this is where the trauma goes

I made this sideblog so that I can do my dysregulation spamposting without bothering anybody

[kbearart]

Do you all see my vision??

(also just wanted to take a shot at interpreting rocky. weird spider/crab/sand dollar beast)

[dysregulation-superfund-dumpsite]

The good news: there's only a 2-5% chance that my 39mm (!) thyroid nodule is cancerous, also my thyroid levels were super normal last time I had them checked (December '24).

The bad news: neither of the two radiology clinics in town do thyroid biopsies, only the hospital does.

You know the hospital where my approximately $18,000 of medical debt was written off with no explanation and without me ever completing the financial aid form, leading me to suspect this was either a magnanimous gift from an antiestablishment insider (unlikely) or a huge paperwork snafu nobody's noticed yet (probable)? The place I am legitimately petrified to set foot again, lest they discover the error and charge me the full balance with interest because this is America and I am uninsured?

So anyway there's a 4-inch solid Shroedinger's Tumor on my thyroid and it's gonna just live there..... uh forever probably. Which is fine. I feel fine about that. Like its so fine. I'm basically the most fine possible about it.

[koiagain]

embarrassing that Ppl can see my posts when I post them #StopPerceiving

[dysregulation-superfund-dumpsite]

Duuuuuuude

Being neurodivergent with a probable gluten intolerance is an extended exercise in tiny unexpected griefs. I keep forgetting all the food I can't have now, and so many of them are foods I love. I was so excited to be ordering Chinese takeout for dinner after a long day having a yard sale in 90 degree heat, until I looked at the menu and remembered.

Food has long been my "well gosh all of reality is horrible in every possible way, but at least I have this" thing, like a fallback Good Thing i could turn to for some cold comfort when everything else is hard and bad. Soooo to lose that one last reliable Good Thing is really a punch in the gut my chronic depression did NOT need.

[cheaphalloweencostume]

The iron hook slid free from his shoulder with a wet metallic shriek. Something black and arterial splashed across the stones between them.

The torturer stepped back instinctively. Not out of mercy. Out of surprise. The prisoner laughed. Not loudly. Worse than loudly. Softly. Like he had just remembered a private joke older than civilization.

“You still think pain is a language,” he said.

Another blow. This time across the mouth. Teeth cracked. Blood sheeted down his chin in long ribbons.

The interrogator hissed through clenched teeth. “Tell me where God went.”

The prisoner turned his head slowly. There was blood in his smile now.

“There are organisms,” he said, “living beneath Antarctic ice that have never seen the sun and have still learned how to eat.”

The room had gone very still. Somewhere in the dark, machinery groaned.

The interrogator grabbed him by the jaw hard enough to bruise bone.

“You think this makes you immortal?”

The prisoner spat a clot of red onto the floor between them.

“No,” he whispered.

“I think it makes you temporary.”

The torches flickered.

For one impossible second, the interrogator became aware of his own pulse. The heat in his veins. The soft wetness of his eyes. The damp animal electricity inside every living thing. The prisoner watched realization bloom across his face and smiled wider, blood running between his teeth.

“You cannot threaten a creature from the dirt,” he said, “with returning to the dirt.”

— excerpt from Shit I Just Made Up To Exemplify How All This Tumblr Prose Sounds

[dysregulation-superfund-dumpsite]

I'm gonna think about this post for weeks.

I haven't written in years. Decades, probably. I know I don't do it for the "right" reasons, and anyway, nobody ever seemed to be able to find the time to read anything I sent them.

But when I do write, I sound like this. I always have. Because I wrote to impress my father, an unempathic and unhappy man who admires literature but believes he knows more about it than he does, and so my writing was tailored to his taste. It was the only thing I ever got praised for, even though it always came paired with unsolicited critique.

I recognize now that I only ever wrote so that I would be told I was good at something.

Sometimes when things are bad, I liked to imagine I could write again. After all, we live in a time where people are reading often and all kinds of books - maybe this time, I could find readers.

My career was the only other thing in my life I was ever told I was very good at; It collapsed in 2021, and I haven't heard anyone say that to me since. Sometimes I liked imagining that writing could be a way I would get to hear it again.

Again, I know that's not the right reason to make art. I should be content to make it for nobody except myself, and that should be enough - i should be satisfied that the story is now extant in the world, that I have read it should be enough for me. Alas I am a flawed person; I need to feel like I am doing a good job at something.

