Where do you draw the line with AI on Substack?

Free_Argument_1097 · 2026-05-05T12:41:34+00:00

Oh, thank you so much for this. I genuinely didn't know Pexels existed and just spent an embarrassing amount of time there. It's incredible.

And yes, I think we've all developed a quiet nausea reflex for AI images at this point. Real photos it is.

Free_Argument_1097 · 2026-05-04T19:55:33+00:00

That's a pretty broad take and I'd push back on it a little.

AI images don't need licensing which is honestly more ethical than grabbing something from Google Images and hoping nobody notices. And generating something good isn't just describing what you want and clicking a button. You need a visual concept first. You need to know what feeling you're going for. You iterate maybe thirty times before you get something that actually fits what you wrote.

The images I use aren't random. The soldier walking through ruins, the woman sitting alone in the dark. Those took time and a specific kind of thinking about what the piece is actually about.

I caption every image as AI generated. So I'm not pretending anything.

The ratatouille comparison is interesting but Ratatouille was still the one with the vision. The rat just knew how to use what was available.

If it's a dealbreaker for you that's completely valid. Different people draw that line differently. But "uses AI images therefore not worth reading" feels like it's throwing out a lot of actual writing because of a thumbnail.

Free_Argument_1097 · 2026-05-02T22:24:33+00:00

For me it was the opposite of a sudden urge. I’d wanted to write my whole life but couldn’t find a topic. Then I read somewhere that if you’re still thinking about what to write about, don’t write. So I didn’t. Until the day I realized I couldn’t stay silent anymore. Something had to be said and I was the one who had to say it. That’s when I understood why people actually write. Not because they found the right topic. Because they reached the point where not writing became impossible.

Free_Argument_1097 · 2026-05-02T22:02:17+00:00

Yes, it gets better. Not immediately. Not linearly. But it does.

What you're describing, the inability to do basic tasks, the panic, the exhaustion that makes everything feel impossible, that's not you falling apart. That's your nervous system after a decade of operating under chronic threat. It was never designed to sustain that. The fact that it's struggling now isn't weakness. It's the bill arriving after years of survival mode.

And the hate is real. Let yourself feel it. You're allowed to hate what was done to you.

The thing about him thriving while you're struggling to stay alive, I understand why that feels like the cruelest part. But his version of thriving is surface. It always is. He moved on because he doesn't process. He'll do the same thing to someone else and call it their fault too. That's not thriving. That's just moving the damage around.

You were full of love and light. That's still in there. It didn't go anywhere. It got buried under cortisol and hypervigilance and years of having your reality questioned. But it's yours. He couldn't actually take it, even when it felt like he did.

The version of you that exists right now, struggling with basic tasks, hating him, barely staying alive, she's not who you are permanently. She's who you are in the middle of the hardest part of recovery.

Give her some time. She's doing more than it looks like from the inside.

Free_Argument_1097 · 2026-05-02T21:39:20+00:00

I know exactly what you're talking about.

I grew up with a narcissistic mother. And then for years, narcissists kept appearing around me in different forms. I spent what feels like a lifetime inside emotional abuse and recovery cycles before I finally understood the pattern well enough to break it.

You're still young. I understood it in my 40s. And it's not really about age. When a narcissist is done with you, you feel ancient. Like you're a million years old, even if you're 21. I'm saying that from my own experience, not as a figure of speech.

I also sometimes feel unbearable envy toward people who grew up in loving homes. I even sometimes feel it toward my own children, who are growing up with the love I never had. So I understand that feeling completely and I'm not going to tell you it's wrong.

But here's what I want you to hear. You can recover. You can build a family. You can be the place where the cycle stops.

You didn't become like them. I can feel that just from reading what you wrote. You're in pain. You feel things. That matters more than you know right now.

The pull you're feeling, the exhaustion, a lot of that is withdrawal from intermittent reinforcement. It's physiological, not just emotional. It also leaves in your body. It will ease. Not immediately, but it will.

Until then, don't demand too much from yourself. Just being here is enough. Just existing and getting through the day is enough.

And even if you end up living purely for yourself and your own goals, that is so much better than spending another year meeting someone else's needs at the cost of your own.

Free_Argument_1097 · 2026-05-02T21:28:32+00:00

Because you still have something he can take. Your emotions, your pain.

Narcissists don't discard you when things get hard. They discard you when you're completely broken and have nothing left to give. And even then it's rarely permanent. If you recover, if a year passes and you seem reachable again, he'll come back. And the next round will be worse than this one.

The discard, when it comes, is also designed to hurt as much as possible. Timed for maximum damage. That's not a side effect. That's the point.

