As it turns out, vagus nerve stimulation may have lasting effects on those with depression. Our vagus nerves run from the brain through the neck and to our internal organs.
An international team of researchers conducted a clinical trial on 493 adults whose major depression hadn't previously responded to treatment, and after nearly ten months of research and heavy assessments, it was found that participants who received the stimulation treatment showed improvements in their depressive symptoms. This was further proven by trial lead by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, which conducted their study on the wider range of 500 participants at 84 sites across the U.S. The patients from both of these clinical trials were previously found to have not been treated effectively with medication or other approaches.
You can actually read more about Vagus Nerve Stimulation here if you're interested;
https://www.brainstimjrnl.com/current
What is a Tumblr post or blog u recently enjoyed
That's a difficult question–
Almost all of the blogs that have crossed my path pique my intrigue in some way or another, however I will say that @nymphiqueish makes some very lovely moodboards, I definitely recommend my followers check out their blog
hello! im not sure if youre still looking, but i stumbled across your blog by chance, and we actually have a jon (tma) introject in our system - he hasn't fronted much recently, but lmk if you'd like to chat to him (or the rest of us - i think we could make reasonable guesses at a lot of his experiences)! hope youre well :)
Your ask really couldn't have come at a better time. I would appreciate it immensely if I could speak to them, and of course, thank you for reaching out. I really can't thank you and the rest of those who have reached out to me in this kin finding journey of mine. There have been some hiccups along the way, but the kindness you've shown to me can't be repaid.
Can you feel the earth turning slower than it ever had before? So much has happened over the last couple of years, and the weight is almost too much. We’ve seen war, and illness. We’ve watched a fool become king to this country, and the changing of the seasons that is no doubt melting down the icecaps- hell, we even gained a second moon in September. It’s enough to make anyone begin to worry if this is downright biblical.
I remember during my childhood, the idea of an apocalypse being just on the horizon of our lives was something so often talked about. It was spoken about as if it were a concrete fact, and that one day everything we hold near and dear was going to burn in hellfire. What stuck with me most though,was how they would talk to us children, about how we had to be strong, and how we were so special. About how we wouldn't let our minds be poisoned by those outside of the community. Now I’m 24 years old, and I’m living far away from my hometown… and still, the earth continues to turn, my heart is still beating.
I try to remind myself that I’m different now, and that I can look at things from a less coerced mindset. The fear is always there though, burning white hot in my lungs. I think about my poor grandmother, on her deathbed, how she looked me in the eyes and said, “You aren’t Jules...who are you?” Her last moments, I think about often whenever I think about the end of the world.
Maybe the earth ended long ago, in another timeline far from this one. Maybe everyone we’ve ever loved, every fear we ever hated- maybe it all went up in smoke and we can’t remember it because remembering would mean enduring the fear all over again. Sometimes times I think I can feel a tension thick in the air, like I’m running out of time, and a million breaths gasp in fear all at once, all over the globe- and that feeling terrifies me because I have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that I may have played a hand in it.
Can you feel that tension? Can you feel the earth’s blood and hunger? Well, maybe we can use this chance to turn things around. Let’s save the planet from itself, we have to be brave because we live in a world of constantly being frightened. They say it on our televisions, in articles and books that we should be afraid of our future and that things look grim, but I think there’s still hope for us yet. We just have to take matters into our own hands, and make this world worth living in, a little at a time. We can fix this. It’s our last chance to forgive ourselves.
I really lovwe the vway you vwrite. Genuinely beautiful prose.
- @anothershottotryagain
Thank you, I appreciate it. It's funny, I used to get bullied for my manner of speech back when I was a child. Catholic school was a lawless warzone, but I digress... If anyone can find meaning or familiarity in my words then I'm glad, and I promise I'll keep writing until we uncover the truth behind this reality we all share together
Send me an ask and tell the world what you are. Use as many or few words as you want without censoring yourself. It can be written like a poem or straight forward and simple. Do what feels right for you.
My goal is to collect and archive until we have enough entries to make a zine out of it that can be downloaded and passed around for free. I want to make our voices less quiet.
You send me an ask. Short and simple example:
“I’m a ___.”
