#illness might make them more vulnerable to brainwashing but there is a DRIVE that has to be there too.

[giantkillerjack]

Infinity Train isn't the best counterpart to Last of Us on positive representation. Remember the only explicitly Neurodivergent character in Infinity Train became a villain and died brutally on screen?

No, I don't remember. But what I do remember is that the entire core concept of the show is basically "a train that puts people through magical therapy." And so I remember that nearly every lead character is clearly dealing with some form of mental illness or another. I don't need every character to be explicitly diagnosed onscreen to know that the show is chock-full of neurodivergent characters, so I'm quite genuinely not sure what you mean. Have I missed something?

[violent-backed-starling]

An Essay For your Consideration

The Manson Family, Heaven’s Gate, The People’s Temple; all are fairly well-known cults. They are known because of what they did. They all made the news in the worst possible way. The Manson Family murdered innocents because their prophet commanded them to. Heaven’s Gate ended in a mass suicide. The People’s Temple ended with a mass murder/suicide. These are all traumatic and shocking events. It is because these are so well known and present in the public eye that these cults in particular have shaped the way people portray cults in the pieces of fiction they write. This is evident from The Order in the Silent Hill Series by Keiichiro Toyama to The Village by M. Night Shyamalan. The cults in the media are always dark, unhinged, or at the least upsetting to most people, which is why the viewer generally ends up rooting for the hero. In a particular fictional cult they express several of the above traits. In the 2019 horror comedy musical Black Friday, written by Matt and Nick Lang with music and lyrics by Jeff Blim, there is a cult that goes about the mall doing similar crimes. This kind of behavior is extreme. In general, cults while still awful and problematic in their own rights, do not go to such horrific lengths. The Wiggly cult in Black Friday has extreme behaviors, even by cult standards.

When the cult first formed in the mall in Black Friday it was not completely horrible, unhinged yes, but not completely irredeemable. Over the course of a few mere hours they turned to savage actions in order to get what they wanted. It started off with just burning down the Cinnabon in the mall as a “sacrifice to a dark god”. Their actions only escalated from there. The cult’s prophet, Linda Monroe, slit the throat of the manager at Toy Zone when he could not get her a Wiggly doll immediately, even though he tried to bargain with her saying that he could contact the manufacturer and get her a Wiggly doll. She later tried to have one of the cultists murder a teenage worker at Toy Zone, presumably for lying about having one of the Wiggly dolls. She lied about the Wiggly doll to protect her sister who carried it, unknowingly, in her backpack. The teen worker managed to escape and find help in the end, but she was supposed to be murdered. The cultists also ended up finding this worker’s sister and taking her back to Linda who threatened her with a knife when she found out the sister no longer had the Wiggly doll. She most likely would have been murdered by Linda if there had not been help coming from her sister. The cult eventually died in a fire when the whole mall burned down due to the Wiggly doll being set on fire, because they refused to leave the Wiggly doll that they had gotten ahold of and were fighting over who would be the new prophet since Linda had been shot and killed. The cultists literally burned alive instead of escaping because of their cult and them wanting to be the new prophet. That is an absolutely horrific and painful way to die. Them burning alive for their god is a prime example of extreme behavior. Even when it comes to the more extreme cults, they generally do not end up with cultists burning alive, voluntarily. This kind of behavior is why the Wiggly cult in Black Friday is not a regular cult.

