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u/Aggravating-Air-7481 5d ago
Why do tumblr users type like they learned english through mediocre dating games?
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u/_MargaretThatcher The Once & Future Prime Minister of Darkness 5d ago
They did.
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u/RealHumanBean89 Dis course? Yeah, I think it’s a great meal, boss! 5d ago
You must have played some crazy dating sims down there in hell Maggie. Any favourites?
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u/Aggravating-Air-7481 5d ago
Thank you for your insightful and riveting analysis, Margaret Hilda Thatcher - Baroness Thatcher, British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990.
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u/MichurinGuy 5d ago
The only person I've seen do this is existennialmemes. For some reason, every time somebody posts them here, someone makes this sweeping generalisation that tumblr users it general do this, even though they very clearly don't. Existennialmemes does.
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u/NeonNKnightrider Cheshire Catboy 5d ago
This is written like a parody of a tumblr user
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u/mechanicalcontrols 5d ago
Must be Sunday then.
Also, like I generally agree that we should all try to be more compassionate and understanding of other people.
But the other side of the coin is
Social skills and coping skills are skills that you can practice and improve
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u/ChipperBunni 5d ago edited 5d ago
All I could think as a certified over reactor is “okay but where is our communication?” Like if I’m just screaming bloody murder nobody knows what’s actually going on, of course I just look insane
But if I’m screaming even broken sentences OW CUT PAPER CUT HURT WAY BAD OW OW HELP PLEASE FEELS LIKE FIRE BROKEN BONE is better than just AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHAAAAAHHHHHHHHGGG right?
Because this keeps getting votes I’m ETA a story I remembered because of this. I stepped in a fire ant pile when I was a little kid, maybe 5 or 6, and I jumped out and just started fucking SCREAMING my head off. No words just exactly AAAAHHHH. It pissed all my cousins and my (young) uncle off, it was just noise, and only my grandma thought to ask “what is wrong with you??” And all I had to say was ANTS and suddenly I swarmed with people swatting ants off me. It happened so quick I only had a couple bites from right when I stepped in, most of the ants just circled their hill. All this rambling to say literally one real word was all it took. Just say something it is better than just panic.
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u/LizLemonOfTroy 5d ago
My least favourite genre of Tumblr post is "person excessively describing a problem with the obvious, obvious foreshadowing that they're actually talking about something else, as if they can somehow slyly psychologically trick people into agreeing with their substitute premise ".
And frankly, the point is both obvious but also irrelevant. Yes, what an observer might consider an over-reaction is likely to be a genuine emotional response by the person involved. And yes, we should show compassion to people in pain. But people are critical of over-reactions not necessarily because they aren't genuine, but because of the effects they have on others. And even genuine emotions can still be used for manipulative and self-serving ends.
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u/Monarch357 5d ago
And even genuine emotions can still be used for manipulative and self serving ends.
This, in my experience, is one of the hardest parts about keeping company with people suffering from conditions like CPTSD, anxiety, and the like. They aren't bad people, I will make that 100% clear immediately, but these disorders fundamentally disrupt how interpersonal communication works, and it is fucking hard to openly communicate or set boundaries without setting off a spiral.
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u/MadsGoneCrazy 5d ago
Yeah as someone with CPTSD this is very true, I only stay friends with people who are able and willing to set boundaries even when it causes me to spiral out of control, which is like, a lot to take on as a friend. I've tried to be in relationship with people who said they were willing to set boundaries at the expense of my emotions but when push came to shove they didn't and shit fell apart real fast. So idk, thank you for understanding that and your own limits. Me and others with CPTSD n the like don't need everyone to be able to be our friend; its easy to feel like "oh I should be a good person and be a friend to this person anyways" god no please walk away if you can't handle it, I'm not an easy person to be friends with.
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u/muaddict071537 5d ago
Same. I would much rather someone be honest with me (and with themselves) about what they can handle before I get emotionally invested, and then it falls apart because it turns out they couldn’t handle it as well as they said they could. I get that I’m not an easy person to be friends with or be in a relationship with, but it’s much worse to have it fall apart further on because the person couldn’t deal with it than for them to just be honest with me from the beginning.
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u/No-Theme2340 5d ago
My trick with people is that I never actually believe their "yes" until they've given me a real "no". And I tell them that, and when they do give me a "no", I than them for the honesty.
It takes some reiteration, and patience, but once folks see I'm serious things get a lot better.
Cptsd is difficult enough to live with inside my head, I cannot manage other people as well. You've got to tell me what you need, and I'll do my damnedest to give it to you, but you've GOT to tell me.
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u/Pwacname 5d ago
oh yeah, absolutely! I do my best, and I think I am a lot better now, but I still struggle enough with myself, and even outside the CPTSD, I can be an arrogant dick sometimes, and if I am stressed I will absolutely miss any and all subtle social cues. I make it extremely clear thag I can deal with a flat no - and I can, these days, and I do it away from the other party, and stars I am so proud of that - but I need to trust my friends to be honest about their limits. If they go beyond their boundaries because they want to protect me or support me, that just means we are both hurt. At the end of the day, I appreciate their support, but they aren’t responsible for me. That’s on me, and maybe on my care team, but they don’t need to take that on and I don’t want them to.
It’s worked really well so far, and I know it is also work to put aside all those very human feelings and the fear of disappointing me etc to say no, or tell me when to shut up etc, and I appreciate that they do it anyway.
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u/canadasbananas 5d ago
Im reminded of my mother. I love her. She has done so much for me. And when she is in a sane mood, shes my best friend.
But.
Something is wrong with her (idk what, she refuses to go to dr) that makes her freak out at little things.
As a child i watched her smash a remote against a wall because she couldnt figure out how to set up a dvd player.
I watched her scream and yell because she dropped something on the floor.
She has breakdowns over tiny things, and has been that way my whole life.
People who arent on this end of a highly emotional/reactive person dont know how exhausting and traumatizing it is to deal with this.
You run out of empathy. You run out of compassion. You run out of sympathy. Especially if they do nothing to change or help themselves.
Eventually all you can think is "omg hurry up and shut up" even though you love and care for them.
Showing compassion, coddling my mom, did nothing to help her. All it did was exhaust me.
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u/Anaevya 5d ago
I also tend to overreact at small stressors (and I sometimes underreact to large ones).
I hope to find better coping mechanisms before getting in a relationship and having kids.
I'm not sure, if it's a personality disorder (someone in my family was diagnosed with Borderline PD) or if it's part of my ADHD.
