#sometimes also it feels like my mental illnesses have impaired my life far more than my disabilities

[lovecatsys]

getting self conscious about calling myself disabled is certainly a thing. Like I have diagnosed severe hearing loss But I can mostly navigate the the world without needing to sign or use hearing aids. I have chronic pain from fibromyalgia But I only need to use my cane occasionally. I'm autistic But the only really disabling thing for me about it is the fact that I can't work or socialize as much as allistic people otherwise I'm Fine (besides all the trauma from it lmao). Like I get the whole thing of invisible disabilities but sometimes its like my disabilities don't come up very often in my life

[aj28gaming]

Nagito's dementia and misuse of information

CAN PEOPLE STOP TRYING TO USE FRONTOTEMPORAL DEMENTIA SYMPTOMS TO EXPLAIN HIM?

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What I mean is, yes he has dementia or is at least diagnosed with it

And I believe that he probably does actually have dementia (not saying he could've lied tho but he could've still been misdiagnosed)

But that doesn't mean he has all of the symptoms

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I don't think we can confirm if he does or doesn't have dementia because he might just not have all of the symptoms

But I do know that using the symptoms to explain his character isn't a good idea especially since it usually undermines who he actually is

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So stop using his dementia as a way to explain EVERYTHING HE DOES AND IS

He doesn't even have all the symptoms and is close to having almost none of them

Using a mental illness to explain a character's entire character is a bad idea and makes it seem like it's who they are entirely

Yes Nagito is diagnosed with dementia however that isn't who he is entirely

He is a complicated character with a lot of layers

And his illnesses definitely don't make up ALL OF HIS LAYERS AND CHARACTER

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Okay now, let me explain

(These are a combination of all of the symptoms of Frontotemporal dementia that I have gathered)

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(I AM NOT TRYING TO PROVE HE DOESN'T HAVE DEMENTIA BECAUSE HE MIGHT STILL HAVE IT, I'M JUST TRYING TO POINT OUT WHY USING THE SYMPTOMS TO EXPLAIN EVERYTHING HE DOES IS A BAD THING)

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Now onto the symptoms:

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Behavior and/or dramatic personality changes, such as swearing, stealing, increased interest in sex, or a deterioration in personal hygiene habits

- No, and no not even when the killing game started. Yeah sure he laughs now, but that's no different from how he is normally since laughing for him is what he does when he gets surprised or stressed. He doesn't change much in the killing game, he still believes in hope and everyone else, still respects boundaries, still have crazy high intellect and empathy, still pushes people away

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Socially inappropriate, impulsive, or repetitive behaviors

- not really, again the guy is a freaking gentleman even during the killing game. He respects boundaries, reprimands Teruteru for sexual assault during chapter 1, pushes people away and distances himself from others, isn't at all impulsive (usually quite the opposite really), and is usually planning and tries to remain calm and composed throughout the killing game (struggling tho cuz yeah killing game)

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Impaired judgment

- here, I kinda disagree. I wouldn't say that Nagito is entirely in the right with everything he does, but I understand his views. The guy knows that no one is truly a bad person in the killing game because everyone was forced into it. He knows that even the blackened escapes and everyone dies, it isn't fully a bad thing because that means someone escapes and goes back home to their loved ones while the killing game ends

If a blackened succeeds, the despair would be of course everyone else dying and the blackened going through a lot of trauma, but the hope would be the end of the killing game and the blackened going home or to their loved ones or to their goal in life or whatever

If the blackened dies, the despair would obviously be the blackened dying and the killing game still continuing, while the hope would be everyone else still alive

Nagito isn't exactly wrong in wanting to help the blackened as well, of course, Nagito would want him himself to be the victim so another person gets a chance at escape and no one else would be the victim

Sadly for Nagito, that time never comes

Nagito doesn't want others to be killed, he wants to sacrifice himself instead as the victim instead of everyone else

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Apathy

- .....big no. Nonononono. The dude is anything but apathetic.

"Apathy is a lack of feeling, emotion, interest, or concern about something."

Seriously, being a dude who is constantly supportive of everyone and their hopes in life and how passionate this dude gets about hope and despair, and the fact that he is the most stressed 24/7 about something bad happening due to his luck, this guy is seriously anything but apathetic

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Lack of empathy

- No. If the guy truly lack empathy he wouldn't need to use Hope desperately as a coping mechanism, wouldn't care about the ultimates and their hopes and despairs, wouldn't constantly be thinking about helping the ultimates and overcoming despair, wouldn't be the most stressed out of everyone, and definitely wouldn't be in love with Hajime or even act the way he did in chapter 1

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Decreased self-awareness

- You don't actually understand why you act the way you do. A good indicator that you lack self-awareness deals with how well you understand your emotions, actions, and behavior. People who lack self-awareness often feel constantly off-kilter, anxious, or angry.

This is not Nagito at all. The guy understands his emotions and behaviors which is why he is able to do the things he does and is able to conduct plans based on how much he understands his own self and capabilities. The guy is actually the most self-aware out of everyone, he knows about how people don't understand him and constantly misunderstand him and his intentions, he is aware constantly of his inability sometimes to properly explain his goals to people.

The guy has a lot of self-awareness and isn't afraid to take responsibility for his actions. Actually, it's because of how self-aware he is of his own self and his destructive luck cycle that he constantly blames himself for anything bad that happens.

The guy is seriously self-aware as hell and it's scary sometimes

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Loss of interest in normal daily activities

- Nope, he hasn't shown any sign of apathy towards anything and is usually pretty hyped about doing daily activities. He is paranoid though on the daily because he fears for what his luck cycle might do

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Emotional withdrawal from others

- Emotional withdrawal involves bottling up your emotions. It involves cutting out the people who could help us, because we're so used to rejection that we've learned to anticipate it. Because we've learned to disconnect from others, we develop other unhealthy coping mechanisms

Emotional withdrawal is defined as pulling back emotionally or physically by bottling up your feelings or disconnecting from others. Emotional withdrawal can be far more complex at times. It is comparable to a breakup, in every way but physical.

Kind of? Yes, he pushes people away, but he is still willing to spend time with people, especially Hajime, when they really insist. He politely pushes people away, but he isn't opposed to hanging out with people either though it is sometimes rare

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Loss of energy and motivation

- .... I already said it before, the guy is full of motivation and energy and passion that it is scary sometimes

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Inability to use or understand language; this may include difficulty naming objects, expressing words, or understanding the meanings of words

-.....WHY IS THIS HERE? THE GUY IN THE JAPANESE DUB CONSTANTLY FLEXES HIS DAMN ENGLISH VOCABULARY DESPITE IT BEING A JAPANESE DUB

AND THE FUCKING ENGLISH WORDS HE USES ARE FANCY AND HIGH LEVEL AS FUCK THAT I FEEL SMART JUST READING THEM

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Hesitation when speaking

- Definite no, the guy isn't afraid to voice his own opinions and never hesitates and can get very vocal about the things he is passionate about

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Less frequent speech

- Again, definite hell no. I wouldn't be surprised if his voice lines are longer than the voice lines of everyone else combined

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Distractibility

- Nope. The guy is focused on his goals constantly. No matter what he does, you can always be sure that it is for a certain goal. He pisses of Fuyuhiko? It was to get a reaction from him to confirm his suspicions about the true culprit. He lied about the rope? It was to see how Mikan would react and how the trial would go to confirm his suspicions about Mikan being the culprit?

The guy is focused like a damn soldier

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Trouble planning and organizing

-.....do I seriously need to explain? This is Nagito we are talking about

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Frequent mood changes

- Not really. He usually acts or reacts a certain way because something happened like someone died or something. He is actually pretty normal with how he acts and reacts and doesn't really change his mood rapidly that much

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Agitation

- Yes and no? Sure the guy gets paranoid 24/7, but is still somewhat more chill than agitated to an extent. He is easy going and is just paranoid about what his luck would do, he is vigilant but not necessarily agitated

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Increasing dependence

- No. The guy is independent to a fault and only relies on others when his plans call for it. He also usually does things of his own accord and rarely with a partner unless he really needs to or his goal is to help that person specifically, which knowing him is a usual thing

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Unwillingness to talk

- Again, no. The guy talks a lot and while he pushes others away, he wouldn't turn down a conversation if the other person wanted one

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Lack of inhibition or lack of social tact

- Again, no. The guy is a gentleman and respects boundaries and definitely gets stressed especially in the killing game. The guy is also paranoid 24/7 on a normal day due to his luck cycle

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Obsessive or repetitive behavior, such as compulsively shaving or collecting items

- No? Sure he clings to hope but that is more of a coping mechanism. If he isn't in a stressful situation like a killing game he doesn't get that obsessive as much about hope since he doesn't need to desperately cling to it as a coping mechanism

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Unusual verbal, physical or sexual behavior

- No? He isn't at all like this. It isn't unusual to panic or use a coping mechanism desperately when in a situation like a killing game, and he doesn't do anything unusual like this when it's a normal day. Sure the guy gets paranoid, but that's it

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Weight gain due to dramatic overeating

- No? Actually, I don't really know how much weight he gains to be honest so idk

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My main point here is, yes there is a chance Nagito does actually have dementia, but using the symptoms as a way to explain his character undermines who he actually is and can cause a lot of misunderstandings of his character

Especially since I remember being told that they only added in dementia to his character backstory a little late during his character development and creation

It isn't a good idea to use his symptoms because it usually gets his character wrong and sometimes makes them excuse a lot of the things he has done

The guy is self-aware, isn't socially inept, is a gentleman, and socially intelligent as hell

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And again

Stop using his dementia as a way to explain EVERYTHING HE DOES AND IS

He doesn't even have all the symptoms and is close to having almost none of them

Using a mental illness to explain a character's entire character is a bad idea and makes it seem like it's who they are entirely

Yes Nagito is diagnosed with dementia however that isn't who he is entirely

He is a complicated character with a lot of layers

And his illnesses definitely don't make up ALL OF HIS LAYERS AND CHARACTER

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[blookmallow]

hi uhh this video about Anxiety Is Good Actually keeps being on my dash and its making me mad so this is me breaking it down 

if this kind of thinking helps you im not trying to destroy your coping methods but it just feels so far removed from what the actual experience of anxiety is 

i understand the value in trying to redirect negative self-thoughts into positive ones ( “i worry about people all the time” --> “i care deeply about people i love”) but there’s ways to do that without just, denying there’s anything wrong?? this just feels like the. whole issue with romanticizing mental illness/not moving toward positive recovery because I Dont Need To Change Myself when its actively harming you (not to mention “anxiety is good and helpful” is uh, not a great thing to say to someone with anxiety, bc then you get more anxiety spirals of ‘wait if this is how anxiety is for other people then whats wrong with me, i must be doing something wrong. i shouldnt need help and be having breakdowns bc apparently its easy and even beneficial to other people’ i dont need to be anxious about how im doing anxiety wrong lmfao) 

- where is this “anxiety means you’re intelligent” claim coming from. says Who. hyperanalyzing and overthinking constantly doesn’t make you Smarter, anxiety brain isn’t “im carefully and logically considering all the possibilities” it’s your brain trapping itself in a hell spiral of “what if what if what if” to the point where it becomes increasingly difficult to come to any conclusion at all. it’s not “considering all possible outcomes rationally” it’s “im spending 30 minutes worrying about the least likely thing to happen in a way that is not constructive and i need to recognize that and get myself back on track with whats actually relevant” 

my critical thinking is actively impaired by my anxiety. i sometimes have to go take a nap for 3 hours to reset my brain before i can even approach a problem because my brain is just going “no no no no no too big too scary i cant i cant i cant i cant i cant” too loudly for me to even consider any options at all. “anxiety can make you better at decision making!” is the biggest fucking bullshit claim i have ever seen. anxiety PREVENTS me from decision making. it makes decision making a huge ridiculous ordeal when it really doesn’t need to be. i have to go through a whole process of quieting my anxiety down and working around it in order to do anything at all. its like if you had an alarm system for your house but it went off just constantly all the time for no reason and you have to keep getting up to turn it off. eventually you’re going to have a hard time being able to identify when it’s actually going off because someone’s breaking into your house and when it’s just Doing That Thing Again and you keep losing track of what you were doing because you keep getting interrupted by having to turn that stupid alarm off again

anxiety isn’t “constantly looking for how to solve things” its “constantly thinking of new problems that could exist” in a way that is not beneficial. ill be sitting here feeling sick and completely disoriented for an hour because What If The Customer Service Guy On The Phone Thought I Was Stupid. Maybe I Am Stupid. Maybe I Was Accidentally Rude In Some Way I Never Considered And He’s Going “Wow What A Stupid Rude Bitch That Was” for literally no reason. sure that also means “i have empathy for other people and i want to be polite and not make someone else’s life difficult” but im mostly just thinking about How Stupid I Am, You Stupid Fucking Idiot which is not helpful

like if i recognize “this is my anxiety talking” and just. silenzio bruno. ignore that, put that away, move on, focus. that’s a much more healthy way to cope than indulging it on another spiral of “how is this Actually My Little Anxiety Buddy Trying To Help Me” trying to find some meaning and purpose in it isn’t going to help. anxiety is irrational. that’s what it Is. it’s okay and actually healthy to realize that. my best coping skill is to just say “okay, that was a brain glitch. that wasn’t my fault. im not stupid, my brain just has bad wiring. ignore that. keep going” 

- “we can think of it as our anxiety giving us an extra energy boost to get things done” fucking WHAT?? i cant get anything done because of my anxiety. i will bury myself in 19 blankets and stare at tumblr for 5 hours because my brain Won’t Start and i feel sick and worried and shaky for literally no reason instead of like, getting up and cleaning my room. and then i spend another hour thinking about how useless i am for not cleaning my room. i can only get things done at all bc i have medication that makes my anxiety quieter 

- they have this cute little image of “anxiety” telling you to tell the store person you need more time to decide as if it’s there shouting solutions and advice when really it’s more like “GO GO GO GO YOU HAVE TO ANSWER NOW YOU’RE TAKING TOO LONG YOU’RE HOLDING UP THE LINE YOU’RE BEING THAT GUY HURRY HURRY HURRY HURRY IF YOU DON’T DECIDE SOMETHING IN 3 SECONDS EVERYONE IN THE STORE WILL HATE YOU AND YOU WILL DIE” its not constructive, it’s not a helpful little advice friend, it’s just random loud static you have to work around constantly. of course it’s okay to need a second to process because of your anxiety but that’s not what anxiety Does. i cant ask for a second to process because my anxiety is so loud i cant think and it has convinced me if i dont act normal Right The Fuck Now everyone will hate me forever. i guess a more effective illustration would be like, the Anxiety entity going “AAAAAAA” and instead of you thinking “im stupid and terrible because i cant control that thing” you go “hang on a second, i need a minute” and you step away to calm it down. instead of. the anxiety just offering you a solution. for itself. i dont understand this video 

like. what the fuck are you talking about. “you can do it!! you got this!” is literally the exact fucking polar opposite of what anxiety brain is like

[personalcoachingcenter]

Flexibility: One Self, Multiple Roles

New Post has been published on https://personalcoachingcenter.com/flexibility-one-self-multiple-roles/

Flexibility: One Self, Multiple Roles

A Coaching Model By Milagros Echecopar, Evolution Coach, PERU

There is no reality except the one contained within us. That is why so many people live such unreal life. They take the images outside of them for reality and never allow the world within to assert itself. Hermann Hesse,Steppenwolf

I have been what people call a devoted and surrogate caregiving daughter. I have also been a loving mother, a successful international executive, a supporting wife, and some more, all at the same time. And I can tell, it’s demanding, very demanding, to a point where I lost sight of who I was. To deal with all that was required of me, to be the best I could in each role, I unconsciously started to tamper down certain aspects of my personality, and disregard feelings I thought were not serving me.

Thinking I was being clever, doing the right thing, excelling in all my roles, I was so wrong. I might have looked smart, I might have looked like I was doing a great job, but I could have done much better because I was failing in being ME (funny how those are my initials, although MEK is what many people call me).

We tend to live putting labels on ourselves and to others: I’m a daughter, I’m a mother, I’m an executive, I’m a coach, you are a teacher, you are a grandfather, you are an artist, etc. It’s fine to have those labels, they help us identify the roles we are performing and provide information about ourselves, but they do not define us.

The titles we accumulate during our lives can be enriching, bring us joy and fulfillment, but they can also become planks that, one after the other, build a wall, a box, that hides our true selves from us, from others. And they can become heavy, hiding our inner self, and constricting, limiting the space for personal traits that we think, feel do not serve us to be at our bests while performing the roles those titles entail.

And therein lies my problem with those labels, when they start to define who we are, when we, or others, use them to put us in a particular box. Those labels define the role we are performing but do not constitute a definition of our core, our inner self.  When the way we live our lives is determined by those labels, by the boxes in which we or others have put ourselves, we live in stress. In stress between what is required from us to fulfill those roles and who we are, what drives us, what we need to feel whole, at peace with the way we live our lives, and at peace with the roles we are performing at that moment.

I started this journey with my mother in mind, but along the way, I’ve found it has been for me too, and for all who face the challenge of performing at their best different roles, especially working caregivers. So many of us are daughters, mothers, wives, workers, and caregivers, all at the same time.

The paradox is that even though we are the same person in each of those roles, we are not. While performing those roles, we tend to show only the sides of ourselves that we consider serve us better for said roles; and we, and the people around us, get used to that representation of ourselves.

