Thread: Rant and Rave, Cry and Complain

This is going to be a heavily chemistry-based rant, just for the record. So, I've been thinking a lot about the neurochemistry behind euphoria and sexual stimulation. It's difficult to get a full picture of what's going on in the brain because we only know so much about it, but here's what I'm seeing so far.

Dopamine is one of the main chemicals involved in how horny you are and, by extension, how willing you are to do crazy sex stuff. Dopamine in the nucleus accumbens and other parts of the mesolimbic pathway lower the activity of the prefrontal cortex, which puts you more in an instinctive goal-seeking mode and open to suggestions. This is how dreams work, with dopamine levels in this area being at their highest at that time. That's also why things like sex and flying are the first things that come to mind in lucids. Serotonin is one of the main chemicals involved in feelings of happiness, acceptance, and other generally positive emotional states. Dopamine and serotonin both work together and against each other in different parts of the brain and are both very big players in consciousness as a whole. Norepinephrine also plays a role in each of these functions to an extent, but the most significant aspect of what it does here is creating the physical aspects of sexual stimulation - increased heart rate and perspiration, the butterflies in the stomach feeling, and etc. Then, you've got the main sex hormones, testosterone, estradiol (estrogen), and progesterone. I'm not sure how much of an effect progesterone has in all this, but the other two are definitely big players. Testosterone increases natural dopamine levels and estradiol increases natural serotonin levels. The end result of this of course is that men are pretty often ready to go but women are more likely to need to be worked into it through means of increasing dopamine somehow.

Another big sex hormone is oxytocin, and it's significant in both sexes but has some differing effects in each. Oxytocin is actually a chemical with a wide range of effects and many pro-social outcomes both positive and negative, but in this situation the easiest way to describe it would be to say that it's the bonding hormone. It's the thing that makes you want to stay with someone you love even after the initial rush of being with them is over. Its effects are also much more significant in women, as it's enhanced by estradiol and inhibited by testosterone. The most straightforward way to increase oxytocin is physical contact, like kissing, fondling, groping, and all that good stuff, but also through things like hugging and holding hands. It gets released in other ways too, but that's the major aspect here. Oxytocin also increases sex drive, which of course makes sense. And that alone is enough to say on the surface why stuff like foreplay is useful for women, but it doesn't actually get into the deeper aspects of it, like why it's that way on a more basic level.

Lately I've been reading more into the interactions of the endorphin, endocannabinoid, and GABA systems. These systems constitute the big three classes of "downer" drugs, the ones that can turn your focus inward rather than pushing it outward. I'd been looking specifically into how CB1 receptors increase the release of enkephalins, the endogenous ligands for the delta-opioid receptor, and how this process may be involved in a feedback loop that causes alcohol consumption to increase the more you have to drink at once (basically, why being really drunk just makes you want to get even more drunk). In my research I found that activation of delta-opioid receptors actually lowers levels of oxytocin, and since all the big drugs in the three downer classes activate those receptors either directly or indirectly it makes perfect sense as to why they can make you less social as the doses increase. But what's interesting about what that led me to is that it would seem that the mu-opioid receptor is actually involved in the euphoria caused by oxytocin, and enkephalins themselves activate mu receptors, if to a lesser extent than delta receptors. The implication here would be that oxytocin and enkephalins are meant to cause the same type of euphoria while having opposite effects on social behavior, which is not too crazy. I've seen similar patterns in the relationships between other systems before.