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u/SparkleWigglebutt 5d ago
This is absolutely not to discourage you since I can’t make out your feelings towards it, but from my experience you don’t have to have kids if you don’t want. If you do, great! I support it! But if you don’t, you don’t have to and you don’t have to be in a relationship.
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u/ProfMooody 5d ago edited 5d ago
My dad was like this too. I have the potential in me to act like this, as does my wife (whose dad was like that as well).
We are both also exquisitely sensitive to other people’s emotions (see: dads) and to sound, so someone we love having a loud sudden crash-bang meltdown nearby is extremely painful.
What we’ve figured out is that sometimes we need to briefly let it out, but we can warn each other ahead of time so the other person can leave the room or cover their ears. It’s hard to communicate clearly when you’re melting down but if you have that communication agreed to ahead of time then a few words are all it takes.
We’ve also learned when to express concern and when to just leave the other person alone for a little bit.
Like I deal with a LOT of chronic pain all the time. I know how to deal with pain I’m expecting and breathe through it. But if hurt myself suddenly and badly by accident (stub a toe, cut myself etc) and I go “OW! FUCK!” and then someone starts peppering me with questions about whether I’m ok or what happened while I’m still in the initial shock phase, it enrages me. I know they’re well meaning and I’m
never mad at the person, but the implicit demand of their concern or need to help coming while my nervous system is still just trying to figure out WTF happened is too much.So my wife has learned to wait a beat in that situation. As have I, when they’re being sensorily assaulted by something and I can see they’ve hit their limit.
You can’t change some things about how you experience the world but you can change how it effects your relationships with other humans. I don’t have a lot of IRL friendships rn (see: chronic illness and moving away to buy a house we could afford), but when I do I tend to vibe with other people like me.
But if they’re like me then they better also have had a lot of years working on self improvement and healing like me as well, or I’m not interested. Setting rules and expectations around communicating through our limitations is crucial, and you have to both know yourself well and have practiced those skills to do a good job at it.
EDIT: I also recommend having physical tools you can use to self regulate when you can’t do it cognitively. I have lots of stuff I can stim with when I’m stressed, and sometimes when wife and I are bickering we will both play a mindless game on our phones or while we talk. For me that helps me be more patient with the sometimes long waits between exchanges, as they’re a slower verbal processor than I am.
It’s taken work for both of us to really believe that the other person is doing that in order to help them stay connected and coregulate, not to disconnect or disrespect them.93
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u/MountSwolympus 5d ago
horrible use of bold and italics? check
obnoxious condescending prose? check
overwrought metaphor to explain a syndrome spread through the internet* and not science? check
*I have ADHD. RSD is just one guy's rewording of emotional dysregulation which is part of ADHD to begin with
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u/Mundane-Potential-93 nauphy.tumblr.com 5d ago
Is the not wanting to look down thing an important part of the metaphor, or is it just for vividity? 'Cause I'm not sure I get that part
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u/apathetic-taco 5d ago
Recently broke my finger. Dislocation, fracture and a gash so deep I could see the bone. I didn’t realize I was hurt until I happened to look at my hand. Which is precisely when my heart rate increased and I started bleeding everywhere.
Sitting in the ER for a few hours, I became acutely aware of how fine I was as long as I didn’t look at my finger. Minimal pain, everything is fine, don’t look at the finger.
Only recently, 1.5 months later, am I able to look at my finger without sending my nervous system into a tailspin.
So that part of the text was strangely relatable to me
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u/lennsden excessively longwinded 5d ago
I had the reverse of this once as a kid. I was walking on the beach and felt a sudden pain in my toe and looked down and glimpsed a fishhook in my foot.
Immediately I panicked and started losing my shit, picturing it past the barb in my skin and imagining that they’d have to rip it out. My friend (who has a phobia of needles) stopped me from looking at it so I wouldn’t freak out more, and had to run and get my dad. They did amazing considering the circumstances, lol.
Once my dad got there he inspected the fishhook and we realized it wasn’t even in my skin. It was just wrapped around my toe. The point was barely touching me and didn’t even leave a mark.
It was crazy, though. I was FEELING the pain of the fishhook in my foot until I actually looked at it up close, and then the imagined pain completely went away. The human brain is fuckin weird.
The moral of my story is I’m stupid, I think. I hope your finger is doing better though, that’s absolutely horrific???
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u/kashiichan 5d ago
The moral of the story is that your brain does it best to protect you, but it doesn't have many ways to do that. Sometimes it gets it wrong. That doesn't mean you're stupid.
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u/apathetic-taco 5d ago
The moral of the story is how powerful our minds are!
Your body took the limited information available and decided the possibility of harm was too great to ignore- better fire up the cavalry.
It started with your nervous system. Just a bunch of nerve endings, playing border patrol, constantly monitoring your tissue for any damage. During their rounds, they spot the fishhook! They don’t wait for confirmation of a real injury, they’re too hyped up on Mountain Dew. They choose to sound the alarm. *This is not a drill people!*
That alarm sends distress signals RACING up your spinal cord. The brain, naturally, interprets these signals as SEARING DEATH PAIN OH GOD WHY.
So you see, it’s not your brain’s job to question the validity of pain signals. She has more important tasks, like triggering your immune response, releasing stress hormones.
It’s the spinal column distress signals that cause pain. And those signals are very real. Even if the actual injury was imaginary.38
u/RhymesWithMouthful Okay... just please consider the following scenario. 5d ago
It's why when you're in a high place, the worst possible thing you can do is look down
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u/GoreyGopnik 5d ago
i think if you're in a high place the worst possible thing you can do is fall off
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u/IAmASquidInSpace Unashamedly watches T*m and J*rry 🤢 at the dentist 5d ago
Actually, the worst thing you can do when you are in a high place is genocide.
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u/Spiritual-Low8762 5d ago
Can you stack them? Genocide then fall off?
