#every like mental health problem i have is being exacerbated

[tarantula-hawk-wasp]

hands and knees begging myself to be responsible tonight bc i have so much to do but i can feel in my heart irresponsible brain is going to win and im gonna end up drawing and making myself more behind and stressed but like i spent 8 hours researching and writing art history texts at my internship do i fucking want to research for my history class tonight even tho i should so i can let the professor know if my topic is viable? no i want to draw. and like even research aside i need to do dishes and laundry and pack

[eyedoeluhn]

the portrayal of Aisha in BCF is, to say it concisely, awful. It’s not a surprise, BCF is (in my opinion) a terrible fic, but it manages to, at this point in the plot (108.1) managed to make every character it seems end up in a far worse position than where they normally would’ve been in canon. Which goes the same for Aisha, who is part of our main character’s, Joe’s, squad.

Before she’s folded into Joe’s team she’s a sexually aggressive ‘fast’ girl who harasses Joe by flirting with him and following him around the Laborn’s gym which he frequents.

Apparently her favorite hobby is this because it’s basically all we get about her from the other people at the gym too!

thanks Joe I really loved reading that. It’s my favorite part between the bits where the gym guys console poor baby you about how they’re so sympathetic about you being harassed by a child. This isn’t even my specific point I just wanted to mention this is how they meet. Anyways, after this Aisha triggers and having worked out Joe is a cape, follows him to his workshop. Through CF shit he makes a focus that boosts and allows her control of her power and makes a workaround for him, and she’s now ‘part of the team.’ Her welcoming ceremony is his sentient fashion thing dragging her away to dress her ‘properly’. Don’t worry, she dresses modestly and tastefully with Joe’s guidance!

now as a member of his team Joe does not treat Aisha like the child she is. Not in a ‘you can do work’ way, he speaks to her as if she was a fully emotionally mature and stable woman. This includes sharing his problems with her, all the time. Aisha admits to herself that as the team takes form shes been shoehorned into becoming the emotional cornerstone as the only ‘normal’ human. The fact that she is 13 years old and is explicitly shown to have not aged during time dilation and only ‘matured’ nebulously and experienced most of her time within the workshop makes it worse. She’s also too mature to date a boy her age by word of god apparently.

Why is this guy in his 20s going to a 13 year old about his problems? In her interlude she even directly states she’s using skills she used to deal with her mothers abusive boyfriends to handle Joe.

this is just like, actually sad. Why is the 13 year old the one in charge of managing this adult man who has a licensed therapist’s mental health. Joe does not find this concerning or does not enough to take any measures to stop Aisha from feeling responsible for him or attempting to administer care. When Joe is having a difficult (for him) call with his family who he is estranged from due to his trigger event and traumas involving them, Aisha is the person to check in on him

Naturally Joe’s first and really only concern about this is that Aisha is annoying him by prying. There’s really no attempt from Joe to do anything but occasionally shield her from physical harm. He constantly discusses his issues with her and leans on her emotionally while only really gifting her items. Which is where most BCF fans cry, but she’s getting all that cool tinkertech and personal teaching! I don’t think this terrible relationship should be tolerated just because she’s managed to get some fun stuff. Joe shouldn’t be bribing a child to give him reassurance. This is frankly exacerbated by the giant, insurmountable power gap between them which goes beyond an age difference. Joe is perfectly capable of constantly surveilling Aisha, seriously harming her, altering her mental state (arguably he’s done this before) and a myriad of awful things that Aisha just has to take on his word that he would do. It’s less funny when he jokes about putting nano machines in her to keep her from doing things he doesn’t want her to do when he could at any time.

It’s not a parental relationship, it’s not a mentor mentee, at best it’s a toxic codependency where Aisha is not treated her age and really any positives to this are because the author wants Joe to seem sympathetic despite everything. for Aisha, honestly, this is extremely fucked up

why are you like this, BCF.

[citylawns]

Just had the worst experience at the hospital. Basically I’ve been considered underweight my entire life, blah blah fast metabolism family genetics you know the genetic differences human beings have. However, I have struggled with various mental health problems including some binge eating and restrictive eating when I was younger after I got sexually assaulted, but I’m at a place where I’m really healthy and stable. Throughout my life though I’ve had people project the idea that I’m anorexic onto me - during my childhood, and before, during and after I suffered from some disordered eating which really exacerbated the problem because I had to deny it for so long I felt like I had failed and proven these arsehole people right.

I’ve also always had irregular periods and I have a high prolactin level (stress hormone, again potentially because of all the traumatic incidents) but this woman is essentially convinced my period issues are due to me being a low weight. Okay you’re the expect so sure I’m happy to learn how to put on weight. But she wants me to gain 10kg in a few months and I’ve never been that heavy in my entire life. Frankly I feel like I’m being set up to fail here. I don’t even know how that would happen because my diet is already really good - I don’t restrict my food intake and I don’t binge and overeat anymore. She asked if I lift weights and I said no - cos I literally do no exercise at all and I would like to. So if I should put some muscle on and lifting weights would be good for my health I’m keen to do that. So all that would be fine if she listened to what I was saying about my eating habits and this woman without knowing ANY of my mental health history keeps making patronising comments about “thin is so pretty I know but it will kill you” “beautiful thin women get sick” “women in wars lose their periods” What?! I’ve not lost my period it’s just slightly irregular ?! Why are you making that assumption about what I think about thinness? Oh, because you’ve taken one look at my body and think you know my thoughts and feelings and behaviours and attitudes about beauty. Lmfao. She then started scare mongering me saying I’m at risk of death because I could get osteoporosis and break a bone and die really quickly at 26. This is insane. I was in shock because I think if I was actually in danger of death it would have been flagged a bit earlier given all the time I’ve spent having my health checked recently ?!?

I’m sorry but I’m thin but I’m not THAT thin. I’ve got fat and muscle deposits on my body. I’m in shock and I couldn’t defend myself because she’s insinuating I have an ED and if I appear defensive she rolls her eyes at me. This has happened before where I was having a really painful acid reflux and throat issue which meant I couldn’t swallow and was struggling to eat as a result so I went to get it diagnosed and told her I need help because it’s affecting how I eat, the doctor dismissed me. Didn’t listen to what I was saying just told me that I needed to stop being silly and put some food in my belly - and I told her THATS WHAT IM TRYING TO DO.

And every time Vocalise the struggles I have about how people treat my body i get messages saying “no one wants to hear about your problems being skinny you have thin privilege this isn’t important” fucking save it okay? this is my blog and I’m telling you, people like me also get gaslit by medical professionals. Me talking about my experience doesn’t invalidate anyone else’s nor does it mean I’m saying my experience is as much of a social problem. It’s just my life and what I deal with. I personally believe this treatment is to do with misogyny more than anything, because it’s the patronisation and bizarre attitude that I must be a silly shallow girl who just wants to look pretty and doesn’t care about my health when I fucking DO. That’s why I’m HERE.

