Musings of a Faerie Doll

My best friend:

O-okay, let’s get into this, shall we?

*grumbling* Would you rather work for Lex Luthor or the Joker- *shouting* Lex Luthor, by like, a fucking mile!

Yes, yes, working for Lex Luthor is basically like being an Amazon employee that makes weapons of mass destruction, which is bad. Lex is like Donald Trump mixed with Mark Zuckerberg mixed with Jeffrey fucking Bezos, it’s not a great mix. He does not treat his henchmen well. Their lives still suck, and they are probably monitored on how long they take piss breaks for.

But let’s analyze what working for Lex Luthor is like versus the fucking Joker. With Lex you probably get a dental plan, a health plan, a paycheck, and the guy that you’re fighting really cares about human life. Superman will hit you just long enough to knock you out, so you’re not a treat, so he can stop the problem.

If you work for the Joker, your payment is you’re not fucking dead. You say one wrong thing? Bang. You don’t laugh at his jokes? Bang! You do laugh at his jokes? Bang! You think Joker gives a fuck about a henchman?

Who’s Lex Luthor’s right-hand-man? It’s a woman, you sexist, her name is Mercy, she’s awesome. Who’s Joker’s right-hand-man? Bob? Nah, he’s dead. Harley? Tried to kill her multiple times. Slappy? Who the fuck is Slappy?

The best case scenario of working for the Joker is that you fight the fucking Batman! And that presents its own fucking list of problems. If you stop Superman as a Lex Luthor henchman, Lex’ll be pissed, but he’ll be at least happy that Superman was caught. If you stop Batman as a Joker henchman, you better have a fucking coffin picked out yesterday.

This isn’t a fun hypothetical question, this is a screening technique that the doctors at Arkham use to determine your mental health! There is a right and a wrong answer to this question, and the correct one is Lex fucking Luthor. Thank you for coming to my fucking Ted Talk, have a nice day.

I'm mad because no one ever talked or explained to me about safety and how that feels or considered "feeling safe" to be a goal, and as a result all I could imagine "getting better" to be like was somehow dissociating or ignoring my fear more.

I feel that the most productive way forward on Medical Fear is getting more chill with needles in the context of like blood draws and IVs and stuff

this is because an IV is used to sedate/knock unconscious, and if I could be knocked unconscious without intense apprehension of that process itself, it would be immensely reassuring that some medical exams/procedures would at least theoretically be possible for me due to the option of being sedated/unconscious

I used to be very fearful of needles in vaccines, I am not anymore due to engineering several experiences to be as "safe-feeling" as possible. First was choosing to go to the pharmacy at the grocery store instead of the doctors' office because being in a doctor's office was so stressful in itself, whereas the grocery store was a familiar place with positive things in it (ice cream). Also, people at the pharmacy are very nice and polite and professional.

I also brought my best friend with me the first time, I think I was 21 then. I don't think the reason it helped was having him there, but rather that I was capable of taking an action to make the experience better, instead of the previous idea of the "badness" of the experience being fundamentally unchangeable and something I have to "just get through."

I think I would still have a strong negative reaction if I was to see the needle before the vaccine, but I always say specifically that I don't want to see it at all and "I am going to cover my eyes now." Most of the things that help seem to be related to the ability to take action of my own volition and to have agency over the interaction.

I can contrast this with an experience 3 years earlier (when I was 18) which I tried to make a positive experience but it was not effective. I think I initially came away with the impression that I had created a positive experience for myself, because it was more positive than before, but it did not reduce my fear at all. This was when I got vaccines as part of a doctor's appointment.

I mainly remember that the vaccines were extremely fucking painful, so painful it was difficult to tolerate the pain, and I'm certain this was because my muscles were incredibly tense. Subsequent experiences (with several different types of vaccines; I got my Covid, HPV vaccines and started getting yearly flu vaccines, plus tetanus booster) have not been like that at all: when there is pain at all it is like being pinched for a brief second or slightly poked with a very sharp pencil.

But after the experience when I was 18 there was new apprehension added to my fear because it had hurt so badly. I had already been in a doctor's office for over an hour, in the waiting room in a horrible state of dread and then getting vitals taken and all of that, which had given the tension time to build up in my body, which had made my muscles tense and made the vaccines physically very painful.

I didn't experience much reduction of my fear after this, whereas I did experience reduction of fear when I tried making a "safe" experience at the pharmacy.

