humanity
Mental health is a fundamental right; the future of humanity depends on it.
10 Signs of Toxic People — And How to Protect Your Peace
They might be charming. They might even call you their best friend, partner, or “ride or die.” But something feels off. You leave every interaction with them feeling tired, small, or strangely guilty — and you can’t explain why.
By SHADOW-WRITES8 months ago in Psyche
Grounding Techniques: How to Return to the Present When the Mind Shuts Down
1. Introduction: The Disconnected Mind in Modern Life In today’s overstimulating environment, many individuals experience episodes in which their mind feels as if it "shuts down." This can manifest as emotional overwhelm, dissociation, or cognitive paralysis. The experience is not uncommon, particularly among those with anxiety, trauma histories, or burnout (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).
By Siria De Simone8 months ago in Psyche
When You Feel Nothing: The Quiet Struggle of Emotional Numbness
Some days, you're not sad. You're not angry. You're not happy either. You just *exist* — moving through time like a shadow of yourself. You smile when you should. You respond when spoken to. You say, “I’m fine,” and maybe you even believe it for a second. But deep down, there’s… nothing.
By SHADOW-WRITES8 months ago in Psyche
Learning to Love Oneself After Years of Self-Criticism
I used to believe that if I pushed myself hard enough, criticized myself constantly, and held impossibly high standards, I would somehow earn worth. That my value would be proven through perfection. And for most of my life, that belief shaped everything—my choices, my relationships, and especially how I treated myself.
By Fazal Hadi8 months ago in Psyche
Letting Go of People Who Were Never Really There for You
There’s a specific kind of heartbreak that doesn’t come from a breakup. It comes from waking up one day and realizing — someone you cared about deeply was never really in it with you. Not fully. Not emotionally. Not truly.
By SHADOW-WRITES8 months ago in Psyche
When the Light Came Back
I used to wake up with a sense of purpose. There was always a to-do list waiting, coffee brewing, and the steady rhythm of ambition beating in my chest. I loved what I did—at least, I thought I did. But somewhere along the way, I stopped waking up with that same fire. What once felt meaningful began to feel like survival. And I didn’t even realize I was burning out until there was nothing left but ashes.
By Fazal Hadi8 months ago in Psyche
The Fear That Followed Me—Until I Faced It by Accident
Part I: The Fear That Lingered From as far back as I can remember, I’ve had a deep, paralyzing fear of water. Not showers or rain, but pools, lakes, oceans—any body of water where I couldn’t touch the bottom. Just the thought of it would make my stomach turn. I never learned how to swim. I always made excuses during pool parties or beach outings, pretending I had a cold or had “just eaten.” But the truth was simpler: I was scared.
By Fazal Hadi8 months ago in Psyche
INTP Mircea Cărtărescu's BLINDING (vol. 2): the body (translated from Romanian)
I no longer truly experience anything, even though I live with an intensity that simple sensations couldn't possibly convey. Even when I open my eyes, I still cannot see. To no avail, I linger rigid in front of my oval window, chasing echoes that slip away. As if my being extends beyond ordinary senses to myriad ways of knowing--each unique, each responsive to different stimuli: one sensitive only to my coffee cup's form, another receptive exclusively to the pattern of last night's dreaming. Another attuned to that terrifying whisper in my ears, heard distinctly a few years ago, as I was sitting, in a ragged pajama, with the soles of my feet on the radiator, in my room on Ștefan cel Mare Boulevard. I no longer register modifications of light, variations in the pitches of sound, the chemical composition of the carnation and the kitchen dishwater, but whole scenes swallowed instantly by a virtual sense, opened on the spot in the center of my mind solely for that glassy and transient scene like a wave of water, reacting with it, altering it, flattening it, invading it like an amoeba and forming together another reality, primordial and immediate, illuminated by desire and made obscure by peculiarity. It is as though it were the case that everything that happens to me, in order for it to be able to come to pass for me, surely it is something that must have happened to me already, as if all of it already exists inside me, but not fully formed or complete: rather, dormant, in shriveled little layers, rudimentary, coiled tightly within each other, somewhere in the brain's structures--but also in the glands, in the organs, in my twilight, and in my ruined houses--all waiting for confirmation and nourishment from the modulated flame of existence, which itself remains unfulfilled and embryonic. I no longer feel except what I have already felt once, I can no longer dream except dreams already dreamed. I open my eyes, although not to perceive color or contour--for light no longer refracts into corpuscles to traverse my crystalline lens and the translucent layers of my retina, no longer produces rhodopsin in my cone-shaped cells; instead, whole images manifest fully formed, sculpted directly in rhodopsin, and accompanied as if by an aura of sound's fringes and delicate strands of tastes and aromas, alternating icy cold and searing heat, of suffering and compassion, of a head turning to the right--an action simultaneously verified and questioned by my inner ear's cochlear knowledge. Entire neighborhoods materialize, each bearing their own time, their own space, and their own emotional weather, and especially their own degree of reality--because they can be actual or dreamed, or imagined, or transmitted via the ineffable filaments that connect our lives to those who came before us--lips and genitals arrive, and streetcars sliding along iron tracks during winters with filthy snow, my mother comes once in a while to bring me food, sometimes Herman comes. I wouldn't be able to understand any of this if it weren't being reconfigured, in another way, in my internal landscape (my world), if it weren't opening the ocular buds from there, unless I whispered to myself every moment: "I have experienced this before, I have already been in this place," just as you cannot perceive light if light hasn't already existed in the back of your mind's experience, cultivating the faculty for light within you. Hence, my life is but a life already lived, and my book one already written--for the past encompasses all, while the future is but a void.
By ANTICHRIST SUPERSTAR8 months ago in Psyche
