We post about RAMCOA/OEA, trauma, paraphilias and abuse. If that unsettles you, curate your feed, not our content.
β±ΰ§βΏοΈ΅ BYF/BYI
We donβt play the syscourse Olympics. Donβt bring harmful transID, radqueer, or pro/neu-contact paraphile discourse here (we are strictly anti-contact but pro-paraphilia). We donβt believe in βCluster B abusersβ or βrecovery purity politics.β Endo neutral in the sense that we couldnβt care less about what you do with your life as long as you leave us out of it and donβt harass us. Basically neutral on a majority of the discourse stances on this hellsite. If you enter our inbox/comments with nonsense, expect to be blocked or roasted.
We don't have a DNI because let's be honest people rarely read/follow them.
βDonβt mistake my kindness for weakness. Iβll choke you with the same hand I fed you with.β
I think if I randomly started posting about my daily life as a farmer without any context of the farm people would either think I want to die 24/7 or I hate animals or that I'm simply unhinged.
Either that or I'd become very ridiculous very fast because farm life is honestly just one absurdity on top of another.
Me: "Damn people are REALLY BAD at knowing when to tag their eyestrain art/images...either that or they just don't care about photosenitive epileptic people like me. I feel really sad now."
Person: "But Allison, what if they just don't know or understand what qualifies as eyestrain and what doesn't?"
Me: "You know what? That could be a factor...While it is always better to be safe rather than sorry (so YES people should always tag eyestrain even if they're unsure if it "counts" or not) maybe you've got a point?"
Anyways! HERE'S YOUR HANDY GUIDE TO WHAT CAN COUNT AS EYESTRAIN! I'm pulling this straight from the Artfight rules page about what needs to be labeled and filtered as eyestrain because it's VERY helpful and VERY accurate! I also know not everybody has an AF account and might not always have access to this handy guide, and this is an important resource; That's why I'm sharing it here! (under the cut)
PLEASE TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY!!! THIS IS ABOUT THE HEALTH AND SAFETY OF OTHERS!!!
Full eyestrain AF page link
"But Allison! How were you able to screenshot that example if you're so sensitive to eyestrain?"
I dimmed the HELL out of my computer screen and looked away while taking the screenshot and did the same when putting it into this post, that's how lol. BUT YEAH ANYWAYS!!! Once again:
PLEASE TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY!!! THIS IS ABOUT THE HEALTH AND SAFETY OF OTHERS!!!
Likely a hot take. I've been sick as fuck and my brain is mush, so if this is messy I'll probably redo it later.
I saw a post earlier that took a study on self-identified sexual aggressors and turned it into a "cis men suck/cis men dni" generalization. Then another about a cis intersex man who was castrated at birth by a female surgeon who just hated men/boys that much. It got me thinking.
I've met and dated shitty cis men. I've also met wonderful ones. Same with cis women and queer people; some have been just as harmful (or more). Generalizing entire groups like this is harmful. In my experience, it doesn't reduce harm; it makes those groups more defensive and escalates everything into a vicious cycle that hurts people who don't deserve it.
Most boys/men grow up with rigid, damaging messaging: "man up," don't cry, don't show weakness, your worth is in what you provide or achieve, suppress needs for help, take risks, etc. Those scripts absolutely damage men's mental health, relationships, perception of women and other men, and even lifespans. The stats are clear: men die by suicide at much higher rates, die younger on average, make up the vast majority of workplace deaths and homelessness, and often face real barriers around emotional expression, custody, or asking for help without seeming "less masculine."
Rigid sex-role expectations and cultural norms hurt everyone; they just distribute the costs and benefits differently. Men get certain social permissions and advantages at the high end (leadership, risk tolerance paying off for some), but they pay with higher variance: more men at both the extreme top and the extreme bottom. The "privilege" narrative often ignores the parts where the system chews men up and discards them; especially working-class, POC, neurodivergent, or non-conforming men.
It's the same with women internalizing harmful stuff under the same pressures. We can acknowledge real patterns and average differences without sliding into "therefore all members of group X are bad/oppressors."
The "cis men suck" rhetoric slides very easily into "all men suck" because the underlying logic is often essentialist: treating maleness or masculinity itself as tainted or inherently dangerous, rather than specific behaviors or cultural patterns. Once that frame is normalized, transmasc and trans men get pulled under the umbrella whether they like it or not ("you're socialized as male," "male energy," etc.). Trans women catch it from the other side: suddenly their birth sex is the only thing that matters and they're framed as infiltrators or predators.