I don't know how to apply this learning to the IV/blood draw type of needles. I know my fear comes from specific traumatic experiences I can remember, on top of the generalized fear of medical professionals having access to my body.

But now that "feeling safe" is something I can comprehend or imagine as possible, it doesn't feel completely unsolvable.

I know when I was 17 or 18 or so I discussed the possibility of doing exposure therapy for my "needle phobia" (that's what I thought it was; the other aspects of my medical fear I had forced out of my consciousness because I couldn't cope with it) but even just talking about it made me so uncomfortable that I never went through with it.

I think I feel more apprehension at the prospect of talking to a therapist about needles than I do about looking at pictures of needles or something like that...actually the thing I would be apprehensive about might be having a therapist there at all.

The concept of exposure therapy in the sense of "creating positive experiences to counteract the negative ones" appeals to me, but I can't get the revulsion out of my head for the Idea Of Exposure Therapy, since the way it was always presented to me was "progressively increase the level of scariness of the thing while using coping skills to reduce your anxiety," which in hindsight probably freaked me out for the reason that none of the coping skills I had been taught ever worked (especially not breathing exercises, fuck breathing exercises), and I had no idea that they weren't working because I couldn't imagine feeling less terrified, only being functional vs. not functional.

@magemulberry okay I think there must be something to the Deer Hitler Method because back at the beginning of covid there were several tiktoks or short videos about the Covid vaccine that I think might have helped me to relax my feelings about vaccines

Specifically there was one where a dude got all 5 types of covid vaccines and it gave him superpowers which he used for evil. This one was also good for non-scary vaccine imagery because the shot was represented by the guy being poked with a pen XD

I think the reason this one specifically was helpful is that it was playfully imagining something outside my overwhelmingly coercion-irradiated experience of medical things. The guy in the skit was getting the vaccine because he had an absurd and funny ulterior motive.

I can at least identify some things that DON'T work. I know that for me, distraction is worse than useless.

Is it even POSSIBLE to distract me from something happening in my body? The idea that doing another activity or taking in another stimulus will make a body experience I'm already incredibly mentally honed in on less intense or less salient makes no sense at all to me. "scary" stimuli are automatically prioritized in terms of salience, so like, what is distraction supposed to so.

It is possible this is an autism thing, and/or an inherent thing about me. I had a conversation with some people about it and they described being able to put themselves mentally "elsewhere" during an uncomfortable or nerve-wracking body experience, like mildly dissociating from the body and shifting focus to something in the mind to lower the intensity of the body experience.

I don't think I have the ability to do this. I've never experienced this.

(During my traumatizing blood draw I had music to play during the procedure, and I remember pulling up the track I wanted to play, but I only realized afterward that the music had never actually started playing. I don't think the music would have helped much; the thought of having music playing during something stressful makes me feel more stressed.)

But the original idea is very close to what you're describing; micro-dosing on exposure to the terrifying thing in a way that is at your pace, under your control.

So like, if I was terrified by dogs, I could make an arrangement with a dog owner to meet the dog under very carefully controlled circumstances. So I could maybe even start by going to the place where the dog will be, without the dog. Then with a toy dog. Then, when I'm ready I can meet the dog, while being free to exit the room or ask for the dog to be removed. I might even get to where I carefully interact with the dog, if that's my intention.

So yeah, taking the experience out of a medical context may help. Maybe being in a non medical room with a person who has the equipment but no medical exam or procedure will happen, to start. Maybe add in a positive interaction; in the room, tools are there, someone gives you ice cream.

Or, maybe carefully planned encounters with people that you know, wearing a lab coat first. Just, like, going to someone's house to play Uno and everyone wears scrubs or lab coats.

Too many people think exposure therapy is "Being forced to experience the bad thing" and it's not true; it's choosing how and when and how much exposure you will be getting. I'm no therapist, but it kind of sounds like the lack of control, agency, and consent is the bigger issue here.

Rehearsing can help, especially if you have the power to say, "Nope. This is not good. I'm going to leave now."

And practice saying that, too. You are allowed to leave. You are allowed to say "No."

It's a toll free service with people who will help you find programs in your community to pay those bills, find food, and find housing! They will give you numbers to call so you can get help.

It is not 100% foolproof. Their job is to direct you to a program they believe will help your current issue, but it's still a step up from praying random strangers online will give you enough cash before a deadline! The added benefit of these community programs, which get funded by the local government most of the time, is if there are more people using them then they can get more money to help more people.

You're not taking resources from other people if you use your community services. Your taxes pay for them. Use them.

