addiction

The realities of addition; the truth about living under, above and beyond the influence of drugs and alcohol.

The Psychology of Losing Yourself While Pleasing Others
The Woman Who Forgot Her Own Name Rachel stood in the grocery store for eleven minutes, staring at yogurt. Her husband preferred strawberry. Her daughter liked vanilla. Her son would only eat the kind with cartoon characters on the lid. Her mother-in-law, visiting this weekend, had mentioned she was trying to eat more protein.
By Ameer Moavia14 days ago in Psyche
When Confidence Is Just a Mask for Fear
The Man Who Never Let Anyone See Him Sweat Jordan walked into the boardroom like he owned it. Shoulders back, chin up, that easy smile that suggested he'd done this a thousand times before. He made eye contact with each person at the table—firm, confident, just long enough to signal certainty without aggression.
By Ameer Moavia14 days ago in Psyche
The Emotional Cost of Always Trying to Be Liked
The Day She Realized She'd Disappeared At her own birthday party, surrounded by forty-three people, Claire felt completely alone.
By Ameer Moavia14 days ago in Psyche
Why Some People Apologize Even When They’re Not Wrong
Emma said "sorry" seventeen times before noon. Sorry for asking a question in the meeting. Sorry for walking through a door someone was holding. Sorry for her email being too long. Sorry for her email being too short. Sorry for needing to use the bathroom during a Zoom call. Sorry for existing in spaces that other people also existed in.
By Ameer Moavia14 days ago in Psyche
The Spine-Cracked Confessions
The library groaned, a familiar, ancient sound Elias had come to mistake for breathing. It was 4:30 AM, cold enough to see his breath in the vast reading room, even before the heating kicked in properly. He moved through the cavernous space, a lone figure amidst a million hushed stories, the scuff of his work boots the only intrusion on the deep quiet. Dust motes, like tiny, lost stars, danced in the weak pre-dawn light filtering through the high, arched windows. He loved this hour, before the students arrived, before the murmurs and the rustle of turning pages, before the world remembered the library existed.
By HAADI14 days ago in Psyche
How Constant Comparison Slowly Breaks Self-Worth
It started with a wedding photo. Jessica was scrolling through Instagram at 7:23 a.m., still in bed, coffee cooling on her nightstand. The algorithm served her a picture of someone she'd gone to college with—Amber, who she hadn't thought about in years.
By Ameer Moavia14 days ago in Psyche
The Hidden Psychology of Why We Procrastinate (and How to Stop)
The Night Before Everything Falls Apart It was 11:47 p.m., and Daniel was finally opening the document. The proposal was due at 9 a.m. A proposal he'd had six weeks to write. Six weeks that had somehow evaporated into this single desperate night, his laptop screen glowing in the darkness like an accusation.
By Ameer Moavia15 days ago in Psyche
The Obsidian Bloom
Elara found it by accident, or maybe her feet, numb with a sorrow she couldn’t quite name, just carried her there. A crumbling wall, ancient and choked with desperate, grasping ivy, behind the forgotten greenhouse at the edge of town. A ragged gap, just wide enough. Through it, a light. Not sunlight. Something else, shimmering, cold. The air inside hit her like a blast from a deep freezer, but it wasn’t unpleasant, not like the suffocating, humid stickiness of August. It was clean. A profound stillness pressed against her ears, quieting the frantic, buzzing static that had lived inside her head for months.
By HAADI17 days ago in Psyche
A Bruised Sky on the Tongue
The morning light, thin and watery through her window, bled into her mouth before it even touched her eyes. Not just a visual thing, no. For Elara, the color blue had a taste, a constant, low thrum against the back of her tongue, a cold, metallic tang that clung like forgotten copper pennies. She woke with it, breathed it, carried it through every hour, a secret, unshakeable burden. This morning, it was the pale, washed-out blue of a winter sky, sharp and brittle, like sucking on ice that had been scraped with a dull knife. She reached for her coffee, hoping the bitter black would cut through it, but it just added another layer, a murky undertow of cold. She swallowed, trying to dislodge the feeling, to scrape it off with her teeth.
By HAADI17 days ago in Psyche
Why Somatic Healing Techniques Trump Traditional Self Help
When the body feels and becomes safe - that is when pain and trauma starts to transmute. Talk therapy, combined with listing down the pros and cons of aiding in decision making, no matter the magnitude, is all well and good; yet such self-help and healing techniques do not reach the somatic and sticky bits, right up to the fascia. In no way, shape or form are these techniques being discounted and brushed aside; however for deep healing from caretaking, people pleasing, co-dependencies and addictions (all in the name of unresolved trauma - whether acquired through childhood and/or adulthood); being stuck in the head is a significant disservice to you, and to all of us. (Yes, we are all connected at the end of the day, even if you live in the Northern Hemisphere).
By Justine Crowley19 days ago in Psyche
The Digital Divide: How Access to Technology Is Redefining Social Inequality
Introduction: The Promise of Technology vs. the Reality of Access In the 21st century, technology promises to bring people together, bridge distances, open doors to opportunity, and enable us to be more connected, better-informed lives. But while technology has really transformed much of modern life, the reality is that access to the digital machinery and the web remains unequal, creating a broad gap between those who are connected and those who are not. The "digital divide" is not an issue of technology—it is social, and it most heavily impacts marginalized populations and widens existing disparities.
By The Chaos Cabinet19 days ago in Psyche
The Weight of Cobalt
The morning sky outside Elias’s kitchen window was a flat, bruised blue, the kind that promised nothing but more cold. And there it was again, on his tongue, a faint but distinct tang, metallic and almost icy, like a forgotten spoon left out overnight, gathering dew and despair. He didn't just see blue; he *felt* it, a specific, undeniable flavor that clung to his palate, a sensation he'd carried since he was small, a secret language only he spoke. It wasn't the sweet, light blue of cotton candy, or the sharp, artificial bite of a kids' drink. This was a deep, resonant blue, the taste of profound distances, of quiet sadness, of things left unsaid.
By HAADI21 days ago in Psyche