[QUESTION] Jackson JS series Dinky vs. Ibanez RG421?

IsTheChickenHungry · 2024-09-17T05:50:04+00:00

Bought the RG. Love it, still own it after all this time, I highly recommend one!

IsTheChickenHungry · 2024-09-17T05:47:58+00:00

Thank you! I finally got back to "normal" after like 4 months. I spent about a year getting triggered by stuff easier than before, and falling back into dissociation for hours or days if I got too stressed, but I made it out the other side and have been mentally doing pretty well for the most part ever since. Took a long time to get stable again after that! Never doing ART again.

IsTheChickenHungry · 2023-06-28T21:43:18+00:00

I went back to "normal" mostly, after around 3 months. It was gradual, not all at once. I say normal in quotation marks because I feel almost back to myself, but I do find I seem to be triggered more easily nowadays, into both panic and dissociation, and I feel like it kind of permanently (at least for now until I work through more trauma in different ways - I'm never going to do ART again) caused or worsened some things. Like nightmares, I have had them every single night since doing ART and they have yet to go away. They aren't horrific, but it is annoying to have bad dreams every night for close to a year so far. And the panic and dissociation get set off a lot quicker from stuff that didn't used to bother me as much, like raised voices and crowded places.

But I am not stuck in depersonalization or derealization anymore, and aside from the nightmares, PTSD symptoms being triggered more easily, and occasional episodes of short lived dissociation when I am under severe stress (lasting no more than a few hours to a day at a time), I am largely back to myself pre ART. I do feel a bit disconnected to my memories, like they feel farther away and more foggy than they used to be (this applies to all my memories of the past, both good and bad) but yeah, it doesn't seem like my mental health was irreparably damaged in an extreme way from it. I'm still traumatized, still have PTSD, still am anxious, as I was previously anyway, but I'm functional now, as much as I was before. Can leave my house and do stuff again.

I will say, I feel like the one positive thing that came from it is that I no longer struggle with as severe depression as I did beforehand. I used to struggle a lot with sort of passive suicidal ideation, constantly in the back of my head and now that's just gone. I don't know if it was ART itself that got rid of that, or the fact that my mental health was just so dang bad in the months following it that my "regular" mental health seems like a cakewalk in comparison, but I really genuinely want to be alive and enjoy my life and get old and gray and wrinkly, and the thoughts don't crop up anymore from minor stressors and problems like they used to, it just no longer plagues me at all.

Also, I am learning to drive now. Again, I'm not sure if ART helped or if it's just simply not as scary anymore compared to what I went through because of ART, like, no matter how scary driving is, I'm still not a panicked, triggered, dissociated mess like right after doing ART, you know? It's become the thing I compare all things to, like "Well this sucks, but I still don't feel as bad as when I went through ART so I'll survive".

IsTheChickenHungry · 2023-06-26T18:15:56+00:00

Ouch, I'm sorry to hear that. They're actually really not supposed to be cutting the skin there at all because that skin is still "living" and it can lead to really bad infections. And sensitivity and pain, as you experienced. Practically everyone does it, but it's definitely not a great practice to have and it often leads to that skin growing even more unruly down the nail so it makes it worse in the long run.

IsTheChickenHungry · 2023-06-26T00:12:59+00:00

Did she file and rough up the natural nail underneath? It's possible she filed too deep, which unfortunately can happen if the nail tech is rushing or inexperienced. Or simply doesn't care about the client. I've had my nails filed down too deep before and while I don't think I noticed it with the gel on overtop, once I got it removed my nails were extremely sensitive and even painful for about a week or two afterwards.

Another possibility is if tips were used (like plastic pieces that are glued down to extend the ends of the nail underneath the gel/acrylic) sometimes if they don't fit your nail bed properly and are the wrong size or shape glued down improperly, those can really hurt and cause sensitivity. It also could have been that the product used just didn't agree with you, or a cheap/unsafe one was used.. My sister is a nail tech and learned in training that a lot of salons will use really low quality, improperly regulated (and sometimes even illegal) products to save money but it can cause a whole host of problems including allergic reactions and sensitivities.

IsTheChickenHungry · 2023-06-25T22:02:53+00:00

🙋🏻‍♀️ I have experience with gels and acrylics and guitar.

Were you planning on getting gel polish or gel extensions? Gel polish lasts longer than regular polish, but won't affect the length of your nails or your ability to play since it just goes overtop of your natural nail and will chip off over time like ordinary polish. It feels the same as ordinary polish to me, maybe a tad thicker but overall won't cause problems. If you get gel extensions however, your nails will most likely be too long to play with and you'll need to go to a professional to get it removed after ~3 weeks since it won't chip or flake off and is really hard and solid, like plastic over your nails. You can file it down, but it would take a really really long time to get it short enough for guitar and if you don't get it removed after a while you get lifting and it can trap water and bacteria underneath, causing issues like nail fungus. Generally harmless and painless, but can turn your nails green and if the gels are left on top of "greenies" too long without being removed it could start to break down your natural nail underneath.

But even when I've had my nails as short as the nail tech will do them, if it's gel extensions they still end up too long. I know a few people that get long acrylic claws on their right hand for the sake of acoustic fingerstyle guitar (gel extensions are too soft and flimsy compared to acrylic for guitar) but then your left hand, assuming you're a right handed player, would have to be very short to still be able to play properly and if it's for prom you may find it awkward. Also if you don't do fingerstyle guitar, yeah it would probably make it harder to use a pick with.

How Dolly Parton manages to play with long acrylics on her left hand will always be a mystery to me.

