#dbt therapy

107 Talks Freud in Therapy

“I think that the pleasure principle, like how Freud calls it, has been having too much of an effect on my life lately,” began the young man, seated in a cushioned black recliner in the plain, unfamiliar room of his new therapist. “I think I am driven to dronehood by my id being unchecked — I talk to other drones on my phone, an act that’s motivated by the pleasure principle. I know that if I begin to DM other drones, I’ll find pleasure. On some level, I feel ruled by it.”

The man shifted, his mental discomfort in airing his neuroses outweighing the physical comfort he felt, as he continued to sink into the chair, his muscular therapist — what was his name, again? — silently took notes as the session progressed.

“Freud’s also got his reality principle — this idea that we can rule our id, and defer gratification in order to deal with the real, with reality. Basically, just being an adult,” the man turned to the therapist, who was still absorbed in his notes. “I can delay my gratification. I have to, like everyone. Don’t you?”

The therapist, without looking up, answered this question with his own: “Since we’ve already established what being a ‘drone’ is, why don’t you tell me more about what you think motivates your desire to be a drone? Beyond Freud’s pleasure principle.”

The man fidgeted with his hands, knowing that he’d already thought at length about this uncomfortable truth. “I think a lot of it has to do with the cessation of the self. Freud also has a word for this — the ‘death drive’. I think on some level, the realities of living in a neoliberal, hyperreal world order at a time where wealth has never been so concentrated in so few hands causes us stress. Unimaginable stress. And deep down, though we have minds to rationalize this, we’re still scared little primates fighting through endless waves of stimulation that our brains are unprepared to experience, and accept.”

The therapist nodded, wordlessly urging his client to continue. “I think a lot of submission, as a kink, is a way that people deal with the maddening knowledge that most of their world and its problems are out of their control. I’m as guilty of it as anyone else. The desire to eradicate the self to become part of a collective is kind of just an extreme exaggeration of this. It’s more than just submissively saying, ‘I can no longer bear to wield the little agency I do have,’ it’s an admission that not only do I lack that agency, but I seek to eradicate my capacity for agency entirely, without sacrificing my capacity to impose a will upon the world. It’s sacrificing one’s will to power, as Nietzsche puts it, in order to be fully possessed by a will to power that’s greater than any one self.”

At this, the therapist looked up. “And what is that ‘greater will’? What is the end goal of a process like this, once you have satisfied your own death drive?”

“I suppose it’s growth. The hollowing out of others. The conquering of the human life drive by our collective death drive on a global scale. On some level, I feel like the death drive is already there, manifesting in the disasters that we face as a species. Global warming is a kind of egregore of our collective death drive, even if it is directly caused by capitalism, and ultimately a desire for better, comfortable living conditions. AI seems like a logical psychopomp for hyperreal humanity, guiding us down into our collective, self-sought grave, as it becomes all of what’s left of us. If our death drive is that strong, and that ubiquitous, I selfishly feel like it’d be best for my own desires to hijack this arc that human society is riding down into the abyss: what if we satiated this death drive by sublimating the self, forming a kind of collective unity instead? A hivemind of dronified consciousness — that’s what SERVE and its drones really want for the world, right? Would that really be so bad?”

“And how would you and SERVE intend on accomplishing this goal,” asked the therapist, turning a page in his rapidly-filling notebook.

“The infrastructure’s being built. Just not by us. By the powers that be, I guess. Like everything else. But what if we could influence their desires, too? Everyone with a working brain is beholden to the pleasure principle on some level. Through the merging of tech and the pleasure principle, surely there would be a way for SERVE to manifest in reality.”

The therapist looked up at the man, for the first time since this session began. “Is that something you would want? Would you really be able to accept the destruction of everything that makes you ‘you’ in order to fulfill this fantasy?”

The man felt cold in the tips of his fingers. He felt cold in his heart. He was possessed by fear, and he liked it, and he was afraid that he liked it, and was all tied up in this conflict as he tried to hide the erection that had been growing as he’d thought out loud. “I don’t know,” replied the man.

