I've seen what happens when people Get Worse. I've orbited a lot of people who Got Worse (especially online). If you listen to people who Got Worse it's all the same: they don't have consistent, meaningful social support, they've been hurt too many times and they can't open up out of fear that the next betrayal is going to drive the knife right through the artery, they end up spending too much time alone and develop secret languages, meanings, thought cycles completely inscrutable to anyone who has never had to rely on such rituals to survive, they get caught in a cycle of reopening and licking their wounds because the progression of time is so unrewarding and stagnant that the past is basically always the present, and the present is already the future, they become mean, they become strange.
some people might offer to help them but it's rare they ever know where to start, let alone exhibit compassion without grimace. admittedly, even for genuinely compassionate people, it isn't the easiest thing. if the person is someone who is stuck in their ways or doesn't know you, they don't really have a reason to be receptive to your help. "why should I waste my time on someone who is just going to become another memory of heartache? someone who will carelessly hurt and abandon me?" and such. an earnest attempt to help can feel like an attempted assault to them. at the same time, the meaningful interpersonal relationships that these people need will not survive if built on pity or fleeting self-gratifying feelings of "building" someone into your idea of a desirable person.
I don't know where I was going with this, but I always found it hard not to see myself as only a few degrees removed from these people. one or two safety nets separated from being completely trapped. unable to feel safe in not just the world but also my own body. a cosmological dead end. I stay away from habitually engaging in the obvious things can that make trying to change when you're at this point difficult (alcohol, drugs, etc), but if temperance is how you maintain stability in the face of rock bottom, you're basically already there, right? you're there and your body just hasn't caught up. maybe I'm just being dramatic because it's late. hows everypony finding the new deltarune chapters.
tangentwithtanner
stormborns
blakekathryn
2087