Whatever I’m getting referred to a psychologist and a dietician and have been told to start lifting weights for weight gain which is sick because they won’t give me help for my trauma and I’ve always wanted to have the money to pay for a dietician because I really enjoy eating healthy food (because of how sick I’ve been and the heart birth defect I have I want to do all I can to optimise my health when it’s in my control).

Absolutely fascinated to see what this dietician and psychologist say, just hope I don’t get kicked out when they discover I don’t have any food issues and want to talk about abuse and sexual assault instead

[nicohverse]

Little Lion, Baby Bea...

(Art by @kiwifie !)

Who's curious about this sweetheart? This cute lion has been the topic of lots of discussion lately- For somebody with so little going on in her head, she sure is mysterious! And what little she does have going on in her head is wonderful- It's not a pejorative, the girl's genuinely been lobotomized. Luckily, it's not quite as bad as it sounds- She was pretty airheaded to begin with. The part of her brain she lost made it so she can't do magic to hide her animal features, and gave her a lot of cognitive difficulties.

"It's like... There's these things I know I knew how to do. And I don't know it at all anymore. I can't get it back. Even if I try to learn it again. It's scary... Like being trapped in a box, but the box has windows."

A girl who's new to adulthood and trying hard to assert her ability to be one in the face of her struggles, Bea might be cute and small, but she certainly won't tolerate being infantilized. She's living with a great caretaker who never underestimates or overestimates her ability- She's accommodated without being condescended to, and wants to reclaim sweetness and enthusiasm for herself while asserting her autonomy!

Some of Bea's struggles are pretty personal to me- About a year ago, I was still recovering from a lot. I'd only left an unsafe-for-me work environment a few months prior, hadn't yet hit a full year since 'recovering' from a covid infection that added to the workplace's exacerbation of my health conditions... I spent quite a while in an incredibly difficult cognitive space, actively fighting against brainfog...

Some stuff I haven't really talked about to anybody before- I could hardly make my brain remember anything I'd learned in college that hadn't been applied on the job since then. It was frightening and embarrassing to be without the information I spent so much time and money on. A lot of things I 'knew how to do' became muscle memory only- I could do them when I was doing them, but couldn't conceptualize how to do them if I sat down and thought about it. I'd find thoughts about things like solving a math problem would get stuck in my brain on loop without either progressing to the next step or going away. It was so difficult to deal with that I just about gave up on ever getting another job that utilized my mental skills without associating gross-motor movements.

But now, I'm better enough that I'm looking into getting more applicable credentials in my field, applying to data entry and medical record jobs again after recently losing my position as an art studio assistant. (Though worry not- All funds given to EF2 will be used for EF2) And better enough to be processing those feelings through Bea- A character who's incredibly precious to me. She's never going to 'get better' the same way I have- Instead, she's going to be a conduit for the idea that even if I hadn't recovered, I still would have found some kind of success. One of the many things Entropic Float is and always will be about is autonomy for the disabled community, to every possible degree that I have time in my life to portray.

If you want to help me portray that, and avoid reaching into my own recently-unemployed pockets to make Entropic Float 2 the best game it can be, the best property for Bea to find her joy in, consider supporting our stretch goals.

[the-eldritch-it-gay]

the biggest issue i have is that the things i am passionate about and knowledge about aren't things I can make a living off of. I can chat about personal art projects and worldbuilding or d&d or video games, or even talk about linguistics and language and culture and mental health.

But when it comes to work and making a living like. Well I have a degree in computer science, I'm not that experienced in a lot of it and have 0 passion or drive for it but I can work in some small 9-5 role but in trying to do that I have issues of physical health and neurologic issues (using keyboards, looking at screens, doing logic problems, mathematics, staying awake) and mental health issues (paranoia, poor communication, lack of initiative, poor concentration, depression, hallucinations, delusions, dissociation, severe anxiety, etc). And the lack of passion creeps into the work I do.

So that's not a good fit, working full time and being in an office isn't for me. Okay well what about something that isn't an office it job? well I've worked part time as a custodian and while the job of "every day you work alone and clean this part of the building this specific way" is perfect for my anxiety and autism, that presents physical issues (lifting objects, walking, standing, bending over, staying awake, worsening chronic pain and fatigue, etc) which exacerbates mental health issues (depression, anxiety, psychosis, memory issues/amnesia, suicidal thoughts), and it also does not pay a livable wage offer benefits and also comes with being treated poorly and poor working conditions. And again the lack of passion creeps into how well I do my work.

So like. Full time office work doesn't work for me, part time physical labor jobs don't work for me. Working in part time jobs that involve talking with people (like customer service/support) aren't feasible.

So like, what the fuck am I supposed to do. Why would anyone want to hire someone who's unenthusiastic and have a billion limitations and can't communicate or connect with coworkers. How the fuck am I supposed to make a living if what jobs I can land make me suicidal and destroy my physical and mental health. How am I supposed to go to work if the thought of it gives me a panic attack and makes me fantasize about getting hit by a car because then I could get out of work for a while

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Holly Korbey

Published: Dec 20, 2022

Assistant professor Brett Mallon begins his evening Zoom session at Kansas State University with a question: When students hear the word “conflict,” what associations do they make? 

Many first responses are decidedly negative. “I would say, avoid it at all costs,” one student offers. “Argument, awkward conversations,” says another. The list grows as students make emotional associations they have with conflict: stress, discomfort, war. Only one student suggests that he thinks of conflict as “an opportunity for growth.” 

This is Conflict Resolution, a non-credit workshop in an “Adulting 101” series at Kansas State. The cheeky name, created by the campus wellness center, belies its serious purpose: to fill in the gaps of missing life skills for students with classes that range from the practical, like how to make a budget, to the relational, like dealing with imposter syndrome. 

“Students talk about conflict like it’s this terrible thing,” Mallon said in an interview. “Is it that they’re afraid of [conflict], or are they lacking in experience? Probably a little bit of both.” 

Seminars and classes like “Adulting 101” are becoming more common on college campuses. Though ranging in style and substance — from one-offs on handling stress to full-semester psychology courses on how to be happy — more universities are offering help to students struggling with the stresses of everyday life and mental health challenges like anxiety and depression.

But a growing body of evidence is beginning to suggest that the problems of “adulting” and mental health in college students may be rooted, at least in part, in modern childhood. Research shows that young people are lacking in emotional resilience and independence compared to previous generations. The problem has been growing in tandem with rising rates of anxiety and depression, perhaps exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and has left colleges scrambling to help and adapt.

“Some parents have been parenting differently, they have this value of success at all costs,” said Dori Hutchinson, executive director of the Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation at Boston University. “I like to describe it as some kids are growing up developmentally delayed, today’s 18-year-olds are like 12-year-olds from a decade ago. They have very little tolerance for conflict and discomfort, and COVID just exposed it.” 

