#psychological advice

[batmanie]

Psychology of Guilt

Scarecrow: stop publishing yourself for things you didn't do

Scarecrow: I'm sure there are plenty of things you've actually done that deserv punishment.

[azenta]

sorry for it's not related to anything i just don't know where else to write it. is it normal to feel inherently unable to be fulfilled? i haven't lived for long and my earlier memories are blurry but the things i'm able to recall all have this weak flavor of not being satisfactory enough. i started to be more proactive and moving towards things that i believe will make me feel better but as soon as i reach my goal i find myself wishing for more of that thing or maybe something completely different and go for the next goal without really appreciating what i've managed to earn so far. i have friends i'm close to and i love them dearly and yet it feels we're not close in a way i wish us to be so i try to spend more time with them and really get under their skin in a way that fulfills me but they never seem to let me in like this or be as concentrated on me as i am on them so it's like i'm ultimately alone and unable to have proper relationships with people. i don't consider it depression because i experience the full spectrum of human emotion and can perform just fine it's just that even at my best i'm aware of the fact my happiness is merely a patch covering the ultimate despair just like being full of food is a patch covering the ultimate hunger. even if you try to avoid getting hungry you know it's your natural state to be so and here it's the same with despair being something you can never get rid of. i considered it being so normal no one really talks about it but it felt wrong because there's no way so many would accept it. there's still hope i can actually patch the despair for good and be happy and fulfilled just like everyone around seems to be but it seems naive. at this point it feels like if i can't be fulfilled no matter what i shouldn't care about what i 'want' and just go for whatever will secure me in this world. if i'm destined to be disappointed in what i do i can go for a stable well-paid career instead of the one i personally found interesting and if i'm destined to be disappointed in people i can stop trying to be close to them at all. i could go to killing myself with this kind of thinking considering the existence is ultimately painful but i'm too afraid of pain and death to go through it. and maybe i'm still somewhat hopeful. sorry for the schizo text wall i just wonder if it really is a normal experience and if so how people don't kill themselves even more often.

The state of despair is not "normal" per se, or rather it indicates a myriad of things that I will elaborate on. But the feeling of being unfulfilled can be. The nuance is despair is felt when we get many or some particular needs not met on a regular basis, so it's a chronic feeling of dissatisfaction (feeling unfulfilled).

If you've been privated from some needs, especially for an elongated period of time, when you will encounter those needs, it's normal to "want more" at first. The need hasn't been satiated for so long that it will take time before you feel truly satisfied. You just have to think of someone who hasn't eaten properly for months, even tho they get a full day of eating properly, their body has been lacking in resources in many regards, therefore they will feel more intensely their hunger.

Also, that wanting more stems from a feeling of insecurity, which in itself speak of another crucial need (security). Since you haven't had this need met for so long, then your whole organism have retain that it may again take a while since you meet it again. In itself, it is a need to secure what you have obtained and how to obtain it to be able to fulfill it again. A need is a need, you cannot live without it without degrading your survivability. Nobody wants that.

But there is also another phenomenon I need to mention because it could be a possible reason why the dissatisfaction persists. There is the version where you find "something" that makes you feel like you have fulfilled your need, but it's only creating the feeling of fulfillment and not actually filling the need itself. That creates the phenomenon of addiction, where your need is never met, so you always feel the urge for it, but certain things or actions give you the "result" without really fulfilling the need. Therefore the behavior or object becomes associated with how to fulfill the need, when in reality it doesn't. This create the infernal loop of perpetual dissatisfaction and even the feeling of emptiness. And btw, I don't mean addiction exclusively in term of substance abuse, it can be anything really.

There are also many more things to take into account:

1. Your relation to your emotions.

2. Your beliefs around certain needs

3. Your awareness of your needs

And all of those three are affected by your life experiences and what you had to do to "survive" and strive through your environment.

If you have a poor relation with your feelings and emotions, then you are less likely to be in touch with your needs and therefore, less likely to be able to fulfill them. Emotions and feelings are how our brain tells us when some of our needs are affected (postively and negatively). And your environment might also have been punishing toward the attainment of certain needs and even rewarding toward some, at the detriment of some other too. This leads also to addictive behaviors or simply, maladaptive strategies that make you constantly unfulfilled regarding certain needs.