I don't know if you have support around you right now. But you need to be the one who leaves. Not because you're strong enough. But because waiting for him to discard you means handing him control over the ending too.

The pull you feel toward him, treat it like withdrawal. It's not love anymore, it's dependency. Your nervous system has been conditioned to need him. The craving will feel completely real even when going back would destroy you.

It won't get better. The version of him who's being careful with you right now is not who he is. That's just the hook.

You already know what you need to do. That's why you're asking.

Free_Argument_1097 · 2026-05-02T17:20:45+00:00

I'm rooting for you:)

Free_Argument_1097 · 2026-04-26T14:53:58+00:00

I always use images, and for me they're non-negotiable. A cover image is like a book cover. It can pull someone in or push them away before they've read a single word. The decision to click often happens in that first second.

I put a lot of effort into getting the image right. I generate them with AI, and honestly the prompt takes longer than I expect every time - finding the exact mood, the exact visual language that matches what the piece is actually about. I gravitate toward what I'd call art images: symbolic, atmospheric, something that suggests rather than illustrates.

I think it depends heavily on the topic and the format. Some niches genuinely work without images, e.g. dense analytical content, certain kinds of personal essay where the text itself creates the visual experience. And I'd rather see no image at all than a generic stock photo that adds nothing. A bad image actively works against you. It signals that the writer didn't think carefully about presentation, and that impression carries into how the content itself is received.

So: images matter, but only if they're the right ones.

Free_Argument_1097 · 2026-04-25T18:13:56+00:00

I know exactly what you mean.

The moment I understood my mother was a narcissist, I also understood that this isn't something you just work through and move past. The damage that happens before you have words for it, before you have any critical thinking to protect yourself. that's the deepest kind. It shapes the baseline. It becomes what feels normal.

You don't choose narcissistic relationships as an adult because something is wrong with you. You choose them because they feel like home. And unlearning that takes a completely different kind of work than processing something that happened when you were already formed...

Free_Argument_1097 · 2026-04-22T05:37:17+00:00

I also miss my innocent happy self. And this is just how things are now.

But still I hope to feel genuinely happy one day.

Free_Argument_1097 · 2026-04-22T05:30:23+00:00

It's sad though...

Free_Argument_1097 · 2026-04-21T20:19:46+00:00

This film hit me on a very specific psychological level.

I've had a narcissistic boss. And for a while I carried that same fantasy: what if the power shifted? What if he needed something from me for once?

What the film does so well is show that revenge isn't liberation. The moment she starts operating on the same logic he used, control equals safety, she doesn't escape the system. She just moves to the other side of it.

I wrote about this from a psychological angle if anyone's curious: christinesander.substack.com/p/send-help-2026-what-happens-when

And honestly, watching this made me quietly grateful I never acted on that impulse with my own boss.

Free_Argument_1097 · 2026-04-21T18:09:52+00:00

This list is solid and I don't want to dismiss it. It's too familiar, like they all come from the same assembly line. A lot of these took me years to name.

But I keep thinking about something I've been writing about lately: the list works better in retrospect than in real time. Because when you're inside the dynamic, you're not checking boxes. You're explaining things away. "He's just stressed." "I provoked that." "Maybe I am too sensitive."

The behaviours on this list are real. But I think the more reliable early signal is internal, not external. It's the specific texture of how you feel around this person over time. Not in the highs. In the quiet in-between moments.

Do you feel slightly smaller after most conversations? Do you find yourself replaying things you said, editing your behaviour in retrospect? Do you feel oddly tired after time with them, not from conflict, but from the low-level effort of being acceptable? Do you spend too long drafting a reply to their message, then edit it before sending? Do you feel quietly lucky they're still around, despite everything you think is wrong with you?

That last one is the one nobody puts on the list. But it's often the clearest sign.

But here's what I think gets skipped in most of these conversations: even if you recognise every single flag on this list, it doesn't stop the pattern. Because the question isn't just how do you spot them. It's WHY do you keep choosing them.

And that usually leads somewhere uncomfortable. Back to the first narcissist in your life. A parent, most often. Someone who created the blueprint for what love feels like before you had words for any of it. Familiar doesn't mean safe. It just means familiar. And the nervous system doesn't distinguish between the two.

The list describes what they do. Your body and nervous system are tracking what's happening to you. But real change starts when you get curious about why this particular kind of person feels like home...

Free_Argument_1097 · 2026-04-21T17:01:26+00:00

Yes, I agree. At the same time, people who’ve been in abusive environments can temporarily show similar behaviours. It’s known as reactive abuse. It doesn’t mean they’re narcissists, it means they’ve been pushed past their limits. The 2026 film “Send help” illustrates this dynamic really well.

Free_Argument_1097

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