I will post your ask (I'll use the queue to space the posts out a bit) and put it down on the zine as:
“I’m a ___.” -Anonymous
If you don’t want to be cited as anonymous, you need to tell me. Like this, for example:
“I’m a ___. -Blue”
You can ad as much information as you want. An example:
“I’m a ___. -Blue, they/them, 21”
That would look like this in the zine:
“I’m a ___.” -Blue, they/them, 21
I hope I explained it in an easy to understand way!
I will cite the asks exactly how I receive them, including things that I think are typos. I don’t want to accidentally change something that was done on purpose. If you want to correct a mistake you’ve made, just comment under the respective post. I can’t allow this for anons because I need a way to know the request comes from the being that made the original ask.
We already have over 30 entries! Given that number, I can confidently say that this zine will happen. I already started working on it. I'm excited!
(Some of these entries are bringing me to tears omg /pos)
yo do u have a kin list anywhere 👀
That's a good question--
As of right now, I do not have a kin list. This is due to the fact I still have not been able to find a source that completely matches my kin memories. That being said, I do have a list of sources I have been looking into in hopes of finding a connection which I will list here though if anyone finds any familiarity in me or the memories I depict in my posts, I urge you to reach out to me with any insight you can offer;
https://www.tumblr.com/imitative-magpie/777294067956580352/while-i-have-the-time-to-keep-up-on-my-blog?source=share
Thanks to the help of so many of you both here on Tumblr, and on various discord servers, I was able to lay a lot of groundwork into discovering my identity. I would like to share a list of sources I have been given and am currently looking into in order to widen my sample size regarding memories as a whole. Here is where I currently am in this process;
*The Dream SMP (Completed)
*Mouth Washing (Even Though I Have Mostly Ruled That Out) ((Completed.. obviously))
*Homestuck (Not Really Completed But I Feel I've Seen Enough)
*A Song of Ice and Fire (Completed and Revised)
*Maximum Ride Series (Completed and Revised)
*Final Destination (Completed and Revised)
*Madoka Magica (Completed)
*Supernatural (Completed and Revised, Possible Match)
*Zero Escape Series (Completed)
*The Magnus Archives
*SCP and Related Works (Completed and Revised, Possible Match)
*Death Note (Completed and Revised, Possible Match)
*Arcane (Completed and Revised)
*The Magicians
*Ave Mujica
*The Mandela Catalogue (Completed, Possible Match)
*Devilman Crybaby
*American Horror Story (Completed and Revised)
*The Omen (Completed and Revised, Possible Match)
If anyone from these sources would like to impart any insight or simply share any memories that have been weighing on them..
Well, you know I'll always be listening.
You were a child then, so your memories are muddled. Your perception is warped- of course it is. It starts off simple, with you wandering off. Or maybe you looked away for just a moment, and when your concentration was broken from what you were looking at, you suddenly found yourself alone.
However you got yourself in this position, the outcome is the same; You've been condemned to an eternity of wandering aisles in hopes of finding familiarity where there is none, as the crowds of tall faceless- nameless strangers rush by, making you feel more and more claustrophobic by the second. You have no hope, it's been crushed into tiny pieces under the abstract concept of setting and its permanence.
I would like to propose the idea that maybe, not knowing your identity but still being plagued by memories is similar to being lost in the supermarket. You feel as though you'll be in an endless free fall. I know it seems impossible to stop all of this confusion and frustration–
But this downward spiral doesn't have to be forever. We have a beautiful community, of those just waiting to take your hand and guide you out. I think the alterhuman community is a second chance for us to find ourselves. We've just got to be brave enough to admit that we were lost in the first place.
An illustration of the eye that I saw in my dream, created by these two images;
I drew over the top of the first image, but I hope this will help better explain to those reading just what I saw.
This post is an update to where I have been for the last 2 weeks. I plan to write everything that I experienced, everything I heard, everything I saw– in excruciating detail for me. For my own peace of mind, so if you are perturbed by talk related to medical emergencies or long winded explanations about things as trivial as my feelings, then feel free to turn away. I won’t fault you for it, but this post is going up all the same, because I feel like this moment in my life meant something. It had to.
