#my brain slowly atrophying
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✨✨WIP WEDNESDAY✨✨
*Imagine you're seeing a really fancy header up there 👆 like you all have...totally gonna get around to that someday*
Thank you so much for the tags my beautiful, amazing friends. @fatalfangirl @you-remind-me-of-the-babe @kherub @cutestkilla @johnwgrey @confused-bi-queer @takitalks @martsonmars @urban-sith @facewithoutheart @dragoneggo @ivelovedhimthroughworse
(MY LOVES, THIS IS A BOOK of a post and I'm sorry...but I only wrangle my brain well enough to post every 8th posting day it seems so...Anyway, don't feel obligated to engage if this is too long for you!! Seriously.)
Hi, I'm always so late on this stuff...It's midnight, my brain hurts. I just freaking love you all so much, I'm gonna be very honest... I'm beating my head into the ground trying to find a part of this to share...
I've been struggling with being able to get anything out the past month or 2...or ? and then this week I sat down and poured almost 6k into a new WIP very quickly...but looking over it, I mean...it's VERY first draft...it's feelings vomit, you know?
Also...do you make playlists for your fics? I always write to music and I'm *very* sensitive to the specific vibe of a song..so when I find a song for my playlist...it goes to a very specific area of the fic and then I can't listen to anything but that song when I'm writing/reworking that part...so cue me listening to the same sad ass feelings song on REPEAT for hours on end...days on end...um, weeks on end? 😂 I'm sure this is very healthy functioning.
I'm just not gonna overthink this (hahaha, too late) and share this part of this new wip. under the cut for length...and suggestive-ish content??
**here's your sad ass feelings song for this excerpt. Oh, man, I'm IN IT. **
I know normally we try not to give away too much plot, but life is short and I could use support trying to get this done before it all ends. 🙄 This is an AU at the moment, but anything can change. Have you ever heard that to not feel alone after heartbreak you should sleep in the middle of the bed...instead of having an empty side??
I'll tell ya, Baz worked hard to get himself to a place in life where he felt strong and self-sufficient. He'd built up a lot of walls, to keep safe (including sleeping in the middle of the bed, no falling in love), to not be vulnerable again in a way that really decimated him when he was younger. Baz is visiting his family in the countryside...ENTER SIMON...who is slowly obliterating all of Baz's self preservation and Baz freaks the hell out and runs away basically, back to his home in London...memories follow him.
*******
BAZ
When I get in, I put the kettle on, looking out the window over the city.
London is home—this is home—where I belong. I have a life…
I walk through to the bedroom and drop my bags. All is quiet. Empty. Cold.
I stand at the foot of the bed—hands in my pockets—taking in the sight of the taut sheets, the single stack of pillows in the middle…
“This can be my side.”
“What?”
“This is my side, yeah?”
“That’s not your side, there are no sides….this is a single person's bed. There’s just the middle. My bed. My middle.”
“All right,” he pulled me down to the bed.
“What are you doing? What the hell are you doing?” He made me laugh in spite of myself.
“Come on, we can both fit in the middle, look,” his limbs flung over me.
“You’re an absolute nightmare. You’re never invited here again.”
“Gonna feel awfully empty without me here.”
“By empty do you mean comfortable? Do you mean reasonably sized for a grown man who is accustomed to sleeping alone? In his bed. Meant for one.”
“I mean, Baz,” he hovered over me on all fours, “awfully empty,” he kissed my neck—
“As in, awfully,” —my chest,
“bloody” —my ribs,
“boring”—into the crease of my hip. His eyes found mine for a moment.
My hands moved through his hair until my breath fell from parted lips, body arching at his touch. His endless warmth.
So utterly empty.
*****
Jesus, I kind of hope no one actually read all this...I should go to bed.
who can I possibly assault with this nonsense who hasn't posted yet? @aristocratic-otter Pati gets that late-night posting too 😆 @frjsti @creepyspice @whatevertheweather @bookish-bogwitch @gekkoinapeartree @mrskrementz ?? Engage or don't , see ya next time?
I don't know. Let's sleep on it. Maybe it will all make more sense tomorrow.
#my fic#my writing#my nonsense#my brain slowly atrophying#my sad sad ass songs#over and over into infinity#snowbaz#it's ok baz I think#I see you#simon is good#he's meant for you#gonna be ok#Spotify#I Don't Want Love
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god this is so miserable my psych wanted to start me out at 10 mg lower than the accidentally effective 50 mg of adderall. So I've been feeling the old brain fog depression and executive dysfunction slowly creeping back for the last few weeks and it's really making me realize how fucking debilitated and non-functional I used to be. Thankfully my next prescription is coming up soon and he agreed to bring it back to 50 but god I think I'm gonna have to be medicated like this for the rest of my life bc I can't go back
#it feels like consciously developing dementia#just feeling my higher functioning being slowly stripped away again#this has been a rough week#I haven't relapsed or binged or anything but it's so hard for me to keep anything clean anymore#or cook#ig adderall is basically gonna be my insulin / antipsychotic huh#the shit I genuinely can't function w/out but not in an addiction kind of way#but in a 'wow a large part of my brain is genuinely atrophied' way#just barely scraping by until the dose adjustment :/#this is the first time I've truly experienced how scary the prospect of going w out a lifesaving medication must be#like I might as well just not be on adderall at all for all the good this dose is doing#personal
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I'm so scared I lost my touch when it comes to writing. My work schedule got busier, so I went months without writing anything at all. Now I'm trying to get back into it, but I can't seem to find a rhythm like I used to. I'm so upset because writing is my only hobby and if I lose it...I don't know what the point of anything is.
