Edward Cullen: That Boy Ain’t Right

So I was doing a reread of @therealvinelle 's collection of Twilight metas, as one does, and in "Edward, Denial, and a Human Girlfriend" she mentions that she doesn't believe Edward is sane. I thought, "ha, yeah, he's definitely not," and also, "but wait, what does that mean exactly, please say more about that." But since she's already inundated with asks, I've decided to use my own head-muscle and explore this idea. (TL;DR: I start out more or less organized, synthesize some points Vinelle has made across several posts (and have hopefully linked to them all where relevant but please tell me if not), touch a little on narcissism, then take a hard left into the negative effects of being a telepath.)

Just a couple things to note at the outset, though. Theses have been written already (probably) about Edward as an abuser. Edward being insane doesn't negate that at all; he's definitely an asshole and just...a disaster of a human being. (I find it more funny than anything, but YMMV.) I'm also going to try to avoid talking specifically about mental illness and how it relates (or doesn't relate) to abusive behavior -- that's territory I'm not really equipped to discuss, like at all. My starting point is "Edward has a deeply warped perception of reality," not "Edward has X disorder."

So: deeply warped perception of reality. The evidence? Goes behind a cut, because my one character trait is Verbose.

Vinelle provides a great example of it in the post linked above, which I'll just quote because she does words good: "[Edward] keeps acting like his romance with Bella is a romantic tragedy, and all the cast of Twilight are actors on a stage making it as sublime as possible." Edward's the one to pursue Bella, but he does so with the full belief, from the very beginning, that it will never last; Bella will "outgrow" him, go on her human way, and he can spend the rest of eternity brooding magnificently over his too-short romantic bliss. [Insert premature ejaculation joke.] Turning her is never an option, even though Alice, Noted Psychic, says that romancing Bella will either end with her dead (exsanguinated) or dead (vampire).

This framing, where he's a dark anti-hero in love with -- but never tainting! -- the pure maiden and eventually leaving her in a grand, tragic sacrifice to preserve her soul? It's fucking bonkers. Bella isn't a person to him in this scenario. As Vinelle points out, Bella's never really a person to him at all; he falls in love with his own mental construct, cherry-picking from what he observes of her behavior and her responses to his 20 (thousand) Questions to convince himself that she is the ideal woman.

Bella's not the only one who gets the projection/cardboard-cutout treatment. Edward sees everything and everyone through a highly particular, personalized lens. He filters his entire reality, which we all do to an extent, but the thing with Edward is that he starts with his conclusions and then only pays attention to the evidence that supports those conclusions. Often that evidence consists of what he admits in New Moon are only "surface" thoughts -- but recognizing that limitation doesn't keep him from taking those thoughts as representative of what people are. Edward then becomes absolutely convinced by his own "reasoning" and won't be swayed from what he has decided is Objectively True. It's obvious with Bella; it's also painfully obvious with Rosalie. (Vinelle explains this and brings up Edward's raging Madonna/Whore complex in the same post, so refer to that again -- she's right.)

He also catastrophizes. Everything. Bella's just vibing in her room, rereading Wuthering Heights for the 87th time? She's gonna be hit by a meteor, better sneak into her room while she sleeps. Bella's going to the beach with the filthy mundanes their human classmates? She's gonna fall in the ocean. Jasper's cannibal pals are stopping by for a visit, but know not to hunt in the area? DISASTER, DEFCON 1, ALSO FUCK YOU JASPER FOR EVEN EXISTING IN MY AND BELLA'S SPHERE YOU UNSPEAKABLE BURDEN. Edward must believe that Bella is vulnerable and in near-constant peril, to support the reality he has created in which he is the villain turned protector and maybe?? hero??? (!!!) for his beloved. So when the actual, James-shaped danger arrives, he goes berserk, snarling and flipping his shit and generally not helping the situation. His fantasy demands that Bella remain human, so instead of doing the very thing Alice, Noted Psychic, assures him will neutralize the threat (and not just a threat to Bella, either, but to Bella's family and any other human James might decide to include in the "game"), he vetoes it immediately, no discussion. Bella Must Not Turn, and he sticks to those guns despite James nearly reducing her to ground beef, despite leaving Bella catatonic with depression (but human! success!) in New Moon, despite Aro's order and his family's vote and, let's not forget, Bella's clearly and repeatedly stated desire to be a vampire. It's going to happen. But he doesn't accept it until Renesmee busts out of Bella like the Kool-Aid man and the poor girl's heart finally, unequivocally stops.

