#the amount of people suffering from mental illnesses is concerning

[quiiescenza]

/

[gabrielsbubblegumbitch]

DROP YOUR DX FOR VOX !!!!! Please and thank you.

I would like to preface all my posts on headcanons related to psychology and mental illness with a disclaimer: diagnosing mental conditions, especially personality disorders, can be extremely challenging. It's a complicated process that relies heavily on a psychologist's interpretation of facts, making it susceptible to biases. Personality disorders cannot be diagnosed based on surface-level observations and are not just labels that we can assign to people like in the case of MBTI. Additionally, I am not a clinician with any expertise in diagnosing people. Therefore, the following post should not be taken as a reliable professional opinion. It's simply my interpretation of the internal mechanisms that may be responsible for the behavior of certain characters in my fan fiction. Furthermore, I want to make it clear that I have no intention of stigmatizing people with personality disorders by associating them with villains. A personality disorder does not determine someone's character or make them a bad person. Some characters may be evil because of the choices they make, not as a result of their mental conditions.

(I've already posted some stuff here so I'm not going to repeat myself.)

Okay, so, Vox has Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). It's crucial to distinguish this from "common narcissism" (people often described as "narcissists" by others just because they are egotist assholes; kinda ableist, you shouldn't do it because it's extremely stigmatizing towards people suffering with actual NPD) . While those individuals typically function well, those with NPD exhibit all the traits – grandiosity, egocentrism, attention-seeking, intense power fantasies – but as it's a disorder, these traits lead to inflexible and maladaptive patterns of behavior and cognition.

NPD has its roots in intense feelings of shame, low self-compassion, and self-loathing. In my interpretation, Vox has always felt inadequate. His father inherited an enormous amount of money, establishing a media conglomerate in the 20's. Vox's mother, captivated by the world of movies, used them to escape her reality as a trophy wife. Despite her dreams of becoming an actress, Vox's father, possessive and protective, prevented her entry into the entertainment industry. As a compromise, he made their son a child actor, with the condition that it would be temporary. When Vox grew older, he was expected to transition to learning business and other skills, ultimately to take over the family's empire.

So, Vox was never enough for either of his parents. His father thought of him as annoying and unserious due to his talkativeness and exaggerated behaviors, attributing it to growing up surrounded by actors. As for his mother... Vox turned out to be a terrible actor, struggling to convey emotions that weren't bombastic and over-the-top. Being a teenager is humiliating enough, but imagine being a teenager bad at something and forced to do it for a worldwide audience, when the whole production crew is annoyed with you. Fortunately, he grew up to be devilishly handsome (not to be a simp, I just believe someone must be handsome to endure the ethereal punishment of having their face swapped for a TV screen) and entertaining, leading them to make him a TV host and media personality.

Anyway, NPD is all about creating a perfect self and projecting it to the world when you're deeply ashamed of your true self. It means that, no matter what you're doing, you're constantly concerned about how it looks to other people. You constantly play an exhausting game, trying to win gold stars of social admiration for every-fucking-thing, guided by superficial ideals of wealth, perfection, beauty, and, above all, power. One reason Alastor's existence bothers Vox so much is the fact that he cannot comprehend the idea of someone choosing radio over his "objectively better and correct" medium. Vox lacks the ability to understand nuanced sentiments, which ironically makes him thrive in Hell. In this anarchocapitalist, lawless society, survival of the fittest prevails, and this is a game he excels at playing.

Generally, the best approach for individuals with NPD is to pull them out of delusional thinking by confronting their beliefs about the world and themselves with reality (it should be performed by qualified therapist, especially when someone hasn't completed any kind of therapeutic process yet). However, in Hell, Vox's behavior was no longer in violation of social norms; on the contrary, it was highly rewarded. Consequently, he completely lost his shit, became unhinged, and began acting on all his previously suppressed urges. He finally fulfilled all narcissistic power fantasies and became (almost) untouchable. Now, he's ready to kill anyone who questions him, seeing it as threatening to his fragile image of the perfect self.

He exhibits strong bipolar tendencies. Most of the time, he's power-tripping in a semi-maniacal state. Periodically, he undergoes deep, depressive episodes, locking himself up in his apartment and avoiding interaction.

Constantly guarding this fragile image of the perfect self that he built is exhausting. The bigger this image gets, the more fragile it becomes, like a house of cards. And guarding it becomes more and more exhausting. But there's nothing scarier than the idea of the facade falling apart and people seeing him as he is: imperfect and vulnerable, damaged and ashamed, rotten and evil. Deep down, he knows he's unlovable, and it hurts. He knows that true love exists; he craves this ultimate form of admiration and devotion, but it requires vulnerability and honesty, which he's not capable of. He's only vulnerable with Valentino, and only occasionally when he's intoxicated or when Val fucks every last thought out of his body. He's very much a controlling top insecure about his masculinity, so the latter happens rarely.

Also, drugs. Oh, do this man enjoy some coke. Other drugs and booze, not so much; they make him feel less in control. But getting coked up, going out, causing a scene, killing some poor souls, and relishing this feeling of being completely untouchable? Feels so good.

When it comes to Alastor, he hates him because he's jealous. Despite all his efforts—building a perfect persona, a perfect company, perfect entertainment—this stinky, outdated, and boring radio demon gets so much attention and admiration that should be his. Moreover, he feels that Alastor can see right through his bullshit. He's so paranoid about it that he's almost certain Alastor knows about his childhood traumas, about his death, about all his truths, and could one day broadcast it for all people of Hell to hear. So, he needs him dead.

Note: these headcanons (especially Vox's past) are very important part of my fanfiction. Please feel free to use them in your fics but I'll appreciate if you tag me 🩷

Velvette hc | Valentino hc | Vees + Angel hc | VoxVal hc

[whereserpentswalk]

Capitalism's narrative of eternal security

Sometimes I think about people who, in 2023, still make covid the main part of their politics. Like people who legitimately want full lockdowns to have been constant for the past three years. It feels like they're still stuck in 2020, like, looking at their posts, their weird shrinking subreddit, makes me feel strangely nostalgic. There's a point where it goes from a coherent ideology (because I think we understand by now that there's not going to be some magic event to make covid go away) to something closer to "the world is terrible and people suffer, so any happiness is morally wrong".

I feel like there's a deeply conservative trend to want to regulate the world into something completely safe. It goes back to 9/11, both in the very tangible things like the no-fly list, and the narrative people had around it. I don't know this for a fact because it predated my birth, but there were people who wanted to cancel Halloween that year, or asked if there would ever be comedy again, after the attack, which isn't logical, but is the type of thing that makes sense to a traumatized brain. This idea that society must be regulated by an overarching authority to keep everyone safe, the idea that everyone's ability to live their life is secondary to a vague idea of security.

Even the idea that a group is unsafe is the core emotion behind a lot of bigotry. It's a big reason why a lot of people want closed borders, it's why a lot of people want to regulate the rights of trans people, it's created a type of policing that disproportionately hurts poor people, poc, and the homeless, its why mentally ill people have basically no rights in this country. There's this idea that the freedom, and often even the life of marginalized people, is limited by standards of public safety. Even going back to covid, the idea that no harm done by covid was acceptable is based on the idea that harm and death from unemployment, abuse, and mental health issues are acceptable. So much of humanity is more confident that we can abolish nature then that we can abolish capitalism.

We always present safety like it's this trolly problem every society must grapple with, with no easy answer. But once you realize it's the freedom of the marginalized, and the safety (or often just the feeling of safety) of the privileged.