So, what happened? I'm just going to rip the bandage off and say, I had a cardiac event at work, and had to be taken away in an ambulance. I don't like having to share this because I feel like I always have something dramatic happening in this disaster of a life I've built for myself. I thought moving from my hometown and getting a medical degree was supposed to make my life more stable, but the groundwork I've created is crumbling around me, and the fall from grace started with a workplace argument. “I don't get why you don't trust us, we have been so nice to you, and yet you keep pulling this shit-”
“Look, I can't just turn trust on like a switch, Larry. If I could, I would just to get you off my back but don't sit there and lie to me. I know you all have been talking about me in secret. What was it about? Is it because of what I said about the freezer room? Is it- oh my god, did you find out why I left my last job?” I panicked, but the look on Larry's face told me that it was not information he was privy to… yet. “I do not think it's a coincidence that you all suddenly fall silent the second I enter the room. So am I just being paranoid or do you have something you want to tell me?”
“You're just being paranoid!!” He throws his hands up with his shouted exclamation, several people glance over at us. “Look, dude… Okay, we have talked a little bit but only because we're worried about you!” I raised an eyebrow of disbelief. “Seriously? After we invited you out to grab drinks with us, you still don't think we're friends?”
“I…don't know what I think.”
I could feel the tension rising up in the back of my throat, like bile. Everything in the room pulsed as I took in a shaking breath, but Larry just pushed on. “Why are you so damn negative? I just don't get it, man. You know when you aren't going on about how the world is awful, you're actually fun to talk to-”
“Listen, bad always happen to me- I'm just reporting the facts,”
“This is exactly what I'm talking about-! Nobody is out to get you! I like you, Julius! I like you!” and I tried to say something in rebuttal but… I threw up right there at the table with no warning…and it was pure black, the texture gelatinous and bitter. I thought about how someone had told me once that black vomit is a tell towards a serious health issue and that you are close to death- and I know that's because of the coffee ground appearance of vomit during a gastrointestinal bleed, I know that, okay? I could tell that wasn't what this was because it was downright acrylic looking in consistency, but it was too late, the fear that I was dying was already firmly planted in my head. I could feel the prickle of eyes on me, making me feel even more panicked. “Oh shoot, let me go get some paper towels,” Larry said, but Gilbert was already making strides over to the paper towel roll on the counter in the breakroom. My head was swimming, and my shoulder began to throb so hard that it trailed up the side of my neck and that just freaked me out even more.That must've been when I lost consciousness, because I don't really recall much afterwards. I think Larry might've tried to coax me out of my seat, saying; “Okay, let's get you sitting on the ground before you pass out.”but besides that, it's a blur. All I wanted was to stand up and shake it off, and show them that everything was alright– but it was like I was trying to keep my head above water when the waves were crashing all the same, silencing my cries for help and pulling me under. I fought it the whole way down.
For a painful moment, it was just dark, and the only thing I was conscious of was that feeling where you've been dropped from a great height, that rush of adrenaline in a quick pulsing ’thump!’ and then I was far under the currents of emerald bay. The water was dark and rich, and it overwhelmed all my senses. It was all encompassing, in a terrifying way that made it impossible to tell which direction the surface was. For a second there it was nice because at least this felt constant, you know? It almost felt safe, in a way that was terribly deceptive. 'Thump!' There was something there, under the ocean floor. I couldn't see it, but it was there, its heartbeat shaking the tranquility of death. I could feel it with absolute certainty. It made the sea pulse like a womb, and so I swam down towards the heartbeat that was drumming on, shaking the walls of my soul.
Because it's not fair. I played my whole life by the books. I kept my head down, I worked myself to the bone, and I always followed what was expected of me. I never put myself out there. As I kept kicking my feet, all I could think about was all the hobbies I repressed, all the people I could've kissed, all the things I could've brought into question- it wasn't fair. I wasn't supposed to die like this, never finding the closure I was searching for. I just wanted to understand who I am, I just wanted to know- was that really so awful?
’Thump!’
