Diesel Machine Gun Messiah of Blue Light World

You may not notice it, but as an adult you continue gaining motor skills, insight, problem solving skills and above all patience and resilience in the face of failure. Also puberty can be a nightmare. For some of us it’s just harder to do things when we’re full of insecurities, low impulse control and focus, heightened emotions, etc. A thing that was hard for 15 year old you might not be hard for 25 or 35 or 45 years old you.

I thought I was the absolute worst at sowing because I tried to learn it in my teenage years and failed spectacularly at the most basic tasks. Turns out I just didn’t have the patience and focus for it yet. I tried it again recently and it didn’t take long at all to learn how to make my own clothes. (And oh my, being able to make any outfit I want in any fabric is a queer superpower.)

It’s not something anyone tells you. In fact, I think with our youth-obsessed culture, there’s a tendency to think that you’re going to peak young. Generally, this just isn’t true.

A lot of the improvement feels, like the OP says, kind of effortless. It’s me going back to cooking after not cooking for six years and suddenly, oops I’m pretty damn good at it. Why? I wasn’t cooking in the meantime, I wasn’t practicing. (I didn’t even have a stove.)

But other mental qualities were developing that make everything easier. My executive function, decision-making, motor skills, etc. are all better than they were, through completing thousands of other tasks. I can think, know, and focus better.

There’s a huge element of this, also, which is enabled by emotional capacity and maturity, which is even harder to describe. It’s easier for me to do things like tell the truth because I can actually understand the truth of how I feel and I am more likely to have the confidence to say it. It’s easier to make the right decisions, to weigh all the factors. Especially for me since I was really not consistently good at this in my teens and 20s (I was possibly more impulsive and risk-seeking than many people, but that just makes the contrast more apparent.)

The other thing to consider is that when you are a teen/child, you’re being taught things often in a very specific way that’s been determined by someone else. My dad, for example, wanted me to understand how engines worked, so he explained them to me while we both looked under the hood of his various cars or trucks. I learned absolutely zero things by doing this.

And for the record: I don’t wanna shit on teens and young adults here or to discourage teens from trying complicated things. Everyone is different and not every teen is as much of a distracted and easily discouraged mess as I was. And as you say: a lot of why things are often harder for teens is because they’re not given the space to choose what they want to learn and how they want to learn.

I got this message from a bot, and honestly? If I was a bit younger and not such a jaded bitch with a career in tech, I might have given it an honest try. I spent plenty of time in a tough situation without access to any mental health resources as a teen, and would have been sucked right in.

Chatting right from your phone, and being connected with people who can help you? Sounds nice. Especially if you believe the testimonials they spam you with (tw suicide / self harm mention in below images)

But I was getting a weird feeling, so I went to read the legalese.

I couldn't even get through the fine-print it asked me to read and agree to, without it spamming the hell out of me. Almost like they expect people to just hit Yes? But I'm glad I stopped to read, because:

What you say on there won't be confidential. (And for context, I tried it out and the things people were looking for help with? I didn't even feel comfortable sharing here as examples, it was all so deeply personal and painful)

Also, what you say on there? Is now...

Koko's intellectual property - giving them the right to use it in any way they see fit, including

Publicly performing or displaying your "content" (also known as your mental health crisis) in any media format and in any media channel without limitation

Do this indefinitely after you end your account with them

Sell / share this "content" with other businesses

Any harm you come to using Koko? That's on you.

And Koko won't take responsibility for anything someone says to you on there (which is bleak when people are using it to spread Christianity to people in crisis)

I was curious about their business model. They're a venture-capitol based tech startup, owned by Airbnb, the famous mental health professionals with a focus on ethical business practices./s They're also begging for donations despite having already been given 2.5 million dollars in research funding. (If you want a deep dive on why people throw crazy money at tech startups, see my other post here)

They also use the data they gather from users to conduct research and publish papers. I didn't find them too interesting - other than as a good case study of "People tend to find what they are financially incentivized to find". Predictably, Koko found that Kokobot was beneficial to its users.