Out of Practice with Writing/Feeling "Lost Touch"
Here's a little secret about writing: the writing experience and skill you have never goes away, even if you haven't written in DECADES. It isn't like a container of water that evaporates when it's not being refilled so that one day it's gone. Your skill might get a little stale when you're out of practice, but you never lose your ability to do it.
So, why does it feel like our writing gets worse the longer we go without using it?
Here's another little secret about writing: every minute you spend on this planet makes you a better writer. Even when you're not actively writing, you are constantly absorbing the stories of the world around you. Your brain's ability to tell better stories keeps growing even if you're not practicing your writing skills, so that when you finally get back to writing again, you can tell what you're trying to write isn't as good as you want it to be... and that can feel like your writing skills have atrophied or vanished even when that's not the case.
Getting Back Into a Writing Routine - Right now, it might help to focus on getting back into a writing routine rather than worrying about what you're writing. In other words, put more focus on showing up when you have available time than on what exactly you're writing. Things like journaling about your day/a unique experience, writing book/movie/game reviews, flash fiction writing prompts, short poetry, fan-fiction drabbles, free writing, and writing exercises are great "low impact" things you can work on when you "show up" for your writing time.
Have a look at my brand new post Slowly Easing Back Into Writing (With a Busy Schedule) as it has a bunch of other ideas and links that may be helpful!
i hope that helps!
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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!
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I goofed and actually looked at someone's blog before responding to them. Naturally they had proshippers and endogenic systems in their DNI, and I didn't want to interact with that kind of nonsense. But the topic is still good so I'm gonna post it separately.
On the subject of phantom limbs, and if/how you can force yourself to have them.
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This is just my own hypothesis, and I'm sure some people wouldn't agree with it, but I think that anyone could learn to induce phantom limbs to some degree. This is something happening in the brain, not from a magical/external source that you have to be lucky with.
In my experience, it's mindfulness extended outside the boundaries of your physical body. With enough repetition, you can strengthen the neural pathways until it becomes nearly automatic. When I was 15, I had trouble even understanding how my tail moved properly and how it was scaled to fit my current body. I'm 32, and I can feel every twitch it makes. I can nearly count the scales on it. I can even visualize the musculature underneath. It's just taken years of working with it. Same with the rest of my phantom body.
Whatever you do, don't go into it with frustration and anger. Approach yourself like a shy critter and be patient + respectful. If something comes to mind automatically, follow it. If you have to prompt it by thinking of what you suspect should be there, do that and see where it goes. Hell, try both. The point is to use your brain. This is an exercise.
And if you're aware of phantom parts already, use them regularly. Use them like you would the rest of your physical body. Spread your wings and flap them, slowly and quickly. Stretch your legs and forelegs, unsheathe your claws and retract them again. If you're an aquatic thing and can swim somewhere, do it, and put your fins into it. Take a walk outside, uphill, dig your hooves into the rocks and dirt. Whatever you've got, don't let it stagnate. Your mind knows they're there, but a muscle neglected will just atrophy.
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Did a fun Q&A thing on insta about my ocs, here are the highlights, lore and shit! For context I am writing this into a horror-ish book as we speak. Brewing my dastardly schemes (gay tragedy).
Q: Is Eden also a cannibal?
A: Eden isn't a cannibal in the way Harlow is. I mean he eats people but only because Harlow's cooking is too good to turn down /hj. Eden's thing is... kinda the opposite.
He's slowly being consumed by the rot that's festering within him, a manifestation of hatred and shame. To him love is consumption, and he is inedible. Insert vulture metaphor here w Harlow. For every rotting corpse there is a very greatful vulture who will look past the decay, and see your worth. Eden is ultimately finished off by something that loves him, a consumptive love, unconditional and indiscriminate.
Q: ABOUT THE ROT, HOW DOES IT WORK? HOW IS IT AFFECTING HIM??
A: This rot is really the only story element that isn't totally grounded in reality. It's an illness that's a manifestation of his self hatred/ repression/ internalized shame- not an actual condition.
It appears at first like it just affects his chest- but it’s been slowly burrowing deep into his body. Its spreading like roots/ mycillium through his flesh and will finish him off in one foul swoop once it's finished spreading.
In the meantime, it manifests like a chronic illness- his muscles are all atrophied and he feels constantly drained of life. It's taking small pieces of flesh to sustain itself while it spreads (the chest cavity is the result of that-though the REAL damage is invisible. It's the ticking time bomb roots beneath the seemingly unaffected surface). It functions like a slow acting Chronic Wasting Disease (aka zombie deer disease, humans can't get it in reality, but it was the inspiration)
Q: What happened when Harlow discovered Eden was a guy
A: Eden is trans, and closeted in his life. Harlow is the first person he ever discusses his truth with.
At first, Harlow was just kinda... confused? Transness is not a concept he was familiar with. At ALL. The idea alone was completely unheard of to him. Again this is the Bible Belt in the 8os, the area so rarely encountered visible transness- trans people existed of course, but so many stayed hidden to survive. The roaring tre of bigotry did not have much tuel in that regard... no trans people to propagandize against. It was not on the public's vitriolic radar. In that way, Harlow hadn't developed the knee-jerk reaction of hatred... he was more fascinated than anything, but it did challenge him to understand at first.
Unlike his journey with accepting homosexuality this was not so much a task of unlearning as it was just... learning.
Also Eden's whole rotting thing adds another layer to this Harlow is stupid and takes everything VERY literally- he thought Eden's condition must be divinely brought.
Harlow saw a gift from God, a rare flower planted in inhospitable soil, wilting before it ever got the chance to bloom. Like the angels sent to Sodom and Gamorrah in human disguises, to test the townspeople's virtue. To present them with something foreign yet beautiful, to judge their inherent goodness based on how they treat it. Like in the biblical story, the townspeople were so vile and inhospitable that it endangered the angels and forced them to leave, burning down the town behind them. Harlow saw this as prophecy. He was eager to get to the “burning down the town” part.
