Obsessed And Horrified With The Romanticisation Of The Secret History. Why Am I Seeing 'dark Academia

When Dostoevsky said, "Pain changes you, but it teaches. That is its mercy." but Kafka said, "Pain changes nothing. It just repeats itself until you forget who you were before it started."

12/06/25

started my new courses today, there isn't nearly enough material to keep me occupied for the rest of the summer term, but at least that'll give me more time for other stuff.

on the plus side the RMPS work is really interesting and there are at least four tutorials worth of work in those files. I'll probably finish them quickly and then go onto other projects

Was your star next to mine ?

What you call self-sabotage might just be your body saying: "Familiar pain feels safer than unfamiliar peace"

What you call procrastination might just be your body saying: "I'm overwhelmed and everything feels too much"

What you call anxiety might just be your body saying: "I've been in danger before, and I don't know if it's over yet"

What you call neediness might just be your body saying: "I didn't get what I needed, and I'm still longing"

What you call overreacting might just be your body saying: "This feels like danger to me because it once was"

What you call emotional instability might just be your body saying: "I was never taught that feeling emotions could be safe"

What you call resistance might just be your body saying: "I don't feel safe enough to do what you want me to"

What you call laziness might just be your body saying: "I'm frozen because I had to work hard for too long"*

What you call numbness might just be your body saying: "I had to shut down to keep you safe"

What you call avoidance might just be your body saying: "Im not ready to face this yet. I need slower exposure to it"

(the.trauma.educator on ig)

*gentle reminder that body gets tired also after doing mentally draining work/job (which includes feeling stressed too, not just studying or working 9-5 in front of a computer -which holds responsabilities, anyway)

i hope you are haunted by every mention of me

i see your name everywhere

you surround me in inconsequential settings

the teacher asks me to read aloud from the article, and the authors name makes me choke

my friend talks excitedly about her new tennis coach, and i pathetically, desperately, think that somehow you have travelled 417.8 miles and learnt a new sport

your name is used in a maths problem and i think this is so daft he could run way faster than that, and i sit there like a fool in the exam hall surrounded by shame and silence and the echoes of you

the curse of having a niche name is that i know you will probably never hear mine

you will never stop dead at 11:24 on the train home because someone has just laughed my name into their phone

you will never read a book where my name is the name of a main character, and wonder if i have read this book too

you will never come across my name spray painted in accusing red, begging you not to forget me

but maybe this is a blessing in disguise

you will never become numb to me

whenever you do hear my name it will be brutal and raw and painful

i hope

your brother will say 'i heard she got a boyfriend' and your mum will say 'i called her the other day and she was worrying about her exams' and your grandmother will say 'she might come visit london this summer'

and you will stop dead in the bright lights of the kitchen and watch everyone turn around you

and you will picture me in my blue room with the purple pyjamas i wore that night i was twelve,

and you will know that i will always be a part of you

it is v important to me that y'all know that Persephone/Proserpina did not go willingly with Hades/Pluto. yeah i love a good greek mythology retelling as much as the next person. i go crazy for those poems about how Icarus might have enjoyed flying and falling, I love reinterpretations of classic stories, please talk to me about your love for Prometheus and how you think his story is still incredibly relevant today.

but there is no actual greek or roman telling of Persephone/Proserpina's story that involves her going to the underworld through her own choice. In all the original stories she is a young girl kidnapped by a man obsessed with her beauty and tricked into staying with him for part of the year.

sleep hygiene

sleep is so important for both your mental and physical health, i have struggled with sleeping issues for the last seven years, but here are the tips that have helped me.

non chemical sleep supplements it may be the placebo effect, but night time teas and tart cherries have genuinely helped me feel sleepier in the evenings

having a set sleep routine make sure no matter what you are in bed by a certain time and awake by a certain time, it will be difficult at first but your body will get used to it

making your bed a place just for sleeping as tempting as it can be to use your bed as a desk, or a shelf, it is far easier to keep it solely for sleep. that way whenever you are in bed you have the mindset of 'i am going to sleep now'

make sure your room is properly dark invest in blackout curtains, stick plasters over any electronic lights in your room, make sure it is as close to pitch black as possible

leave your phone in a different room this ensures that if you wake up in the middle of the night you won't be tempted to check it quickly, stay in bed and don't shine blue light in your face

make your bed every morning discourages you from getting back into bed and makes it nicer to get into in the evening

wear clean pyjamas as much as possible as tempting as it can be to crawl into bed in your underwear, or a sweaty t-shirt, having comfy and clean pyjamas feels so much nicer

do the same things every morning and evening having a set routine helps you get in the right mindset. my teeth are clean, i've washed my face, i've read ten pages, now i know it is time to go to sleep. the same for the morning, once i've made the bed and brushed my hair i don't go back to bed

fresh air and movement when you first wake up the common tip is sunlight in the mornings, i don't know about y'all but i live in scotland and in winter i am already at school when the sun rises, but going outside or just opening a window and feeling fresh cool air on your face is so helpful. also trying to do a bit of movement in the morning, even if its just stretch and touch your toes, it gets your blood moving and makes you feel more awake

“You shouldn’t self-ID as ADHD/autistic, you’re turning a very real mental condition into a trend” Ok then stop saying delulu. Stop speculating on which cluster C personality disorder the criminals you hear about on the news have. Stop saying “schizoposting” and “acoustic” and “is it restarted?” Stop using “psycopath” and “sociopath” as catch-all ways of calling someone a bad person. Stop saying “the intrusive thoughts won” when you bleach your hair and then turn your nose up at people who suffer from very real, very scary urges of physical/sexual violence. Stop saying “I’m so OCD” as a way of calling yourself neat. Stop treating BPD/ASPD/Bipolar as inherently abusive. Stop saying “OP I am living in your walls” without tagging for unreality. Stop diagnosing complete strangers you’ve never met on r/AITA with NPD.

You first. If you don’t want our disabilities to be treated like trends then stop belittling and minimising them. I’ll NEVER judge a person for trying find labels for their symptoms when an apathetic, racist, sexist, ableist healthcare system refuses to. But I will absolutely judge a hypocrite. Which a lot of you are

the killing of the weeds

we've all been told that they pick the flowers they think are the prettiest

and they do, they pluck the beautiful ones when they are young and they display them for all to see

but hidden away behind this is their treatment of the less beautiful ones

the ivy and and the dandelions - the 'weeds'

a weed is not a specific breed or family of plant, a weed is defined as 'a wild plant growing where it is not wanted and in competition with cultivated plants'

a weed is any plant that does not conform

a plant that is wild and unruly and a law unto itself

a plant that challenges the status quo, the norm

a plant that grows in competition, a plant thats non-conformance makes it brighter and bolder and braver

i can tell you what they do with those plants

they rip them out

they try and remove the roots as best as they can, to try and remove any chance of the resilient weed bouncing back up

they pour weed-killers, harsh chemicals designed to destruct

and they do so repeatedly

the forceful and ferocious beating down of those that dare to be different

the killing of the weeds

no one cares about that

they kill the weeds

quality over quantity

there's a story my dad always tells me about a man who is trying to cut a huge tree down. and he has been at it for hours, his arms are aching, hes exhausted, but the tree is slowly but surely being cut down. the problem is that he has been going for so long that his axe is really blunt. so another guy comes up to him and asks him why he is trying to work with a blunted axe, pointing out that it is so much easier to take a quick break to sharpen your axe and then start work again. but the man refuses, saying that he is being productive at the moment, and he cannot possibly waste time sharpening the axe because he has other tasks to get onto.

if he sharpened the axe the tree would come down faster, and he would have time for the other things he wants to do.

it is far better to take a 30 minute break, take time to jog around the block, make a cup of tea, eat a quick snack, than to try and solidly work for hours and hours.

yes technically you spent more time working, but you probably would have gotten more stuff done if you took a break and refreshed your brain.

sharpen your axe!!