Cults show up on the news on occasion. Those cults are generally more violent and upsetting because what they do or what they did has to be something awful to get them onto the news. NXIVM is a cult that has made headlines semi recently since they did awful things like brand women and make women give them blackmail materials so they could not leave the cult once they joined. This sounds bad and horrific and is only scratching the surface on what truly was going on, but they did not commit murder or mass suicide. This is also just one case, a case that made headlines no less. When it comes to the easily recognizable hallmarks of cults the ones that come to mind are the manipulation of their members, brainwashing, and the separation of members from their family and friends. Cults usually end up separating the members away from their family and friends in order to make them more vulnerable and likely to stay within the cult. The cults also sometimes take money from their followers who, believing that will be put to a good cause, give it to the leader. That money is usually used to benefit the leader of the cult in some unorthodox way, like buying a sports car or nice worldly possessions. While that sucks and no one should take advantage of people like that, it is still far better than murder. In Wiggly’s cult they were willing to kill for one of the Wiggly dolls. Their prophet wanted four of them, but not a single person in the cult had one until the end and when they finally got one it was Linda’s, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. The people that also were part of the cult had problems because that was how Wiggly ensnared them. They were part of the cult of comfort because of their own issues and wanted relief.  That is the same reason why many people joined NXIVM. Keith Raniere presented his cult as an MLM that sold courses for self improvement. In Black Friday Linda had an affair with her lawyer and desperately wanted to be adored. The other cultists had similar issues, one had recently lost a job, another was homeless and so on. This cult of comfort had people under its thumb believing in their new god, Wiggly.

There is also the issue where people blend the lines between cults and religions. The fact is that they do overlap in areas, and many cults are based upon being a religion. Thomas Robbins explains that the ways religions have become more cult like has affected the studies of the sociology of these religions. Then the other group that cults overlap with is political parties. There are a number of political cults as well. The Cult of Cheka in Russia is a big one. The public sees that “the FSB continues to promote a positive image of the Cheka in the public imagination”. This cult is pushed to be in the public eye and is supposed to be thought of as good. It is literally a government supported cult. That is because this is a secret police kind of deal. That implies that this lies on the more extreme side of cults as well, but that is the way most of the well known ones are. Wiggly’s cult has both of these aspects to it. Linda is Wiggly’s prophet because he is a dark god from another dimension, but the reason people love and believe in him is capitalism. Wiggly is not only an interdimensional being with the powers of a god, he is also the little dolls that were sold in the Toy Zone, and all over the USA. The commercial for those dolls promised relief from the woes of the world to his followers. They were convinced that this product would make everything better. That is why they were willing to burn with the doll rather than just letting it go.

Most cults that end do not do so by such tragic means but rather they just split apart or fizzle out on their own. Sometimes there are legal issues, but they are generally something smaller scale than murder, such as tax fraud, insurance fraud, etc. Those are still crimes and they are seriously wrong but not nearly as bad as killing someone. 

The time in a cult does affect the mental health of the individual. The ex-members of some organizations would say that they suffered from “cognitive deficiencies (e.g., memory, perception, decision-making, or information-processing deficits) and emotional impairments”. The separation from family and friends makes it harder for people to leave. The cults do, generally, let people leave though, and people do choose to leave. This is not the most common, but nor is it completely unexpected. While people who leave their cult do consider it to be rewarding, they also have problems afterwards. They can have physical issues, emotional issues, psychological issues, or some combination of them. These are regular cults, the more extreme variety could have one committing serious crimes like murdering, being an accomplice to murder, or straight up ending with them dead, whether by their own hands or not. Those people in Wiggly’s cult did not leave; they would rather die than leave their cult of comfort, so they did. 

The people that ended up in the cult in Black Friday were there because Wiggly and by extension Linda promised to fix the holes in their lives. They just blindly followed and believed her when it came to what Wiggly could and would do for them. They would not take responsibility for their own problems and try to solve them themself. The cultists wanted the fake promises of comfort Wiggly gave them rather than trying to fix them because it was easier to just rely on Wiggly. They wanted someone else to fix their problems like their failing marriage, losing their job, their messy divorce, losing custody of their kids, their dead wife, etc. This is something that probably drives real life people to join cults as well. Bad circumstances can have one turning to ill advised sources of comfort and relief. In some cases that ill advised source of relief could be cult. These are the kind of people that a real life cult would target to try to get them to join their ranks. These are people who might turn to a cult in times of trial which is exactly why a cult would try to convert them simply because they are easy targets. Even if the actions of Wiggly’s cult are extreme the member’s reasons for joining are ordinary and understandable. That gives this cult some sort of connection to a more realistic cult. The actions from this cult do align with some cults, namely The Manson Family and The People’s Church. 