Part of my motivation for incorporating that specific biblical story is SPITE btw since so many people use it to justify homophobia. Reverse uno idiots. I'm putting you in my GAY BOOK as a metaphor for hateful queerphobic societies.HA!
Q: Describe the rot in Eden's chest in sensory detail (texture smell “cause" etc) I want rot details!!
A: I used CWD and necrotizing fasciitis as building blocks for this thing... starts in the brain, spreads like roots through the body, eating away at muscle and skin as it does. Once it's fully spread, it'd rapidly worsten and bring death within a matter of hours.
In the meantime it sustains itself off of non-fatal bits of flesh (his chest here, since it's a manifestation of self hatred and all, and dysphoria is a bitch). It is an open wound so it'd feel scabby and it is perpetually weeping... which is how Harlow finds out about it so quickly (seeps through white nightgown after being left unbandaged for a few nights). He would also have to take care to hide the smell of decay
It advances throughout the story and by the end there's barely any soft tissue left on his chest, nothing alive anyways. The final overtake begins, and his organs enter the early stages of consumption (which happens very rapidly in one foul swoop). That's when they decide it's time for boy dinner!
Q: How smart are they
A: GREAT QUESTION! HARLOW IS FUCKING STUPID. LIKE not only does he lack emotional intelligence entirely, but he's also very impulsive and reckless. The ONLY reason he's getting away with his murders is because the society around him has shot itself in the foot with its homophobia. Noooobody is suspicious of him for the string of missing attractive dudes. They're looking for a "vengeful woman" profile, or possibly a "debt collector with many social connections" or something. Not some solitary redneck who barely shows his face in town and is very polite and quiet when he does. He appears, in all respects, like a normal guy in public.
Once they have mutual blackmail (and also start caring about each other)... Eden realizes that if Harlow gets caught, he's fucked too. So partially for the sake of self-preservation, and... partially out of pity for this stupid stupid man... Eden starts to help him cover up.
Harlow is pretty disillusioned as to how society functions as a whole, since he grew up pretty far from it. Eden is the opposite, he was suffocated by it and learned how to be sneaky as a result. Eden is very good at getting people to trust him, he's good at lying, he's good at acting. Thing is, he's overly trusting to his own detriment. He's desperate for genuine connection and easily deceived himself. He's bad at reading people.
Q: What happened to Harlow's mom?
A: Harlow's mother died due to complications during childbirth. He never had a maternal figure in his life, he was raised as an only child by his father, who had become calloused and would never remarry. Harlow dropped out of high school and kept to himself at his house/ in nature after that very isolated from society. Considering all this... he not only lacked a maternal figure, but any female influence... at all. Which manifested as this warped and idolized understanding of women as a whole
He thought of women in a very high and almost mystified regard- like how a child would imagine a mythical creature. One massive blank filled in by a clueless imagination. He respected them greatly, he feared them like gods, and he felt a need to repent to them as such. He never properly processed the guilt he felt over his mothers death-largely thanks to his father's handling of it. This guilt left him feeling indebted, like he owed the world for what he “took", like if he ever so much as inconvenienced another woman it would be an irredeemable sin.
This all sounds like it comes from a good place, but it's really all just deluded naivety this is not a positive trait of Harlow's. It contributed a lot to his toxic masculinity, the pressure he put on himself to "be a man", etc.
He's not a white knight, he's a cowardly dog.
This is why he didn't just kill Eden on the spot after being caught, he needed to make sure...)
MORE TO COME IM SURE I LOVE GETTING QUESTIONS ABOUT THESE FREAKS IF ANYONE HERE HAS ANY
#Rot of the Eucharist#my ocs#ocs#original characters#original writing#horror writing#horror author#queer author#queer fiction#long post
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So, some news: tomorrow morning I'm having surgery on my right arm - my dominant arm - my drawing arm, my writing arm, my brushing-my-teeth and typing-in-chat and unlocking-my-door arm - and will lose most use of it for years, and an unknown (but hopefully less dire) amount of use of it forever. As you might expect, this sucks so, so bad.
As you can see above, I have been trying to proactively warm up my left hand so I can still write and such once this happens. As you might also detect above, it has not felt great.
(complements on my left-handed writing are not welcome; the feel of it is so alien that even if it looked perfect, i'd be upset)
So while I go in to get that done, I was wondering if you'd be willing to reply or repost or something with a thing you like about my work that isn't about how it looks? So I can go back to this post when I get real depressed afterwards and remind myself I'm more than my line quality?
And if you are curious, slightly more explanation with anatomical specifics below the cut:
so it turns out I have a peripheral nerve tumour on my radial nerve above my elbow in my right arm - it's been slowly preventing me from lifting up my index finger (extending it) and more and more the rest of my hand's extension has been weakening. scans show muscle atrophy in my forearm, so not only is the nerve weakening, it's been weakening long enough that the muscles are getting noticeably less use.
from what we know, the tumour is benign, but it's not possible to remove it without removing a chunk of the nerve, and likely fully severing the nerve. and though benign, the tumour has been steadily growing and is likely to continue doing so, where it would eventually effectively sever the nerve all on its own.
so this is a preventative surgery where we take the tumour out before it withers all the radial offshoot nerves farther down my arm, and graft in a spare (well, less important) nerve from my ankle, and hope that the graft takes and the nerve has a chance to heal and then let me rebuild my muscles and recover some hand and wrist extension. How much is not known. Complete recovery is impossible - some nerves in there are already dead and no amount of grafts and occupational therapy can change that, and more will wither while we're waiting for the graft to heal.