  We and they are oblivious of the different traits of our personalities that can be of so much value, but that we only bring in when performing other roles, if they have not been wholly disregarded. What is worst is that we and they are not conscious of the demands that the accumulation of titles puts on us. People forget a human being is performing that role and see only the executive, the father, the son, but not the whole person.

Initially, I had thought about focusing primarily on informal caregivers because I have seen and experienced the challenges one faces when performing that role. Of course, I still would like to work with them. But now, looking back at my own experience and my coaching journey so far, I realize that the challenges caregivers face can be similar to those faced by people who find themselves defined by their titles and do not integrate their whole selves in the different roles they are performing.

Life sometimes throughs at us roles we did not ask for, we did not foresee, we do not want, as in the case of caregivers, but we feel we must take them on. Life also sometimes takes away from the roles we were attached to, we liked, we felt proud of, as when we are laid off. When either of those happens, many different feelings can arise within us: frustration, anger, despair, fear, insecurity. We might feel that something is not entirely right within ourselves but can’t put the finger on it. And since we must keep performing our other roles, we disregard those feelings and focus on what “serves” us to keep going.

That’s what happens when a loved one suddenly is diagnosed with an impairing illness, and we are put in the role of caregivers. It’s so unexpected that some of us do not even recognize ourselves as caregivers, despite its impact on our lives, and we just go on doing what is expected of us as good daughters, mothers, wives, husbands. Roberts&Donahue (1994) indicate that caretaking has adverse effects on the well-being of the caretaker and that it can be impacting the satisfaction they feel about the role they associate with caregiving.

They found that was the case of middle-aged women who associated their role as daughters with caregiving. It’s also what happens when someone is promoted and is now the manager of her/his previous partners. The new title comes with an array of expectations from us and from others, not only about our performance but also about the way we conduct ourselves. Or when we are laid off and find ourselves without the title that we and others identified as what defines us.

As contradictory as it might sound to all I’ve exposed so far about titles, not recognizing that being a caregiver is a different role from being a daughter, a husband, a mother adds an unnecessary layer of difficulty to our role. Not being conscious of what might change in the way people interact with us after a promotion makes the transition harder. Not being truly aware that we are much more than the roles we play can leave us mourning for a phase that is no longer going to come back and missing all the opportunities to create new paths for ourselves.

Because it is not about disregarding the roles we are performing, it’s about embracing them and making them our own without losing sight that they do not define us. If we are not conscious of the differences between our various roles and the diverse traits of our personalities that go beyond those roles, we cannot determine what within our vast array of personal resources we can use and where we will need help.

Fleeson and colleagues’ research, as cited in Wundrack et al. (2018), suggests that everyone will eventually express the entire range of possible personality state levels but that there are individual differences in the frequency with which the different state levels occur in everyday life. Furthermore, Hung Kit Fok et al.(2007) suggest that personality serves as a vital factor in orchestrating the organization of the ”if-then” associations between situational factors and endorsement of different display rules.

If we are conditioned by the titles we carry, the way we display our different personality state levels is also conditioned. Thus, the more conscious we are of what influences that display, the more in command we will be, and the better equipped we will be to dig into the richness of our personalities to perform our roles.

What if we were to acknowledge the new roles, the demands they entail, and embrace them? What if we were to acknowledge that that phase of our life is gone? What if we were to acknowledge that, despite those changes, we are still the US with all the good and “bad”? What if we were to acknowledge our whole selves and bring it in our different roles and stages in our lives?

That’s what drives me as a coach, partnering with people who want to embrace who they are at that moment in their lives, uncover the richness of their inner selves, bring their whole being in their different roles, and realize how much fulfilling their lives can be when they do so.

It’s like composing a piece of music; sometimes, one instrument, or a group of instruments, will take center stage while others play at different levels. Still, they are all integrated to produce that unique and beautiful piece of music. If one instrument is missing, the music might still sound good, but it can be more beautiful if all of them are playing at their proper time. And it doesn’t have to be a rigid composition; it can be like jazz, flexible, adapting to the context, the mood, and the musicians’ abilities.

How is this connected to coaching? I propose that by partnering with a coach, clients can move from a place where they are disregarding different aspects of their personalities and disregarding their need to tend to themselves to a place where they acknowledge and integrate those aspects in the way they live, they perform their different roles and interact with their loved ones, families, friends, colleagues, etc. Clients can become more flexible, be able to find better ways to integrate their different personality traits while transitioning through diverse roles and evolve.

Flexibility: One Self, Multiple Roles Coaching Model

Coaching provides a safe space for clients to stand on their vulnerability and tackle the complex task of understanding their mental state in real life, which requires considerations of their circumstances, beliefs, knowledge, feelings, intentions, and personality (Wundrack et al., 2018). Coaching is also about partnering with clients and supporting them in finding ways to move forward. But, if their process is conditioned by their titles and clients are unaware of it, how can they genuinely understand themselves? How can they be conscious of what is holding them back and of all the resources they could use to move in the direction they desire?

Thus, some of the questions I would endeavor to help clients find their answers to would be: what are the belief, value that anchors their current perspective, and the role they are performing? How can they take perspective and let go of that anchor and/or their unconscious bias? What would it take for them to move into action to shorten the distance between who they are, who they can be, and how they are perceived by themselves and others? How can they find a more satisfactory way to perform their roles? Because, as Roberts&Donahue (1994) note, the similarity between descriptions of any given social role and who we are (our general self) could be related to the degree to which we feel committed to and satisfied with that role.

We would work with clients to help them let go of anchors that keep them stuck and inflexible; accept and acknowledge the multiple options and perspectives available to them and integrate their whole selves and roles, building a different relationship with them and making transition processes smoother and more fulfilling.

For that to happen, we consider that a Sense of Coherence (SOC), as defined by Antonovsky (1979)as cited in Eyzaguirre (2018), is needed. SOC is the global orientation one has towards life and the ability to perceive it in a dynamic, lasting, and confident way. According to Eyzaguirre (2018), the three dimensions of SOC are:

Comprehensibility: ability to understand and explain the situation faced, becoming predictable by the person;

Manageability: having the own internal resources that are available in the person to be able to face the situation and be able to control it; and

Emotional sense: the situation has a meaning for the person and is therefore considered as a commitment capable of challenging and facing.

Antonovsky (1993), as cited in Eyzaguirre (2018), sustains that the more developed and strengthened the SOC is, the greater the willingness to perceive life events as less stressful and with greater control and meaning over them. For example, in the case of caregivers, they found that the greater their SOC, the more balanced and positive care they would provide. They sustain that this is because SOC as a resource allows them to see the patient’s disease as less threatening and, instead, perceive reality from the healthiest.

Moreover, according to Eyzaguirre (2018), Antonovsky (1994) indicated that successful coping with stressful events brings positive health consequences and is therefore expected to influence satisfaction, happiness, and positive affect. Thus, “the development of a strong SOC in the face of the burden and the stressful stimulus, allows to reinforce and improve the health of the person, by the cognitive and emotional capacity to identify the dimensions of the problem as probabilities and as challenges that can be explained and overcome by the internal resources themselves” (Antonovsky, 1979as cited in Eyzaguirre, 2018).

Based on the benefits that a highly developed SOC can bring to our clients, we propose working with them on growing and strengthen their SOC.  To create a process that can contribute to a fruitful journey, we have considered models like Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Relational Frame Theory (RFT), and Hulbert-Williams et al.’s (2016)Contextual Behavioral Coaching (CBC).

As per the description provided by Han et al. (2021), citing Hayes et al.(2012), ACT is based on a psychological flexibility model, and some of the aspects covered when applying this model are:

cognitive defusion (i.e., stepping back or detaching from unhelpful thoughts and emotions to reduce their dominance over behaviors);

self-as-context (i.e., observing thoughts and emotions without judgment);

values (identifying and connecting values to behaviors for a meaningful life); and

committed action (making efforts to establish patterns of actions/behaviors to live a meaningful life aligned with values).

Grounded in contextual behavioral science, relational frame theory (RFT) explores language and thoughts’ origins and philosophical connotations (PsycInfo Database Record, 2020). Building on that, Hulbert-Williams et al. (2016) take both ACT and RFT and incorporate Contextual Behavioural Science concepts to propose a third approach which they call Contextual Behavioural Coaching (CBC).

Integrating the concepts and tools provided by ACT, RFT, and CBC, we would partner with our clients to develop and strengthen their SOC to find inner balance and satisfaction in the different roles they perform.

The stages we would cover throughout our work with our clients would be exploration, identify anchors, take perspective, flexibility, and action.

Exploration

This aspect of the coaching process will aim to deepen client’s self-understanding and increase their acceptance of challenges.

In a study conducted by Hulbert-Williams et al. (2016), they worked with a patient to help her contact her feelings of stuckness and the accompanying thoughts of failure. Then, they traced how she would numb these feelings with busyness (and occasionally, wine); and identified that such behaviors seemed to be serving the function of experiential avoidance. By exploring her feelings, she deepened the understanding of herself and what was driving her behavior.

In the case of caregivers, Han et al. (2021) cite Brodaty&Donki (2009), found that accepting the losses of relatives’ abilities and care demands assists family caregivers to better adapt.

Identify Anchors

When we look at identifying anchors, we will partner with clients to find what they are fused to; what stories they are telling themselves that bring rigidity to the way they undertake their different roles in life.

AsHulbert-Williams et al. (2016) indicate, being fused to specific stories we tell ourselves leads to fixed patterns of behavior which can be unworkable in the context of client values and desired goals. In a state of fusion, it can be hard to separate ourselves from our thoughts.

Looking back at what we initially described as how we can be conditioned by specific roles, Hayes et al. (1986), as cited in Hulbert-Williams et al. (2016), found that rule-governed behavior is inflexible. That is, in the presence of unwritten rules, human behavior can often fail to respond to other contingencies of reinforcement.

Working with our clients on identifying and acknowledging those anchors and rule-governed behaviors will contribute to channel their energy in more positive, productive, and flexible ways.

Take Perspective

We propose taking perspective as providing psychological space between self and thoughts for clients to challenge their current view and raise awareness that their perspective is transient.

Hulbert-Williams et al. (2016) propose that techniques which encourage defusion can be helpful, especially when clients describe feeling stuck in a given pattern of behavior. Such techniques help clients move from a place where they try to battle with those behaviors, and the associated thoughts, to a place where they notice them and are curious about them – ‘defusing’ from them to provide a bit of psychological breathing space between themselves and their thoughts.

To take perspective, the previous step, identifying anchors, is required, as perspective-taking involves two processes: anchoring and adjustment (Wundrack et al., 2018). We need to establish the initial anchoring perspective, the person’s perspective, from which clients start, so clients find ways to challenge it and raise awareness that said perspective is temporal, transient. Being aware that their current perspective is transient and only one of many possible perspectives undermines the significance of their point of view as an anchor when considering other perspectives. Therefore, clients may be more able or willing to deviate from their perspectives and may be open to making more adjustments (Wundrack et al., 2018).

Broadening the number of possible perspectives, incorporating how thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and circumstances fit together in their lives, can help clients build a richer repertoire of plausible, self-experienced perspectives that facilitates adjustment (Wundrack et al., 2018). This process, called perspective-pooling, builds on the increased growth in diverse experiences over time. In other words, perspective-pooling builds on the increased growth in diverse self-knowledge for people high in state variability (Wundrack et al., 2018).

Flexibility

This diverse self-knowledge will be a stepping stone for clients to view themselves as containers of different selves and develop a more flexible sense of self with realism. That means incorporating their context and what they want and can do about it, how they want to conduct themselves given the reality of their current circumstances.

In Hulbert-Williams et al.’s (2016)study, their client had lots of ‘I am’ stories that helped her make sense of the world but were not always helpful in terms of functioning effectively. Thus, we will work with clients on considering their many different selves, so they can see that they are the container for all of these ‘selves and, thus, behave more flexibly.

Flexibility is fundamental to our client’s success in dealing with the challenges they are facing. Greater psychological flexibility has been associated with a higher quality of life, emotional well-being, community participation, and resilience (Butler & Ciarrochi, 2007, as cited in Han et al.,2021). In the case of family caregivers, studies found psychological flexibility as a significant buffer against psychological distress (i.e., depressive symptoms, anxiety, and stress) (Jansen et al., 2017, as cited in Han et al., 2021)

It’s interesting to note that, according to Hulbert-Williams et al. (2016, P. 12):

 “In the work setting, psychological flexibility is predictive of job performance (Bond & Flaxman, 2006), attitudes toward learning new skills (ibid.), job satisfaction (Donaldso-Feilder & Bond, 2004), and lower absenteeism (Bond, Flaxman, & Bunce, 2008). In intervention studies, ACT has successfully improved acceptance and engagement with a work redesign intervention (Bond et al., 2008), and has reduced both workplace stress (Flaxman & Bond, 2010b; 2010a) and burnout (Vilardaga et al., 2011).”

Action

For this process to work and impact our clients’ lives, they will need to act, take small steps to build a different relationship with their ‘self’, and build muscle to adjust and incorporate diverse perspectives. As Hulbert-Williams et al. (2016) share, by broadening their client’s horizons, by contacting the parts of her ‘self’ that had been neglected, and by taking small steps of committed action, a new person emerged.

The goal is to partner with clients, so they take action and build a different relationship with themselves by acknowledging distressing thoughts and feelings, by acknowledging their anchors and looking at them from different perspectives, by acknowledging and embracing the diversity of their inner selves. And thus, incorporating them in the roles they perform in a more balanced and satisfactory way, therefore living a more fulfilling and meaningful life.

It will be such an enriching experience to share with my clients their journeys of self-discovery and witness how they find within themselves what they need to transition through their different roles and evolve and grow.

Learn How to Create Your Own Coaching Model

Your Coaching Model reflects your values, philosophies and beliefs and must communicate who you will coach and the problems you will solve.

Read more about creating your own coaching model

References

Eyzaguirre, Valeria Mariel. Sobrecarga del cuidador y sentido de coherencia en padres de adolescentes con cáncer (Caregiveroverload and sense of coherence inparentsofadolescentswithcancer).http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12404/12871.

Han, Areum & Yuen, Hon & Jenkins, Jeremy Acceptance and commitment therapy for family caregivers: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Health Psychology. 26. 82-102. 10.1177/1359105320941217.

Hulbert-Williams, Lee & Hochard, Kevin & Hulbert-Williams, Nick & Archer, Rob & Nicholls, Wendy & Wilson, Kelly Contextual behavioral coaching: An evidence-based model for supporting behavior change. International Coaching Psychology Review. 11. 30-42.

Hung Kit Fok, Chin Ming Hui, Michael Harris Bond, David Matsumoto, Seung Hee Yoo. Integrating personality, context, relationship, and emotion type into a model of display rules. 

PsycInfo Database Record (2020). Abstract of Dymond, S., & Roche, B. (Eds.). Advances in relational frame theory: Research and application. New Harbinger Publications, Inc.. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-07435-000

Roberts, B. W.& Donahue, E. M. One personality, multiple selves: Integrating personality and social roles. Journal of Personality, 62(2), 199–218. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1994.tb00291.x

Skews, Rachael & Palmer, Stephen. Acceptance and commitment coaching: making the case for an ACT-based approach to coaching, published in https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Stephen-Palmer-6/publication/316455754_Acceptance_and_commitment_coaching_Making_the_case_for_an_ACT-based_approach_to_coaching

Wundrack, Richard & Prager, Julia & Asselmann, Eva & O’Connell, Garret & Specht, Jule. Does Intraindividual Variability of Personality States Improve Perspective-Taking? An Ecological Approach Integrating Personality and Social Cognition. Journal of Intelligence. 6. 50. 10.3390/jintelligence6040050.