Sane people don't behave this way. I don't want to slap labels on Edward, but I can't help but note that he comes across as highly narcissistic. He's the only real person in his universe, the lone player among us NPCs. That probably has a lot to do with him being frozen in the mindset and maturity of a seventeen-year-old boy, but I think it's also just...him, on some fundamental level. His failure to connect with others and recognize them as full, independent beings with their own wants and priorities isn't like Bella's failure -- she's badly depressed. Edward is...something else, and I get the sense that his sanity has been steadily deteriorating over time. And a cursory google of narcissistic traits turns up some familiar-looking stuff. He's self-loathing, yes, but also grandiose; he hates himself for the monster he is (and hates most vampires besides Esme and Carlisle for their monstrosity, too) but still feels superior to humans, to the extent that he felt entitled to human blood and resented Carlisle for depriving him of his "proper" diet. He eventually returns to Carlisle, but he's far from content -- the beginning of Midnight Sun finds him in a state of ennui, bored and dismissive of (if not outright disgusted by) everyone around him, that has apparently persisted for years and years. He doesn't play the piano, he doesn't compose, he doesn't enjoy anything...at least until Bella comes along and then he becomes obsessed to a disturbing degree with her and his new, romantic tragedy spin on reality.

[Next-day edit: I’m not sure where else to fit this in, but the way Edward casually contemplates violence against people who have, at best, mildly annoyed him is...chilling. I have a hard time writing off his strategizing how to murder the entire Biology class as a result of bloodlust -- it’s so calculated, nothing like the blackout state of thirst Emmett describes when he encountered his own “singer,” and that is probably the default for when a vampire is extremely thirsty. But even ignoring the Biology class incident, Edward still does things like consider, with disturbing frequency, how he might grievously injure or kill Mike Newton, all because...Edward considers him his romantic rival (despite Bella barely giving the kid the time of day). He thinks about slapping Mike through a wall, which might be an amusing slapstick image, except as a vampire Edward’s actually capable of turning this boy’s skeleton to a fine powder. So it’s, y’know, kind of sick when you think about it.

But even worse than that, when Bella tells Edward about how she flirted with Jacob to get at that sweet, sweet vampire lore, Edward chuckles and then, after dropping Bella home, flippantly observes that now that the treaty’s broken, why not genocide? I’m not even kidding, it’s right there in Midnight Sun; he seriously thinks about the fact that he’d be technically justified now in wiping out the entire tribe because a teenager tried to impress a girl with a spooky story. That is fucked. Remember, Edward was there with Carlisle when the treaty was first established. He knows how remarkable it is that they even came to a truce in the first place, that it was only ever possible because Carlisle is...well, Carlisle, and that it marks a pretty significant moment in supernatural history. He doesn’t care; he doesn’t respect it, or he’d never think something like “Ha ha, if I went and killed them all, I wouldn’t even be wrong. I mean, I won’t do it, but I’m just saying, I wouldn’t be wrong.”

Again: not the thought process or behavior of a sane person. (Or a person that respects life in general -- sorry Carlisle, big L.)]

Finally, whether he's a narcissist or not, I think the fact that Edward has constant, unavoidable access to everyone's thoughts is a powerful contributing factor to his instability. He can tune out the mental noise to an extent, but he can't stop it -- so he comes to rely on it like another sense. This causes issues with disconnect and lack of empathy, of course, but there's another facet to this shit diamond: he's basically experiencing a ceaseless flow of intrusive thoughts. His narration in Midnight Sun suggests that he "hears" the words people think, can "see" what they visualize in their mind's eye, and can sense the emotional "tone" and intensity of their thoughts. Therefore, perceiving Jasper's thirst through his thoughts makes Edward more aware of his own, "doubling" the discomfort. This would be a lot to deal with even from just his immediate coven members, but Edward gets all of this pouring into his head like a firehose on a day-to-day basis because the Cullens live right alongside humans. I know Meyerpires have galaxy brains or whatever, but that's a ton to process.

Besides the compounding effect on his own thirst when he "feels" the thirst of others, Meyer never suggests that Edward has difficulty separating his own thoughts from other people's; even when he was newly turned, he recognized Carlisle's "voice" in his head as Carlisle's. That would create a whole different host of issues around identity, but it looks like Edward's escaped that particular torment. However, I can easily imagine that what he does experience is just shy of unbearable nonetheless, with an eroding effect on his sanity over decades. He can't sleep to escape it; he's on a dishwater diet and probably (like the rest of his family) experiencing a perpetual, low-grade physical discomfort due to his thirst never being fully satisfied; and he's around far more people than is the norm for vampires -- even discounting all the humans, his own coven is unusually large -- meaning more noise.