How modern childhood changed, and changed mental health

Research shows that young people who arrive on campus with healthy amounts of resilience and independence do better both academically and emotionally, but today more students of all backgrounds are arriving on campus with significantly less experience in dealing with life’s ups and downs. Many even see normal adult activities as risky or dangerous.

In a new study currently under review, Georgetown University psychologist Yulia Chentsova Dutton looked at whether American college students’ threshold for what is considered risky was comparable to their global peers. Chentsova Dutton and her team interviewed students from Turkey, Russia, Canada and the United States, asking them to describe a risky or dangerous experience they had in the last month. Both Turkish and Russian students described witnessing events that involved actual risk: violent fights on public transportation; hazardous driving conditions caused by drunk drivers; women being aggressively followed on the street. 

But American students were far more likely to cite as dangerous things that most adults do every day, like being alone outside or riding alone in an Uber.

The American students’ risk threshold was comparatively “quite low,” according to Chentsova Dutton. Students who reported they gained independence later in childhood — going to the grocery store or riding public transportation alone, for example — viewed their university campus as more dangerous; those same students also had fewer positive emotions when describing risky situations. 

Chentsova Dutton hypothesizes that when students have fewer opportunities to practice autonomy, they have less faith in themselves that they can figure out a risky situation. “My suspicion is that low autonomy seems to translate into low efficacy,” she said. “Low efficacy and a combination of stress is associated with distress,” like anxiety and depression.

In recent years, other psychologists have made similar associations. Author and New York University ethical leadership professor Jonathan Haidt has used Nassim Taleb’s theory of anti-fragility to explain how kids’ social and emotional systems act much like our bones and immune systems: Within reason, testing and stressing them doesn’t break them but makes them stronger. But, Haidt and first amendment advocate Greg Lukianoff have argued in their writing, a strong culture of “safetyism” which prizes the safety of children above all else, has prevented young people from putting stress on the bones, so to speak, so “such children are likely to suffer more when exposed later to other unpleasant but ordinary life events.” 

Psychologists have directly connected a lack of resilience and independence to the growth of mental health problems and psychiatric disorders in young adults and say that short cycles of stress or conflict are not only not harmful, they are essential to human development. But modern childhood, for a variety of reasons, provides few opportunities for kids to practice those skills. 

While it’s hard to point to a single cause, experts say a confluence of factors — including more time spent on smartphones and social media, less time for free play, a culture that prizes safety at the expense of building other characteristics, a fear of child kidnapping, and more adult-directed activities — together have created a culture that keeps kids far away from the kinds of experiences that build resilience.

Chentsova Dutton said America has an international reputation for prizing autonomy, but her study opened her eyes to a more complicated picture. American parents tend to be overprotective when children are young, acting as if kids are going to live at home for a long time, like parents do in Italy. Yet they also expect children to live away from home fairly early for college, like families do in Germany. The result is that American kids end up with drastically fewer years navigating real life than they do in other countries that start much earlier. 

“We parent like we are in Italy, then send kids away like we are in Germany,” Chentsova Dutton said with a laugh. “Those things don’t match.”

A movement hopes to change the culture

Seventeen-year-old Megan Miller, a senior at Hudson High School in Hudson, Ohio, recently drove her two siblings, ages 15 and 12, to Cedar Point Amusement Park for an evening of fun. Miller was nervous. She’d never driven an hour and a half away from home by herself before, especially in the dark — but she had to do it; it was homework for school. 

The assignment was to try something she’d never done before without her parents’, or anyone else’s, help. Other students figured out how to put air in their tires, cooked a meal for their family from start to finish and drove on the interstate. The point, Miller’s teacher Martin Bach said, was to give these young adults — many of whom would be living away from home in less than a year — experience with trying, failing and figuring something out on their own. 

“I was seeing that student stress and anxiety levels were already bad, then COVID supercharged it,” Bach said. But a pattern of parents “swooping in to solve problems that kids could easily solve on their own” made Bach decide to create the unit on resilience and independence. “In my head I’m thinking, these kids are going off to college, how are they going to cope?”

Bach got the idea for the “do something new on your own” assignment from Let Grow, a national nonprofit promoting greater childhood independence. Let Grow offers free curriculum, aimed mostly at elementary and middle school students, that feels like it’s giving 21st century childhood a hard reset — like “play club,” in which children are allowed to play on school playgrounds without adult interference, and the “think for yourself essay contest.” 

Let Grow is part of a growing movement of psychologists, therapists and educators advocating for evidence-based practices to help kids gain more independence and improve mental health. Let Grow’s co-founder, Lenore Skenazy, said that after traveling for years speaking to parent and school groups about the problem of shrinking childhood independence, she decided that families needed more than a lecture. “The audience would nod along, everybody gets it. But they wouldn’t let their own kids do it,” she said. Skenazy began to understand that the anxiety around child safety was not necessarily parents’ fault — the culture surrounding families almost fetishized child danger. Many parents felt they would be judged — or arrested — if they let their child walk to the park by themselves, or walk to the store. 

Skenazy moved the organization toward behavior and policy change to address the cultural issues. Along with the independence curriculum for schools, Let Grow has helped four states enact “Reasonable Childhood Independence” laws aimed at protecting parents from neglect charges. Let Grow also speaks directly to parents and teachers about letting kids try things by themselves — and being surprised by what their kids are able to do. 

Like Megan Miller, whose trip to Cedar Point was thrilling yet also had bumps along the way. They got a little lost inside the park, and the siblings had a disagreement over which roller coasters to ride. On the way there, even with navigation on her phone, she took a wrong turn and ended up on an unfamiliar road. But that road wound alongside scenic Lake Erie, which she’d never been on. “It ended up being this beautiful drive that I will definitely do every single time,” Miller said. 

Since the trip, Miller’s parents have noticed a change, she said. “I find that I’m much more comfortable driving on highways and for long periods of time. My parents know now that I can do it, which helps a lot.” 

A road forward

More researchers, psychologists and educators are looking to find more ways to incorporate independence skills into kids’ daily lives. 

Clinical psychologist Camilo Ortiz, a professor at Long Island University-Post, began noticing a few years ago that some of his young patients, mostly children being treated for anxiety, would “fold very quickly” at the first sign of adversity. Ortiz uses what he calls the “four Ds” to explain what was happening: Today’s kids experienced less “discomfort, distress, disappointment and danger” than previous generations did, because their parents, who have the best intentions, deprive them of these opportunities. He began to wonder whether kids who didn’t get much of the four Ds were missing an important opportunity to be uncomfortable and then persist — and whether they might help clinically anxious children. 

Beginning last year, Ortiz began a pilot treatment program for childhood clinical anxiety that is based on independence and “getting parents out of their hair.”