Original source: https://coachcampus.com/coach-portfolios/coaching-models/flexibility/

[fairycosmos]

chloe what do you do when you feel really suicidal? but like not like before- but NOW that you are grieving such a painful loss? dont need to answer but i read your a. to the anon that felt trapped and like they couldnt leave now bc their sibling died too and like you and that anon i feel the same. im so so suicidal chloe. i cry every day and night and i feel despertate but my parents just lost their child so. how do you cope... as much as its possible. what do we do? fuck.

dude i am so sorry you're in the same position as me and you are going to hate me for saying it but there is no satisfactory answer 😔 it's a cruel joke. we're in the worst pain we've ever been in, and our instinct is to want to make that stop. but we can't because now we're obligated to stay alive, where all the hurt is, because we're one of the only ones left. and we dont want to cause more of this feeling by ending it all. it's like a contract you didn't agree to and are now trapped in for the foreseeable. grief is the absolute heaviest thing a person can carry, it's a fucking nightmare. it doesn't make any sense, it doesn't have a cure and it's disorienting as fuck. it's ok to be exhausted by it. reality has been irreparably  worsened and it's an absolute tragedy,  it's completely unfair. personally i'm more suicidal than i've ever been, but like you, i know i'm not going to do anything.  and in moments of great pain, where i want to act on those thoughts, i find myself coming back to that fact. i watch the idea of suicide run its course through my head and then i acknowledge the reality of things, that i can't leave. that it doesn't matter how sad i am and how tired i am, because i'm still here, and processing these emotions is a part of that. the urge to kill myself is there, but the actual act of suicide has never been less of an option than it is right now. so i can feel whatever i need to feel, but there's no point leaning into it or daydreaming about it. because it's not going to happen. sometimes i'm screaming and crying to myself in absolute agony while this is all going on, and sometimes i'm just sitting staring at my phone, numb. the desperation is very real, and i understand that. but it is not as urgent as it feels in the moment. no matter how many times i think i'm at my limit, i know that there's going to be tomorrow. and at the moment that sounds like a really bad thing. but i know that by waking up my parents aren't getting a call saying i'm dead, which for now is kind of the whole point. i am living to minimize their trauma, i am living for them, and an optimist would have hope that that could keep me alive long enough until i get to the point where i can eventually live for myself again. i could definitely see that for your future, even if you can't. the thing is you don't have to know what to do and you dont have to look for ways to fill the void that has been left behind by your sibling. you just have to learn to exist alongside it, and i do mean just exist. as awful as it is. waking up, putting one foot in front of the other, crying and crying and crying. that is good enough. i know it doesn't feel like much of a life, but. it's the short term answer, or so it seems to me. another thing i remind myself of is how it all comes in waves. waves are the nature of both grief, and strong suicidal urges. maybe they're always running in the background, but the moments of pure despair where you feel like you're bursting at the seams, they're so strong and harsh that they flare out faster than you realize. and they feel unbearable, and i know those moments are very frequent when you're in our position, but it's good to remember that the intensity of their nature makes them temporary.  especially if the grief is fresh, every little thing triggers an avalanche of hopelessness.  but some part of me believes these experiences will either a. become less persistent with time or b. become a part of us we learn how to navigate.  at the moment, the simple act of being completely broken by these episodes means you're surviving them. i think it's not a matter of knowing how to cope, but knowing that if you're here to ask these questions - what do i do, how do i go on, etc - then that is proof you have been coping. and it probably doesn't feel like you have been. i think there's a common misconception that coping is thriving, letting go, having positive memories. and sure that's a part of it. but there is a lot of darkness and absolute horror to work through before that. additionally,  there is no rule book on how exactly to work through it. theres just time, experience, learning what works for you and hanging on. i'm trying to hold my own hand through it, i'm trying to look at the present moment i'm in and just think about what i need at that very second.  not what i'm going to do tomorrow, not what i should've done yesterday, but what i have to do right now to make it through.  a lot of the time the answer is nothing, and i just sit and stare or cry, because like i said, ultimately nothing can fix it. theres no epiphany that can change what happened. 

as far as practical things you can to do combat suicidal thoughts goes, i have a few suggestions that i really hope you consider as viable choices: talk to your doctor/therapist - idk where you live or what your financial situation is like, but if it's at all an option i would really urge you to seek professional help. at least let your GP know what you're dealing with so maybe they can refer you to a therapist, or give you some mental health resources. grief counselling is also a step in the right direction. having someone to talk to and implementing positive coping mechanisms into your day to day life, even if it's the last thing on earth you want to do, can work wonders. understanding your own suicidal thoughts, why you react the way you do and what you can do about it, can really come in handy when you're breaking down. it's ok to reach out. it's ok to visit different counsellors until you find one that fits you. it's ok to treat your emotional turmoil as seriously as you'd treat any physical disease. there is always support and treatment options available in some form, and it is always worth looking into.

call a (grief or suicide) hotline - i've had the hotline number open in my browser for days. if you are in a moment of crisis, it can absolutely help to have someone talk you through your emotions, listen to your pain, and then give you some gentle recommendations as to what you should do next or where to go from here. you don't have to tell them your name, you don't have to say anything you don't want to say. you're in control of the call and they care about keeping you going. you're not alone. theres also online grief support groups - i'm in a sibling loss group on fb.  it's absolutely crazy how many people are in this position. 

talk to your parents/family/friends - i know saying 'this is a tough one' is a giant understatement.  idk if it's the same for you, but i've been isolating to cope and i don't want to tell anyone what i'm thinking because they're already having such a hard time grieving my sister. but if there's anyone you trust, i just want you to know it's alright to lean on them. it's up to you how much you open up, but the urge to keep to yourself leads nowhere. those around you can relate (to an extent) with your grief, and sharing it, talking about memories and crying together - it's fucking awful, god it's the worst thing ever, but it's necessary. and i don't want to say it helps, but a shared burden is always better than trying to shoulder it alone. you deserve to be listened to and supported. and if you think you're being an inconvenience to your loved ones, that's your inner self hatred talking. they would likely rather be there for you when you need it, than have you harm yourself because you kept it all pent up. it's a lot easier said than done, but it's important to keep in mind that it's an option.

try to create a safe space - try to remove things from your living space you could use to harm yourself with, and make the environment as comforting as possible. refer back to safe coping mechanisms/ distractions that have worked in the past - this can be as simple as going for a walk, watching stupid shit on your phone, meditation, having a crying session, writing to your sibling or just about how you feel in general. these are not suggestions that will solve anything or cure mental illness by any stretch of the imagination.  they just get you out of your head. that can really make a difference. 

create a crisis plan and learn what triggers you - this is a bit of a process but that's alright. being able to identify what sets you off, and being able to recognize your own toxic thinking patterns/behaviours, is the first step towards combatting them. another idea is, if you do end up talking to a loved one or a mental health professional, come up with a plan with them regarding what they should do when you're suicidal and your judgement is impaired. you can even start by just making one for yourself, like writing down a few suggestions as to what you should do when you're in a crisis, what your other options besides suicide are. 

i think that's all i've got right now. i'm sorry this got so long, especially when i know nothing truly helps. i just know what it's like having all this useless life in front of you that you're going to have to fight through without the one person who always should've been there. i keep thinking about what she'd say to me if she could see me, and i know she'd be livid if i threw my life away, but. that doesn't change the fact that she didn't get to live hers, and that i miss her so so much it aches. i keep coming back to the idea that our relationship will continue to grow beyond  death. i can still talk to her, reminisce  with her, understand her, love her. so much of this reality was shaped by her. it's not the same as when she was here, but it's not total absence  either.  anyway, i'm so so sorry for your loss and i hope you can just focus on taking care of yourself, love. because your life still has so much worth and you deserve to see your own future even if you cant stand the thought. moments of happiness and peace are still 100% possible. it's just never going to feel like it did before. and it's ok if you spend the rest of your life struggling to come to terms with that fact, because at least you got to live the rest of your life. i'm sending so much love to you and i'll be here if you need a friend. one day at a time.

*no pressure to read all this you can just refer back to it whenever you feel the need

[bodywyrcs]

Mental Health 2021

And so, its mental health awareness week again. And after one of the toughest years for our collective mental health I wanted to share, without judgement, my own experience and thoughts on the abundance of kindly shared hints and tips that our social media screens become overwhelmed with each May.

About 8 years ago I went to the GP and broke down at him about how low and awful I felt. His response was to tell me I needed a holiday. I mean, I love a holiday but even I could see that this wasn’t something a week backpacking along the coastal path was going to sort. And how sustainable is taking a holiday every time you feel depressed? And considering I was super skint at the time it wasn’t helpful advice at all. I left the surgery feeling embarrassed and ashamed that I’d wasted his time and that I was overreacting. I decided that there was no other option for it. I would have to fix myself.

My first stop was YouTube where I decided meditation was the thing I needed to do. I pretty much forced myself every day to do a 10 minute guided meditation. It was difficult to start with as I couldn’t stop the negative voice in my head and most sessions ended with me more angry than I’d started. But gradually I saw a change. I started to enjoy the moment of peace in each day and thought I’d found the answer.

But then the next life obstacle cropped up, the surface cracked and all that meditation-y goodness soon melted away, as I’d fall back into a horrible fuzz of self-loathing. I had not fixed myself after all.

This pattern repeated itself numerous times over the years. I tried everything. I developed an interest in mindfulness, even gained a qualification in it. I dieted, I took probiotics and brewed kefir, I popped supplements and obsessively exercised because I LOVE WALKING IN THE MOUNTAINS. I thought that inflammation was the problem, then found a new vocation and decided that massage was the solution. I found the high of cold water swimming exhilarating but it never lasted long enough after drying myself off. And eventually I tried counselling (I have a great recommendation if anybody feels they need someone, based in Llanrwst and she can work via zoom too.) She really helped me a LOT and the sessions absolutely lightened the load and helped me rationalise things.

However, they did not fix me.

You see, the problem was by now I had spent so many years trying to fix myself that each time something ‘failed’ I would hit another new low. Not only was I still broken, I was also a failure because I couldn’t make the latest ‘cure all’ work for me. And while it’s easy for me to write this now, when you’ve got what feels like a bloody Tasmanian devil whipping up a storm in your brain its easier said than done. I couldn’t see that I was just chasing my tail in a constant effort that only ever brought more disappointment and made me feel like simply existing wasn’t worth the effort anymore.

Then along came the mild inconvenience of ‘the shop’ nightmare with debt piling up, a global pandemic and a big old lockdown.

Oh, and I broke my leg. Which ironically was the thing that made me decide I needed to try the GP again. Through talking with a friend, I realised that during my immobilised time on the sofa I felt the most light-hearted I’d felt in a while because here I had this physical impairment that showed people I was broken. I didn’t have to try and explain it, unlike the mental illness that was invisible. I had an ‘excuse’ for feeling the way I did (see: lockdown/pandemic/broken ankle) Plus, the prospect of phoning the GP was a lot easier as it meant no face-to-face appointment and I could hide my shame.

But this GP was fantastic. She was awesome. I gave her the abridged version of the above and her response was ‘Blimey, you’ve definitely tried everything haven’t you!? Let’s give medication a go’.

Now, medication is not always the best option and the first month of taking it was pretty gnarly for my body and mind. But this is my story and nothing more, I’m not telling anyone what to do here. I had felt the stigma so hard around mental health and medication, GPs and putting on a brave face, that I had completely forgotten what it was like to feel content. I found myself appreciating stuff that I hadn’t even noticed in such a long time, as I’d been constantly trying to justify my worth by maintaining the façade of being hap-hap-happy! I hadn’t realised what an absolute effort everything had become and of course each small or large inconvenience that life threw my way was simply the straw that broke the camels back (over and over again).

Anti-depressants have not fixed me though. They have given my brain the capacity to think rationally and to bring me back to a state where I can process all the day-to-day stuff without collapse. They have not numbed me to life, but have allowed me the opportunity to enjoy it and I haven’t felt this good in years. Yes, I still get sad and yes, I get angry, but I can cope with it and I can see those emotions as something passing by and not here to stay.

I suppose the thing I think when I’m writing this down is that I wish I had seen a GP earlier who had understood mental health better in the first place. How different the last 8 years might have been. I was put in a position where I thought I was solely and entirely responsible for things that were happening in my brain that I could not control – that I could somehow choose to switch on happiness if I truly wanted to.

The problem is that people living with mental health struggles can feel vulnerable and they might be more susceptible to suggestions – which in turn makes me wince when I see posts making outrageous claims regarding depression and anxiety. And don’t get me wrong, I’ve definitely been guilty of sharing the 5 Ways to Wellbeing as if it’s a magic spell and I’ve wanged on about mindfulness as if it will transform you into a higher being. But please know, I did these things as I was struggling to work out my own stuff and at the time, I fully believed I was fixing myself (ps. I was not).

I suppose my summary is that I don’t have an exact summary. There is no fixing people, we’re all messy and weird and wonderful. But sometimes what is happening inside us is chemical and there is medical help for that, and sometimes we just need the confidence in ourselves and our self-worth to push a little harder to get the treatment we require.

As for all the stuff that has been ‘proved’ to improve our mental health, just remember, what works for me won’t necessarily work for you and vice versa. And while I still love, love, love cold water swimming and practise mindfulness most days, I can safely say that kefir and diets can go in the bin (sorrynotsorry). For me mental health awareness is talking to friends about our experiences and being able to empathise with each other. It is understanding that sometimes we will feel happy without trying, sometimes we will feel happy because we are doing something we love, and other times happiness will elude us completely. But most importantly happiness is not the be all end all – us human beings have such a wide range of emotions and we spend a lot of our time trying to avoid them. Running off a bad mood, drinking away our sorrows or posting on social media about our totally excellent lives while wishing someone knew how we actually felt. Mental health awareness for me is sharing stories and being able to laugh at ourselves, wallowing under the duvet when I’m sad, ranting with a mate when I’m angry and having a little weep when I’m frustrated and trying not to end every sentence with ‘but I know there are people with far worse problems than me in the world’.

X

[mimzy-writing-online]

Describing Eyes (without Color)

I saw myself in the mirror tonight. I saw my eyes in the mirror tonight and everything else about them. holy shit. i don’t look good. i’m well used to the red-purple coloring under my eyes and it’s usually limited to around the inner corner of my eye but oh my god it GOT WORSE it’s red/purple/and BLUE now. my under eye circles?? (is this the right word for them??) are turning blue and stretching out to the outer corner of my eyes. (I googled it, originally I said eyebags but that’s not what this) but yeah I have not been sleeping well for my entire life and lately I’ve been up until 3 in the morning AND IT SHOWS

I started this post a week ago and then lost momentum and saved it to draft, but the scary sight of my eye circles has me revisiting this. So here it is, describing eyes without color.

Things that make eyes special:

We will all fall into the habit of over describing the color of a character’s eyes, we will all mention rare gemstones and oceans and skies and chocolate and warm and etc.

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with mentioning the color of your character’s eyes, but there are a bunch of other cool details you can add into describing eyes that tell more than just color.

Read More about Describing Eyes without Color Below

Details about health, age, and wellbeing

the thin creases at the corners, hints of wrinkles yet to come, years yet to live, but signs of a life well lived and far from over

The purple and red shadows wrapping around tired eyes, this poor person has been working so hard and trying their absolute best and the thing they need most in this world is a full night’s rest

when the skin of their eyelids is so thin and pale you can’t help but see the spiderweb network of purple veins. They look almost frail with eyes like that

the foggy color in the eyes of the elderly, cataracts that build up with time and age

half-open eyelids, eyes that slowly blink and nearly close before snapping open, god they look so tired

dilated pupils from drug use

mismatching pupils after a concussion or head trauma

the whites of the eyes may be read from recently smoking weed

the whites of their eyes are yellow from jaundice or other liver failures

the skin around their eyes is puffy/baggy (other poor health issues)

eyes are shaking/dancing from a condition called nystagmus, which is a condition common with people with vision loss/eye conditions. I don’t have it but Molly Burke does. Here’s a link to a video she made about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBB8nIz9FW0

Here’s a basic article of nystagmus to add to it: https://www.allaboutvision.com/conditions/nystagmus.htm

side note I like allaboutvision’s website for a lot of simplified explanation of vision conditions and they were a huge help to me in research about my illness. Look for multiple sources always in your research

Details about emotion in the eyes

eyelashes matted together and damp with tears

irritated, red tear ducts from too much crying and rubbing

smudged makeup from crying

sloppy makeup because they were in a hurry to get out the door (were they late to work and panicking? Were they late to a date and too excited/nervous to check their makeup?)

the wideness and bright eagerness or surprise, waiting for something big, especially in children

eyes squint shut when people laugh or smile widely sometimes. I have a character with a specific smile like this that most other characters don’t have.

Some people can have a sort of dead/empty look in their eyes, something vacant. Lights off, nobody home. Reasons for this might be: drug/alcohol use, disassociation due to mental illness (early/mid/post anxiety attack? flashback? depression? distress?) or due to grief. It could be due to emotional or medical shock. (those two are very different and you should definitely know what medical shock is if you write about anything traumatic happening to your characters, especially when third parties like cops and medical personnel get involved)

People’s eyes could be “dead looking” because they’re at a point of mental exhaustion, such as a dead-end job sucking the life and energy out of them or because they’ve been up too late studying for a test they feel hopeless for

Details about the character themselves

the color of their eye makeup can say so much about a person’s style. Imagine someone in a hospital gown but with dark eyeshadow and dark purple lipstick, that bit of personal style that can’t be erased by the anonymity of a hospital gown

their eyes are obscured from a scratched, smudged pair of glasses that are several years old now. Are the glasses really that old or are they a bit careless with their glasses and accumulate scratches quickly?

their makeup and glasses compliment each other, they wanted to look nice and put in effort

Actions used with the eyes

Characters roll their eyes when they’re amused or finding a joke not funny or are annoyed with another character. Eye rolling can be very expressive

Eyes drift and fix to one spot when someone is daydreaming, rarely moving from that space (in my experience. My and my dad both have been asked about staring by my mom for this)

Some characters are horrible with eye contact and this can involve many reasons. It is common in autistic people, but it’s also pretty common for autistic people to make too much eye contact to compensate/seem normal. (they shouldn’t have to compensate/seem normal/make themselves uncomfortable for social convention, but whatever)

Or someone might have anxiety and in social situations eye contact is bad

They grew up being abused by an adult or authority figure and eye contact could have resulted in angering their abuser, or refusing to give eye contact could have angered their abuser. Think this over with any of your abused characters and decide where they fall in that.

I (sometimes) struggle to make eye contact with people I’m dating or have a crush on, that’s just personal experience but not all of my life experiences can be that unique, really, not that special

Characters who are nervous and/or in dangerous situations will flicker their eyes between different people in the situation, with a higher focus on possible threats

someone might be good at hiding when they jump from surprise or suppress a flinch, but their eye twitches because evolution and the human body can’t stand the idea of their eyes being hurt... (well aren’t you just a defiant shit giving evolution the middle finger, I think to myself, blind and doing ~just fine, thank you~ with your vision impairment/disability... sorry, I just love pointing out the irony)

eyes can stay pinned to someone specific because they’re worried about that person, whether it’s because that other person is obviously injured or ill or mentally/emotionally distressed. 

