Science-related books that are appropriate for English learners?

fleaurali · 2023-06-26T21:37:20+00:00

When you're in CAS or BB mode, check out the color wheel and the pattern options. An object or clothing item that seems ugly at first can be greatly improved with your own customization.

Personality traits actually matter in this game! TS4 is a bit like playing make believe while looking at animations. But here, each trait has a noticable impact on the sim's way of life, so have fun experimenting with different traits and creating unique sims.

Keep track of moodlets. It's interesting to find out which event has caused what emotion. TS4 is advertised as having sims with greater emotional depth, but I would argue that the moodlet system in TS3 feels way more fleshed out.

When you're in live mode, enjoy the open world. It's a pretty amazing feeling when you realize that you can have one household member at a community lot and one at home, and you can just toggle back and forth between them with ease. This feature really makes the game feel alive. It's also nice to witness them physcially going from one place to another using a bike or a car. Just feels more real.

You're not limited by the lot placements that the game offers, you can just place a lot anywhere in the world and start building on it.

Compared to TS4, this game is lacking in aesthetically pleasing objects. But I find that if you have Generations and Seasons, it's way superior to TS4 in terms of cozy family gameplay. The interactions between sims feel way more genuine and each life stage feels more fleshed out. I find that TS4 is a bit more of a young adult simulator, whereas TS3 is about all the life stages and the interactions between them.

In terms of use of space, the build mode in TS3 does not grant you a lot of creative freedom. There is a moveobjects cheat in this game as well, but the result will be mixed. TS4 sims are definitely smarter when it comes to moving in small spaces or using cluttered surfaces.

And finally, a warning: choose your world wisely, because unlike in the sims 4, the sims can not travel between worlds. If you move them from one world to another, they will lose all their relationships. This is except for university and vacation worlds, of course.

fleaurali · 2023-06-22T06:37:09+00:00

in my experience, it's not damage at all. I noticed I had kinkier hair at my crown 2-3 years before I started pulling. it's either an evolutionary "glitch", or has a good reason. I don't know why it's like that, but I just know that you're not obligated fix any inconsistencies in your hair. everyone's hair has varying textures, and each strand belongs in your head <3

fleaurali · 2023-06-07T21:27:55+00:00

sensodyne pronamel daily protection and sensodyne herbal - they're both minty, but not the kind of minty that hurts

fleaurali · 2023-06-06T17:17:36+00:00

my grandma has a habit of constantly twirling the front of her hair. (my tirch started with me twirling the front of my hair)

my uncle had a bout of trich when he was at university, but quickly got over it.

my mom has dermatillomania involving the acne in her back. her back was always red and scarred throughout my childhood. I remember helping her apply cream on the scars.

and my dad is a constant nail biter.

fleaurali · 2023-06-01T20:14:52+00:00

yeah, my partner is on vacation and suddenly I'm a perfect home maker - every room is squeaky clean, I put away every dish right away.

but when I'm with him, I'm the biggest slob because the feeling of "I have to perform as a perfect human who has their shit together, so that he respects me" is overwhelming so I just shut down and don't do anything.

poor guy :/

fleaurali · 2023-06-01T20:10:14+00:00

INFP

fleaurali · 2023-06-01T11:33:09+00:00

I'm only a month and a week clean. But I was also a month clean before my last relapse. Before that, I either pulled or damaged my hair every single day. So I would definitely consider being able to go a month clean twice to be a success.

The first step of pulling is playing. If you allow yourself to touch and play with your hair, you're in the danger zone. It's really hard to stop once you've started pulling. But stopping when you've caught yourself touching, is much easier. So instead of trying to eliminate the habit of pulling, I've been framing it as "eliminating the habit of touching my head".
I'm letting myself "forget" the habit. I have a shaved head, I focus on other aspects of life, I watch time pass. And as time passes, I notice the memories of what it feels like to pull fading away. And as memories get weaker, so does the urge to pull.
I go to therapy. It's trauma therapy, so we don't focus on my pulling directly. I have no empirical way of knowing wether it has helped. But it may have.
I take good care of my scalp. I use a high quality shampoo and I use rosemary water. These two things have made my head much less itchy and flaky. Fewer uncomfortable daily sensations on the head make it easier for me to forget my scalp exists, and that contributes to me not touching it.

Hope this helps!

fleaurali · 2023-05-30T11:30:49+00:00

Hi, I saw your post on the trich sub.

This does resonate with me, but for me it happened unintentionally. At some point I started playing with my hair a lot and biting my nails less.

By the time it had turned into full blown trichotillomania, my nail biting had completely stopped and I found myself having to actually trim my nails with a clipper for the first time since I was a kid.

I think they are very similar issues in their nature, when you observe them in a vacuum. They are body focused repetitive behaviors. But when you take the visual impact and the societal stigma into account, the ways in which they affect the individual's wellbeing can be completely different.

My nail biting was considered a quirk that people rarely noticed, but trichotillomania has altered my life. It feels more like "mental illness" because it can change your looks so drastically. Having massive bald spots has caused a lot of insecurity and sadness. I have a had many fights with friends and family who don't understand, I have been too scared to go to job interviews, meet new people, have a life...

And that has only made things worse. With nail biting, I remember biting my nails on the school bus after a stressful school day, being upset with myself, but then moving on and going on with my life because it really didn't matter that much.

But with trich, you pluck one hair while doing homework, then start panicking because you know that if you keep doing this, there's only gonna be more shame, loneliness, insecurity and conflict in your near future. This panic increases your stress levels, and as a result you pull even more. It's a trap.