Honestly, it would be weirder if he were all there, considering.

And even though I feel like I lost a sense of structure around where I started ranting about telepathy, I've written like 1.5k words about Edward fucking Cullen and I think that's enough for one post.

Skifander’s religion and Spirtualism

One thing that’s almost as import to me as Zeetha with depression is Zeetha who is by far the most religious person of their group. How she dose religion is very different from how it’s seen in religions in our world of course, but she honestly and strongly believes in what she believes in. (Compared to a lot of the others, who I see as likely being more agnostic or atheist to some capacity from influence of the worlds current Science culture and the Spark.)

Because of that I’d figure I’d add a little thought into Skifandrian Religion and Spirituality.

(Disclaimer: I’m well aware that the Fogilos probably haven’t put anywhere near this amount of thought into it. And I’m also an amateur with only a little reading under her belt about Ancient cultures and Religions of which Skifander’s religion is likely the closest to (but also not). I also want to make this clear this is not necessary me thinking what I say below is canon, but me talking headcanon and fandom and random kind-a-meta. Also I’m very sleep deprived and probably shouldn’t be writing this right now, but whatever, so give me some slack)

Canon stuff:

Ashtara is Skifander Patron Goddess and one of her aspects or domains is Fertility. It is possible but not confirmed that she may be based off on Ishtar or one of her counterparts (or many of them).

Ashtara is only one of many gods. It’s likely but not completely supported than she is the chief god.

(Slightly off topic but Gwandi (sp?) is canonly a legendary figure not a goddess)

The people of Skifander seem to believe in reincarnation of some kind. (“I may have only one (Zumil) in this lifetime…”

Death rites include singing a haunting song and dropping three drops of blood on the departed.

They seem to have an Anthropomorphic idea of Death (“You never know when Death will cut in on the dance”) I believe at about 98% surety that death was capitalized in that line but I can’t currently check.

Alright and now some personal thoughts and things to think about.

A reminder that “Goddess of X, Y, and Z” is a concept we created to simplify and make other gods easily understood, and it’s not how the actual cultures viewed the deities. So Skifander would not view their own deities in that view point. They would see them as people and character and stories and symbols if anything.

I’ve always headcanond that there was a big emphasis on absolute consent and free will. Granted this mostly came from the scene when Gil destroys Zeetha’s clothes and she rants at him, but unfortunately that was missing from the novel in order to get her fully naked. (Honestly I preferred the excuses to justify Zeetha having leather underwear compared to the humor of Gil accidentally stripping his sister. It was good character moment.)

I headcanon that Skifander has a rich song and dance culture, from how Zeetha sings a lot in the novels and because of her metaphor “You never know when Death will cut in on the dance.” Much less supported I headcanon that the people of Skifander see dancing and fighting as nearly one in the same (And languages wise that dance and the words for kata’s are the same.), and that dancing and living (or surviving) is a very common metaphor.

I, and I know this goes against a lot of people thoughts from what I have seen in fanfictions (A lot of people tend to basically write off Skifander’s culture as “Sex and fighting” and nothing else. Which I admit bothers me. The idea of “they fuck and they fight and nothing else” bothers me, a lot, that’s not how culture works and is basically how people write “primitive” and fandservicy societies which Skifander should not be degraded too.) headcanon that Zeetha was exaggerating somewhat wither her implications when she told Agatha how “Ashtara is the goddess of fertility, our holy days are fun.” And that her great understanding of sexual acts are more just because the culture of Skifander being very open about it than of them having an extremely sex filled religion. There may be some, but I highly doubt (or in reality, especially taking into consideration some of the Professors earlier works) personally don’t want, that they have holy days that are filled with nothing but kinky sex and large orgies and sex on alters.

This is in part because I can’t wrap my head around a reason why, the logic behind this, and because when I actually tried researching it not only could I not find any real logic (and to specify I don’t mean logic in the sense of chess, but internal logic, their thought process.) but instead found that like, 98% of scared sex people think happened in different cultures (Sumerian and Babylonian included) actually have no basis in source material and was isntead made up by other groups generally much later on, so…

(Another part of it was because I had a hard time fitting the few reasons I did get (Fertility rites, symbolic marriages, and what equals to Calling Ashtara to more or less piggy back off our sex to gain favor from the pleasure gained.) really didn’t fit in my current fanon version of Skifander religion. 