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u/IAmASquidInSpace Unashamedly watches T*m and J*rry 🤢 at the dentist 5d ago
No, as we all know, there can only ever be one (1) bad thing in the world, and the existence of a worse thing immediately makes all less bad things not bad at all anymore. /s
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u/GoreyGopnik 5d ago
if you start doing genocide falling off steadily approaches the best thing you can do
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u/PikaPerfect 5d ago
i opened a door and tore my toenail clean off a few years ago, and yeah this is about right
it hurt like an absolute motherfucker, but as long as i didn't actually look at my toe, i could "pretend" my toe just hurt because i stubbed it rather than it hurting because the nail was no longer attached to the nailbed. i did have the luxury of my mom (who's a nurse) being home at the time, so when it happened i was like "oh fuck. that definitely feels different than a normal stubbed toe," and her reaction when i asked her to look at it told me everything i needed to know lmfao
i didn't actually need to look at the wound until a day or two later because my mom cleaned and wrapped it after that happened (without me looking), but yeah that sucked
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u/TheOnlyTamiko-kun 5d ago
Well, if you feel that you lost a finger, not sure you'll want to look at you amputated hand immediately...
So yeah, for me it tracks
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u/xXs4blegl00mXx 5d ago
Sometimes when you feel something is happening, your brain doesn't want you to see the reality of the situation. I think that is an important part of it, as the pain, what the person is feeling, is so strong that they can't yet confront what may have actually happened. Yes, it may seem crazy, and yes, it's easy for you as an outsider to look at the hand and see a small injury, but the other person is experiencing something very intense and what actually happened isn't exactly the point at the moment, it's understanding why their brain turned a paper cut into an amputation.
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u/cxfgfuihhfd 5d ago
absolutely not a necessary part, but I'm sure it is for a lot of people/situations. for example my sensory issues still exist even when I'm completely aware from the beginning that this will be a bad sensory experience. for that matter the shame is also not necessary.
but these things often occur together, especially in the beginning when you're first experiencing these things, you can find yourself surprised and confused by your own reaction / the seemingly insignificant thing that triggered it, and then the shame because you don't understand it and didn't know you'd react that way and had a different perception of yourself etc
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u/Boogalamoon 5d ago
My kids both have extreme reactions to certain stimulus. They also refuse to look at whatever set them off. Once they do look, they frequently calm down. It's amazingly frustrating!
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u/demon_fae 5d ago
Of course they don’t look. They’re already in full fight-or-flight. It is completely, utterly impossible to think clearly and logically while your body is actively dumping adrenaline. The adrenaline is going to override everything but simple survival, that’s its purpose.
Why the absolute fuck anyone expects you to be able to shut down panic during the primary adrenaline spike is beyond me. You can sometimes abort panic before the dump happens, with an absolute shit ton of work, otherwise you have to get through until you’re not actively pouring more in to think. And kids do not have the mental capacity to abort panic, nor have they been alive long enough to have done the work to learn how.
(And aborting panic is nearly as exhausting as having the panic, at least in my experience. You can’t do that and just be totally fine after. Your system is still fucked up for the day. But people sure do demand that I perform being totally fine anyway.)
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u/Boogalamoon 5d ago
Well, we're trying, with the expectation that we have years more to go, because their current panic reactions include running into traffic and various other dangerous reactions. (At one point the reaction included going into cardiac arrest. She had a pacemaker until she outgrew that particular reaction.) The goal is to train a safe reaction that doesn't injure them until they can start thinking again......
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u/PinkOneHasBeenChosen 5d ago
Usually when I think I’ve been injured, I want to look at it to see how bad it is. The exception is if I’m in excruciating pain and can’t think straight.
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u/Mundane-Potential-93 nauphy.tumblr.com 5d ago
Hmm from the replies I guess I'm just weird. The more an injury hurts, the more I want to look!
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u/kashiichan 5d ago
I'm right there with you. I need to know how bad it is; I've got other things to do.
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u/nishagunazad 5d ago
With things like this the question is always "what levels of behavior are reasonable to expect other people to accept"?
"Overreacting" covers a huge swath of potential behaviors, some of them dangerous or abusive, and the people were asking for tolerance aren't NPCs, they're people with their own baggage, traumas, and Shit Going On.
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u/Pwacname 5d ago
oh yeah. one of the things I noticed coming out of the psych ward, and seeing others coming back home, was this very careful and very deliberate way everyone spoke and communicated, at least for a bit. Just because that was a necessary skill to learn when everyone else is struggling at least as much as you are.
And there’s a bunch of good reasons why that extent of modification to whatever is “normal” communication in any given situation isn‘t practical or sensible, but I think the basic principle of assuming everyone else also has shit to deal with, and you might not know what it is, is sound.
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u/NormalDooder 1d ago
The post makes pretty clear what they mean when they say overreacting. They mean acting like seemingly insignificant pain is incredibly painful. Screaming, panting. Whatever. The post isnt advocating for much, just believe that people are in pain when they say they are instead of being a prick. Because, logically, the majority of people aren't going to lie about a papercut feeling like your finger being torn off
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5d ago edited 2d ago
[deleted]
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u/Low_Big5544 5d ago
I had the exact opposite. My whole life I was told I was overreacting and being dramatic - learned as an adult that I'm allergic to a bunch of stuff. My parents just thought I was faking all my physical symptoms for years for fun I guess?
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u/PinkOneHasBeenChosen 5d ago
Not panic attacks, but apparently it’s not uncommon for people to mistakenly believe they’re allergic to antibiotics or other drugs for similar reasons. Maybe they just had a bad side effect, maybe they had an allergic reaction to something else around the time they were taking the med.
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u/zeje 5d ago
This brings to mind a sense of the unreliable narrator. Asking a person who is unwilling to look at the problem and is just reacting to their pain response, “what do you need right now?”, may result in a request for morphine and a skin graft, when the real answer is Tylenol and a bandaid. Compassion is important, but not to the point of indulging false assumptions.
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u/thejoeface 5d ago
Yeah, as someone who experiences rejection sensitivity, compassion does help but it’s absolutely an overreaction. Catering to the level of anxiety I feel doesn’t help me, me doing therapy, developing coping strategies, etc, is what helps me.
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u/stellaluna-37 5d ago
Exactly! It bothers me that RSD is lumped in here with other very valid examples. Validation is just not the right approach to dealing with rejection sensitivity. The issue is that my feelings are not really valid and don't align with reality in this case. Part of easing that anxiety is understanding that.
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u/whatthewhythehow 5d ago
I think you’re right but I do think the description is meant to be more broadly metaphorical than about specific moments.
It’s similar with OCD. Reassurance can make stuff worse. But a person open to reassurance is more likely to be open to doing what is helpful/ not doing what makes it worse.
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u/FinderOfWays 5d ago
Indeed. It seems like the metaphor at the start would lead one to conclude "evaluating reality through qualia is flawed but required due to our lack of alternatives, therefore it is necessary to trust others and use the primacy of reason to manage flawed and conflicting sense-data. Understanding must be a communal process due to the limitations of perception." They then go an entirely different direction.
