ovde je noć što se životu opire

maybe it was a team whump situation, or maybe it was just an awful journey rescuing them, but either way, whumpee's injury will simply not let them forget what had happened, every time their gazes fall on it. and the team love whumpee. they're so relieved whumpee is finally safe, no matter what that looks like now.

but they're uncomfortable. they feel guilty.

they don't know how to touch whumpee in a way that doesn't hurt, not anymore, so they don't. they don't know how to talk to someone who's been hurt so badly... so they try not to. it's not malicious, quite the opposite — it's because they care too much, and it hurts too much to see whumpee suffer.

but to whumpee, it's just confirmation that they're now broken. they see the way conversation halts around their pain, around every wince or shift. they see the way their teammates' gazes linger on their injury, or avoid looking at them altogether. they see the way everyone's walking on eggshells around them. so, they hide it. they grow quiet, withdrawn. they only allow themselves to feel the pain of it in the isolation of their room — and they stay in there, alone, more and more often. the increasingly unbearable emotional pain of it? forget about it, they're never broaching that subject. the team is better off not knowing. and perhaps, one day, the weight of having to manage everyone else's guilt and discomfort will make them snap, but for now...

You need social connection for your mental health, BUT it has to be in person specifically. Online friends “don’t count.”

Okay. So you go to an in-person event.

Well, not like that. Evening events are bad for your circadian rhythm. You should be winding down by 7 PM.

Okay. So you look for daytime events.

No, not THOSE daytime events. Those are for teens. Adult socialization should revolve around networking, productivity, childrearing, or politely listening to someone explain Mediterranean diet meal prep in a fluorescent multipurpose room.

Okay. So you stay home and do solitary hobbies you genuinely enjoy.

Careful. Too much isolation is unhealthy.

Okay. So you spend time online talking to people with shared interests.

No, not like that either. That’s “screen addiction.” Go outside.

Okay. So you go outside. You hike. You walk. You take photos. You exercise to a point that blows way past the minimum weekly recommended amount.

That doesn’t count because you did it alone, or with people you already live with.

Okay. So you try local community spaces.

Actually, “community” now means “sit through interactions with people you have nothing in common with and pretend this nourishes you spiritually.”

And if you say you still feel lonely or unstimulated afterward, suddenly the problem is your mindset. Your expectations. Your inability to appreciate simple things. Your refusal to heal. Your “avoidance.”

At no point does anyone stop and consider that maybe the issue is not that you are failing to optimize your life correctly.

Maybe the issue is that modern adulthood offers an increasingly narrow and sanitized version of acceptable existence, and then pathologizes anyone who remains hungry for something larger, stranger, warmer, more communal, more emotionally charged, more alive.

I swear over half of modern wellness culture treats being a person as an unfortunate obstacle to successfully maintaining a body.

Like congratulations. You have successfully become an administrative assistant to your own mitochondria.

Meanwhile your actual self is sitting in the corner like a neglected child asking if it’s still allowed to want music, subculture, spontaneity, attraction, art, weirdness, intensity, laughter, late nights, friendship, beauty, or a sense that life is happening instead of merely being managed.

And the really insidious part is that after enough exposure to this stuff, people start feeling guilty not for harming themselves, but for participating in their own lives in ways that are not fully optimized, clinically approved, and morally sanitized.

Surgeries require having a designated person to look after you. Many injuries require driving to somewhere like an emergency room which can be hard to do if you are the one injured. If you're home with the flu, it's hard to tell when it's bad enough to go to the hospital without another person checking on you. And if you pass out it requires another person to find you like that to get medical aid.