“This is not a traditional anxiety treatment,” he said. “My approach is something like: So you’re afraid of the dark? Go to the deli and buy me some salami.” A lot of anxiety is based in fear of the unknown, so the treatment involves having an experience full of uncertainty, like riding the subway alone or going to the grocery alone. If the child can tolerate the discomfort in that situation, Ortiz hypothesized that those lessons might translate to whatever is causing the child anxiety.

Early results are promising: the independence exercises have been successful in quelling anxiety for some children. “The new approach that I have developed is for middle school kids,” he said. “So by the time they’re college students, they’ve gotten a lot more practice with those four Ds.” 

Other groups help build resilience in students in academic settings, like the Resilience Builder Program, which aims to help students think more flexibly, be proactive in the face of challenges and learn optimistic thinking. The program’s creator, Mary Alvord, said the protective factors taught to middle schoolers are based on decades of research on childhood resilience. “It’s about being proactive and not feeling like you’re a victim, how you can control some things, but you can’t control everything,” she said. “How can you make the best of it, and if you can’t — how do you ask for help?” 

Experts say independence and autonomy are best formed and tested in childhood, but it’s never too late to begin. At the Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation at Boston University, Hutchinson and her team help college students diagnosed with mental illness continue their education and reach their goals, and that often begins with building their resilience and independence skills. The center has developed a curriculum that is focused not just on students, but parents and faculty as well. 

“Families are a player at the table,” Hutchinson said. Parents benefit from coaching that shows them how to support their student without “doing for” them. Parents sometimes don’t understand that protecting their child from failure and difficulty can be an obstacle to growth. 

“When we are controlling a young adult’s experiences, and they go without that full range of emotional experience,” said the center’s Director for Strategic Initiatives Courtney Joly-Lowdermilk, “we’re actually curbing people’s opportunities to live full lives, and have the full range of human experience.”

==

Fredsskadade is a Swedish word meaning "injured by peace."

What would have been a fascinating follow-up would be to have the Canadian and US participants read the answers of the Turkish and Russian participants. And vice versa.

The fact that the peaceful, first world societies have affirmed and reinforced the anxiety in their kids - the psychological equivlent of foot-binding, seemingly because there are fewer legitimate threats than at any time in history - is something these societies will need to reckon with.

[prettyboykatsuki]

What’s the list? I also have trouble with telling the difference between needing to isolate or needing to clean my room

my mental health checklist for when im in the thick of it

- am i physically taken care of (for me this is 3 catergories. hair (is it brushed / detangled), skin (have i washed my face / do i need to wash it again), general shower (when was the last time i took a good shower)

- is my space taken care of? (room cleanliness basically. can i see my floor? do i have more than 6 bottles or cans in my room? are my bedsheets dusty / do i need to vaccum? does it smell etc.)

it doesn’t have to be an indepth clean every time, but usually the state of my room will greatly effect what im going through so little life changes are important for me

- have i eaten in the last 3 hours? and if i have has the meal had any protein or fat/fibre? sometimes you can only manage ramen but like throwing some egg in there is more than enough to make sure i dont fall through the floor

- subcategory but also hydration. but i actually do a decent job of that 🙏🏽

- do i need sensory stimulation / suppression ? the above often interacts with this category to some degree. but sometimes i need to stim or be in a low sensory room. soft blankets, noise canceling headphones, low lights and chewlery / fidget. sometimes its noise and vibrating my vocal chords or tearing up cardboard. depends on the day

- do i need fresh air? for me thats sitting on my balcony for 15 or talking a walk. you need vitamin d and outside time. related but physical activity (pilates is low energy and gets me out of bed)

- have i masturbated recently 🤞🏽 it is just something that quells the agony and such

- have i spoken or interacted with anyone other than myself today etc and have i taken my meds

it’s important to understand that this list isnt like. i need to do all of this to be mentally okay. but if ik really going through something in the moment, it is indefinitely going to be worsened / exacerbated if some area of my life is especially riddled with neglect. its not usually possible for me to do everything to completion

but my mental breakdowns impact can be softened if i smell okay and ive slept a bit. if ive put on good lotion and charged my vibrator. they’re not fixes

but you can only approach your problems if youve taken care of your base needs and can view yourself with some humanity and not as a shadow monster. which seems counterproductive because thats often the hardest thing to do but unfortunately doing these things with all your remaining effort is the only way to rebuild your stamina for being alive. if ive done all of the above and im still in the throes- then i know i need to step back from everything

but almost always everything is more managable when im able to tackle one of these small tasks. sometimes it takes me days if not weeks but it gives me answers or a distraction. its my full proof system lol

[edge-oftheworld]

“yknow as a fandom I think we could do a better job of appreciating Sierra Deaton”

No just have less appreciating Sierra cause she’s been anti-black, a creep towards fans, invalidated a 5sos fan’s mental health because they’re a fan, trauma dumped on young fans and overshared, slut shamed Ashton, and so on and so forth

hey anon!! Thanks for this concise little list. But seriously, thanks for making me think and pull together a bunch of ideas in my head; I hope in this essay really you can see some of my thought process. I can’t imagine how hard it’d be to be reaching out with something really hard and expect compassion and get a negative interaction instead—if that was you or whoever it is I hope they’re doing better and finding community and people who care. And I don’t want to pretend she’s perfect or has done everything right, we know that’s not how it is, Sierra knows that, Luke knows that, so does, idk, God.

and I’ll admit I’m a bit old fashioned when it comes to cancelling people and I do like to try and see the good in people where possible—sometimes imo it’s the only way to get any positive change. to look beyond the superficial where someone might lash out—is it in malice, or fear, a momentary impulse they might regret later or maybe realise for some reason were pushed to a point where they couldn’t manage anything better. I know I’ve been to that point and I know how I spiral if I don’t know how to forgive myself. I also know this is a fandom where shit gets real and we’re young and hurting and sometimes that just makes us defenceless against our idols and those around them being human, and the shitty side of human we all have potential to become too. And we live in an era of systemic racism and lack of access to mental health services which both causes and exacerbates so many issues that, was the world not so anti-black; had every mentally ill child and youth a support network in real life (instead of the way many of us often spend years only ever feeling seen by the songs we listen to, 5sos songs easily filling in that need)—we might be a little more able to be like ‘wtf that’s not cool but that’s a her problem’ and move on. and can I say we do deserve a world that doesn’t discriminate. And in order to get what we deserve we have to make it. and in order to make it we have to learn how to do better and let people learn to do better—these people aren’t going anywhere. somehow bad people have to turn into good people and yes in order to do that they have to be made accountable. Repentance is truly a beautiful thing; it’s also something that can’t happen when we feel scared and in our survival brain. When we feel like that we tend to easily get into us vs them and dig deeper into our (often wrong) convictions and that’s actually an evolutionary response to when we have to fight against predators; we don’t have time to think ‘but what if they’re actually in the right’ when we’re fighting for our lives.

