Subway Sociology #2: Triggersplaining

TW: Talking potentially triggeringly about someone else talking definitively triggeringly about the Kavanaugh hearings. I talk very loudly at times. It's an occupational hazard of ADHD. In hindsight, I'm sure that I have said things about things that have happened in my life loudly enough into cell phones in various public places and on various …

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Remote Control

If a bully-of-a-boss screams in an office, and there is no Lavender around to hear it, can he still control her amygdalar fear response? We're about to find out. I am now a 100% remote employee?! I've spent my not-FMLA completing a crash course in processing a lifetime of trauma alongside dealing with the concurrent 9th …

Don’t Let The Bedbugs Bite

*In the 9th Circle of Hell, bed bugs warrant a CW. Respect your mental health when reading.* I have a standard caveat on my blog that I will change minor details or abstract timelines for the sake of maintaining anonymity. Despite that claim - sensible though it probably would be to actually do that - …

Messages in a Bottle #8: The Right to Say “I’m Sorry”

On three separate occasions recently, I have found myself writing about apologies. I wrote about how my Partner always apologizes for hurting me in an argument - even when we have both said hurtful things - because he knows that wasn't something I ever heard growing up. Then I wrote in another post how abusers never …

Déjà Voodoo

Update: I also posted this in the comments, but then I remembered that smarter folks than I often skip the comments. The author of the original blog post that inspired this one contacted me. She has taken it down and apologized. She also seemed like she was still beating herself up over it even after …

For Better or Worse

CW: Anonymity is so inconvenient sometimes. I can't, for instance, tell you the actual state motto of the 9th Circle of Hell. "Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here," while appropriate, is actually not nearly as morbidly satisfying as the true state motto. If I ever write a memoir of my experiences in Hell - …

Frozen in Time

CW: Don't read this if you are in any sort of a bad place. I'm physically safe. I'm mentally shattered. You don't need to do anything. There's nothing anyone can do anyway unless they had serious political connections. I am not a danger to myself or others. No, the danger, as always, is from others, …

Blog Awards Series #2: Veteran of the Blog Awards

Back in college, I was an RPG gamer. I didn't actually start with D&D, though. I started with a few more "freeform" type systems where I could create my character with all sorts of attributes that don't fit into the standard D&D class system. I'll be honest, D&D felt kind of limited after having freeform …

Balanced Scorecard

As told by Eckhart Tolle, a Buddhist master named Ram Dass once stated, "If you think you are enlightened, go and spend a week with your parents." I'll be honest, I wasn't super enthused with Eckhart Tolle's books in general, but I did like that quote. It appears to be a common enough occurrence that …

Absent without (Family Medical) Leave

I know the DSM-V no longer includes the term "nervous breakdown" anymore. I'm fairly confident even if it did include it, since the origins of my panic attacks, crying, dissociation, and depression are quite well known, I'd still just end up labeled with the "dissociative subtype" of PTSD (aka the compromise that is supposed to …