In addition to releasing endogenous opioids, CB1 receptors also increase the release of phenethylamine. This is something they seem to share with mu-opioid receptors, and in fact there are areas in the nucleus accumbens where the two receptors bond together to form couplings. I can't say for sure, but I'm guessing that this phenethylamine release is the main thing that they share together, as their other effects seem to be mostly related to balancing out the opposite system. Phenethylamine is another big sex chemical, and supposedly plays a role in immediate sexual attraction and the first few years of a relationship, before oxytocin starts becoming the most significant thing. The simplest way to explaining it would first be to point out that cocaine and amphetamine are two related but distinct types of stimulants and amphetamine is the significantly stronger one, and phenethylamine basically effects the parts of the brain that amphetamine does but only at the level of how cocaine does it. It's our brain's own personal stimulant, and it increases levels of dopamine and norepinephrine, and to a lesser extent serotonin. What's interesting is that both stimulants in general and opioids have been found to have their rewarding dopamine releases modulated by 5-HT2A and 5-HT2C, which are serotonin receptors. 5-HT2A induces the release of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens and 5-HT2C inhibits it, and stimulants alter the activity of each by directly preventing the dopamine from being removed from the synapses. This basically means that the rewarding dopamine release from serotonin shifts in a positive direction. Since phenethylamine works just like a stimulant, it makes perfect sense that those rules would apply to it, and could possibly even explain why mu-opioid receptors were found to follow the same path if one of their main effects is to release phenethylamine.

So now let's tie it all together. Men naturally have high dopamine and women naturally have low (relative) dopamine, which is why men are naturally much hornier than women. Since most women need some form of stimulation first, things like foreplay will release oxytocin in the brain which binds to oxytocin receptors and then works downstream through mu-opioid receptors. Mu receptors increase the release of phenethylamine in the nucleus accumbens, which inhibits the reuptake of dopamine and increases the rewarding properties of 5-HT2A receptors. Meanwhile, things like feeling loved or accepted increase the woman's mood and that releases more serotonin, which reaches the nucleus accumbens as well. That serotonin then binds to both 5-HT2A and 5-HT2C, and since the ratio of dopamine release has shifted those emotional states then elicit much more powerful euphoric responses, and that causes sex drive to increase. And that's why all that physical and emotional intimacy can make such an important difference.

And now, finally... my rant is that I put all this time into learning these things and trying to work things about and yet I still can't prove anything. >:T It all makes perfect sense to me, but as I've ranted about before, just because something seems to fit perfectly doesn't mean it's actually correct. Why can't we know more about these things?

But on the other hand, if it's true then it's cool to know. I've been trying to tie all of the different classes of euphoric drugs together in the brain for a long time, and if I'm right then I think I'm getting pretty close to that goal.

Originally Posted by LightofHeaven

Accurate?

Originally Posted by LightofHeaven

^@ tommo

Hmmmm........
So I guess I should try to be a macho manly man.
Lest I be seen as a helplessly fawning puppy.
At what age should I have stopped falling in love with goddesses?
Should I start treating women who have deep seeded daddy issues with contempt so I remind them of their father and they want to fuck me?
I guess I should probably start watching football and rant about the ludicrous display last night and how they always try and walk it in.

Damn, I got nothing else. I don't care at all lol, I've just got nothing to rant about.
I'm content with fawning over a goddess though.

Hopeless romantics seem to have a misconception that girls like callous men. This isn't true. They just like men that make them feel comfortable, and obsession tends to make girls uncomfortable, whether they register it cognitively or not.

You're too friggin smart, Aly. I swear, some of your posts actually hurt my brain because I learn so much from them

Myles is fine.
I went to my p-doc and he told me to simply post on his FB and send him an email, and then get ahold of the police and the hospital's outreach program. He pointed out I likely felt so anxious because I felt helpless- as if there was nothing I could do and by being actively involved I would probably feel better.
When I got home, I felt like crashing. The Valium 1/4ths were finally kicking in. So I posted on my sons FB Wall then sent him an email.
As I slept, he emailed me back. He crammed everything he had to say in the Title Bar lol- that he was okay and heading to Job Core (my brain can't be bothered to try to spell that right ) He was writing me from some library.

I woke up at 7 and I just did get off the phone with everyone. I called my mom first to let her know. She had filed a Missing Person, but because of his age, they pretty much told her their hands were tied if they found him and he didn't want them to notify her. And now my poor mom's going through more crap with my brother and his two daughters who are still in Florida (the mothers are refusing to let my mom or brother see or talk to them).

But all is well with the world once more.
Except I'm starving now... and my dog is driving me crazy because she's persistently begging me but I don't know what she wants lol.

