#open wounds

[littleblood]

[infsomniac]

GIVE ME SHOPLIFTING TIPS NOW!1!1!1!1

this is an extremely unintentionally long post but you requested tips so here you are. you're free to do whatever you wish with your life and i wont stop you, but know that borrowing gets addicting and your ego will start to get bigger once you see how much you are able to get away with. i only say this so that you dont allow that factor to make you sloppy.

get creative with where you are hiding products. if i stole makeup, i would pick something up, look at it, put it back but then stick the product i actually wanted (that was next to the decoy) in my sleeve. sometimes i would even bend down to "tie my shoes" and shove an eyeliner in them also. if you are shoving things into your clothes, do it while making naturally looking movements so it blends better. flat barcodes will most likely not beep but the raised ones will, so keep that in mind when looking at the packaging. if you can peel the raised barcode off, even better. drop it in your bag and then pretend to be looking for your phone while you peel. take your phone out after so it aligns with the act. if you cant do this, remove the product out of the packaging. this is much more risky, though. with clothes, i would grab a few items to bring to the fitting room with me except i would put the item of clothing i actually wanted inside the decoy clothes on the hanger. this is difficult to explain but it's like grabbing a sweater on a hanger to try on, hanging the actual shirt or whatever it is you want on the same hanger but on the inside, and then zipping up the sweater so when the person in the fitting room counts your items, they would count it as one and therefore would not suspect anything else could be missing once you leave. security tags are a pain in the ass but i used to remove them with a pair of forks that i would bring. right in the fitting room as well. if you do remove them, hide them somewhere. some fitting rooms have mirrors that pop out a bit and you can hide the tags behind there. or even retagging the decoy clothes with it lol. one time, i bought jeans somewhere but i shoved other smaller products in the pockets and the worker didnt notice as she was scanning the jeans. so that is also an option. or, assuming security tags are off, putting the clothes you want on, underneath your actual clothes, while you are in the fitting room. check for cameras but dont make it obvious. i would actually recommend checking on a different day than the day you will be stealing. if there are cameras, pay attention to which areas seem to have the most and which have the least. stand at a very far distance to locate the cameras. if you are stealing in front of a camera, have your back against it so it cant actually see you do it and try to not look right at them. if there are a lot of cameras around the item you want to steal, pick it up, walk around the store with it in your hand and pretend to be looking at more things until you find a blind spot. before i start stealing, i usually make sure to visit the store a few times and actually buy things. ill be super outgoing with the workers also. im not sure how well this works or if its helped me become less suspicious but definitely worth noting. walking into the store without getting anyone's attention is better, i would say, if this is something you are able to do. make sure you are bringing an appropriate bag and not something that is complicated to open such as a tote bag. look presentable but also keep in mind that baggy clothes are your friend. have other shopping bags with you with things you actually bought in them. be confident, stay in the store for a couple of minutes after you already pocketed the thing that you want, and dont be afraid of telling the staff to have a good day when you leave. absolutely do not get overly cocky, like i did. because then, you will make more mistakes. if you suspect you are being watched, you need to leave. if you see a staff member make eye contact with you while they are suddenly speaking to someone on their phone, you need to leave. after borrowing from a store, especially if its a bunch of items at once or something expensive, dont return for a while. timing is everything so borrowing during high volume periods where staff is busier with other customers is ideal.

i think something that really helped me was actually working retail myself. the policies around theft in retail stores are so weird here so it was very easy for me to exploit them. for example, in one of the places i have worked, the associates were not allowed to accuse a customer of stealing. if they suspected someone, they were meant to tell their manager who would then keep an eye on the person. however, if the manager was not the one to explicitly witness the shoplifting, then they were not allowed to accuse the customer either. they cant act on suspicion, they must actually see it. even then, if a customer stole and were to leave the store right after, then they could not do anything about it anymore. i have worked in malls as well where even if mall security was called, they always took their time getting to the store. so there was that also. in many of the places i have worked, we also never checked the cameras or inventory count unless we suspected something to be stolen and we knew exactly what was missing. so if you can hide the evidence such as the tags, then unless they see you, they wont suspect something is missing. that is all i will say as to prevent this from getting longer.

