Yes all cops. Do Piracy. Trans rights.

A lot of the time when people give advice intended to relieve anxiety, they suggest doing “relaxing” things like drawing, painting, knitting, taking a bubble bath, coloring in one of those zen coloring books, or watching glitter settle to the bottom of a jar.

This advice is always well-intentioned, and I’m not here to diss people who either give it or who benefit from it. But it has never, ever done shit for me, and this is because it goes about resolving anxiety in the completely wrong way.  

THE WORST THING YOU CAN DO when suffering from anxiety is to do a “relaxing” thing that just enables your mind to dwell and obsess more on the thing that’s bothering you. You need to ESCAPE from the dwelling and the obsession in order to experience relief.

You can drive to a quiet farm, drive to the beach, drive to a park, or anywhere else, but as someone who has tried it all many, many times, trust me–it’s a waste of gas. You will just end up still sad and stressed, only with sand on your butt. You can’t physically escape your sadness. Your sadness is inside of you. To escape, you need to give your brain something to play with for a while until you can approach the issue with a healthier frame of mind. 

People who have anxiety do not need more time to contemplate, because we will use it to contemplate how much we suck.

In fact, you could say that’s what anxiety is–hyper-contemplating. When we let our minds run free, they run straight into the thorn bushes. Our minds are already running, and they need to be controlled. They need to be given something to do, or they’ll destroy everything, just like an overactive husky dog ripping up all the furniture. 

Therefore, I present to you: 

THINGS YOU SHOULD NOT DO WHEN ANXIOUS

–Go on a walk

–Watch a sunset, watch fish in an aquarium, watch glitter, etc.

–Go anywhere where the main activity is sitting and watching

–Draw, color, do anything that occupies the hands and not the mind

–Do yoga, jog, go fishing, or anything that lets you mentally drift 

–Do literally ANYTHING that gives you great amounts of mental space to obsess and dwell on things.

THINGS YOU SHOULD DO WHEN ANXIOUS:

–Do a crossword puzzle, Sudoku, or any other mind teaser game. Crosswords are the best.

–Write something. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece. Write the Top 10 Best Restaurants in My City. Rank celebrities according to Best Smile. Write some dumb Legolas fanfiction and rip it up when you’re done. It’s not for publication, it’s a relief exercise that only you will see. 

–Read something, watch TV, or watch a movie–as long as it’s engrossing. Don’t watch anything which you can run as background noise (like, off the top of my head, Say Yes to The Dress.) As weird as it seems, American Horror Story actually helps me a lot, because it sucks me in. 

–Masturbate. Yes, I’m serious. Your mind has to concentrate on the mini-movie it’s running. It can’t run Sexy Titillating Things and All The Things That are Bothering Me at the same time. (…I hope. If it can, then…ignore this one.) 

–Do math problems—literally, google “algebra problems worksheet” and solve them. If you haven’t done math since 7th grade this will really help you. I don’t mean with math, I mean with the anxiety. 

–Play a game or a sport with someone that requires great mental concentration. Working with 5 people to get a ball over a net is a challenge which will require your brain to turn off the Sadness Channel. 

–Play a video game, as long as it’s not something like candy crush or Tetris that’s mindless. 

THINGS YOU SHOULD DO DURING PANIC ATTACKS ESPECIALLY:

–List the capitals of all the U.S. states

–List the capitals of all the European countries

–List all the shapes you can see. Or all the colors. 

–List all the blonde celebrities you can think of.

–Pull up a random block of text and count all the As in it, or Es or whatever.  

Now obviously, I am not a doctor. I am just an anxious person who has tried almost everything to help myself.  I’ve finally realized that the stuff people recommend never works because this is a disorder that thrives on free time and free mental space. When I do the stuff I listed above, I can breathe again. And I hope it helps someone here too. 

My tip for turning walks into a brain occupying activity (besides listening to an audiobook or calling somebody) is to learn a little bit about (depending where you walk) plant identification, bird identification, architecture, language, etc. if I’m wondering what each of the 20 different plants in the garden I just passed by are, I’m not thinking about other things. If I’m in a neighborhood where many of the signs are not in my native language, trying to read them and figure them out is another way to keep my mind busy. (You can also do games like “look for things that begin with s” for any object, labeled or unlabeled.)

Similar with manual hobbies. I don’t draw much, but I do a lot of fabric stuff. Straightforward stitching might not be great when anxious (unless I’m doing e.g. a language practice audiobook at the same time), but puzzling out a difficult mending/repair project or planning/starting a new patchwork project (colors, shapes, how I want the pieces to go together, and even piecing them together if it’s a complicated one), can be very mentally occupying.

If I find my mind wandering will listening to audiobooks or podcasts, upping the speed usually helps. If my mind still wanders, then it probably means I’m bored with the thing and should listen to something else.

I hope that helps someone!

Start a new sicktime hobby when you're still feeling well.

It's great to do low-energy activities when you're ill, or distracting activities when you're anxious, but trying to find, start, or learn a new hobby when you're already ill/anxious is really hard! So if e.g. you think you'd like to play a video game next time you're anxious, install Steam and learn the controls for a game now! Don't wait til you're in the middle of a panic attack!