Motor nerves can only heal for so long, so I'll know more about my expected lifetime function in a few years. Likeliest outcome is followup tendon reassignment surgery to try and fill any dire functional gaps, and then what will presumably be a bit of a mind-fuck of physio trying to teach my brain that one of my flexion muscles will then be responsible for extension of fingers or wrist or something.
What's confusing about this is, my other arm nerves are all fine.
Ulnar? Doing great.
Those nerves you fuck up with carpal tunnel? that I fucked up in 2008 and have spent a decade and a half taking very careful care of? really solid, healthy nerves! good job past Shel!
So I'm certainly not losing 100% of hand function; I'll still be able to curl my fingers and thumb and actively bend my wrist down - I just likely won't be able to reverse all those movements. Hell, already I can tell how much weaker my right hand is at typing - writing this after a day of spreadsheets at work is really wearing it down.
It's surreal how much all i feel is grief about this. There's no one to be mad at, not even myself - it just, sucks. Can you hold a funeral for your handwriting? your markmaking language? your line quality? your ability to touch type up to 140 words per minute? your confident, trained, controlled method of self-expression? RIP, radial nerve. I already miss you.
It's been a 13 month gauntlet of medical appointments since I first saw a neurologist about this and it's a relief to finally have the surgery, but i do really appreciate all the other scans and tests and biopsies - they gave me enough information to make this legit horrible decision to try and save what function I can for tomorrow by making today awful. And to try and become ambidextrous, I guess, because god knows I'm not stopping making art simply because my body betrayed me. It'll just be ... not what I think of as my art, for a while, at least.
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text under the cut
Atrophy (Slowly Wasting Away)
Lai poem
Slowly fall apart
Broken at the start
Ripped seams
Hide behind a chart
Pretend to sound smart
Brain beams
The cracks in my heart
Call them modern art
Lost dreams
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(secretly worried my brain is slowly atrophying because i haven't had a thought with any substance to it in weeks) ymca unironically bangs
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Fuck, it certainly hasn't made me less horny about gassing it with RAID. Watching it finger itself as I press the nozzle through its air hole day after day. Seeing how quickly it squirts when I put tape across the hole for a day, forcing it to live on just the air already in its jar, the fumes mixing with the ever growing pool of carbon dioxide at the bottom, making it hallucinate in horny bliss every time it breathes it in, as overhead a growing cloud of deadly carbon monoxide forms, slowly sinking towards it with every breath, until just before the invisible poison reaches it and ends its barely conscious existence, I pull the tape off and spray it with compressed air, oxygen flooding its system and making it feel so high before a new nozzle pushes into the jar and gives it its daily dose.
Sometimes giving it orders to earn its RAID, at first refused, but soon obeyed without hesitation as its brain melts. "Fuck the nozzle." It struggles desperately to grab ahold of it and force its wet hole onto the thick pole that delivers its favourite drug, cumming instantly as a burst of spray fills it and shoots it off the nozzle to crash back onto the bottom of the jar, a burning agony of pleasure spreading from its hole as it absorbs the spray. "Swallow it." The nozzle bumping against its face until it wraps its lips around it and tries to swallow the overly thick tube, gagging slightly before its stomach is inflated like a balloon, the nozzle the only thing keeping the spray and fumes from pouring back out, and when the nozzle's pulled out, its mouth and nostrils are filled with the vapours, unable to breathe without constantly inhaling it, spasming on the verge of life and death, its brain melting further with every gasp for breath until finally some of the stale air in the jar makes it into its lungs~
Denying it its ""''water""" one day, watching as its thin, atrophied form begins to sway with thirst, before pulling it out of the jar and binding its limbs with rubber bands, its wings crunching prettily beneath the bands, forcing it headfirst into my pussy, getting it nice and wet and lubricated as it tries to slurp up my juices, before pushing its head into my urethra and forcing it to drink my piss straight from the source, soaking its body as it's slowly forced out of my tight hole with a full belly, dumping the pissrag back into its jar and giving it an extra intense spray for good measure. This becoming a frequent occurrence.
Binding it up straight and using it as a squirming dildo, or forcing its legs flat against its body, ignoring its moans of pain, hooking it into a harness and forcing its tight hole onto my swollen, bulbous clit before using it as a strap-on to fuck my friends, telling it that its next week of RAID doses will be determined by how many orgasms it gives them.
Letting my fiends fuck it whenever they think it's put on a good enough show. One of them binding it up tight and sliding it foot first into her girlcock, the last sight it sees before being fully engulfed is me smiling and waving. Spending the rest of the day writhing and struggling for air inside the tight, flaccid hole, bent in all kinds of directions as my friend goes about her day. Then feeling her tighten and harden around it, straightening out, its entire body drowning in the sound of her heartbeat as it starts to race, air becoming thinner as a familiar pungent moisture replaces it. Barely conscious as she begins pulsing, her cock crushing down on it, then suddenly flooding it with girlcum, its body too tight against the walls for the girlcum to squeeze past, forcing every drop into its holes, swelling it up and locking it more tightly inside. Eventually another wave of pressure comes as she starts to soften and loosen, and it's squirted out in a stream of piss. I'm there with my friend to scoop it out of her piss and girlcum and put it back in its jar and spray it nice and thoroughly, the taste of my juices and hers still on its tongue as it drifts off to sleep, its broken stubs of wings flittering as it imagines how I'll use it tomorrow...