(both due to how I've characterized Ashtara and do to the absolute consent thing, in fact one of my headcanons I do have firmly in place is that for any religious sexual ritual there is, it’s voluntary, if someone does’t want to do it they don’t because otherwise that goes against the very core of their society.)

(Mostly I just really dislike the idea of a culture where being Asexual (and even worse Asexual and sex-repulsed) has no place at all and would always be other and wrong.)

 Which admittedly is more of a personal issues that shouldn’t effect canon. And I also admit none of this is helped by me just not getting sex, like at all. Nor the fact that’s pretty much all small/ secret/different/ “primitive” cultures written in stories. I don’t want that image for Skifander. Nor also the fact that a common thread I’ve seen in fanfiction is a tendency to write Skifander culture as “They fight and they fuck and nothing else,” which personally bothers me.

Oh, and finally, One things I desperately don’t want to happen in story is for Skifander religion to be made an enemy. We have enough enemies. Because it’s a possibility what with the whole anti-twin thing. Zeetha should be able to come out of this with her belief intact please and thank you. She doesn’t need her entire being shunned by her religion. Fixing that issue shouldn’t mean removing the religion. Even if a High Priestess or whatever is the main cause of issues, have it be in the end that politics were the main motivator. That they were using an old superstition based from long ago where feeding two children at once was hard, and the tendency of one twin being much smaller than the other lead to their death anyway  and trying to make it a religious thing as an excuse for the manipulation or something.

Just, don’t make it an enemy, or at least not one to be killed.

Better Than Ambien

There was a time not long ago when this reporter was, shall we say, stretched a bit thin. At night, she lay in her bed, which was covered with laundered and not-yet-folded yoga pants, attempting to gain respite. Yet none would come. Instead, she would play mental chess with various cost-benefit analyses, or she would arrange and rearrange her mental to-do list, as though, like so much broccoli under a pile of mashed potatoes, moving it around a bit would make it disappear.

Then, this reporter remembered that there was probably some old Ambien in the Khazan Khouse somewhere. She fished it out from that one nightstand drawer, and popped one.

And, she slept ... or something. She definitely had her eyes closed for seven hours, which was not like what had been happening any of the other nights that week. But the sleep was also not what one would typically call sleep, per se. The next day, she was not filled with the same vim and vigor that normally course through her as she pursues the Truth in the halls of power. Instead, she was kind of out of it.

At last comes an explanation: According to the new book Why We Sleep, by Matthew Walker, the director of the Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab at the University of California, Berkeley, the sleep people get on sleeping pills like Ambien is not true sleep. Drugs like these simply “switch off the top of your cortex, the top of your brain,” he explained to New York Magazine, “and put you into a state of unconsciousness.” That’s not sleep; that’s cryogenics. According to Walker, sleeping-pill sleep doesn’t have the same restorative powers—and there are lots, from an immune boost to emotional resilience—as good, old-fashioned zzzzs.

Sleeping pills don’t even seem to work all that well. It’s true that some people say they fall asleep faster and sleep better on pills. But, as Walker writes, there’s little difference between the amount of time it takes someone to fall asleep with the help of a pill, compared to a placebo. Even a newer drug, suvorexant, only helps people fall asleep four to eight minutes faster, according to one study he describes.

In addition to causing daytime grogginess, Walker argues, Ambien impairs memory and increases the risk of cancer and death. “Do you feel differently about using or continuing to use sleeping pills having learned about this evidence?” he asks the reader. This reporter does.

Luckily, there is a better way. Walker recommends something known as CBT-I, or cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. A major part of it is proper “sleep hygiene”—well-known advice like keeping the bedroom dark and cold, using your frigid cave-bed only for sleep and sex, and turning off anything that emits light a few hours before bed. But another element, paradoxically, involves purposefully getting less sleep than you might want to—at least at first.

This process, called sleep restriction, involves setting a wake-up time and hitting it at the same time every day (no snoozing—snoozing is also bad). Then, you only go to bed when you’re very sleepy—say six hours before the wake-up time. If you successfully sleep through the night, you gradually allow yourself to go to bed a few minutes earlier, until you’re sleeping the amount you want to.

“By keeping patients awake for longer, we build up a strong sleep pressure,” Walker writes. That means adenosine, a chemical that builds up in our brains throughout the day and gradually makes us sleepy, has more time to accrue and lull the body naturally to slumberland.

Some meta-analyses have found that behavioral therapies like these actually work better than pills, and now, CBT-I is considered the first-line treatment for chronic insomniacs.