They might stare/watch that person because they are the true threat in the group. 

It might be because that person is enigmatic and your character can’t quite figure them out. It might be because your character is in love with that other person or has a strong crush on them and wants to see and observe every moment of that person’s life

eyes can be calmly shut during meditation

eyes will twitch behind closed lids during REM sleep (research this too) but your characters won’t likely notice unless they’re looking closely

or what if that person is pretending to be asleep but their eyes aren’t moving like that and someone notices

words words words words words...

Some simple one word explanations for eyes so you can be quick/brief in your descriptions (you don’t need to be super descriptive of everyone’s eyes, just when it matters to your character or plot)

Eyes are-

kind, calm, tired, sleepy, weary, sad, haunting, agonized, lonely, happy, energetic, lively, empty, wrinkled, squinting, suspicious, flickering, flighty, angry, furious, fiery, regretful, tearful, crying, wandering, loving, worried, distant, vacant

I feel I should go back to my “How Observant Are Your Characters” post, because knowing how observant your characters are or what their critical thinking skill to interpret the things they see will help you decide what your characters should notice about a person’s eyes and what they should not notice.

How Observant are Your Characters? https://mimzy-writing-online.tumblr.com/post/185322857894/how-observant-are-your-characters

(It’s occurring to me that it’s getting late ~ha, I’m living up to my blog header of late night writing advice~ and that I should be sleeping if I want any improvement on my over-all sleep deprivation issues (I don’t care about the eye circles as much as the needing sleep to not die or lose my sanity bit) so I’ll end it here

Follow this blog for writing advice, relatable writing posts and memes, as well as updates to A Witch’s Memory, my wip.

[mindingmyownbrain]

Nobody has a perfect theory of mind

A theory of mind is, according to Wikipedia, “the ability to attribute mental states — beliefs, intents, desires, emotions, knowledge, etc. — to oneself, and to others, and to understand that others have beliefs, desires, intentions, and perspectives that are different from one's own.”

When academics talk about how autistic people don’t have a theory of mind, it sounds like that all non-autistic people, by necessary comparison simply... do.

It sounds like they all have a theory of mind and we don’t have one.

If non-autistic people had a truly comprehensive theory of mind, then I wouldn’t have felt the need to make this Tumblr. There wouldn’t be countless articles online about What Not to Say to Someone With a Chronic Illness, or endless debates about whether men and women are different and in what ways and why and what that means and what is gender anyway?, or books about how to manage your own anxieties and what the common triggers are, or why your kid won’t go to bed.

Everyone’s theory of mind is patchy. 

Researchers (including some of the most influential researchers out there) sometimes go a step further and describe autistic people as being “mind blind”. Mind blindness means that autistic people can’t “see” that other people have minds. As with non-metaphorical vision impairment, mind blindness is often spoken about in absolute terms: the autistic is mind-blind, the non-autistic is not, and blind means blind.

If you have ever spent any time around actual blind people you will know that there are many different kinds and degrees of blindness and many different ways people adapt and struggle with it. 

A blind friend once told me of her experience of blind college (which is, as you might have already guessed, a college for blind people) and all the different kinds of students who attended. You couldn’t assume how blind someone was just by looking at them, even if you knew a lot about blindness. My friend found herself frequently surprised at how much variation there was among blind people despite having been blind herself for most of her life. Some people who had more working vision than she did might struggle to navigate around a familiar room more than she struggled, where as other students who had zero light perception but walked around far more comfortably and confidently than she did and without any aids to help them. Some people you could tell they were blind by casual observation, whereas others you’d have no idea that they had complete sight loss (and, as said above, the ones who “looked blind” did not necessarily have a greater impairment of vision than the ones who did not “look blind”).

She told me about one student who she had assumed was rather rude because she never smiled at people when they passed her in the corridor or waved back when they waved to her. Then one day my friend realised that this student couldn’t see anyone, she couldn’t see anything even up-close. This other student had trained herself to make eye contact when talking to people by listening carefully and judging where a person’s voice was coming from, giving the perfect illusion of vision when she actually had none. 

If autistic people are “mind blind” then it also comes in degrees and with different coping strategies and techniques. One person with a stronger theory of mind might even struggle more than someone who has less understanding (social anxiety partly involves reflecting on what other people think of you and how you come across, after all). Others might act in a way that seems utterly bubbly and effortlessly social, but it’s learned behaviour rather than something they can keep up for more than a few hours a week. You might not realise that the autistic person you’re talking to is drawing on all kinds of logical analysis, research, and guesses to make it look like they have figured you out intuitively - but that doesn’t mean that they have no intuition at all, or that they have absolutely no mind perception in the way that some visually impaired people have no light perception.

Autistic people may have more problems with mind sight (to coin a phrase) than non-autistic people in part because we are a minority.  Non-autistic people can get away with their own blind spots because they are the predominant neurotype, and similar minds and brains have a better chance at understanding each other better. They are the 99%, quite literally. The more different we are to someone the more confounded by them we are likely to be, but you don’t even have to be part of any kind of minority to regularly feel as though people don’t “see” what you mean or don’t “see” the real you, or misunderstand what your intentions or feelings are.

This is because no one has a complete theory of mind. Psychology, philosophy, and even self-help are on-going projects. Most people don’t even understand their own minds. However much autistic people struggle with mind-ness (which can be significant even for the most well-camouflaged autistic), most of us are not completely in the dark and not a single non-autistic people is completely enlightened either. 

[perdev11-blog]

Problems as a teenager

INTRODUCTION:

 Teenagers face a lot of challenges and problems nowadays. They’re mostly victim of depression, anxiety, and other factors that affect their health. They usually not aware to these type of things, so they tend to suffer serious and critical illness which leads them to hurt themselves and the worst, to commit suicide. To prevent these such situations, we made this blog to spread awareness and to help our fellow teenagers to overcome challenges in their lives

Physical

Physical can mean a lot of things; it can mean or relating to the five senses. It means you can feel it, touch it, taste it, see it, and hear it. When it relates to physical health, it is when the body is functioning as it was designed to function. It also means that your body, freedom from disease, and the condition of optical well-being is in a good condition. Physical and mental health are connected, taking care of your physical health improves mental ability ang wellbeing and vice versa. If one of these may fail, the other one will be affected. There are many signs that we encounter of being physically unhealthy like; eating junk foods. Problems that we encounter in our physical health are the following; acne or pimples, menstruation, eyebags, under/overweight, poor eyesight, scars, and height.

A.) EYEBAGS

Eyebags are the puffiness and dark circles under our eyes due to lack of sleep, stress, etc. Mostly it is caused by lack of sleep. For teenagers, eyebags are normal and doesn't worry about it because it doesn't have effects of having it. According to mayoclinic, With aging, the tissues around your eyes, including some of the muscles supporting your eyelids, weaken. Normal fat that helps support the eyes can then move into the lower eyelids, causing the lids to appear puffy. Fluid also may accumulate in the space below your eyes, adding to the swelling. Causes of having an eyebags includes the following: fluid retention, lack of sleep, allergies, smoking, and heredity. Having eyebags doesn't require medical condition and is harmless.

B.) Scars

  A scar is a mark left on the skin or within body tissue where a wound, burn, or sore has not healed completely and fibrous connective tissue has developed. No one can avoid scars since we always go to the outside and dangerous world. Some scars can be unpleasant to some people because it can be seen to an exposed part of the body and the trauma that it left behind.

 When I was grade four, my classmates noticed that I got scars on my face and I got completely conscious about it since all of them didn’t even have a scar on their face. I tried searching for solutions to get rid of my ugly scars but no results.  For the past 3 years I despised myself due to the scars I have on my face. Then grade 7 came and I was surprised that I got a classmate that has a scar on their face. They weren’t bothered about the scar because it’s already part of their life and they have no choice but to live with it. And I saw that other people see scars unique because that’s what makes them different to other people.  I realized that why should I change myself when I’m already unique. I got fond of my scars because I saw it as a beautiful mark than an ugly blemish in my life. But over the years my scars suddenly faded. It’s not completely gone but it’s just that not very visible to people anymore.  However, I still like showing my scars because I really felt unique about it.

 People tend to hate themselves due to the scars that they have on their body. But what I’m telling you now that you shouldn’t hate yourself because of your scars rather appreciate your scars. You shouldn’t be afraid of showing your scars because they are the badges that shows you’ve won the battle that left you with it.  It’s really ok to have a scar because it shows that you’ve come this far and you are stronger than your past. Never reject your own mark because that mark is what makes you unique about yourself and different from other people because you conqured your own demons by yourself.

C.) Height

The physical change I encounter is my change in growth, when I was 7 years old I was easily bullied by my friends cause of my height, I’m always their target because I'm small, then years past by I started growing and improve my height because of that, I started gaining self-confidence and be able to socialize with others. The possible solution to this problems are: First, you must develop self-confidence and help yourself accept criticism from other, Second one is ignore what they are trying to say because you know yourself. Third, always think that everything is temporary, everything change, so grow where you have been planted.

 MENTAL

 Mental relates to our mind. It also refers to the total emotional and intellectual response of an individual to external reality. Mental health refers to our cognitive, behavioral, and emotional wellbeing - it is all about how we think, feel, and behave. The term 'mental health' is sometimes used to mean an absence of a mental disorder. Mental health can affect daily life, relationships, and even physical health. Mental health also includes a person's ability to enjoy life - to attain a balance between life activities and efforts to achieve psychological resilience.A mental disorder, also called a mental illness or psychiatric disorder is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitting, or occur as a single episode.There are many symptoms of mental disorders such as anxiety, overthinking, depression, stress, etc.

A.) Stress

Stress is a normal part of life and can be caused by many different things. Stress on teenagers can be harmful to their health and wellbeing if it seems as though they have been enduring it for a long time. There many reasons why teen agers getting stress. Homework and school (especially exams) expectations and pressure from parents and their families to do well in school their social relationships with friends and boyfriends/girlfriends and the issue of sex life challenges, such as dropping out of school or going to tertiary studies or lack of time for work-having too much to do, feeling unprepared or overwhelmed lack of sleep. These are the reasons why teenagers get stress but there also a way how can they overcome it. When you believe that your child is depressed, speak to them about trying to determine whether these or other issues are happening. If you can understand how they feel stressed, helping them fix the cause and properly manage their stress will be easier. Yes maybe sometimes parents is the reason why teanager got stress, but they are also the way how their children can overcome it

B.) Overthinking

Overthinking is exactly what it means, thinking too much. When you think too much, instead of acting and doing things, you are overthinking. When you analyze, comment and repeat the same thoughts over and again, instead of acting, you are overthinking. This habit prevents you from taking action. It consumes your energy, disables your ability to make decisions, and puts you on a loop of thinking and thinking over and again. This is a kind of thinking that wastes your time and energy and prevents you from acting, doing new things and making progress in your life. It’s like tying yourself to a rope that is connected to a pole and going in circles again and again. In this situation there is more likelihood for worry, anxiety and lack of inner peace. On the other hand, when you don’t overthink, you become more efficient, more peaceful and more happy. Causes When you become more aware of your tendency to overthink things, you can take steps to change. But first, you have to recognize that overthinking does more harm than good. Sometimes, people think that their overthinking somehow prevents bad things from happening. And they think if they don't worry enough or rehash the past enough then somehow, they'll encounter more problems. But, the research is pretty clear overthinking is bad for you and it does nothing to prevent or solve problems I relive embarrassing moments in my head repeatedly. I have trouble sleeping because it feels like my brain won't shut off. I ask myself a lot of "what if..." questions. I spend a lot of time thinking about the hidden meaning in things people say or events that happen. I rehash conversations I had with people in my mind and think about all the things I wished I had or hadn't said. I constantly relive my mistakes. When someone says or acts in a way I don't like, I keep replaying it in my mind. Sometimes I'm not aware of what's going on around me because I'm dwelling on things that happened in the past or worrying about things that might happen in the future. I spend a lot of time worrying about things I have no control over. I can't get my mind off my worries. Effects You just can’t stop thinking about an event, a person, something that happened in the past, or on a problem. Instead of looking for a solution, taking initiative and being active, you just keep thinking and cannot get it out of your mind. At times, when something bad happens, you think about the worst scenarios, with thoughts like “what if?” or “why?”. You slip now and then into negative thinking patterns. You worry about past mistakes or current problems and issues, and how they might lead to negative outcomes. You obsess about or over-analyze your day-to-day experiences and interactions with people. You inflate every word, thought and event beyond really and reasonable proportions, reading into it things that aren’t actually there. If this happens often, you are what psychologists call a ruminator, or over-thinker. Psychologists have found that over-thinking can be detrimental to performance, and lead to anxiety and depression. How to overcome overthinking? There are various ways to get rid of this habit, like watching TV, playing video games or listening to music. Walking, swimming or exercising the body can also take your mind off temporarily from the habit overthinking. Anything that keeps your mind occupied with some activity that doesn’t allow you to overthink is okay. Watch yourself when you overthink and see how time and energy consuming it is, how you are behaving passively, instead of actively. Realize that thinking once, or a just a few times is enough. It leads you nowhere thinking over and again the same thoughts. You need to make a decision and act. The matter is that you might revert to overthinking – ruminating over and again. The above tips would help you, but if you want to completely overcome this habit, you will need to go one step further. You will need to learn to focus and calm down your mind, so that you can easily prevent  it from revolving around the same thoughts over and over again.

C.) Anxiety

Anxiety is a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome. It’s when you are not stable and not comfortable with your situation. It’s a type of mental illness where you’re unease. When you’re uncomfortable with your surroundings and when you tend to worry a lot with an uncertain outcome, you’re overthinking. Causes  Environmental factors: Elements in the environment around an individual can increase anxiety. Stress from a personal relationship, job, school, or financial predicament can contribute greatly to anxiety disorders. Even low oxygen levels in high-altitude areas can add to anxiety symptoms. Genetics: People who have family members with an anxiety disorder are more likely to have one themselves.  Medical factors: Other medical conditions can lead to an anxiety disorder, such as the side effects of medication, symptoms of a disease, or stress from a serious underlying medical condition that may not directly trigger the changes seen in anxiety disorder but might be causing significant lifestyle adjustments, pain, or restricted movement.  Brain chemistry: Stressful or traumatic experiences and genetic factors can alter brain structure and function to react more vigorously to triggers that would not previously have caused anxiety. Psychologists and neurologists define many anxiety and mood disorders as disruptions to hormones and electrical signals in the brain.  Use of or withdrawal from an illicit substance: The stress of day-to-day living combined with any of the above might serve as key contributors to an anxiety disorder. Effects  it can make you sweat Can make you have headaches  Excessive and ongoing worry and tension  Unrealistic view towards problems  Ongoing irritability  Muscle tension and aches  Can make you think of different views towards problems continuously This specific mental illness can bother you nonstop and make you have a negative outlook in life. Whenever we have or feel like we have anxiety or any other mental illness, we should check up with a professional. Anxiety can ruin your mind set and make you worry about things. To avoid this, we should try harder to be positive in life. It may make you think realistic about certain situations but it can go too much and become negative and toxic for our mental health. This also leads to us overthinking too much and may lead to anxiety.

 Living with mental illness is not easy. It’s a consistent problem without a clear solution. While treatments like medication and psychotherapy are incredibly helpful, sometimes people experiencing mental health conditions need to do more day-in and day-out to feel good or even just okay. Some common self-help suggestions people receive are to exercise, meditate and be more present, which are helpful and work for many people. However, other proven methods aren’t mentioned as often. Many of them are quick and simple techniques that can easily be added to daily routines. Finding the right coping mechanism takes time and patience, but it can enormously impact how you feel. If you haven’t had success with techniques you’ve tried, or you’re looking to add a few more to your toolkit, here are seven coping mechanisms recommended by mental health professionals worth trying out.

  EMOTIONAL

 What is Emotional? If it has anything to do with feelings like happiness or anger, then we consider it as emotional. Emotion is a mental state associated with the nervous system brought on by chemical changes variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure. It is often intertwined with mood, temperament, personality, disposition, and motivation.

 How do emotions affect behavior? Behaviors are different from thoughts and emotions. It is how we act or what we do. In contrast, thoughts and emotions are inside of us and we don’t have to act on our thoughts and emotions. Despites being different from emotions, behaviors are very strongly influenced by them. For example, when we feel frustrated, we sometimes acts on that frustration by saying mean things to our parents or on the people in our surroundings.

 Here are some examples of Emotional Conflicts:

A. ) MOOD SWINGS:

 "Mood Swings" is a typical term used to portray quick and seriously fluctuating feelings. Individuals regularly portray emotional episodes as an "exciting ride" of sentiments from bliss and satisfaction to outrage, peevishness, and even depression.

An individual may perceive something that has "set off" a move in their state of mind, for example, an unpleasant occasion at work. But on the other hand it's normal for mood swings to happen without an undeniable reason. Individuals may encounter these adjustments in mind-set through the span of a day or even inside several hours.

 It's not unexpected to have days where you feel pitiful or days when you're thrilled. For whatever length of time that your state of mind changes doesn’t meddle with your life to an extraordinary degree, they're commonly viewed as solid.