So, in a way, I am grateful to OP for this post. I can't imagine how destroyed I would be if I had taken a chance and posted a story, only to have eight thousand people all agree that its some kind of eye-melting slop. I would rather write and share nothing, than have thousands of people all casually laughing about how bad my writing is. OP has spared me from that.

It hurts, yes. But I am grateful all the same. Because now I know how much worse it could be, and I understand what I am saving myself from.

[cheaphalloweencostume]

i think you're reading a lot more into my post than i actually put there!

if you look through the replies and tags, you'll find you're far from the only person who felt personally targeted— but you'll also find plenty of people saying they genuinely liked the original excerpt and wanted to read more. that's a good thing!! clearly, there's an audience for that style, and i don't have any interest in arguing otherwise!

what bothers me isn't the vocabulary, or even the (imo overly) lyrical prose itself. when i say “tumblr prose” i mean a particular trend where nearly every sentence feels optimized to sound profound rather than communicate something. beautiful prose isn't the problem! ambiguity isn't the problem either. my issue is when atmosphere begins cannibalizing the storytelling instead of supporting it.

with the original sample, even as the author, i came away knowing very little beyond the mood. i don't really know who these people are, why god is apparently gone, why the antarctic organisms are relevant, or what materially changed over the course of the conversation. there are lots of striking individual lines, but they don't really build into a coherent or particularly interesting whole. it feels like each sentence is trying to be The Line people screenshot and say "this goes hard," rather than working altogether to tell a story. that's ultimately what i was parodying, not people who enjoy this style, and certainly not people who just wanna write! just a trend in online prose that i personally find frustrating as an avid reader

i also don't think you should let one stranger's lighthearted and very personal opinion convince you that you shouldn't write! if anything, the replies to my post should tell you the opposite! there are plenty of people who love this style and wanted more of it. i'm just one person with one set of tastes! i genuinely do hope you keep writing!

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

There was a guy I used to follow on Tumblr who was big into book reviews - nice guy, but he left with the porn bans in 2018, which was a shame. Anyway, he would critique both the stories and the book covers, as the mood struck.

And for a while, reading his posts started to make me really paranoid about my own writing, and to think anything I wrote could be dissected to that level. I almost never saw him compliment a cover, either - those he tended to only post when he disliked them, and it was a lot of covers where I actually liked the style.

Anyway, then one day he posted two covers he'd made for his own WIP, and I'll be honest lads, I thought they were dog shit. Bland, tonally mismatched to the genre, just bad. Absolute casserole. And instantly I was like, oh yeah. You're eloquent and passionate and good at critique, and you're also one person with human opinions that are going to diverge from mine. And that's okay.

And instantly, I no longer felt any insecurity about my own work from him lol.

Anyway: excellent work OP, I know exactly what you mean

[reverieausoleil]

Fwiw @dysregulation-superfund-dumpsite - I think it sounds like you're pretty good at writing. You have experience successfully tailoring your writing to someone's specific tastes, and that's pretty hard to do! It means being able to recognize elements of style and deploy them effectively. Maybe practice doing the same with other styles? Just to see how it feels.

But there's also nothing wrong with melodramatic writing full of idiosyncratic descriptions. There are a lot of people who can't get enough of it! It's emotional and cathartic. I mean it's literally "Tumblr style" because Tumblr users eat it up.

Also it's fine and normal to write because you want other people's attention and approval. Art is communication, and we're social animals. What you have to watch out for is the desire to AVOID other people's DISAPPROVAL. Because the only way to do that is to write nothing at all.

[dysregulation-superfund-dumpsite]

These reblogs are so kind. I'm genuinely emotional, I don't even know what to say except that I'm gonna have a good hard think about all this and work hard to internalize the message here.

Gosh.

Thank you all, so much.

[dysregulation-superfund-dumpsite]

For three weeks I have only left the house to run errands. And yet! And yet! My throat is a little sore and my thoughts are sludgy in a way i normally associate with being low-grade feverish.

.........

If I have to spend the last 2.5 weeks of my precious precious summer break with some kind of damnable illness, I am going to punch someone

[dysregulation-superfund-dumpsite]

I tried to write a reddit comment about how preventative Healthcare in America is a fucking joke because of the pay walls, and then I remembered everything else in this world that I don't have access to because of the pay walls (like college! Or a job that isn't killing me with stress!) And then i got too upset to be coherent.

I had to bail on the comment, so I don't even have that to show for all this dysregulation, and now I'm all shaky and distracted.

[which-ocs]

Which OC?