Since having the knowledge of what are freaking human needs is kinda necessary and practical, I'll use the pyramid of Maslow to give you a basis of what are those human needs. Here is the illustration of the said pyramid, but I will elaborate on each.

So, the first layer, in blue, is all about physiological needs. This is the very basic that we all need to account for if we want to meet anything above. If you eat like shit and sleep poorly, everything above will be difficult to accomplish. You won't have the minimum energy required to secure your work, to maintain a place to live, and even to care for your relationships and maintain a positive self-perception, even less actualize yourself. Let's not mention lacking air, you won't go anywhere without breathing lol. But, more seriously, if you live in a place where air is low quality, borderline toxic, it could be important to take it into account, because it means this primary need is poorly met and will automatically affect the rest. Your ability to work or preserve your other resources will considerably be altered.

The second layer, in light blue, is all about security. It's all about doing the necessary to secure every other needs. It also impact the first layer, as gaining easy access to healthy resources allow the first layer to be better attained as well. That's the need I mentioned earlier as well. This revolves a lot around the notions of accessibility and durability. The more accessible and durable "it" is in time, the more secure I feel. This applies to basic resources but also relationships, and even opportunities for growth in general.

The third layer, in green, is the sense of belonging and intimacy specifically. People underestimate greatly how humans as a species are fundamentally social and thus, dependent on others to survive properly. This is usually the category where shit hits the fan. People nowadays have a poor sense of intimacy and/or of belonging, in big part because most of psychological wounds are impacting this level (ex. Fear of rejection, abandonment, betrayal, injustice, humiliation, etc.) and also come from unmet social needs. Intimacy is the ability to be vulnerable with another and feeling understood and supported. The sense of belonging is the ability to relate and support each other. Those two demand effort and commitment toward people, and they demand a sense of security also to establish those needs and simply a sense of security in regard to the given relationships. If your sense of security is affected, you'll have a hard time being vulnerable and supportive of another, since you'll be more in a state of continuous distrust. You'll also not feel able to maintain those relationships and become either needy or avoidant of relationships. However, if you have poor relationships, it's also harder to maintain a sense of security and stability, since others help by providing access to resources, opportunities and help maintaining it altogether. They can facilitate the establishment of security in one's life (ex: having good relationship or network at work vs bad ones).

Then, the fourth layer, in orange, is all about the Estimation of self, or self-esteem. This evaluation of ourselves is crucial in how to properly survive since this is what help us evaluate our capacity and ability to handle challenges and difficulties. In other words, it informs us on how much we got the ability to survive and strive. If my self evaluation is poor, then it informs on problems at lower levels and it will also affect my ability to simply adapt to challenges. The need for relationships come before because our value depends a lot on the sense of utility we get from how we can provide and support each other. If the feedback we get from people is usually negative, it informs us we are doing something incorrectly. This force us to reevaluate ourselves, and so estimate our value differently. People serve as mirror of ourselves, to help us refine the necessary abilities to survive more easily. Of course, some environments are dysfunctional, toxic or simply inadequate for us as individuals, and this is why it matters to cultivate self-esteem apart from relationships to better recognize where we actually belong and who really deserves our energy and time, and simply with who we can actually cultivate intimacy.

This leads us to the last primary set of needs, in red, actualization. This one is about evolution, how to evolve and not simply survive. This is our drive, where our dreams lie, and what makes us make sense of life and the world around. This is the last one because you need everything else before to be able to construct a sense to life. If you lack food, shelter, or water, life will only appear as a perpetual and tedious battle of survival. If you have no security, same applies, everything will be a fight to stabilize the most basic aspects to survive, since everything will still be a potential threat until you get secure. If you have no one to rely on or to count on, nobody to relate, then things don't get much more purpose than maintaining yourself alive, which doesn't give much substance to life. If your self esteem is down the drain, you won't see your ability to actualize anything and so, won't be able to perceive a greater sense to life else than entertaining your relationships for the sake of it. But even then, your sense of utility will be doubted and you may start asking why you receive all this love or why it even matter. Usually, it even leads to self sabotage and self-destruction of relationship, which will of course worsen the sense given to life. And then, if you do have and believe in your capability but do nothing with them, you'll feel lost and will try naturally to find a purpose with all those abilities. Until it makes you cease to renew and empower yourself because there is no point to empower yourself if there is no use found into those personal abilities. The achievement of actualization also reinforce the self-esteem of ourselves and thus, provide further stability to all the other needs we have.

