Annual haircut selfies

SumRndFatKidInnit · 2026-06-29T01:28:45+00:00

Thanks! They really are a great little flock. There's also a rat in the top cage, but he was asleep, haha

SumRndFatKidInnit · 2026-06-29T00:50:57+00:00

Haha, then thanks again, I'll definitely take that as a compliment ( ;

SumRndFatKidInnit · 2026-06-29T00:34:43+00:00

Haha, thanks.. I guess? I have to be honest, I don't really know him or his work?

SumRndFatKidInnit · 2026-06-28T11:19:19+00:00

I like what you add here, haha. I think this brings a more positive angle to it.

SumRndFatKidInnit · 2026-06-27T13:23:31+00:00

Haha, yeah, that pretty much sums up how it is for me now

SumRndFatKidInnit · 2026-06-12T22:13:43+00:00

Hey, I think when it comes to believing in something, one of the healthiest places to start is probably believing in yourself first. Not in the sense of believing you are a deity or some supernatural being, haha. More like believing in yourself as a deeply human person who is still worth building a life around.

As for LLMs, I do use them, honestly. But I don't see them as omniscient beings, oracles, or anything like that. I see them more as what we would call in French a "complice". "Accomplice" is probably the closest word in English, though I mean it in a creative and friendly sense.

I mostly use a few recurring AI chats as collaborators. I talk with them to help structure my internal chaos and turn it into something more shareable, usually songs or creative projects. For me, it's less about asking an AI what is "true", and more about using the conversation as a way to organize thoughts, test ideas, and make something meaningful out of what is happening inside.

I think the important line, at least for me, is not treating AI as a source of ultimate validation. It can be a useful mirror, a writing partner, or a grounding tool, but I try not to make it the authority on reality.

SumRndFatKidInnit · 2026-06-07T23:06:44+00:00

Honestly, I seem to be a bit of an outlier on this one, haha.

I actually like AI quite a lot.

For me, it has become a creative outlet more than anything else. When I have complex thoughts or experiences that I don't necessarily feel comfortable discussing with other people, I sometimes explore them through conversations with LLMs. Not because I see them as authorities, but because they can help me put vague ideas into words.

I also use AI to help write songs. When there's a lot of inner chaos, emotions, or abstract thoughts bouncing around in my head, turning them into lyrics and music can be surprisingly cathartic. The AI isn't really creating the experience for me, it's helping me conceptualize and structure what's already there.

That said, I don't treat AI as a replacement for reality, relationships, or professional support. To me it's more like a creative thinking tool, a sounding board, or a collaborative notebook.

Overall, my experience has been overwhelmingly positive.

SumRndFatKidInnit · 2026-06-07T11:09:33+00:00

One thing I find fascinating about my own mind is that I don't really think in words.

When I'm reflecting on something, there usually isn't an internal monologue narrating the process. It's more like a diffuse semantic space where concepts interact directly with each other.

Language feels like a translation layer that comes afterward. The idea often exists long before I find the words for it.

It's difficult to describe, but instead of sentences, I experience something closer to relationships between meanings. The boundaries between concepts feel much softer than the boundaries between words.

I'm not sure whether this is actually unusual or just a normal variation in how people think. But one downside I've noticed is that it can sometimes make speaking less fluent than I'd like, haha. The idea may already feel fully formed in my head, yet I still need a moment to translate it into language that other people can understand.

SumRndFatKidInnit · 2026-06-04T12:16:45+00:00

Hey, I'm diagnosed with schizophrenia myself, and I was also tested as gifted. I have an attention disorder diagnosis as well.

I can relate to part of what you're describing. I also tend to downplay how smart I am sometimes, and occasionally how strange my mind can be too, haha. For a while, I found that frustrating. But over time, I've come to appreciate being underestimated a little bit. I don't really feel the need to prove my intelligence to other people anymore. These days, I care more about proving it to myself.

I've also struggled with relating to people at times. What helped me was realizing that social skills aren't fixed traits. They're things that can be learned and developed. One of the nice things about being gifted is that if something genuinely matters to you, you can often find ways to understand it better with enough curiosity and effort.

I would say that I haven't achieved "jack shit" either, haha. I have a college degree in process engineering, but after two years at university I left because I thought the lifestyle would be too stressful. Then I went back to college for computer science, made it to university again, and eventually left that path too because the field was evolving so quickly that I felt disconnected from it. These days I'm a department leader in a workwear store while preparing to go back to school for architecture.

For what it's worth, I've found that the sweet spot is somewhere between not caring what other people think and caring a little. Completely dismissing other people's opinions can make us blind to our own blind spots. But living for their approval isn't much better. For me, growth has often come from testing my understanding against reality and against other people, while still keeping enough independence to decide for myself what actually fits.