[dysregulation-superfund-dumpsite]

It's me, I'm the OC, it's yesterday and the post isn't even about me

[cheaphalloweencostume]

The iron hook slid free from his shoulder with a wet metallic shriek. Something black and arterial splashed across the stones between them.

The torturer stepped back instinctively. Not out of mercy. Out of surprise. The prisoner laughed. Not loudly. Worse than loudly. Softly. Like he had just remembered a private joke older than civilization.

“You still think pain is a language,” he said.

Another blow. This time across the mouth. Teeth cracked. Blood sheeted down his chin in long ribbons.

The interrogator hissed through clenched teeth. “Tell me where God went.”

The prisoner turned his head slowly. There was blood in his smile now.

“There are organisms,” he said, “living beneath Antarctic ice that have never seen the sun and have still learned how to eat.”

The room had gone very still. Somewhere in the dark, machinery groaned.

The interrogator grabbed him by the jaw hard enough to bruise bone.

“You think this makes you immortal?”

The prisoner spat a clot of red onto the floor between them.

“No,” he whispered.

“I think it makes you temporary.”

The torches flickered.

For one impossible second, the interrogator became aware of his own pulse. The heat in his veins. The soft wetness of his eyes. The damp animal electricity inside every living thing. The prisoner watched realization bloom across his face and smiled wider, blood running between his teeth.

“You cannot threaten a creature from the dirt,” he said, “with returning to the dirt.”

— excerpt from Shit I Just Made Up To Exemplify How All This Tumblr Prose Sounds

[dysregulation-superfund-dumpsite]

I'm gonna think about this post for weeks.

I haven't written in years. Decades, probably. I know I don't do it for the "right" reasons, and anyway, nobody ever seemed to be able to find the time to read anything I sent them.

But when I do write, I sound like this. I always have. Because I wrote to impress my father, an unempathic and unhappy man who admires literature but believes he knows more about it than he does, and so my writing was tailored to his taste. It was the only thing I ever got praised for, even though it always came paired with unsolicited critique.

I recognize now that I only ever wrote so that I would be told I was good at something.

Sometimes when things are bad, I liked to imagine I could write again. After all, we live in a time where people are reading often and all kinds of books - maybe this time, I could find readers.

My career was the only other thing in my life I was ever told I was very good at; It collapsed in 2021, and I haven't heard anyone say that to me since. Sometimes I liked imagining that writing could be a way I would get to hear it again.

Again, I know that's not the right reason to make art. I should be content to make it for nobody except myself, and that should be enough - i should be satisfied that the story is now extant in the world, that I have read it should be enough for me. Alas I am a flawed person; I need to feel like I am doing a good job at something.

So, in a way, I am grateful to OP for this post. I can't imagine how destroyed I would be if I had taken a chance and posted a story, only to have eight thousand people all agree that its some kind of eye-melting slop. I would rather write and share nothing, than have thousands of people all casually laughing about how bad my writing is. OP has spared me from that.

It hurts, yes. But I am grateful all the same. Because now I know how much worse it could be, and I understand what I am saving myself from.

[cheaphalloweencostume]

i think you're reading a lot more into my post than i actually put there!

if you look through the replies and tags, you'll find you're far from the only person who felt personally targeted— but you'll also find plenty of people saying they genuinely liked the original excerpt and wanted to read more. that's a good thing!! clearly, there's an audience for that style, and i don't have any interest in arguing otherwise!

what bothers me isn't the vocabulary, or even the (imo overly) lyrical prose itself. when i say “tumblr prose” i mean a particular trend where nearly every sentence feels optimized to sound profound rather than communicate something. beautiful prose isn't the problem! ambiguity isn't the problem either. my issue is when atmosphere begins cannibalizing the storytelling instead of supporting it.

with the original sample, even as the author, i came away knowing very little beyond the mood. i don't really know who these people are, why god is apparently gone, why the antarctic organisms are relevant, or what materially changed over the course of the conversation. there are lots of striking individual lines, but they don't really build into a coherent or particularly interesting whole. it feels like each sentence is trying to be The Line people screenshot and say "this goes hard," rather than working altogether to tell a story. that's ultimately what i was parodying, not people who enjoy this style, and certainly not people who just wanna write! just a trend in online prose that i personally find frustrating as an avid reader

i also don't think you should let one stranger's lighthearted and very personal opinion convince you that you shouldn't write! if anything, the replies to my post should tell you the opposite! there are plenty of people who love this style and wanted more of it. i'm just one person with one set of tastes! i genuinely do hope you keep writing!

[dysregulation-superfund-dumpsite]

I'm very dramatic and you're very kind, I appreciate such a thoughtful reply. I think I was.... working through something here, and I forget people can hear me.