My p-doc is awesome. He's finally learning about SI but still has a little ways to go. He wanted me to promise not to do it anymore and I told him I couldn't. That I sometimes think it's the only thing that keeps me alive and sane because I get SO anxious and my thoughts are jumbled but racing and my body is mess of nerves and sometimes SI is the only thing that makes it all quiet and I have peace.
Then he said that he gets tense at times, too, but he never wants to hurt himself because of it I get TENSE a LOT lol and I don't SI because of it. It's a whole different feeling than being "tense".
But I still love the guy and he's making the effort to learn and simply talking to him, period, helps in great ways.

Time to scrounge around for some food. I'll get money from hubby when he wakes briefly at around 10... but I'm starving to death NOW OOooh, I forgot I bought a muffin and Slim Jims earlier. I'm saved

Aly - That's really what we need in pretty much every area of scientific study, people to glue everything together. It's only getting worse because everyone's splitting off in to smaller and smaller sub-groups of study and therefore the gaps are getting wider and wider.
Sorry, I was visualising that, by gaps I mean that we stopped tying all our knowledge together to get a complete picture of the body and it's going to get even harder as the sub-groups of research become more numerous, because....
Damn I can't even explain it without a picture, not sure if what I wrote makes sense.

Imagine the body _________________________________________ < That was our area of study.
.........................\../\../\../\../\../\../\../\../\../\../\../\../\../\../\../\../
..........................V...V..V...V..V...V..V.. .V..V...V..V...V..V...V..V...V
It split off in to smaller areas of study, different body parts.
Now the triangles are even smaller and they're splitting in to different disorders and diseases of different systems throughout the body.
__________________________________________________ ________
.........................\../V\../V\../V\../V\../V\../V\../V\../V\../V\../V\../V\../V\../V\../V\../V\../
..........................V.....V....V.....V....V. ....V....V.....V....V.....V....V.....V....V.....V. ...V.....V

But we keep leaving gaps. Now, our studies can eventually fill in the gaps, as we learn everything there is to know, there will only be tiny gaps between areas of study, but the fields are going to become so esoteric that it's impossible for anyone to join them all together.
Unless there continues being jobs for people who have a broad knowledge, because we will need them.

Diagrams probably look random, I visualised triangles because that's how the fields start off and then start splitting. They start with broad ideas like we've got chemicals in our body and then that's all figured out but they get down to different types of chemicals, so they split off in to other groups etc.

Anyway.... I'm just sort of worried about that. Hopefully it's one of those things that just doesn't happen, even though on paper it seems like it will.

However this is also a problem because it is annoying as hell, trying to figure out how it all fits, as you're aware now lol
It takes a long time to learn enough to start piecing the puzzle together.

Oh and just one issue with your post. I wouldn't classify Cannabinoids as "downers". Or did you just do that for simplicity?
Nor endorphins, actually, although moreso than cannabinoids.

God dammit, formatting is all screwed on my diagrams. Don't even know why I bothered with them lol
Nothing else to do.

@ Zhay: Haha, thanks. I just have too much time to waste on this stuff lol. I'm very happy to hear that Myles is safe and things are back on track.



@ tommo: Don't worry, I understood what you were saying from the start. I worry about that as well. The brain is so complex that it could easily become a reality. There are some studies that try to tie things together like that, but they're few and far between. The thing too is that so many studies are far more general than they should be that I'm sure a large number of them will need to be redone once more specific details are found, and then the picture will just get more and more convoluted. I wonder if I can get a job just tying things together and letting other people do the work. A theoretical neurochemist?

Spoiler for The future of neurochemistry.:

It's all a conspiracy, man.

