#if not ill fuck off to another game until mods get fixed

[bladesmitten]

i need to play a new game i think. i have pwotr installed since december but i haven't touched it for fear that my hyperfixation will end (which i don't want to happen bc that means i won't have motivation to write fics i want to finish 😭) (but also all these recent stuff has me... demotivated to write anything at all anyway so. lmao)

[eeveelutionsforequality]

@mod vape, do you have any tips for dealing with hypersexuality or addiction? bc uh. getting off hurts. idk if it’s specifically because ive been doing it so goddamn much or because of the fucking legion of medical problems i have, but it’s DEFINITELY making my abdominal pain worse and i dont know how to stop gjdfjhk.

Well, firstly, go to the doctor about that pain - there are injuries, illnesses, sexual dysfunctions, and all sorts of things from that could be causing a pain like that (it could be a pulled muscle, a cyst, maybe you aggravated a pre-existing health issue, etc), and it's best to rule out anything too dangerous as soon as you can, and to treat anything treatable. Even if it is tied to or caused by overdoing sex/masturbation, just mitigating that habit isn't guaranteed to fix it.

I was getting some pretty bad pain from even small dildos/vibrators, and I decided to go to the doctor in case it was something dangerous - thankfully, it turned out to just be a sexual dysfunction (basically spasms and tightening of the muscles in the vagina, in my case caused by trauma). I was supposed to get therapy for it, but I never went because I was having another therapy at the time and my carer was like "But what if they cancel each other out!?" and I was like "That's not how it works..." Sometimes it acts up but I think I've got it mostly under control. I've also had to go to the doctor for sprained/strained wrists more times than I would like to admit... I used to be like "Oh I played my guitar for too long" or "Oh I think I leant on my walking stick for too long" and now I'm just like "Wanker's cramp".

Trust me and my plethora of injuries when I say that doctors are professionals, they went to medical school, they see genitalia on a daily basis, they've seen eyes and ears and giant sores full of puss... it's really rare to get a doctor that will look down upon or judge you for that. Sure you'll get the odd "You should masturbate less", "Here's a big speech about the risks of STDs and pregnancy", "Have you told your therapist about this", but it's more of an "I'm contractually obliged to impart medical advice" than an "I think you're gross" 99% of the time.

Secondly, I do have tips, but I'm still hella bad at dealing with my own issues - I still smoke more than I want to, drink til I puke, sleep with strangers, lose days to laying in bed alone, have an aching pain in my wrists, etc. Obviously I don't have all of the answers, so I can't promise that they'll be the best tips in the world - it's worth doing some more research of your own, and it might be worth talking to your doctor/therapist if you can't manage it on your own.

You haven't given much detail about how specifically it affects you or what the addiction is to (sexual stuff in general, masturbation, casual sex, porn, etc), so I'm going to try to cover as much as I can (like dealing with sexual thoughts about people in your life, limiting the number of times you masturbate, etc) and I hope that at least some of what I say is useful to you.

Okay, so the first tip I have is: try not to slip into the mentality that cold turkey is the only way to go if it's not what you want - thinking "I can't have this. I'm not allowed this." can increase cravings. Thinking "I'm allowed this later... if I stay motivated not to do it now and if I only do it in moderation, and it's gonna be great." can make waiting out those cravings a lot easier, provided you have the self-control to not slip back into a bad habit after once.

Ways to avoid slipping back into bad habits include: having time (or number of the thing) limits for when and how long you are allowed, having something to do afterwards that takes your mind off it (for example "once I've done it once, I have to get up, take out the rubbish, email my boss, read that global warming article, and get ready for bed"), other rewards/punishments (put a book you really want in your Amazon basket then click "save for later", if at the end of the fortnight you've accomplished your goal then buy the book, if you fail the fortnight resets and you have to wait two more weeks - set smaller goals with smaller rewards, and larger goals with larger rewards), keeping and going over a diary so that you can see what worked and what didn't, if there's a pattern to failures, progress even if you're not meeting goals (at which point try to make the upcoming goals a little easier since you're expecting too much of yourself), and so on.