AHHEHRYYEYYSGDS OH MY GOD OH MY GOD IM SSO NORMAL IM SSOSRBE WAHSEW IM SO NORMAL IM ASSO SNDFISAJDHAHFHDW GOS
Little thing eagerly stroking her cock as she stares up at you, moaning happily every time it sees that nozzle~ probably small enough that the little cock could fit in the nozzle, fucking it eagerly... same results as if I had a pussy~
Its cute that you think of me with wings because I would never try to escape~ little thing could fly away, but it doesnt want to- and once its wings are destroyed, it never can... your own personal slut~
Cock throbbing as I huff the rank air, the scent of RAID like a drug to me, the sight of that bright red nozzle so exhilerating it sends me into a frenzy... at some point you'd have to pry me away from the nozzle, either trying to fuck it or trying to fit as much of it into my drooling maw as possible~
Watching me squirm helplessly against your inner walls, lapping up a mix of squirt and piss with eager, thankful moans~ hearing your friends laugh as I do another tease, desperate to get each and every one off so I can get my reward... more bugkiller~
And FUCK I would love that... cock twitching as I'm trapped in her shaft, grinding my own shaft against her inner walls, moaning eagerly~ thing stuffed with cum, so, so eager to crawl back... when I'm finally free, you can watch as I scramble to give a quick kiss to your friend's cocktip before letting you scoop me up...
Even cuter is listening~ put an ear up to that jar and you'll hear sleepy, eager whimpers and moans, little half baked sentences of praise and adoration~ little thing even dreams about you...
#thanks for the ask!#crueleve#SHFJWJFHDHS GOD FUCK PLEASE#also um. if it wasnt clear I do have a cock-#... I'll still shove the nozzle in my other hole though ;3#fave
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do you have any tips/advice for beating internet addiction? I'm tired of dicking around on the same 3 websites for 15 hours a day and I need my life back. i miss reading!
YES I do!! unfortunately it sounds very obvious and very shit. but it is the tried and tested proven way to do it, and contrary to what I usually say -- that your mileage may vary because everyone is different -- I find that with shit like this there's only one way to do it.
you gotta just go cold fucking turkey, man.
I used to genuinely be addicted to the internet. I would spend at minimum 12 hours a day online. sometimes, I could spent up to 20 hours online, staring at the same handful of websites, refreshing endlessly, and not even wanting to be there. but I couldn't do anything else, because I would get bored so easily, or there was just nothing that I wanted to do. it was an endless cycle.
internet addiction works loosely like this:
you find yourself with not much to do, either because there just isn't anything to do (you're stuck at home in a boring place, for example) or you don't have the ability to do what you want to do (you have an illness or disability that makes it difficult to do certain things, for another example)
the internet at first is your friend, because it gives you access to things you wouldn't usually have, and at first this is entertaining and beneficial
you start spending more time online
slowly you get used to the constant gratification of refreshing and finding new content
as you get used to this, your attention span lowers, and you start demanding more content, faster
eventually you reach the point where you cannot refresh fast enough to keep yourself entertained; content is not being created fast enough for you
your attention span is so destroyed that you cannot even commit to going hunting for new content -- this demands too much attention and focus
you end up on the same sites, refreshing constantly, but with no attention to do anything else.
so, you end up in a fair bit of trouble. like all addictions, you're eventually going to reach the point where you max out. your body can't take anymore. in this case, your attention span has been destroyed. this makes it very difficult to fathom ever doing anything that doesn't provide immediate entertainment, but! good news. your attention span can be rebuilt.
a lot of people don't realise this. your attention span is not a finite resource that siphons off. it's a muscle that atrophies. your brain wants to be entertained, and while it will go for instant gratification first -- this is low effort and more immediately satisfying -- what it prefers are things that hold your attention for a long time, and are gratifying and time-consuming. it wants to get its money's worth, basically. and you can re-train yourself to enjoy these longer, slow-burn tasks.
but to do this you have to kick the habit. you have to reset. and the only way to effectively do this is to go cold turkey. I'm talking two weeks of extremely limited screen time, minimum. if you cannot trust yourself to check briefly after waking up and before bed and nothing else, then you must do no screen time. in fact, I'd recommend that anyway. do not look at social media at all. do not visit these websites. completely cut yourself off from all instant gratification: no social media, no instant messaging, nothing. if you have to use the internet for school or work, visit only those sites that you need and no more. block other sites if you have to. just do not engage.
the first while is going to suck. you are going to be bored, and restless, and miserable, and probably genuinely depressed. it's fine, it's normal, but you must not give in to it. it's good. it means it's working. you have to ride through it, and start forcing yourself to do other things. read a few pages of a book. go out on a walk. make something nice to eat. do some art. hell, clean. even if the task sucks, do anything that is not going online. do this every day, multiple times. keep yourself busy. force yourself to do things for a set amount of time. be a little harsh with yourself -- you are not going to restore your attention span if you do not push yourself a little. your brain is going to be throwing a fit demanding something more easily entertaining, and you have to be the responsible one and say no. and it really will suck.
eventually, though, it's going to get easier. cold turkey is the biggest shock; once you make it through, and prove there are other ways to fill your day, you have to remain committed. stay offline as long as you can. if you really must check, set a time and do not exceed it. prioritise all offline activities first, and only go online if you have spare time. keep committed to the other things. you will find that gradually, the constant refreshing and the sheer nothing that you find online is not as satisfying. you'll want to seek out longer, more fulfilling things. you'll want to finish that book you're reading. you'll want to work more on your art. you'll want to go out, or watch a documentary, or meet with friends, or organise the junk in your bedroom, or whatever it is. you'll be feeling calmer, and more focused, and generally less annoyed and stressed out. you'll probably start to regard a lot of what goes on online as kind of ridiculous. your priorities will reset. and from there it will only get easier and more enjoyable.
like I said, from 12-20 hours a day, I've got my online time down to 30 minutes in the week, if that. on weekends I let myself dick around more -- but only if I want to. there are whole weekends where I don't even turn on my laptop. and man, is it preferable. this shit is reversible, and I also say this as somebody with ADHD. so even if you have that working against you, I promise you it's still possible. you just have to be prepared to suffer for a while, but sometimes suffering isn't a bad thing. sometimes it's very fucking necessary.
tl;dr you get addicted because your brain gets used to quick and constant entertainment. this is reversable. go cold turkey and do things that require more time and focus for a couple of weeks, and then limit your social media time forever. at first it will suck but eventually you will literally realise how dumb it is and stop missing it.