The Manson Family was also a very extreme cult when it came down to it. The Manson family with the myriad of crimes they committed. Those crimes including murder, torture, hostage taking, the attempted assassination of the president and other lesser crimes like grand theft auto and forging a check from the treasury. The trial was no less disturbing with Charles Manson trying to represent himself and after a few days being found incapable of doing so. He also entered the courtroom with a cross carved into his forehead. Manson demanded to be allowed to testify and they agreed. He testified that he was a product of the criminal justice system since both his father and mother ended up in prison at some point. The court also ended up having members of the family testify and they told the truth of what Manson said and believed. They actually ended up testifying against Manson. The cult was following his orders and it was on his orders that they killed. They also believed what he was saying about Helter Skelter being a huge war of which the Family would come out on top of. Manson said that was the true meaning behind the Beatles song by the same name. The cult also had members afraid of Manson and they were scared to disobey so they did what was asked of them whether they wanted to or not. That kind of behavior from a cult is intense, extreme, and rare which is why it was in the public eye as much as it was. This is exactly the kind of cult behavior that Wiggly’s cult from Black Friday also expressed. They also had similar behavior to another cult, that cult being The People’s Temple.

The People’s Temple started out with good intentions, but ended up with a large amount of its members dead. It started as a genuine religion but changed for the darker as the leader, Jim Jones, started faking healings and doing drugs. The healings would bring in more people and more money and with that money eventually Jones started doing drugs which evidently caused him to change, personality wise. He started wearing his signature sunglasses at that point to hide the fact he would have been doing drugs. He eventually got so paranoid due to the drugs that he decided to start his own little paradise for his followers out in Guyana. He started a small village with cottages and called it Jonestown. Many of the followers flocked out there, but once they got there they were stuck. They did not have enough money to leave, Jones kept their passports in a locked box, and all of the mail coming in and out was monitored. Those combined conditions made it practically impossible for anyone to leave. Life in Jonestown was miserable; they did not have enough space or food for everyone. Eventually concerned family members were able to convince U. S. Congressman Leo Ryan to go check on Jonestown in 1978. He and a bunch of reporters visited on November 17th, 1978 and at first it was okay but Ryan invited the followers to leave with him. Jones got very upset at how many wanted to go and as a result one of his lieutenants attacked Ryan with a knife. He escaped without harm. Jones then ordered for Ryan and his companions to be killed. They were ambushed and murdered as they attempted to board planes to leave. Then Jones ordered everyone in the main pavilion where the older member and nurses injected the young with poisons and drank poisoned Kool Aid. That kind of thing is very extreme. It is uncommon and made the news. 

The extreme cults are rare and have radical ideas and views. Wiggly’s cult is extreme and so is The Manson Family and The People’s Temple. They are all alike in the committing murder area of cult behavior. They also promised to be the ones safe from the world and would be left alive when the apocalypse would come. Wiggly’s cult ended in suicide as did The People’s Church. That is an extreme reaction to the situation that was going on and there were far better options that just were not taken. Manson and Linda were alike in that they would delegate the murdering to someone else. Linda and Jones are alike in that they did actually get their hands dirty. Linda’s cult may have been fictional and had some serious supernatural elements, but it still reflected actual cults behaviors even if those behaviors were extreme and part of the one percent of cults.

[heleentje]

Nachtwacht Sorting

The past... eight months or so, I’ve spent quite a few trips to and fro work amusing myself by figuring out a Sorting for the Nachtwacht characters. Some were easy, some took most of those eight months. And since I’ve missed writing meta, I’m now sharing it with all three of you who care about this show.

A word on the Sorting Hat Chats sorting method

The method I’m using is the Sorting Hat Chats method: based on the Harry Potter houses, but quite a bit more developed.

This method gives people a primary and a secondary house. Your primary is your why, your reasons, what drives you to take certain actions. Your secondary is the how: how you go about reaching your goals, how you react to things.

This might not be the kind of sorting you’re used to from the Harry Potter books. No house is intrinsically good or bad, it’s all about how your traits manifest and how you react to things.