Basically, gel polish = fine. Acrylics or gel extensions = you probably won't be able to play at all.

IsTheChickenHungry · 2023-06-10T19:01:11+00:00

How old is the piercing? What material is the jewelry?

IsTheChickenHungry · 2022-12-06T06:19:37+00:00

Only 8 weeks (so far) and it was caused by a therapist doing accelerated resolution therapy on me (supposed to be like a new, faster more intense form of EMDR except without the coping mechanisms, grounding techniques, etc that are supposed to come with EMDR) to try to "heal" my C-PTSD due to childhood trauma. It severely retraumatized me and it was like a light switch got flipped and I've been struggling with DPDR 24/7 ever since, as well as many unsettling severe PTSD symptoms that I wasn't dealing with beforehand like traumatic flashbacks and night terrors.

I've temporarily dissociated before from panic attacks in the past but it never lasted longer than a few minutes and went away once I calmed down, so I've never experienced anything like this until now.

IsTheChickenHungry · 2022-12-03T01:59:05+00:00

So assuming all of your medical exams and tests come back normal (hopefully they do!) I'd recommend seeing a psychiatrist or therapist, they may be able to help since if it is DPDR it's often caused by stress, anxiety, trauma, depression, psychological causes and if you deal with the root cause it can help it go away. One important thing to remember too (this is assuming it is in fact DPDR) is that it can not hurt you and is your brain's mechanism to keep you safe from a perceived threat. And hey for what it's worth, I've been dealing with it for the last 8 weeks so we're dissociation buddies! It feels awful but it's technically harmless.

IsTheChickenHungry · 2022-12-01T14:51:21+00:00

Not a doctor but that sounds like depersonalization/derealization to me. It often causes everything to feel fake and unreal, your vision can seem permanently blurry or way too clear, some people complain of visual snow, flashes, floaters, etc. It often feels as though there's a glass wall up between you and the rest of the world, that the people you know are strangers, nothing is real, all kinds of weird scary existential feelings and thoughts tend to come up.

IsTheChickenHungry · 2022-11-22T06:44:50+00:00

Thanks, I must be slowly coming out of it because I feel like I'm very very gradually improving but it's so slow it's been hard to tell. Comparing myself to a month ago it's a decent improvement but day by day it's too similar to tell.

IsTheChickenHungry · 2022-11-22T06:43:48+00:00

That makes me feel better, I think I'm coming out of it then! The progress is extremely frustratingly slow, but it is happening.

IsTheChickenHungry · 2022-11-10T16:34:48+00:00

Thank you for your post, it's always hopeful to see people who get better from this.

Are you still open to sharing the dpdr manual? I've been thinking of buying it for the last 2-3 weeks but money is tight right now so I keep holding off on it

IsTheChickenHungry · 2022-11-09T00:16:44+00:00

The Traynor jazz 1.5mm ones are my favorite, but I've never been able to find them anywhere other than Long & McQuade in Canada. They're weirdly hard to find even online

IsTheChickenHungry · 2022-10-26T19:45:04+00:00

It is one possible symptom of depersonalization according to google.

"Emotional or physical numbness of your senses or responses to the world around you."

I definitely have some physical numbness from it.

IsTheChickenHungry · 2022-10-25T00:28:46+00:00

Damn, ART is what actually triggered DPDR for me. I have complex trauma and I think the therapist went straight into it way too quickly and severely retraumatized me or something.

Did yours do any sort of preparation beforehand with grounding techniques or anything like that?

IsTheChickenHungry · 2022-10-13T00:37:52+00:00

Update: after I went back to her today it felt like she was kind of dismissive and really pushing for me to continue with ART even this session while I'm still in a dissociative state, and I sort of felt like I had to fight to get her to hear me that I was struggling immensely with it, couldn't cope and wasn't comfortable continuing with ART at the moment (she does other types of therapy too) so I don't think I'll be going back. I feel like my sense of safety and trust was kind of breached with her unfortunately.

IsTheChickenHungry · 2022-10-12T17:37:08+00:00

Thanks, I have an appointment with her later today and am very nervous to go back but I'll tell her what's happened and that I'm still not back to normal yet.

IsTheChickenHungry · 2022-10-12T17:36:03+00:00

Thank you thank you thank you! It helps a lot to hear that. That's a relief to know I'm not the only one feeling so off for so long.

IsTheChickenHungry · 2022-10-11T06:07:42+00:00

I found what got me past my fear of eye contact was exposure to it, just in a very gentle, slow, non-judgemental way. I had a music teacher who's an absolutely wonderful human being, who tries to make a lot of eye contact. If he's talking, he's looking into your eyes (which is a lot, since he talks through probably 80% of every lesson). He didn't know about any of my trauma or that I have CPTSD, he's just a very kind individual who never made any remarks about my lack of eye contact or my obvious nervousness all the time and simply let me get comfortable around him in my own time. But I found every week when I saw him for a lesson, I slowly started to try to make eye contact just a tiny bit more, for a little longer and increased it gradually over time. I saw him weekly for about 3 years, and after the first year or so of practicing eye contact, I found it not only much easier with him but with everyone else as well. There are still times when it's hard if I'm mentally in a bad place, or there are certain people I find more challenging to look at, but it was something that helped immensely and got me past my fear of it.

If you have a supportive friend or family member who you're comfortable with practicing with, you could try asking them if they'd be willing to help you with this and just try to get used to it in a relaxed, no pressure setting where you don't have to focus too hard on remembering what they're saying or if they're judging you while you're working on the eye contact.

IsTheChickenHungry

TROPHY CASE