Well that's why I said "downer" and not downer lol. Yes, cannabinoids are technically stimulants and depressants. However, if I was to try to lump all drugs into either one or the other for these purposes, I would definitely put cannabinoids as depressants. Consider this: cannabinoids cause stimulation by lowering GABA, and that causes the racing mindset (including at lower doses when that's still considered a good thing) and potential for energy and, at high doses, panic attacks, but what else? They inhibit movement, they cause analgesia through the opioid system, they cause respiratory depression (particularly the full agonists), they lower blood pressure, they're antisocial (CBD is mainly what makes weed a prosocial drug, not so much THC), and at high doses they cause full anesthesia and memory loss. Those are pretty much the things I go by, and in this case I was referring especially to the type of euphoria they give. I could compare cannabinoids to opioids and GABAergics if I wanted in terms of the high, they're not exactly the same but I feel they're much more similar than cannabinoids and stimulants. Also, you wouldn't call endorphins downers? o.o Actually, I guess I can sort of agree in theory. I would say that opioids like morphine are really heavy downers, but I'm still running on the theory that that may come from the dual mu/delta action. I would still sooner call a pure mu agonist a depressant than a stimulant, but the receptor definitely can have stimulating qualities, just like CB1, which makes a lot of sense since I'm pretty sure they're designed to work together. Not enough for me to categorize it with drugs like cocaine and amphetamine, though.

To be fair, I should have included dissociatives in that list too, but it's kind of hard to say anything solid about them when basically all of them have a very dirty pharmacology and are often stimulants as well. I'm not really sure what their whole situation is.

Originally Posted by Original Poster

Hopeless romantics seem to have a misconception that girls like callous men. This isn't true. They just like men that make them feel comfortable, and obsession tends to make girls uncomfortable, whether they register it cognitively or not.

MOTHER FUCKER! Post lost again.
Forgot editor mode....

Basically, yeah I know it's the perceived confidence and assertiveness of the man that makes the women attracted to them.
But girls with daddy issues are definitely attracted to guys who treat them like shit but then turn around and tell them they love them.
It's pretty much a fact.

I know all girls are not like that.

And yeah I know obsession is pointless and destructive, I learned that lesson, long ago.

Anyway, it wasn't a serious post.

Originally Posted by Alyzarin

Another big sex hormone is oxytocin

Yea there was actually a rather famous experiment conducted on voles

Spoiler for vole:

where scientists found that the groups with high reproduction rate had significantly higher levels of oxytocin. Soon after more research went into examining these chemicals, to see how these chemicals affect the human neural circuits. Not too long ago several articles were published on Newscientist, claiming that oxytocin is the major cause of human's desire/need/tendency to form social interactions.

Apparently these chemicals even tie in with certain neurological conditions (Recent studies (2009) have begun to investigate oxytocin's role in various behaviors, including orgasm, social recognition, pair bonding, anxiety, and maternal behaviors. For this reason, it is sometimes referred to as the "love hormone". The inability to secrete oxytocin and feel empathy is linked to sociopathy, psychopathy, narcissism, and general manipulativeness) (Wikipedia).
Well I have psychopathy and as a result I very rarely feel... anything at all, let alone love and affection. So I was thinking, if I was injected with this substance in controlled amounts everyday, would it allow me to feel like a normal human? Kinda reminds me of that movie where citizens of a dystopian state take injections of this drug to suppress their emotions --> Equilibrium. Except this is the reverse process.

One of my two pet rats has beeen sick for a couple weeks. It ended up being a brain tumor. I am about to eithanize her, as a mercy. She can no longer close one eye, and has no strength. Her eye will dry out if she goes on, and must be spared that. I am hesitating...

What really amazes me with how much insecurities people place into politicians, which leads to hatred, continues to grow and grow, while their minds get smaller and smaller.


To place so much blame on a figurehead, to completely forget the fact that if you were in that politician's perspective, you would have to be able to weight out all option that can satisfy the goodwill of the people. Whether or not it's practical because of your own desire to seek that your vices are sustained and expressed to establish merit that you're being "free" or have "unalienable rights" doesn't make you more idiotic then the implications of these politicians having an IQ of a pile of shit.

Honestly, even though with the limited knowledge I have of this, and this may not be a decent medium to sustain my unecessary conflict with peoples' hatred to politicians, if someone possesses an IQ beyond the average person, if we take a look at the very few president who fit that role, they made some sort of emotional impact to society.