In a way the entire system of capitalism is just forcing people to give up their freedom for safety from things capitalism caused. And when people make fortunes off of making people sell their freedom for safety, they end up really hating when you want to abolish the danger they profit off of, rather than just passively "protecting people" from it.

I don't think I'm wording everything well. But I think it's something to think about. I feel like the prime emotion behind conservativism for the average person isn't hatred but fear. And fear isn't rational, it's why it's hard to use rational arguments for any of this. When someone says something like "we need to regulate trans healthcare to prevent any cis children from being harmed" it's hard to defeat that with pure numbers, statistics are only calming to people who want to be calmed by them, you could mention that it's harming trans people to regulate these, but that doesn't help because their fear narrative is about cishet children having their status as socially conforming taken from them, not about trans people being tangibly harmed. The only real way to refute this line of thinking (especially as it starts to infect our own communities on the left, and not just outside ones) is to break the narrative that there's some amount of nebulose harm that takes away our rights. There's a reason why deaths under capitalism aren't a concern for the type of people who say our society should prioritize safety, it's more about

An airport with strip searches would be safter from terrorism. A world where lockdown was a permanent policy for the rest of the foreseeable future would have less people harmed by illness. A world where people were chemically castrated until marriage would have almost no sexual assault. For the most part we reject these worlds, even if they're safer we've decided that there are reasons why we don't want this level of safety if it means being subject to certain conditions. And we can extend that to more radical things too, we can say that we don't care if the world is safter with cops, we still don't want cops to exist. We can say we don't care if the world is safter with borders, we still don't want borders to exist. We can reject more narratives of fear. And that includes ones we see popping up in our own communities.

God this post was long, and I didn't even mention ecofascists being a thing, or the leftist argument against gun control. Maybe next time.

[playedbetter]

Every Shinigami has a different method of procuring a human's remaining lifespan. Of course every Shinigami writes the human's name in their Death Note to kill them, thus claiming that human's remaining lifespan for their own, but it's which human the Shinigami chooses that varies. Some choose humans who have less time left to live, to be more merciful, in a way. Others choose humans who have a lot of years left on their lives, to give themselves more time. Other Shinigami choose completely at random, without any regard to a human's remaining lifespan.

Doomsday chooses completely at random. She doesn't particularly care who she kills, and that's not because she's concerned about forming attachments or anything, it's simply because it doesn't matter to her. Whenever she needs to add more time onto her own life, she looks through a portal into the human world, picks out the first human she sees, writes their name in her notebook, and goes about her day. Unless they have a small amount of time left, and then she might write a few names before calling it a day.

Sometimes, though, when she's bored and making bets with Ryuk and taking turns throwing their notebooks through the portals to mess with the humans, Doom will observe the humans a bit more closely. She's spent a bit of time both on Earth and watching the goings on of Earth through the portals. Whenever Ryuk is with a human on Earth, she watches him through the portals, laughing at his successes and failures. Whenever she herself is with a human on Earth, she learns all that she can about them.

She's learned how very greedy some of them are. How power hungry. Some of them like to hoard wealth. If they hoarded anything else it'd be called a mental illness and they'd have people from all over the city called in to haul away all their stuff, but if they're hoarding resources? Cash? Then apparently it's okay. Applauded, even, and heavily protected by the law, even if it's directly causing the suffering of millions of others.

Humans are really weird. And as evidenced, they love death.

This human would certainly love death. Call it a sixth sense, Doom can just tell. He has a lot of money and power, a certain ambitious air about him that tells her he'll give her the show she wants. The death parade. Ryuk will be impressed after this. This human is going to make his first human look like Gandhi.

Giggling to herself, Doomsday creeps into the office of Lex Luthor and simply drops her notebook right there on his desk, right where she knows he'll see it. She's been watching him for a few weeks now, she roughly knows his comings and goings in this little part of the world. It's not likely anyone else will come in and get to it first. And if they do? Well. That just might be interesting too.

That done, she then goes off and does her own thing for a little while. She'll know when her notebook has been claimed. And when it's used. And from that point, she'll have 39 days to reveal herself to the new owner of the Death Note.

(tldr; Lex Luthor has been given a gift by Shinigami Doom!)

@the-haunted-office

Plotted Asks / Accepting!

He'd just returned from a meeting about furthering the company presence in various countries, he approved or denied each for his own reasons mostly tying to how lax their enforcement of scientific ethics were. Progress was never made without some broken eggs, and it was far easier if nobody made any fuss over those eggs.

Immediately he noticed the notebook on his desk, he knew he didn't put it there, and it looked too out of place to be put there by any of his employees. Especially with a title like death note on it. This was certainly a sloppy attempt at delivering contact poison to him in order to kill him.

He retrieved a thick pair of gloves and put them on before touching the note and examining it. The text inside was certainly fascinating, if true. Considering the world he lived in where aliens and magic walked amongst man, he wasn't going to take any chances by letting anybody else take hold of it. He let the security team know to review the footage of his office before he went off to his lab to further examine the death note.

Upon review he found nothing off with the notebook, no poison or drugs, no clue as to where it came from. Stranger yet the security team came back with the story that the notebook had just suddenly appeared. This made the likelihood that this was real skyrocket in his opinion. He still hadn't touched the notebook.

He'd test it. He wrote down the name of a competitor he had in the market space, one he had a meeting with that very week, and wrote down that during the meeting they would have a sudden, fatal, brain aneurysm. As he did so, he still did not touch the notebook, as he was wearing lab gloves.

During the meeting he couldn't help but pay extra attention to his rival, did the man have a ticking clock over his head? Only time would tell. And tell it did when they suddenly grasped their head and collapsed dead. On the inside, Lex smiled.

Finally back at his lab alone afterwards, he picked up the notebook without thought to put on any gloves beforehand, finally becoming its official owner. He flipped it open to the first writable page and considered his next steps.

[animehouse-moe]

Call The Name of The Night Volume 1

No, this is not Call of The Night. There are no vampires (yet), there is no romance, and it's not the modern day. But then what it is? Well, I think the best example that people will understand is that it's a more benign Witch Hat Atelier. A whimsical and incredibly wide world of exciting and beautiful magic, filtered through the lens of wonder and excitement of a child. However, one large twist remains that gives this manga the perfect reason to exist.

Marrying the pieces of fantasy that people love the most with a real concept is always a terrific recipe for expression and explanation of them, and Call The Name of The Night makes full use of that. Our main character, Mira, suffers from an affliction that causes her to manifest night all around her sometimes. It engulfs everything around her until she herself remains alone in the darkness. Because of this, she's living with a magical doctor named Rei, who is searching for a cure to Mira's ailment. I don't think it's really a secret to explain, but the "night" in this story is a manifestation of Mira's mental health and emotions. It's not clear cut enough to just be "anxiety" as it runs deeper than that, but a lot of the symptoms appear as anxiety, if that makes any sense.

Regardless, together the two live out a really wonderful life that balances Mira's happiness, and her emotional and mental wellbeing very well. It juggles the act of explaining and expressing Mira's emotions and thoughts with a really beautiful rendition of a magical world to explore.

Leaving that to settle a little, the art for Call The Name of The Night fits it perfectly. It's very bright and soft. Capturing that eccentric and almost playfully mischievous nature quite well. The magic of the series is meant to be a spectacle when we see it, and the smoother and more round designs lend themselves to it quite well. It's not overly detailed because it shouldn't look real, and so the art has put just the right amount of space between it and "real" to really let it blossom and catch the eye's of readers.