The full explanation is too long for this meta, but you can read it here (and I highly recommend doing so!). All definitions below are taken from that link.

With that said, let’s sort the Nachtwacht characters.

Tl;dr:

Wilko: Slytherin/Gryffindor Vlad: Hufflepuff/Slytherin Keelin: Ravenclaw/Ravenclaw

WILKO

Primary: Slytherin

Secondary: Gryffindor

Slytherin Primaries are fiercely loyal to the people they care for most. Slytherin is the place where “you’ll make your real friends”– they prioritize individual loyalties and find their moral core in protecting and caring for the people they are closest to.

Gryffindor Secondaries charge. They meet the world head-on and challenge it to do its worst. Gryffindor Secondaries are honest, brash, and bold in pursuit of things they care about. Known for their bravery, it is almost a moral matter to stay true to themselves in any situation that they’re in.

Of all the characters, Wilko was by far the easiest to sort. He is stubborn, he is brash, he charges straight at danger with no regard for his own safety. These are all the traits of a textbook Gryffindor secondary.

The Gryffindor primary would be exceptionally ill-suited to him, though. Lofty ideals are wasted on him. Doing the Right Thing is never as important as doing right by the people he cares about. And Wilko cares a whole lot; he is an open and guiltless Slytherin primary. Unlike Vlad, Wilko’s circle of people is limited: Vlad and Keelin and Vega, Sacha and Helena and Cooper, and the rest of the village as a distant third. These are the people he will prioritize.

Nowhere is his Slytherin primary clearer than in The Domovoi (2X4). His worst fear is losing the people he loves. It is a very Slytherin kind of fear and one that is bad enough to break him at the sight of Vlad and Keelin (supposedly) dead.

His primary also makes Wilko the person who cares the least about the Night Watch as a concept. He cares about Vlad and Keelin. If the Night Watch is somehow detrimental to them, all ideals about protecting the earth go straight out of the window; when Vlad is forced to leave the Night Watch, Wilko quits on the spot (The Gate of Souls). No doubt, no hesitation.  

At his best, he is caring, willing to go the extra mile for the people he loves and ready to charge in so they don’t have to. At his worst, he is paranoid about any strangers and prone to taking decisions without informing or involving others.

‘Impulsive’ is a word that often gets bandied around with regards to Wilko. It’s how he expresses his (very loud) Secondary. Yet we are faced with an interesting paradox: Wilko may be impulsive, but his control over his werewolf side is exceptional. Whereas newly-turned werewolf Fran practically gets turned inside-out trying to resist the transformation once the moon rises, Wilko barely seems to notice it (2X10 The She-Wolf). Entire episodes take place during a full moon without Wilko ever mentioning it (4X4 The Protector). Only a super moon seems to have any effect on him (1X5 The Werewolf).

Wilko was born a werewolf, yet even among werewolves his control is remarkable (and remarked-upon by Vega in The She-Wolf). This lends an extra dimension to his impulsiveness: Wilko acts impulsive if and only if the situation presents a danger to the people he cares about. Giving in to his werewolf side would make him a danger to the people around him.

Tl;dr: Wilko is a loud and unapologetic Slytherin/Gryffindor: he prioritizes the people he cares about above all else and charges straight at danger in order to keep said danger from reaching them.

VLAD

Primary: Hufflepuff

Secondary: Slytherin

Hufflepuff Primaries value people–all people. They value community, they bond to groups (rather than solely individuals), and they make their decisions off of who is in the most need and who is the most vulnerable and who they can help. They value fairness because every person is a person and feel best when they give everyone that fair chance. Even directly wronged, a Hufflepuff will often give someone a second (or fifth) chance.

Slytherin Secondaries improvise. They are the most adaptive secondary, finding their strength in responding quickly to whatever a situation throws at them. They improvise differently than the Gryffindor Secondary, far more likely to try coming at situations from different angles than to try strong-arming them. They might describe themselves as having different “faces” for different people and different situations, dropping them and being just themselves only when they’re relaxing or feel safe.

