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roseapprentice:

One of the most useful things I’ve learned about recovering from trauma is that my decisions need to be judged according to the incomplete information that was available to me at the time.

So, say I’m deciding whether to eat chicken at a restaurant. All evidence is that it’s a good idea. I’m hungry for chicken, and I usually feel good after eating it.

I eat the chicken, and I get food poisoning. The resulting illness causes me to fall short of responsibilities, and creates numerous problems for me and the people who depend on me.

What happened?

Trauma brain says: “This happened because I am Bad At Making Decisions. If I had made The Right Decision and not eaten chicken, everything would have been fine.”

Recovery brain says, “According to the information that was available to me, the chicken was unlikely to make me sick. Eating chicken was a Good Decision with Bad Consequences. This happened to me because I had incomplete information.”

The “trauma brain” response makes all decisions really hard, because each decision involves the prospect of being judged by a future self that has more information.

“Should I buy the $2 mouse pad or the $3 mouse pad? If I buy the cheaper one and it doesn’t work well, it will be my own fault for not buying a better quality one…”

(Then I might end up paying myself $1-per-hour to agonize over which mouse pad to buy, which is probably an ACTUAL unwise course of action.)

But if I foster the “recovery brain” response, I can start to trust that my future self will judge my decisions kindly.

“If I buy the cheap mouse pad and it doesn’t work, then I only gambled $2 on it. If I buy the $3 one and even it doesn’t work, then I’ll have more closely guessed how much I need to pay for a mousepad of sufficient quality.”

And then later when the mousepad doesn’t work: “Well, that didn’t work. At least I made a decision. The outcome has given me more information about the options available to me going forward.”

(Meta level: Decisions you made prior to reading this post about how to treat yourself were probably good given the information you had access to about trauma and recovery!)

tl;dr: Bad results are not always evidence of bad decisions. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt about why you do what you do.

coelasquid:

ghostvomit:

kingcheddarxvii:

Some people draw nice, clean art in their sketchbooks. Some people work best when they’re churning out page after page of crap until one nice drawing emerges. One style may be more photogenic but neither is better than the other. The only thing holding you back is the idea that what you put in a sketchbook SHOULD look a certain way, when in reality sketchbooks exist so you can scribble, mess around with new things, and make art that’s less than your best! If you don’t want to “ruin” a nice sketchbook than just grab a stack of printer paper. Thank u for reading. Do your best kids. Go make some ugly sketchbooks

I once had an animation teacher tell me never to put anything finished in a sketchbook because it defeated the purpose of having the book in the first place. Back in College i didnt really believe him but honestly now I can see where he came from. A Sketchbook is for learning how you progress and form ideas into images, and putting finished work into your book can sort of break up that flow of fragmented progression, but its not a set rule obviously!

My sketchbooks are for real the ugliest thing because I do all my moderately nice art on the computer these days now that I basically always have a tablet PC on hand and my sketchbook is full of nothing but 100% thinking out loud garbage that looks like it came out of a hairbrush. Like, room schematics, floorplans, environment thumbnails that mean nothing to anyone but me, but they do their job and help me sort out all my business. I thought I lost one once at a restaurant for a few days until it resurfaced and was just like OH NO ALL MY ENVIRONMENTS ARE GONE like yeah take pride in your sketchbook full of meaningless wiggles because it means you’re working the kinks out.

motiya:

Whenever I feel annoyed at people I just do my best to work harder and be a more realized version of myself. Instead of being petty I just hyper focus on doing me. Honestly do you want to fall not ever knowing who took you

Q: Do I have to kill the snake?
A: University guidelines state that you have to “defeat” the snake. There are many ways to accomplish this. Lots of students choose to wrestle the snake. Some construct decoys and elaborate traps to confuse and then ensnare the snake. One student brought a flute and played a song to lull the snake to sleep. Then he threw the snake out a window.

Q: Does everyone fight the same snake?
A: No. You will fight one of the many snakes that are kept on campus by the facilities department.

Q: Are the snakes big?
A: We have lots of different snakes. The quality of your work determines which snake you will fight. The better your thesis is, the smaller the snake will be.

Q: Does my thesis adviser pick the snake?
A: No. Your adviser just tells the guy who picks the snakes how good your thesis was.

Q: What does it mean if I get a small snake that is also very strong?
A: Snake-picking is not an exact science. The size of the snake is the main factor. The snake may be very strong, or it may be very weak. It may be of Asian, African, or South American origin. It may constrict its victims and then swallow them whole, or it may use venom to blind and/or paralyze its prey. You shouldn’t read too much into these other characteristics. Although if you get a poisonous snake, it often means that there was a problem with the formatting of your bibliography.

Q: When and where do I fight the snake? Does the school have some kind of pit or arena for snake fights?
A: You fight the snake in the room you have reserved for your defense. The fight generally starts after you have finished answering questions about your thesis. However, the snake will be lurking in the room the whole time and it can strike at any point. If the snake attacks prematurely it’s obviously better to defeat it and get back to the rest of your defense as quickly as possible.

Q: Would someone who wrote a bad thesis and defeated a large snake get the same grade as someone who wrote a good thesis and defeated a small snake?
A: Yes.

Q: So then couldn’t you just fight a snake in lieu of actually writing a thesis?
A: Technically, yes. But in that case the snake would be very big. Very big, indeed.

Q: Could the snake kill me?
A: That almost never happens. But if you’re worried, just make sure that you write a good thesis.

Q: Why do I have to do this?
A: Snake fighting is one of the great traditions of higher education. It may seem somewhat antiquated and silly, like the robes we wear at graduation, but fighting a snake is an important part of the history and culture of every reputable university. Almost everyone with an advanced degree has gone through this process. Notable figures such as John Foster Dulles, Philip Roth, and Doris Kearns Goodwin (to name but a few) have all had to defeat at least one snake in single combat.

Q: This whole snake thing is just a metaphor, right?
A: I assure you, the snakes are very real.

“The Snake Fight Portion of Your Thesis Defense” by Luke Burns (via inevitablerecursion)