Alongside that, a lot of the paneling is really well done. I personally really like this page from the prologue. The paneling does a great job of establishing the important bits early on. How much Mira relies on Rei, and how kind Rei is to Mira. The volume of panels helps sell that feeling of anxiety and pressure, and finishing off with a wide shot of the empty house Mira is in sells her feeling of isolation.

I'd say it's some standout stuff in spite of all the panels being rectangular, and in general there's a lot of really stunning angles and layouts for pages that lean into the best aspects of the story at that point in time.

So now, back to a bit of story and characterization. Mira is currently living with the doctor, Rei, to find a way to cure her ailment, this means she lives separate from her parents. Through pieces of flashback and information we see that she was basically forced out of her own village because she's "cursed". Incredibly thankfully, the story dispels concerns about the parents being involved in any such behavior, and instead provides a really wonderful approach. They're empathetic of the struggles and fears of Mira, and provide their support to the best of their ability despite the distance between them. It produces a really wonderful moment, and instead of capping it off with tears from Mira, the story opts to give it a bright and sunshine-y finishing point for the chapter.

This is just a manga that really exemplifies what it sets out to do. The magic is incredibly cute and beautiful to experience, and the progression of Mira's illness, and her perception of it are incredible. There's little twists and turns, and even different perspectives and methods... we'll say "forced", into the process, and it comes out as a wonderful discussion about how mental health works. Reaffirming the positive behavior and being a shoulder to lean on during the darker times. Providing a safe and happy space to explore and understand yourself, but not one that allows you to shrink further inward, as there's always that gentle hand placed on your back that encourages you to move forward and find ways to conquer and accept your fears.

[headingalaxys-spicy]

🌟Last Writing Post of 2022!🌟

The Golden Nightingale part.2 @nubigenouss as promised a tag in the newest part.

Enjoy y’all . Also in 2023 I will be going back though my work to make edits so there is more to read and so I can improve the writing.

Part 1

America- The Tourmaline Daydream

The World stage where Hero’s came to showcase their powers and prove to the world their worth. Hollywood dazzle need not fail Alfred F. Jones now.

He cleared his throat and coughed a little. Time to walk on that tight line of being strong yet allowing vulnerabilities to show. The con man has come alive. The hot ash from the already burning fire sucked the miniscule amount of oxygen from the room. Causing tensions to run higher.

“My people have been suffering in the health department. Many of them have succumbed to mental or physical illnesses that have left me in a state of national emergency. A specialized type of forest fungus has taken over the eastern and western coasts of my nation. The spores are beginning to spread across the midwest as we speak. Production will creep to a crawl, not enough for me, then none for trade. The world will feel the brunt of my nation’s suffering if I don’t have the nightingale.”

He begins to pace and make individual eye contact with everyone as he continues.

“If this fungi is allowed to continue… then future generations will be smaller in comparison. Less people to contribute to ground breaking research, production, and less brilliant minds to lead America! We’re all interconnected and the leading nation of innovation. If I begin to slag behind so will the rest of you!”

“Explain how you’re the only one who has ‘innovation’ Pompous American.” Was what some wanted to say but kept it to themselves in the back of their minds.

“If I have the golden nightingale. I will carry on bravely. I want to MARRY Y/N the nightingale. It’s the only way that I can get my nation back on track so I can aid the rest of you and finish some of the commitments that I have with some of you.

His eyes wander over all the nations briefly making eye contact with his cunning fox-like smile. Without looking into the windows of his soul it portrayed the expression of one who is trying to be brave in the face of adversity.

“As an example of some of the commitments I won’t be able to finish…..Germany. I won’t be able to send over that new medical technology that we’ve discussed. I’ve had to divert 20% of it into resources that can help me stop the fungi from spreading further into our forests and wildlife. Containment has become difficult since the spores do attach themselves to any animal that brushes up against them or bees that carry them to other parts of my ecosystems. The longer this goes on who knows… it could be right on your doorstep by next week. There are still some effects of the mushrooms that we haven’t identified yet. And things can get worse.”

He faces his audience head on as if he expected them to state some absurd objection. He was searching for doubt. So he could devour it. All in the room had barely readable expressions that were laced with concern.

The Italian had his amber orbs open, for once not distracted by doodling or chowing down on Pizza during the middle of the meeting. The ramifications of not handing the Nightingale over to America would mean all may have an ecological disaster that can severely damage the quality of life for all the people in his nation.

‘Merda. The American has a point. If he doesn’t get the Nightingale to repel the ecological / endemic in his nation that doesn’t bode well for my population that is struggling with crops. I’ll disappear like Grandpa Rome.’ Italy simply kept his hands folded in front of his mouth as he let the American continue on during his last minute to make his case.

“So if you dudes don’t want fungi that tampers with brain matter within humans and give them hallucinations for 78 hours which leads them to their deaths, makes a person or animal a brain dead potato, or can paralyze you I suggest you allow me to Marry Y/N so this can all go away and we can be safe. That elusive mushroom is well on its way to entrapping the world in a glittery neurotic yellow haze. None of you would be prepared for it. So grant the Hero his superpowers!”

‘Verdammt! So America has a different type of endemic that has sprung from the forests’ fungi while in my nation it’s more of a poisonous moth that makes people and animals sick. Hm. I wonder if this means….’

He allows his eyes to wander over to your unconscious form that was in a glass and lonsdaleite orb. One of the multitudes of rainbow rays that reflected off of the shiny bubble that encased you and struck his brilliant blues. He’s never seen a more beautiful person in his life.

He reaches for his pure aquamarine tourmaline and holds it up to his assembly.

“I am Alfred F. Jones and I want the right to marry y/n so I can become strong and fulfill my solemn duty as a Hero to save the world!”

England couldn’t help but grimace at that statement. He allowed his verdant eyes to admire the enchanted shackles that you were in. They were gold and had been placed upon your neck, ankles, and wrists. If only performing the spell he had in mind didn’t take so much energy from him.

The room was smoldering over with heavy silence. Many wanted to add in their logs to keep the blaze going.

“Okay only two questions can be asked. Who has some?” Germany states as the timer on his phone signaled that America’s Heroic speech time has officially ended.

“Question America. How long have you known about this invasive fungus and its devastating effects?”

“Within the last week.”

“When were you planning to tell all of the international community? Or were you planning to keep it a -”

“That’s three questions. Keep it simple Russia. We do need to keep this meeting moving efficiently seeing that we all have urgent matters we need to attend to.”

“Now, after I had all of the necessary information ready to announce.” He pulled out a newspaper and iPhone that showed news of the fungus running amok in an international UK publishcation.

His flaxen eyebrows lowered while his smile remained plastered on his face. The answer was just satisfying enough to where he couldn’t add in more fuel currently.

Sounds of cellphones sending mass messages tore through the room while some were simultaneously writing. Even Germany was distracted .

“Entshuldgung. I needed to alert my officials of something. Next, China. You have five minutes to make your case.”

‘Of course. I’ve been skipped.’ He drums his fingers in annoyance as he passively listens to Yao try and convince the nations to not hand you over to America.

His violet eyes wander over to your form. You had moved slightly with your forearm covering your eyes from the concentrated light in your constricting dome. ‘Poor Y/N being auctioned off just so that these jerks can gain power. Not even recognizing that you’re human and have dreams.’ As he struggles with how the others could be selfish. The Angelite on his necklace emitted a soft glow beneath his flannel.

In the inner depths of your subconscious you saw a calming sky blue light filled your vision. Curiosity filled your mind. You felt drunk and in a winter star haze. Miniscule snowflakes touched your face and an ease swept over your body.