So yeah, being a dumbass with too much curiosity, I decided to use the Airbnb-owned Data-Mining Mental Health Chatline anyway. And if you thought it was dangerous sounding from the disclaimers? Somehow it got worse.

(trigger warning / discussions of child abuse / sexual abuse / suicide / violence below the cut - please don't read if you're not in a good place to hear about negligence around pretty horrific topics.)

Look:

I know that might seem counterintuitive to trying to stay warm, but it's better than getting carbon monoxide poisoning, which can occur if you burn candles in an enclosed space for too long. It can take several hours for a single candle to build up enough carbon monoxide in an enclosed room to cause health problems, but if you're burning more than one, as is suggested in the video, that time frame is much shorter.

self harm alternatives

let yourself cry

draw on your skin with red marker

go for a quick walk

scribble recklessly on paper

rip up a newspaper or magazine

write a positive letter to yourself

take a bath and pamper yourself

start a journal and get creative

cuddle with a pet

write a list of things you like about yourself

splatter paint on a large piece of paper

chew a piece of ginger root

pick a random subject and research it

reorganize something in your room

If you’ve ever been unfairly accused of waking up on the wrong side of the bed, you know already know how sleep affects our mental health. On any given night, we go through four stages of sleep and each one is a key player in how our brain functions the next day. A good night’s sleep improves our memory and allows us to efficiently process information. A bad night’s sleep can make us feel unmotivated and irritable. And while we all need sleep to improve our mood, not all of us can get it.

One look through history and pop culture tells us that sleep disorders like insomnia do not discriminate. Unsurprisingly, Edgar Allen Poe referred to sleep as little slices of death. Before Tupac was California dreaming, all three Geto Boys’ closed their eyes only to find their minds playing tricks on them. While Gucci Mane can’t sleep simply because he has too much to say.

This Self-care Sunday is all about getting the tools you need to go to bed with intention. Join this special Sleep 101 class and create a landscape of success for the week ahead. #Mosleeplessproblems

💆Self-Care Sundays💆 with Ruthie, Founder of The Rest, at 1:00 pm EST

About the class

If you want to get better sleep in 2022, you might need Sleep 101. In this session, we'll talk about what goes on when you sleep, how it works, and how you can use that knowledge to get better sleep. In the end, we'll have time for sleep practice (a guided nap), where you can use the techniques you learn in this class.

Meet Ruthie

Ruthie Nachmany is the founder of The Rest and a certified sleep coach. After sleeping ~4 hours a night for years, she finally realized how her lack of sleep was undermining her health and happiness while she was awake. As she started the journey of learning how to get better sleep and how important sleep was, she realized how many people also struggle with their sleep, and started teaching “sleep school’, where you can learn about the basics of how sleep works and what you should know about the science of sleep to improve the rest of your life.

Greetings, and welcome to Loud Cat Creations! I’ve been making jewelry for ten years, and I’ve been in fandom for twice that long. I love making wearable fannish creations for other fans! And what do I love more? Making fannish creations for a good cause. That good cause is Fandom Trumps Hate, an multi-fandom event raising money for a number of nonprofits, all of which serve populations who are particularly vulnerable under the Trump administration. These include GLSEN, Border Angels, and several organizations dedicated to keeping elections free and fair—the latter of which are crucial to protecting everyone in the US.

All of the necklaces in this “virtual stall” are inspired by Good Omens, and all will appear in my Etsy shop (http://etsy.com/shop/AVeryLoudCat) after this event ends. But if one catches your fancy, you’ll want to buy it here first because these retail from $25-$40 normally. For this auction, each is only $25. If you’re looking for a special gift for the Good Omens fan in your life or a treat for yourself, now is the best time to get one. :) Here’s how it works:

1.     Pick which necklace(s) you like.

2.     Donate to one of the charities FTH supports.

3.     Email me at [email protected] with a screen shot proving that you’ve donated (redacting personal information is fine).

4.     Sit back, relax, and wait for your necklace—which will take about a week to ship.

Now, on to the pictures! There are several of these, so I’ve put them under a Read More cut.

Today though?