Which leads to my next point...

Playing Tetris is a great distraction!

Let them know why you're cancelling, too.

I'd personally suggest sending money to the Democratic Senate races in Alaska, North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa, and Georgia.

it’s been two weeks and i can’t stop thinking about it.

You are not going to pass a skillcheck against a rip current once it has you.

Waves will not bow to your physical prowess no matter how impressive.

Shock does not care that you used to be on your school swim team.

If you hit your head, being good at swimming isn't going to turn you face-up while you're unconscious.

No, no. It is true and you should say it!

Please wear sunscreen and/or protective clothing. Please make sure your sunscreen is reef safe. 🙏

Sincerely,

What resulted from this intentional breach of law and evidence in order to convict the 'correct' traitor. How did Jews perceive their status in even ostensibly liberal and diverse democracies that said they were citizens entitled to equal protection under the law?

What can we learn from this?

The false conviction of Alfred Dreyfus, a captain in the French military, for treason against France in 1894 is remembered by historians as a flashpoint of antisemitism in modern history. It spread a renewed hatred and suspicion of Jews throughout French society, birthed Emile Zola’s famous J’accuse and spurred early Zionists like Theodore Herzl, who referenced the Dreyfus affair as proof that Jews could never be safe in Europe. The case turned on a document known as the bordereau, a handwritten memo offering French military secrets to the Germans. But the handwriting didn’t resemble Dreyfus’ script. So, key to the case was the testimony of a celebrated handwriting expert, Etienne Charavay, whose analysis confirmed a theory that the bordereau was an example of “autoforgery,” a convoluted theory that Dreyfus was purposefully disguising his handwriting, yet it could still be identified as his — in short, that the lack of resemblance between the handwriting somehow was further proof of Dreyfus’ guilt. However far-fetched, the theory that Charavay’s report advanced convicted Dreyfus in the public eye as well as in court. Now, those papers — tracings of Dreyfus’ writing alongside the script from the bordereau, an analysis of letter shapes and the expert report — are for sale by the Manhattan Rare Book Company at the Antiquarian Book Fair this week for the low price of $175,000. They are all the more interesting for the fact that Charavay emotionally recanted his testimony against Dreyfus several years after the trial, in 1899.

So you'd rather have no rights? You'd rather have no say in government? You'd rather have absolute chaos, widespread death?

Your privilage is showing.

If you hate the USA so much, leave. Same with other western countries right now.

Hating your country, sure, I feel we have at one point. However, wanting it destroyed is another story. Not only does it show extreme first world privilege, it also shows that the propaganda from terrorist regimes has burrowed deep into your common sense.

Being from a country that I can be free in, that I can associate with who I want, I don't have to worry about bombs, women can wear whatever, I like having democratic rights like freedom of speech, and to voice my opinions.

But you forget that what you have in the western world, all those rights and freedoms, they are not as common elsewhere in the world. Every country has a different system and protects their laws and citizens differently, while it says about 160 countries have this right, the same amount is said to violate human rights at the same time.

Be careful what you wish for because it might just come true.

Sources:

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-with-freedom-of-speech

Everyone understands for example that black people vote democrat way out of proportion to what any policy preference could explain for the simple reason that the Republican Party is baseline anti-black; there’s no amount of policy agreement that can overcome the fact that we think republicans hate us, will abuse any power they’re given to hurt us, or at minimum do not seek our welfare or have our best interests at heart

National surveys aren't much better. For reference, the US as a whole is about 75 percent white, which drops to 57.5 percent if you exclude people in the Hispanic/Latino category of the Census. There is the slight other caveat that there's no box to check for "Middle Eastern" on the federal census. In other words, the DSA is a lot whiter than the US as a whole, or was in 2021 anyway.

You fuckos cant even bother to VOTE consistently because you rate every single candidate the exact same, regardless of whether their policies are "fairly standard imperfect liberal platform with promises to make moderate improvements but nothing revolutionary" or "guarantees to empower racists, violate constitutional rights, facilitate extreme corruption and repeal laws and standards that have been providing protection and safety for people for decades, etc etc etc"

Future you will thank you for not pinning your ability to enjoy and get any sense of achievement on having the base energy levels of a teenager.

My stepmother did NOT like the way her Libertarian Viking Neighbor framed pregnancy as the fetus "attacking the woman". She incredulously told him this was extremely disrespectful to expectant mothers to portray pregnancy as so violent and negative.

Libertarian Viking Neighbor's response was that people consensually hurt each other all the time, and "there's like a whole community about that, with the acronym the one that starts with a B" And his reasoning was that if the mother was consenting to bring attacked by the baby, it in fact wasn't violent and negative because there was consent.

Anyways! HERE'S YOUR HANDY GUIDE TO WHAT CAN COUNT AS EYESTRAIN! I'm pulling this straight from the Artfight rules page about what needs to be labeled and filtered as eyestrain because it's VERY helpful and VERY accurate! I also know not everybody has an AF account and might not always have access to this handy guide, and this is an important resource; That's why I'm sharing it here! (under the cut)

PLEASE TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY!!! THIS IS ABOUT THE HEALTH AND SAFETY OF OTHERS!!!