You soon found yourself near a flame and had a hot chocolate that shimmered with peppermint flakes and marshmallows and foam that formed the shape of a polar bear.

‘Well at least it’s nice where I am.’ You sip at the piping hot drink leisurely as you pay no mind to the rest of the void that surrounded you and the fragments of memories that some you could recognize but others were foreign to you. They floated in the air like bubbles traveling aimlessly through space.

‘Y/N? Y/N?’ A muted male voice echoed through the thick navy blue blackness. You didn't react to it. You let your mind wander as you stared at your drink.

‘Y/N! Y/N! Can you hear me? Please Maple. I won’t harm you!’

This time your ears perked up to the disembodied call.

‘Okay. Uh Hello? Where are you? Who are you but also what?’

‘You’re in danger in real life Y/N.’ The voice was closer and it lost its echo.

‘Definitely don’t know what you mean. I exist…. And seem very much so free.’ You gesture to all of the speckled blank space that was filled with memories of both you and Canada.

‘So you don’t know you’ve been captured? That your life now hangs on the line. That all who are in our meeting room are in the middle of determining your fate as if you were a criminal of sorts. All because you have an actual heart of gold.’

You couldn't help but laugh at his ridiculous statement.

‘Okay, whatever you say uh… bear man with a curl.’ You giggle and Canada is caught off guard by how cute you sound in your subconscious. Would it be the same as if in person?

‘I’m Matthew. Y/N and I’m here to help you. Please listen to me when I say that you’re in danger!’ His panic ignited the power of his Angelite. He wanted to shield you from the iniquitous master plans that he knew the others had for you.

Your eyes concentrated on how his soft yet angelic face contorted worry. As you were about to elaborate on what sort of danger you were in you suddenly felt the ground beneath you drag you down.

‘Y/N!!!’

It felt like thousands of points on a multitude of stars decided to dig into your legs and you sunk deeper into the pitch black that was laced with fragments of memories.

‘Matthew! Save me!’ The tar had fully consumed you, disconnecting you from Matthew.

England thumped his gloved fingers against the mahogany table top as he looked at his viridescent diamond. It projected to him what was going on in your subconscious. He hid his frown with his hand as he glared at the Canadian that gawked at you. Not even remotely listening to Yao make his case for you.

‘Looks like Canada is going to be an issue for me.’

[creepyscritches]

read the tags. im so sorry people are being such dipshits to you. my situation is different of course but i also get comments like that when i lose weight caused by ILLNESS. people are so braindead. but anyway i highly recommend a dietrician!! theyre generally actually reasonable and knowledgeable about healthy eating and healthy weight. best place you could go for it honestly

Tbh it sounds like the same basic situation for both of us. "Weight is lower than desired due to illness" is actually a pretty widespread health concern, but (as a result of fat phobia) it's not seen as a problem. "Be thin at any cost" mentality will always result in medically underweight people being put on this weird pedestal by the general public--that is if they're deemed "attractive" enough to deserve the envy. Those who don't make the cut fall into the "bean pole" bucket that's either ignored entirely or used occasionally for low hanging fruit joke fodder.

Being fat is not bad and being thin is not good. Morality is not tied to weight. Demonizing fat people hurts not only fat patients but also patients desperately trying to gain weight. If my chronic illness poo poo 120lb body is the doctor's idea of "a goal weight" then doctors are never trying to help fat patients be healthy by losing huge amounts of weight. THIS is the ideal?? THIS is dangerous.

The times I see weight counseling in a patient encounter are usually paired w a surgery that has a risk spike at a certain weight (either due to dosage req, projected blood loss, pressure on certain organs, etc) or it's one of many options to relieve physical symptoms in certain diagnoses like osteoarthritis, COPD, or OSA (or sleep apneas in general if you're a back-sleeper). The pitfall most doctors hit is that it's the main treatment they pursue instead of offering everything available that is 1) safe 2) effective 3) reasonable. Telling a sick person to lose a quarter of their body weight before they'll get any help is inhumane with no other way to describe it and it colors how weight is handled for ALL patients.

It's also worth quickly mentioning that a person at ANY weight can suffer from malnutrition. Severe malnutrition can be the spark for a normal hospital stay to turn into a scary hospital stay while doctors try to stabilize your wack metabolic levels. There is no weight that you can automatically assume is healthy. You just think it looks good, but looks aint shit when it comes to health. While I'm in the underweight pool, that doesn't mean considering a dietitian is a 'thin' thing--dietitians are for literally anyone that eats. Just be sure you're not getting pulled into a weight loss product scam since a lot of those claim to have medical backing. Anyone that completes their schooling can be a practitioner, ethics are not a-given nor do they seem to be required in a lot of places. Focus on the nutrition and health balance of it all, be wary of those who push dramatic weight loss.

[exuberantocean]

Ted’s the Adult Child of an Alcoholic...let me convince you why

Watching Ted Lasso, I thought it was a given that Ted’s dad was an alcoholic, but in conversation recently I found that there were many that disagreed with that assessment.  So I thought I’d put down on pape - er screen why.  Arguably any one of these reasons may not be enough to convince you that he was an alcoholic, but taken together I think it makes a pretty clear picture.  I’ve put the more convincing points toward the top of the list.

1. Ted’s few comments about his father nearly always revolve around alcohol.  

The counter to this is that beer/bars are part of midwestern culture and maybe that’s so (I’m not Midwestern so I can’t speak to that), but that still doesn’t mean you’re not an alcoholic.  Nor does it mean the amount someone might be drinking is healthy/safe just because it’s normalized.  I also think it was a particular choice to make sure alcohol/bars nearly always comes up when Ted talked about his dad.  Everything in this show is intentional, after all.

2. Ted has a lot of the characteristics of an adult child of an alcoholic. 

Adult children of alcoholics have been well studied and tend to share a set of personality characteristics.  While they won’t be expected to tick ever box on the list (it’s not possible as some are counter to each other) Ted ticks enough to really raise an eyebrow.  These include: have an overwhelming sense of responsibility, be concerned more with others than themselves, stuff their feelings, become terrified of abandonment, do anything to hold on to a relationship, have difficulty with intimate relationships, and be frightened of angry people.  

There are a few more that are a little iffy but possibly apply like: become isolated (we see this in s2 to a degree), become approval seekers (I think people pleaser would be more accurate a term for Ted), become alcoholics, become reactors instead of actors.

Also, as an adult child of an alcoholic, a lot of Ted’s behaviors ping true to myself and my siblings, as well as a few of my friends who’ve had parents who were addicts.

3. People who suffer from alcoholism are up to 120 times more likely to take their own life than those who are not dependent on alcohol./Alcoholism is often comorbid with other mental health illnesses.

Yes, people who don’t suffer from alcoholism sometimes commit suicide and obviously not all alcoholics go on to kill themselves, but it is a risk factor.  Alcohol is also often comorbid with other mental health illnesses, meaning that it is possible alcohol was a tool his father might have been using to try and cope with depression, anxiety, or whatever mental illness he may have had.

4.Jason Sudeikis’s grandfather was an alcoholic whose addiction separated him from his family and probably factored into his death, directly or indirectly.

Ted Lasso is a very personal show to Jason.  He once called it the closest thing he had to a tattoo.  And he frequently uses pieces of his own life and the people around him in the show.  Jason’s paternal father was an alcoholic who, due to his addictions, became homeless and ultimately died very suddenly when Jason’s father was very young.  Given that Jason often puts really life aspects of his life, family, friends, etc into his story, its reasonable that he’s used this in the backstory of Ted’s dad.