Secondly, and it's the most generic tip ever but it's SUPER important for addictions because they can damage your pre-frontal cortex... healthy diet, exercise, meditation, mental exercises, getting some sun, and other daily tasks are super important.

You need to get into the habit of something like reading or pottery or drawing for at least half an hour to an hour every day - turn off your internet, games, distractions, and maintain concentration on what you're doing. This helps repair the effects that addictions can have on your pre-frontal cortex and dopamine receptors by activating the parts of your brain that work towards maintained motivation and focus for smaller or distant rewards, which in turn will help your brain work normally again, which in turn will increase motivation and willpower.

Cooking more difficult meals will have similar benefits and a healthy diet improves your overall health. Exercise does the same even more effectively than either, and it has the added bonus of energizing you, increasing your focus on other tasks that you do afterwards, various health benefits, lifting your mood, and helping you be tired by the end of the day so that you'll be able to sleep easier - insomnia is a really dangerous trigger for any addiction, but especially a masturbation or sex addiction, because you're in an environment that is associated with that behaviour and the behaviour makes it easier to sleep afterwards, so you've every reason to start doing it if you find yourself unable to sleep.

Which brings me on to another reason why keeping a diary is especially important - you need to isolate your triggers. Establish what happened immediately before the behaviour, what you were thinking, and what potentially led to the behaviour. Then you can work towards either avoiding those triggers, lessening them, being mindful of them, or training yourself to exhibit a different behaviour in response to them - for example, if having a shower triggers you to masturbate, try singing in the shower instead, training your brain to react to showers with the urge to sing instead of the urge to masturbate.

You might also want to try sleeping meds, so that you can take them, read until they start to kick in, and then immediately go to bed and try to sleep - that way there's less of a gap between going to bed and falling asleep where something could happen.

Routine can also be really helpful for some people - you're supposed to fall asleep between about 10pm and 1am for optimal sleep, and you're supposed to wake up between 6 and 8 hours later. Get out of bed as soon as you wake up to avoid lethargy, and either exercise or go for a short walk, or do something that starts your brain and body working for the day. After that, prepare breakfast, don't watch TV or distract yourself while you eat. Continue the day with a routine that works for you, and you could set a time at which you will masturbate (or maybe a date you're allowed to go to the club and pull... how you work in routine if you have a long-term sexual partner is something you would need to talk to them about) that doesn't interfere with your routine.

Avoid bars, pubs, clubs, tinder, grindr, and anything else that can be a trigger for that or makes quick hook-ups easy - I know that I can go to the pub near me (because there'll be nobody there for that, it's an "old people come here to watch football" pub), and that I can go to a pub or bar with friends if I'm having a good day, but making sure that my flat wasn't within walking distance of a club and deleting dating apps was really helpful to me (it meant that even if the temptation was there the effort required to act on it was too much and took too long, so I'd catch myself).

I also log off any tumblr that I'm following people on that post NSFW, porn, sexual stuff or anime stuff if necessary - just like how I log off any tumblrs where I follow political blogs if I'm getting overwhelmed by that. But it is still good to have a tumblr for NSFW stuff, to have somewhere that you can express certain things, reblog things, feel less alone, enjoy things that you enjoy - don't demonize the side of you that likes sex, don't lock it in a cell in the back of your head, just tell it that it can't control you.

I'm also working on not putting myself in as many situations that can make me feel like I'm being too flirty or as many situations that cause too many uncomfortable or sexual thoughts at a time when they're stressing me - like, I don't come online as much when I'm drunk now, I don't have as many sleepovers, and I don't tend to maintain physical contact for as long (like, I don't hold hands as often as I used to), for example.

That said, you can't live out your life hiding from people who your brain might think something sexual about - isolating yourself is unhealthy. Humans are social creatures and social interaction is good for us, talking to people about our problems is good for us, distractions and fun are good for us. I find structured social plans make things easier - so, I like plans like "lets cook together then eat the awesome meal", "lets go see a movie", "lets go to the town center and taste hot chocolate from as many cafés as we can before I puke", "lets go to the fair" and things like that (that said, agoraphobia is awful and ruins like 90% of my social interaction). Keep people in your life who you're comfortable with and who make you happy.