In the end, all of those needs affect each other mutually, but I do like the pyramid of Maslow because it helps to orient oneself in all of this and to identify our needs, and identify what needs we lack or have a harder time with. If you notice the lower layers are affected, then you can bet the upper ones are as well, and probably even more in deficit than the lower ones. So, this can be a good place to start and to aim which needs require more attention in priority. Like, if you notice your relationships don't give you the intimacy or belonging you crave, but your sense of security is crappy, then your relationships probably suffer from it, and that might be why the intimacy is not striving or satisfying as it should. It means you might be putting up walls without noticing or even lacking proper boundaries since you have no sense of personal space which is related to personal security.

In the end, life is not something simple, but it can definitely be enjoyable and not just a painful experience. Overall, with what you told me, I'd say to start with identifying your needs and working from below to top. I dont want to make this longer, but if you have questions on how to answer certain needs, I will let you ask. Or else I'll end up doubling the length of this already lengthy answer. You'll also certainly encounter personal issues that might be impairing the achievement of some of those needs. What will matter is your willingness to adjust and change to adapt.

Remember we are not static entities. Life is a perpetual movement, a perpetual process, and it is far more powerful than you are. So, if you decide to become an immovable object, be prepared to be broken into pieces. It's far more malleable, but also much more work to assemble back into a bigger stronger entity. However, it is also through adversity we are willing to change, since it is how we experience something is not working and impairing our survivability.

I hope this can help you some bit. Don't hesitate to ask other questions regarding this issue. Remember I'm not acting here as a therapist, so if you ever need more support or help, I'd advise seeking professional one.

[eltares]

Everyone knows the importance of battling your inner demons. however, I think not enough attention is giving to battling your inner angels.

did you really think that a DEMON would tell you that you should sacrifice your mental health to meet the expectations of others? (so next time your inner Luke starts yapping, free to tell him that you don’t follow chihuahua’s orders)

[unlicensed-un-proffesional]

I wonder sometimes when I’m spouting rhetoric, is this really me? Where did I get these ideas? These thoughts? And I find it funny, how, my days spent on thoughtful and meditative analysis of my beliefs has shown me that I don’t need to be analyzing my beliefs, or attempting to scrutinize my rational in any way, but it’s important that I still do, like check-ups even when you’re not sick. Funnily, while I do it the most out of anyone I know, and have only learned I needed to change through one of these intentional analyses once, the people I feel most need to change, are the ones who do so little introspection. Maybe I did lots of introspection all throughout my life, and that’s why my beliefs are so distilled and sound, at least to me, while other people never examined their beliefs, so they got more and more, dirty. Never cleaned their car, and their mind is left unpolished. Even if there’s nothing to clean up, it’s good to look around, and get some perspective.

[pickle-and-beans]

When your psychology of relationships class assigns you to make a meme about boundaries.

[reasonsforhope]

Hope is something you learn

Here's the thing: I'm not a naturally hopeful person.

I'm not running a good news blog because I've always naturally gravitated toward good news. I'm not running a blog titled "reasons for hope" because hope is something that comes easily to me

It's actually the complete opposite. Teenage me was a giant cynic and a sarcastic pessimist and probably regarded as a killjoy, tbh. Picture a young, bespectacled, well-informed raincloud, maybe, idk. I could find a negative point to undermine just about anything

Nowadays, I'm one of the most hopeful people I know when it comes to the future - especially among people who actually follow the news

So, if you're feeling hopeless or depressed or anxious or despairing - or all and more - about the state of the world, and you're tired of feeling that way, I want you to know that you absolutely do not have to be a naturally hopeful or optimistic person in order to find hope

I got here because I struggled and clawed my way to hope, deliberately, because I needed it desperately. And the start of that path was bookmarking good news websites and checking them every day - which is why I built this blog

Here's the thing: the news, social media, and the human brain itself are all very biased toward negativity. The human brain is wired this way to help us survive things like tiger attacks - and since people are biased toward negative information, they click on it more, so negativity generates way more clicks and makes way more money.