Anyway, these are the reasons I think Ted’s father was an alcoholic.

[callipraxia]

Continuing from the conversation in the reblogs of the link below the keep-reading, since while the broad subject of "let's ramble about mental illness and substance abuse metaphors in this kids' show!" is still the same, I'm on to talking about a different character (Specifically, Fiddleford)/realized belatedly that the OP might appreciate this.

So, Fiddleford and his memory gun.

It is, as usual, impossible to be 100% sure of much about the Portal era, considering that Ford's view of reality seems to have already started becoming distorted by the time he began writing Journal 3, and it is true that Fiddleford's signs of trauma after, say, the gremlobin incident, or his nerves when he realized what the probability of failure was, were actually pretty reasonable responses to the things that he was going through. However, Ford does act as though he's always been a bit concerned about Fiddleford's nerves, and when everything is taken into account, it seems more probable than not that the man does/did suffer from some form of anxiety disorder, probably in the OCD 'family.' Once I accept this premise, his story rapidly becomes a solid metaphor about the dangers of self-medicating.

Yes, yes, I know. The moral of the story is to deal with your problems...but nevertheless: the memory gun works as a metaphor for drugs and compulsions and how they don't really solve your problems, and it works especially well, I think, as a metaphor for alcohol and/or sedatives (Ativan, Valium, etc.). When used judiciously and with deliberate goals and limits, these things can be highly useful, or at least do more good than harm (alcohol is an antiseptic, for a lot of history it has been safer to drink than the average water supply, and it at least used to sometimes be 'prescribed' to people with certain heart problems who couldn't afford expensive medications, nerve pills are actual medicine, and as for the gun, we have the canon examples of the end of 'A Tale of Two Stans' and the finale). If you start to feel you need a drink after work every day to keep coping with your job, though, or needing a nightcap just to go to sleep...that can go real bad, and that's if you aren't developing this habit on top of OCD and/or one of its sister disorders. Fiddleford does appear to have such a disorder, and while he already had some ritualistic behavior (his Cubik's Cube, his alleged superstitions around graves, his tendency toward trichotillomania, the amount he checks and rechecks his work), he really loses control of himself when he gets access to the memory gun.

I suspect, between the temptation to instant relief it presented him every minute of every day and the secretive nature of it (no doctor supervising him, nobody frowning disapprovingly into his trash can, etc.) that memory gunning himself at the slightest inconvenience became both addictive drug and compulsion for him at some point, to the point that he was eventually frying his brain for even such a minor stressor as cutting himself shaving - or rather, for such seemingly minor stressors, since to him...who knows what that looked like? Anxiety Brain is wonderful at forming objectively sketchy connections that spiral into long chains of increasingly frantic 'reasoning.' From an outside viewer's perspective: it's a scratch, big deal. A path I could imagine Fiddleford's brain going along might run more like: "I cut myself shaving - why are my hands so shaky, why did that happen - were my hands even shaking, or was I just not paying attention? I can't do anything right! I can't even shave right, never mind raise a kid right! Which reminds me that I haven't seen my son in six months, I might as well have been cheating on my wife, I'm a terrible husband, a terrible father, just a terrible man, why didn't I do something before things got so out of control?? I could have stopped all of this, but now my Friend is out of his mind, he might end the world any day now, I don't know if my wife would have me back at this point if I even had the guts to go home and beg, and now I have this cult to run - but how can I run a cult when I can't even be man enough to face my own family? And it's slipping out of my control, I never meant things to go this far - They're all gonna turn on me, Stanford and Ivan and Emma-May are all gonna team up and murder me, oh God, it all makes sense now - !").

And then the gun made all that noise just...stop. He could sleep. He could run a cult. He could do things other than worry about Ford blowing up the planet any day now, or what was going on at home, or if the things he saw in the gremlobin's eyes could really happen. As soon as it started, he could just...make it all go away, as often as he wanted, at the click of a button. And by the time the side effects started becoming obvious, and he was losing his ability to speak properly and tearing his hair out without even remembering he'd done it and stealing clothes off scarecrows, well...thinking about those side effects, wondering if this thing he feels he cannot live without anymore could be responsible for them, was almost as distressing as thinking about all those motor accidents. Which, naturally, meant it was time for another mind wipe/drink....

So, there, started a couple of days ago and then delayed until I found this tab again though it is, you have it, @gravi-mania - the tale of how one could, if so inclined, warp the backstory of Gravity Falls into a story about bright young things whose lives fall apart courtesy of one of them getting too many uppers and the other getting too many downers. Make the framing device "Stan finally got out of prison after thirty years and went to visit his brother in the state hospital, where Ford laid eyes on him and immediately started yelling about portals and the end of the world and Stan doesn't even know what; as a result, Stan decides to stick around long enough to narrate the whole sorry tale, Prince of Tides-style, to the new doctor Ford seems to think is their nephew," and you could even get some super-depressing sober commentary on society and the justice system in there, too, along with at least very slightly lowering the research load, since sticking to that point of view would limit the scope of things to what he could see/what he knows about rather than going too deep into everyone else's heads and happenings. Though tbh, I suspect going with "yeah, let's just...not" is still the wisest possible course of action all around. really.

[pillarsalt]

hi hello ms pillarsalt would you mind sharing what kind of iud you have? i have adenomyosis and my cycle pain has been getting progressively worse but i am terrified of hormonal birth control bc all the pill type ones i was on as a teen gave me horrible stomach trouble like to the point we thought i had Crohn's disease. but im also scared of the copper one bc my body has rejected metal b4. basically if u have a hormonal iud can you comfort me that it wont make me constantly sick bc i would like to stop passing out from pain at work and nobody seems to want to discuss this type of treatment yk

I'm sorry to hear you're going through this, it sounds terrible. As I'm sure you already know, I'm not a doctor and I can't tell you if getting a hormonal IUD will help alleviate your adenomyosis. I can tell you my experience with it, though. I have a Mirena IUD which is hormonal. Here is a screenshot from their website about the effectivity:

So right away I can tell you that before I had it installed nearly five years ago, my periods were heavy as hell. The cramps sucked of course, but the main issue was how much I would bleed and bleed. I would go through probably seven or eight superplus (heaviest) tampons a day and even have to wear a pad at the same time so I could get through a class without bleeding through my pants. I got it installed (usually they schedule it for when you're on your period so your cervix is softer), had a period for about a month afterward, and then my periods became so light that I didn't even have to buy menstrual products anymore. Basically there was a small amount of discoloured discharge that would signal that I was menstruating, with some very light cramps akin to when you ovulate. Now my periods are getting heavier again because I need to get it replaced soon, but apparently the pregnancy prevention aspect is still good for a couple years so it's not as much of an emergency as I thought (gotta find a doctor soon lmao).

I haven't had really any side effects that I could tell you about. I've had issues with mental illness since I was about 13 but they didn't get any worse with the installation of my IUD. Actually I'm doing better than I ever have in my adult life in that aspect. I haven't had any digestive issues like the stomach pain you mentioned, no weight gain or weight loss. My skin is clear almost all the time and I generally feel physically well.

Now, will it help with your adenomyosis? I think it's really worth talking to your doctor about. The hormonal medication in the device, Levonorgestrel, thins the endometrium, which is why I bled far less during my period while on it. The endometrium that builds up in the muscular tissue of your uterus and causes you pain may be lessened in the same way. This part of the website that states why some people can't use it concerns me:

Because 1. I don't know if or how much your adenomyosis changes the shape of your uterus and 2. if your stomach trouble was an allergy to the medication itself then you'll likely have the same problem here. Basically, you've got to find a doctor who will listen to you and talk this and other options out with you, because it's inhumane to let you keep suffering this way.