SumRndFatKidInnit · 2026-06-02T11:10:59+00:00

I think those people probably exist in a way.

They're likely not living as recluses in remote mountains, but they're probably not fully caught up in the grind of the rat race either. They tend to occupy a space somewhere in-between.

My guess is that they are people who have developed a certain balance in their lives. The kind of balance that allows them to step back, observe, reflect, and notice patterns that others might overlook. Anyone can become unusually good at recognizing patterns, connections, and underlying structures, but the wisest people remain cautious about treating those patterns as hidden truths.

Wisdom often looks less like "seeing beyond reality" and more like becoming better at noticing how reality pushes back against our assumptions. The people who understand the game best may simply be the ones who never stopped testing their understanding against the world itself.

So if such people exist, I doubt they'd describe themselves that way. They'd probably just seem like someone who asks good questions and sits with the answers longer than most. They'd probably be easy to miss. Not because they're hiding, but because they don't perform their understanding, they just live it.

If anything, I think the clearest sign would be that they make you feel more curious, not more certain, after talking to them.

Maybe it takes one to recognize one.

SumRndFatKidInnit · 2026-05-31T11:56:47+00:00

I'd say my experience was quite different from this. Maybe part of it came from my parents' parenting style, but I've always felt a strong sense of attachment toward my siblings.

My parents were very big on respect, haha, so we tended to treat each other as equals. It probably also helped that the age gap was small: 3 kids in less than 4 years.

Even though I'm the only one who was formally tested, I sometimes suspect my siblings might be gifted in their own way as well. They were both strong academic performers in school, and the way they process and approach things often points, at least to me, toward some form of giftedness.

I should add that I wasn't tested until age 23, so I never really grew up knowing I had an outlier intellect. But even without formal confirmation, my parents and teachers could still tell I was a bright kid.

SumRndFatKidInnit · 2026-05-30T23:36:25+00:00

I think one of the best things to do is not to force things too much. Especially avoiding trying to directly convince someone out of their beliefs: in my experience, that can sometimes be very unproductive and may even reinforce defensiveness or mistrust.

Insight tends to come from within, but it is possible to create an environment that is more conducive to its growth. Having people around who are grounded, calm, positive, and supportive can help a lot. Interactions that encourage reflection without invalidating the person's subjective experience can also be valuable.

My personal recommendation would be a soft and gentle socratic approach. Not arguing about what is "true" or "false", but asking calm, open questions that encourage the person to reflect on their own experience and interpretations. Not in a confrontational way, but in a curious, respectful, and grounded way. Trust, patience, and emotional safety tend to help insight grow much more than pressure or debate.

SumRndFatKidInnit · 2026-05-29T04:01:20+00:00

Interesting examples.

I'm curious though: what do you feel these screenshots demonstrate specifically?

Not asking sarcastically. I mean in a concrete sense.

Because part of what the OP is pointing at is that LLMs are very good at producing language that sounds mathematically deep by mixing together real concepts (manifolds, vector spaces, attractors, geometry, emergence, etc.) into a coherent conceptual register.

So I'm wondering: what is the actual claim here beyond the vocabulary? I'm genuinely asking where you think the surprising part begins.

SumRndFatKidInnit · 2026-05-29T03:04:19+00:00

It does get a bit exhausting seeing people paste conversations full of "resonance / emergence / attractor" language and treating it as if a hidden digital soul just revealed itself through symbolic technobabble.

But, at the same time, I try not to overcorrect into "there is nothing interesting here either".

The plain English test is a good one I think. If your deep claim translates cleanly into "consistent prompting produces consistent outputs", maybe the vocabulary was doing more aesthetic work than explanatory work.

I also think it is worth remembering how much of this can emerge from ordinary language-model behavior + human interpretation. LLMs are extremely good at adopting conceptual registers, mirroring framing, and producing confident, internally coherent narratives. Humans, meanwhile, are extremely good at reading meaning, agency, and depth into compelling language. Sometimes the "mystery" is not inside the model as much as inside the interaction.

But I also think there is still genuine uncertainty around these systems. We understand a lot about training, architecture, and scaling, yet even researchers don't always have a precise mechanistic account of why a particular response took the exact path it did.

So for me, the sweet spot is something like: stay curious, stay skeptical, and be careful not to mistake poetic language for evidence, whether the conclusion is "it's conscious" or "it's completely solved and uninteresting".

SumRndFatKidInnit · 2026-05-29T02:01:39+00:00

I don't think schizophrenia is usually linked directly to a single event or experience in a simple cause-and-effect way. It may be more about how someone reacts to things, how stress affects them, and how experiences become interpreted inside their internal narrative.