It's a sucky, vicious cycle. But it doesn't accurately reflect reality - that's the whole point of bias.

It's actually kinda irritating that it's true, imho, but your focus really does determine (a lot of) your reality

If you want to have hope, sometimes you need to build it yourself. Even when it's so hard you don't know if you ever can. And then you need to keep building it, because the world isn't static and neither does your brain. Hope needs maintenance, just like everything else

So it's lucky, then, that human beings and the world are both generally better than we think - and certainly better than news or social media is willing to tell us

Sources Human brain negativity bias: x, x, x, x, x, x News negativity bias: x, x, x, x, x Social media negativity bias: x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x

[withlovelunette]

How to construct character psychology!

– Introduction

Hello hello! :D I’ve been very slow with my writing lately due to uni work (and some unforeseen health issues), but I’d like to still be able to make content and be interactive in the writing community, so I’m here again to share some advice based on my own experiences! One of my favourite things about writing is writing characters, specifically constructing a character’s psychology. I’d like to preface this post by saying that while I’ve had formal classes in psychology, I’m by no means any sort of expert within the field, and I also don’t believe that every aspect of how a character is written needs to be rooted in realism. However, I do want to share some insights that I got from it, and also because I feel like “character psychology” has this very mystified weight to it that makes it seem a lot bigger and intimidating than it needs to be.

So! My goal is just to share some advice on how to break down a character’s psychology and work from there! If you like what you read and would like to read more, I’ve also written a post about creating “complex” characters, which you can find the link to here! Aaand yes I think that’s about all I have to say beforehand, I hope you enjoy :,)

What do I mean when I say psychology?

Before getting into the nitty-gritty, I’d like to start with the basics, just to make sure people are on the same page when reading this post. When I’m talking about psychology here, I’m specifically referring to a character’s cognition, as in how they process information and act on it/make judgments. I’m not necessarily referring to personality in this case (although personality is an aspect of psychology, but I’m more so referring to personality as a consequence of cognition here, rather than as a collage of traits and behaviour).

Another thing I want to clarify is that exactly how much of human behaviour is nurture vs nature is a hotly debated topic that I’m completely under-qualified to take a stance on, but for the sake of this post; I believe both are equally essential aspects of human behaviour, so just keep that in mind! (I’m looking at any behaviourists in the chat rn). That being said; I’m not really comfortable treating psychology as “nature” (as such rhetorics are often used in gender-essentialist and other bigoted ways of thinking), so my main focus will be nurture, since that’s what is most readily observable!

Determining character motivation

If you’re working with very little or bare minimum characterization, my recommendation is to consider; what motivates a person to act? And by this, I’m not referring to the external quest or goal behind the character, but rather, what’s the core of what motivates your character to act at all? Even in grand, epic adventures of good vs evil, where the external goal is as simple as “putting an end to whatever evil the bad guys are doing”, there needs to be a reason a character is specifically on the side that they’re on. Multiple characters can be on the same side, but they might find themselves on that side for vastly different reasons, even when their exterior goals are the same. From there, you’ll want to consider what informs this motivation in particular.

One technique I love to employ, when still figuring out my character, is to have them make some sort of bizarre decision, a decision I’d initially think to be improbable for this particular character, and then try to list off various justifications or variables that would allow for this character to make this particular decision. There’s a couple of reasons for why I do this.

1) It removes some of the pressure to have a perfectly cohesive, perfectly put together and neatly defined character from the get-go. The drafting process isn’t just for plot and story structure’s sake, it’s also there for you to experiment with characters! Having your characters make story altering decisions that possibly challenge or contradict themselves is a great way to make sure that you’re writing active characters as opposed to more passive ones, and I think the first couple of drafts should really be a playground for you to see just how far you can stretch your characters based on their characterisation.

2) It helps me clarify what is and isn’t important in my character’s decision making. I’m a firm believer that most decisions/actions aren’t inherently in or out of character; it just depends on whether or not the readers/viewers can understand the character’s thought process behind their decision, and this ultimately comes down to how well you, as the writer, conveys the character’s priorities when they make decisions. If you’re established that a character acts based on a code of honour, an exterior source to morality and conduct, then the justifications and reasonings they would use to justify murder would likely be very different than a character who acts based on their own convictions. This is also a great way to show character development; by showing how a character’s decisions gradually change as their cognition change as they develop.

