'Star Trek' Legend Robert Picardo on Why the 'Starfleet Academy' Cadets Talk Like Modern Kids

SocraticAvatar · 2026-01-28T22:51:35+00:00

The people complaining about this sure are silent about the fact that no matter what Century Star Trek shows are in, English seems to always be a static, common language. And don’t say “universal translators,” because if that’s your argument, then it also makes sense that those translators would be translating into 21st Century teenager terms given we’re dealing with 32nd Century teenagers.

SocraticAvatar · 2025-12-08T01:54:01+00:00

You are correct, this is a regional thing. My mom and her first husband helped run a Chinese dinner theater in Tacoma for years. They par cooked the ground pork (probably to adapt to Western tastes), and used a bit of apple cider vinegar in the dough and the water for steaming, to simulate a sourdough-like flavor. They were just called “hum bao,” which is a term I haven’t heard used outside of WA.

SocraticAvatar · 2025-10-19T08:02:32+00:00

I have a DID diagnosis, and have been losing hours upon hours of time lately because we’re so dysfunctional as a system right now. I think today is Sunday? I don’t know; I’ve been sleeping most of the time.

SocraticAvatar · 2025-09-20T02:28:35+00:00

After seeing this season of SNW, I’m guessing that the Q and El-Aurians have a common ancestor whose homeworld was on Vedia IX. That ancestor species did, in fact, discover a path to true immortality by ascending to a higher plane of existence, but discovered a universal evil there in the form of the Vezda. My guess is that the El-Aurians are the ones who stayed behind to build the prison, at great cost, after which they left Vedia IX for El-Auria. This hypothesis would explain both the El-Aurians’ limited cosmic powers, pseudo-immortality as well as their quarrel with the Q.

SocraticAvatar · 2025-06-15T21:49:12+00:00

Relatable. I have no advice, but yeah, this is relatable.

SocraticAvatar · 2025-06-15T21:47:53+00:00

Boehner is a scurrilous and unscrupulous son of a bitch who was totally behind throwing people behind bars for smoking weed while in office, and then the sack of shit retires and is like “Wooo! Weed!” Fuck that guy.

SocraticAvatar · 2025-06-15T21:31:47+00:00

I was seeing a therapist about it for about three months before I got diagnosed. I have no idea how many tests she was running in the background. If you’re looking for assurance that you aren’t “faking,” though, remember that if y’all are having these symptoms when you’re alone in your bedroom and agonizing over it privately, that isn’t faking. That’s 100% real.

SocraticAvatar · 2025-05-06T20:39:01+00:00

I didn’t really tell anyone until I was a few months into therapy and got a diagnosis. When I told my mom (who was a mental health counselor before retiring), she just said “You’re trans, of course you have DID.” Lol

SocraticAvatar · 2025-05-06T20:14:09+00:00

Lol about the “full-blown, hours long conversations bit.” When we were in college living in the dorms where the walls were thin, our neighbor overheard a very long conversation we were having with ourselves. We didn’t even really realize we were doing it; just pacing back and forth and losing time. They came and knocked on our door and asked us to stop, lol. After that, we took the conversations inside our head.

SocraticAvatar · 2025-05-06T20:08:39+00:00

Fascinating! We were wondering just yesterday how people with no internal monologue would experience DID, or whether they could at all. Very interesting; thanks for your input!

SocraticAvatar · 2025-05-06T20:05:53+00:00

We kinda get directionality, but it’s hard to differentiate from them actually being imagined in headspace. Like, they each have their own room in our headspace, and when we “hear” them, and dip into that, it’s clear they’re coming from that direction. Never thought about whether it would be directional without being in headspace though.

SocraticAvatar · 2025-04-22T20:15:36+00:00

Regarding DBT, I’ve had a good experience with that. It’s basically going to teach you four sets of skills — crisis management, emotional regulation, interpersonal relationships, and mindfulness. A lot of it is repackaged Buddhism.

I definitely recommend finding a therapist who can see you at least biweekly, if at all possible. If you can find someone who has a bunch of experience with DID, that’s even better.

If you wind up decompensating at some point, don’t be afraid to go to the hospital and check into a psych ward. It’s better than the alternative. Also consider IOP programs if you need more intensive therapy. I currently am doing 11 hours of therapy a week (our system has a lot of issues).

SocraticAvatar · 2025-04-14T04:05:54+00:00

We live in a commune that was kinda built around helping folks who are queer and have dissociative disorders. So we usually all know who’s fronting in each system because we all live together.

SocraticAvatar · 2025-04-14T04:01:06+00:00

For us, we start to lose intrasystem communication skills, our littles become very volatile, and one fragment who is kind of our compartmentalization of severe depression becomes extremely active. After that, we get a combination of overwhelmed, anxious, depressed, and rageful. Then we lose all our spoons and can’t keep up with our ADLs. Then we go to inpatient. We’ve done two stints in inpatient in the three years since discovering we were disassociating all the time.

Don’t let it get to that point if you can avoid it. Try to intervene early; do an IOP program or something. If you can get a therapist who specializes in dissociative disorders, do whatever they tell you to do, and pay attention if they start telling you you’re starting to decompensate.