and this isn’t the place to psychoanalyse Sierra. I don’t know exactly what goes on in her head, I don’t know if she’s sorry or even remembers these things but I do know the rift between her and fans has been quite heated and even scary at some points over the years. And maybe I have the privilege of never being someone who has been hurt by her to have grace for the fact that ‘gotta be nice to this fan they’re having an experience of a lifetime to be interacting with my partner and I’m gonna give the benefit of the doubt that they’re not one of the individuals in a sea of fans who all look identical to me sending me death threats’ is a hell of a lot to put your brain through every single day. If she (and it’s not if, we know she did) make mistakes. If there was too much trauma to hold and she put it out on the internet to cope in a season of her life. If the insecurity became jealousy of one of the most important people in her s/o’s life which became insults that were thrown around back in high school before everyone realised how uncool they were and tried to stop using them but they were still burned in their brains to come out on impulse (I actually have no idea how that specific event went down, or if there were one or multiple). I hope they sorted that out internally; I don’t know what else I can do but trust that it’s something they’re capable of doing and care for each other enough as a group of friends and songwriters to do.

I wanted to save the lateral racism example for last because I feel like everything above is kind of a metaphor for it, if you follow. I’m coming from a place where I’m southeast asian and part white living in a largely western country, so is Sierra, so I’m automatically going to see her as ‘like me’ (and can I say how rarely I get this kind of representation?) whereas if you’re black, or if you find your experience more relatable to blackness, then you’re going to experience this very differently. I can’t know your experience. I also know that asians can be brutal in this area: it’s the reason my childhood best friend hasn’t told her dad she got engaged to her partner nearly a year ago. Lateral racism isn’t okay. But unfortunately what happens is often when you’re discriminated against in some ways we’re conditioned to take the side of the oppressor against someone who’s discriminated against in other ways. It’s all ‘okay maybe I’m x and I should be y but at least I’m not z’ and again it’s that evolutionary survival instinct to not be at the bottom of the pile; channeled in horrible ways into today’s society. It takes a lot of effort and self awareness to be like ‘we’re united in this experience of being oppressed, together we have the power to make a stand that this is Not Cool’ and most of us fail the first few times. but what’s important is we keep trying. we can all heal together when we do.

so anon I have no idea who you are or your background or how much you’ve had to wrestle with this yourself, if you’ve had to stand up against communities who were hostile, if you’ve had to do this while being discriminated against from outside as well, if you know the experience of not fully being one race but not fully being another etc. and also you’ve got no obligation to like Sierra, this is such unsolicited advice but this whole release period for boy ep I’ve really just been thinking ‘it’s healthy to feel our feelings even when it’s not always pleasant isn’t it’ and wherever that hurt is please love it embrace it bring it into the light whatever you do to realise you’re valuable and you don’t have anything to be ashamed of. even your mistakes and where you’ve hurt people and regret that, you’re gonna grow so much from that and have so many chances to do better. maybe you’re young and you haven’t had the chance to hurt anyone yet. I hope you manage to stay that way but if you do, I hope you can forgive yourself too. I hope you dip your toes in activism for Black Lives Matter, for mental health, for sex positivity, I can see you really value these things and that’s really encouraging to see.

and in the end: sometimes I have to be annoyingly human and come down to the fact that I really enjoy the songs that Sierra writes. I’ve fanned enough about gothic summer on this blog already. I enjoy the things she writes and so I listen to them, and I’m not actively boycotting Sierra specifically, I love the creative outcomes when she works with 5sos as a whole, with Luke, with other artists I love as well. As a result I do care about her as a person, I always do, and hey, I respect her funny little routine donations and the undertones of her UNICEF donation back in October and the random animal sanctuary and the occasional nod to some Australian mental health charity.

I’ve inferred a lot about how much more relaxed and at ease and free to feel things and process life at his own pace Luke seems to be with her than beforehand—and the fan in me who’s so protective of these guys just desperately wants someone to be there for them in ways that really matter and I feel like we have seen that, even despite the often rocky nature of the relationship between Sierra and Luke’s fans. Luke is someone I relate to a lot, and there are some experiences that are really hard to come back from, and I’m really proud of him right now and I do get the impression being with Sierra has really helped him get there. I don’t know for sure, I could be wrong, but I’m always going to be grateful when celebrities get to be human and not have their lives and choices dictated by fans either directly or indirectly. I’ll take the allies I can in my activism and even if there are criticisms around sincerity I do generally see Sierra trying and I want to appreciate that. I don’t want to say she hasn’t hurt anyone ever and I pray for resolution and peace for the fans, for Ashton, for her, for the Black community in general, for everyone who’s been hurt in the wake of colonialism and the generational trauma it breeds. And then I’ll go listen to bloodline and think, maybe in some ways we were born inheriting the sins of our parents before we knew better. But every day I discover ways of choosing better and compassion takes us so far and I hope every day I learn a bit more about how to channel that.

thank you for the ask, it really got me thinking and the opportunity to compile some thoughts I’d had that I didn’t realise formed a neat little mindmap around Sierra as a case study!! Much more fun than regular sociology. And I didn’t even get to delve into the political history of Saigon that I’ve been trying to understand more about!!

[bananonbinary]

hey i saw your tags on the mental health walk post and i have major Sensory Issues that can be exacerbated by being outdoors (and am literally allergic to uv lmao), if it's not weird can i ask what flavor of spd stuff you're dealing with? i have some Techniques that may be useful if we've got overlap

hm. that's a bit of a difficult question, because i'm still sort of figuring it out? i went diagnosed for most of my life (which is insane cause it turns out its pretty severe lmao), and even now that i've been diagnosed, the doctors/therapists i've spoken to about it either have no experience in the area or are worse than useless, so i'm sort of piecing it together all on my own here.

the main obstacle for Outside is the sun. i don't LOVE all the other uncontrollable Stuff out there (wind, temperature, bugs, etc), but i can manage it okay. meanwhile i hate almost any light at all, and spend a lot of time in my room with the lights off and the curtain drawn, on my computer with a yellow light filter. i can hang out in the rest of the house without a problem as long as i can return to my dark room when i need it, but to go outside on a sunny day for more than like 10 minutes results in a full meltdown and often physical illness just in case i missed the memo that my brain Did Not Like It. i mean, i do it, because it's always worth it, but it takes like a whole week at least to claw my way back to my baseline again.

i would love to hear about your techniques even if you don't think they're very applicable, like i said i'm sort of in the dark about "normal" coping and treatment for the whole condition. my current coping techniques consist of a weighted pack i wear around my neck that my mom made (which does help a lot, i wear it every time i leave the house), and taking benedryl until it knocks me out of an overstimulation spiral and i can pass tf out for the comedown.