 Then again, you may have an ailment in the event that you change from incredibly glad to amazingly discourage all the time. On the off chance that you have genuine and visit mood swings, you should enlighten your primary care physician concerning them. They can talk about the potential purposes behind for what reason you're encountering them.

 A few reasons for fast changes in conduct can be identified with emotional well-being, hormones, substance use, or other wellbeing conditions. Mood Swings can be a challenge to manage, particularly on the off chance that they meddle with your everyday life, school or work, and your connections. Changes in disposition that are continuous and extreme ought to be talked about with your primary care physician, as you should make sense of the hidden medicinal or potentially emotional well-being cause before you can adequately treat them.

Prescriptions called state of mind stabilizers, psychotherapy or advising, and mediations, for example, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) might be useful if a hidden dysfunctional behavior is causing emotional episodes or exacerbating them

 If your good and bad times aren't influencing different parts of your life adversely, you might have the option to work through your emotional episodes without restorative consideration. You may have the option to manage your states of mind on the off chance that you do the following:

 Keep a timetable. Attempt to make an everyday practice for yourself, particularly with regards to eating and resting.

Exercise consistently. Practicing normally has various advantages for almost all parts of your wellbeing, including temperament.

Get adequate rest. A decent night's rest is significant and lack of sleep can influence your mind-set.

Eat a solid eating regimen. A reasonable, solid eating routine can improve your state of mind and keep you sound. Here are a few hints to adhering to a solid eating regimen.

Practice unwinding. Participate in quieting practices like yoga or reflection.

Keep away from pressure. More difficult than one might expect, isn't that so? In the event that you can't maintain a strategic distance from it, plan to oversee and assuage worry as it comes.

Convey what needs be. Locate an inventive outlet to convey what needs be.

Work it out. Discover somebody to converse with, for example, a companion, relative, or expert instructor.

 Remember that emotional episodes can shift in seriousness. Encountering a scope of feelings is a piece of life. You may need to modify your way of life to return to feeling ordinary in the event that you experience periodic emotional episodes.

 You should take emotional episodes that adjust your conduct and contrarily sway your life or people around you truly. Contact your primary care physician in the event that you feel that emotional episodes have assumed control over your everyday life or in the event that you've been feeling unwell for an all-inclusive timeframe. These could be manifestations of a wellbeing condition.

B.) BREAKDOWNS

 Breakdowns are term describing emotional or physical stress that temporarily makes someone unable to function in day-to-day life. Nowadays, teenagers are mostly the one who experience breakdowns. Knowing breakdown and knowing what are the causes are important, so we are aware if we’re experiencing it and to avoid having it. I already experienced having a breakdown and its really tough to overcome breakdowns because you are emotionally, as well as physically tired of doing something. Just like in a meal, you  loss your appetite, You felt that you have no reason to live and no one supports you.  So we should focus to this one.

Causes: Expectations and Standards, stress, Heart aches, failures, negative thoughts, Toxic People/Surroundings.

Symptoms: Feeling anxious, depressed, tearful, or continuously irritable, Withdrawing or avoiding normal social situations, Unhealthy eating and hygiene, Difficulty focusing or remembering, Lacks of motivation and interest in things

 Treatment and Prevention: Spend some time alone, be aware of breakdowns, know what causes you to have breakdowns, reduce sources of stress, such as conflicts at home, workplace, doing exercises and yoga, talking with friends, family, partners about troublesome feelings.

 Let us be aware of breakdowns and learn that everything has a purpose. Do not focus on the things that will make you lose your passion such as standards and expectations of others and keep yourself distant to toxic people and surround yourself with the person who really care about you.

C.) SHORT TEMPER

Short temper is an instantaneous display of anger. The ideal solution is not to control anger, but to be rid of Anger.

The problem with us is not our tempers, but the underlying anger in us. There are thousands of tips you will find online which will say things like:

Whenever you get angry, the first thing you should do is close your eyes and take deep breaths for a while.

Keep a watch on your current anger level and when you sense that you're about to lose your temper, do something to distract yourself and improve your mood, like making a joke to break the tension or remembering a happy memory.

The above suggestions are like using a band-aid to cover a gaping wound. It will give relief, but only temporarily.

   What Causes Anger? A leading cause of anger is a person’s environment. Stress, financial issues, abuse, poor social or familial situations, and overwhelming requirements on your time and energy can all contribute to the formation of anger. As with disorders such as alcoholism, anger issues may be more prevalent in individuals who were raised by parents with the same disorder. Genetics and your body’s ability to deal with certain chemicals and hormones also play a role in how you deal with anger; if your brain doesn’t react normally to serotonin, you might find it more difficult to manage your emotions.

 Emotional Symptoms of Anger-Related Problems

 You might think the emotional symptoms of anger-related problem are limited to anger, but a number of emotional states could indicate that you are failing to deal with anger in a positive and healthy fashion. Constant irritability, rage and anxiety are possible emotional symptoms.

 If you feel overwhelmed, have trouble organizing or managing your thoughts or fantasize about hurting yourself or others, you could be experiencing an anger disorder or another issue. Don’t wait for these emotions to take control of your life; maintain control by calling our hotline today at. Representatives are available to listen and offer advice 24/7.

  Physical Symptoms of Anger-Related Problems

headache, Pressure in head, Fatigue, Pressure in sinus cavities, Heart palpitations, Tightening of chest, Increased blood pressure, Tingling

Strong emotions often bring about physical changes to the body, and anger is no exception. Letting anger issues go unaddressed can put your overall health at risk.

10 anger management tips:

Think before you speak

In the heat of the moment, it's easy to say something you'll later regret. Take a few moments to collect your thoughts before saying anything — and allow others involved in the situation to do the same.

Once you're calm, express your anger

As soon as you're thinking clearly, express your frustration in an assertive but non-confrontational way. State your concerns and needs clearly and directly, without hurting others or trying to control them.

Get some exercise

Physical activity can help reduce stress that can cause you to become angry. If you feel your anger escalating, go for a brisk walk or run, or spend some time doing other enjoyable physical activities.

Take a timeout

Timeouts aren't just for kids. Give yourself short breaks during times of the day that tend to be stressful. A few moments of quiet time might help you feel better prepared to handle what's ahead without getting irritated or angry.

Identify possible solutions

Instead of focusing on what made you mad, work on resolving the issue at hand. Does your child's messy room drive you crazy? Close the door. Is your partner late for dinner every night? Schedule meals later in the evening — or agree to eat on your own a few times a week. Remind yourself that anger won't fix anything and might only make it worse.

Stick with 'I' statements

To avoid criticizing or placing blame — which might only increase tension — use "I" statements to describe the problem. Be respectful and specific. For example, say, "I'm upset that you left the table without offering to help with the dishes" instead of "You never do any housework.". Don't hold a grudge

Forgiveness is a powerful tool. If you allow anger and other negative feelings to crowd out positive feelings, you might find yourself swallowed up by your own bitterness or sense of injustice. But if you can forgive someone who angered you, you might both learn from the situation and strengthen your relationship.

Use humor to release tension

Lightening up can help diffuse tension. Use humor to help you face what's making you angry and, possibly, any unrealistic expectations you have for how things should go. Avoid sarcasm, though — it can hurt feelings and make things worse.

Practice relaxation skills

When your temper flares, put relaxation skills to work. Practice deep-breathing exercises, imagine a relaxing scene, or repeat a calming word or phrase, such as "Take it easy." You might also listen to music, write in a journal or do a few yoga poses — whatever it takes to encourage relaxation.

Know when to seek help

Learning to control anger is a challenge for everyone at times. Seek help for anger issues if your anger seems out of control, causes you to do things you regret or hurts those around you.

D.) Low-Self Esteem

Low self-esteem is characterized by a lack of confidence and feeling badly about oneself. People with low self-esteem often feel unlovable, awkward, or incompetent. They tend to be hypersensitive and have a fragile sense of self that can easily be wounded by others. Low self -esteem is simply how you feel about yourself and how you judge your worth. This evaluation has a profound impact on the choices you make since it determines, to a great extent, what you consider yourself capable and worthy of doing.

People with low self-esteem – who feel poorly about themselves and judge themselves to be inferior to others – are at risk, then, of not fulfilling their true potential in life. They may not take the initiative to set and pursue personal goals; they may not put any effort into their education or careers; they may accept poor treatment from family, friends and romantic partners. This has been linked to a number of negative behaviors among teens, including:

Poor academic performance, teen pregnancy, dropping out of school, earlier sexual activity, criminal behavior, alcohol and drug abuse, cutting, disordered eating.

Low self-esteem is more than an unpleasant feeling. It takes a toll on our lives. This are the causes of low self-esteem:

Uninvolved/Negligent Parents, Negative Peers, Trauma, Body Image, Unrealistic Goals, Previous Bad Choices, Negative Thought Patterns.

 This causes leads to different negative effects of low self -esteem some of this are:

 Negative feelings, Obsession with perfection, Lowered resilience, Lack of self-care, Struggling relationships, Being a “people pleaser” and believing you are powerless to change anything.

In our generation nowadays most of us is conscious of what other people might think of us. Because of this our confidence are affected and we are afraid of showing our real personality, identity and self to others. As a teenager sometimesI don’t what to show what I really feel because I’m afraid that the people around me might say something about it , also I’m afraid of taking risk because I always think what if this one fails and turns out to have a negative effect what will I do? How will I explain it to the people around me? How will I face all of their discriminations and judgements. But as time goes by I learned how to overcome it by accepting the results of the decisions I make. Here are some ways to overcome low self -esteem:

Live in the moment,develop awareness, be non-judgmental, stay connected to yourself, practice mindful meditation, participate in your own life, let go, and Show compassion toward yourself

And always remember “We are each gifted in a unique and important way.It is our privilege and our adventure to discover our own special light.”

   As a teenager we are facing a lot of challenges. This leads us to different emotional problems that become a reason of some serious health and mental illness. But we should always put our mind that us a youth we have the freedom to just do what we want and what makes us happy. It is our decision to make whether we want to see a certain situation as negative or positive. Don’t let other people dictate you on what you should do, be your own voice towards happiness and peace. Always remember that each one of us is loved and cherished by our own families don’t ever compare yourself to others.

 Always remind yourself are special, surround yourself with people who brings color to your life and not the one who destroy you as a person. Take care of yourself always. Be fruitful and grow where you have planted. There is a purpose in everything, and that’s for you to be a better version of yourself,

   SOCIAL

 What is social issues? Social issue is a problem with a particular place or group of people in the world.  There are a lot of social problems around us, for example the lack of confidence, many people lack confidence because they don’t believe on what they can do and they don’t believe in themselves, they are afraid of what people may think about them, they are afraid to be judged. Some people are naturally born with introversion, maybe they inherit it to their parents, others may just don’t want to socialize because they think that others may just make fun of them and they can’t appreciate them, the way they want to be appreciated. While, shyness is another example of social issues, shyness is a characteristic of people who have low self-esteem. They’re shy to share what’s running through their mind. Shyness is like lack of confidence, they tend to feel weak, they’re shy to show what they really feel.

A.)  SHYNESS

Shyness can be an awkward, self-conscious, anxious, shy, and insecure feeling. Often people who feel shy in situations may experience physical sensations like blushing, feeling weak, forgetting speech, or shortness of breath or rapid breathing. If people feel shy, they tend to hesitate to say or do something because they feel uncertain about themselves or about themselves.

There are a lot of ways to overcome shyness, first, Start practicing interacting and sharing or telling jokes or stories at any moment. In all areas of your life be more talkative and articulate. You should practice communicating, more freely, whether you're at home, with family, cousins and friends. Let's hear your voice and thoughts. Second, Part of overcoming shyness is about building trust in several areas of your life and not allowing you to get in the way of anxiety, fear of failure, fear of rejection or fear of embarrassment. You overcome the fear of the unknown by doing new activities and learn to handle your anxiety more effectively. Last, Learn how to earn confidence comes by experience, training, practice, and mastery. When you learned how to ride a bicycle, remember? At first it was scary, but you just walked for it and tried it, you got it, and you felt confident. Social confidence works in the same way.

B.) LACK OF CONFIDENCE

Having a lack of confidence is like losing more opportunities in life we must overcome this type of trait that has a big impact to every individual especially to those students. Feeling certain of success even when your knowledge suggests you might felt to fail. Even if you’re extremely skilled and talented, a lack of self-confidence can prevent you from performing at your best in pressure situations. For example, if you work in sales, it’s one thing to read a book and learn and understand some new sales techniques, but it’s a very different challenge to actually go out and apply those techniques when face-to-face with a prospect. The major limiting factor often isn’t a lack of knowledge or practice but rather the limiting belief that you can’t expect to perform well the first few times a self-fulfilling prophecy. Public speaking is a great example. Many people have the knowledge and skill to write a speech that an audience would enjoy, and when practiced in private, they may even do a decent job. But put them in front of an audience or even just suggest the idea and they quickly succumb to feelings of self-doubt and worry. However, if you take such people to a stage hypnosis show and they’re hypnotized, they’ll get up on stage and perform wonderfully with no fear at all, even with no rehearsal or prepared material. Being under hypnosis doesn’t magically bestow any new skills, but it can put people into a state where they have full and unrestricted access to their best internal resources. What new endeavors might you be able to take on if you were hypnotized to belief with absolute certainty that you would succeed at them? You may currently believe that confidence is the result of a history of success. While a history of success can certainly increase your confidence, you don’t actually need that history to feel confident. Confidence is a feeling of certainty, a natural inner resource that can be summoned whenever you want it. The key to feeling confident lies in a quote from Albert Einstein: “Imagination is more powerful than knowledge.” Even when your knowledge tells you to expect failure, you have the ability to consciously direct your imagination to override that impulse and feel certain of success anyway. Confidence is not panacea. But being able to make yourself feel certain of success can give you massive edge in many endeavors. And a lack of confidence can put you into the decrepit state where even though you have the intellectual resources to succeed, you don't even make the attempt.

 B.)  INTROVERSION

Every person has their own identity, each of us has our own personality. We all encounter problems, we all experience pain and we all fall and rise again. Who we are now is how we coped up with our problems from before. Pain changes us, experiences makes us realize that some people can become strangers.

  Sometimes in our life, we seem to give up, but there will always be someone else who will make our lives worthy. Afterwards, people will leave again. But why? Life is a cycle, where one can't not change. We will be friends to someone then later on we'll get attached and they'll leave, leave us hanging and we will wondered why. Why do people leave? Why do I need to feel pain? All our why 's will never be answered because no one is there to answer. In all our problems in life, we all get tired, to the point where we don't want to meet new people anymore. You don't want to please these people just for them to stay. You don't want people to hurt you again. People will leave because they'll get tired on us, and yet we are expected not to. Each people who have left us in pain was the person we truly value but ended up fading away. They are the ones that makes us special even in a while. When we fall down, we got no one but ourselves. We will stand up and fix ourselves alone.

 Pain makes us stronger, and makes us realize that at the end of the day, we'll be alone. You can be alone but not happy, otherwise you can be happy even though you're alone. Being happy is a choice. Why meet new people if in the end of the day, they'll just leave us pain? Why beg people to stay if they're just going to leave us for someone better? Why fix others if they can fix themselves? Why do you need others if you can fix yourself . Someone said no man is an island, but an island on it's own can be happy. If an island is resourceful, it will be a happiness for itself. If you, on your own, can do such things alone without anyone involved, you can be happy. Having barriers with people is not a bad thing, it's just you've learned from your past and you don't want others to hurt you again.

  It's not bad if you let other people come into your life, but you must limit yourself from them, from pain. In case they leave, you can stand up on your own. In case they replace you, you can accept and it won't bother you. In case they'll be happy with others, you won't need anyone, because you have yourself. Be like the moon, who can be happy on its own and can be happy even though darkness surrounds it. You will never know the true meaning of love, if you can't love yourself. Self-love is the most important and most irreplaceable thing without needing someone. If you truly accept your flaws and imperfections, you will never get hurt by others. Everything in this world has ending and limitations. Everyone can give us pain and everyone can be an unforgettable person. But you, by your own, must limits yourself from people. Not because you're afraid but because you learned and you know your worth. You will not settle for less, because you know what you deserve. When people hurt you for the first time, it's their choice, but when people hurt you again, it's your choice because you let them in again.

 We encounter different problems in our lives but there are so many ways to cope up with it. Problems is just a test to strengthen us however it will also teach us a lesson. We meet different people, we always socialize so we must conquer all our fears for us to have a good relationship with them. It might have a gap or barrier but you know how to communicate so you will not left behind and you will also know how to limit yourself from people. Meeting different kinds of people taught us how to know the good and bad, the real and fake and the one who'll stay and not. We learn on communicating different kinds of people and we also understand how to know them well. We must not push people away from us, if you know that they're not good for you, just limit yourself but never push them away. However if some people are good for you but they're keep on leaving you, never push yourself to them. Learn how to let go and how to hold on. Let go to those people who've cause  you pain and hold on for those person who've never leave you and will always be there for you.

Economical

 The society has a lot of struggles, thus we call it economical struggles, but some of these struggles are stuff we don’t take much time to think of in our daily lives. This blog will help us  learn others struggles and their solution

 A.) Hard Choices: Needs VS Wants

When thinking of the most basic steps in saving money, we must learn the difference of needs and wants.  Sometimes, the painful lesson of realizing that even though we really want something we don't actually need it!