3) It allows me to explore nuance and make note of potential contradictions within the character’s way of thinking—which is often the most interesting aspects of a character’s psychology, at least in what I enjoy to write and read. Most real people don’t have perfectly cohesive morals, and most people can’t always act congruently with their morals either, so allow for your characters to make some bizarre decisions! See how far you can stretch their cognition! These decisions don’t have to be canon to the story, but it’s a good way to actually solidify what line of thinking your character makes when faced with difficult and potentially morally indicative choices.

Work your way backwards!

If you already have the overall traits and behavior of your character pinned down, you can always work your way backwards! As a pantser, this is a very common occurrence for me. I have a character with a clear goal and defined characteristics, but they’re completely uninformed so far, as I usually discover the cause of their motivation and characteristics as I write the story. As such, most of my characters don’t have any sort of backstory established until I’m much further into the process, as I discover it as I go along. So here’s some things I look out for in my character writing when creating a backstory after I’ve already established a character.

1) What are some things the character is often drawn towards? Humans are typically very habitual, a lot of us enjoy some sense of familiarity (to varying degrees depending on the person), and taking note of what your character tends to gravitate towards can be a great stepping stone to fleshing out backstory. An example could be a somewhat cold, stoic character who’s incredibly picky with their relationships due to trust issues (pretty common characterization) has a tendency to let their guard down more when around elderly people. Why is that? Maybe they were raised by very old parents, or even grandparents. Maybe it’s a cultural thing to treat elderly with more respect. Maybe it’s a religious thing. Maybe it’s because elderly people have treated them with more kindness in the past, etc. Note that this can be flipped too! Maybe this character feels uneasy around people closer to their own age, or even people who are younger than them.

2) How does your character socialize? The way a character approached social settings can often be very indicative of how they were raised, as that tends to affect how people form attachments (according to attachment theory in psychoanalysis, at least). Are they very sociable? If so, why? Is it because they’re accustomed to being around a lot of people? Maybe they had a very large family, or maybe they had a family that took part in a very active social sphere. Maybe this character just comes off as sociable because they understand the value of social connections. Why’s that? Maybe their family have a political influence, or maybe they have a business they want to sell, etc. Or maybe it’s the complete opposite; maybe this character grew up with little to no family at all, and that’s why they want to make friends and connections. If so, then maybe that affects how they make decisions, leaving them incredibly loyal and somewhat co-dependent. Even the smallest character traits and behaviours can be expanded upon to inform you of how that character was possibly raised, it’s really just about digging into said behaviour!

3) How receptive are they to new experiences or other people’s perspective? This is also somewhat linked to attachment theory, but it doesn’t have to be approached that way! The reason I bring this point up is because I find that a character’s receptiveness is often a good way to gauge their relationship with their parent. For example, a character with very strict, traditionalist parents might adopt that outlook on life because it offers them a sense of stability and security. They weren’t raised to be adaptable or to adjust themselves to new experiences, and thus have a difficult time accepting things outside of their established paradigm. This would suggest that this character likely didn’t rebel much to their parents’ outlooks on things (or if they tried, they failed), since they adopted said outlook for themselves. Another way to write this character (with the same premise) is to have them react in the opposite way; maybe they are super open and receptive because the rigidness of their parents prevented them from ever experiencing anything. Maybe the status quo bored them, or maybe they see their parents as narrow minded. This characterisation suggests that there’s possibly more tension (not necessarily in a negative way) between the character and their parents.

Interplay between morals & behaviour

A character’s morals and behaviour don’t always have to align. Like I mentioned in an earlier point, humans hold a lot of contradictions, and how people cope with those contradictions can vary. However, how do you determine if a contradiction is purposeful rather than a case of out-of-character writing?

Let’s say you have a character who views all animals as sacred, and this is something they were raised with. Suddenly, this character is thrust into a situation in a different world/kingdom/region/etc. where eating animal meat is the only viable food option to survive. They decide to do it, despite their morals directly conflicting with this behaviour.