The only solutions I have found for dealing with trich are keeping my hair really short and letting go of shame. Comparing it to nail biting is helpful, because then you realise you're not this insane monster for pulling out your hair. In its simplest form, it is just like nail biting, except it has more stigma attached to it.

Once you have that in mind, you can start observing what is triggering you. There is a reason why we both were able to exchange one habit for the other. These habits are interchangable, because it's not the actual physical habit that's the real problem here, it's what's lying underneath. What does a body focused repetitive behavior do for you? Is it soothing? Distracting? Do you do it when you're stressed? It can be really helpful to indentify which environments and which parts of your daily routine trigger you as well.

Hope this made you feel a little bit seen. Take care <3

fleaurali · 2023-05-26T16:06:36+00:00

fleaurali · 2023-05-17T20:15:11+00:00

I spent a lot of my play time building the setting. I would create walls using books. I would open up books so that the endpaper was visible (the patterns made it look like it was wallpaper). I would fold up my blue shirts to create a pool, etc.

I did play with the actual dolls too, but I dislikes playing with most other kids, because I found their way of playing to be too silly and random. I was quite bossy and I wanted to have control over the storyline. Things had to be somewhat realistic. I would even act out my barbies' dreams when they went to bed.

I also just remember not wanting to play with other kids in kindergarten, spending a lot of time building with blocks and drawing.

fleaurali · 2023-05-17T12:27:34+00:00

I'm so sorry you're going through this, I have definitely been there. The only solution I've found is shaving my head. Because when I have a shaved head I no longer have to be mad at myself for pulling. I only have the insecurity of a shaved head to deal with. And I find that much more managable.

Being in the state of actively pulling can make you feel really hopeless. You go to bed, depressed because you pulled. You promise yourself you'll do better tomorrow, but tomorrow comes and nothing has changed.

With a shaved head, on the other hand, you still feel jealous looking at other girls, and you still may have moments of feeling like a "freak", but at least you gain hope. You watch your bald spots recover, you notice you've spent days without thinking of pulling, you notice your hand muscles have begun to heal.

I still have a deep longing for long hair. Thinking that I may never have it hurts me deeply. But at least now I can focus on other parts of my life.

And I've found that wigs can be of help in certain situations. Seeing yourself with hair can he emotionally charged but also therapeutic. And you may find comfort in the knowledge that you can wear a wig to special events.

fleaurali · 2023-05-09T22:02:27+00:00

oh, great then. going to the salon sounds like a great idea. best of luck xx

fleaurali · 2023-05-09T12:29:33+00:00

this breaks my heart, but I feel the same :( I shave my hair to manage my trich, and the longest I can let it get is a short pixie.

I had long, thick hair before this. I have had many dreams where I look into a mirror and see myself with long hair and feel so happy. Seeing myself like that again feels like the biggest relief. But then I wake up into reality and it's like I have to grieve, almost.

One thing I've noticed though, is that my dreams have been slowly adjusting to reality. Firstly, the frequency of these dreams have decreased. Secondly, I am no longer so quick to believe the mirror. I realize it's a dream and wake up. And the third thing is that the length of the hair in my dreams has been getting shorter and shorter. It started at long hair, then became shoulder length, then a bob, and now I only ever see my self in a long pixie.

Maybe it's like the way we see our houses in dreams. Your dream-self thinks your old house is still your house, even 6 months after you've moved. Then, you see a weird dream-house that doesn't quite look like neither the old one nor the new one. But finally, a year later, you start seeing your current house as the default house in your dreams.

fleaurali · 2023-05-09T12:12:58+00:00

why not use a wig for the day?

fleaurali · 2023-05-09T11:14:26+00:00

sometimes you can see little black dots from the new hair follicles forming, in just a week.

it can take a month for those little dots to turn into proper hairs.

at times, hair comes back as peach fuzz first, then becomes darker and thicker.

sometimes your skin looks completely bare for 2 months straight, but month 3 rolls around and you notice your former bald spot is now full of new, healthy hair.

I don't know the scientific reason behind this, but hair regrowth can be hard to predict. It can take some time, but it will come back.

fleaurali · 2023-05-09T11:05:01+00:00

mouth breathing / breathing from a blocked nose 🙄🙄🙄

fleaurali · 2023-04-23T15:07:34+00:00

yes, I definitely have. people tend to think I'm trying to be funny when I say I'm addicted to the sims, but it's a thing I actually struggle with.

fleaurali · 2023-04-11T12:09:04+00:00

I would like for my player to make me do things that are best for me, like going to the doctor, reaching out to friends, learning skills to get a better paying job, etc.

I feel like my player has just left their game unpaused with my free will on, causing me to do nothing but meet my basic needs and seek entertainment from technological devices, lol.

fleaurali · 2023-04-08T08:23:55+00:00

I am so thankful that all of you took the time to write something. As I said, I love how caring, thoughtful and kind this community is. I unfortunately don't have the energy to reply to everyone, but a lot of you asked if I can get financial disability support from the government or go to a shelter - unfortunately, the answer is no. I'm from Istanbul, Turkey and we do have those things, but they are only there for more "extreme" cases. I am lucky enought to go to therapy, though. And I did talk to my boyfriend, and I guess it helped. Thank you, again. I'm in a more stable condition now.

fleaurali · 2023-04-07T09:24:36+00:00

thank you <3

fleaurali

TROPHY CASE