I've never seen anyone talk about this like this. Most people I know laugh at the idea that you can be traumatized into hating reading.

"You can't brute force your way through a trauma response" really hit me. I went to the library recently because I wanted to finally get better at reading. As I attempted, I couldn't process any of the words and I struggled a lot to not break down into tears. I can't remember if I eventually told anyone, but I was too ashamed to say anything to the people I went with.

I decided to time myself when reading this. And just the screenshotted stuff. It took me 40 minutes to read it. And it will take me another 40 minutes to fully understand it, because when I read I have to reread times (and make notes) to remember even just pieces of what was said (you dont understand, a lot of people need to reread to fully understand. When I am done reading, my mind it blank and I don't remember any of what was written - not the facts, not the jokes, not anything.) I usually have to reread twice. Taking two and a half out hours of my day to do something that exhausts me and brings me no joy when existence in general is exhausting - I just never did it because I was always burnt out anyways from getting up, from breathing, from being around people or from being alone. And I assumed it was just something wrong with me. But knowing the system is designed like this on purpose, I feel relieved and also even more deafeated. Because I think this genuinely confirms that I will need some kind of accommodation if I'm going to want to read and actually remember/learn what I read.

This was really good to read because even though I am burnt out, it was worth it. It validated that there really is a system that made reading traumatizing on purpose, and it wasn't just my fault for hating reading as a child. It also made me feel kind of powerless, and a lot of shame for feeling that powetlessness bc I assume people are going to think my lack of reading is just some excuse, but thats more for me to deal with and not an issue with the author.

it's nice to have someone validate that reading is hard, and to explain that it is hard because it is exercise. if you do it more, you'll get stronger.

You gotta read and watch some old books and films that aren’t 100% modern politically correct. I’m not saying you should agree with everything in them but you need to learn where genres came from to understand what those genres are doing today and where media deconstructing old tropes is coming from.

Also, more often than you might think, they’re not actually promoting bigotry so much as “didn’t consider all the implications of something” or just used words that were polite then but considered offensive now.

Kill the censor in your head.

When we choose to avoid history because it's Problematic or Says Bad Things, we are choosing to divorce ourselves from understanding how we came from that time to this one, which makes it even more likely for the cycle to repeat, with no one but a few people with shelves of old books aware that it's happened before.

It's pornography cuz it sure isn't art

This truly was such a moment in the culture.

Hey is anybody having trouble with those Captcha test things lately? Mine are getting kinda weird and I’m even not too sure what to click on

Hi, a few people accused this of being AI generated and I would like to point out I actually painted this— it was inspired by how fucked up AI generated captcha images look, of course, but the final result was hand-drawn. Don’t mind that I have over 200 layers on this thing haha my painting process is a disaster

I appreciate the people reassuring me in the comments so much haha but don’t worry I wasn’t upset! I found it funny + it was an understandable mistake anyway since I was deliberately trying to imitate that vibe, just wanted to clear up that it was art because I evidently forgot to when I initially posted it

Oh yeah, extra details: the rock/leaf litter textures I used for the ground are actually static grain taken from MRI brain scans I had done years ago

Achievement Unlocked:

Artificial Artificial Intelligence

You managed to mimick AI so perfectly that everyone thinks you're a fake. Whoops/congratulations!

An incomplete list of reasons why crafting helps my mental health (and might help yours, too):

in light of switch 2 direct and as an advocate for playing windwaker: if you have a low-end laptop/pc and a wired controller you can play ww HD for free, let alone gamecube ww. download dolphin. go to r/roms. save yourself 600 dollars

hey did you know??? that if you stop stretching and maintaining mobility in your body then it goes away?? things get tight and you can't move the way that you used to??? and when you decide to try getting a stretch routine going that the first week fucking sucks because you keep going 'damn i used to be able to do this no problem' and then you have to switch gears and be kind to yourself and just focus on getting better from here instead of berating yourself for dropping the good habits in the first place??? and your body never stops aging so you gotta keep taking care of it and sometimes you gotta take care of it extra in certain areas because of things that happened when you were younger and it's boring and sometimes hurts but it's so necessary???

i am yelling this at myself right now i am going through An Experience (trying to get into a routine of body maintenance again for my physical and mental health)

oh, Sisyphus! i got you

the skill of going "jesus i just dont fucking care" and scrolling on

lmao the news this morning was all about worldwide stocks falling. here’s the main UK and main german indices

but fr idk why they were so gloomy. that’s nothing compared to the US itself. holy fuck

nasdaq was over 20k in january

I feel like we need a massive public education campaign to inform people that "natural" and "healthy" are two completely different words with separate meanings

Scrolled past this agakn and just can't get over how much I love it. We need to make things beautiful again and this is such a wonderful example. The beadwork on the wires of a utitarian object, contrasted with the grey concrete.

(through gritted teeth) sometimes what's good for your mental health isn't another do nothing day or a little treat sometimes what's good for you is putting in some of the work. Not all of it at once but sometimes you have to finish that essay or at least take the next step or you have to clean your room or at least dust the shelves or you gotta do the laundry or at least put it all in the hamper and it's not fun and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks but you have to because i read a post on the internet that told me that's what being nice to yourself is sometimes

Are you guys ok you’re all reblogging this post a lot

shapeshift!

singing house of the rising sun at the pub last night and when the song ended the musicians just kept playing while people ad-libbed more verses about various pubs they knew

(with ominous hurdy-gurdy accompaniment): "there is a pub in walthamstow, it's called the fox and mole, but we don't go there (long pause) any more. Because the manager is an arsehole."

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP RSTUVWXY

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