And some were so intelligent to the point where people start questioning whether or not they would become a dictator if they can get away with changing a few policies and rights.

Although IQ itself does not set absolute standards of a memorable president, especially for Andrew Jackson, who was a man of reform with his heart, and not his brain.

But exclude that anomaly, and set the standards we have now. The people, at least in the United States of America, are choosing canidates based on their competencies.

Or to put it euphemistcally, choosing people who can either truely be a match to their IQ, or pretend to be a match to their IQ.

And to put it as earnest and honest as I can, what you choose as a potential for president doesn't really matter, because they're assumed to be a symbol of the desires you want to be expressed, but are constantly seeing is not being put into reality.

So what do you get? The conception that all politicians are incompetents, when in fact, the competencies of society as a whole in America is not really that extraordinary.

If you set politicians to make big changes, without even incorporating a morale of the importance of the smaller aspects of law and basic rights, you're not going to get anywhere.

But at the same time, when government takes charge in implying those ideals, it will look like they're policing the people. So either way, you're in a Catch-22.

You either accept that politicians are a byproduct of your own incompetence, therefore, you see little change in society overall, and continue to bitch about it...but at least you can still breathe, drink water, eat, and shit all the same.

Or you can try to see that government enforces importance on the little laws, so that people can follow and obey the bigger ones, but that would imply policing, and thus cause more riots.

Either way, there's a trade off, and I'm pretty sure with the competence of society today, the conflict of desires and vices being put into policy would be the most prefer. Because as long as there's compromise, or an attempt to do so, even though your virtues

So instead of deeming politicians are stupid, one should think about the broader picture rather than the perspectives they want to see being put into policies.

The tradeoff with Democracy is simply having the virtues you want to be put into reality being put off and faded awa because when one chain of events is allowed, you sure as hell know that will set off many more desires to be implemented.


But of course, there will be conspiracies with the government, when government itself is not really the questionable entity here. It's honestly the people themselves who forget about the intentions of the Founding Fathers, and other historic figures that led towards the collaboration of that year everything was set into motion for the greater good.

But no one wants to remember the source that let to this inevitable downfall of too many desires not becoming a reality, leading to hatred.

Oh well, if people forget that government, at least in the mentality for the United States, is set out to control the vices of man so that it doesn't get too chaotic, while at the same time the people see the government as providing basic rights to be sustained.....it's no wonder people are pissed at anything they can grab as a scapegoat...when the problem lies in their incapability to actually think about why the system is there in the first place.

Virtues must be traded off for ones that seek the greater good instead of being fixated on only one that makes no progress other than a fairy tale for that individual or few group of individuals.

Damn it, intuitive insecurities without spell and grammar check is the downfall of my rants. *sigh*

asfjalsfjq'prw Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits! > it's 3:03 AM and I have two exams today! the first one starts in 5 hours which I haven't studied for and the next one just an hour after it. boy am i fucked for that first exam. i've had exams all throughout this goddamned week and one more next monday! university is so freakin' stressful.

sorry if any of these words offend u. i'm just blowing off some steam. :3

i'm so screwed.

Originally Posted by Milotic

... tits! > .

rofl, I've never seen tits used in such a way
But for your stress!

sivason Sorry about your pet

LightOfHeaven. As much as I bitch about feeling too intensely, I couldn't imagine life with psychopathy!!

My rant is finally run-of-the-mill. I went back to sleep at midnight, woke at 4 because I was frozen and had horrible heartburn thanks to all the mucus crap in my throat.
I had some interesting dreams though... but they too were mostly of an ordinary variety. In one, I was walking to Exxon and there were a whole lot of people outside the store in traditional, full body long johns I concluded there must have been a fire or something, but I walked into the store anyhow and everything was fine.
Until I had to use the restroom. The toilet was 2 tiered and the top was overflowing and there was TP stuck to the seats. I had to clean it all before I could use it and then I noticed there was a glass wall and a man and his family could see me. He smiled (good-naturedly) at my discomfort, and I smiled back, then lifted my skirt and peed lol
And then I couldn't find any dry TP

There was a huge hole in the floor that went down forever and I was afraid of dropped stuff in it. I told the owner they were out of TP and the guy came to my defense saying all this stuff needed to be fixed and there's no excuse when the store charges what it what it does and yadda yadda.
It continued like that for a while. I left and hubby was going mad trying to find me... but he seemed in a good enough mood. There was just some sort of festival going on where the townspeople lay in the middle of the road for miles and other townspeople tried to walk between them And then I watched as a car nearly killed a couple of the people.