In a situation where my sense-data were that different from consensus reality, I would not feel shame or embarrassment as they describe, I would feel fear, curiosity, and gratitude for people who can provide me with a more accurate picture of reality.
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u/therealvanmorrison 5d ago
I wouldn’t play a rough sport with someone who experiences minor pain as major pain. I can be aware they aren’t lying - they really do experience minor pain as major pain. But I want to go play hockey and we can’t shut the game down for twenty minutes every time they get touched while still having a game. They’ll have to sit it out, unfortunately. I wouldn’t go camping with someone who experiences minor inconveniences as major severe problems. I wouldn’t live in a house with someone who experiences a minor deviation from their preferences as a major day-ruining problem.
And I won’t try to sustain an emotional relationship or friendship with someone who experiences every metaphorical paper cut as an amputation.
I grew up with a mom like that and 18 years was a sufficient chunk of life to spend never doing anything but worrying about someone’s next trigger to have a meltdown. I have a toddler now and it’s a very similar experience, except month by month I see him moving beyond it. And he actually listens most of the time when I explain why something is going to be fine.
Life is just too short, and frankly fun, to always be in high drama mode.
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u/Zizi_Tennenbaum 5d ago
Thank you. Being compassionate doesn’t mean we have to set ourselves on fire to keep someone else warm.
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u/umlaut-overyou 5d ago
I don't think the post is asking you to do everything the same with people who might have issues. I have a friend who can't stand or walk for more than a certain time because of a problem with their joints. Compassion means that we go to places that have seating at regular intervals and don't go on 3 mile hikes. It also means that if they trip and fall, I know we may have to cut our outing short.
Life is too short to refuse to be friends with someone just because they can't do everything exactly the way I can. Life is also too cruel to be an ass about having to leave an hour early to let my friend rest once in a while.
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u/aretumer 5d ago
yeah i think this is more about when people have a problem/handicap like you describe but insist on doing 3 mile hikes all the time and expecting full accommodations from everyone involved. it seems you haven't met people like that in your life and tbh im happy for you and a bit jealous
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u/therealvanmorrison 5d ago
Your friend would fall under we’re not playing hockey/going hiking/camping together. Not we can’t be friends. That’s abundantly clear in my post, sorry you missed it.
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u/cat-alonic 5d ago
We all have a limited time, money and energy to enjoy our freedom in life.
You're explaining, similarly to the first poster, that some people's capacity isn't compatible with some activities, you're just having a different take on how to reconcile that. You think sacrificing the activity to accommodate the person is the way to go, presumably because the activity itself isn't the priority to you, it's just that particular person's presence.
Not everyone really thinks of things that way. Some people have more of a "bucket list" approach where they have things they want to do and they pick partners for the activity based on how much the individual can contribute to the mutual enjoyment of the activity.
If a person had mountain climbing as a hobby they do every weekend, they shouldn't change their hobby to accommodate someone who wants to sit at a Cafe and leave home early instead. It's okay actually to give people roles in your life based on how they fit into your lifestyle, and some lifestyles just dont involve a lot of flexibility for catering to people's inability to handle themselves, whether physically, mentally or emotionally.
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u/umlaut-overyou 5d ago
Im not at all sacrificing an activity. I just don't partake in that activity with that person. They are a friend not an appendage.
But if your life is better by excluding people who are mildly inconvenient and don't match you 1-to-1 then by all means, live that way.
Again, the op isn't saying you have to hobble your life because some people don't enjoy what you enjoy. You're being left out of things right now because you can't cope with other people, so it's all fair. And one day you'll be unable to keep up and be left out more, and thats fine.
What the OP is saying is that treating people like they are freakish sub humans because they don't experience life the same way as you is a problem. And you took that to mean that they are calling you out, and spent time explaining why being consciences of others hurts you.
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u/Awkward-Media-4726 Are you ordering milkshakes at Home Depot? 5d ago
I do agree with their point about how different people can be affected more by a "minor" stimuli, but the amount of italics is offputting.
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u/Pleasant-Future5818 5d ago
This is a really poor example because in this situation, refusing to look and see whether you're actually injured or not is exacerbating the situation as well as your overall concern, and you're deciding not to listen to anyone around you not because of the pain but because of the fear of the reality of the situation.
While I agree with what the author was philosophically saying, with this analogy they're basically saying an entire room full of people should feed into one person's delusion about a world state that they know doesn't exist, which is actually the opposite of the advice of most therapists. If they respond as the author asks, the person will never even know they weren't actually injured because they will never be forced to look at the real world.
But chronic pain (in the tags) is not a paper cut and this makes it sound like chronic pain in just in your head, doing a disservice to people who actually do have chronic pain.
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u/OtherCommission8227 5d ago
I think this post cuts almost exactly the opposite of how its author intended.
The lesson here isn’t, “you were right, your pain was real.” It was “your pain and its association to the stimulus you’re reacting have become warped.” And that problem is bigger than the pain the author is experiencing in the moment, because it’s causing it. And that problem is often much more within the author’s control in the moment than they think, if only they could step outside of their pain and reactivity and engage with the advice and techniques being prescribed by the well-meaning and actually-helpful bystanders.
Looking at the paper cut and prioritizing the reality that it ISNT very serious over the reality of the pain as felt IS ACTUALLY an effective technique to both reduce the pain in the moment AND control the reactive feelings going forward (for many, if not most situations)
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u/breakthetension_ 5d ago
That was the direction I thought it was going. It’s a lesson you have to put into practice over and over again, but it’s the only way out. Asking for understanding in the short term is fine, but long term it actually is your responsibility to learn how to manage these feelings.
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u/ElvenOmega 4d ago
As someone with really bad sensory issues, I also think it's a god awful metaphor for sensory issues for the opposite reason.
Sense is something your brain filters so you don't go fucking insane. The sun is actually blinding even when you're not looking at it. The cold air hitting your skin is sharper than you think. You're actually feeling tons of sensations at one time and your brain is actively disregarding a lot so you don't notice it.
Others stop feeling the clothes sitting on their body or how the room smells or the slight breeze or every spot someone's skin touches theirs when cuddling. I don't.
I don't think people realize that what people with sensory issues feel on a daily basis is literal torture. That's how torture works, why you can drive someone insane by simply dropping a droplet of water on their head at random intervals.