The clarifications you make are very helpful in like several different ways. I'm a little embarrassed but I do appreciate the explanation you've given here and i think it's really helpful. Understanding the Why of your distaste helps me contextualize things better and understand what trap it is i'm trying to avoid. And for what it's worth, now that I understand what you mean i completely agree.

Its late where I am, i'm a sleepy little guy so none of this will be as eloquent as I want. But I did want to respond right away and say, I see what you mean, and I do hear you and I receive it - I feel a lot better than i did earlier, I apologize for taking it all so personally like that. Thank you for explaining and thank you for being so nice about it.

[cheaphalloweencostume]

The iron hook slid free from his shoulder with a wet metallic shriek. Something black and arterial splashed across the stones between them.

The torturer stepped back instinctively. Not out of mercy. Out of surprise. The prisoner laughed. Not loudly. Worse than loudly. Softly. Like he had just remembered a private joke older than civilization.

“You still think pain is a language,” he said.

Another blow. This time across the mouth. Teeth cracked. Blood sheeted down his chin in long ribbons.

The interrogator hissed through clenched teeth. “Tell me where God went.”

The prisoner turned his head slowly. There was blood in his smile now.

“There are organisms,” he said, “living beneath Antarctic ice that have never seen the sun and have still learned how to eat.”

The room had gone very still. Somewhere in the dark, machinery groaned.

The interrogator grabbed him by the jaw hard enough to bruise bone.

“You think this makes you immortal?”

The prisoner spat a clot of red onto the floor between them.

“No,” he whispered.

“I think it makes you temporary.”

The torches flickered.

For one impossible second, the interrogator became aware of his own pulse. The heat in his veins. The soft wetness of his eyes. The damp animal electricity inside every living thing. The prisoner watched realization bloom across his face and smiled wider, blood running between his teeth.

“You cannot threaten a creature from the dirt,” he said, “with returning to the dirt.”

— excerpt from Shit I Just Made Up To Exemplify How All This Tumblr Prose Sounds

[dysregulation-superfund-dumpsite]

I'm gonna think about this post for weeks.

I haven't written in years. Decades, probably. I know I don't do it for the "right" reasons, and anyway, nobody ever seemed to be able to find the time to read anything I sent them.

But when I do write, I sound like this. I always have. Because I wrote to impress my father, an unempathic and unhappy man who admires literature but believes he knows more about it than he does, and so my writing was tailored to his taste. It was the only thing I ever got praised for, even though it always came paired with unsolicited critique.

I recognize now that I only ever wrote so that I would be told I was good at something.

Sometimes when things are bad, I liked to imagine I could write again. After all, we live in a time where people are reading often and all kinds of books - maybe this time, I could find readers.

My career was the only other thing in my life I was ever told I was very good at; It collapsed in 2021, and I haven't heard anyone say that to me since. Sometimes I liked imagining that writing could be a way I would get to hear it again.

Again, I know that's not the right reason to make art. I should be content to make it for nobody except myself, and that should be enough - i should be satisfied that the story is now extant in the world, that I have read it should be enough for me. Alas I am a flawed person; I need to feel like I am doing a good job at something.

So, in a way, I am grateful to OP for this post. I can't imagine how destroyed I would be if I had taken a chance and posted a story, only to have eight thousand people all agree that its some kind of eye-melting slop. I would rather write and share nothing, than have thousands of people all casually laughing about how bad my writing is. OP has spared me from that.

It hurts, yes. But I am grateful all the same. Because now I know how much worse it could be, and I understand what I am saving myself from.

[dysregulation-superfund-dumpsite]

Went to my usual doctors for a routine meds check-in and mentioned that I was concerned about this cool new thing where my toes are numb in the morning and it hurts to take the first two steps.

"Hm. We could try low-dose naltrexone?" was the answer I got.

Like, ok thank you for the treatment suggestion but what I really want to know is why this is happening! I don't necessarily want another drug, I want to know what sort of bullshit my body's doing and WHY it is doing it. Why do I have to be on death's fuckin doorstep before anyone does any sort of laying-on-of-hands and diagnostics?! Can we like run a test or something? Or I dunno, touch me in some way to maybe suss out an issue?? Oh, no, okay great. Cool.