That was the single most boring dream I've had in a long time Yet it was so intricate with stories within the story (which I spared y'all ) and the dream seemed to go on forever.
Oh yeah, I forgot the best part. As I was checking out, in the dream, these huge salamaders were on the counter. There were several on the floor that had died or were dying. Only the females were surviving and one of them bite the crap out of my hand And another one talked to a kid. It said something like "diversifying" hehehee.

When did I decide to make the rant thread my DJ There IS a place to post all of this, dumbdumb.

I'm awake now and a little hungry again. Hubby never did wake up at 10. I hate bugging him for money before he leaves for work, but (drum roll please) we have no toilet paper and have run out of paper towels as well. It's so silly that such a little thing triggered such a long dream!

Originally Posted by LightofHeaven

Yea there was actually a rather famous experiment conducted on voles

Spoiler for vole:

where scientists found that the groups with high reproduction rate had significantly higher levels of oxytocin. Soon after more research went into examining these chemicals, to see how these chemicals affect the human neural circuits. Not too long ago several articles were published on Newscientist, claiming that oxytocin is the major cause of human's desire/need/tendency to form social interactions.

Apparently these chemicals even tie in with certain neurological conditions (Recent studies (2009) have begun to investigate oxytocin's role in various behaviors, including orgasm, social recognition, pair bonding, anxiety, and maternal behaviors. For this reason, it is sometimes referred to as the "love hormone". The inability to secrete oxytocin and feel empathy is linked to sociopathy, psychopathy, narcissism, and general manipulativeness) (Wikipedia).
Well I have psychopathy and as a result I very rarely feel... anything at all, let alone love and affection. So I was thinking, if I was injected with this substance in controlled amounts everyday, would it allow me to feel like a normal human? Kinda reminds me of that movie where citizens of a dystopian state take injections of this drug to suppress their emotions --> Equilibrium. Except this is the reverse process.

I remember coming across that at one point. There have been studies pointing it to negative social emotions as well, like (also from Wikipedia) envy and schadenfreude, so I wouldn't say it's quite that simple, but it does seem to have lots of bonding effects. I think it depends on how it stacks up against other brain chemicals, e.g. it'll make you happy and open if you also have high serotonin at the same time.

Taking oxytocin every day (which is, by the way, available without a prescription) would likely help your situation, however it would be hard to say if it would make you feel totally "normal". It would almost undoubtedly make you more emotionally social, however. But do keep in mind that there's no such thing as a drug without side effects, even the ones that are naturally within you. I've read about oxytocin causing things like high blood pressure and water toxicity seizures and stuff like that. Just because you need to balance out one part of your brain doesn't necessarily mean you need that chemical in every part of your brain and body, but when you take it as a drug that's where it's going to go. So just keep that in mind, don't just jump into anything without doing a good amount of research first.

For what it's worth, I used to be pretty much emotionally dead before I started using drugs that release oxytocin on a regular basis. I blame this on both nature and nurture. Without going into detail, I was a fairly manipulative bitch, I just had charisma. Quite frankly, a lot of the things I did back then I find sickening to think of now, things that I'll never be able to justify or make right. It didn't help that I was hanging out mostly with people who were as far gone as me or worse and turning me into a genuine sociopath. However, there were also people that I would never think about hurting. I don't know if it would be correct to say that I loved them in the normal sense... it never felt like the love I feel today, it was just sort of an acknowledgement that I wasn't more important than those people. It's hard to describe exactly, but I did think of them as friends. When I started using MDMA and eventually psychedelics however, which each release a large amount of oxytocin, I started reexamining a lot of my life and thinking "What the hell is wrong with me? What have I been doing?" and started getting to the point I'm at now where it pains me to even think about those things. In the meantime I also started realizing who my true friends were and learned how to express myself normally to them while on ecstasy and then even though I'm still not able to be that social all the time I've learned how to feel more connected to people and understood these powerful emotions. I won't lie, I think it was more the people than the drugs, but they helped without a doubt. Obviously your situation is not exactly like mine, but my point is that if you do try the oxytocin and make sure you associate with good people I do think it could improve your condition. I would definitely talk to a doctor before you start anything, though.