[drdemonprince]

I'm really curious about your journey without caffeine. I stopped drinking coffee this weekend bc I was sick and I'm contemplating to drink less coffee but I still haven't made it. Every time I've tried in the past has been unsuccessful but I definitely feel different without it.

Yo follow the decaf subreddit! It really helped me clarify a few things. Coffee has been making me an anxious impatient wreck for a long time, on top of already being a person who leaned that way. And it really can exacerbate a lot of mental health issues and yet rarely if ever gets spoken of or even screened for by doctors when a person presents with a problem.

Quitting is hard -- every other time I tried I got terrible headaches and bailed after like a day. Ive been getting decaf Americanos and making decaf cold brew at home. Really does the trick and because the taste and acid is so mellow its easier on my stomach and I actually enjoy the flavor of it more. Plus less coffee breath! Rooibos tea is also a good replacement.

By taking a few days off due to sickness you are honestly already thru the worst of caffeine withdrawal already. Just drink a lot of water, find a good replacement drink you can look forward to or ritualize, and make sure you get enough fiber to shit well since coffee helps so much with that (or rather gives so many of us explosive bowels lmao i dont miss that part either!)

Ill write more about it once I have a month or two in the tank.

[ukrfeminism]

5 minute read

Four women have spoken to BBC Newsnight about allegations of a "boys club" culture at all levels of Police Scotland, the UK's second largest force.

The women, who include a former assistant chief constable, described a culture of misogyny that failed to properly address their concerns.

They say other women, still working in the force, are too frightened to come forward.

Three of the women have spoken before about their experiences but have banded together because they feel their stories have been lost and there has been no measurable change in attitudes towards female staff in Police Scotland.

In May last year, Rhona Malone won almost £1m in compensation from Police Scotland after an employment tribunal found she had been victimised when she had raised concerns about sexism within the force.

Ms Malone had been a police officer for eight years when she decided to join the firearms unit in Edinburgh.

"It was a huge challenge for any police officer, not just for a woman," she told Newsnight.

At first it was great and the training was amazing, she said, but then she started to see some "horrific behaviour".

She says that when she challenged that behaviour, she was wrongly accused of throwing her utility belt with a loaded firearm.

The final straw was an email in 2018 from her senior officer which said two female firearms officers should not be working together when there were male staff on duty.

In the email he said "other than the obvious differences in physical capacity, it makes more sense from a search, balance of testosterone perspective".

Ms Malone said it was not easy for her to put in a grievance.

"The minute you do that you have a target on your back," she said.

"It was like Russian Roulette. Either put a grievance in and lose my career, or don't put in the grievance, and then I lose my career because I'm getting accused of throwing weapons, which didn't happen."

After a long, drawn-out process she won her case and received substantial compensation which was mostly swallowed up in legal costs.

"Ultimately it didn't just take my career, it took my mental health as well," she said.

"I'm really sad about that because I loved my job."

Angela Wilson, the former assistant chief constable of Tayside Police, was one of the officers who openly criticised Police Scotland over Ms Malone's case.

She said it smacked of misogyny and bullying towards female officers who are trained exactly the same as their male counterparts.

Ms Wilson said her own 30-year career was derailed by her attempts to change the internal culture.

The former assistant chief constable, who took early retirement in 2013, said women who complained internally were shut down and made to look like troublemakers.

She called for a judge-led inquiry into Police Scotland's sexism and misogyny.

Police Scotland has just under 17,000 officers, with roughly a third being women.

It was formed in 2013 when the existing eight regional forces were merged.

All the women Newsnight spoke to cited the creation of Police Scotland as a major problem.

Ms Wilson said: "The stories I'm hearing from people do seem to be exacerbated now it's one force.

"You had lots of different chief constables. So in a sense they held each other in check."

Georgina Gallivan has never before spoken publicly about her experience.

She worked for 20 years in an IT civilian role, first for Central Scotland Police, based in Stirling, and latterly for Police Scotland.

Ms Gallivan said she had excellent reviews and appraisals every year up to the point where she complained about a male colleague in 2017.

"After that, it all kind of became 'she's a problem, she's got mental health issues, she's just causing trouble'," Ms Gallivan said.

She said she had found it hard to talk about her experience.

Ms Gallivan said one male colleague in particular disliked her.

"I suppose because I was the only female in the office and he told me that I was hormonal," she said.

"He said to my colleagues I was hormonal and 'women were only on this planet for one thing'.

"It was humiliating in front of colleagues that you've worked with for such a long time."

At first Ms Gallivan said managers appeared to take her complaint seriously and began disciplinary proceedings. However, she said she was not officially informed of the outcome and ultimately the man returned to the office.

According to Ms Gallivan, he continued to be offensive and also engaged in harassing behaviour.

She said she took a long period of sick leave after a breakdown and then resigned when it became clear the intention was to silence and block her rather than engage with evidence.

Karen Harper was a police officer in Lanarkshire and Dumfries for 22 years but quit in 2017 due to ill health.

In an employment tribunal she claimed bullying and victimisation but this was not upheld.

She told Newsnight: "Taking on an organisation with a power and resources of a national police force is never going to be anything other than life-changing.

"But it's all for nothing. Because you realise it was a sham. Because what I think now is, I just don't think the truth means anything.

"The truth means nothing in policing now."

Tackling this challenge

In response to the claims of the four women, Deputy Chief Constable Malcolm Graham said: "Policing in Scotland is not immune from the sexism and misogyny which persists across society and we are tackling this challenge head-on.

"The onus is on us to address policy, process and education gaps and challenge bias at every level and wherever it occurs to maintain and build confidence with all communities.

"Earlier this year the chief constable appointed a dedicated chief officer to provide the sustained leadership required to co-ordinate and drive this essential work as we build a service where everyone feels valued and is able to flourish."

Deputy Chief Constable Graham added: "We are realistic about the challenges ahead, however when we sought the views of officers and staff they made it clear progress is being felt in Police Scotland and any assertion otherwise is without foundation.

"Our resolute determination and approach to creating a society where women and girls live free from violence, abuse, exploitation and harassment is outlined in our violence against women and girls strategy, published in March."

In relation to Ms Malone, Police Scotland said it had made a public apology to the former firearms officer and in the days after the employment tribunal judgment, the chief constable commissioned the Police Service of Northern Ireland to carry out an independent review of the decision.

A Police Scotland statement said that during a meeting in April 2022, the chief constable listened to Ms Malone's experiences and personally provided an unreserved apology for the poor response when a dedicated officer raised legitimate concerns.

In relation to Ms Harper's experience, Police Scotland said: "The employment tribunal found Ms Harper's complaint to Police Scotland was dealt with carefully and diligently even though our response did not uphold her complaint.

"While the tribunal ruled against the overwhelming majority of Ms Harper's claims, we recognise that a now-retired officer was found to have shared concerns about Ms Harper in retaliation to her raising a grievance against him.

