this guy. Eh catches cannon balls and doesn't afraid of anything (it's an older meme, sir, but it checks out), except PTSD and low self-esteem. That's my Panda.

OK. So let's talk about negative emotions, pain, and crippling anxiety.

No! Ha-ha, well, okay, maybe a little.

Some of us like movies and TV because their sameness is comforting, they teach us valuable lessons, and they don't judge us if we have to go back and watch something again because we didn't understand - or just 'cos we like seeing it again, and we're having a parasocial relationship with everyone in it. And some of us need movies and TV for those same reasons. Maybe a little more, maybe a little less, but real-life people aren't going to be patient enough to help us learn the hard stuff, and we know that, so we stick with movies and TV. Society tends to label people like that, people like me, as autistic. Not always, but it's getting better at catching and labelling the behaviour.

So when I need help with a big concept, something super hard, I go running to movies, TV, and stories or metaphors of all kinds. That's the easiest way for me to learn and understand, but most of us like learning that way. At least a little.

So, let's talk about my Panda pal's kung fu.

Po fights dragon style, which is a soft style. Soft styles are more about seeing where the energy is coming from and redirecting it. Tigress, who is hard-style to her core, will punch a brick wall until she busts right through it. Po will just go, "Hey, there's a door! You guys? Door over here!" walk through, and maybe poke his head back out and ask, "You need anything while I'm in here? Okay. Cool." Soft style requires you to slow down enough, and be smart and patient enough, to find that door.

All kung fu is valid!

(I love you, Tigress! You can punch me anytime!)

But not all kung fu is appropriate for every situation. You punch through a cannonball, it explodes, and you get very badly injured or die.

I see a lot of stuff on Tumblr about people trying to punch through their pain, anxiety, and negative feelings. I don't like you, anxiety. I don't like you, depression. I don't need you. You're not real. You're a little bitch. I will defeat you. I will get better and better at defeating you, and you will go away FOREVER! DIEEEE!

It's my first instinct too! I don't want these things, they are hurting me, I want them to go away. If I were strong, I could just break through. Normal people break through these things like they're nothing (*bing!* I've just added another layer of wall, "I'm broken, I'm weak," to what I've already been failing to punch through). If I just keep pushing (adding more layers to the wall every time my punch fails to defeat it) I will get stronger, and better, and I will feel nothing!

"Is that what you want?" Oogway might say to Shifu, his student who insists on learning (and teaching) everything the hard way. "To feel nothing? That sounds rather sad to me."

"No! I want to get rid of these bad feelings so I can make good ones! I want to feel happy, and loved, and secure! I want self-confidence!"

"My poor friend is still holding a peach," the turtle might say, "and trying to force it to become an apple. And then, when he has done the impossible, he thinks he may deserve self-confidence."

"I can throw this peach at the wall, and destroy it, and go find an apple!"

The turtle laughs. "Then you will have made quite a mess! And when you return with your apple, you may find the peach pit you have abandoned has grown into another tree, with many more peaches for you to throw. But perhaps there is a better way." And he would pick a peach, and eat it, like turtles do, slowly, but without mercy, until it's all gone, even the pit, and walk away. "It was not bad, a little bitter. I think next, I will eat a dumpling."

My boi can catch a cannonball because he doesn't go after it hard-style. He takes it head-on, holds it in his furry little arms, and redirects it. He's not super great at getting it where he wants it to go, not at first, and it does set him on fire, but he's still alive!

"You know, this doesn't feel great, but dealing with your trauma and post-traumatic stress is a process! My fist hungers... for self-care! Ow!"

He does, eventually, get better at it (quickly, because we only have about 90 minutes to tell this story) and not every hit lands, but when one does, he holds it for a second, aims, and lets go. He does not punch, he does not try to stop that sucker cold, he holds it, deals with it, and lets it go. And once he figures out what he's doing, it doesn't hurt so bad anymore. He has fun. Po's not the Fun Police, if he's having fun, he accepts that too. Yep, okay, this could kill me, but it looks so cool! Let's have fun while it lasts! Ladies, gentlemen and others, I present: soft style.

Even if your brain behaves itself perfectly, in your life, you are gonna hit walls. Some of 'em won't slow you down. But when one does, the first thing you gotta do is acknowledge the fact that there is a WALL here. I know you don't want the wall, but there it is. It doesn't matter whether it belongs there, you don't have to justify it. Insulting it and interrogating it won't make it not be there. That irritating AOL voice yelling "You've got wall!" will not go away until you acknowledge receipt of your wall. Okay. I've got wall. I don't have to like it, but here it is. It is here.

(This is what they mean when they say "your emotions are valid," they're just insecure and trying to sound professional.)

Now what?

(OK, but assuming we don't have a flame-proof cartoon butt and a destiny.)

First: Don't punch the wall. Ah-ah-ah! Back up! How hard could it be to not do something? you think. This'll be easy! It's incredibly hard to comply with a negative. Don't read this. Yeah. Now don't think of a solid white zebra. ... ... ... Yeah. Ka-POW! Ouch! Why does that hurt? I'd better punch it again and figure it out!

Stop. Redirect. Since we're using a wall metaphor here, you gotta go sideways. (Indeed, given enough time, all things shall become crab.) If there were a door right in front of your face, you'd see it. Forwards is not an option right now. Be a good little crustacean and pick a new direction. This is also how one extricates one's self from a riptide - people die because it's counterintuitive. You want to be back on the beach, why would you swim towards more ocean? Attacking the obstacle at its strongest point will not get you where you wanna go any faster than looking for a way around. In fact, sometimes, it won't get you there at all.

Are you still, intermittently, thinking of a solid white zebra? Like, what would that even look like? How would I know it's not just a white horse? Well, if you weren't before you are now. OK. So every time that zebra comes back, think of a solid white peacock with a tragic backstory.

(I know he's not solid white, I'm just being silly. Forgive me.)

If you take a step towards the sexy (but still extremely evil and genocidal) peacock, you are moving sideways. If you keep it up, you'll get a little distance, a little perspective, and when you have enough room to stop banging your head like a stubborn moth, maybe you'll be able to see a door in the wall... Or some convenient fireworks, who knows? Maybe you do have a destiny. Then, you'll be able to go through.

...Though it may be a squeeze, and you might not end up exactly where you thought you wanted to go.

(Oh, no, stairs!)

Or maybe you'll end up someplace even better and more surprising.

"You just wanted to see the tournament? Well, now you're the Dragon Warrior. Have fun with that."

But, again, this is a skill that takes practice. Every time you manage to stop or head sideways instead of banging into the wall is a victory. Eventually, you will get better at it.

I mean, you know, I've heard.

(This is me. I wanna be Po, but it's just my nature to fight hard and make everything harder. Maybe one of these days I'll accept that, and stop fighting my nature and making it harder, but I wouldn't bet on it.)

Doctors and mental health professionals will tell you, most pain is anxiety. Part of that is the simple physical fact that when you tense up and struggle, it hurts more. Some things can be fought hard style, and some things can't. Slow down, take your time, feel the flow - and then you can decide whether to go with it, go against it, or go around.

For example, I was having serious anxiety because, right when I got up, a lot of things were going wrong, and needed attention, and I couldn't fix them all, or even one. So I let someone I trust give me a little help, and I wrote a little mental health article with my friend, the Panda. Maybe I'll find a way to go forward in a little while, or maybe not yet, but I already feel a little better.

(Even this guy smiles once in a blue moon.)

Thanks to the Kung Fu Panda Wiki for hosting most of the images I needed. And if you "like" this content, reblog it 'cos I'm trying to get known around here. That goes for just about everyone else, too.