Um, girl, it is not GENEROUS of you to clean up your own mess before leaving a rental house--it's called being RESPONSIBLE. People on facebook, I swear...

Being jobless when there are so many job opening around. I've applied to 235 schools (I'm a licensed teacher in two states). I've also applied at over 40 other places for everything from cooking, to house cleaning, to manufactoring. NOT ONE CALL BACK. I gave up and made a craigslist ad. lol.

Originally Posted by Alyzarin

I remember coming across that at one point. There have been studies pointing it to negative social emotions as well, like (also from Wikipedia) envy and schadenfreude

I think this was first mentioned in an article called the dark side of love hormone published on Newscientist.

I'm not actually going to take any medication, and frankly I have my doubts about products claiming to improve neurological conditions. I'm not desperate for change; I know that I'm not responsible for who I am and I accept that. I just operate under a shroud of deception and camouflage, albeit fairly successful because my friends seem oblivious to my true self.

for everyone.

Welcome to DV, BlackBirdRising. Hope you find employment soon.

My rant is I just pulled out the double-decker washer/dryer unit. It reeks back there.. as if the cats managed to get back against the wall and pee And then I noticed the stupid thing HAS a proper plug. Why the hell haven't I hooked it up before now?! Oh yes... because it somehow managed to shock the heck out of me when I touched it once... and it WASN'T plugged in. How does that happen lol
So I never even looked at it after that and forgot I only have to connect the wires.

But what the heck with those wires?! There's three prongs and three wires semi-attached. They lack the nut to hold them in place. Before those are 4 wires and they're bent in such a way you can see they were once on the prongs. The wires are different colors than the ones already on it.
Because it's a washer AND dryer unit, do they each have their own set of wires? And would they connect at the same place? It seems unlikely to me. Wouldn't that cause interference or something?

To make matters worse, the day has gotten extremely warm and I'm stuck in a long-sleeved shirt so my son doesn't realize what I had been up to. I'm going to wait til nightfall then mop the heck out of the room then pull out another dryer we have and see if it would be any easier to connect. I'm a freagin dunce. I forgot I bought bolts and nuts. I thought the plug didn't come with any. I think the nuts are going to be too small, but I'm going to go try it anyhow...

But I'm still going to wait til nightfall to clean and move everything back.

Other than that, it's been a fairly quiet day. I had Destinee's MDT and that went well. She has Court on the 17th to determine her placement. I even got to the store to buy supplies.
I am SO ready to crawl back into bed. Huh... I've actually been awake for about 10 hours with no nap. That's good for me

Originally Posted by Zhaylin

LightOfHeaven. As much as I bitch about feeling too intensely, I couldn't imagine life with psychopathy!!

Let me help you imagine. Pause for a second and clear your mind; focus on the void and emptiness. Mmm, that's pretty much it.

Wow, you really are an enduring woman.

Originally Posted by Zhaylin

because it somehow managed to shock the heck out of me when I touched it once... and it WASN'T plugged in. How does that happen lol

Maybe you had your feet rubbing on carpet vigorously without you knowing, which probably made things shocking for you.


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Anti-Rant: I can't believe how much I passed up on Justice League Unlimited. As a kid, I probably would've seen the show as just superheroes punching the heck out of villains. But looking at a few episodes, and getting to know others that I missed, I really loved this show.

There's so many moral lessons that can be learned that it's not even funny. This show is awesome, and it's always nice to go back to watching something after I've aged for a while.

