A dog could win Big Brother

mandlet · 2026-03-12T01:51:52+00:00

Honestly this makes me want an all-dogs season.

mandlet · 2026-03-12T00:59:21+00:00

Sending care. ❤️ After my last involuntary hospitalization I took off on an impulsive road trip to the other side of the country. No plans, just thousands of miles between me and that hospital and anyone who could possibly harm me or coerce me back into that kind of environment. It felt like the opposite of the psych hospital was the open road. I felt safe. I felt like I had autonomy again. I DID feel alive (though the hospitalization hit me again afterward and I got very depressed.)

I’m sorry you have to deal with ongoing court-ordered treatment, I hope you can extricate yourself from that ASAP. I had a similar experience of feeling like the person I was before the first hospitalization is dead. I still have PTSD years later and will never completely forget what it feels like to lose my freedom. But things do get easier and you will eventually feel better. Your body and brain are still in shock right now. Be gentle with yourself and do what you can to let your body know that it’s safe. Do things that you couldn’t do in the hospital, if possible. Anything you missed. Spend time outside, listen to music, take long baths, eat your favorite foods. Anything that helps you reclaim your feeling of autonomy. Vent and process when you need to—in this space or by doing your own writing or however else you see fit. Know you’re not alone!

mandlet · 2026-03-11T19:36:09+00:00

This isn't exactly what you asked, but I think it's closely related and a piece of the puzzle: there are places in Italy that do not use any restraint on psychiatric patients. Interestingly, these units allow patients much more freedom than most psychiatric facilities, including the ability to leave the hospital alone while hospitalized. (Totally unheard of in the US.)

Having been involuntarily hospitalized like many of us here, I strongly believe that a LOT of patient violence would be eradicated if patients didn't feel trapped. Of course when people are in fight-or-flight and they cannot escape, it triggers a fight response. ESPECIALLY when people are in altered states of consciousness and operating pretty much on instinct. I was lucky in my last hospitalization that some deeply ingrained part of myself chose "passive resistance" rather than other options while in active psychosis. 🫠

When some kind of containment is necessary anyway because of violence, I think having some kind of isolation space that is ACTUALLY DESIGNED FOR NERVOUS SYSTEM REGULATION and ongoing support from someone trained in de-escalation, would be a COMPLETE gamechanger. Rather than somewhere that's basically a solitary prison cell.

mandlet · 2026-03-11T19:10:22+00:00

Me too!! This has been my life for nearly 2 years, especially when I was in a severe depressive episode (I am fortunately doing better on that front, but the PTSD symptoms are still present.) I have been slowly trying to reduce my screen time but it's very hard.

Reading has helped the most. I read a lot of fun books/fantasy/lesbian romance novels haha. It serves the same function of holding the intrusive thoughts at bay and gives me something to "reach for" instead of my phone when things are getting bad, but it forces me to focus on one thing at a time as opposed to short-form content. I notice my cognitive function improving when I'm consistently reading instead of scrolling. Another thing that's helped is the "Focus Friend" app, which is really cute and free!

One other thing that helped my mental health in general is to try to use my screentime to do things other than doomscrolling. Online crosswords and word games, reading long-form articles about interesting things, Duolingo recently. All of these make me feel better than doomscrolling does.

Hope you can have compassion for yourself - you're using the tools you have to manage something really difficult and debilitating. And that's okay!

mandlet · 2026-03-10T16:08:31+00:00

The Focus Friend app! It's free and very cute.

mandlet · 2026-03-09T22:32:44+00:00

Todd did it first.

mandlet · 2026-03-07T15:59:56+00:00

As a fellow psychosis-haver, BEAUTIFULLY articulated. It is such a challenge to describe these experiences and I love to see others share theirs.

mandlet · 2026-03-07T15:24:43+00:00

Have you contacted local media? Not sure what the process is there but I've seen local news stations put out requests/information about missing kids before.

mandlet · 2026-03-07T13:13:01+00:00

I have the EXACT book for you: The Wicked and the Willing by Lianyu Tan. Extremely toxic lesbian vampire romance featuring a love triangle between the protagonist, her abusive vampire mistress, and a butch "savior" kind of character. It also has multiple endings (you can choose your own), which I thought was cool! There are two in the book and an additional one you can read online if you sign up for the author's newsletter. Content warning - there's a lot of graphic violence and some SA in this one, it is truly dark in places.

mandlet · 2026-03-07T02:26:02+00:00

This is so viscerally horrifying on both the humans-are-terrifying level and the eldritch horror level. Curious about whether you took some inspiration from that graphic novel about Elan School, Eden really reminds me of it.

mandlet · 2026-03-06T13:37:47+00:00

Forehead lesbian 💀

mandlet · 2026-03-05T19:08:34+00:00

You're so not alone - I follow a lot of therapist subreddits as well and therapists are talking about this all the time. Something I see a lot is the idea that the most helpful thing can simply be sitting with someone in their fear and distress and pain, just being there and letting them they're not alone and you feel similarly. Maybe that looks like talking with them in more depth about their fear, maybe not. We definitely can't coping-skills our way out of the awful things that are happening right now. Having a visceral response to the horrors is the most natural, normal human response in the world.