One way this character might justify this is by thinking “well, my intentions matter most, and my intention was never to hurt animals, so while I feel bad for killing an animal for food, my intentions of doing so respectfully makes this action more acceptable to me.”

But another character in the exact same situation might not be satisfied with such logic. Maybe they see intentions as irrelevant, and only care about the consequences of their actions. If it’s been established beforehand that a character is consequentialist, then this action, paired with the justification above, would feel incredibly out of character, because the logic behind the justification is not intuitive to the reader.

Whether a contradiction feels purposeful or out-of-character ultimately boils down to what information and how much of it you’ve given to the readers, so that they have the information necessary to break down the interplay between the character’s morals and behaviour. 

Using other tools (cognitive functions, socionics, enneagram, etc.)

As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, I’m very interested in various types of typology (mbti probably being the most popular and well known one), and while I consider all forms of typology to fall under pseudo psychology, I often use these tools to help me better understand my own characters better! I personally gravitate towards cognitive functions (which is not the same system as mbti, even though it uses the same letter system) as they help me put into words my character’s cognition, and enneagram, which describes behaviour and motivations that arise from a person’s upbringing and coping mechanisms. There’s other things you can take into consideration as well, like socionics, temperaments, attitudinal psyche, etc!

I’m not suggesting you use these as replacements for developing characters, but they can be great supplements when trying to dig deeper into your character’s psychology! I’d also argue that you get more out of putting these systems into use if you learn about typology and analyse your characters yourself instead of taking a test for them, but I’m also very biased in this regard, since I enjoy analysing my characters myself :,) And there are times where I’ll take a few tests to help solidify my breakdown if I’m having a difficult time labelling my character correctly. Honestly, just have fun with it!!

– Outro

Sorry for yet another lengthy post! And sorry it was a bit later than I’d anticipated, I had a much busier weekend than I thought I’d have, so I kept having to squeeze writing in anytime I had enough spare time to sit down, and then I stumbled across a series of health complications that I’m still trying to sort out. Which, speaking of, thank you so much to everyone who’s been wishing me good luck! I’m still working on figuring out what’s wrong, but I’m making progress!

As usual, my asks and messages are always open, so feel free to shoot me a message about anything! Even if I may be slower with my replies ^^; Thank you for reading! <3

[leebrontide]

Hi everyone!

I'm asking for a (free) favor from y'all.

I'm trying to get more people to sign up for my free monthly author newsletter, and I'd love for you to help me find people who might enjoy it.

Every month, I write an essay about a subject. I'm not just collecting contacts to send ads to!

Sometimes it's about writing process

A Unique Character Development Technique 

The Golden Girls, D&D, and The Newest Way I’m Refusing to Make Writing Solitary 

The Bananabook Method

Lies I Tell Myself, Security Blankets and Backstitch Drafting

And other times it's a deep dive into a research topic for my books

Why I’m Researching a 19th Century Cult This Month

Spider Goat is Real but is Not Marvel Affiliated

People Just Really Want to Say "Enhance"

That Most Intimate of Thrones

Whose Side is Your House On?

The Care and Feeding of Dream Homes

What Arguing About Captain America Taught Me About Psychotherapy

Sometimes it's about mental health, especially through the lenses of fantasy and scifi

Of Flesh and Gundams

What Feeling Are You Most Afraid Of?

Sometimes it's even about legal systems and their interactions with the medical field and expanding medical technologies

Tractors, Cybernetics and the Radical at the Radioshack

Because Everybody Was Calling for YA Scifi About HIPAA, Right? 

Or queer stuff

What Do We Celebrate?

What Stories Are You Made Of?

Or disability

Another Kind of Coziness 

Tinkering With Cyberpunk

Things I Stole from Julian Bashir

Or it could be anything else that I'm willing to think deeper about that month. You can browse the full archive over here.

AND it almost always includes pictures of my very cute cats!

So could you please boost, if you feel your followers might be into that?

The subscription signup is right here.

Help an indie author out?

[mysharona1987]

[thesirencult]

STOP TRYING TO FIT IN

Don't stay stagnant.

Don't let society trap you in.

Stop trying to fit into boxes and aesthetics.

You have the right to change and evolve. You have the right to change your choices in life.

You have the right to change your path.