I've already experienced this flip-flopping with intersex stuff: people weaponizing whichever gender lens hurts most in the moment. It's especially frustrating when people in transmasc/trans male spaces echo "all men are trash" rhetoric for clout or solidarity, then act shocked when it gets reflected back at them. You can't spend years calling masculinity suspect and then expect everyone to magically exempt your masculinity when it's convenient. That inconsistency erodes trust inside communities and hands outsiders easy ammo.
I've seen firsthand how bodies and histories don't fit the neat oppressor/oppressed scripts a lot of online discourse demands. Generalizing "men" (cis, trans, or otherwise) as a monolith doesn't protect anyone; it just trains people to sort each other into threat categories instead of dealing with individuals.
It's okay to want better socialization for boys and men without hating men as a category. And it's okay to push back when your own community imports rhetoric that eventually bites them (and you) in the ass.
Individual people still get to be judged on how they actually treat others. Some of my friends being decent cis men doesn't erase the shitty ones I've met, and the shitty ones don't erase them either.
Genuinely nothing pisses me off more than when someone I barely know just vents to me unprompted. I do not care. Leave me alone. Go to therapy. I'm not your free dumping ground. Sure, close friends, I don't mind them venting. But someone who's essentially a stranger? Fuck out of here with that shit.
When work has been swamping me for over a month going back into a non-recovery state is INCREDIBLY tempting. Nothing irks me more than when I have projects I want to start on or get to and I'm blocked by life obligations sapping my energy.
The fact that there's a 43 year old (allegedly) on here going after traumagenic systems to fakeclaim them is so pathetic lmao.
Saw one of their posts say that it's impossible to tell you have DID as a teen. Ironically I didn't know until a had a severely traumatic series of events at 16 and people kept telling me I did or said things I had no memory of.
Ended up being diagnosed at age 18 after a crap ton of therapy. Good lord if you're really 43 please do something better with your time.
Editing my ASPD post for the new masterlist and I feel the need to warn you all that it is a LONG post. It encapsulates the entire history of how ASPD came to be what we know it as today along with some other factors that played into it. So I hope once it is posted you'll understand why it took me forever to write and post it. I will be doing the same for the other disorders I want to tackle, the history behind them etc, but beyond the history section posts likely won't be so incredibly lengthy. I personally felt the need to include the history before tackling the rest of those disorders in hopes of giving those who don't understand the disorders a glimpse into why these disorders can be (unintentionally or intentionally) dangerous based on the individual that has them.
id prefer if (pro) endos do not interact with the post directly but you can still share it if you know someone worried about these things.
btw im not in the twitter space anymore but my friend showed me this about the hivemind system thingy and i thought it? would be important to look at? you can click on the stuff to learn more but i think "paratwt proshiptwt" would. sum it up.
im also NOT saying "dont use hivemind", this is just for awareness to probably not give them your money or anything. i personally will not use it because of my past experiences with these communities but i wont like. kill you if you use it LOL
any messages supporting proship will get you blocked and your message deleted as the proshiptwt space is something i have been a target of and i do not wish to interact with anyone in support of it.
"ohh but but π³ arent you anti endo" I DONT CARE THIS IS IMPORTANT!!! when it comes to things that are important i could give less of a fuck who i tell. i may not agree with them but people are still allowed to know things.
EDIT: i gen did not realize the Dirk user calling systems spineless for getting desperate over losing disability aids and i want to say that i disagree with what Dirk said. i think the desperation is to be expected because of the sudden shutdown of apps that aid systems.
it is not your fault for needing an aid and it never will be. people are shit and unfortunately those struggling are running out of options and we cant afford to pick and choose. it is not your fault and you are not a terrible person if you use something made by someone bad if it aids your disability!! this goes especially for those with moral fears because i know how it feels ππ ok thats all i wanted to add yay
Iβm going to be taking a temporary step back from the mental health community side of Tumblr (and in general) for a while. The past week with multiple apps and tools shutting down, plus the surrounding discourse, has been extremely stressful for my system and myself and itβs started affecting my mental health and my work offline.
Iβm still around and still working on my masterlist project quietly on the side, but I wonβt be engaging much in community discussion nor posting for a bit.
This isnβt about anyone specific; I just need some breathing room so I can focus on stability and real life for a while. I will not be deleting this blog or anything like that, but I do need to focus on my own stability for the time being in order to provide you with the project Iβm working on without burning myself out and abandoning it.
So after my last 2 rants I've decided to be helpful instead of an asshole for those who haven't heard of these apps yet.