Remember that what you're thinking or mental images that pop into your head aren't evil, it doesn't mean that you have a crush on them, that you actually want to do sexual things with them, that you can't be their friend, or anything like that... they're just thoughts. You didn't choose them. Just let them pass.

Your surroundings and triggers are incredibly important things to stay on top of though, be that to mitigate stress in social situations, or to prevent you from engaging in more sex/masturbation than you want to or than is safe for you to.

Don't spend your day in the same place that you masturbate - even if you don't live alone you can avoid being in bed when you're in your room, you could get a sofa, beanbag, comfy chair, gigantic cushion, or other comfortable place to sit in your bedroom so that you don't have to be in your bed, and put that in a part of your room with different posters/decoration to those around your bed.

Lots of things can become associated with certain behaviours in your brain, from sitting in a certain place to feeling a certain emotion. Try to avoid being too exposed to those things at times when you don't intend to be doing something sexual, and replace them with other things that make you happy, keep you distracted, and aid in training concentration and willpower (maths games, board games, card games, puzzles, reading, cooking, exercise, drawing, writing, etc).

Even things like separating any porn or sexual pictures in your phone into a hidden folder instead of having it pop up when you go to look for pictures, or keeping magazines or the pornhub bookmark out of sight, can really help with lessening the regularity with which things pop into your head.

Finally, and I've hinted at it throughout this, mindfulness and meditation are things that many addicts find incredibly helpful. It's really worth doing some googling, watching some YouTube videos, and learning those techniques (and it's good to be doing research in general into ways to help addictions or hypersexuality disorders, because there are quite a few schools of thought and there are probably a lot of things that I've missed).

Meditation, like reading and exercise, helps train your mind into maintaining focus, not reacting to distractions and urges, relaxing, letting thoughts pass by, and being less hectic and loud - it also has health benefits, can help you sleep, can help you take time from your busy schedule to yourself (an urge that may have been previously feeding the addictions instead, as they can be linked to a need for control), and can help you work through thoughts or anxieties.

Mindfulness helps in various ways too - for example, smokers found that being mindful (observing, essentially) helped them quit because it led to them paying more attention to how bad the cigarette tasted, and it also allowed them to non-judgmentally observe the cravings that they felt, observe why they were feeling those cravings, and allow them to pass by. It's about letting your thoughts exist, letting things exist, acknowledging them, but not letting them control you.

You can study mindfulness for yourself - research it online, read one of the many books about it, watch YouTube videos, etc - or you can go to the doctor and ask for a therapy that teaches mindfulness (I found learning about it in my own time more helpful, and have had more success with that, but I think that was mostly related to not having a great therapist - plus, online gives me more opportunities to look into the how and why, to see how other people do it, to look deeper into it, to take as long as I need, while therapy was just an elderly lady snapping at me for using my phone and telling me to imagine that my thoughts are clouds and distracting me constantly).

So yeah...

Step 1: Go to the doctors for that pain, it's probably something minor but it's better safe than sorry.

Step 2: Do more research, Mod Vape doesn't know everything.

Step 3: Keep a diary and try to isolate what things are triggering you, what you're feeling beforehand, and be mindful of what you're thinking, what you're feeling, and what you're gaining/losing from the experience.

Step 4: Try to keep yourself away from things that trigger you, but also remember that you don't have to entirely abstain from valuable things - you can train new reactions as responses to those things, you can work on self-control, and so on.

Step 5: Work on your routine, diet, exercise, habits, and hobbies, so that you can improve your willpower, motivation, and health.

Step 6: Research and practice meditation and mindfulness.

Step 7: Set and work towards small goals, rewarding yourself for successes and keeping track of your progress.

Step 8: If you can't control the addiction or behaviour, if the thoughts are becoming difficult to live with, if these problems continue to cause you distress, there is no shame in seeking professional help. You don't have to do this alone.