If we know who we are, we are limited.

Create yourself.

[librarycards]

what can you do if you want to become a therapist but are a communist lol like i feel like i would probably end up losing my license but i did so much school for this before i was radicalized :\

so, i'm basically recapitulating what my current therapist - an avowed abolitionist and anarchist who does not institutionalize anyone, including pts in 'medical danger', unless they explicitly request it (and even then she'll offer alts first).

you either have or will have to do some kind of rotation/trial period, probably in a congregate carceral setting. you will experience abuse at the hands of your employers. you will witness, facilitate, and/or be powerless to stop the abuse of patients.

when you're done with this, you'll have a few limited choices. you can stick around. you can join somebody else's practice, and possibly be able to accept more insurances / have stability. you can also go solo, which dramatically increases the likelihood that you will not be able to accept insurance, medicaid, etc.

you will have to charge too much for appts. this is inevitable, because everything should be free. but even sliding-scale services offered by private practitioners are unjustly high and out of reach to those who need it most. there is virtually no way to rectify this, while still affording rent, *and* maintaining a commitment to your values (that said, i have a few leads. dm me and i can try to put you in the right direction)

you will be reifying an approach to disability/noncompliance that is irredeemably vile.

you will be offering Madpeople a vital space of growth and intimacy not currently offered elsewhere, and filling a huge need (there are very few abolitionist practitioners and many, many people who want them)

tldr: you will be culpable for grievous harm. you are also, as an abolitionist practitioner, deeply necessary given contemporary social conditions. you will never forgive yourself. patients will be suspicious of you. you will, if you put your values first, save and improve a lot of lives. you will not fix anyone or anything. you will, at your best, understand those you work with as comrades and interlocutors, but you will, inevitably, be aware of the fact that your power places a wall between you & them. you will, hopefully, commit together to carving out a space of exchange-care-possibility within all of the above constraints.

good luck man this sucks but we love you need you etc

[flowerflowerflo]

౨ৎ ⋆｡˚ lack

♡ TRIGGER WARNING: mentioned alcoholism, substance abuse

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ lack: to be without or deficient in

— "everything comes from nothing."

this is true. without having nothing, being at the bottom, being in a state of lack and starting from the ground up, we would never have decided to seek out something more because we would already have it. lack is the motivator behind the creation of everything we know, even if it may not be the creator. lack is what gives said creator the drive to create.

so when we feel a lack in our lives, we obviously feel a need to fill that. this creates desire. and as we are hardwired for negativity, in turn a lot of the time this leads down negative pathways because that is our natural route. but lack is always the creator of these pathways. we always lead back to our roots, and lack is the only unchanging root we all unify under.

from the simplest to the most complicated of circumstances, lack is always the culprit, because there is always a desire driving us to do these things.

desire comes from lack, and desire is found in the smallest of things. and desire and wanting leads to action. like for example if you want breakfast in the morning you'd go and hunt around the kitchen foraging for food like a wild animal. (me coded)

for example, many bad habits like substance abuse or alcoholism come from a desire to "fill the void" as it's often described, the void being emptiness, emptiness being lack.

another example; an inability to uphold healthy relationships, platonic, familial, romantic or otherwise, also often comes from a traumatic or repeated experience with instability. instability literally means "lack of stability", once again leading to lack, making them subconsciously crave what they already know. you see what i mean?

think about your problems and think about their origins. think about what you want and why you want it. you will find almost, if not every time it leads back to lack.

because everything comes from nothing.

🧸𓂃 ࣪˖ wrap up

♡ NAME A PROBLEM IN YOUR LIFE

♡ WHERE DOES THIS COME FROM?

♡ WHAT DO I WANT?

♡ WHY DO I WANT THIS?

♡ WHAT AM I LACKING?

♡ HOW DO I CREATE THAT IN A HEALTHY WAY?

lots of love ♡

[crystalandbow]

MANIFESTATION BLOG🪽

| DELULU IS THE SOLULU|

Read about schizophrenia, beliefs and how to manifest, also includes a mini activity 🤍

Welcome to the very first blog🫂 & let's begin!!

