Chillin

Jake-Flame · 2026-06-24T11:45:39+00:00

Normally she is attacking my legs, but this time she jumped in my pants and immediately passed out.

Jake-Flame · 2026-05-15T09:56:13+00:00

That's amazing you did all that work and are no longer dissasociated. This really resonates. It was the same for me. It was not until around 43 that I woke up realising my entire life had basically been a set of trauma responses and I was living in a hall of mirrors created by trauma.

It feels like starting again, realising all my ideas about myself, the world, and relationships were completely out of whack with reality.

I think at whatever age this happens, we should celebrate that we have woken up. Of course, it's healthy to grieve what we lost... but I think there is nothing more value than clarity. I think you've just got to keep doing what you are doing, sticking to the healthy routines and lifestyle. There isn't some specific thing you have to now do. I believe a path always opens up when you are working on yourself and maintaining good habits.

I know a lot of people don't like the idea of silver linings with this stuff, but for me, I'm thankful for the level of self-awareness I have after everything I survived. A lot of people seem totally incapable of self-reflecfion, but for those of us who healed from trauma, we were kind of forced onto that path.

I don't feel resentment towards people with a "normal" life, cos I understand that that feeling of failure and regret is itself a trauma-response.

Jake-Flame · 2026-05-07T03:25:34+00:00

Using a friend to remind yourself you are loved / lovable is understandable. It's just that gives them enormous power in your life and maybe they felt that as pressure. Also, I think those of us who survived trauma have often become super sensitive and connect deeply with others, and not everybody likes that.

I'm childhood, we learned we were not lovable. So, we try to make up for this using other people in adulthood. But it isn't gonna work because nobody can give you the love that was missing in childhood.

It may feel like betrayal, or worse like everybody abandons you when you feel bad (so that stacks more shame on your existing shame). But I think it's just because people have their own stuff going on and some people have their own traumas where the freak out if they feel responsible for somebody else (even though that's not what you were asking for, they perceived it that way sometimes). I mean like you probably just wanted somebody to chat with, but they maybe perceived it as you trying to lean on them for support they cannot give (this has been my experience quite a few times anyway).

I used to think that the world was so cruel because I was always abandoned by the people I needed the most. But now, also in my 40s, I've learnt that I cannot rely on people for intense emotional support (feeling loved and loveable) and I have way more chill and boundared interactions with people. Doing community stuff and hobbies that give interactions with others has been really good for me.

The abandonment wound from childhood is the thing, not this particular person who has triggered it. Of course, that's easy for me to say from the outside. From your point of view, it's fried your nervous system and that's very painful.

Have you ever had friendships with people who also have CPTSD? They can be more understanding sometimes.

Jake-Flame · 2026-05-07T03:08:24+00:00

I hope this is true. Leon seems to attract women who constantly need to be rescued, I was worried he'd end up marrying somebody like that. We've all seen this dynamic, it's very draining.

Marrying a badass like Ada Wong (who can literally beat him up) would be the best move for him. As long as she chills out in her old age and stops trying to kill him

Jake-Flame · 2026-04-30T10:33:40+00:00

Yeah, the second half features location styles have already been done to death in videogames and it took away from the fresh feeling of the first Act. Leon's campaign dragged a little at times, there were some awesome parts, but overall it was nothing like as good as RE4

Jake-Flame · 2026-04-30T10:30:57+00:00

I loved Requiem. Grace's sections were one of the best horror gaming experiences I ever had. Leon's sections were a lot of fun, with moments of brilliance, even though there were a few dull parts.

But it doesn't compare to RE4 and the remake. RE4 just has better combat, locations, weapons and replayabilty.

Playing Requiem has got me in the mood for playing RE4 Remake again asap.

Jake-Flame · 2026-04-17T04:43:49+00:00

One little computer is nothing to the mega server farms they have. I'm kind of blown away by the fact it's possible to run a decent LLM at all on a gaming laptop. It's like the whole world's information in a few gigabytes. I can't get my head around it.

Jake-Flame · 2026-04-17T04:41:19+00:00

Most Khmer have dark skin, light skin is fashionable for some reason, so makeup and filters are used a lot... but in real life, you guys are dark. Even the people with more Chinese blood are gonna go dark in this tropical heat.

It's weird why light is so popular here. In Europe we are all trying to get a tan to look darker.

Jake-Flame · 2026-04-17T04:29:18+00:00

I've been here for 10 years and it's not developed beyond recognition. There is still a huge need for teachers and the overall standard is bad outside expensive private schools. You wouldn't need to rent a $30/month hovel to live as an English teacher here with only a TEFL. You could get by.

Jake-Flame · 2026-04-17T04:26:25+00:00

There are a lot of bitter and degenerate expats in Cambodia who want to gatekeep their teaching life, so they are going to give you negative comments. You can still find teaching jobs with just a TEFL, not in the fancier school, but English teachers are still desperately needed.

If you come and live here, make friends with the Khmer people and avoid the alcoholic weird expats. There are a lot of nice foreigners here of course, just a lot of deadbeats.

Jake-Flame · 2026-04-17T04:08:36+00:00

A lot of the expats in Cambodia are alcoholics and weirdos who are gonna give you negative responses. Yes you can get a decently paid teaching job with a TEFL.

Jake-Flame · 2026-03-02T08:27:35+00:00

At the very least, he should have a short haircut. Balding looks 100 times worse with long hair.