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It started off innocent. She bought a gaming setup so when you came over I could just use hers or hang out and watch TV.....
She would quietly bring beer,snacks and food to you when you were there and watch like a hawk to see if I needed refills. My trim body started getting a beer gut.
Over time she would mention things like maybe I should just move in to save on my rent. Maybe I should just stay home so I don't need work so hard let mommy take good care of you. If I ask for anything it just shows up. I never have to figure anything out. My brain just atrophies because I'm basically a kept pig. Everything becomes such a task.
So I just slowly grow lazier and put weight on. She just kept enabling me. Always cooking and bring me growing amounts of food. Making sure I am always high, I almost never have to get up or move or do anything. She will always hire somebody to cut the lawn or fix anything.
She just "doesn't" need me disturbed. You deserve to take it easy honey. I don't know how I didn't see what she was doing. I should have questioned why she would only suck or fuck me if I finished my food or was eating something. I can't get off now if I'm not eating.
It's ok. She takes good care of me. Always dressed so sexy and feeding me while she hangs out with me.
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That doesn't sound bad. That's only disappointing if it disappoints you. What kind of stuff do you tend to sketch if I may ask? Also might've been low key seeing if you play video games that I could invite you to play.
Ah, you know, thank you for this. 🥹 they are my hobbies, and I need to learn not to minimize them or apologize for liking them. (Old habits, it comes with growing up the way I did and being told that liking comic books and Star Wars and "living in a fantasy world" was making me weak) But yeah I mean. It's not disappointing to like reading, or art, or video games, nor does it make someone a loser.
(I need to remember that)
I love to draw all kinds of things, I have a sketchpad filled with stuff from reference/still life, I like practicing drawing flowers, I actually sometimes like drawing smut/ shibari and if I ever actually posted that online I'd tag the models I referenced... not even in a horny way but there's something wonderful I find in shibari or fetish stuff artists that they challenge you, in drawing in a pen and ink medium, to workshop how you adapt poses, musculature, lighting, all that stuff.
And I have a lot of superheroes.
When I was a kid, all the way up to about 17, I wanted to be a graphic novelist, make my own comics that were like just my teenaged brain firing off ideas I'd sponged up from a lot of X-Men and a LOT of Toonami. I didnt go on to become a comics artist, in fact, due to being discouraged by my dad and others (...but, well, my dad) I sort of came to the conclusion it was childish ("cute lil cartoons," they were derisively called) and let my gift atrophy. I drew nothing.
So in coming back to it, slowly over the last... ten years? Ive gotten back in to art.
It's not the same as it was. Sadly, it can't be, that fire I had when I was young was well. Stomped out.
So I cant make panels, and I struggle with transition and movement from one panel to the next to make a story flow, and sometimes it feels like I draw OTHER people's heroes like Spider-Man like I'm a fucking cover band at a dive bar playing KISS.
But I've still worked on it, and grown a lot over those last ten years, and found a peace in it that yeah, idk, maybe it isnt what I wanted to be when I was young but it's still art, dammit.
So yeah, sorry. Im wordy and it was complicated to answer but you kind of put a dime in and got me talking about it so. My sketchbook has lots of microliner ink drawing, some flowers and still life, some smut, some X-Men cover band stuff, just stuff I want to challenge myself to draw.
I'm also determined to experiment more with color like my copic markers this year so.
Video games I play are really a lot of single player open world stuff, Im currently grinding on um.
...fallout4 OKAY DONT JUDGE ME, I am of the specific brand of gamer that finds some peace and comfort in going back to Skyrim and Fallout from time to time...
I would love to get in to games with other people but I wouldnt know where to start, or what to pick up, frankly, but that is a kind offer and one I'd be interested in maybe perhaps at some point
I take it back... I did have a coop farm in Stardew Valley I played sorta multiplayer with my friend from CO but... our friendship sort of died off and we dont Stardew together anymore... fuck Im sad now.
Sincerely, thank you for the asks and the kindness and if you made it through reading ALL of that shit you are a fucking G and I respect and love you so much
#Answers#Sorry I could ramble a lot about art and superheroes and comics#And my superheroes#And wistfulness and apologies to my teenaged self that I never ended up publishing the comics we wanted to#Ugh#And also now I wanna hop from Fallout to Stardew and get back to my farm#Im like.... eleven years in on my one playthrough and still so much to do#Sigh#Fuck#Im soooo fucking wordy man#Why does nobody shut me up
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Some thoughts about dark fiction and mental illness and being a bit too good at Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
I've been in therapy on and off since age 11, and pretty much every therapist has told me I'm very good at reasoning through my emotions.
In third grade, I started keeping a tin of Altoids by my bed. I didn't really like the taste of the peppermint ones, but when I worried too much to sleep, I pretended they were magic medicine that made all my worries go away.
In fifth grade, I understood that sometimes, all the color just went out of life and I stopped feeling happy. I kept thinking about how meaningless my life was. I didn't know this was called depression, but I understood it would pass.
I have been able to explain to every therapist why my emotions are irrational, why my life is wonderful and I am so grateful to have it.