I've mainly been using Ourcana, which in my personal opinion works well for my needs. The android version will be up on Google Playstore soon I believe, and the IOS version is also in the works to be put on the Apple Store.
For me personally I enjoy that it's offline but can sync to PluralKit since I've moved back over to PK for Discord, and when I change my fronts in Ourcana it changes on PK too, which is very helpful.
The tagging system works nicely for me, and so do custom fields (though please note you cannot currently change the order of custom fields). Local image hosting has not yet been implemented so you will for now need to use something like imgur or similar places to upload avatars.
I do like that you can edit fronts even after an alter has fronted, and it's relatively simple to add and remove fronters. Custom fronts aren't an option at the moment so you'll need to create an alter peofile for custom fronts if that's something you want.
It also has a journaling feature that works similar to how Octocon's did but the data is all on your device locally, and you can add tags/members to your journal.
Friending others is not currently an option and is in the works however it will be a paid subscription in order to use the server for friending though from what I understand it won't be very expensive for those who want that feature, and you will potentially also be able to self-host the friending feature.
Other than all of that I enjoy the layout very much and I think it's a nice little spin on plurality applications.
Hivemind
I haven't used Hivemind that much but I do enjoy the relationships feature it has as I find it very handy to be able to map those between alters. The grouping system is a bit annoying for me since it treats groups as subsystems, so that doesn't really work well for my needs.
I haven't had issues with crashing or glitching as of yet, and this app is also offline.
You're not able to edit fronts in the app, which I find annoying.
The journal feature is similar to Ourcana's. It has a chat feature as well, though you can't create additional channels like you were able to on Simply Plural.
The app also has analytics and stats which I don't personally find useful to me.
Good to see that the system community has not yet learned their lesson. Call me a dickhead all you want but the people with CDDs harassing devs for shutting down apps and causing the shutdown of more apps are just making everyone suffer. Behavior like this is why people have the belief that we deserve to suffer and you can't get that through your thick skulls can you? You conveniently forget that the devs behind these apps more often than not have a CDD themselves.
Just this morning I woke up to the octocon announcement and the amount of insults and slurs being thrown at the mod team is horrific. I understand Atlas made a promise but mental disorders don't give a fuck about what someone promises when things get overwhelming.
At least we have lighthouse sign ups working again. But it makes me wonder how many more resources need to be taken away for people to learn their lesson about basic manners.
I sometimes get the impression people think I'm a heartless asshole, and while that is true to some extent I can actually be very friendly, I'm just not very conversational and don't easily warm up to people.
I am also FINALLY formatting and editing the first post for the second masterlist, the research didn't take so long but I'm an OCD bastard about phrasing and formatting.
The βASPD Boredom Curseβ: A Personal Dissection of Chronic Under-Stimulation
I often describe what I experience as βthe ASPD boredom curse,β but the word boredom is actually misleading. Boredom suggests mild impatience or waiting for something to happen. What I experience is closer to chronic under-stimulation combined with a blunted reward response and persistent restlessness. It feels less like βhaving nothing to doβ and more like existing in an environment where very little registers as meaningful input.
From a psychological perspective, the issue appears less about activity levels and more about reward thresholds. Many people receive small but consistent dopamine reinforcement from routine interactions, casual conversation, everyday accomplishments, or social approval. In my experience, those inputs often register as flat or inconsequential. The result is a constant sense that the world is operating at a lower intensity than my nervous system expects.
Below is how Iβve come to conceptualize this pattern.
High Stimulation Threshold
My baseline threshold for engagement seems unusually high. Activities that are typically rewarding for others; routine tasks, light hobbies, predictable social interaction, often fail to produce any noticeable sense of satisfaction.
The consequence is that the environment begins to feel low resolution. Conversations feel repetitive. Tasks feel mechanical. Even achievements can feel strangely empty once the novelty disappears.
This isnβt always experienced as sadness. It is usually experienced as flatness.
Intensity as a Proxy for Aliveness
Because ordinary stimuli often fail to produce engagement, intensity becomes a reliable signal that something is βreal.β Risk, novelty, competition, taboo subjects, power dynamics, or intellectually complex problems tend to cut through the flatness.
The important distinction is that intensity does not necessarily equal fulfillment. It functions more like an energy spike. It produces activation, not necessarily meaning.
In other words, intensity can wake the system up without actually feeding it.
Contempt as a Defensive Interpretation
When large portions of the environment feel unstimulating, it becomes easy to interpret the situation as evidence that the environment itself is inadequate.
This is where contempt can emerge. Thoughts like βthis is beneath meβ or βpeople are predictableβ function as protective explanations for the persistent lack of engagement.