Like Wilko, Vlad is motivated by people. Unlike Wilko, his loyalties are broader, extending to the community he lives in and to people in general. Vlad likes people. He’s willing to help those in need even if he doesn’t know them and/or they appear to be a threat initially (3x1 Het Monster). Befitting his Hufflepuff primary, he gives second chances and believes the best of people. This is equally likely to work out well for him as it is to backfire (4x10 Reika). 

Less present in the actual show but very clear in the movie is his traditionalist and socially-conforming side. He has followed in his father’s footsteps as a member of the Night Watch, something that was long a goal for him (4X10 Reika). He is duty-bound and puts aside his own personal needs to keep the peace. Vlad, knowing he has to leave the Night Watch, argues within the framework of the rules the Council set up. He states his case, he tries to change their mind — but when it comes down to it, he professes that he has no choice. He has to obey. If the High Council says he needs to quit, he will quit (The Gate of Souls).

His tendency to see the best in people makes him somewhat vulnerable to manipulation, especially from people close to him (4X10 Reika). This is, however, tempered by his Slytherin secondary.

Supplementary materials tend to describe Vlad as the strategist who has a plan ready to go before they go out to face the monsters. While there is truth in this, it’s not the whole truth: Vlad comes up with plans on the fly and changes them rapidly when the situation demands it. He likes to go out with a plan in mind, true, but he feels no need to stick to that plan. He is a quick thinker even when caught unawares (coming up with a plan right after shaking off brainwashing — 2X6 The Master Vampire). He is versatile and ready to make use of unconventional resources, such as bringing Sacha in the loop when Keelin and Wilko are taken out of commission (1X5 The Siren). On top of that, he has a bit of a manipulative streak if it serves his plans well (2X4 The Domovoi, both in his cheating at the start of the episode and his plan to use Wilko to draw in the monster. Jury’s out on how effective either of those instances were, but he did it anyway.)

Tl;dr: Vlad is a Hufflepuff/Slytherin: he attaches value to people and community, and is willing to give even those he doesn’t know the chances he feels they deserve. He is a versatile planner who can easily improvise and switch plans on the fly, using all resources available to him.

KEELIN

Primary: Ravenclaw

Secondary: Ravenclaw

Ravenclaw Primaries have a constructed system that they test their decisions against before they feel comfortable calling something right. This system might be constructed by them, or it might have been taught to them as children, or it might have been discovered by them some point later in life. But it gives them a way to frame the world and a confidence in their ability to interact with it morally.

Ravenclaw Secondaries plan. They collect information, they strategize. They have tools. They run hypotheticals and try to plan ahead for things that might come up. They build things (of varying degrees of practicality and actual usefulness) that they can use later– whether that’s an emergency supply pack, a vast knowledge of Renaissance artistic techniques and supplies, or a series of lists and contingency plans. They feel less at home in improvisation and more comfortable planning ahead and taking the time to be prepared.

Keelin took by far the most time to pin down. I have my suspicions as to why that is, but that would result in an entirely different essay (with a much higher salt content).

Here’s the thing about Keelin: depending on the episode, she switches viewpoints. Whereas Wilko and Vlad are usually very consistent in what drives them, Keelin will switch from a Hufflepuff’s care for people to a Gryffindor’s concern with what is Right seemingly without rhyme or reason. (It’s mainly those two. She doesn’t emulate Slytherin all that often.)

She is no Slytherin, that’s for sure. I debated Hufflepuff but she does not have the same instinctive concern for people that someone like Vlad (or Sacha, another Puff primary) has. She doesn’t share the steadfast conviction of a Gryffindor. In the end, it is the constructed, thought-out morality of a Ravenclaw primary that shines through.

Supplementary materials tend to describe Keelin as the emotional heart of the team. I… disagree. Strenuously. This may have been how her character was initially conceived, but Keelin doesn’t gravitate towards people, she gravitates towards knowledge, planning, preset rules and the things she’s already learned in the past. There are two examples of this I find most emblematic.

