ace rants

More advice I guess

Today we're going to try to be helpful!! 

~Remember the tutorial I had to make? Well I filmed it like a youtube tutorial and I proof watched it right before this and now I'm thinking in *that* voice which is a bad voice to think in~

This first one isn't the worlds most helpful, but if I knew how to manage my life well I wouldn't be writing this chapter at the moment but you get to have my mediocre advice because I do not know how to manage my life well :)

So studying and online school is difficult, yes? And this may or may not help but I discovered dark academia and it's somewhat helping me because I want to be all cool and smart and intellectual. Unfortunately, that centers more around humanities, and I'm fine with those but yeah! Dark academia!

(Also it just overall has a really nice aesthetic)

And helpful thing two that is actually helpful is called grounding!! Most of y'all have probably heard of this already maybe possibly, but I'm going to write it here anyway!! So grounding is a godsend and you can use it if you feel anxious or you've had trauma and want to self-harm or even just stressed or a few other things that I can't entirely remember. 

Basically when any of those things happen, you're brain thinks you're in danger and then it's like we're in danger!! So as a natural reaction your heart beats faster and you breathe harder faster and all of that, and then your brain takes these a sign that you must really be in danger and tells your body you're in danger and it keeps happening.

What grounding does is make you not breathe harder and all of that so you don't get as panicked. And a bunch of the stuff sounded stupid but it works really well

I talk about self harm in the thing right below this in parentheses so if that may trigger you or you don't want to hear about just skip the parentheses

(I used to do a *slight* but of self harm and let me emphasize slight because I promise it was not a lot, but anyway I did that as an attempt at grounding before I knew what grounding was and then I heard about it on a post and a few days later I wanted to cut again and I knew that was not a good thing to do and also I have a rule for myself that I can't cut until the previous mark has healed, which it had not. Online school is stressful and I had bad coping strategies. But then I googled grounding and it worked really well and I didn't feel overwhelmed and panicky!! Also let me emphasize that there was hardly any blood at all and y'all shouldn't cut and I promise do grounding instead it works so so so so much better)

So how to do grounding?

First off breathe in and out slowly for a bit. I think it's count to four in and four out and do that at least eight times.

Then do 5-4-3-2-1:

Find five things you can see. They can be in your room or out the window. Just anything you can see.

Find 4 things you can feel. It can be the chair you're sitting on or your tongue in your mouth or anything.

Find 3 things you can hear. 

Find two things you can smell.

Find one thing you can taste. If there's no food and drinks around, you can imagine the taste, but if you do have something you can taste, put it in your mouth and just focus on the flavor.

Then find an interesting object you can hold. A good example is a rock or gemstone. Notice how it feels and it's ridges and color(s) and the way shadows fall on it. 

Then imagine you are by a river and let all the things that are worrying you come into your head, and imagine taking them as they come and putting them on leaves to float away down the river. For this, it's better to keep your eyes open to keep you in the moment, but eyes closed in fine too.

Also maybe stretch out a little because stress can make you very tense.

There are a lot more strategies you can use to ground, and just look up grounding on google to find them, but here is one for you.

Also here's a little thing that happened:

So we all remember hearing about Sam yes? Well they found out I have this account and they read this story (with my permission), and they were incredibly kind and supportive and wonderful about all of it. 

But that was a little scary because 1) I've written quite a bit about liking their girlfriend and just my inner thoughts and 2) I decided around when I wrote this I wouldn't show it to anybody, and so even thought they were had the best reaction to all of this that I could possibly imagine, I'm a bit stressed because my brain does not do rationality. 

But really of all people in my real life, I think I would have chosen them to be the one who read this, and it worked out that way, which was convenient :)

A little bit about Sam because I am in a gratitude mood (hehe that rhymes) and also they're a very important part of my life, so I figure y'all should know since I never shut up about my life :)

A reminder of how I met them: my squish ended up dating them and I was super super jealous and then I met them and we started talking more, and my squish has impeccable taste I guess because Sam is amazing.

And I guess my standards for friends is a little low because I've spent a lot of time being friends with not good people, but they're honestly probably one of most caring sweet thoughtful relatable and overall best friends I have ever had, and there's literally nothing I can think of about them that is bad.

Also me having had bad friends kind of shows how great Sam is?? Because I used to be really closed off about the things that actually mattered to me even during that time when I had good new friends, and now I can actually talk about those things because Sam is wonderful and non-judgmental. 

So there is your whole sappy thing about Sam :) 

And I have just remembered they may read this so um I love you and I pinky promise I am reasonably okay mentally, and everyone say hi to Sam!!