Sometimes these observations may be partially accurate. However, contempt also acts as a psychological shield. If the world is boring because it is inferior, then I do not have to confront the possibility that my own reward system is unusually difficult to satisfy.
Control as a Source of Stimulation
In environments where emotional reward is limited, influence itself can become engaging.
Reading people, testing boundaries, steering interactions, or provoking reactions creates immediate feedback. Reaction demonstrates impact, and impact demonstrates agency.
In other words, control can become stimulating because it proves that something in the environment is responding.
This is not necessarily driven by cruelty; often it is driven by the simple need to break through the feeling of psychological silence.
Nervous System Calibration
Another factor may be developmental conditioning. If someone grows up in environments characterized by instability, unpredictability, or chronic activation, their nervous system may become calibrated to expect a higher level of stimulation.
In that context, calm environments may not register as peaceful. They may register as empty.
This creates a paradox where stability; something typically considered healthy, can feel subjectively similar to deprivation.
The PursuitβPossession Split
One pattern I frequently notice is that anticipation carries more psychological charge than possession.
The pursuit of something; an idea, a project, a relationship, a goal, contains novelty and uncertainty. Once the outcome becomes predictable or secured, the stimulation drops sharply.
This can create a cycle in which engagement collapses immediately after achieving the thing that originally generated interest.
The pursuit remains exciting; maintenance does not.
The Escalation Problem
The most concerning aspect of this pattern is reinforcement. If stimulation is consistently sought through extreme or highly intense experiences, the nervous system gradually adapts.
Each escalation raises the threshold for future stimulation.
Over time, ordinary experiences become even less engaging than they were initially. The βsolutionβ unintentionally worsens the original problem.
Reframing the Problem
When I step back and analyze the pattern clinically, the core issue seems to be a mismatch between stimulation requirements and environmental input.
The question is not simply βhow do I avoid boredom.β
The more accurate questions are:
β’ What form of stimulation is actually missing?
β’ Is the urge Iβm feeling a desire for aliveness or merely a desire for interruption?
β’ Which activities produce sustainable engagement instead of brief spikes of activation?
This reframing shifts the focus away from distraction and toward meaningful load: activities that provide complexity, challenge, and sustained cognitive or emotional engagement.
Conclusion
What I call the βASPD boredom curseβ is likely a combination of high stimulation thresholds, reduced reward response to ordinary stimuli, reliance on intensity for engagement, and learned interpretations of flatness as environmental inadequacy.
The experience can feel like constantly consuming the world faster than the world can feed you.
The long-term challenge is learning to differentiate between stimulation that merely shocks the system awake and stimulation that actually sustains engagement.
Normally I don't post my "feelings" online but the last few days surrounding the Simply Plural, WriteLighthouse and Ampersand situation make me want to say something.
The DID/OSDD community needs to get their heads out of their fucking asses.
I understand wanting an easy way to keep track of alters, and I also understand the frustration of it as a Polyfragmented system.
However the DID/OSDD community has an honestly absurd amount of entitlement. Yes, I know not everyone in these communities is like this. But the ones who are:
You are NOT entitled to harassing and shitting on and being a cunt to the devs of any app/website because you want something done right now. If it's such an issue that things aren't working, make your own goddamn app.
And before people come at me with "oh but that's not easy/I don't have time" etc. That's exactly my fucking point. If you yourself know it's not easy and it's time consuming and a pain in the ass then stop harassing the devs of apps that have put effort and time into making sure these apps work to the best of their ability.
It's one thing making an app for yourself to use, it's a completely different thing making it for a larger audience.
Yes. We are disabled due to our disorder, I'm not denying that. But for the love of God you people need to drop the fucking entitlement and learn to have some patience and humility because at the rate the community is harassing devs YOU will be the cause of these apps completely disappearing and you'll also be the first to shit in your pants about it online when it happens.
The same people screaming for accessibility and support are the ones torching the bridge they're standing on. Developing and maintaining an app for systems is a massive logistical headache; privacy concerns, encryption, data syncing, and when the community responds with harassment because a feature isn't "perfect" or "instant," theyβre just fast-tracking the death of the few resources they actually have.
It's genuinely pathetic that "having a disorder" is being used as a shield for being a total prick to developers. You are going to wake up one morning to a 404 error and have absolutely no one to blame but your own lack of impulse control.
And yes while I am pissed off I am also talking from experience, parts of this community are lovely. But a VERY large part of it is the most toxic cesspool I have ever encountered.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, having a disorder does not give you an excuse to be a dickhead.
