katt, migrating 🌟 🌈 @starkatt@awoo.space

Another way of describing it: It's like that distant, kinda-floaty feeling caused by a lot of drugs, but without any of the fun parts.

If you've ever had nitrous oxide (either recreationally or for dental work), it's a dissociative anesthetic so that's a bit of what it feels like.

Amusingly, nitrous apparently does *nothing* for me.

But basically, if you feel kinda brainfogged all the time, or have trouble remembering stuff, or feel like the world is imaginary or really far away, or like you're never really present in the world around you... that might be dissociation.

These are all super broad, overgeneralized overviews. How things actually feel or manifest can be really individual.

Dissociative identity is another form, where your mind splits into different parts as a way of compartmentalizing trauma. (Note -- not all multiple systems are traumagenic, but it's probably the most common cause.)

For people not aware that this is going on, it usually presents as sudden dramatic shifts of mood or affect. Different parts not sharing memory is also common, so you might have blocks of missing time.

There's a few main forms.

Dissociation most broadly feels like you're separated from the world, or like events are happening to somebody else. For me, it's like looking at the world through a periscope.

Derealization is feeling like you or the world isn't real. For me it feels like reality is a painting, or imaginary, or somehow not there.

Depersonalization is feeling like your actions and your consciousness are separated, like your body is an automaton and you're just watching.

Since a lot of people don't know about it, I'm gonna talk briefly about dissociation.

Dissociation is a feeling of being separated from the world or from yourself. It comes in a lot of different flavors that are all related but manifest in distinct ways.

It's actually really common. Dissociation usually arises in response to trauma, especially long-lasting or repeating bad situations in childhood. Basically, the mind protects itself by distancing itself from traumatic circumstances.

Ahah. Today I learned that the first draft of Ancillary Justice was written for NaNoWriMo :D

Okay y'all
Favorite names for spaceship?
(*not* counting Culture ship names, because those are all fantastic).

Okay I like Stardew Valley a lot but the inclusion of fishing and the target goal of catching various specific kinds of fish was a mistake. Doing the same thing over and over and hoping the RNG is beneficent isn't very fun.

But what if: a game where if you were too aggressively trying to put Friendship Coins into someone they'd get uncomfortable and try to get you to stop because that's actually super creepy.

So many romance quests in games feel like picking out what car you want to take home from the dealership, and it's super gross and not actually very fun.

But what if: a videogame where the romance options are actually non-deterministic. No matter how many friendship coins you put in, she's maybe just not actually into you. And it's random and baked into each save file.

...so now I have a spare 8x10 frame and a painting that still needs to be framed.

Today I learned that an 8x10 flat canvas doesn't actually fit in an 8x10 frame.

Keep getting stuck in this indecision paralysis where I know I should be keeping some sort of notes for tracking/processing some MH stuff, but I keep not being able to pick a good medium and thus don't actually have anything logged.

A paper notebook feels like it'd be best, but the act of physically writing things with a pen is super aversive to me. But I also can't think of any good way to organize things digitally...

Filing under Lessons Learned: spray glue really *should* be used outside.

Update: I went to an art supplies store and it was a magical place.

I don't want my life to have forms of expression inaccessible to me because I was too afraid to make something bad.

For a long time I've thought of myself as being bad at creating visual art and music. Like it's just not something I can get good at without putting in way more effort than I'm actually willing to spend.

But y'know what, fuck that. I don't want whole creative media to just be inaccessible forever. I'm gonna try to make stuff.

Even if it's bad for a while. Even if it's bad forever. I've got time to learn and improve even if it's slow.