Remember that chemical imbalances and other neurological issues can cause such things - if you can't manage it alone, that could be a warning sign that something serious or physiological is going on. Not being able to quit doesn't necessarily mean that somebody's "not trying hard enough", and instead of beating yourself up talk to somebody who can do blood tests, scans, or whatever else is necessary to make sure that you're okay and that you overcome your struggles.

~ Vape

[simmyshuno]

I’ll be quite honest. I’m terrible at being in communities.

This is a huge TLDR/personal post and seriously, you can ignore. That’s not some manipulation tactic. It’s here for people who want to know genuinely why I keep coming/going the last two years and where my inconsistency is coming from, as well as why I run headfirst into the community and then just disappear without warning.

Sims posts will follow. This is just something I felt I needed to talk about. In short: yes I’m fine. Yes I’m handling things well. No I don’t need crisis care. I’m actually doing well considering. Sims has always been my go-to comfort. I didn’t know about the community until I met @invadersim many moons ago on LiveJournal, and Tumblr was in it’s infancy. As well as the things mentioned under the cut, I also feel like I’ve withdrawn from social media a lot since I turned 30 (I’m 31 now). I just stopped needing to belong and sort of settled in where I was at. Like I said, Sims have been my comfort. Sometimes I sit on Facetime with another IRL friend who also Sims and we just chat like one would on Skype only with our games running and Facetime going on our iPads. It’s fun. She discovered my game is utter chaos incarnate while she micromanages everything. She likes hearing me talk about my builds. I like hearing about the random TV show characters in her game that she tosses in (like the shenanigans her Dean Winchester Sim gets up to). Sims, to me, is ‘home’. The place you return to on holidays when you’ve been away to school or the warm cup of tea waiting for you during a cold, snowy day. Sims is my home away from home - when other games have frustrated me, or when my mental health is doing poorly and I either cannot focus on anything or I’m too depressed or anxious to do much at all. Which, leads into the TLDR portion.

So my last time posting was August I believe. I had just installed TS4 for the first time and was leery. I’ll say this now: I fucking love TS4 and probably won’t go back to fix my TS3 game ever to play it. It became my new go-to comfort and I’m loving that I am still learning things about TS4 that I didn’t already know. With TS3, I knew so much about the game that it started to become boring. I was always adding mods and CC and then just doing the same old boring shit in my games.

Right now I don’t have “Cats and Dogs” but I have everything else, so it’s forcing me to play the rest of the game without the addition of pets. It’s nice. I also don’t use much CC and I have only one core mod in my game (I don’t even use MC right now). It’s just nice playing a completely vanilla game. I can think of a dozen things I want to recolor (and thanks to @blindingechoes teaching me now, I likely will sometime early 2018) but otherwise I’m enjoying things again: enjoying building. Enjoying the gameplay. Enjoying how smoothly things run. But that’s not really why I’m posting. I’ve had my inbox filled with worried messages and I want to address things for those who don’t have me on Facebook already.

Yes I’ve been dealing with a malignant narcissist and yes this person was once a close friend, and yes I knew they truly had diagnosed sociopath behaviors but I also knew them for so long that I had the totally naive thought of it could never be me. The thing with abuse is, the second you think that? It’s likely already too late. I should’ve seen things coming and I didn’t until it was too much at once and I decided to cut this person out (their version of the story is that they cut me out first which is not true, and I have ‘receipts’ to prove this).

This person did truly heinous things to me between the end of January 2017 until October 2017, when things finally stopped. I won’t get into major detail (though this post is marked so anyone browsing in safe mode won’t get to see it, I feel a lot of people following me are slightly younger and I don’t feel anyone really needs to know details) but some of the things done to me over nine months were: having my personal info (name, address, phone number, mother’s name - who is sick (she’s had many strokes and lives with me so I can take care of her) - as well as her personal number posted (ie, doxxing) online to a website which is notorious for some crimes in the past (members who met up and literally plotted to kill their families and succeeded). It’s home to a lot of skeevy, disgusting people and this person literally outed my personal information to thousands of people who are potentially dangerous.

