If anyone is looking for a search engine term, they are all Abrahamic religions, if memory serves.

I have to call out Mirror’s Edge, it is a great experience if you have the right mindset.

Trying to play it with an FPS philosophy is not the way.

The Adams family game for the NES.

I never could get past the freezer section, but I never got to try much. It was my cousins’ game and they lived in a different state.

I was a severe insomniac at the time, and this event lead to a diagnosis of Bipolar disorder. It happened a few times, but this was the worst. Got on meds and have been fine since. Enough prefacing.

I was at, for lack of a more specialized term, my cousins house. The oldest one of them was right around my age, but she was out of town for a competition, so I crashed in her room. At some point in the night, I’m full on hallucinating after not sleeping much in a while.

Dark, cloaked figures, in the corner of the room, chanting in some language I didn’t recognize. I don’t mean I didn’t understand it, it sounded difficult to pronounce with a human mouth. This went on until the sun rose. I’d check the corners, and nothing, get back in bed and there they go again.

For people wondering, yes, manic episodes along with their common presentations, can also present as hallucinations. It took 20 years, from a diagnosis and depression as a child, to bipolar diagnosis, to fine tuning meds, to stable.

I’m dealing with a person resistant to any kind of therapy right now and I just want to scream at them that if their docs aren’t helping, try a different one, don’t give up. 20 fucking years. Over half my life struggling for a solution. It takes time and work, both.

If you need mental health assistance, or even if you’ve just had a really tough patch, find the appropriate professional for you. It doesn’t mean you’re crazy, it just means you’re struggling. They help with tools to help stop struggling. Sometimes yeah, its pills. Other times its adapting your behavior and expectations to produce better more satisfying results.

As a person who sleeps through alarms and is approaching middle age…

It is a problem.

I wish I had some advice, but I am accepting advice lol.

My first thought was Grand Prismatic, just after dawn.

Cool enough that the thermal features create a fog over the water, and more importantly, all the tourists (I was a hotel employee in the park) were still in bed. Had the boardwalk area all to myself.

I think I just sat in contemplation for half an hour, which if you knew me would say is impossible. Very peaceful.

Don’t know much about my current neighbors and don’t want.

The people we used to live next door to were great. L came over as me and my BIL were handing out candy, and any adults got a shot if they wanted.

After the kids went to bed L came over to our place and we got ridiculously drunk. L passed out in the kitchen and we let him sleep some of it off before helping him back next-door when we met M, his wife.

Probably my favorite story is when M texted L and said she thought there was a snake in the backyard, and being drunk we went to investigate immediately. Not the expected reaction, so when I knocked on the back door (it was late-ish) I’m greeted with a double barrel shotgun. M apologizes and says its not loaded, at which point I drunkenly admonished her that if she’s gonna point a gun at someone unknown, it should be loaded in case she really needed it.

We got to be really great friends with that family, and then they moved for work. Still miss them years later.

Do you have any sources on that?

I’m not trying to call you out, I’m interested in reading more.

Requiem for a Dream - Especially now, later in life when I see addiction in so many people in my personal life.

It is a powerful movie on the various ways addiction can take hold of your life, even with doctor prescribed medication.

That being said, unless you’re into the final scene with Jennifer Connoley, it’s not something you’d necessarily want to watch again.

Side note, if you did enjoy it and want a look into mental health issues in a similar lense, among other things, Pi is a great movie by the same guy.

I went from hourly call center to on call 24/7 and being the only point of contact.

When my phone notifies me, just any notification, I panic. The phone rings, I panic. Its been over a year since I left.

Yes, its part and parcel to other issues of mental health, but… Man, do you know how often you get notifications? I’ve turned most off and still some days I’m ready to smash my phone so it will shut up and I can breathe normally.

Thank you for differentiating.

The original “skin head” movement was mostly factory workers in Britain who cut their hair short (not necessarily shaved bald) for safety around equipment, and some of the most popular music among the group was stuff by “rude boys” Jamaican primarily I believe.

It was working class solidarity with no intentions of racism.

The neo Nazi groups coopted the term, and delved into punk music to find disenfranchised people who would buy into their rhetoric.

There are also other skin head groups that exist today - SHARP for example, standing for SkinHeads Against Racial Prejudice.

Espouse hateful rhetoric around these guys and you’re liable to wind up on the wrong side of a brick to the head.

Why do I know all this? I have a penchant for research, and in the past few years I’ve been shaving my head because I decided to own my thinning hairline instead of have some ridiculous comb over type shit and hide it.

I have had an encounter with a racist white dude at a 711, and he’s ranting at the cashier and looks to me and said “Right brother?!”. No, it was absurdly horrible (misguided) and I threatened to call the cops if he didn’t leave the store and hopefully the neighborhood. He left when he realized he didn’t have any support.

I was witness to what burnt piss does on a hot muffler.

It stinks, for miles. And months.

I wore vans up until my mid late 30s, but even with a desk job my feet killed after a day.

So now I have running shoes with more support and its helped. I also have a pair of combat boots, but they’re more difficult to get on when I’m half asleep and trying to get to work.

So yeah, you might just have enough youth left to get by with vans lol.

Ah, the animal computer books of my childhood, lol.

My parents (both in tech fields) had a library of these before they split up.

Somehow I wound up in IT as a career, no one saw that coming, I assure you /s

Most of my actual thoughts in the shower revolve around destroying whatever made me leave the house, thus necessitating a shower on THEIR schedule.

I like showers, and love a hot bath… I don’t love water prices here locally.

In my case, and this the US, I had friends who smoked.

I was curious, bummed one, and once I got past the coughing I really enjoyed the effects, that said by the time you no longer get the “high” (for lack of a better word) you’re addicted.

Fast forward 20 years and I’m still trying to quit.

Quit for 5 years cold turkey, but… Shit went down in almost every facet of my life, and I went back.

But I’m down to about a pack a week.

One in the morning, one on the road to work, and one or two during my shift if time allows.

Just need to kick it for good.

Edit: To correct typos

Call it whatever you want man, whats important is that it helps you.

Could you go into detail, even just privately, that seems like a solid use for some otherwise idle storage space.

Then again, the only part of being a scout (boy) that stuck with me involved fire or survival methods, and to always be prepared is a good maxim.

I’ve been on a decade long hiatus from multiplayer aspect of games - aside from games I was with people I knew in RL.

I only occasionally get a twinge for the comraderie of some epic raid in an MMO, or tight unspoken squad tactics where everyone just does their job as expected (not necessarily well lol) and came out on top.

But really, I don’t have the time to commit to either of those.

Then I hear about my friend in GW2 (RL friend) who is going through some toxic guild BS and I don’t miss it.

Everquest did this to me.

I mained a bard, and back then you had to stop a song and start a new one every so often…

Mathematically it translates to a button press ever 1.5 seconds, ignoring movement, other combat abilities, etc.

I also refused to compromise on spelling and grammar at the time.

I got real good at typing accurately and quickly.

I have lost a lot of that speed, but at comfortable pace I’m probably 80-90 words a minute, and the last time it was measured was a keyboarding class requisite. 121 GWAM for an eighth grader isn’t too shabby. As long as I fixed the printer I got to play games in that class.