And there it was, at the bottom of emerald bay, the thing that's haunted me, the explanation of my entire life looking right through me as if I wasn't merely my flesh. One, pulsing eye, flecked with the dark stars of infinite timelines and realities. I spent my whole life feeling lost, like I didn't know who I was, and now it was looking me right in the face like a macabre joke. I thought back to all that time I spent asking people about their experiences, and trying to selfishly fit myself into some space I could belong- the Supernatural kin community, the Madoka Magica kin community, the Mouth Washing kin community especially and it was all because of this thing. This thing I don't even understand. I wanted to, in spite of everything. I almost wanted to laugh at how bad it hurt…and because I have a sense of humor, as I reached out to stab into the pupil with my sharpened fingers, I thought to myself,
“I hope this hurts”
Some things about going into cardiac arrest at 24 years old; I recovered faster than expected. I could've been there for 16, 18 days… but I was only there for 11. Having all that stuff hooked up on me, especially the catheter, was sensory hell and so I made it everyone else's problem that I was feeling so rotten. That being said, I found myself not nearly as emotional about this experience. Surprising as that may be, it all felt sort of surreal. Like it wasn't me laying in that hospital bed but someone completely different. Oh, I hated that more than anything. You know what the real kicker was? They said it was triggered by stress. That I should be more careful when viewing horror content, among other things. Imagine the one thing that brings you joy. Imagine the climax of your absolute euphoria, a high that knocks you away from the woes of reality, your favorite food, your favorite song. Imagine asking a question, and never getting to live to hear the answer, no you've been condemned to ignorance. It was as if they just told me I was going to be living off saltines for the rest of my life. It was like they defanged me. Naturally I dealt with it in my usual healthy coping mechanisms- being an insufferable prick.
Consider this a footnote, but-
The thing that pushed me over the edge in the end is confusing and because I don't understand it, I feel almost embarrassed to admit the amount of pain it doled upon all my senses. It was one of the nurses, the way she smelled. Over all that sterile cleaner and sour dread from the hospital, somehow I could make out notes of chamomile and bergamot as she whisked away with a clipboard in hand, and suddenly I was struggling to keep my composure, because I
Why? Why was this happening? Why was I doing this here, where someone could see me? Sure, no one was in the room but I could feel the prickle of eyes at the back of my neck. I was already in the throes of a nervous breakdown though, I could feel the lump in my throat forming and suddenly I wished I hadn't gone and pushed away anyone who even looked at me kindly.
If I kept going down that train of thought, I'd surely embarrass myself. I mean– it's not as if I've never had a cup of tea before, or had the pleasure of smelling a lit bergamot candle. For some reason, the warmth in it together just knocked the wind out of me. How do you process grief if you don't even know why you're grieving? So I just sat there, swallowing convulsively and thinking about the fact that I built my walls so high, that nobody visited me in this god forsaken hospital over the holidays. ’Well, that's not fair, maybe they visited early when I wasn't conscious and they just got turned away because they weren't family’ I try to tell myself, but deep down I know nobody tried because I really am that unlikable of a person. It's not even something I've learned, it's been like this ever since I was a child. If I just keep telling myself it's all of this is worth it, then maybe one day it will be. I just have to keep clawing at the walls of this existence until I break through.
Do you know the story of the city of sodom in the bible? You know, in Genesis 19? You know how angels warned Lot and his family to flee the city and not look back? How in the end they were riding out of the city as it was being destroyed, but the wife could not help but look back, and was turned into a pillar of salt as punishment? That story upset me terribly as a kid. It seemed so cruel, and just for what? That sick feeling in your gut that makes you watch on even though you know you shouldn't?
I mean, I know now why it upset me so much. I would've looked too. It's absurd--
Not the other wild claims that were preached to us, interpretations rather than written word, while we all sat there drinking in the words like they were absolute. It was the damn pillar of salt that got me, that just ate me up inside. I can't help myself, I have to look. Every time. It's a real damned if I do, damned if I don't situation and all my life I've been told this ache to reach into the unknown horrors is wrong.. at least until I moved, anyways.
How could a deity punish something as wonderful as free thinking? Or curiosity? These stories make me wonder where the real harm was, or was it just simply another story to inspire fear in the hearts of men from as long back as fear possibly existed.
I want to be divorced from the inner child in me that still deep down believes it, and is half is expecting to be struck dead for breathing life to such thoughts
And then there's the thought that's just outside of my periphery of "Oh, well what would you do of you had that level of power, Jules? Hmm?" And that just makes my brain buzz with anxiety because I know I'd doom us all.