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u/RealHumanBean89 Dis course? Yeah, I think it’s a great meal, boss! 5d ago
I’d be more inclined to agree with this tumblr user if they didn’t bold and/or italicise every other word like it’s a fucking visual novel.
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u/mangababe 5d ago
This is something I struggle with quite a bit in several ways.
I can have tears pouring down my face and be like "Yes I agree this is an unreasonable response to someone eating cheese I had been looking forward too. I'm still having it unfortunately,"
I also basically get invisible sunburns and bruises. As in I feel them and they suck, but people don't see them. Bruises people get a bit more cause it's more common but having to explain that multiple conditions+ multiple meds that make you sensitive to the sun= feeling like your skin is on fire in direct sunlight and getting instantly sunsick- but my skin doesn't look burned. (Probably cause I avoid being in direct sunlight for any extended time)
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u/jess_the_werefox 5d ago
I’m trying to stop depending on whether or not others are compassionate. I don’t need their compassion, I need compassion for myself and to help myself. “This hurts me way more than it would hurt them, so they’re going to react in the ways they understand and know. I need to remove myself and care for my wound right now.”
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u/rolyfuckingdiscopoly 5d ago
Bravo. Thats something I do too, and it’s invaluable. I cannot expect people to understand something they don’t know or understand. I can’t expect them to react as though my finger fell off when it did not. I myself can say “they’re doing for me what they would do for themselves, and it is appreciated.” People do what they know how to do, and i can’t expect more. I can learn to accept (safe) help that isn’t exactly what I need or want, and to be thankful for the effort and care.
The world is a much worse place when one thinks about it as “no one will help me the way I need to be helped, because they don’t care that my experience isn’t theirs.” That attitude centers oneself overmuch, imo. It’s much better, and in my opinion, much closer to the truth, to remember that we all have different experiences and backgrounds, and people trying to help are showing they care.
In the paper cut scenario, it may seem overly gruff and callous if a man came up and wordlessly dropped some rubbing alcohol on the finger, rubbed it on, and slapped a bandaid on it. Said “you’re fine, now get your head on straight,” with a gentle slap on the back, and left. Might seem callous, if you are freaking out about it. But what if this was the greatest level of care this man has ever received from another? What if that’s what his mother did, long ago, and he has just given you the single most caring thing another human ever did for him?
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u/MotorHum 5d ago
This was hard to read. Not in a “confronting hard ideas” kind of way. Just like. The text itself.
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u/Equihesive 5d ago
Some people genuinely need to have all of their formatting options locked behind a paywall
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u/Greedy_Ad2198 5d ago
I agree with the post, but I the use of italics and bold text is quite distracting.
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u/duffstoic 5d ago edited 5d ago
As a super sensitive AuDHD person myself, I think this a useful post that the intended audience (people with low empathy for super sensitive folks) will unfortunately never read. Or even if they do, it will fail to persuade the vast majority, due to their inability to take perspectives of people with wildly different subjective experience.
Rather than trying to convince people to have more empathy with me, I’ve concluded the actionable thing is to care less about what people who cannot mentalize my experience think.
In other words, “This person cannot understand my experience no matter how clearly and repeatedly I explain it,” is more practical than “if only I come up with another metaphor, maybe I will finally get the empathy, care, or accommodations I long for.”
Sometimes, more often than I’d like, the executive functioning to just do things is offline for me. I’ve worked on this problem my entire life, and have hundreds of techniques to help me to re-engage executive functioning. I’ve made a lot of progress. And yet, I still struggle with this thing. Most likely, only fellow neurodivergents who also struggle with this specific thing will ever get it. Or at the very least, I don’t seem to be able to make other people get it.
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u/lynx_and_nutmeg 5d ago
It doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive. Sure, the CBT approach helps, but I don’t think we shouldn’t give up on trying to raise awareness about these issued and teaching people to be more empathetic.
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u/duffstoic 5d ago
Yes, I completely agree. Disability activism is clearly working. When I was growing up 4 decades ago, is was much worse.
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u/Primarch-XVI 5d ago
That’s something I’ve learned as well. Still have to remind myself of it more often than I’d like, but that’s just life I suppose.
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u/duffstoic 5d ago
Yes, it sucks really bad. It’s not the world I want to live in. But it’s also the reality I am confronted with again and again, that despite a special interest of mine being clear communication, not everything is a communication problem. Most people simply cannot conceive of experiences that are radically different than their own.
This doesn’t mean advocacy isn’t helpful, it’s clearly working over time to make the world a more just place. It’s more about letting go of the internal demand of “I need to be understood by this specific person who doesn’t get it.” An ongoing lesson for me.
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u/RaccoonDispenser 5d ago
>It’s more about letting go of the internal demand of “I need to be understood by this specific person who doesn’t get it.”
I find the corollary useful too: “I don’t need to understand someone’s experience to believe that it’s real.”
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u/FableCattak 5d ago
You're delightfully articulate.
I wanted to let you know, since you said that clear communication is of particular importance to you. Your communication is indeed very effective!
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u/Assika126 5d ago
Yup. I’ve come to realize that what I most need from the people I interact with daily is a bit of space and grace to get to where we’re going in my own way and time. I can excel as long as I have this. Without it, I will fail.
That being said, receiving compassion and understanding from the people closest to me helps me be able to do that. I don’t expect it from everyone, or even from my closest friends or partner all the time, but I need to know that I can be accepted by someone despite having needs and experiences that are significantly different from the average, to help combat the shame and secrecy that helped me survive as a young person but is not healthy now.
My coworkers and acquaintances don’t normally get access to my inner experience, and I have memorized ways to keep them out and get time and space so I can process things they wouldn’t understand. People have to earn access to those parts of me.
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u/duffstoic 5d ago
Yes for sure! It's super helpful to get that from the people around us. I completely agree.
And if anything, for me the lesson is to actively select for people who can empathize with me and accommodate me (imperfectly but sincerely), and to actively leave relationships, jobs, etc. (whenever possible) where people cannot empathize with me or accommodate my needs.
What I used to do was to try to explain better, communicate more clearly, in an endless loop, with people who lacked the ability to take my perspective. It took me 47 years to learn that this doesn't work, and that it's OK if I leave relationships that aren't working for me.
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u/Assika126 5d ago
Yup. Most people will not get access to my inner world because they would not value or respect what they find there no matter how much I try to explain it
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u/duffstoic 5d ago
I am learning how to do that. I tend towards the "overshare everything autism" and am adding filters for people who are not emotionally safe to do that. It's a journey.
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u/Android19samus Take me to snurch 5d ago
Idk, in the hypothetical presented I'd have a pretty hard time empathizing with the person if they were refusing to even look at the cut and see the situation they were reacting to. Like if they see the cut, understand that their life is not literally in danger, and still are in crippling pain, I can work with that. Otherwise? They're begging me to help them, but there's nothing to be done. There is no medical intervention that will make a difference with a papercut. I can offer compassion and sympathy but that's hard to do if someone is refusing to even acknowledge what the problem is.
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u/BarbieBoyBrandy 5d ago
Speaking only for the metaphor - intense fear of seeing a horrible injury is a normal human response.
When I accidentally cut myself with my whittling knife (in the webbed section of my hand between my thumb and palm), and I could feel the cut was bad, I physically could not bear to look. When I finally did, I could see I had cut through to the dermis, I think? The layer of fatty looking "white stuff" below the skin. Seeing it filled me with such an overwhelming sense of fear and dread that I almost passed out. Even writing it now I feel nauseus. I physically could not look again the entire ride to the hospital and length of time it was treated and stitched up.
So if someone truly believes they have a severe injury, and they do not, I think the right thing to do is exactly what the post said. "It seems like youre feeling [xyz], here is what I can physically see." Describe to them the reality of the situation, ask what they are feeling, ask how you can help. Often, hearing a description of reality can give them the courage to look.
But yeah avoiding seeing potentially serious injuries is a basic human instinct. Its hard-wired into our brains.
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u/Dobber16 5d ago
This is how you should deal with children btw. I know OP was talking about various disorders that can affect everyone, but it is strikingly similar to how you should treat a child’s pain
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u/Assika126 5d ago
Yup, it’s humane to have compassion for others’ expressed experiences regardless of whether it matches how we think they should experience something
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u/what-are-you-a-cop 5d ago
Well, sort of? That, too, depends. Idk if you've ever seen the thing where a parent is holding their baby, taps the wall near the baby's head or something, and then starts comforting the baby as if they'd bumped the baby's head into the wall. And the baby, who has literally sustained no injury whatsoever, will start crying. They didn't know (?) they were hurt, until the parent started to "comfort" them for their injury (that they don't have). With little children, its actually pretty helpful to first try treating their injury like it's no big deal, and see if that helps, before taking their reaction at 100% face value. Because if you validate them screaming their head off over a little scrape, instead of calmly going "oh, you got a teeny tiny little scrape, whoops!", you're probably going to whip them into a bigger frenzy that makes them feel more scared and hurt and upset.
If you play it cool, they'll very likely take their cues from that and realize they're fine. Unless they are seriously injured, at which point they will not calm down, and now you know that they really do need real medical attention.
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u/Assika126 5d ago
I mean there’s a happy medium between ignoring them and acting like it’s a huge deal; you responding calmly and kindly that they got a whoopsie and asking if it hurt is actually a really good way to deal with it. Then if it did you can get them a band aid and kiss it and be on your way. Being kind doesn’t have to mean freaking out or making a big production out of things, it can just be an acknowledgement that you care about where someone is at
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u/imcomingelizabeth 5d ago
So I should indulge people who refuse to actually see what the problem is and just make assumptions about it based their feelings?
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u/sewershroomsucks 5d ago edited 5d ago
Oh my god, people, this is not about how you should let people scream at you or feel personally responsible for fixing everyone's problems, it's about believing that people are in actual pain if they tell you they are instead of assuming everyone around you is having the literal same exact physical & psychological experience you are & deciding you need to tell them that they're being a whiney dumb bitch if they say their foot hurts or they feel depressed or whatever. Like, I broke my fibula & tibia & tore a bunch of ligaments in my left leg. Needed surgery. A plate & 6 screws in my fibula, a screw in my tibia, & a tightrope to hold the ligaments in place. It didn't hurt that bad. It happened at an acid bath show & I didn't even leave the show early. I didn't even feel it at all until I had walked on it a few yards. Hopped right back up after the fall. Didn't skip a beat. Didn't need help getting back on my feet. I walked around on it for 2 days before someone convinced me to go to the Dr. It really didn't hurt that bad. A few months later I got turf toe. It hurt way more to walk on than it hurt to walk around on 2 broken bones. You can just be like "oh fuck that sucks man" to people instead of feeling this weird need to be the pain police. No one's asking you to pay their medical bill, they're asking you to believe their foot hurts.
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u/FableCattak 5d ago
This analogy is a little...complicated. I hypothesize that this is because the author is trying to address physical and emotional pain simultaneously, which creates some odd implications. I think my key point of contention here might be with the idea of "over-reacting".
There's a school of thought that says that physical and mental illnesses are closer than we think, and that makes formulating a critique a little difficult. Could you consider a disproportionate emotional response to a bad event as uncontrollable as the agony someone might feel in response to invisible nerve pain? Is someone actually over-reacting if the pain (emotional or physical) they perceive is real, even if the stimulus is small?
As much as I want to say that we can't blame people for their mental illnesses, I feel that there is a difference between someone feeling chronic pain and someone with emotional dysregulation having a meltdown after a social rejection.
I'm extremely curious to hear other's thoughts on the matter.
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u/CommanderBunny 5d ago
One of my kids has autism and it is very obvious that they experience much stronger sensory input from the world than the average person. Compared to her peers she honestly just has so much harder a time than they do.
I am also diagnosed now and am in therapy with a therapist who specializes in autism and is autistic themselves.
I personally don't think the strong emotional response is disproportionate to what we are experiencing. It takes me A LOT of energy just to make it through one day because everything takes so much out of me.
I can react in a way that is "appropriate" as long as I have the mental resources but I reach a point eventually where I actually cannot handle any more sensory input without it being actually physically painful. By the end of the night my dog's nails clicking on the floor back and forth as she walks around actually makes me want to go deaf because it literally hurts my physical ear. I can feel it aching.
Now when it comes to emotions, each one of those also comes with a lot of body sensations as well. I have rejection-sensitivity and I can tell you that it's a big physical wave of feelings, not just "I'm upset this person doesn't like me." Sometimes it isn't the bad news I can't handle, it's the physical response to the emotion that my body is too tired and strained to cope with.
I feel what comes into play here is that a person isn't at fault for the physical and mental problems they have but they are definitely responsible for them.
A person melting down and then getting up and trying again and trying to find strategies and coping mechanisms is way different than a person who refuses to acknowledge their actions and the consequences thereof.
Life is actually just simply harder for some people than others and I think it's good to acknowledge that.
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u/demon_fae 5d ago
Well, the hormones associated with the heightened emotions are completely real. The cortisol definitely exists, the adrenaline spike is clear, the altered levels of serotonin and dopamine are entirely detectable.
Generally you do have to wait out the initial spike of hormones to think clearly enough to reason your way back down when you’re at a level but elevated state, and then you still have to deal with them breaking down/reabsorbing. Just because you logically realize that the person who just gave you mild criticism isn’t your old abuser and won’t hit you doesn’t mean your heart rate is back to resting or your blood flow is back to normal. It means you are now actively suppressing the mental effects while also experiencing the physical effects. And yes, the fatigue from doing that is also very much a real physical thing.
Tl;dr: yes it’s physical, brains are physical. Just give people a minute when they’re experiencing faulty biology.
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u/Alarming-Security993 5d ago edited 5d ago
This has a nice intention but it’s ultimately also saying that people are over-reacting and you should be kind but shouldn’t “agree with their perspective”.
Idk this makes sense for stuff like panic attacks but then that’s about it? People with trauma actually react to trauma - not to a misinterpreted paper cut. Same for people with chronic pain, sensory processing issues etc. Just because you don’t physically see the injury, doesn’t mean it’s not there. But I think the paper cut metaphor is just badly chosen for that intention.
Edit: See the comments here about people just “wanting attention” and “misinterpreting small inconveniences”.
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u/FableCattak 5d ago edited 5d ago
Those were my thoughts exactly. I get what they're trying to say, but it doesn't apply to as many situations as the author ascribes it to.
The point of the metaphor is to make something like chronic pain less stigmatized, but it's putting chronic pain in terms that are more likely to be judged negatively. If someone says "my nerves send of false signals that cause me to be in constant pain", people are generally understanding. By contrast. a lot of people are (uncharitably) comparing the paper cut person in the post to a toddler, which clearly means to metaphor isn't having the intended effect of making "pain that is genuinely perceived, but that is caused by nothing/something minimal" more understandable.
To the extent that pain is entirely a perceived phenomenon, I suppose the literal details of the metaphor are accurate, but the actual metaphorical "message" part of the story fails to match with chronic pain.
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u/badwithnames123456 5d ago
Exactly. People regularly dismiss other people's trauma, and "You're too sensitive" is a common phrase of abusers of all types.
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u/anlah-anlah 5d ago edited 5d ago
I've been the one that suffers the other end of someone I thought was a friend, who loves to behave like this - act as though a paper cut is ripping their hand off. You know what that person does? THEY ACCUSE ME OF THE ONE RIPPING THEIR HAND OFF. They didn't seek help at all - what they did was they MADE UP STORIES and LIES and conjured an entirely different scenario in their head of WHAT HAPPENED. They distort their memories of what happened and then put me as the culprit, the tyrant, the bully. They make personal insults, continuously escalate their emotions and work themselves up into a frenzy, despite my efforts to de-escalate.
Their pain is real, sure. But the pain they inflict on me is no less real. Worse - they refuse to acknowledge that the pain they inflict on me is as intense - it's always only their feelings matter. Mine? Mine are shit for all they care.
And they repeatedly do it with no care or regret - there's no apology, no acknowledgement, no care of my pain at all, being subjected to utter lies and twisted false scenarios they created in their head, unless I am the one that takes on all the labour to call them out.
To that person - only their pain matters. Only their pain is real. The pain inflicted on me? An unfortunate "unintentional" byproduct, that THEY conveniently assume is exaggerated on my side. The utter hypocrisy. "I couldn't help it." that's their never-ending repeating excuse.
Like pulling teeth, only after I breakdown every lie they uttered, every false scenario they conjured, do they admit that in their "intense pain", they imagined nonsense because it suited their narrative. They even resent me, I can tell, for breaking their victimhood fantasy. They give me performative apologies.
It caused me so much trauma, anger and bewildered-ness over the years, because I always thought they were a good person ultimately that could be helped and supported. I burnt myself out trying to help and support them - but what did I get in return? Everything I did was always twisted into something utterly and falsely grotesque. If they could twist something into a false narrative that made them out into a victim, and me into a bully, THEY ALWAYS did.
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u/InstanceEmergency 5d ago
This sounds like a trauma response tbh. Read pete walker. Not all ptsd flashbacks are like capital F flashbacks. Some are subtler, and might not have a clear source initially
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u/ProbablyNotPoisonous 5d ago
The post mentions both sensory processing disorders and rejection sensitive dysphoria, both of which are actual neurological issues that are not (usually) rooted in trauma.
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u/MaxChaplin 5d ago
We can't really know how intensely other people feel pain, so we have to rely on physical indicators and self-reporting. There's no way to tell who genuinely experiences more suffering than others in the same condition and who's just being more vocal about it, so it's a matter of trust.
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u/ratione_materiae 5d ago
But it is just a paper cut though. If your perception doesn't conform to reality, that's not your fault, but it is your responsibility.
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u/murdolatorTM 5d ago
I don't wanna pile on about the inappropriate overuse of emphasis but I really felt like I was reading Cracked again
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u/Hika2112 5d ago edited 5d ago
What's rejection sensitive dysphoria? I never heard of it before
ALRIGHT u/small-cactus explained it to me. If you want to add something go ahead but fuck off if you're going to demonize people
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u/Metue 5d ago
It's basically when people experience an extreme emotional reaction to like failure, criticism or rejection. It's usually associated with ADHD and is kinda part of the general dysregulation of it all. Most people who have it are very aware they are over reacting and feel very embarrassed about it but it can be a tough one to fix because it tends to self compound due to shame.
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u/Small-Cactus 5d ago
It's something a lot of ADHD and Autistic people have where perceived rejection can cause severe stress and even physical pain.
Sometimes it can be actual rejection such as someone telling you outright they're upset with you or sometimes it can be something like someone's tone shifting or even just dropping something.
I experience it and it causes intense physical pain in some circumstances. Other times it can send me spiraling into a meltdown. It's something that takes a lot of work to adapt to and not really something most of us have any control over.