Dial 211 first to see if they can help, and if for some reason they can't, then make your donation posts!

I can't speak for all 211's but most should also have a website detailing all the agencies in their database. if you don't like phone calls, this can be something to reference instead.

If you don't have health insurance but you need to see a doctor, reference 211! We list clinics that provide free or discounted general care, vision, and dental services to low income households and people without insurance! Many hospitals also have financial aid policies that can severely reduce your bill if you had an expensive procedure!

If you're stuck in a dead end job or need educational resources reference 211! There are a lot of programs focused on providing basic adult education as well as trade skills or other high demand fields! State governments are generally more interested in funneling people into work than providing benefits, but you can still use this to your advantage especially if you have some form of disability but are still able to work. That includes if you're neurodiverse or have mental health issues! Most of these programs are extremely underutilized.

If you believe you qualify for public benefits but the bureaucracy of the process is in your way, reference 211! There are agencies specifically geared towards helping people obtain the benefits they qualify for- for free!

If you need help with your taxes-

If you need help finding a pro bono lawyer-

If you need help finding affordable housing/section 8 housing-

If you need help finding food pantries-

If you need help paying for your prescriptions-

If you need help obtaining disability aids or assistive technology-

If you need help finding transportation options-

If you need help following a natural or personal disaster (like a home fire)-

If you need help repairing a home you or your family owns or it needs modifications to be accessible-

If you need Queer resources-

Reference your 211!!!!!

I had no idea what 211 was before working for it but I wish I had. I've learned so much about what resources are actually available to the community even in a ho hum area of the country like my state. I've saved my partner literally thousands of dollars just from the medical resources I've gathered.

Not enough young people know about or utilize these services but they are there for you!

P. S.

[ID: a screenshot of the original post's tags that read, "#real turtleheads know this is a play on sliders (turtle emoji) which are a type of terrestrial turtle. but it's also tiny hamburgers #which seems apt. #this has been another episode of Joke Explainer" /end ID]

At the Y, I learned a great deal more than water safety and swimming. The Adult Swim was directly after my after school swimming lessons, and I saw dozens of ordinary, average adult women changing into their suits while I dried off and changed into my clothes.

OpenAI scraped the entire web. All of which had been a labor of love from humans. Wikipedia is the backbone of a lot of LLMs, and that was volunteer human labor. They stole it and now they're selling it back to us.

Since I paid $70 for it--a little more than I would have liked--I'm trying to not spend money on the reupholstery and just use what I already have. So no new purple velvet.

Blue and golds it is.

She's one of the thousands of environmental scientists fired by the current regime, with a history in international diplomacy, running on a ecological justice platform. On making sure the environment is protected and the most vulnerable be first protected. She could name those vulnerable populations without mincing words of flinching. She loves landback and mass transit and helping voters vote.

She's going to win this big chunk of midwestexburbia.

And, again, she was key in her area at ICE resistance. This has become next to a prerequisite for running in Minnesota, now.

I want you to think about that.

Resistance to a federal agency as a key prerequisite to holding state office. We keep seeing it. People want to know- people ask- when we and our neighbors were in danger, what did you do about it?

and then this kid, this one kid who is always very eager to answer questions and is always kind to his classmates, raised his hand looking a little bothered. now for context, i emphasize thinking for yourself in my classroom, even if that means disagreeing with something i say and he has echoed some stuff that his parents clearly have told him before. he's not a bad kid or an asshole, he's just an 18 year old with conservative parents who otherwise knows nothing about politics. but he just looks so bothered after i explain this about dirty arguing techniques. big frown on his face. looking unsure. when i nod at him to speak, he says, in a very quiet voice, "didn't -- didn't charlie kirk used to do that?"

and i was like. well yes. yes he was famous for stuff like this.

and then the kid looked down and was just like, "oh. i thought he was just really good at debating. i never watched his videos though, only clips. why would he do that?"

but the thing is: only *most* got filled to some extent

not all

because there used to be dragons

and now their niche is just *empty*

it's like i can feel the gap they left, in everything from open grassland ecosystems to isolated islands; the world we know is shaped by the absence of a truly big flying predator

no bird could ever fill their niche, because of plain and simple anatomical constraints

because they cannot use their wings to jump

birds could never be azdarchids

they could never be dragons

there are no more dragons

but there used to be

The song is about giant fruits left orphan by the extinction of the megafauna that used to disperse their fruit, but I think it fits.

Other kinds of things that are gone: