Noise, and some elysia news!

2022 09 20

The time we truly understood what "peace and quiet" meant happened a couple years ago in the core of one of the biggest cities in the country. Yeah, seriously.

we lived in a high rise apartment building, fairly close to the ground level. after we became settled into the apartment, we started noticing that the ambient noise was really quiet. in the day and the windows closed, it was basically silent unless a moped went by, and the same was true at night, even with the windows open, unless moped went by.

we thought this would be a problem, because we didn't bring a noisemaker with us, and the stillness of air has unsettled us in the past. perhaps the low ambient nosie could cause disassociation, too! we've noticed that we like taking the bus a lot more than the train, because the train is so quiet and the ride is so smooth when it isn't braking/switching tracks that we begin disassociating! whereas the mumbling and bouncing of the bus engine comforted us by making us feel like we are in place.

we discovered quickly, that, this environment felt really safe, and inviting. it was, surprising, and we really liked it.

we thought about this,

we've learned that, we find stillness upsetting because, because of unreasonable social and productivity expectations put onto us through our culture, and because of the trauma we have and the vulnerability of our mental health when we're already hurting. in the case of trauma, most environments put us into a headspace that tells us to anticipate any potential audio profiles that cause triggers, to help adapt us as much as possible to overcoming potential hurting. so, even when we don't have triggers present, we are still constantly, subconsiously thinking about and being at the mercy of them. It puts us on edge.

this apartment was safe, and the only other people in it are people who are understanding and slow paced and kind, and we know that they have those traits. there were no traumatic audio triggers, and our brain adapted to that, quite quickly, actually! this contrasted so heavily with how we've lived for our entire lives up to that point, constantly trying to protect ourselves from what felt, and what kinda was, inevitable triggers. these triggers are really bad, and entirely disable us for often hours on end! they are really, really scary and hurt us.

we loved it. it really was, peaceful. we were so much calmer overall, and we were able think more about ourselves and do things that we wanted to do, and it gave us more spoons to handle obstacles. this, and so many other things about living here, taught us a lot about how our traumas have impacted us, as so many of the barriers to our lives we have taken for granted were completely eliminated here, and gave us a very good look into what our trauma makes more difficult and painful.

sleeping was so much easier, unless someone decided to drive a car on the street (especially when the air was wet). we've also learned that, wow, the noise cars make is one of the biggest reasons we struggle going outside.

we get to live places that are far away from major car routes, and so we know, very tangibly, the difference in noise levels in somewhere with cars and without cars. it is absolutely huge. being near car routes puts our brain, automatically, into a fearful, scared response, and makes us self aware of how it makes us unsteady and how it disables us. we think we are able to recognise these because we know what quiet is.

we think that most people have adapted to constant high noise, and aren't able to articulate noise preferences or how it affects them. so, we think most people don't feel bothered by high noise environments, at least not that they know of. like, for example, if someone's car starts yelling from far away (a car alarm) it's really scary the first siren, but quickly becomes more tolerable as our brains realise that it will keep happening, so we are better able to block it out.

if we are specifically aware of how loud sounds hurt us, however, we can't do that adaption, and think about how much it hurts instead. say, thinking about how the fire alarm low battery sound makes sleeping impossible makes us focus on the sound more and find it even more frustrating.

and, by the way, our brains getting upset and scared and hurt feeling due to loud noise is a good thing, and the adaption to ignore loud noises is unhealthy, because loud noise signficantly damages our mental and physical health. not having that direct brain feedback that something is hurting us makes avoiding it a lot harder!

anyways. when going out, it is so, so noticeable to us whenever a car passes through an otherwise quiet area. The sounds slowly escalate, and peak at a thunderous sound compared to the ambience previously. we don't really notice this when we are constantly exposed to car sounds, but, when we realised what actual quiet ambience was, it becomes so perceptible the massive destructive of noise levels just a single car brings. we started to notice how HUGE the sound level difference really was.

loudnes is so pevasive that most of us don't even realise how loud everything is, and it's really unhealthy we think. it's also annoying how hard it is to achieve real, genuine calmness, anymore, now that we can't have real quietness. the loud is so, so draining. whenever we think we feel strong, whenever we have the spoons and capability to leave our home, we walk to the nearest arterial road to get somewhere, and suddenly we collapse and turn back home, because the sound is unbearable and makes us feel so unwelcome. it sucks.

especially when we are already low spoons, we cannot overcome loud noise, or other health barriers. like, it's literally impossible. we are overwhelmed and shut down!! it would destroy us if we tried to overcome them, so we just suffer for a bit until we get somewhere a little safer. having vulnerability is good. having it be exploited (like through triggers and health barriers or unexpected and backwards allistic expectations that exist purely because "that's how it is supposed to be!" and nobody even cares that that is tagibly upsetting and inaccessible to us because it hasn't ever been something they've even thought about before and they just want the disabled and oppressed person to just "go along with it like everyone else") is absolutely horrible.

like, noise isn't neccesarily bad on its own. the level of noise and how persistent it is matter heavily. and, arterials are always always, extremely, extremely loud. a normal conversation that has a beginning and an end isn't eternal, and the sound made is so much lower than what our body is forced to experience regularly.

we think the reason the quietness on transit upset us was due to the expectation of being quiet. any noise was not allowed, because it would be awkward to say something in a normal situation, and we internalise this and lose control of our body because not moving is very similar to not making noise to us. we don't feel allowed to be ourselves, and feel like we would be opressed more for just being ourselves. it's stressful and hurts because it is autie masking. we were scared of being hurt, for not following an unspoken expectation at a time where it wasn't healthy to follow that expectation.

other

health

our health has been variable. we've had rough insecurity really badly and feel really vulnerable sometimes.

we've started writing a diary. we think this will help make expressing our feeling accurately more accessible, which helps us take care of ourselves and be stable. last night we wrote while in psychosis primarily, and that was pretty safe, although reading back through it now is pretty scary and uncomfortable, for, various reasons.

in addition, we've been making a more active effort to see others. part of this is hugely upsetting because of systemic opression and barriers to taking care of ourselves, like train tickets being too expensive and spoon intensive, and being almost useless, forced car noise because of long walking distances on bad city design, which reminds us of how we are segregated from being able to participate in society physically because we are poor, which gives us class rage, and, it goes on. but, we have had notably more success lately than in the past, and we may finally be making good progress on an important medical mental health thing for us soon.

we've been doing more social events regularly and, they aren't, good, we aren't huge fans of the people in these social events, and they're kinda mean and focus on weird things for a talking to people group, but whatever. what is more important to us is that it acts as a gateway to meet more people and more groups.

we think general we are starting to mask less and overcome some adhd barriers that have essentially put our lives on stop for a bit. so, we finally are beginning to engage with ourselves, our interests, and what is important to us, on our own terms, and that's nice and empowering.

we've also discovered probably another mental illness we have which is cool. generally we think we're in a pretty good direction for mental health! we think soon we'll have enough spoons to be able to think about and internalise other people's feelings, and be able to intuitively predict and understand the causes of certain rhetorics, like body language, tone, speaking style. we like taking care of others almost as much as we like taking care of ourselves, and the things that make us good at taking care of others also makes us good at taking care of ourselves! but its easier to think about in other people.

we also! we also are being more mindful and relearning again feedback loops and also genuinely starting to take our health seriously again because repetitive depression has finally stopped for a long enough time to like ourselves. we are still pretty unstable and struggle loving ourselves and taking care of ourselves and viewing ourselves as valid, but some words from our partner, in particular about how all of our thoughts and feelings are valuable, and how being non-speaking is okay, have done a lot to help us, and we try to focus on those as best we can. there are still barriers though.

we think maybe the reason we like taking care of people so much is because we are highly maternal and can't have children of our own!! it is mainly upsetting because it is a permanent physical body thing that we will always have to deal with, so even when we have the mental and material resources required to raise children, we still wouldn't be able to actually have them. taking care of people is really good and also more accessible than raising our own children on our own, which we like.

we think a big part of mental health recovery is having real social connections. isolation is so fucking horrible. lately, we've been hurt by others because of an apparent popularity contest. we were not allowed to see people we liked because we our being there would put a bad image on the person we really like, and, they literally told us directly they didn't have issue with us himself. like, we understand and can get behind the specific reasoning (which is being kept intentionally private, as with most things in this blogpost!), it's just, it still hurts, because we know we need to have social connections and it feels terrible when the few resources we've found suddenly disapear because of supposed to and the horrible understanding of mental health in our culture, even by people who think they do have a good understanding.

we want to make it clear we aren't upset because of the specific scenario, we are upset by what it represents and reminds us of, and we have no hard feelings for our friend or about what we talked about, and we understand. being hurt for being us has been a recurring theme in our lives. being hurt severly for really truly doing our best to be ourselves. one of our most important memories was literally having our expectations of being physically abused undermined and instead had the situation de-escalated. it was a learning experience and taught us we aren't absolutely hated by everyone at all times. this happened relateively recently, although, more and more people have been doing this instead of physically abusing us. really, only a handful of childhood figures did it to us, but they did it with enough repitition and in enough contexts that it became intertwined with a lot.

anyways. isolation is bad. we think the sentiment that therapy works best when someone already has friends is pretty good, because of how social isolation hurts our mental health. we hate capitalism and consumerism/middle class (ideology) and auto centricity because it takes peoples' lives away from them and forces them into a emotionless pipeline of endless school to endless work. social isolation is a manufactured feature of our society and we absolutely fucking hate it.

littlespace 🐈c️at, pet

drawings and art

drawing has been bigger barrier for reasons and we're trying our best to do art because it is really important and accessible expression

we've been drawing more and trying our best! as of writing we recently did blanky fort, and a lot more paintings and drawing privately, and it's been good for us severly. they are hiding from trauma under the safe blankies with their loved ones.

same for writing.

we've written more horrifying fiction that represents mental health and psychology like "it's going to be okay to die."

these are healthy and let us express complex feelings exactly how we want. mainly, we've written fiction about severe sexual trauma where it is completely disabling the trauma makes it impossible to remember of what it was like when the character still had authority over their lives. they live with a partner who loves them completely and takes care of them, and they both view each other entirely benovolently.

we are unsure if we want to make their partner abuse the disabled kitten's position to take advantage of them physically. we think that would undermine real llove and care but would be a cool character arc to have them regret that and have them earnestly reconcile together and would re-validate the position that their feelings for each other are real and that abusive decisions were impulsive. we recently read a "adult" yuri manga but it was adult purely in that it was poor people who were on their own and had to somehow get by. these people were still horrible about knowing they even had feelings and it is annoying.

it is really nice to write about a character who has severe disassociative amnesia and who doesn't have to face the horrors of their traumas, even if they are still bad actors who still force it onto them. It is also extremely nice to be able for them to be in, at least at a surface level, a stable and loving scenario with their partner. we really want them to genuinely have a awesome relationship together even if there is abuse and we think we want the story to be about learning about trauma and acknowledging it and growing together. we don't really want it to be about how horrible it feels to have trauma, and to know about having trauma, and the years long periods of slowly recovering and relapsing over and over and over. although we aren't fully sure yet. it is about how trauma affects people, too, but mostly focused on trauma blocking and maybe in the future also growth and self love and care than the suffering part. the character does suffer but they don't realise they are suffering, and its super earnest and sweet we think. we think having suffering is important, but we don't want to write that directly and only want to communicate it highly indirectly. it is not the focus and we don't want that to be the tone. we want it feel sweet and earnest because we think that's the most important part to us.

currently thinking about if the character formerly did sex work, or perhaps still does, and the clients did horrible things to them and put non-proffesional expectations on them (forcing the character in a intimate sexual relationship, not a professional sexual relationship), and this causes them to diassociate so their brain doesn't need to process their unbearable memories and experiences and this leads to them not even knowing how hurt they are. we currently have some writing to make it so that the first person writing style, represents a headmate that doesn't have memories, or executive function of the body except rarely, and we think is also a little, but we aren't sure yet. It's really interesting. The headmate views the "voices" it has (other headmates) as negative, because, well, they are negative (and because they attibute those voices as stealing body control from them; they don't know they are plural!), but those other headmates also represent the feelings of the members who do have memories and context.

Wow writing fiction is really cool we should do this more. Yay! 🐈️

we recently talked to someone who gave us sexual trauma and it went well and made us feel a lot safer and has helped our mental health a lot. we weren't expecting it to be so safe and explorative and awesome!

also we've realised that headmates talking to each other could be considered voices. cutiepie voices in our head saying cutiepie things to each other! awesome.

bicycles are so fucking cool we love them. our partner is cute and also use a bicycle.