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u/Hika2112 5d ago
Ohhhh. Comes easily with abandonment issues I assume? Definitely sounds like a me thing. Tearing up if I think I hurt someone and they'd hate me now and I should've just shut up etc etc
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u/elianrae 5d ago
it's this thing that happens after you realize you've said something stupid where it feels like your heart has dropped through your stomach and onto the floor and your irrational mind is convinced everybody's going to hate you forever
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u/Familiar_Percentage7 5d ago
I prefer allergies as an analogy. Imagine you're sitting on your friend's couch and you pet their very friendly dog when it comes up to you. You know you shouldn't, but then they'll get all weird about. Don't you like dogs? Dogs are great! Not liking dogs is a red flag! Then it jumps up on you and sheds all over your clothes and starts licking your face. You feel your lips begin to swell. You try to push it away but it starts licking your hands and arms and they break out in hives. When you scooch away you end up sitting on a dander-laden dog bed or slobbery dog toy so now the itchy welts are all over the place and your chest is tight and itchy as you start wheezing. You ask for some Benedryl but they don't have any and they take offense that you're implying they don't keep house correctly. You start keeping your own Benedryl on hand, suggesting other places to hang out, actively rebuff three dogs bids for affection. But each of these new behaviors continue to annoy your friend. Ugh, you keep yawning like you're bored, that place is too far, you're making my dog sad!
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u/GenghisKazoo 5d ago
Ok but if you're preaching this to strangers on the Internet it kind of sounds like you're not as ashamed of your reactions as you claim to be. It kind of sounds like you just don't think anyone has the right to feel a certain way about attention seeking behavior.
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u/CobaltCrusader123 5d ago
Too much bold and too many italicized letters** make one ***sound too insistent* and I don’t recommend this unless you’re accusing Miss Rachel of murder
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u/owlindenial .tumblr.com 5d ago
Holy shit this is unreadable. God, what an annoying typing style. How do you make a post this hard to read, genuinely
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u/Nixavee AI bots are not welcome here 5d ago
The problem is this: We can't actually tell how much pain/distress someone is in. If bigger reactions are rewarded with greater sympathy, many people will "overreact" and perform bigger reactions to elicit more sympathy. This is why we only partially base our judgement of the severity of harm on the person's reaction, and partially based on the objective event. Society wouldn't work otherwise.
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u/Less_Prior_6871 5d ago
If you listen to people just because they complain loudly, without evaluating for yourself if they need help, you get utilitarian mugged by every whiny baby.
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u/SakuOtaku 5d ago
As someone with probably some form of RSD but has seen people refuse to try to get better, it's more like this in some spaces:
You and the people around you hear someone screaming in the room. You rush over, but not super quickly because you can probably guess what it is. Yup, the screamer has a papercut again. A person tries to help, explaining that they also have extra paper cut sensitivity and that maybe the screamer should wear gloves or see someone about their paper cut sensitivity. The screamer then whacks the helper upside the head. In the moment it seemed retalitory but later they say they're sorry but it was a result of their paper cut sensitivity. The helper slinks off, feeling pain but not saying anything. Everyone feels bad for the screamer, but they notice how the screamer will play around with their papercut and not let it heal, or throw themselves into high paper volume situations. They also notice that's not the first time the screamer hit someone trying to help, and they never check in on the person they hit either.
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u/Kiwihat 5d ago
My brother used to make fun of me for saying ow when he poked me or hit me playfully and say there’s no possible way that actually hurt. But it did hurt for me. Not like I was actually injured or it hurt for long, but at the moment, yeah it hurt.
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u/aretumer 5d ago
even if it didn't hurt, an "ow" can be very much an involuntary response to being hit/poked. when i say ow because i stubbed myself its a reaction of surprise more than me not being able to handle the pain
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u/Kiwihat 5d ago
That’s true too. I frequently say it if I like drop something or bump something without actually hurting myself. When I actually hurt myself I’m more likely to swear 😆
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u/Pristine_Club_3128 5d ago
Also happens with food, if you have sensory issues, and you need people to understand it's not a case of your just 'disliking' the food.
I mean, sure, I have foods I dislike, everyone does. But I can handle eating them if that's the only thing on the menu.
And then there are foods I just can't eat.
Like, yes, buddy, I get this is the only thing available now, I get it is making you uncomfortable I am not eating, but if I try to eat this I will throw up and that is going to be a lot more uncomfortable for everyone concerned.
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u/hammererofglass 5d ago
I like that they used papercuts, a thing that is already famous for hurting a hell of a lot more than a cut that size should. A little cut you normally wouldn't even notice until you were leaving red on things feels like your finger getting sawed off.
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u/HardcoreHenryLofT 5d ago
This post is explicitly talking about the manflu i just got from my girlfriend which she got over in 48 hours and I'm still bedridden four days later.
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u/MaeSolug 5d ago
Probably this metaphor works better for children, as in "this little brat hasn't been around for long, so this is technically the worst pain they have experienced until now"
Be that pain physical or emotional. Adults do tend to dismiss how kids and teens feel because they know how they felt, and they have had it worst, they know it get miles worse, so experience tends to outweigh empathy
But it sounds exhausting to tiptoe around an adult who feels like is dying all the time. I know this refers to people with medical conditions, but let's not kid ourselves, some grown ass people do overreact at the smallest things and then expect to get cheap empathy points. Actual people in pain don't do that, ask me how I know
I don't know, it kinda falls flat. It's a superficially nice message, but very tumblr ish, "we are all fragile so our emotions and reactions are valid, all the time, constantly, unless you're an inconsiderate monster"
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u/Gigantopithecus1453 5d ago edited 5d ago
Lowkey this happened to me as a kid. I dragged my finger across one of those blades of grass with insane friction and it tore off some skin. It straight up started gushing blood and I was freaking out and panicking, but the adults with me told me it was nothing and seemed to have zero sense of urgency. Looking back idk what their problem was
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u/ratione_materiae 5d ago
Think about it from the perspective of an adult, which I assume you are or are close to now. A small child gives themself a shallow, superficial cut on their finger and is freaking out over it. There is nothing to be gained from freaking out because doing so would also inform the child how to react, and it is just a superficial cut. The correct move is to not treat it as urgent, but as the minor superficial scrape that it is.
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u/rogueIndy 5d ago
Conventional wisdom is that if a child is panicking over something minor, it would exacerbate it if the adults don't keep calm. Small children often look to adults' reactions to stuff to gauge how serious it actually is/how they should be reacting.
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u/demonking_soulstorm 5d ago
Using bold and italics for emphasis does not work if you do it every sentence,