There are other psychological hacks to curing insomnia, most of which are targeted at easing the oh-god-I’m-going-to-be-so-wrecked-at-the-meeting-tomorrow dread that comes with lying awake at night. For example, the Mayo Clinic also recommends remaining “passively awake,” or “avoiding any effort to fall asleep,” so you can finally stop worrying and, you know, go to sleep. Your mind, it seems, can be a toddler, so sometimes you have to tell it that sleep is yucky and there’s nothing more fun than staying awake all night.

Of course, some of these hacks work better if you can practice them with a sleep therapist, which the low-income people who are likeliest to be sleep-deprived are less likely to have access to. For this population and others, sleeping pills might actually work faster and be easier to come by. But according to Walker, just like sleep deprivation, their side effects catch up with you in the long run.

from Health News And Updates https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/10/better-than-ambien/543771/?utm_source=feed

Better Than Ambien

There was a time not long ago when this reporter was, shall we say, stretched a bit thin. At night, she lay in her bed, which was covered with laundered and not-yet-folded yoga pants, attempting to gain respite. Yet none would come. Instead, she would play mental chess with various cost-benefit analyses, or she would arrange and re-arrange her mental to-do list, as though, like so much broccoli under a pile of mashed potatoes, moving it around a bit would make it disappear.

Then, this reporter remembered that there was probably some old Ambien in the Khazan Khouse somewhere. She fished it out from that one nightstand drawer, and popped one.

And, she slept … or something. She definitely had her eyes closed for seven hours, which was not like what had been happening any of the other nights that week. But the sleep was also not what one would typically call sleep, per se. The next day, she was not filled with the same vim and vigor that normally course through her as she pursues the Truth in the halls of power. Instead, she was kind of out of it.

At last comes an explanation: According to the new book Why We Sleep, by Matthew Walker, the director of the Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab at the University of California, Berkeley, the sleep people get on sleeping pills like Ambien is not true sleep. Drugs like these simply “switch off the top of your cortex, the top of your brain,” he explained to New York magazine, “and put you into a state of unconsciousness.” That’s not sleep; that’s cryogenics. According to Walker, sleeping-pill sleep doesn’t have the same restorative powers—and there are lots, from an immune boost to emotional resilience—as good, old-fashioned zzzzs.

Sleeping pills don’t even seem to work all that well. It’s true that some people say they fall asleep faster and sleep better on pills. But, as Walker writes, there’s little difference between the amount of time it takes someone to fall asleep with the help of a pill, compared to a placebo. Even a newer drug, suvorexant, only helps people fall asleep four to eight minutes faster, according to one study he describes.

In addition to causing daytime grogginess, Walker argues, Ambien impairs memory and increases the risk of cancer and death. “Do you feel differently about using or continuing to use sleeping pills having learned about this evidence?” he asks the reader. This reporter does.

Luckily, there is a better way. Walker recommends something known as CBT-I, or cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. A major part of it is proper “sleep hygiene”—well-known advice like keeping the bedroom dark and cold, using your frigid cave-bed only for sleep and sex, and turning off anything that emits light a few hours before bed. But another element, paradoxically, involves purposefully getting less sleep than you might want to—at least at first.

This process, called sleep restriction, involves setting a wake-up time and hitting it at the same time every day (no snoozing—snoozing is also bad). Then, you only go to bed when you’re very sleepy—say six hours before the wake-up time. If you successfully sleep through the night, you gradually allow yourself to go to bed a few minutes earlier, until you’re sleeping the amount you want to.

“By keeping patients awake for longer, we build up a strong sleep pressure,” Walker writes. That means adenosine, a chemical that builds up in our brains throughout the day and gradually makes us sleepy, has more time to accrue and lull the body naturally to slumberland.

Some meta-analyses have found that behavioral therapies like these actually work better than pills, and now, CBT-I is considered the first-line treatment for chronic insomniacs.

There are other psychological hacks to curing insomnia, most of which are targeted at easing the oh-god-I’m-going-to-be-so-wrecked-at-the-meeting-tomorrow dread that comes with lying awake at night. For example, the Mayo Clinic also recommends remaining “passively awake,” or “avoiding any effort to fall asleep,” so you can finally stop worrying and, you know, go to sleep. Your mind, it seems, can be a toddler, so sometimes you have to tell it that sleep is yucky and there’s nothing more fun than staying awake all night.

Of course, some of these hacks work better if you can practice them with a sleep therapist, which the low-income people who are likeliest to be sleep deprived are less likely to have access to. For this population and others, sleeping pills might actually work faster and be easier to come by. But according to Walker, just like sleep deprivation, their side effects catch up with you in the long run.

Article source here:The Atlantic