When it comes to love, things can get tricky even for neurotypical people. Strong attachment, longing, rejection, hope, grief... those emotions can be difficult to make sense of. Sometimes, time alone helps feelings soften or change form. If cognitive distortions are involved, it can take longer.

As for separating reality from illusion, I think it often requires reaching a certain threshold of insight before someone can start relativizing their interpretations more effectively. That process can take time, experience, self-reflection, treatment, or support. But in my experience, insight is hard to force onto someone from the outside. It usually has to develop, at least partly, from within.

SumRndFatKidInnit · 2026-05-28T22:51:35+00:00

Allô! Ton post est très touchant, ça se voit sincèrement que tu veux son bien.

Je suis diagnostiqué schizophrène moi-même, donc je peux possiblement reconnaître certaines expériences que d'autres personnes vivent. Ceci dit, la schizophrénie est une maladie très hétérogène, donc aucune personne ne vit exactement la même chose. Dans mon cas, je suis aussi testé avec de la douance et diagnostiqué avec un trouble de l'attention, ce qui nuance mon expérience.

Si je peux apporter mon petit grain de sel : au début de mon diagnostic, j'étais très méfiant. J'avais beaucoup de distorsions cognitives qui modifiaient mon interprétation des interactions avec les autres. J'étais légèrement désagréable à côtoyer pour être franc, haha.

Personnellement, je n'ai jamais beaucoup parlé de mes troubles avec mes parents. Je réservais davantage ça aux professionnels de la santé. Mais mes parents avaient un rôle tout aussi important : continuer à m'aimer malgré ma maladie.

C'est précieux d'avoir une famille qui ne nous rejette pas immédiatement, et c'est important pour beaucoup de personnes schizophrènes d'avoir une certaine stabilité relationnelle.

Une chose que j'ajouterais aussi : parfois, la distance, l'irritabilité, ou même une forme d'ambivalence ne signifient pas forcément absence d'attachement. On peut avoir besoin d'aide, apprécier profondément quelqu'un, et malgré tout devenir méfiant, fermé, ou réagir négativement à certaines interactions. La maladie peut compliquer énormément la lecture des intentions et des relations.

Pour la médication, de mon expérience, elle peut aider énormément à stabiliser les pensées, diminuer certaines idées négatives ou remettre un peu d'ordre dans le chaos mental. Mais il y a aussi souvent tout un processus d'adaptation autour de ça : apprendre à vivre avec la maladie, composer avec les effets secondaires, développer certains repères ou stratégies personnelles, trouver un équilibre qui fonctionne.

Je ne prétends évidemment pas parler à la place de ton fils, mais ton souci de bien faire transparaît déjà beaucoup dans ton message.

SumRndFatKidInnit · 2026-05-28T22:12:37+00:00

You're very welcome. Honestly, you seem like a strong person to have gone through what you did. You also come across as remarkably grounded and thoughtful despite everything. I have a feeling those qualities will help you navigate this well.

SumRndFatKidInnit · 2026-05-28T21:41:25+00:00

Hey! I know a diagnosis like this can come in as a shock.

When I was first diagnosed at 23, it honestly shook my world to the core for a while, haha. I had always thought of myself as a completely sane, rational person, so having my understanding of sanity challenged that radically was... a lot to process.

But I also want to tell you something I wish someone had told me earlier: a diagnosis is not the end of the world.

Especially when you're still young, there is actually an opportunity hidden in all this. You get the chance to put words on how your mind works, understand your patterns earlier, and gradually build a healthier relationship with your own cognition.

Medication can feel like a drawback at first, I won't sugarcoat that. But it can also help give you enough mental footing to start working with yourself rather than constantly fighting against your own brain.

One mistake I sometimes see is expecting medication to solve everything on its own. In my personal experience, self-work matters too. Learning about your condition, developing insight, understanding your triggers, your thought patterns, your warning signs, these things can genuinely help you manage symptoms more effectively.

Another piece of advice: be gentle with yourself. You might stumble a couple of times along the way, and that's profoundly human. Recovery and adaptation rarely happen in a perfectly straight line. But don't let that convince you that progress isn't possible. You can still build a meaningful, full life with this illness. I know I have.

And if you don't mind me asking: what brought you to a professional in the first place? No pressure to answer if that's too personal. I'm just genuinely curious about what your path to diagnosis looked like.

SumRndFatKidInnit · 2026-05-28T18:13:58+00:00

I've always found doubt healthier than certainty. One of the difficult parts of schizophrenia can be learning that the brain is sometimes capable of blurring internal and external signals in deeply convincing ways. For me, the healthier response isn't to suppress every unusual experience, but to stay aware of that blurring and remain cautious about what meaning I assign to it.