[theflyingcosmos]

OW!Dust drawing

[renpil]

[FR] mer d'organes, bide plein de médocs

[ENG] sea of organs, belly full of meds

[wisdomfish]

Thou bleedest to heal our wounds.

C.H. Spurgeon

[brutallybrutus]

And then they leave…

[infsomniac]

Fellow ASPD haver here : please tell me about the psychological stuff you know. Specifically I’d love to hear more about how people with ASPD experience love across different situations. Been trying to get an understanding on my view of romance now I’ve been diagnosed.

i can certainly explain what is happening chemically in our brains but i always make it a point to mention how subjective this question is and how many aspds have had long lasting relationships. it is certainly possible, but i will explain what is going on.

i believe the easiest, most coherent way of explaining this is through comparing and contrasting. so, when a prosocial meets a person that they like, their selection of that person comes from emotional resonance or perhaps shared values. for an aspd, selection is based on the person's utility. the ventral tegmental area is a group of neurons in the brain that act as a reward centre. it is home to dopaminergic cells, which then increase dopamine. upon meeting a person they like, a prosocials vta will release dopamine that is highly controlled by the hypothalamus as well as the amygdala. the brain is looking for emotional connection because it wants to release oxytocin to release stress or what have you. because of an aspds chronic under stimulation, meeting a person can trigger this dopamine release as well, up to four times as much, actually. this is not because of this desire for love or connection but that our brains are starved of entertainment and if it sees an opportunity, it will jump. if it sees a reward, it will jump. our brains are not looking for stress relief but a stimulant, instead. if the stress response in an aspd is muted and our cortisol levels do not rise as much as they should in certain situations, then why would our brains feel the need to maintain that connection long enough to receive that oxytocin from it? it is easy for the relationship to feel meaningless, at that point. our brains respond best to high intensity spikes. oxytocin is a contributor to attachment also, hence why it is easier for aspds to break things off with their partners or move on quick. dont get me wrong, oxytocin is still there, of course, but what i am trying to say is that not even our own brains deem it pleasurable enough. some aspds could also feel highly possessive of their partner. but what is happening in their brains is still the same, i just wanted to highlight the other end.

prosocials get butterflies. aspds get excitement from this person that they view as a challenge in some way, depending on what they want. an aspd relationship can be maintained, should reward outweigh the cost but it can be incredibly reward based. because the oxytocin factor feels so weak for us, the relationship can get boring very quickly. even mundane tasks such as laundry, eating together, etc, can start to feel miserable and lead to the boredom once more. if our brains get bored, we are prone to seeking stimulation elsewhere. love feels more like a choice or a strategic alliance rather than the involuntary emotional overwhelm seen in prosocials. it is experienced through the lens of what the other person is able to provide.

an oxytocin dysregulation absolutely does not mean there is no bonding capacity. vasopressin, also linked to bonding as well as loyalty, is found to be more intact in aspd. if an aspd finds their partner to be consistently rewarding, then of course that dopamine would still be present. relationships are also sustained by shared history, routine, identity incorporation.. all things that do not require chemicals. the relationships tend to consist of two separate people that exist outside of each other. an aspd may have a hard time picking up on every single emotional bid for connection or sharing the pain of their partner, some may even be more practical when it comes to solving conflict that calls for emotion and perhaps their partner will have to do the emotional heavy lifting but they are still relationships that can work, given the right people. love can show up in many ways that are out of the norm. it does not mean it is not real. i have never felt it myself so i cannot speak much to this but i know that aspds can very much feel it. it may not be as strong but it will be there. and it will show in the strangest of ways but it is there and alive nonetheless.

[where-is-my-whump]

Society of the Snow