"We take whistleblowing seriously and have set up an independent advice line to provide confidential, expert advice to any officers and staff who have any concerns."

Commenting on Ms Gallivan's case, Police Scotland said: "A member of police staff raised a number of grievances.

"The matters were appropriately concluded, the individual no longer works for Police Scotland and we have not received an employment claim."

[graphicabyss]

I remember people hating on 2020 so hard... There were memes, documentaries, you name it. And then they hated on 2021 too. But 2022.... there are no words to describe it. Horrible, devastating, catastrophic... doesn't seem to cover it.

It's hard to believe it a year ago I actually felt happy. Possibly the most happy I've even been in my life. And I didn't have much, just a job I loved and no major health issues. Even then we knew about the threat, but we couldn't believe it. That we'd be at war with our cousins and grandparents and they wouldn't even realize it or actively support it.

And now... I'm struggling every single day. You can distract yourself but every day brings more death and destruction. Just finding things to lift you up is so hard. They say a tragedy overshadows other problems but that's not true. It exacerbates them. Physical and mental health have plummeted. And yet, it doesn't feel right to complain. Millions probably have it worse, losing their homes and their loved ones, getting tortured or just traumatized. The world is saying how inspiring and heroic we are. But we don't want to be. We are so tired. We just want a good night's sleep. Just being sure we won't be killed in our beds at night. You feel like you can't take it anymore, but what can you do? Please do not tell us to 'stay safe'. God knows we're trying more than anyone.

I'm grateful I at least had some people who supported me, shared the small good things I could find. I can't imagine going through this hell without them.

So I don't expect 2023 to be good. I just hope it's a little less terrible. Happy New Year, world! I wish for you to never go through what we are facing every day.

[monsterkid-sketchbook]

Do you ever just think about the fact that trans and on some level non-binary people don't exist as themselves until they receive the necessary treatments to treat their gender dysphoria. Like they are an entire shell of a person without an ego relevant to the expressions of their superego or Id. Meaning they have to mirror their social surroundings until they find a safe enough place to learn, grow and receive care. Granted this might also be THE trauma response when it comes to behavior based traumas. Losing personhood to guarantee the ability to people please, by learning and mirroring another's behavior. But also maintaining the desire for self and bodily preservation through the Id.

And what makes it even worse is that the healthcare system is both not that place and forcibly that place, because they're the ones doling out the care and the stamps saying who is worthy of it. Which makes the entire issue a systemic one as the reason healthcare is unsafe is because of its current need for homeostasis due to the professional shortage and wage theft. As they themselves have to fight to convince the business owners of the hospital that they are people and need care as well, Not just automatons. Which just backlogs the needs of patients to a warfare triage system that is relatively broken in a standard civil emergency triage. As it doesn't take the necessary accounts of how mental health impacts a person and how the issue really is the systematic inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the current medical system and not the patient for keeping control over themselves. When they had little control to begin with. This is again exacerbated when you factor in the likelihood of trans people also being neurodivergent or disabled, having substance abuse problems, or other addictions. Which, having such often bars you or the comorbidities bar you form being a candidate of gender affirming care.

Not to mention, but even if you are one of the some given care they will replace the socially unacceptable or physically unacceptable behaviors with mindfulness behaviors that take longer amounts of time to do the same or similar things that the previous behaviors did. Which is further compounded by the wait times due to the standards of care policies and, 'you guessed it,' the systematic issues with the healthcare system. Meaning those mindfulness techniques, just like drugs, slowly become more ineffective as time goes on. And since time is guaranteed to go on for at least 2-3 years. It really feels like a wonder that more trans people aren't dead or in psychiatric wards more often.

A large part of the treatment is the reconnection of ego and superego, ego and Id. Ego and Id is really easy, I live for myself and my true self is my ego. Bing, bang, boom, reconnected by mantra. But reconnecting your ego with your super ego is like pulling teeth. As many different mentally ill things can and will happen. Like a dependence on apoptotic behaviors to physically, metaphysically or meta-contextually remove your old way of thinking and living. Something that if it is not done with therapeutically can get really dangerous and really suicidal really fast. There is also the fact the first people that truly see your ego and superego working as intended and engage with it will feel like cocaine to your brain and you will want to spend every waking moment with them due to the actual safety they provide. Which, again, can quickly become unsafe due to relationship dynamics and mental illness. This continued connection also brings intensifying dysphoria as your physical existence is once again not lining up with your conceptual existence. Except this time you don't have the reliable avenue of isolating your ego from the rest of your psyche. Which again brings depression and suicide as their symptoms and with e medical system maintaining that you stick to mindfulness techniques it can become a daily spiraling problem.

All of this to say, things blow, I suck and my antidepressants need to be raised or my HRT changed to progesterone.

Goodnight!

[fadecrow]

This is just a vent if you come in here yelling at me I’m just gonna block you because I’m not gonna tolerate that shit here if you don’t like what I’m saying, just block me, close the page, hide the post, whatever. Constructive criticism is welcome, but you’re not allowed to be harsh. I can’t deal with that shit.

But I wanted to have a textual acknowledgement for memory reasons that in my experience, people like to talk big shit about oppression dynamics and the way they intersect until the point where they intersect in a way that makes them uncomfortable with the implications attached to how they’ve been treating people.

Like as an example, people like to talk about how oppression dynamics can compound the way people experience things. What they don’t like to talk about, and I’m sorry if I word this wrong but I don’t know how to say it in The Correct Way, is how they can make things a little bit fucky when you’re trying to figure out if oppression is even happening. Kind of like how some disabilities conflict but instead of being just disabilities it’s everything. You have a dynamic that is supposed to be oppressed vs oppressor yaaay punching up, BUT because of the way that it is people just get hurt.

For example, sex positivity and open sexuality is very important in order to kill shame, but there are also people who are sex repulsed and don’t wanna hear about fucking. This just kind of ends up with shame being thrown around on both sides of the argument and no one coming to a conclusion about how to accommodate both important things.

Or someone might have a symptom of a disorder that is very uncomfortable for one person to be around for one historical reason or another, but in all honesty, the symptom isn’t actually causing tangible harm. It just reminds someone else of the tangible harm they’ve already been through, and so they decide to take it out on the person who has the symptom. (Like certain disabilities that make you curse in public, etc.) When the person with the symptom tries to defend themselves because the one who is uncomfortable suddenly attacks them, the one who is uncomfortable leverages the idea that you’re not allowed to tell someone whether or not you’re hurting them, completely glossing over the fact that they aren’t in any danger to begin with. And then the person with the symptom in trying to express that they are allowed to exist in public without causing themselves unnecessary stress is now the bad guy. Nobody calls the person who was uncomfortable out and tells them maybe they should take a step back.