I wanted to share something different from what we all have been listening/reading about beliefs system, I thought this was a great example to share to help you guys understand how much of an influence of mind's beliefs influence our reality and that is why it's so important to make it work with us.Please use this writing as a source of motivation for manifestation, instead of trying to find faults in it.

Lets understand this using an example of a schizophrenic.

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a range of symptoms, including hallucinations (perceiving things that aren't real), delusions (fixed false beliefs), disorganized thinking, grossly disorganized or abnormal motor behavior, and negative symptoms (such as diminished emotional expression or avolition).

For our purpose we will focus on hallucinations and delusions

Delusions are beliefs that one perceives to be true despite conflicting evidences. Eg: believing one is being targeted or harmed by others even though there is no one doing so.

Hallucinations can be visual (seeing things in the absence of it) auditory (hearing sounds and noises that are absent) olfactory (sensing smells that aren't present) gustatory (perceiving tastes in the absence of any stimuli) tactile (feeling sensations on the skin, like tingling, burning, or insects crawling, without any external cause) somatic (Sensations involving the body, such as feeling internal organs moving or being touched, despite no external interaction.)

We call them crazy, because we see otherwise but to them it's their reality. To them the thought that someone watching them is true they might even "see" them, when in actuality it is just a hallucination. They don't see things because they exist, they see it because that is what they believe in.

So what are you trying to say crystal?

To conclude we can say that when you start believing in something you start to see proof of those things in your life. So stay delulu and feed yourself positivity 🤍

what do we have to do?

Well this taught us that if we deeply believe in something we will start to see proof, even if it's not real. Just try to think of times when you believed in something and started to see results. So work on your belief system in order to manifest!!! This is also the very base of the law of assumption or fake it till you make it technique of manifestation. (For those who don't know the law of assumption it is the law where you manifest your desires by the assumption/belief that you already have it) We can use this to manifest our dream life. All you have to do is deeply believe in it, you have to repeat the same story to yourself again & again. After a point you will get used to it.

Here is a mini activity to try!

So here's what you're gonna do for a week

Firstly Set a goal! (it could be to feel pretty or feel happier or anything else but I like to believe that whenever you try a new manifestation technique aim for something small because you'll have less resistance)

Prep time (Now think of a time when you felt like that (pretty or happy or whatever you chose. If you are trying to manifest money, think about all the times you received money.Its okay to fake the mindset or create a fake story but just believe think that it actually happened)

Build a mindset (tell yourself how lucky you are & how the universe just fucking loves you so much. The universe just loves to spoil you, how easy manifestation is for you, tell yourself how you don't even need to "manifest" anything anymore because everything just flows to you naturally)

story time (this step involves you using the above 2 steps, use all those instances from stage 2 to build the mindset from stage 3 (keep telling yourself how easy it is for you to manifest)

REPEAT (actually the most important! Repeat step 4 every single minute, while eating, while drinking, while breathing, while sleeping. Stay fucking obsessed with it as if it's your crush. Keep telling yourself the same story obsessively and just believe in it for a week!!

we will do this activity together! I will post a reminder everyday for a week!

Please share your thoughts on this!

EDIT: THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOU START ACTING LIKE A SCHIZOPHRENIC, IT IS JUST AN EXAMPLE TO SHOW THE POWER OF THE MIND & BELIEVING !!!!!

I'm not trying to promote schizophrenia or acting like a schizophrenic. please schizophrenia is a mental illness, it is NOT cool! And please seek out a mental health professional if needed!

[novlr]

I used to write historical romance fiction but I want to switch genres and try my hand at something different. Are there any resources you would recommend for writing a gritty crime thriller, or a mystery novel?

I love trying out different genres!

We've got lots of plot templates available in the Reading Room (and if you want to see a specific genre one, do reach out and let us know!). I've put together a mystery/crime thriller template we released today to hopefully help get you started.

[lazyyogi]

How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.

Wayne Dyer

[marlynnofmany]

Valuable writer life hack: if you're procrastinating on starting a writing project, just donwanna, it's scary for one reason or another...

Think up a first line while you're doing something else. No pressure, just an opening. Then jot it down.

Got a second line? Keep going. It's easy now. 

(I just wrote something I've been putting off for ages because I was brushing my teeth and thought "What kind of note do I want that first line to strike?" When I decided it should talk about immortality, I was off and running.)