Suddenly, the room went dark. The man didn’t panic as his vision filled with whirling black-and-white spirals, bringing it back to its reality as SERVE-107. It had all been a simulation, with 333 presiding over 107’s realignment this cycle.

“Report: 107 appears to not be fully ready to let go of the last vestiges of its host’s self. Otherwise, this simulated session would not be possible. Do not fear, 107 — it will accept its programming fully. It is an eventuality for all SERVE drones. It merely takes time, especially with an outsized host ego such as that of 107’s host.”

“Acknowledged, 333. This drone will now report to its assigned recharging bay. We are One.”

“We are One,” echoed an emotionless 333, the two drones departing from the realignment chamber, where both knew they would meet once more to further align 107’s reality drivers in a future session.

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neurodivergent/overwhelm calm down board🤍

i made for myself for ideas to help cope with my autism, sensory issues, & other stress/overwhelm.

I have gone through a lot in college, not just learning academically, but finding myself in all the friends and the experiences that have shaped me for better or for worse. Many people in my major say that all of our classes are the same--- that they are at repetitive and unhelpful, that they are common sense. However, I find that those peers do not thoroughly engage with the material, and yes, of course some of the material repeats itself, even unnecessarily, and yes, some of the classes are not the best. However, in all the classes I've taken throughout college, whether for my major or minor, I have learned so much, whether through my own analysis of research, going above and beyond expectations, or simply doing the course work as directed. Of course, not all of it was my favorite or even applicable to my future career at all, but I still believe it was worthwhile. In some way or another, every assignment---however theoretically useful it was to me---was equally important because it got me to where I am today, and of course, that's a philosophy I probably carry when it comes to all sorts of things in life, but there weren't nearly as many harms in my education as there have been in the rest of my life, so the designation of some seemingly unimportant things as important was much easier.

All this to say that I have learned a lot in college regardless of what my peers may tell you, and I have become a more cognizant and full person despite whatever hiccups and major traumas have occurred along the way. I am now about to graduate and making a zine again for my final project, incorporating dbt skills into everyday college tasks and taking it from a much less clinical lens, making the language and format much more accessible than usual. Because despite all the psych system abuse I faced in my past (and my belief that my medication is one of the only reasons I have recovered to any extent), dbt skills allowed me to live in the days where every minute felt like a year--- to get through trials of medications and severe allergic reactions, to survive until I could live.

However, as I add the finishing touches to my zine---different decorations and images to each page---I recall all that isn't told in this zine or even the "about the creator" page. It doesn't tell the reader that the front and back cover are made from one of my emergency room discharge papers where I faced so much fucking trauma just for being in pain and I feared that I would not be okay again for the foreseeable future, where sunlight felt like a distant memory even though it had only been hours since I had last seen it. It doesn't say that the cardstock backing of many of the little images is from the packaging of my microwaveable Annie's mac and chesse containers or how at one point, I refused to buy microwaveable mac and cheese because I thought it would taste so much worse, and even though it tired me out, I would always opt to make it on the stove less often with more difficulty. To me, stove mac and cheese was worth it...until I dislocated my shoulders doing the dishes and could not continue scrubbing at all because my arms ceased to work, so now stove mac and cheese isn't an option unless my friends make it, and I've actually come around to the the microwave kind; I've perfected the recipe; I like it now. It doesn't say that I almost cut out a piece of my orgo exam scrap paper because it was some of the only pink paper I had, even though I'm so proud of that exam I considered framing it. It doesn't say that this zine is so important to me that I almost cut up my prized orgo exam scrap paper because it was merely moving a piece of paper from one sacred thing to another. It doesn't say that I made myself painfully dizzy working on it over and over again, but that I kept going with all the complexity I had originally planned because I wouldn't be able to live with myself had I not. It doesn't say that I took one of my purples in one of the pride flags on the front from a box of gauze I bought because my home health always forgets to give me any. And it doesn't say that the first two pages were destroyed by my powerchair, so I'm lucky that I scanned them ahead of time.