Good luck to you, I really hope you can find a solution. I know getting this sort of stuff figured out is daunting and feels impossible sometimes but don't give up. Do your best to find a women's health clinic or at least a female doctor. It's going to be okay!

[musical-chick-13]

The thing that really Gets To Me™ (derogatory) about Control Z is that they are SO CLOSE to doing a good job on the representation of Sofía's mental illness.

Her mental breakdown in season 1 where she self-harms again while listening to a sad song, the ostracization she faces from her peers for being "crazy" and the feelings of alienation that come with it...and even smaller, isolated incidents: like being seen taking medication, knowing that medication so well from taking it so consistently that she can immediately tell when it's been tampered with, her being the one to say that Luis's drawing were just Catharsis Art and that artistically depicting something doesn't mean you actually want it to happen-that THINKING something doesn't mean you want it to happen, and INSTANTLY knowing that Natalia meant suicide when she said "something else" caused Maria's death-because she had made an attempt herself. (Whereas Javier had to have it said explicitly, because he's not used to thinking in vague "polite" language regarding suicide/mental illness the way Sofía is.) Even after Sofía has proven herself, when she tries to tell people what’s really going on at the end of season 3, people still accuse her of making things up and calling her “crazy,” because ableism is an ingrained prejudice that isn’t just going to go away because one mentally ill person did a cool thing.

Like, they genuinely do so many good things in depicting this, they just can't...fully...get there...

We have Sofía dealing with realistic levels of ableism from her classmates at school, but Raúl was one of the people participating in this and that just. Never gets mentioned. It’s not even just that she forgives him for that (though trust me, I hate that, too), it’s that no one brings it up at all! Mental illness has had a considerable, significant impact on Sofía’s life (as mental illness is wont to do), it is-as it stands right now in Sofía’s story-an inextricable part of her overall life experience. You’d think someone would at least acknowledge that Raúl was part of the problem and actively making her suffering through ableism worse (despite claiming to care about her). But straight up no one ever does.

And they also started off with an interesting angle with Sofía’s relationship to sex and romantic physicality. It’s not uncommon for people struggling with severe mental illness to have a complicated relationship with their sexuality, and Sofía’s experience at the party in season one, how uncomfortable she looked when told to kiss someone for fun, her awkward conversation with Javier after she chose him, all of this fed into that angle of the complex entanglement between sex, romance, and mental illness that can sometimes exist. I didn’t even have an issue with Sofía’s first hookup with Raúl, because it was obviously an impulsive decision born from her current state of crisis (fighting with her mom-specifically over being coddled and infantilized, which also can happen to mentally ill people-and having flashbacks to everything involving her dad), and the whole scene was darkly lit and frenetic. There was a weird red filter over everything, and the camera panning to Raúl’s hacker mask cast an ominous shadow over the whole thing. Sofía’s relationship with her sexuality was still complicated. She didn’t do this because she trusted him or because she’d gotten over her unsurety or other potential hang-ups. It was an impulsive decision to feel something other than what she was experiencing. This particular instance was an unhealthy coping mechanism, and considering what Raúl was doing at the time (i.e., being the worst boy alive), it proved to be the wrong decision.

Aaaaannd then they screw that all up in season 2. She immediately hooks up with Raúl again, after the smallest amount of an attempt at bonding time. There’s no further discussion at any point of Sofía’s hinted concerns and insecurities regarding sex. It’s like she had sex once (in a very unhealthy situation that was based on Raúl lying to her constantly) and then suddenly there were no issues any more. I could maybe chalk it up to a minor oversight, but when she gets together with Javier post-time-skip, she is completely fine with everything involving their sex life. She’s suddenly this sexually confident person, which as an arc (learning to separate her mental illness struggles and experiences with ableism from her ideas about sex) would have been really interesting! It’s a dimension we don’t often see in depictions of mental illness onscreen, but we are never shown how she got to this point. Sorry (I’m not), but if you have issues with something--anything (and especially if you are mentally ill)--you’re not just going to get over those issues by engaging with the thing you have a problem or insecurity with one time. That’s not how human beings work.

And it’s also...odd, that Sofía seems to lose all symptoms of mental illness when she’s around Raul-presumably because pairing them up would be impossible to make sense of otherwise. She (at least as far as I can remember), isn’t shown taking medication around him; she becomes more cavalier, making jokes/teasing comments in situations where doing so wouldn’t make sense; she starts brushing off pieces of conversations that should be red flags, especially for someone whose primary character trait is “observant”; and for someone who is characterized as being “in her head” all the time (EVEN AS PER RAÚL HIMSELF) because she is literally always observing and deducting--something very common among people who suffer from mental illness--her least thought-out, most rash actions all involve her relationship with Raúl. Which would be fine as a characterization choice if it were framed differently. But (ill-advised season 1 hook-up aside), nothing in her interactions with him: from responding to his aggressive advances in season 2 to her out-of-character teasing/borderline flirting that CONTINUES INTO WHEN SHE’S IN A RELATIONSHIP WITH JAVIER, to drinking more when she’s around him, is presented as impulsive or jarring or unhealthy. At best, you can argue it’s neutral. Mostly, it’s presented as “cute.” I’ve already talked about how Sofía’s personality and values have to change completely in order for this ship to have ANY believability, but probably what angers me the most is that any and all opportunities they had to discuss and depict Sofía’s mental illness get completely thrown aside the moment the narrative has her interact with Raúl.

(Addendum: many mentally ill people latch onto their personal morals/causes for fear of being a bad person. This interpretation (though I’m not sure it was intentional) makes sense for Sofía, whose primary trait-other than being observant-is that she is a nice person. But for someone so committed to her values, she’s willing to overlook Raúl’s faults (that he never tries to change or apologize for), which is especially egregious considering that she doesn’t forgive similar behavior from anyone else.)

It’s just so frustrating, because obviously they could fully commit to their choice to have their main character suffer from mental illness. They have enough good stuff and interesting characterization decisions that they are almost there in terms of this being well-represented. IF THEY TRIED A LITTLE HARDER, IT WOULD BE GREAT.

[ed-recovery-affirmations]

vent/rant i guess..

i see a lot of things regarding ed recovery that talk about how "i got sick and tired of being this way or of starving myself/ect. ect." and i just.. i appreciate the sentiment but that's never been how it works for me. at most, it's temporary motivation that fades out soon.

sometimes i'll be eating okay and then our stove is broken so i can hardly eat anything (i live with my parent as a student) and we can't go out either because our family friend is staying with us to do some repairs to our house, so my dad and him just eat steak every night or something similar. i tried steak with them once because i just. didn't feel like starving. and.. it wasn't my thing. so i can't really eat steak either because of the flavour and texture.

and i discovered the weight machine a few weeks ago so that's been.. not so conducive to my recovery. and i was losing weight. faster than i've ever lost weight before. and.. i found myself happy about it. it wasn't any sort of concerning rapid weight loss, but.. i was happy.

found out i can actually make food in an instantpot now. which is.. not ideal, but. it's better than nothing. and now i'm not really losing weight anymore which.. is a little bit of a disappointment?

anyways, as i was saying. i fluctuate constantly between: "ok lets do this. i like eating food because it tastes good i want to consume it." and "ew i hate food i don't like eating food it makes me gain weight i don't like it."