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Rant: Meditation is still tedious, but I just know that I have to be patient when doing it. It's a challenge closing my eyes, forgetting about my feelings for others, and about myself too. To be thoughtless and still become aware of that thoughtlessness is probably the biggest challenge I'll ever have in my life.

Because if I can't even keep a calm and cool head, how else can I accomplish deep state mediation? I'm doing well with not stressing out for exams, so that's a good thing, and even if I fail anything, I can't really blame myself too much. It just seems pointless to discharge negative energy over nothing.

I guess it really is true that the grander prizes are really worth the wait; in this case, the process of meditating and letting go of convictions and mental baggage of this life.

Originally Posted by Zhaylin

it somehow managed to shock the heck out of me when I touched it once... and it WASN'T plugged in. How does that happen lol

Originally Posted by Linkzelda

Maybe you had your feet rubbing on carpet vigorously without you knowing, which probably made things shocking for you.

Rant: Meditation is still tedious, but I just know that I have to be patient when doing it. It's a challenge closing my eyes, forgetting about my feelings for others, and about myself too. To be thoughtless and still become aware of that thoughtlessness is probably the biggest challenge I'll ever have in my life.

Because if I can't even keep a calm and cool head, how else can I accomplish deep state mediation? I'm doing well with not stressing out for exams, so that's a good thing, and even if I fail anything, I can't really blame myself too much. It just seems pointless to discharge negative energy over nothing.

I guess it really is true that the grander prizes are really worth the wait; in this case, the process of meditating and letting go of convictions and mental baggage of this life.

I've noticed this in other threads, but you seem to be doing some kind of whacked out mediation, meditation shouldn't be an effort, it doesn't take effort to be. If you're struggling at mediation then you are simply reinforcing another layer of delusion. Meditation isn't about thinking nothing or entering some void or self denial or 'getting rid' of the 'baggage of life'... That sounds more like what LightofHeaven has going on. Meditation is about being intensely, and intimately aware of your experience, being in the present moment.

I get dissociation, depersonalisation, derealisation, etc. It's not cool.

I guess that's my rant, people getting strange ideas about meditation in their heads from dubious teaching. ^^;

Originally Posted by Linkzelda

To be thoughtless and still become aware of that thoughtlessness is probably the biggest challenge I'll ever have in my life.

You're on the right track. Training your mind to effortlessly produce controlled periods of thoughtlessness is essentially the pinnacle of all meditation disciplines.

Learn to recognize all your different mental states. Tell yourself to let go of all concerns, thoughts and feelings and you want to watch, in 'spectator mode', as you drift from one state to another.

It's actually rather difficult to explain all the intricacies, but I've always found this section of the hymn Dear Lord and Father of Mankind elegantly portrays the way I meditate:

Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm,
O still, small voice of calm.

I start meditating/relaxing, listening to the various voices in my head, until they become softer and quieter.. until all I hear is my breathing; even that fades as I continue. Eventually there is nothing outside of my being. The world does not exist until I let it exist, until I open my eyes and let it come back into focus.

For some reason i have a really large obsession with getting back on this site. Im not sure why. I miss my DV friends i guess.

Im stressing because I get to take the act in two days. Although i will also be taking it in febuary also im really nervous. I feel that my scores arent good enough. Im averaging about a composite score of 22-24. In my area its a tad bit higher than normal. Im just really worried. It kinda decides a pretty large part of my life.

Im worried about how things are going to work after hgh school. I want to leave home asap. But i think... No i know. That my mom has some serious problems with letting me leave. I cant even be gone for a week without my mom freaking out. I know that its going to be a battle when i try to leave.

Also I think im going to die. I have been having weird health problems lately. Parts of my body keep twitching. It started with my eye about a year ago. It twitches constantly now, its weird because people cant see it, and neither can I when I look in a mirror, but i can feel it. Then my leg started doing it. Its not constant, but its not rare. Also i have been noticing that my limbs have been going to sleep really easy lately. Normally the back of my legs and my right arm. I dont even have to cut off the circulation for it to happen.