This has never stopped those emotions. It helps. Over my thirty years of being Mentally Ill, I have learned many signs. When I feel like I've forgotten some Important, Terrible Thing, I know this is a lie my anxiety tells and no longer sift through everything I hate about myself to try to find the True Horrible Reason I loath myself so deeply. When every song on my Spotify seems to pulse with life, I recognize I am falling into mania, get lots of sleep, and watch my spending carefully. When I begin to read article after article on an issue that upsets me because I must Face the Horrible Truth, I recognize this is my OCD, admit what I'm doing to my wife, and ask for distraction. I take my meds. I do deep breathing. I carry stim toys.
The thing is, you can stare an emotion dead in the eyes. You can recognize it, explain it, and still feel it.
It turns out, after decades of your mind screaming that you are sad and afraid and telling those emotions they are irrational and unfair and only make you cruel and paranoid and selfish, some part of your brain learns to treat what you feel as unimportant.
I lost anger first. It's a secret, even to me, but I am a very angry person. I'm easily overstimulated, my nervous system is a skittish horse, and my emotional regulation is shot. I always try to see the other side of things. I usually can. This is good. I do not want to change this about myself, but it often means I direct my anger the only safe direction I can. It took me years to understand why I would self harm after arguments, because I wasn't angry, was I? I was, I'm learning. I am. I am angry. I don't know how to be angry.
These days, my body often knows how I feel before my brain, and my wife knows what my body is saying before I do.
"I don't understand why my pain's been so bad this week."
"Love, you got fired last week and we can't afford our apartment anymore. You're upset."
"Oh. I think I am."
I like angry characters. I like watching their anger be destructive and terrible and ruin their lives. I do not want to learn how to lash out, how to blame others for my raging emotions, how to hate without guilt, but I want to learn to be angry. Characters can be angry for me, ruin little pretend worlds for pretend reasons. They can be so much worse than I ever am and still be loved and forgiven.
I like it when characters are afraid and that fear is rational. Where they can scream and cry and fight because there ARE monsters lurking in the shadows. I can feel with them, inhabit a world where all my irrational emotions are rational, where there is no need for me to undermine or dismiss myself.
Sometimes, I feel the people who understand this the least are people who never question their own emotions, who assume if they hurt, they have been attacked, and if they have been attacked, they can do all the harm they want.
I am learning am slowly trying to relearn to use my atrophied emotions and not treat them like monsters that will swallow me the second I unchain them. In the meantime, I walk them through stories, slowly. You can hurt here. You can hate here. You can feel here.
#i used to post a ton of personal mental health stuff on this blog and I've mostly stopped#but#hey there's a time for everything!#self harm mention
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I used to have a thing about locking doors, where I could never convince myself that they were actually locked. When I was with my ex, I had him check the doors for me. If he told me they were locked after one check, I believed it more than if I'd checked it 15 times myself. And after we broke up, this habit got really bad and I'd check the doors over and over again every night like a routine. Get up, check the locks, brush your teeth, check the locks, use the toilet, check the locks, go to bed, get up, check the locks, go back to bed, get up again, repeat. I could see the locked door in my mind's eye but I didn't trust that memory, so I had to check again. And again. And again.
But the thing is, after a couple years separated from my ex, I don't do this anymore. I no longer doubt my perception that the door was locked the first time I checked it. I check it once and go to bed and any time I think "Wait, was the door actually locked?" I remember that I checked it, and I'm fine.
I didn't know what gaslighting was when we were together, and he never brought up the locked doors, or did anything to encourage the idea that my memory of locking it was false. But it didn't matter. Because all day, every day for years, every time I expressed anything, no matter how important or understandable, I was told that I was crazy and I was imagining things and I was being too emotional and I should simply go with whatever he wanted. I was too weak and unstable to make decisions and my needs were a nuisance, which meant I was a nuisance, which meant I was lucky to have someone who tolerated me and could help me see the truth.
What I'm getting at is that gaslighting doesn't just change your perception of the specific things you've been gaslit about. It warps your entire understanding of your reality. It completely degrades your ability to witness things and record them in your mind as fact. And that's such a basic fundamental of how humans operate in the world. You need to be able to see things and remember them and trust your memories, but when you're in the fog of gaslighting, you entirely cede that process to someone else.
And when that person is gone, you keep their views in your mind. I'm crazy, I can't be trusted, but [Ex] told me how to feel about this kind of thing, so that's probably correct. You keep leaning on their opinions because the part of your brain that can make your own has atrophied. That doesn't mean you still LIKE that person or even respect them. You might have even realized how badly you were gaslit by them. But you can't just flatten those grooves in your mind immediately. Your entire self image is based around what they've told you about yourself and you can't rebuild that overnight.
But you can eventually. You get better at silencing their voice. You do something they told you that you were incapable of doing, and you realize they were wrong. They were wrong about so, so much. And slowly, that part of your brain that learns how to make decisions and trust your gut gets stronger and stronger.
And I don't think my ex's voice will ever fade completely. It's still there, sometimes. But I don't trust it anymore. It's not the infallible word of God that it used to be. I see it for what it is — the pleading of a sad, scared little boy who had to break me down in order to stay in his tiny, tiny, comfort zone.
And I am so much tougher than him.
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50
I turned 50 this week. And, it's not that I'm not ALWAYS introspective, I definitely am... but I've been trying especially hard to really dig deep to try to figure out what's going on with me over the last handful of years. Over the last decade or so - I've become so much more complacent and melancholic than I can remember ever being before. I've always battled with depression, and that's always rearing its ugly head in the corners of my brain, but this last decade or so I've almost completely lacked the ability / desire to make proactive choices to better my life.
It's like I've stopped caring, I'm realizing. I don't know when or why, there's no one specific traumatic event I can pinpoint as THE defining moment, but at some point - it's like life just actually broke me.