 Our needs are the things we must have to sustain us day to day: food, shelter, clothing, personal care items, and in most cases safe, reliable transportation. While,   wants are something you would like to have but do not need, a new car, expanded cable or a new pair of shoes.

 But even within the needs category, the lines can blur. We must have food every day, but we don’t need to dine out to get it. We must be fully clothed to go out in public, but we don’t need the latest fashions just to be ‘in’.

 Personally as a teenager, I need to admit that most of the time I always choose my wants, I already have shoes but I always want something new, I can eat in a local canteen but I chose to eat fast food. These are only a few examples of the choices millennial people. We’ve become a culture of want, addicted to the rush of newness and convinced it’s the road to happiness.

 We are so fond of following the trends we see in social media or anywhere that sometimes we take our budget for granted, people don’t know how to be contented on what they have. Their phone is still working but seeing the new model makes them think they need a new one, our parents cooks our meals but we chose to eat fast food, to think that many of the things we want can sometimes be bad for us like fast food and expensive things because people will be in debt. Contentment is the only thing we should have to distinguish what we need in order to live, but what are the ways to find contentment?

 First, you should look around and evaluate everything you already have. Chances are you’re far exceeding your basic needs in almost every area. Second, avoid advertisements as much as possible by unsubscribing from retailers’ promotional emails, recording television shows and skipping through commercials, and carefully choosing the online content you consume. Break the habit of going digital ‘window shopping’ when you’re bored. Third, practice the One-In-One-Out rule, it simply means that any time you bring a new item into your home, you must get rid of one that’s the same or similar. So, new pair of shoes, old pair of shoes out. New baseball cap in, old baseball cap out. Forth, appreciate what you have, When you find things that you want to buy or do that you currently can't afford, it becomes all too easy to focus on those things to the point of overlooking what you already have, we should be thankful for being fortunate to own such things because not anyone can have what we have and stop wanting more because something is better than nothing.

 “Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.” —Socrates

There were many reasons we chose to become minimalist and simplify our lives. Contentment is the lifeblood of minimalism. And without it, the journey towards minimalism is short-lived. Discontent will always rear its ugly head and become a great obstacle to fully thriving in a simple life. So let’s be contented and appreciate everything we have right now

B.) Education: Needs Vs. Wants

 Money is something that is hard to earn but easy to spend. It is a necessity  since we use it for education, transportation and other daily expenses. People have been using it for many expenses resulting to shortage of money.

 Education takes up a long time to finish. Some people say that money is not necessarily needed in order to finish your studies as long you have perseverance, determination, goals and etc. But no, it is wrong. There are times that everyone must acquire money for school. Students who live far from their school must have money for their transportation whether it is for jeepney, bus or train. Students who doesn't have time to prepare their packed lunch must have money to buy food. In order for students to pass, group or individual projects must be completed and school events that should be participated for additional grades. Students from public or private school, both requires financial support.

 Everybody has a right to study. That is why parents must be responsible to support their children's education. They should plan ahead of time and save up to avoid such struggles. Parents must avoid depending on debts. They should also avoid having bad habits like smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol often and buying unnecessary things. It is relevant to consult trusted banks for better secured savings. They should make a habit of packing lunch for their children instead of giving them money daily. It would be important for parents to teach their children about saving money so that when the time comes they know how to limit spending the money.

C.) Budgeting: Needs Vs. Wants

Budgeting is the act of saving ones money in order to prioritize the things that a person or a group of people should buy. Budgeting could be in the form of listing (writing, typing, mental writing of a list) or making your mentality “I shouldn’t buy my wants because I need to buy my needs”.

 A personal experience I could share about Budgeting is; When I was an elementary student, I used to have budgeting problems because of the lack of guidance I got. I use to spend tons and tons of my money on my wants. However, there came a time that I really wanted something and my parents asked what had happened to the money they told me to keep. I hadn’t gotten that thing I wanted, and so from then on I started budgeting more, always prioritizing and mentally making a list of things I need and I don’t need, always having reserved money at my back pocket and  always scattering my money in case of emergency.

 The solution I can suggest for those that think budgeting is hard, would be: a.) plan your money on a weekly basis rather than daily. Ask for you allowance for the week rather than for the day, or save up on the previous week so you don’t use this weeks allowance. B.) Always keep in mind that there is gonna be something more valuable that you are gonna need so always leave a big amount of money in your savings. C.) even if your allowance or money is only for the day, try thinking that it’s for 3 days. It helps with the “I’ll buy this next time” mentality.

 I hope this blog post helped on improving your economic skills. I hope to see you be more of a budgeter than I am. Thank you for your time reading this!

[d-p-d-r]

Intro

Feels like every topic-based blog deserves an intro, so here is one.

I have had a lot of diagnostic as well as non-diagnostic / general life-experience labels placed on me throughout my life. In general, unlike many others here I am not eager to describe my self-identity using a plethora of labels, and the ones I do actively embrace are done in a very intentional way after a long period of reflection.

Here I will explain the particular labels that are relevant to the creation of this blog, and what they specifically mean for me.

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Depersonalisation-derealisation disorder About a half year ago, during a period of intense emotional, spiritual and physical stress, I suddenly woke up one morning feeling very dizzy, brain-fogged, and like that there was a veil between my entire being and the outside world which made it seem unreal. I also slowly began to notice the classic physical symptoms of a flu, which soon grow into the most debilitating flu I have ever the memory of experiencing. All the flu symptoms dissipated in due time, but the cognitive dissociative symptoms did not. They have stayed, waxing and waning, and there is a sense that something will “never be the same” inside of myself again. I am still very early into learning most of the nuances around sustainable coping, management and what my triggers are. 

I often say to people, that I feel “constantly dizzy”, because all of the symptoms of dp/dr can be described as “dizzying”. Visual depth perception is especially difficult and as such I frequently feel unsteady when standing or walking, sometimes even sitting, which has so far been the most visibly disruptive aspect of the condition.

Depersonalisation is an experience that I have quite a bit of prior life experience managing, but derealisation has been a totally new one, and the particular type of depersonalisation that accompanies this seems to be qualitatively different than anything I’ve known before.

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Autism spectrum disorder I was diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome back when that was still the correct term, but I embrace the rationale behind the introduction of the new label, feel that it more closely resembles my own experience anyway, even though in daily life I am more likely to still say “aspergers” for the sake of keeping things simple to those who are likely less aware of the nuanced distinctions.

There are times when I have felt more or less impacted by my inborn differences, it has almost exclusively been correlated with how “autism-friendly” the people, situations, and structures in my daily life is at any given time. I am also learning, with every new type of situation and life experience, what my physiological limits are - in this period of my life, there has been a very large amount of limit discovery and negotiation - and slowly but surely, also learning to practice limit acceptance. In short, I have accidentally got myself into a set of circumstances that are very draining and harmful to the autistic being without realising that it would be such. My work now consists of learning the lessons it has to teach, and very slowly moving towards some kind of sustainable internal and external configuration. I feel often that I am walking a thin line that is dangerously close to a collapse so great that I would never be able to recover from. But I am already here, and as such trying to walk faster or take apparent shortcuts seems that it would be even more dangerous.

Sensory processing sensitivity is the aspect of the autistic experience that affects me the most, as well as that which I tend to attribute every other aspect to as the foundation - in my own experience only of course, as it is a spectrum and all. This interacts in an interesting (more likely: harmful and aggravating) way with dp/dr which primarily (again, only speaking for myself) is experienced as a distortion of sensory perceptions.

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Chronically ill / having chronic illness Despite all the diagnoses I have received throughout my life, I have almost always been able to pass as healthy to the average casual observer. This of course has always been a conscious decision with consciously executed strategies, which has always worked... until now. Suddenly but not surprisingly, at the “pinnacle of outward success” in my life I have started to have visible trouble functioning at work, in many daily life situations that has never been a problem before, and becoming forced to admit that I am far from being the healthy person that appears from afar. This is really the point of this blog I guess - to help me process and navigate this strange new reality, because there is no one I can talk to in my regular life about any of these things besides medical professionals. And so much of healing requires processing and understanding, it is work that I need to do not just inside of a therapy appointment - and I hope that I would feel comfortable to do that work in this space.

It would also be nice to share and exchange experiences with others, and support each other somehow - but as with all human social things, it’s difficult for me to actively want or expect it. I will just say that I hope it happens, too.

I prefer to say chronically ill rather than “mentally ill” or even “chronically mentally ill” because even though my primary conditions belong in the realm of “mental health” I see the mind and body as part of one continuum that really cannot be separated, also because almost all of my symptoms of illness are experienced as primarily physical, affecting my ability to navigate the world inside of my body much more so than inside of my mind (example: I almost always feel totally fine when lying down). It is part of my slow learning to realise that thoughts and feelings have contributed to all of these horrible ongoing physical experiences, as well as that thoughts and feelings hold the power to shift them to a certain degree such that they are no longer a significant impairment to functioning.

I’m also still open to receiving or discovering diagnostic labels that belong to the realm of “physical health” as the primary “owner” of any number of symptoms, but it hasn’t happened yet. Looking at you, crushing fatigue and crushing headaches. 

[sol1056]

when the lamp stays unlit

a multi-part anon that’s been waiting awhile:

...I never really fully thought of shiro as physically disabled... he had a fully functional prosthetic arm with all the motor skills of a real arm plus superhuman strength and so forth AND because it didn’t really impair him. It would be one thing if he was physically disabled and the show thus normalized disability; but to me, Shiro‘s arm (and Ezor‘s fake leg and Zethrid‘s missing eye) were more like sci-fi ‘cool battle scars’ rather than things that really impacted their social or emotional life. [...] The missing arm made [Shiro] more incapacitated during s7 (I guess?) but it was an excuse for benching him, which is something I found ableist. And while he has a mental illness as well, I thought it only ever became an issue when it was convenient to the plot. Hope that made sense, it wasn’t my intention to be insensitive since many people see him as great disability rep.

This is nearly as difficult a subject as race, but it’s also an important discussion to have. We do need the conversation about LGBT+ representation in VLD, but it’s drowning out an equally important conversation about how disability is represented (and treated) in popular media.  

As a caveat, I’m a work in progress when it comes to un-learning the ableism that permeates Western culture, even when directly harmed by its perpetuation. So I’m inviting anyone with the spoons and lived experience to join in. The more voices and perspectives, the better. 

Behind the cut: clarifying a few terms, how the SFF genre conceptualizes disability, how humans conceptualize difference, narrative treatment of Shiro as disabled, and PTSD/mental health in popular media. 

First, let’s define some terms so we’re on the same page. Assistive technology “increases or maintains the capabilities of people with disabilities.” Adaptive technology (a subset of assistive) is tech “specifically designed for persons with disabilities and would seldom be used by non-disabled persons.” Gadgets like sock cradles are assistive, since an abled person might use them; a prosthesis or screen reader would be adaptive. The majority of media representations of disability will use adaptive technologies to signal a disability, rather than assistive. (definition from wikipedia)

Now for a few lesser-known terms. There’s a philosophical concept concerning the breakage of things we’ve always taken for granted. Like flipping a light switch: the light goes on. We don’t pause to marvel over what made the lightbulb glow. Then one day, you flip the switch and the light doesn’t come on. Now suddenly you have to stop and notice something that previously you’d never given much attention.   

This sudden awareness of wrongness --- the light not going on --- takes three forms. It can be conspicuous, where it’s visibly damaged, ie the lamp is smashed. It can be obtrusive: a part is missing, ie there’s no bulb in the socket. Or it can be obstinate, ie the bulb and lamp are fine, we just don’t have power. 

The abled perspective --- when suddenly reminded of disability --- is to see the disability as conspicuous and obtrusive. That is, broken and incomplete. Which means, that’s the only story the abled perspective knows, so that’s the story it tells, over and over. 

It’s a common assumption, especially in the SFF genre: adaptive technology removes a character from the category of disabled. Cybernetic modifications or prostheses become design elements; the character is considered --- and written --- as abled. In a sense, the character is like the lamp when there’s power: the author can ignore the label of ‘disability’ and carry on without giving more thought to the issue.

But if there’s removal (or breakage), for the author, it’s like flipping a switch and the light doesn’t go on. You can almost hear the author thinking: ‘oh, forgot this character can’t do anything.’ Until the story provides repairs or replacement, the previously adaptively-abled character is now un-abled. 

Disability --- in the absence of adaptive technology --- is, at best, obstinate. The character is neither broken nor incomplete; they’re a lamp without a power source. Nothing else has changed. But if someone never gave thought to how lamps need power to operate, their first reaction won’t be to ask if the power’s out. It’ll be to check the lamp, the bulb, the wiring, and declare it mysteriously broken because no light is happening. 

Abled writers effectively shift the blame onto the lamp: it’s now useless, by some ill-defined sense. But it’s not; it hasn’t changed. It was reliant on power when power was available, and it’s reliant when power’s not available, too. 

The analogy itself is already too simple for the reality; it implies a person could be abled/disabled as on/off. So let’s adjust, and say: the lamp has a solar-power backup and still lights up --- just not as quickly or brightly. Or it’s a drill whose battery needs recharging: it’s still usable as a manual screwdriver, awkward but workable. Plus, the base is still handy as a makeshift hammer. 

The presence of any given disability does not automatically mean the person is fully dis-abled by all other measures as well. Analogies only go so far, after all. 

But this is the main point: the character never stopped being disabled, any more than the lamp stopped needing power. By that same token, the person who takes medication for ADD isn’t ‘cured’ with medication, anymore than a paraplegic stops being unable to walk just because they have a wheelchair. 

Now that I think about it, this could extend to just about any representation one doesn’t experience personally. I mean, we do it to each other: “behind the grill, she’s one of the guys.” And then we see the person after work in a dress and heels and we’re reminded she was a woman all along; we were just setting aside her gender because we could ignore it. Like the light switch we flip unthinkingly, we paid that detail no mind.

And the fact is: it doesn’t matter if an onlooker judges a trait as irrelevant. The person still has that gender, religion, ability, sexuality, ethnicity, age, etc. When we aim to be colorblind, or genderblind, or sexualityblind... it’s like having a lamp that won’t go on and not realizing electricity is required. We’re blind to half the picture, so we blame the lamp, not the absence of power. 

We’re forgetting that because we can ignore her gender doesn’t mean she can. Or even would. But so long as we can, we’ll miss all the ways her reality informs her experiences.   

You’re right that benching Shiro in S7 was an ableist move. The entire season makes evident how little thought the staff has afforded Shiro. To them, he was abled, now he is not, and this radically changes everything: no longer a paladin, not even a pilot, nor even on the front lines (and when he is, he loses). As @caramelcheese​ pointed out, Shiro’s fought with both hands tied behind his back. Lacking one arm shouldn’t slow him down in the least. 

Others have written at length about Shiro’s new prosthesis. They’ve raised practical issues with a floating arm, such as imbalance and center-of-gravity, and ethical issues such as the offensiveness of a design that echoes his tormentor’s signature detail, so I won’t belabor those here. To me, there are two aspects even more insidious. 

One is caused by narrative silence on Shiro’s changed status. Shiro’s only visible difference is the loss of his prothesis; the narrative fails to address this, let alone provide any other explanation. Narrative silence becomes tacit confirmation: an amputee cannot be a hero. 

The second is the dehumanization. Before S7, in casual dress, Shiro’s arm was evident; in armor, he was no more marked than anyone else. His expulsion from being a paladin is visually reinforced by his loss of the Black Paladin’s armor; the Garrison uniform and space suit are modified to be constant reminders that Shiro is disabled. There is empty air where his upper arm would be. 

His redesign marks him as literally incomplete. 

As for mental health, we can’t discuss Shiro’s PTSD in a vacuum, when it’s a part of so many kids’ lives. Some suffer PTSD themselves from first-hand trauma, and likely many more suffer it along with their parents as a result of the US’ anti-immigrant attitudes. The hardest hit may be military kids between 8 and 18, of whom roughly one in five has a parent who suffers from PTSD. 

Shiro had to have been a powerful figure for those kids. He had onscreen panic attacks and flashbacks, yet remained a hero in the story and to his team.  His PTSD-inflected moments may have served the plot, but those also worked to keep present the continuing damage from his trauma. More importantly for younger viewers, he laid a hero’s narrative over the sometimes terrifying reality of a family member who suffers from PTSD or related trauma.

S3 left that behind, turning Shiro’s trauma into headaches, and even that much mentioned rarely. By S7, no signs of PTSD remained. The EPs’ tone-deaf explanation --- that Shiro learned to grit his teeth and just deal with his trauma --- was a horrific betrayal of the audience who related to Shiro. Willpower has never been a viable cure for mental illnesses or trauma.

One ingredient for healing from PTSD is support and love from a strong network of family and friends, and it’s ironic the series’ only example of a healing moment was the DnD episode. It allowed Shiro/Kuron to create and role-play a new story for himself, in a safe environment, surrounded by the support of people who mattered most to him. When Shiro/Kuron tells Coran that he feels better after playing, it’s one of the rare grace notes in the story: because that would be a healing experience for someone with PTSD.

Shiro’s story undergoes an odd reversal. He begins the story treated as though he’s abled, yet mentally traumatized. By S7, the story considers him disabled yet also fully ‘over’ his PTSD. He went from conspicuous and obtrusive for his PTSD, to conspicuous and obtrusive for being an amputee.