The first is The Time Thief (2X12): when finally breaking free of the time loop that takes up most of the first half of the episode, Keelin’s first instinct… is to plan. It’s to find out what’s going on and who’s behind their problems. Vega has to remind her to find Vlad and Wilko and inform them that something’s wrong.

The second occurs in Cerberus, The Gatekeeper (4X5): when Keelin and Wilko get dragged off to be burned at the stake, Wilko begs Keelin to use her magic. Keelin replies as follows (emphasis mine):

“I can’t! I swore to defend people and never hurt them!” (NL: “Ik kan het niet. Ik heb gezworen mensen te beschermen en hen nooit pijn te doen.”)

It’s not because she doesn’t want to hurt her friends (Slytherin). Not because she doesn’t want to hurt anyone (Hufflepuff). Or because hurting people is wrong (Gryffindor). No, she can’t because she swore an oath, a binding contract. She has built her morality through consideration, by weighing what is good and what isn’t and then sticking to that unless more compelling arguments are presented to her. (What does she accuse Vega of when Vlad needs to quit in the movie? Short-sightedness.)

It explains why Keelin seems to switch motivations. I believe she is still very much in the process of constructing her Truth. A number of things she has taken from her upbringing (Black magic is bad, white magic is good — even if the latter is used to hurt people). In daily life she borrows from Vlad’s Hufflepuff most often, but it never comes as naturally to her as it does to him.

Left to her own devices, Keelin falls back on knowledge and things she has previously incorporated as truth, not on people.

Many of those traits bleed into her Ravenclaw secondary. Keelin’s default method of facing a problem is researching it. She collects information. She reads up on potions and spells. She falls back on all the things she’s learned in the past. She wants to have a plan all ready to go before she steps outside and when that plan falls apart, she has a hard time recalibrating (this is what sets apart her Ravenclaw secondary from Vlad’s Slytherin secondary).

Tl;dr: Keelin is a full Ravenclaw: her morality system is constructed and still a work in progress. She tends to draw on Hufflepuff traits when among other people, but left to her own devices she falls back on knowledge.

[mindfood4thesoul]

Getting real with social anxiety

The feeling of being ostracized, cast out from society is extremely painful especially when it is you shunning everyone out not because you want too, but because somewhere along the way your brain got rewired. In scientific terms it can be a serotonin imbalance (serotonin is a chemical that helps regulate your mood), or an overactive amygdala (this seriously small and life changing part in the brain controls fear response and feelings and thoughts of anxiety). Overall social anxiety makes the fight, flight, freeze response (should just happen in dangerous situations) occur in any social situation.

Having social anxiety could lead to a very dark side of life such as drinking alcohol, doing drugs, or severe isolation to avoid the symptoms. Which leads to more serious behavior such as depression, and thoughts or feelings of suicide. So it is extremely important that at all costs we avoid anything that will further damage our psyche.

I first hand know how unbearable, overwhelming and downright miserable this makes you feel. People with social anxiety are some of the most sensitive, compassionate, and caring individuals you’ll ever meet. Why? because like any other hard situation one faces in life, we learn a great deal. Imagine the idea of not being able to (even though internally you desperately wish too communicate after all we are social by nature) talk to a person or group because all of the sudden this intense feeling rushes through you. Your heart races, the sweat starts forming, your mind goes blank, you forget how to breathe therefore the feeling of suffocation kicks in, and you start turning red because your body is on fire inside. This is what it’s like in certain situations for people who go through this, and believe me everyday can be physically, mentally, and spirituality draining.

So most importantly how can we heal? Well there isn’t anything psychically we can do. Our best hope and healing happens when we start healing internally. What do I mean? There is a lot that triggers and is triggered by social anxiety so let’s list them and heal those parts within. I mean what can we possibly loose that we can’t at least take a chance on this.