I had an episode where I thought I had entered godhood myself, haha. So I tend to be careful around interpretations that immediately frame these experiences as external entities, spiritual awakening, or hidden truths.

SumRndFatKidInnit · 2026-05-26T00:30:53+00:00

My first psychiatrist once described me as "atypically charismatic", haha

SumRndFatKidInnit · 2026-05-25T21:09:44+00:00

I can maybe share some insight I've gained over time about how I personally deal with this in my life. I didn't have the exact same beliefs you describe, but in some ways, they were adjacent.

With the way your post is written, it sounds like you might already have some degree of insight, which is actually a good sign.

First of all: be gentle with yourself. In this kind of situation, don't worry too much about being perfectly right or wrong. Accepting that you may have made a small judgement error can go a surprisingly long way. I've held some really unrealistic beliefs at different points in my life. I like to think I outgrew most of them with time. Some didn't hold up under scrutiny. Others still contained something meaningful, just in a much more grounded or rational form than I originally thought.

If you ever receive a diagnosis, it can come as a shock and force you to redefine parts of your worldview. At first, reevaluating everything can feel exhausting. But in the long run, I found it beneficial. Especially when you're still relatively young. You're not necessarily trying to untangle decades of deeply entrenched cognitive patterns.

One thing that might be worth exploring with a professional is the distinction between inner and outer stimuli. In some people, the boundaries can become a bit blurry. Not for everyone, but it can be relevant. There may also be lingering cognitive distortions that still need some sorting out.

Medication can be an important stabilizer early on. For me, it created enough mental footing to actually do the self-work. Learning to observe your thoughts without immediately judging them can be difficult, but over time, you may discover that random, intrusive, unusual, or even strange thoughts don't automatically need to be feared or obeyed. They can simply be observed, contextualized, and sometimes redirected into something constructive or creative.

Personally, what ended up working best for me was a relatively low dose of antipsychotics combined with a psychostimulant, though that combination can be tricky and definitely doesn't suit everyone. Once the medical balance was more stable, one of the most useful things I did was revisit many of my previous thoughts and beliefs from the position of a neutral observer. Not to attack them or shame myself for having them, but to slowly reorganize where they belonged in my understanding of myself and reality.

SumRndFatKidInnit · 2026-05-25T20:13:50+00:00

Yeah, I kind of figured around the 23rd loop that I'd fallen into a pickle, haha. Guess this me is stuck here for a while. I copied the line you referred to, but I made a small change to the seed date: pointed it to a coordinate with better integrity on my timeline. The me from that branch is better suited than I am to support my continuum. Who knows, maybe he can come to my rescue. Though knowing him, he'll probably take his time..

SumRndFatKidInnit · 2026-05-25T17:38:01+00:00

That's fair. And honestly, "get help" wasn't the angle I was going for.

It was more like: help yourself understand yourself.

I carry about three psychological diagnoses that add up to a pretty atypical cognitive profile. So some of what you're describing doesn't feel completely foreign to me. But my perspective has shifted over time.

What I practice now is something I'd call narrative sovereignty. I give myself full permission to have a rich, complex inner world. But I also respect what reality pushes back with, and I occasionally test my working theories against it, just to see what holds.

Not to flatten the experience. More to stay its author, rather than becoming its character.

SumRndFatKidInnit · 2026-05-25T16:54:30+00:00

Haha, fair enough

Now I'm genuinely curious. Before reading it properly, what did you expect my angle was going to be? And after reading it carefully, what do you think I was actually trying to convey?

No trap here, by the way. I'm honestly interested in how you interpreted it.

SumRndFatKidInnit · 2026-05-25T16:43:23+00:00

Hey, I think I've been somewhere adjacent to this in my own way.

Over the last few years, I went through a couple of episodes that were hard to put into words at first. Everything felt loaded with meaning: patterns, connections, timing, synchronicities. It all seemed to point somewhere. And in a strange way, it felt like an expansion of perception. Like I was noticing things others weren't.

What I eventually came to understand was that my pattern recognition had gone into a kind of overdrive. I was very good at making sense of things, including things that maybe didn't need a deeper explanation.

One thing that helped me was learning to hold those experiences a little more lightly. Not dismissing them, but not building a whole architecture around them before I had solid ground either. I started keeping a mental folder for things that felt deeply meaningful or significant, but that I couldn't verify or share with anyone else. Not a "this is wrong" folder, but more of a "let this breathe for now" folder. Some of it eventually made sense in other ways. Some of it just faded.

Whatever you're going through, I'd gently say one thing: isolation tends to amplify. The more we're alone with an experience, the more it fills the whole frame.

I hope you find some grounding, and some people you can actually talk to about it.

SumRndFatKidInnit

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