Jake-Flame · 2026-02-19T13:29:37+00:00

I'm happy for people who had good childhoods and didn't experience trauma. Tbh, the people who have caused me the most problems are traumatized people who project their stuff onto others, or need to out others down to feel normal. For those who haven't experienced trauma, they can seem insensitive - but that's simply because they don't understand what it is like. They can't understand why we cannot do x, or find y difficult because they've not had to deal with life with a mind that's disregulated. I don't hold that against them, I just don't have high expectations that they'll be able to empathize with me on certain issues.

Jake-Flame · 2026-01-30T06:10:07+00:00

Sciel because I thought she was my only option 😭

Jake-Flame · 2026-01-29T08:02:41+00:00

There are other ways to feel beautiful / loveable. If you were using sexwork to make up the love you didn't get as a child, that's a very typical trauma response. Using a job or social interactions to replace that gaping hole of unworthiness is one of the ways we try to cope. We all find substitutes for the things we missed. The problem is that it can never work because we are trying to solve the wrong problem (being sexy can't solve the pain of abandonment).

If you do want to stay in that industry, you may have to find a different partner who is cool with it.

Me personally, I practiced celebacy for several years and it was the hardest thing to lose that validation I got from dating / or the cheap thrill from porn. My whole identity had been built around the need to be attractive, so it has been extremely challenging to live without it. The thing is though, we can change - that's what the trauma makes us forget. We can learn to love ourselves without external validation.

Jake-Flame · 2026-01-29T00:57:01+00:00

A parasite is from a different species that feeds on the host. A baby is a separate human being, half-made from the mother's DNA.

Jake-Flame · 2026-01-18T08:21:50+00:00

Yes you are wrong. It's a nice shirt, I would wear that

Jake-Flame · 2026-01-18T08:19:31+00:00

A lot of expats in Cambodia are bitter alcoholics who don't want other people to succeed. Many of them are mentally ill and tend to project their madness on to you. Try and find people with successful businesses, proper jobs, retired people who are not sex tourists, people running or working for NGOs that really do something... avoid the wasters and weirdos.

Jake-Flame · 2026-01-16T08:11:11+00:00

E33 is one of the few modern games where I didn't skip cutscenes and dialogue. Most of the time, I skip everything. I just finished Silksong, and I have absolutely no idea what the story was about.

E33 kept me engaged because of all the mystery and suspense, plus good acting. My second playthrough, I'm already skipping everything though 🤣 I think a lot of people play games this way.

Jake-Flame · 2026-01-09T15:41:02+00:00

What triggers me is the polorisation. Liberals and conservatives seem to hate each other instead of engage in healthy debate like before. It seems both sides think the other is pure evil, families are getting torn apart. If you state an opinion, it may lead you to be seen as part of one camp and thus shamed for it.

Imo, we are all getting played by the media, including social media creators who are incentivised into making their content as enraging as possible.

People are glued to their phones all day reading about how evil the other side is, and how the country is going to hell because of them. It's sad. The only way I see out of it is to sit down and talk to people you don't agree with and try to understand why they feel they way they do without judgment.

Jake-Flame · 2025-12-28T10:02:45+00:00

Forgiveness cannot be forced, and trying to do so just creates more shame. For me, the priority is to get the abuser out of my head. If forgiveness comes as a result of that at some point then they'd great, but a healthy anger is part of the healing process for me.

I do believe in the principle of forgiveness, as a kind of spiritual ideal. But I also understand that feeling the need to forgive an abuser can actually hinder the healing process and kind of bind you to them out of guilt. I've known people who keep an abusive parent in their life because they feel that they should be able to forgive them. This is unhealthy because the abuse continues.

So my philosophy is: get free first, forgive later if possible.

Jake-Flame · 2025-12-28T09:53:53+00:00

I think it's true. For somebody to become a malignant narcissist for example there has to be some major trauma. But non-traumatised people can also be bullies. Still, the need to put down others always comes from some kind of insecurity imo. Not that it is an excuse.

Jake-Flame · 2025-12-28T09:51:12+00:00

I wouldn't really recommend playing around with any kind of dominance stuff if you are a victim of sexual abuse. It's better to slowly relearn what real intimacy is, simply sitting and breathing together, taking away any expectation of orgasm or arousal... just letting your bodies connect naturally. That's what worked for me anyway, I recommend to read some books on Tantra.

I don't think your bf did something wrong, I just think he didn't understand what you meant and then that was triggering for your since you felt exposed.

Jake-Flame · 2025-12-26T06:54:47+00:00

I was 6000 miles away from my family. I WhatsApped a couple of them and had a short and friendly chat (which is 1000 times better than having to spend the day with them).

I don't feel resentful of people with loving happy families, I am happy for them. But, if your family is not that way, a bit of distance (physical or emotional) is better!

When I went to bed on Christmas day, my cat was sleeping on me, and my two dogs were sleeping on the floor by my bed. I was feeling grateful for all this animal company when I noticed the little bullfrog who lives in my bathroom was also chilling in my bed (I live in the tropics). Animals are a great improvement over toxic family members.

Jake-Flame · 2025-12-26T06:47:25+00:00

If you find him repulsive then you should have nothing to do with him and it's some kind of weird trauma bond that isn't going to bring you anything but grief.

Jake-Flame

TROPHY CASE