And I’m not even going to get into people who say silence is violence and that shows up for people with CPTSD or moral scrupulosity OCD, which might be exacerbated by the idea that if you don’t think and say and do things exactly the right way you are A Problem and Evil.

I have personally been told because I didn’t word things in exactly the right way and the person didn’t like how I existed in their twisted up perception of me I deserve to have my mental health tanked every day. They literally said they hope that my symptoms get worse right to my digital face, no anon. And I wasn’t telling them anything mean in regards to them or their family or political party or anything, I was trying to express something that upset me in my own life where I didn’t know how to deal with it in a space where others were also sharing similar situations. Trying to defend myself at all in that space just got more and more people yelling at me and I had to leave that site. (And no, I’m not going to name the site or exactly what the argument was about because I’m not going to go through all that shit a second time. It took hours for me to come back from it mentally, and I had people threaten to find me. I’m done forever talking about that specific difficulty in detail I’m just not going to do it ever again or seek any help for it.)

It’s really fucked up if people don’t exist the right way it’s acceptable to destroy them by dogpiling them.

I don’t know what this is called like social violence or something? Is it a form of gaslighting or a double bind or am I confused? Any way you slice it, it’s unacceptable in my opinion and I don’t understand why it’s so widely accepted in places that are supposed to be progressive.

It makes many spaces too hostile for me to learn in, and half of the time I just kinda have to absorb information from passive things that come across my feed instead of actually trying to seek out my flaws and learn actively because if I say things incorrectly, I only get attacked. Nobody will say anything in my defense and there is no compassion to be found anywhere anymore the way there was when I was a kid. I don’t want them to treat me like a child, but I want them to hold me to the same amount of value they did before if that makes any sense. It feels like now that people think my mind is sturdier, it means I am also trash that deserves to be chewed up.

[wybielune]

Hi guys! I know it's been a long time, but my mental health went on an olympic marathon straight down the toilet. We're talking Flushed Away bad, but, I'm coming out of it very slowly, and I've been thinking about coming back.

What I'm here to talk about today might not seem very witchy, but it is. I didn't realise just how important shadow work is. It's basically being your own therapist, except you don't have a doctorate, so you have nobody to sue if a treatment you choose doesn't work the way you want it to.

I've been quite ill for a long time, so I referred myself to a talking therapies group. While I'm waiting for an appointment, they gave me a website with info on it to help me understand mental health, how to care for mine, and exercises I could do to help make me feel better.

I'm still doing the online course while I wait to be paired with a therapist, but I felt that I should share some of my experiences here.

Journaling helped me a lot. Keeping track of my feelings and thoughts. Getting up and doing something, anything, really does help too. I know you don't want to. I've been there, I still have those days, but the thing is, I actually did an experiment.

I hadn't wanted to do anything for weeks beforehand, so that gave me a firm baseline to start from.

For the next several days, I had opportunities pop up to leave the house, which I don't like doing, I know, I'm a hermit. Relatives needed help with things, so even though I really didn't want to go, I went anyway. And I hated it.

I have a number of health problems, and these trips exacerbated them. I was tired, I had intense pain by the end, and hated every second of being out, but I found that the next day, I actually felt a little bit better, and by taking note of it and my experiment in the journal, I actually noticed the difference.

Once wasn't enough though, so I repeated it another three times, and my answer came back consistently, even though I'd had trouble getting myself up and moving, I did in fact benefit from it the next day.

So I highly recommend trying this yourself. Get a journal, or a pad of paper, anything you can write on give the experiment a go.

Don't go hurting yourself like I did, of course. I didn't have a choice, with my conditions, pain is just something I have to deal with, so keep yourself as safe and pain free as you can, but also, push yourself a little.

Wash your cup when you're done using it straight away.

Pull your blanket up. You don't have to do the whole bed if you're not up for it.

Get the hoover out for a quick go round, or go for a short walk. Doesn't matter how short, all you have to do is try, you can work up to longer walks.

Forgot something downstairs? Go get it. Dont put it off until you go downstairs next.

It can be done. I did the experiment first for you. Now we know it works, you can try :)

Thanks for reading.

[404theepilogue]

Im not sure really what to do or say but i want to just verbalise it and ask for help.

Im very scared right now. My physical health has never been worse, my mental health is dangerously unstable, and my work situation is bleak.

I told you that i missed work on monday, well it’s because i had slept in (or rather, passed out from exhaustion) because of the fact while my frequent insomnia and health stuff makes it difficult to sleep, the stress has been so high recently i cannot even fully sleep, like i will be half aware the whole time like im going to be attacked. My anxiety regarding work has mounted to unmanageable levels as every day and night is spent worrying about if im going to be well enough to work and if i will have a mishap like monday.

Work has issued me a first written warning as a code of conduct breach as i missed work on Monday. This understandably is deeply upsetting and disappointing to me, Kay was extremely apologetic but unfortunately its out of her hands as HR deals with the conduct policy, shes really one of the few people i think that actively supports me at work (excluding emma of course). However if another instance of any form of lateness occurs within the next 6 months this will escalate the disciplinary warning.

I spent quite a lot of my shift yesterday in tears because it feels like im a crushing disappointment to not be able to cope with life.

Ive been reflecting a lot recently because of how ill and stressed ive felt constantly and mentally speaking i dont want this anymore i dont want to scrape through while my health degrades further, i want to get better i want to be able to regain control of my life and recover. This is a notable change as you know i usually am a cynical person and will try and look for a way out rather than a solution.

All this to say really that im not sure where to go right now in life, it feels like i am making the choice between healing or pushing on to my detriment.

Of course the problem arises that, we live in a capitalist society and constant money is required to be able to live, im just unsure of how to reach a compromise where im not literally running my life into a situation i cannot get out of. This is not some random laziness i hate that i have to say this at all, i wish i could push on and let you retire and me make the money because you deserve a break more than me, but my body just cannot comply with what im pushing it to do and its shutting down.

I know i need to focus on healing properly, not just run myself into a burnout- take 2 months off work, push through again and rinse repeat, because the last few years have shown that just doesnt work.

Im too tired to fight or even knlw what is best for work, they have accommodated so much and the expectations from them are that i will eventually get back to doing my full role, from the office, with the phone etc. and its going to be pushed by rachel, kay has been pushing back deadlines and things that would ultimately be impossible for me but she can only do so much and who knlws what will happen.

Im so tired of feeling so bad i want to die, im so tired of being constantly in fight or flight no matter what i do. And im so tired of looking at myself in tge mirror and seeing the toll these have taken on me, my skins getting worse and i know it’s exacerbated by stress, because thats what triggered the first really really bad outbreak back when it was on my feet.

Idk, i just needed to say this and let you know about the whole work thing. Im sorry if this sounds like whining, i really dont mean to i just really needed to say what has been going through my mind the past few years

And i still was fired.