Stephanie Kallos once wrote, "If someone were to autopsy her heart, they'd find traces of life, evidence of eons gone by. Times when she'd been able to feel and the feelings left imprints. Maybe her heart was wearing a cast. Maybe it wasn't sclerosed at all but atrophied, shrunken, and the cast enclosing it was scribbled over with stories written in a dead language. Was there any softness left in there? Any spot that was still unfired, unformed, unglazed? Was there access? Entry? A place still open to impression? No. Her heart was finished. It bore, perhaps, records of life, but it wasn't alive. Too late for decoration. Too late for effects. Further handling could only result in cracks and fractures. People could cut themselves on the edges of her heart, she was sure of it.”
I couldn't possibly better explain what the last decade has felt like.
I've never really felt like I fit in. Growing up, I was an awkward and anxious kid, hypervigilent of everyone & everything around me, thanks to "being raised" by an alcoholic/narcissistic/abusive stepfather and a ULTRA controlling bully/codependent/narcissistic mother. I was always the odd man out and can remember just feeling different from other people from a very young age.
By the time high school rolled around, I was the same awkward & anxious teenager - but I learned a lot in grade school & junior high about how to fit in better. Slowly but surely, I started gaining friends and going to parties and dances. I started drinking.
I became a notorious party girl. After HS and college, I could be found at bars & clubs Wednesday & Thursday nights with work friends and Friday & Saturday nights with 'outside of work' friends. I did alllllll the drugs.
My drug & alcohol use, however, was always a social thing. I wasn't doing drugs & drinking in the privacy of my home by myself. And this was how I continued to tell myself that there was zero problems with the ways I was choosing to live.
And I finally fit in with others!! For the first time in my young adult life, I had tons of friends and a full social calendar. Other than my daily hangovers, I felt on top of the world.
Outside of the last decade, my entire adult life has been spent creating friendships and relationships under this party girl persona. Of course I wasn't making good decisions in romantic partners - I grew up being shown and told just how little worth I had in this world.
I dealt with my inability to feel connected to others & my IMMENSE & SEVERE social anxiety (now I know - my neurodivergence) by drinking / partying & lowering my inhibitions/social anxiety enough to feel like I was *finally* connecting with other people. And 9x out of 10 - those people were not good for me & did not have good intentions or even care/consideration for me at all.
However shortly after turning 40 and having a heart wrenching fall out with my younger sister who'd become a raging/abusive alcoholic herself - I stopped drinking/drugging. I stopped going out at all.
I was so utterly destroyed by what my sibling relationship had turned into thanks to addiction/alcoholism that I just stopped all of it. (Other than THC - I'm not insane.)
I've spent the last decade soberly isolating from others. In some ways, I've healed. In others, I'm worse off.
I definitely miss feeling connected to other people, but thus far - sober me hasn't found that to be a successful venture. I find small talk painful - I have an extremely difficult time with pleasantries for pleasantries' sake. I feel like I'm probably a lot - awkward, anxious, always in my head, always over analyzing EVERY. SINGLE. WORD. and action - not just my own but everyone else's too.
I try to join in when coworkers are casually hanging out, but it just never feels natural. It almost amplifies my incessant desire to not be perceived at all by others. I question every eye movement, hand gesture, deeper inhale than normal, side glance at another coworker. I second guess even the most mundane of things I may have said... was that embarrassing? Did I talk too long, omg did that sound stupid? What if they took it wrong? God why am I so fucking inept???
It makes every interaction exasperatingly exhausting. It's what drinking helped to eliminate.
So what does that mean??? Do I need to go back to drinking & partying at 50 years old in order to feel like I belong in this world? I refuse to ever go back to that version of me - she served me well for a time (and not so well for others) but she is definitely not who I want to travel down this next period of the road with.
But I can't keep isolating either. I've become (even more) reclusive than ever before.
I need to figure out how to keep the awkward/anxiousness at bay without the use of drugs & alcohol while also feeling comfortable enough in my skin to authentically connect with others.
I need to learn to actually love myself.
I need to learn how to start caring again.
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All of my poems and short stories in one place for you to binge-read. Will be updated when I post new things. Unless I forget.
Stories:
The Great Sandwich Adventure: Three dysfunctional animals try to make some lunch. Tomfoolery ensues.
Death's Gift: A man meets Death, who offers him a wish. Be careful what you wish for...
Reflections: Waking up to something odd.
In The Fume Hood: Too much homework. Too little sleep. An overly powerful (and possibly sentient) fume hood.
Ethanol and Mothballs: The halls of the museum are quiet at night. The collections are a different story; organisms wake up and begin to explore...
Poetry (from 2024):
The Betta Fish
What Could Have Been
Blurring Together
Fibonacci Poems Part 2
My Brain Gnome Is Disorganized
The Baby Turtle
I'm Still Here
Atrophy (Slowly Wasting Away)
Recycled
I Am A Human
Empty Room
Hope is the T-Rex With Feathers
Self Love
Missing Common (Important) Things
Leap Day
Sticks and Stones
The Half-Light
Saturation Diver
Miss Felicity
Overcast Limbo
Unknown Land
Melted Rock
Sensory Issues
Zugzwang
Perfect Illusions
The Lake Behind the Dam
Desert
UNIVAC LARC Solid-State Computer
Cancer Research
Who Owns The Moon?
Peel Off A Chunk of Skin
Maggots
I Gave It All Away
Upshot-Knothole
A Thousand Times
The Dining Room Table
NaNoWriMo 2023
Poetry from 2023
Descriptions:
Inner Peace
#masterlist#writing#stories#poetry#poem#original poem#original character#original story#described#descriptive writing#mental health#original poetry#iambic tetrameter#nanowrimo#writing challenge#creative writing#acrostic#found poetry#poems on tumblr#golden shovel#free verse#poetryblr#writblr#writerblr#blackout poetry
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