Anyway I'm "fine" apparently

[dysregulation-superfund-dumpsite]

My husband promised me on Thursday that we'd have sex on Saturday, but his guts are too mad at him now to follow through on that (because he drinks a minimum of five 8% beers every day and has for a minimum of two years without a break)

and I am trying reaaaaaal hard not to take it personally, because I know it isn't personal it's just A Him Thing but like...... I'm autistic, you made a plan and i was excited and then you broke the plans and now I am Sad.

So like maybe I'm spiraling a little bit.

I am trying really hard to stay on top of my feelings here and not be a gigantic bitch. But he's on his third or fourth beer and....

[dysregulation-superfund-dumpsite]

I'm in a real weird emotional place right now where this lovely video of a HUGE festival crowd, decked fully out in Christmas swag, singing Frankie Valli's "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" accompanied by an entire symphony, and I'm wrestling back angrysad tears?

Like oh, OH, OKAY, so you're telling me that humans ARE capable of union for a bigger cause and practicing togetherness with strangers? Great cool, that makes it so much worse that so fuckin many of y'all are doing [grand sweeping gesture at america] all this bullshit because it means you're choosing to be this awful.

Look at what we could be! Look at how beautiful we are!! Now look me in the eyes and explain to me WHY YOU ARE CHOOSING TO DO THIS.

[dysregulation-superfund-dumpsite]

Hill i am prepared to die on:

The ability to add comments on any given post is what's eventually going to be humanity's downfall.

Because now everyone thinks their awful takes are important, and that their ability to subject other people to whatever nuclear waste spills out of their brain is somehow beneficial to other people. Yes, I am including myself right now in this.

Someone please do me a favor and just nuke us all from orbit.

[dysregulation-superfund-dumpsite]

Redditors talking american politics make me hope someone drops a fuckin nuke on us. Jesus Horatio Bike-Riding Fuckall, I hate other Americans so fucking much. How can ANYONE look at the state of us and then go "yeah but things would still be bad under The Other Candidate" like literally what is wrong with you.

I never want another human to ever interact with me ever again. You people are untrustworthy, any of you could be silently complicit in the dehumanization of trans people, immigrants, poor people, disabled people, anyone who isn't perfectly medically perfect, and - eventually, I'm sure - me. I don't want to be a part of humanity anymore. I don't want your filthy shallow judgmental bullshit anywhere near a corporeal form I could be mistaken for. I hate that I wasted my entire youth believing in your goodness.

I don't want to be here

I don't want to play these games

I don't want to find out which of my loved ones are going betray me next

I don't want to sit here and watch stress erode my body

I don't want to keep pretending that staying alive so that my husband and my cats won't be sad is a good enough reason to make an innocent sentient creature suffer through living - we literally won't even make an animal do that, but it's okay if it's a person??

My life is unfixable for systemic reasons that I can't change and nobody else even wants to change and I am so tired of pretending it's all just fucking swell

I don't want to be here anymore

I don't want to be here anymore

I don't want to be here anymore

[nohoperadio]

Woke up this morning and noticed the phone ringing, I thought to myself I must answer that phone, I was ready to do it, starting running through what I would say in my mind, but then I fell back asleep. When I woke up again the phone was still ringing but my motivation to answer it had completely deserted me. Meh. It's ringing now but it would be absurd to launch into that conversation so late in the day. The phone has been ringing continuously for twelve years now, I know I should answer it but I feel like I'm never in the right frame of mind, and then when I am in the right frame of mind something comes up, or I need to use that energy for something more important. And I feel like the longer I leave it the better my excuse needs to be for why I took so long to answer and that makes it all messier... this morning when I woke up I felt better about answering the phone than I have in a very long time, I wish I had not fallen back asleep. I'm sure it will be good news when I do answer it. I just need to get into the right frame of mind.

[dysregulation-superfund-dumpsite]

Highly heavily related to my previous post

[dysregulation-superfund-dumpsite]

I believe Gladlands is probably excellent

But unfortunately I have been very busy spending every Saturday in a quasi-functional state somewhere between a freeze and a collapse. It turns out to be very difficult to pay attention for very long while also trying to soothe away the intense despair with the numbing balm of scrolling - a balm which, incidentally and solely because of Fascism, is expired and therefore completely nonfunctional despite your grandmother's insistence that it's still absolutely fine. Admittedly I am the grandmother in this metaphor and the fact that it absolutely does not work anymore hasn't yet seemed to have stopped me from continuing to try and force the issue. (The emotional equivalent of opening a bobby pin and scraping the thick tarry gunk from the interior recesses of your pipe, all the while quietly denying your own wanton desperation with a couple of thinly whispered empty lies that you don't even believe.)

So it's like, been on, but I have been Elsewhere.