1. Self esteem- yes I know what your thinking why is it always about self esteem. However the best you is only seen when you drop all insecurities, doubts, beliefs, and judgments. My social anxiety took full advantage of me when I had no sense of self worth at all. To the outside world I probably looked fine and somewhat confident but inside everything screamed back your not good enough, your a failure, your not pretty enough, and so you get the point. And just now that I’ve really realized how amazing and unique each one person is including myself, the anxiety seems to be diminishing (it’s like the energy we give it is the only thing keeping it alive). Plus I do honestly  believe society distorts are views on life in general, by brainwashing us life is about having the right education, amount of money, the kind of car you should drive, how big your house should be, how the ideal woman or man should look like. But realistically speaking nobody could ever possibly conform too this mold they’ve given us. I mean just notice for yourself fashion, looks, brands, music, everything is constantly changing nothing stays the same. So to idealize, imitate, or even listen to the nonsense that is constantly blasted in social media affects are very true self at the core. Therefore love yourself, see your worth, and know you like everyone else is an important piece of this lifetime.

2) Emotions- what do I mean by emotions? Everyone has them but some of us suppress them tightly within, and others outwardly display them. You might be wondering what this has to do with social anxiety…It has everything to do with it as a matter of fact I believe the people who suppress their emotions are the ones more likely to have social anxiety. See it like a pot with a lid over high fire on the stove it’s rattling and shaking like crazy with all that pressure that wants to be let out. Now imagine a person like that I’m sure that inner pressure will come out one way or another whether it be through anxieties, illness, or some other destructive form. I know this too well, since I could remember I’ve suppressed my emotions like a fierce warrior ready to go to war with anyone who got too close. In part because my family is one too not be very emotional around others and you become what you learn and see from. Anyway a few years ago my pot finally exploded open and after that it was the most intense 2 or so months of crying I have ever done I mean anything and everything set me off. How or why did this happen it’s a long story but I started meditating (I know some might think it doesn’t work or are skeptical to even try it, I was at first but what do you have to loose) and believe it or not the change was gradual but huge. I am an over thinker, and even that went somewhat away but most importantly everything I had emotionally bottled up was finally poured out of me. So I strongly urge you to really allow your emotions to surface when they are happening exactly at that moment. And let’s be truthful it is mostly sadness we hold onto in fear others would see us as weak or vulnerable, but in reality sadness is are greatest source of strength.

3. Overactive mind- who doesn’t over think a few or more things in their lives. Point is if you have to think about it, it probably isn’t worth it. The mind is a valuable thing, we can’t clutter it with useless thoughts because we’ll drive ourselves crazy! This is the one thing that makes your social anxiety be on steroids! All those endless thoughts of they are all staring at me, do I have something on my face, what should I say, can they see I’m nervous. KABOOM! That’s your mind exploding with full force, I mean nobody could possibly live with the constant bickering in your head. I know this too well I’m a bit ashamed to admit but even when i was around friends it’s like I wasn’t there. I was constantly in my mind living in whatever fantasy world, and eventually you’ll crash with reality. What helped a great deal for me was what I mentioned above meditation, most importantly being here in the now not getting ahead of yourself.

4. Exposure- once you’ve taken the 3 steps above and incorporated them into everyday life you are ready. To embrace the world one step at a time start by choosing places you enjoy being in. Maybe they’ll be a few people here and there but remember everyone will always be to preoccupied in their own life to even notice what you do. Keep with pushing yourself further and further doing things your uncomfortable with around people you know or even strangers will get you too realize the minds been playing a cruel joke. Eventually you’ll realize the truth the way the world plays out, whatever you think and feel will be projected outwardly too all people you come across. That is why you must know you are beautiful, worthy, and deserving just like everyone else.

In a lot of ways I am grateful for having social anxiety. Why? Because it has made me a far better person, before I didn’t care about others feelings, mainly because I didn’t care or respect myself. Now I could say I am blessed and thankful with everything and everyone I know and meet. Plus The people with social anxiety are vital in this world they are the type that would give you the shirt off their back, and always want a smile in your face. Because when you’ve known pain you wouldn’t want anyone else going through it. However pain is necessary because it allows us to cherish the good moments much more, and we gain strength. What I’m saying is don’t sit and question why life made you go through this, but continue on with life and know something good will always come out of the bad.