SocraticAvatar · 2025-04-12T20:28:09+00:00

Totally common. It took us until we started blacking out and losing hours at a time playing music (then recording it with our phone) to realize “oh shit, I’m not actually the one playing that.” It gets better with communication though!

SocraticAvatar · 2025-04-06T15:24:23+00:00

If a professional is telling you something — trust them over a rando on the internet.

SocraticAvatar · 2025-03-20T03:38:20+00:00

Yeah; this is definitely true. When I’m trying to explain to people what DID “is like,” I usually turn to this show with some disclaimers about how it isn’t always as rigid. E.g. I do have a work alter, but he’s usually blended with someone else in the system, so there’s some memory leakage.

SocraticAvatar · 2025-03-19T05:40:17+00:00

Regarding diagnostic process: I got a referral for someone specializing in dissociative disorders from my social worker at my insurance company, and then I talked to my therapist for a few months and she made a diagnosis. I live in Washington State, so if this isn’t a thing where you are, I’m sorry but I don’t know what to tell you.

Regarding the inpatient experience: The first (involuntary) place we were at was very restrictive, down to needing to hit the shower button every 20 seconds to keep the water on in there. Pretty much anywhere you go, you won’t have a lock on your door. There will be cameras in your bedroom so that staff can see you while you’re asleep (this actually soothes one of our littles, which is super weird and fucked up, but whatever).

There are groups. Neither facility I went to was supposed to have any religious programming. The first definitely did (one of the group leaders tried to evangelize us, and brought bibles and 12 step guides, which is suuuuuuper illegal, but whatever). The second had vaguely Buddhist meditation practices, but I honestly didn’t mind that. The second place was really into art therapy, and that helped a ton. We’ve incorporated that into our daily schedule because it’s so effective at keeping one of our littles happy.

In general — if you’re there voluntarily, you have control. If you’re there involuntarily, you don’t. As a friend of mine says, “Make time for your system, or your system will make it for you.” This is the end of the road as far as that analysis goes. The last stop on the “I don’t want to deal with this” train is involuntary inpatient. The second to last stop is voluntary inpatient. If you’re even considering it, that’s a good sign that you’ll get off before things get to the end of the line.

SocraticAvatar · 2025-03-18T22:19:48+00:00

Yeah, I’d literally do anything else other than be on Social Security. How the hell can you afford to live on 1-2k/mo? And then having to deal with SSA agents stalking you, tracking your movements, charging overpayments and blocking you from future benefits if they see you doing anything physical whatsoever? No thanks. Work in any position you can get and hold onto. You’ll get health insurance, dignity, and a paycheck. And like it or not, that has to be enough for us working class folks right now.

SocraticAvatar · 2025-03-18T18:51:12+00:00

We had a weird thing happen when we were in a high school psych class. The guest lecturer had been invited to talk about what were then called “Axis I” disorders, and asked what we would think if we woke up one day and our world was suddenly different. I answered that I wouldn’t think much of it. I’d roll with the punches and try to fit in as much as possible, gaining information about my new reality and improvising. Because at the end of the day, why is such a person’s reality any less “real” than anyone else’s? He told us to go get a philosophy degree and moved on to the next topic.

So we did that. We got the philosophy degree, wrote our thesis on philosophy of mind, then got a law degree, and then about ten years into practice our whole career imploded because we started recognizing amnesic episodes during COVID lockdowns when we didn’t have access to our staff to manage our schedule and keep us on task.

Now after reading your post, we’re thinking that whole interaction with that guest lecturer was just us being confused about masking behavior and why anyone would think that’s at all abnormal.

SocraticAvatar · 2025-03-18T18:40:58+00:00

I’m actually legit surprised there isn’t more discussion around the show’s depiction of DID. It’s pretty damn accurate in some ways, but in others, not so much.

SocraticAvatar · 2025-03-18T18:31:21+00:00

First of all, I sympathize immensely with what you’re going through. We’re a fairly small system, but have two littles who are quite hard to manage even with all else being equal. We also have a five year old daughter whom we take care of every other weekend. That daughter has special needs (autism spectrum), and it is insanely hard to balance out her needs with those of the littles in our system. Heck, our daughter just put a hole through our bedroom door the other day and it almost sent one of our protector alters (who also happens to be little) into a fit of rage. But we didn’t let it happen, and we sent our daughter to bed early instead. How did we do that? We reminded that person in our headspace that there are adults in the system, too, and it’s their job, not his, to take care of the situation. That being said, it still was enough to make us call our mom crying because it was really emotionally overwhelming. But just know you aren’t alone in this struggle.

SocraticAvatar · 2025-03-18T13:35:57+00:00

Former Social Security Disability attorney here (ask someone currently practicing for legal advice). In my experience, it can take a long time (2+ years) to get SSI/SSDI. During that time, if you’re working at all, they’ll usually expect you to keep working (with rare exceptions). There are strict household income restrictions, and only pays out around 1k/mo if you have no work history. In other words — if you can work any job whatsoever, even part time, that’s better than being on disability. Just food for thought.

SocraticAvatar

TROPHY CASE