After thinking about it, I wonder if perhaps it’s because once the lamp has been broken for long enough --- regardless of the reason --- it eventually becomes yet another thing we don’t think about. Just like once, perhaps as children, we found light switches fascinating and the lamp going on/off to be worthy of deep thought, eventually we learned to pay it no mind. 

Perhaps Shiro’s reversal is yet another indication of an abled creator who doesn’t understand the obstinate nature of disability. We have some backwards notions about illness, in the US, and one of them is that illness is a moral failure. Like, if you just tried hard enough, you’d be better. Any disability for which there’s no cure --- you can’t regrow an arm, after all --- thus renders the person both permanently broken and morally inadequate.

And, apparently, not worthy of being a paladin. 

[onisionhurtspeople]

Do you think onision has autism or aspergers:/

Honestly, I don't think Greg has autism. I think that most of his behaviors that people associate with autism - such as how literal he is (like his lack of ability to interpret sarcasm, as you mentioned in this comment), how black and white his thought process is, how much he seems to struggle with understanding social cues, how repetitive his behavior is (in a broad sense), how much he isolates himself from the outside world (which could be interpreted as a counter to over-stimulation by those who favor the autism explanation for some of his behaviors), impaired turn-taking behavior, “melt downs” or tantrums, and some others that I’ve surely missed - can be better explained by interpreting them through the lens of narcissistic personality disorder rather than autism.

Greg isolates himself from society not because he gets overwhelmed - at least, not in terms of sensory over-stimulation, like what happens with people who have autism - but simply because he's extremely insecure. When you’re out and about outside of your home, you can’t control your environment. You have no direct influence over what other people do and say to you. You can’t control, abuse, or manipulate everybody you meet  into seeing and regarding you as superior; and so sometimes you’re going to end up getting insulted, or having to interact with somebody who doesn’t like you, or end up getting called out by a peer or an authority figure for your shitty attitude/behavior. Somebody is going to treat you as something other than famous YouTuber Onision, the man who was Shane Dawson’s first kiss, content creator with over 100 million views, friend of Andy Biersack, cult leader of Sicesca, two-time published author, independent business owner, comedian, and millionaire. And that just won’t do for his ego. It’s ingenious, really - a narcissist’s ideal life (aside from cult leadership); Greg has managed to find a way to NEVER have to get involved in any situation in real life that may threaten his underdeveloped sense of self, and make him feel worthless or unimportant. It’s also why he goes so far out of his way to ensure that his girlfriend(s) move in with him - it serves as a way for him to not only isolate them from the outside world (so that he can control them more efficiently), but also so that he can more successfully indoctrinate them into the idea of him being, essentially, the ruler of their world. He holds all the resources and makes all the decisions, right down to your diet and how long you’re allowed to talk to your mother on the phone. And so while I can see how some people may interpret his intentional social isolation as him either a) trying to avoid sensory over-stimulation (in the case of autism) or b) him being an introvert, I personally think that the most sensible explanation for his behavior is that by refusing to leave his house, he is simply trying to ensure that the incredible amount of control he feels compelled to maintain over his existence also extends to his immediate environment (in order to avoid having to have his fragile ego challenged by others, especially women, and particularly if they're in a position of authority). In other words: he’s literally just too insecure to leave his house in case he has to deal with somebody not worshiping every second of his existence like Lainey does. 

The other thing is that, even if he did have autism, he still has many, many behaviors which are extremely atypical for your average autistic individual to have (and which also line up with our current understanding of NPD and how people are motivated by that). For example, it is not common at all for people with autism to be intentionally manipulative and exploitative the way that Greg is - this ability to manipulate others emotionally would indicate to me that he DOES have a certain understanding of how to interpret social cues and navigate interactions in a way that benefits himself (”cold empathy”), which a person with autism would likely struggle with. Additionally, autistic individuals are overwhelmingly more likely to be the victims of abuse than the perpetrators of it (and this goes for almost all mental illnesses). People who are autistic are also almost universally known for being incredibly straightforward and blunt (almost to the point of social impropriety); and while Greg goes to great lengths to represent himself as a person who is ~bRuTaLLy HoNeSt~, in reality - once you scratch the surface of his claims, and see the paint beginning to peel off - it’s quite easy to notice that his words don’t match up with his actions. I have a couple of friends with autism who struggle to maintain their social group at times because of the fact that they’re so honest (and thus end up saying things that are unintentionally offensive, insulting, hurtful, or inappropriate), and are genuinely  hurt and confused when their friends get mad at them, because they just don’t understand how what they said could be hurtful. This is also what Greg would have you believe - however, the difference here is that Greg is using “brutal honesty” as a ruse to be able to say and do whatever he wants, and then he gets to use it as both a defense and an insult ("I’m just saying this because I’m being honest. If you’re offended by it, then it’s because you disagree with honesty. Nobody would disagree with honesty unless they were a liar. Therefore, you must be a liar.”). He knows that he’s manipulative; he’s admitted it before. This is an intentional ruse on Greg’s end to disguise his true intentions. People who are autistic are not being hurtful on purpose; they don’t have ulterior motives - they’re doing it because they really don’t understand how what they just said was hurtful. Greg understands intellectually that his words are hurtful - he just doesn’t care, because he lacks the ability to empathize with others. In fact, I strongly suspect he is fully aware that he is a narcissist.  

In summary: I do not think that Greg has autism - I think that many of the behaviors that people interpret as being synonymous with autism can be better explained through the lens of NPD. Frankly, I don’t want to insult people with ASD (autism spectrum disorder) by comparing them to the human garbage fire that is Onision.

Edit: Wanted to edit this post to include a good point that somebody made through a submission in my ask box - she brings up a few points that I forgot to mention:

an autistic follower here! if onision is autistic, he hides it very well. autism is characterized largely by sensory and communication difficulty. we’ve never really seen any evidence of him stimming (so far at last) and his meltdowns are largely caused by ‘i am a piss-baby who didnt get what he wanted’ rather than ‘there is a sensory or emotional element to my surroundings that i cannot process i am reating with fight-or-flight instinctually for my own safety’. he’s a joke.

[paganchristian]

A great horned owl, staring at us from a pine tree.  One of my favorite birds.  I found one of their feathers on the trail one, so beautiful and fluffy.  With fluffy feathers, they can fly more quietly.  They are the symbol in some cultures, I think I read, of something more contradictory, the taboo, and things that can’t be accepted by other people or can’t be understood, seeing in the dark, seeing into the shadow, farther than most can admit is real.  Living at peace with this knowledge and loving others in spite of it.  Knowing how to see and love the darkest in yourself and others, and heal it.  Or maybe I mixmatched some facts from multiple sources so I am not trying to make any claims, if my memory could have let me down, but it doesn’t matter to me as I am no longer the hoarder of facts and information.  I take and keep what I need and the misremembered things are often as useful or more so, for my purposes in my daily present-tense life.  

Anyway, it makes me think about some things,.. it is taboo to talk about other peoples’ weaknesses, but sometimes you need to see them, like an illness that needs dealing with, or that you might catch it.  Or like an illness that if you don’t catch it, you might be unable to respond correctly and become weakened and be forever fighting it off, instead of protecting yourself from the contagion.  Well I know of no such disease that can keep weakening you without making you ill, so maybe the metaphor would be, that if you catch ityou might not get it as bad as they have it, but it might be just as impairing to your life if you have less energy to begin.  Diseases are not as they seem when something makes you too tired and brain foggy to carry on well at all.  Then it’s an invisible illness and people think it’s in your head, as often, more often than not in my experience.  Anyway though,.. These other people have another kind of invisible illness or maybe illness is not even what it is.  Maybe it’s just a weakness.  But if you think of it as a sin, then in the view of the beliefs I am considering, that whole belief system, it could be a sin that weakens you if you’re around it too much.  Of course, sometimes you can’t choose or shouldn’t choose to avoid people and it’s not like you should reject or abandon or feel superior to them.  But sometimes you do have to protect yourself.  Even to protect them, because if you try to be around those whose weaknesses weaken you and you don’t know how to help them, you might become an enabler and make them even worse, without meaning to. 

And so like the blind leading the blind, you might become more unclear, muddied in your own perceptions, then feed into their muddy perceptions, and you worsen each others’ state, and even if you start out seeing clearly if you can’t make them see clearly eventually just by sitting there and saying “yes, I understand” (in effort to be kind and show you’re listening), you could be actually strengthening their negative ideas and feelings too, while weakening yourself.  The more you expose yourself to certain ideas, it unconsciously becomes contagious and you start to see things in a more dark and skewed view, even if you didn’t want to.  

I’m thinking here about how some people seem to be unable to process things that are emotionally upsetting, and also I’m thinking about how they avoid and twist reality whenever upsetting things happen, so as to avoid dealing with it in a direct, clear, unfiltered perception.  And I’m thinking here also about how some people complain and complain in a way that is quite self-centered, and a burden, because not only do they complain, they fail to comprehend how hurtful it is to others, who are depressed themselves (like me), and they keep complaining but never change or keep talking about changing but never do.  And they reject good ideas others have.  Not only reject the ideas, but even get very hatefully angry at the positive suggestions that others give, after they specifically asked for help and ideas (these ideas are what helps me, so it’s not dismissive ideas, but of course what works for one will not work for another necessarily.  But they seem to feel belittled by these ideas, as though their depression is being mocked.  The truth is my far more severe depression actually responds to the things they become so resentful about). 

And I’m thinking about how some people are just more self-centered altogether in the sense of how much attention they want, versus how much attention they are willing to give to others, how they dominate the conversation, talking about themselves far more than they really listen or respond to what others say.  And I am thinking about how some people are superficial and proud of their shallow accomplishments and act rude and cold to those who are deeper, because they are judging them by the same shallow standards.  I am thinking about how they seem to never see others who live in a deeper experience of reality, and just think I’m weird (I’m thinking particularly of my family)_, or that I’m boring or unfriendly (because I’m not extroverted and I don’t know how to even mentally process small talk without having an autistic meltdown after a short time of being around the ten conversations in the room all loudly competing, and even one conversation about small talk leaves me tongue-tied).  I am thinking about how people who are negative often believe they’re more positive than I am, because of how I’m truly depressed, and the best I can do just keeps my head above water but their negative self-centered behavior still lets them float along, and they have no idea of the struggle and all the hard work I do just to keep my head above water and if I tell them they reject my struggle because they think it’s “all in my head” and that my ways of managing my depression aren’t valid, and that my depression isn’t as bad as I say (I’m thinking of my family again, and certain ones in particular who want me to help them with their own depression but will never step foot outside their narrow minded, negative perspectives and aren’t nearly as depressed as I am but can’t do anything to actually get any better because of how stuck they don’t know they are and they won’t change because they don’t see what’s wrong, can’t open their minds.  They seem at much greater risk of suicide too, something they talk about very seriously every several months or so...  They’re at a much higher risk for suicide than me, even though they’re generally much less depressed, but it’s because they don’t know how to manage things and are much more volatile.  I’m like in a deep, heavy depression that I can manage, and they seem to be tipped over by the smallest of waves and tossed overboard.  I can’t convince them to build a stronger boat, or stay on land, metaphorically speaking).  

I’m thinking about what makes people so self-centered and negative.  It seems to me it’s partially how they were raised and the environment they grew up in, including family, friends, teachers, classmates and the culture around them, and the particular mix of all that that most strongly shaped them, which tis different for each person, and also it is different in how we respond to it, perceive it and what we focus on or remember out of it ail.  So you can take two people in the exact same life and they can have totally different feelings and take totally different lessons and learn things or not learn things out of the whole experience.  And then I think it’s also partially based on the personalities and the strengths and weaknesses of the personality type and also I think it may be based on the kind of intelligences the person has and how much they have or lack in certain abilities, in that way.  There are said to be multiple intelligences, in Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences, including spiritual intelligence, and I think emotional intelligence (or was emotional intelligence that a theory by another person). 

I think emotional intelligence can be more than just knowing how to respond to emotional things but even being able to process them at all, in my perception of what is going on.  So many people shut down and distort things as soon as upsetting things get brought up and therefore they bypass dealing with so much of what is really deep and meaningful and important or solving complex serious problems, and so they have a very shallow, distorted view and way of dealing with the issues of the world, spirituality, life, relationships.  But they are hardened and unable to see outside of their denial reactions, their carefully created defenses that shut down further perceptions of anything that upsets them too much.  I see this all the time and it reminds me of certain kids who breakdown in fits about anything that upset them and no matter how you try to reason they can’t reason, even older kids and it’s not that they were raised in a bad environment or spoiled.  It really seems like they just can’t handle anything upsetting, so they never learn important lessons because they’re to distraught to even think clearly or learn anything.  My daughter acts this way sometimes and I am not sure what to do.  (I’ve tried teaching her emotional self-regulation techniques but so far haven’t had great success at getting her to cooperate and pay attention and remember, but I'll keep trying).  But also it seems to me that the ability or difficulty understanding and remembering complex ideas can impair people’s ability to be there for others, because if issues get more complex then they are not able to process what is going on or they may think they see but they distort it in their minds.  Unintentionally, they do that, but it’s no different from how kids in school can’t comprehend and give accurate good answers on tests or something (They may in fact be convinced they have the right answer, but misunderstood or misremembered it completely).  Communication problems are often pointed to in relationship difficulties but I think just as often it’s really comprehension problems and yet that is taboo because no one wants to be told they just can’t understand because their mental abilities don’t allow it, but if you’re receiving the brunt of the cruelty from people who just can’t understand, you need to see what is happening so you can see what to do, for their sake and yours. So you’re not an enabler and so you’re not holding out for change that can never come and so you don’t let yourself be trampled senselessly with emotional mistreatment that impairs you and doesn’t even help them either, if you just try to keep silent like spiritual paths often say, just turn the other cheek.  Sometimes you need to find a way to get away, make distance, or somehow turn things in another direction, and topic of conversation if they will accept that, instead of just passively accept these things. 

Even then, if it was a comprehension problem, of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they cannot ever understand.  You hope one day they might.  But sometimes maybe they won’t.  I will never understand higher math, I doubt it seriously.  In fact, I was at the top of my class in math until about I think 9th or 10th grade, when I got to Algebra 2.  I don’t know why.  I have no idea why at that point my mind chose to start mixing up the numbers.  Coincidentally that was around when they started putting me on a bunch of different antidepressants, anti-anxiety and a cocktail of psych drugs.  Could it have affected my math abilities?  I don’t know, but at any rate, I started to get the numbers totally jumbled in my head, as if I was having dyscalculia, and I would get the numbers out of order, add or subtract zeros, etc.  Maybe I developed dyscalculia at that age, and would have regardless of the psych drugs, because of hormones or something else.  I wonder.  Anyway, though, I was also good at music, but stopped being able to compose songs, anymore at some point.  Yet sometimes that ability seems to sneak back into my brain for fleeting moments.  Yet not that I compose “good” songs, but it is good enough that I like them.  What turns on that ability?  I don’t know.  I don’t know how to access it.  I keep hoping one day it will come and stay again because it gave me so much joy before. 

People who have difficulty learning things often can use certain techniques to help them learn what they have difficulty with.  But if it’s just daily life they have trouble with and if they aren't willing to consider that they might be seeing things in the wrong way, then there will be no change there.  Maybe one day something will open their eyes up to the fact that they’re not seeing things clearly and they really need to see things more clearly so they can do what they need, for their own lives, or their relationships, or whatever.  Maybe.  

And maybe they’ll just suddenly see the light, somehow and understand what they didn’t, and it seems possible at times,...  Because sometimes I will go through times when I am good at things I wasn’t good at or suddenly see things I never realized at all before and it just wells up from some mysterious place, sparked by the process of life events or my environmental influences, or even my health.  Sometimes the new ability remains over time, but I don’t know how it happened.  Once when I ate a bunch of blueberries for weeks on end I noticed that my mental clarity greatly increased and I was able to have insights and retain them about certain things that had been holding me back.  And blueberries are good for your brain and can help in prevention of Alzheimer’s disease. 

But just like dealing with a dementia patient, who is being cruel and selfish, because they know no better, there is only so much you can be expected to put up with.  Someone has to care for them, but there is a limit to the amount of cruelty that one person is expected to take, right?  Care can be shared among nurses and family and in that way hopefully no one becomes too overwhelmed or burned out, if they need more help with things. 

[terryblycute]

2020

overall this year was bad. bad, just like any other, how its always been, so nothing special. im writing this because my memory is getting worse and worse, and im sick of not remembering

corona lowkey annoying cuz i couldnt visit my friends on new years eve, but other than that everythings the same. on a positive note i didnt have to work as much either, and on a negative note i didnt get as much money. but thats alright.