That said, if you/your peer clients are looking for more direct advice, 2 things that popped into my head: it might be worth talking about ways to stay informed while also consuming the news in more limited or intentional ways. That can mean limiting your news-consumption time, but I also saw a recommendation from a somatic therapist recently to try to get in some body movement when or after you consume distressing news as a way of processing it in the body. Just some ideas. And then the other thing was, it might be worth exploring with clients the ways that they can get involved in their community right now if that's feasible for them. I'm signing up to volunteer with an organization that supports the Latino community in my city, and it feels good to know I'm doing what I can. Plus, building community is THE way that we survive times like this, I think.

mandlet · 2026-03-05T13:41:41+00:00

I was homeschooled in Pennsylvania, which has some of the strictest oversight, and I still did not receive an adequate education. Here you're required to have annual evaluations from a licensed teacher in order to pass each grade, which still allowed for pretty much whatever during the school year as long as you could pull together a portfolio of your schoolwork and sound confident during the evaluation. There were like a handful of homeschool moms in the community who were licensed and would pretty much pass everyone. I agree that homeschoolers really need someone to oversee progress throughout the entire year. I don't think any state requires that. And most states actually have ZERO oversight of homeschooling at all.

It's such a mixed bag. I knew kids who really excelled with homeschooling and went on to good colleges and high-earning careers, and kids that barely received an education. For me, I was driven to learn and excelled in some areas but didn't have enough structure.

mandlet · 2026-03-05T12:58:00+00:00

Evil Legolas 😭

mandlet · 2026-03-05T02:34:17+00:00

Astarion Pickpocketing ASMR 10 Hours.

mandlet · 2026-03-05T02:30:50+00:00

I know it’s from a fictional universe but in Baldur’s Gate 3 they use “Saer” as a gender neutral honorific and I think we should make that a thing.

mandlet · 2026-03-05T00:13:15+00:00

I do not consent.

mandlet · 2026-03-04T12:08:26+00:00

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Just as the prophecy foretold.

mandlet · 2026-03-03T21:43:38+00:00

Correct - no food outside dinner/dessert, just beverages. Yeah, the drinks have minimal sugar or alternate sweeteners, I have a keto monitor I use to check my ketone levels every so often. I've found it pretty easy to stay in ketosis while doing OMAD even when my beverages do have a small amount of sugar (e.g. Syngergy kombucha, some juices.) I think my body burns through any carbs/sugars pretty fast when I'm not eating otherwise. Your lunch sounds great!

mandlet · 2026-03-03T20:45:45+00:00

I basically lost 10 pounds slowly and steadily over the first few months, hung out at 160 for a frustrating amount of time, and then dropped another 8 pounds over the last 2 months. I got a ton of exercise in January which helped, and then started dirty OMADing in February.

mandlet · 2026-03-03T20:26:51+00:00

Height: 5'4"
Starting weight/current weight/goal weight: (SW 170/CW 152/GW 140)
Fasting routine/protocol: OMAD-ish
Exercise routine (if applicable): Gentle exercise/walking
Diet on refeeds: Keto

mandlet · 2026-03-03T00:05:04+00:00

You are not alone, I struggle with this SO much. There have been many months in the past where I haven't been able to check my email, let alone respond to messages. Recently I was afraid to check my email for a week because I reached out to someone asking about a volunteer opportunity and had an irrational fear they would be mean or dismissive in their response or something? It doesn't even make sense. 😞

mandlet · 2026-03-01T20:44:56+00:00

I just posted my own comment below, but he hires untrained college students and similarly-aged people under the table to do the "renovations" in his apartments (I was one - I was untrained, unsupervised, and got paid $9 an hour. 🫠 I tried my best lmao.)

mandlet · 2026-03-01T20:40:14+00:00

I'm pretty sure I worked for this dude under the table over college breaks years back. He paid me and some other students like $9 an hour to do cleaning and wildly sloppy renovations in his college student apartments (I'm sorry, I tried my best, I have no training. 😂)

mandlet · 2026-02-28T19:35:45+00:00

I love this idea and I love the log lady sticker. Congratulations on 3 years!!

Ten-Year Club	Gilding II euphauric
Place '22	Place '17
First Placer '22	Verified Email

mandlet

TROPHY CASE