From that moment on I spent three months having child pornography, gore porn/snuff, gory images of dead animals and the type of stuff you’d find on Rotten or Ogrish on my damn phone - being texted daily - by throwaway numbers. I reported this to my phone company and blocked all the numbers I could but it didn’t stop. I did everything I could but in the end I was the one who was losing their phone service as a result of “breaching telecommunications laws” and had to pay a fine of 400-something dollars (I forget the exact amount, I do have copies of the legal docs though), as well as paying to have my phone turned back on.

I acquired paperwork for a restraining order but couldn’t serve it until recently. I have been working with a defamation and libel lawyer pro bono to get this person to leave me alone. They’ve made threats to “skin my cat”, to “throw acid on me in the street” as well as to have one of their junkie friends who is HIV positive “throw their used needles at them like darts”. I have copies of the messages where these discussions and plans were made.

Cops most definitely were notified. It has been a huge drawn out process and they’re basically claiming they’re “mentally ill and won’t go to jail” even though they’ve been harassing and abusing me for nine months straight. There is so much more than what I posted above but needless to say, when this all became really freaking bad I just left the internet. I stopped posting on a lot of places and that was when I came back to the Simblr community then promptly left again.

Around this time I started prepping for Preptober which is the month of October where those of us who do Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) start prepping for November and our novel. On October 29th, right before the Kick Off party our Nanowrimo region holds, our ML (Municipal Liaison) -and close friend of mine- was found at his home unresponsive by another writer friend and after being taken to hospital by them, was found to have three brain tumors. The primary cancer ended up being in his kidneys (three more tumors) and the secondary cancer was the tumors in his brain. He went for surgery immediately and his current treatment is radiation as palliative care. I don’t think I need to explain more where this is going.

November was busy as I had to step up as ML and run a region of 200 writers where we had write-in’s (where you go to write with a group of Wrimos, or what we call Nanowrimo participants) leaving me running these groups 6 days a week (I took one day off) from 6-9pm and sometimes two in a day (9am-12pm, then 6pm-9pm). I have severe agoraphobia and social anxiety so you can imagine how difficult this was. While mentally and physically exhausting (it also screwed with my sleep schedule which is already a mess from a sleep disorder) it was one of the best November’s I had in awhile because I had always wanted to be ML but it was legit so fucking exhausting I had no time for anything else.

No gaming. No Sims. No social media. Nothing. Things have sort of evened out now but since it’s December I’m back to feeling irrevocably depressed (holidays always do that as I’m 1) poor, literally at the poverty line despite being on disability so I can’t afford anything for myself or others at Christmas and this also means no celebrations with dinner or decorations because all of my money is spoken for. As well I have no where to go/no family to be with.

Secondly, I’m finally catching up on the screwed up sleep schedule of November. As a result I’m sleeping 20 hours a day sometimes. I’m awake maybe 10-12 hours and back to sleep again. It’s terrible. I also had walking pneumonia all of November and I’m still sick from that. It’s a huge clusterfuck and things were just terrible. If it wasn’t for coping skills from CBT and DBT I seriously don’t know how I would’ve managed the last year.

ON THE PLUS THOUGH - even though this month is hell and I’ve no where to go, I’m playing the Sims again and plan to post screenshots and random things and re-engage with the community as much as possible. If you read it this far, you’re awesome and thank you.

In terms of uploads and such, I won’t have anything for awhile. I’m using a pirated copy of the game as I have no way to buy it online from Origin (I’ve no money to be spending on gifts and I don’t expect it as a gift or anything so it’s not likely something I’ll be owning legitimately for quite some time). The game version I have doesn’t get updated often and I don’t want to risk breaking my game and having to do a huge re-install just to add “Cats and Dogs” as well as game client updates so I can’t be sure anything I create or recolor will work with your guys’ games. 

Thanks for sticking around and sorry to keep leaving but hopefully this gives some idea of why I’ve just not been around and neglected things.