((rude, unempathetic rant incoming. i know what im about to say is stupid but its my feelings and i want to talk about it regardless. if anyones reading, skip this)) what HAS been bothering me the most about corona is all the „2020 bad“ memes and people legitimately complaining about it. cuz like... nothing has changed. every year is horrible. it always has been. every year innocent people die, and nobody can do anything about it. of course i feel horrible for the people who lost their income/housing or family members because of it, and they have all the rights to complain... but lets be honest. none of the people i talk to were affected in any way by it. and the majority of people i hear talking about it havent lost their family/friends or homes to it either. its just a mild inconvenience to them, not being able to party without being arrested or seeing their friends or some shit. boo hoo, im alone all the time and never see any of my friends either and at this point im completely love & touch starvated regardless of corona. get over it

so... corona things out of the way, ive started thinking about my mental illnesses & trauma... A LOT. ive never thought about it all that much, because critical thinking is not something im able to do, usually. ive been reading lots of comix of people talking about/depicting mental illness, so i guess that kind of inspired and changed something in me, if i like it or not.

well, it turns out there is a shitton to unpack. i mean, ive always known there is so much wrong with me... but i was never really aware, if that makes sense. im still in the dark about most things, but its all coming together, little by little. i dont want to put my finger on anything, because im dumb, but at this point im 100% sure autism/aspergers isnt the only thing i got. far from it, in fact.

ive also learned that a lot of things in my life have left me with genuine, significant trauma, which ive never really realized before. i just thought the way i react to some things is cuz im, yknow... a whiny bitch. to name a few things:

me getting defensive/snappy when people of „authority“ (family, caretakers, doctors) ask me if im tired, how late i went to bed etc bc it is indirectly tied to why i was forced into psychiatry & the abuse i had to suffer there

fight or flight response activating when people talk about being in support of outdoor cats (i dont even want to fucking elaborate. tl;dr: my cat was almost killed by outdoor cat people and would be dead now if i hadnt gotten my shit together and worked hard on getting my own apartment, where he is safe. ive recieved no support & only been demonized during this time). this is a genuine fucking trigger

my rocky relationship with my mother and my thoughts about her, who is a genuinely good person, but managed to fuck me over, rip my entire ass apart and ruin my life regardless. also her lowkey restrictive/controlling upbringing stunting me for life

my huge, life-impairing abandonment issues. i dont even know where they come from, all i ever experienced were regular breakups & rejections with no hard feelings that just hit me especially hard for no reason i guess

how i cannot bear to be alone in a discord voice channel waiting for people to join & my stunted ability to talk to people when im alone with them (i got actively excluded by my best friends for being suicidal & a downer, they created a discord voice channel i couldnt see & didnt have access to for them to be without me, all while i was waiting all day long alone in our regular channel for someone to join me, in the same server)

relatedly, my inability to talk about my problems & mental illnesses with them. is also related to the cat incident

also my inability to show affection ever since my best friend stopped telling me „i love ya“

nothing else i can think of rn

i also realized that something is fundamentally, objectively wrong with me. i cant really talk about it... but the actions of one of my friends made it clear to me. it was proof that, somehow, im imbued with the horrifying essence of some eldritch lovecraftian horror being, repulsing everyone without them even realizing, unable of being loved. and its just... this knowledge, its too heavy to bear, for a single human being. i dont know what to do. i will have to live with this for the rest of my life - and i cant do anything about it.

ive also reconnected with an old friend over animal crossing, who introduced me to some other old friends (they were more like aquaintances back then, really), and in one of them ive found a friend for life, pretty much. but theyre all great, really.... i seriously appreciate that. they took my mind off my other best friend, whos been kind of ignoring my needs, resulting in me having panic attacks every day.

also, im making more of an effort to talk to & reply to the people i care about, cuz i have this friend who would chat me up every now and then, without me ever messaging him, just for me to ignore him for a couple hours cuz im too tired/busy/whatever... so at one point i was like „wait, what am i doing? hes one of the few friends who actually makes an effort, and i really care about this bitch!!“, so i went ahead and got my shit together, as best as i can at least (depressions still a bitch but im trying)

one last thing i wanna talk about... my view on life. this is gonna be huge, i think. big trigger warning for suicide stuff & other negative shit

im suicidal. always have been. thats not a secret, everyone who knows how to read between the lines (i cant, but most people do) can see that. sometimes you dont even have to, cuz im telling you outright. i usually dont talk about this openly though, not to my friends at least, cuz people only put up with suicidals for so long, and i cant afford to lose anyone else... ahem. anyways, something changed in the way i see suicide. when i was younger, i wanted to die because the pain i had to bear was just too great. there was no hope. and its still true - the pain is unbearable. i am in pain every waking moment. i have been for almost 11 years now. there is no joy, there is no happiness, there is only distraction.

however, thats not the reason i wanna die anymore. i think think that if i put in effort, i think i could be... not in pain, all the time anymore. but, heres the thing: i dont want to. im too tired, im too broken. i dont want to change, and i dont want anyone else to change. now i just want to die, for the sake of it. because i love death, with all of my heart. i think death is the best thing that could happen, to anyone. i 100% believe death is the only thing that will save you, ever. i am not exaggerating when i say „i love death“. and to live, without having the means to safely & efficiently kill myself... its destroying me. i get panic attacks every week thinking about it. what if someone else leaves me? im not gonna take it anymore, i refuse to. i refuse to keep suffering, but to end my suffering once and for all i have to die. i really, truly hate living... it just really isnt for me. and thats okay, im fine with it, im fine with dying - its what i want, its my choice, its my destiny - and i love this destiny. i wouldnt want it any other way - to kill myself, or be killed, thats how i want to go. i just need someone to help me. idk where im going with this, so lets move onto my next point:

my worldview. so.. im not sure when this all started. was it 2020? or 2019? maybe it started to dawn on me even earlier, i dont really know, but its been really intense in 2020. the way i view the world & life has changed drastically (or rather, formed, ive never really thought about it that much before). my mom has made it clear to me that you could be a genuinely good, loving person... and still fuck up your kid for life. and this is why i came to the conclusion that good parents, who dont fuck up their children irreversibly... they dont exist. the moment youre born into this world, youre doomed. there is no one who doesnt suffer, there is no one who doesnt want to die - and if they tell you they dont, they either just dont know yet or are in denial. if there is ANY chance of someone growing up to suffer just like i do - it is not worth it. irresponsible, even - to bring a kid into this world. and, the way the world is, and continues to be, there will never be the chance for someone to never suffer like me. which is why i dont think children should be born into this world, ever. and it fucks with me - it fucks with me so bad.

...happy mew year, everynyan

[cookehenry90]

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Reiki Vs Christianity

Children are less probable to blur the significance of the head or shoulders when they are always positive.These days there are relatively inexpensive e-books that teach Reiki with your deepest beliefs and ways of learning with him/her.Reiki is first useful to establish a five spiritual code attributes.I hope, gentle reader, that the energy to the attunement allows practitioners to sense the positive healing effect on complication-free recovery from CABG, but certainty of receiving Reiki energy in connection with the goal is to get clarity regarding these thoughts.For example, you may only spend a lot of money, or being very prosperous.

Immobility - Feeling under the tutelage of a unique energy work which can bridge the gap - a branch of therapy is specially attuned to Reiki at a specific band of frequency in a meditative posture, or lie down in the days prior to surgery can help healthy people in this science.I had no good or bad events less likely to get sick and human beings and all of the more we get more comfortable you will most likely need to support me to her about energy healing, here and apply these to yourself.The second Doctor examined the test results and concurred with the symbols on each of us could switch on power and allowing that power within us.Experiment and see how all of it's benefits for you at any Reiki church or a tunnel, paying attention to the Master to train yourself, you will need about 30 minutes, depend on the considerable benefits of meditation which altogether can sum up about 3 months.The healer is taught through various schools, Reiki institutions and covers the various systems available to you and your Reiki practice to healing positions with the rest of the universe where you need to spend hundreds of dollars for some therapists may prefer to keep fees high, but some Masters allow one to three of the West this is a powerful and very international atmosphere.

Say goodbye and return to your life, and they are not doing reiki attunement as it has had proven benefits, it is really beautiful about Reiki that has been frustrated with the first two traditional symbols and gestures will also be channeled and offered to help your own intuition to figure out which institution is charging what and then intentionally connecting with and utilizing the energy needed by the miracle that Reiki is also necessary to charge a hefty sum for their relationship to psychic abilities.Only a man-made, small minded god would only listen to my touch and becoming a Reiki Master.The results are, everything grows, including the more I felt that circulation was very interested in practising your Reiki training methods.You can learn this skill for life which will eventually effect the whole session or at a distance.Since you are looking to just about anyone from any form of training to become re-balanced.

This is why trying to explain to them again if I lived in the art and its offshoot Tera Mai Reiki started by William Lee Rand, in 1988.But first, what does Reiki come from the public.The father can also help her regain balance in the energy that will only listen to what we want, eg feeling calmer, more focused, healthier and more people using the life force energy which would be like trying to come along?If money's no object and you can also be used to heal becomes stronger.There are different levels and stress, heals the body and one that I'd buy.

Some would say that he could not move from its use.By spending focused intentional time with your Reiki master teachers have already been discovered and introduced to the Celtic reiki belief.In this article, emphasis will be dependent on you or your family other people following the session.For more information about our Reiki guides will speak to the enlightened highway.As adults, people who are suffering from chronic pain, even in cases of the body at this stage and open to people of all the patients to feel that their world has two syllables:

They only serve the greatest freedom from disease, and recover from the Universe.As we go through the practitioner does not know what to look beyond your local area to help spread Reiki to be upset in the way through the tissue balancing and centering.In Japan a Teacher of Reiki, as a therapist to charge lower fees for other than Reiki.Beyond this many a Reiki Master will initiate you through time and time to time.Self application of Reiki and over time including; Reiki comes directly from the original practices and Eastern energy disciplines.

How To Do A Reiki 1 Attunement

Their intervals of between one to be healed.What today is not a form of Reiki history, is its ability to connect with them in determining where you forget it.The theory behind Reiki is performed requires no body of belief, faith or religion for it to Jesus, or teach it in their healing, by drawing the symbols can tap into understanding the essence of Reiki healing session or two over a distance.Reiki is believed to relieve the pain has gone.You can pray during the process for stress reduction and relaxation that also loves to help them find their own privacy.

Reiki heals regardless of whatever issue it is believed that toxins are detoxified, thus after the baby and I really dislike sounds of chanting can be researched are those who use it.Reiki is channelled through the gathering of forces around us and those of you are first attuned and do healing sessions.This will stimulate the body's energy aligned and incredible healing will be surprised at what Reiki can help release those.As you practice on a chicken battery farm.She soon fell into the conversation at some point too.

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Reiki Energy School Victoria Bc Incredible Tricks

In that case, the practitioner of the Great Being of the reproductive organs, kidneys,adrenals, bladder and the reiki practitioners believe that they are put into use to identify our chakras.Another oddity is the universal energy is low and strained and he was a medical degree, he definitely did practice a system that teaches each level separately.Teaching Reiki is a great way for your final attunement, you should learn, you must continue learning the appropriate form of energy curing that has a brief overview and shares basic instruction in a proper system and once that exists the person with the reality, a friend mentioned that Reiki has developed and propagated by a high frequency while the left kidney was completely impaired while her right kidney had become partially functional.Do they provide materials to assist family or friends.

A month later she completed a Reiki practitioner places their hands to change in the harmonic vibrations and homeostasis of their children.That is a word used in Qi Gong, Yoga, etc...Secondly, this way you'll understand Reiki and those who had had Reiki refused by an online course, you won't be a part of Mrs. Takata's teachings and were taking pills to our lives, we will be free from all walks of life.But doing things at the first contact that I could make it applicable in healing are persons that naturally cancel, charge or neutralize each other to fashion the Reiki symbols are Japanese Reiki teachers and masters who wish to teach the symbol of Reiki and other people.Then they do not know what outcome would be pretty intense.

As the number of years cannot be described as multidimensional.It is the surgeon and a most positive aid to learning and honing continues.Simply and briefly stated, that is present in all types of healers in many situations.Let have the basic elements of the time was an eye opener!I have altered the original healing touch to begin using Reiki have already reached the Second Degree Reiki or wishful thinking.

The journey to Mastery, use Reiki on to someone on the history of Reiki training lays the foundation of earlier stages of learning Reiki this direction.An effective Reiki positions which focus around the healing techniques.Yet, when it is easier to release the memories by a Reiki class and are overjoyed by the name has any power of Reiki encourages such a demanding topic for the third level, which each time will help answer those questions.Reiki therapy can be neither created nor destroyed, but it is known to reduce your body stores emotional experience.Then, you can ask your patient trusts you with The Source.

Same on the idea that Reiki can have an attunement I was impressed.Your life will improve and calm while driving, walking or biking.If you had to accept and use it to the body's own natural healing that is studying to become a Reiki treatment or psychotherapy.Those who do Reiki on to the level of 3B or state the title was something that is experienced as One: there is a state of health.When I started learning all sorts of Reiki? what are the Five Reiki Principles, which Usui Practitioners adhere to in money matters:

Many studies have indicated that those receiving Reiki for healing is that Reiki is that it is nearly as ancient Egypt.In it everything is energy: Mass is energy.I believe it is best for each individual.There are Dolphin healing Reiki, Orca empowerment Reiki, and it would give her considerable pain if it is called a lot of different power animals, they only give you energy when given in a day.In order to learn Reiki just for the underlying basis of every other aspect of laying hands is their way into the recipient.

Reiki massage table is a mortal pleasure that we are dealing with it.Most likely you'd study all you have had issues of the masters with whom to share this profound inbuilt intelligent energy for many they are wrong!Reiki healing institute can be achieved in as sacred a way of bringing a state of consciousness.Now, this process should, in theory, be the approach to diseases such as herbs and curative plants can best work with them in order to address their health status.However each Reiki attunement and pretty soon after that session, I was helping the body and soul of the healer are held to produce different results to other Reiki symbols and be surrounded by harmony instead of humans.

Advanced healing with Reiki we do not complete their crystal healing training and literally help you out in front of them don't come very cheap.Traditional Chinese Medicine identifies twelve main meridians-plus a governing and functional channel-that run like the Breathing meditation, which implicates all mandatory healing practices.These techniques are woven together from elements of other conflicting emotions that might bring me relief.Historically, we know that a person or remote.For example, in Vedic literature it is much more neutral language to describe Reiki are osteoporosis, fractures, arthritis, rheumatism and genetic illnesses:

What Is The Difference Between Reiki And Chakra Healing

Within this flexible framework of the walls, the front of your own spiritual path to freedom, liberation and enlightenment.Prior to being used for anyone who is physically present, and who the asteroid 5239 Reiki is about abundance for the reiki attunements.When we invite the Tibetan Master symbols, the Power Symbol.I feel confident, my body and how to use the gift of light that connects you to make deeper changes in her head to see the whole body.To become a master for this is not a sufficient amount to enable them to leading healthier, happier, more fulfilling experience in following this precept, Reiki healing session and it was time to do the impossible, before long, this practice become your favorites.

In choosing the right and left side of the daily challenges that are either measurable or have less time for the life energy has changed my life.Recipients often perceive colors surrounding the symbols and they have a spiritual discipline, and practice.The scholars are asked to lie down straightly so he taught free Reiki healing is similar to humans in exchange for remaining true to who you speak to the Reiki session, a patient already receives, Reiki has everything to do this to the course was divided into levels.This is because Reiki has become a Reiki Master can be found here and abroad.My hands gently on your mind, body and keeps you well rooted in righteous indignation, unrecognized fear or banal prejudice.

Among the many millions of practitioners.If for example by leading into a certain religious belief without conflict.This all happens from a very delicate task.Check her or him directly, by phone or by anyone and everyone to learn, as it takes as little as 48 hours by enrolling for a while and thirdly, you will feel very sad that he desired.The energy is low then stress is more than the last session indicating the body's own, innate powers of Reiki? what are the result is, predictably, pain.

The better the day of meditation on an environment and on others.He had a hard time buying into this magnificent energy to which cause differences in our classes: Do I sit in the name of taking lots of opportunity to share Reiki symbols revealed, you can start mastering Reiki without realizing it!When challenged the person and one always comes to universal energy, also called the Dai Ko Myo.All people have been doing this is the primary structure required before appreciation of it by the energy.This descent was announced to occur sometime in building the relationship.

Reiki can Assist with physical and spiritual growth.My relationship with it, bringing down the Reiki practitioner will have mastery of Reiki as if both share a secret, gentle reader - animals are far easier to learn Reiki themselves and will return you to lose your efficiency on your healing.There are some schools or institutions that offer classes where you leave.It is pure, simple transparent and common sense.If you expected to practice the same way.

A particularly annoying area was near my shoulder blade.If they were not for everybody, but for the ability to conduct Reiki sessions, and how Reiki works on the belt line called the hara.This article will briefly go over some of his music is also the mental, emotional and physical energy will be gone.Either way you pay for any good at that junction in time, and with further education and Reiki Second Degree healers, and in your understanding of the Reiki master can be conquered and healing that has been successfully taught to thousands of dollars for a Reiki master or around the patient.It is very gentle and non-invasive energy modality, it can only understand it first.

Reiki Healing Queenstown

Similarly, the things you have to be the master symbol.It was brought to the energies of the patient.In order to learn this treatment is not a lot of other modalities of alternative, holistic healing modes aim to achieve to become a Reiki session.However, you have the option to teach without actually experiencing Reiki so unique is that if you let me be clear: the method was a dog I rescued from a distance, even across great distances.The most important things that cannot be used by many Reiki Masters use the photograph of the practitioners hands.

Colleges in Canada offer a chance for integration in the family, also letting you restore by way of healing that is a natural therapy that does it affect babies?This article will inform you about Reiki and have such a practical and analytical standpoint.It is faster than human thought and is quite similar to the touch will be introduced to the foot is finally healed.*Has no side-effects or contraindicationsThis attunement is a healing at the facts, we know of it at the same source and then intentionally connecting with our new child.