(i think it may be good to note that eating doesn't actually make me gain weight with the amount of food i used to consume daily. i think it's mostly bloating since i always tend to return back to the same weight in the morning and then hover around the same weight after i eat food.)

agh, i guess this is kind of long. but. idk. needed to get this out to someone who actually understands lol

Hi! I'm glad you found my blog a safe place to get this out! I took a while to get to this (It's taking me some time to get to asks rn bc Life) but I think that a lot of people will be able to relate to this. It can be really hard to commit to recovery, especially because peoples' EDs & motivations can fluctuate. I definitely get what you're saying, since I also have temptations to sort of "punish" myself when I'm down or deny myself things like good foods.

It can be hard to commit to recovery when you never know what circumstances will trigger a relapse! It can also be hard to figure out exactly what will work for your body and mind at differing points in your mental cycle. I'd suggest you bring a safefood to just nibble on if you find yourself in a circumstance where you can't bring yourself to eat whatever food is on offer.

While it sounds like your relationship with food could use some healing, I think it sounds like there might be more underlying work to do regarding your relationship with yourself and with your body. Like learning to tell yourself "I deserve health and healing even when I'm in a place where I feel like I do not" or "I deserve to treat myself with care especially when I feel like I don't" or "My body has worth because it houses me and that worth does not change based on my weight/appearance/meal bloat."

(Also, speaking as a chronic illness sufferer, if you are experiencing extreme bloat even after eating small amounts, or are in physical discomfort after eating from bloat, you may be allergic/have an intolerance to a specific ingredient. If this is the case, and if it won't trigger your ED too much, I suggest you fiddle around with your diet until you find out what's making this happen! Small amounts of bloat are normal after meals, especially if your body is adjusting to eating normally again after a lengthy pattern of restriction, but serious physical change/discomfort could indicate an underlying problem. Remember, your body deserves to have food that makes it feel good!)

[agentsketchbook]

The intelligent species of Dearth

Commonalities between all 4 species:

They are all protists

Omnivorous

All, with the exception of virals, give live birth

Social creatures

Developmental stages happen at roughly the same time for all 4

Can develop mental disorders, but may vary between species

Common Ancestor of Unankind:

Very genetically mutable ancestor, can assimilate new DNA through mutation and horizontal gene transfer

Reproductive flexibility is still apparent in the 4 modern species that evolved from the ancestor

Virals:

The result of the ancestor assimilating virus genes through horizontal gene transfer instead of becoming infected and producing copies

Both male and female virals can sire, but neither can become pregnant

The second hardiest of the species, suffer the least from environmental concerns

Lowest empathy quotient of the 4 species

Highest IQ of the 4 species

Often cycloptic, but not always

Female virals are still capable of horizontal gene transfer sexually with other virals

Petraphines:

Genetically the closest to the ancestor, evolved to adapt to mineral rich underground conditions and water, grows rock and crystal from skin for defense as well

Does not need light and are capable of seeing in the dark

Are the most durable of the 4 species, do not tire the same way and can go longer without food and water

Highest pain tolerance of the 4

"Artificials" are petraphines, who for some reason, cannot process minerals and express them, so they rely on other man made materials to supplement (For example, Detroit uses car paint and Bonnie relies on ebonite)

The least physically diverse, tend to look the most "human"

Floros (Floro Sapien):

Ancestor adapted DNA from plantlife via horizontal gene transfer

Can reproduce either sexually giving live birth, or through pollination, forming a seed to be planted in substrate

Need for the sun is unique to floros, mental and physical health are dependent on it, will become ill and eventually die without

The most physically diverse of the 4

Most susceptible to illness, both infectious and genetic

Bacterials:

More in common with petraphines and floros than virals despite being adapted to bacteria genetics as a response to attempted infection like them

Prolonged sun exposure can be damaging to them, starting with a very painful and dangerous sunburn open to disease

Prone to herd mentalities as a byproduct of bacteria's quorum sensing

Arguably the least combative and most socially adaptive of the 4, most likely an evolutionary function to survive in large groups peacefully with each other

Gram negative bacterials have flexible and malleable skin and bodies with lenient bones that can bend a good amount before snapping, where gram positive bacterials typically have sturdier bodies and normal bones

When the ancestor fused virus genes into its makeup to form virals, the new species lost its ability to reproduce with itself, despite being very efficient at doing so with members of the other species

Hybrids:

Hybrids have very different needs than pure blooded individuals. For example, bacterials find the sun to be dangerous, but their cyano offspring have no such issues and often rely on the it like their floro parents -Hybrids make up less than 2% of the population. That's roughly the same population of redheads, asexuals, and intersex people in humans

Bacterials + Petraphines = X

The soft and simple half of bacterials becomes poisoned by the concentration of minerals within the cells, Bacterial and petraphine offspring fail very early on during pregnancy

Floros + Bacterials = Cys (Cyanos)

Cys (pronounced like "sighs" are the most viable of the two possible hybrids with a success rate of roughly 80% of pregnancies occurring without complications. Cys are infertile, and while most will bud, they will never bloom.

Petraphines + Floros = Terras (Terraflors)

Like cyanos, terraflors are infertile and will usually bud, but won't ever bloom. However, their success rate is closer to 30-40%. They tend to be less dependent on sunlight, but are significantly more likely to suffer petrifaction in their lifetimes than their fully floro relatives

----------------------------------------------

WHOOO, long winded ref on the species! There's a lot of stuff detailed here, and even more yet that isn't!

[azitts]

Developments and Trends in Mental Health Services

Mental health has always been an important component of our lives. However, how to manage mental health issues has always been a concern for us. 

Mental health care has traditionally differed across cultures. The history of mental health demonstrates a grasp of the human mind. It represents the development of science, medicine, chemistry, and psychology. 

This article will look at the evolution of mental health services and how mental health therapy has changed throughout time.

Mental Health Services

The idea of loving and nursing the ill dates back to ancient times. However, before 1860, mental health patients were handled by unskilled personnel. There was no psychiatric treatment for mentally sick patients. 

Today, as individuals acknowledge the importance of mental health, there has been significant growth in this industry. There are now various mental health centers spread over the country. 

Let's look at the development of mental health services and their current trends.

Treatments for Depression Using Novel Drugs

Depression is a mental health disease that affects over 264 million people worldwide. However, around one-third of these individuals do not react to antidepressants. This renders them treatment-resistant. 

However, thanks to scientific advancements, new antidepressants have been produced that function via other methods.

The Role of Telehealth in Mental Health Services 

Teletherapy and other forms of digital care have grown in popularity since COVID-19. These online mental health services have proved to be incredibly beneficial. Doctors have reached rural locations via telemedicine, eliminating the anxiety of seeking treatment.

Telehealth has dramatically extended mental health services. Many nations have created online mental health resources and programs, including Togetherall, Reachout, 7 Cups, and UCLA STAND. 

These mental health programs were co-designed and guided by community members. Services like these have been a trustworthy source of assistance and referral for young people, families, and individuals dealing with mental health issues.  

Preventing Self-Harm Using Social Media Data

More than four billion individuals worldwide use social media. This creates massive amounts of data from their gadgets. Recent research has demonstrated that language patterns and visuals published on social media might reflect an individual's mental health status. 

This may also be used to assess mental health throughout the entire population. Researchers, technology businesses, government agencies, and non-governmental groups are investigating the vast database as AI, language processing, and other data science techniques progress. This aids in the identification of mental health disorders such as depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. 

The Use of Psychedelics in the Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders

Psychedelics, notably psilocybin and MDMA, are gaining popularity. Recent research has demonstrated that these drugs can be effective therapies for mental illnesses. 

Disorders such as PTSD and MDD can only be treated with novel, effective, and safe approaches. Currently, medicine and psychotherapy are effective for fewer than half of PTSD sufferers. However, one-third of MDD patients have treatment-resistant depression. This does not react to any treatments. 

As a result, researching innovative approaches to address mental health issues is critical. If psychedelics are found to be both helpful and safe, they have the potential to alter mental health care.

Revolutionizing Research With Digital Devices 

Mental health services have grown in popularity as technology has advanced. Modern technology now allows for the collection of data from a broader population. This sort of information is gathered from individuals in their natural habitat.

Smartphones and wearables have made data collecting easier. This data is helping to close the research gap. It also offers objective and quantitative data to psychologists and psychiatric researchers.

The Use of Digital Tools to Train Providers 

Are you aware that, in middle-income nations, four out of five individuals suffering from mental illnesses do not obtain any kind of mental health treatment? This is due to a lack of information about mental health therapies and limited mental health funding devoted to the care of certain groups of individuals in mental institutions. 

The COVID-19 epidemic has underlined the need for mental health and psychological assistance. Digital tools are increasingly employed to supervise and ensure the quality of psychological therapy on a large scale.

Programs for Online Education 

The most effective approach to implementing mental health education is through active educational systems. The society we live in today is hyper-connected, and the future of learning will be a combination of digital and hybrid models (online and offline). 

The use of technology and digitalization will increase customization, encourage active engagement, and allow for cost-effective scaling. We can transform mental health education for teenagers by forming public-private partnerships with technology and social media businesses. Moreover, we can enlist the assistance of celebrities and social icons.

Workforce Models of the Future 

There has been a long history of research on workplace well-being and dealing with sick mental health. Organizations and researchers are doing their best to practice medicine. There is always room for innovation in research methodologies, particularly organization and deployment approaches. 

It appears reasonable to handle research with the same accuracy and rigor as company performance or product strategy, at least in a strictly commercial environment. Furthermore, these efforts are amplified when discoveries are freely shared by commercial businesses that also share data with public sector agencies, as what works in one firm is extremely likely to succeed elsewhere.

Online Marketplaces 

There are over 10,000 psychiatric condition therapy apps available on the Apple and Google Play stores, with many more for your smartphone. This vast range of options has brought some quality control concerns with it. The computerized technologies created the finest clinical evidence available. 

Soft standards and laws can help you address this issue as groups such as OneMind, Health Navigator, and the World Economic Forum develop recommendations for evaluating digital mental health aids. These criteria will provide innovators with assurance that their solution is scientifically verified, ethical, secure, and effective.

Conclusion

The emergence of mental health services has witnessed a convergence of technology, research, and growing public awareness. We must continue to embrace innovation, reduce stigma, and prioritize mental health as we move forward. The mix of personalized therapies, digital solutions, and holistic methods heralds a new age in mental health, providing hope and support to people on the path to mental wellness.

[bluemoonlagoon94]

Death

I am 29 years old. This month I've had a close friend CS, a neighbor who died from a stroke in his home, and a non-biological uncle pass away suddenly. I think the most traumatizing death I've had to deal with out of the three was my friend who CS because he didn't mention that he had a plan and that he wouldn't leave his seven-year-old daughter that way. Even though he was severely depressed, and we all urged him to seek help I do not believe he sought an adequate amount of treatment in time, kept attending his NA meetings, or reliably took the medication that was prescribed to him by a medical professional. I knew him for 12 years.

The second death was my neighbor who suffered a stroke in his home and was not found until a least 24-36 hours later. It was too late to save him and he was given the choice whether he wanted to live or die. He chose death, and I do not blame him for choosing this because I would have chosen the same thing. He and his partner watched me grow up and babysat me for several years. I knew him for 19 years.

The third death was my uncle, not an uncle by blood but by family relations. He died unexpectedly where he lived and my mother is grieving over this loss since she knew him since she was born, I also knew him since I was born but did not feel as attached to his death as I did the other two. I knew him for 29 years.

Each death has brought forth different emotions for me. disenfranchised grief, and the typical grief many would expect. But I can't stop to grieve for too long because I have papers to write, things to do, and tests to pass so I can hopefully help people like my neighbor or friend who CS. Hopefully if anything, I will be able to save at least one person in my career as a nurse from various health conditions. I feel at peace for now, distracted, but peaceful overall because at least my friend is no longer in pain, my neighbor had a choice, and hopefully, my uncle passed in his sleep from something that was swift.

Yes, I seek my psychiatrist regularly and I believe him to be somewhat of a mentor at this point. I've also seen a psychologist to see how I've been processing everything. unfortunately, being a somewhat poor college student for the past decade I can only see my psychiatrist because of budgeting.

On top of everything else, my classmate is managing her own mental illness and recently was prescribed new medication which could be contributing to her memory loss. She's feeling alone and lost, she also tried to CS about a month and a half ago. I called the crisis line after she did not respond to me asking if she was safe twice. I suggested to her that she should go to the hospital but she promptly stopped replying to me. I feel like I've done everything I physically can to help including notifying people in charge who are also concerned about her wellbeing. Now feeling like the only thing to do left in step back and focus on myself and my work on my journey to being a nurse or risk failing at this goal I have to be a psychiatric Nurse Practitioner.

This has been a whirlwind of a month, hopefully, I've been doing the "right thing", but what is the "right thing" anyway? I'm just trying to finish this semester strong which has been significantly difficult. I don't know who else in my class is going through as much stuff as I've been going through. I keep wondering what my professors think of me if I'll make a good nurse...a smart nurser who can think critically, logically, and prioritize accurately. I probably won't know.

[elecalice]

I got really frustrated that my laptop didn't collaborated with me when I tried to do The Bachelorette Simulator (which is a tradition that I do in Valentine's Day and my Birthday or Christmas)

I tried to comfort myself researching FEXL stuff in Tumblr and... I stumbled upon an user with a lot of posts that made me feel sick.

A combination of

"Oh god... Who hurt you?"

"Oh dear... This seems like a case of PTSD"

"Please get help. Therapy or just help in general"

"The amount of painful bitterness is immeasurable. How can a person live in constant bitterness?"

I'm not going to mention names. And yes. I blocked that user since I don't want to be poisoned by the painful bitterness their blog radiates.

The worst thing is that, from what I read from their blog posts and I speculate. It seems they suffer from PTSD. But untreated PTSD. (unless I haven't checked a specific blog post. I just searched the recent ones)

They connect two game series (especially one that I'm getting really interested) with a traumatic event. Blaming them for convincing them to normalize the traumatic treatment she went with that person.

That gave me the light bulb that they're dealing with PTSD. But I don't know that person, and again, I blocked them and haven't checked that person's whole blog. But yes. They DESPERATELY need psychological help.

I can understand why they act. Blaming something for her traumatic experience. Which is a thing with PTSD. But... I feel bad for constantly bitter people. They constantly speak horrible about life, themselves, other people, etc.

I feel bad for those people, because constantly focusing or being limited to focus on the negative aspects of life... It's not living life.

If you're not enjoying life, you're not living.

I just hope this user will eventually receive the help they desperately need, and slowly can heal from their inner wounds.

I know they're not going to check all my post and ramblings, especially since I blocked their blog in order to calm down my heart. Especially since "Why am I concerned for a random user who's constant blog entries are bitter, spiteful, and hateful? ".

Damaged people either heal, fall down, or damage more people.

I hope this user gets help and heal.

(and yes. I acknowledge that I shouldn't speculate someone having a mental illness since, I'm not a psychologist)