Grrl Power #752 – Mitten Rx
Dr. Frost has you in her chair, Sydney. She’s not going to prescribe you some drugs and kick you out of the door. There’s a paper begging to be written and published in American Psychological Association Journal.
There are a lot of expressions that don’t quite hold water with a little examination, but “Time heals all wounds” has got to be the worst. “Time sometimes heals select cosmetic wounds.” would be a much more apt expression.
Well, THaW is maybe tied with “That which does not kill you makes you stronger.” That’s almost never true either. Well, unless you’re a Saiyan. Then that expression is perfect for you. Unless that expression means like, literally anything, not just injurious attack. Like, a good night’s sleep makes you stronger. A healthy lunch with some multigrain bread and an orange makes you stronger. But then, what about eating a detergent packet or snorting powdered graphite? Those things don’t make you stronger. It’s just a dumb expression.
Ignore Dr. Frost’s expression in the last panel, or at least scale it back like 20% in your minds. She came out looking a bit wicked witch and she’s just supposed to be smiling wryly. I just missed the mark there a bit.
Edit: Whoops, forgot to schedule this one. I just hit “Publish.” Oh well, enjoy your super early comic!
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Sydney may have given Archon a reason to keep her rank low (such as “corporal”). Most science fiction about telepaths will conclude that the telepath needs a filter, or would go mad from the cacaphony. This means that if Archon is ever invaded by a telepath, the high-rank persons would get targeted, and the low-rank persons would be left alone. If Maxima has kept Sydney’s secret, then she might resist such an attack, while Sydney never gets targeted.
I think that Sydney will need to be kept low rank because she is so bad at military. A week after making sgt., she’ll be demoted after an event that involves a chocolate cake, two llamas, and the population of a city on the eastern seaboard. Sure, everyone survived, but she broke a half dozen regulations in the process.
{Snerk}
Sydney’s rank is low because she’s still a cadet. Seriously, she hasn’t even finished basic training yet. The fact that she’s been taken on missions anyway is a testament to just how useful her wide array of powers are.
Recruit, We’ve been over this: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-155-halo-the-mighty/
I stand corrected on the semantics, but my point still stands.
Yeah, she’s been in the service for two months now, and for all but one week of that, she was stranded in the future on an alien planet! We know that at the end of the third month she’ll be a corporal, so after about six weeks of training – if she doesn’t end up in a time skip again. Is that some kind of record?
That sounds more like the description of an event Dabbler would organize, really.
Right, with Sydney it will probably be an incident involving “two geese, a roll of duct tape, twenty-three toothpicks and some sodium benzoate.”
Sydney will blossom again in her mid thirties. She will get enough age/experience to take the edge of of the ADHD. If she hasn’t burned too many bridges she will be ready to grow into a leader.
Technically, that which doesn’t kill Vehemence makes him stronger.
Vehemnece. Man, I wish Archon recruited HIM! All he wanted was a chance to fight, and Archon could give him that. He seemed a prety reasonable dude for a supervillain, and given his strength, he could become a major asset.
He was an idiot. With his assortment of powers, he should’ve seen the Archon advert as an opportunity. Without explaining what the source of his powers were, just sign up. Over time, build up enough power to be unstoppable, and *then* reveal he was evil.
At that point, he knows the power sets of all of the heroes, so knows who to take out first, and possibly even a good deal about their weaknesses.
But once Archon knew he was more of a villain? They knew that giving him that opening was too dangerous.
Actually, he’s not all that evil.
He’s opportunistic, not particularly mature, and self-indulgent of his personal fetish (and he does definitely get off from violence) but he’s not especially evil.
If he were evil he’d have used his power-grab setup to actually create the kind of prolonged chaos that would keep him fed.
I think Sydney’s Rank will be a lot like the rank of PFC Furstenberg from Phil Foglio and Nick Pollotta’s “Illegal Aliens” – She’ll get promoted, do something ADD-ish and get demoted, then promoted again, rinse and repeat.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/IllegalAliens
Anyone else curious about how a Math session will go with Dr. Frost?
She’ll listen for a bit and then start paging through a book by Freud, muttering “Maybe he was on to something.”
:’-D
;-þ
Oh God she really said “Take two mittens and call me in the morning…” Picard facepalm…
Which translates as, “I’m a professional. Stop treating me like a drug store.” One of the more important skills for the psychiatric profession is not letting someone turn you into a dispensary in under fifteen minutes for issues that there are easy non-medicinal fixes for.
I wouldn’t say that Sydney was angling for drugs specifically. She’s just got a very impatient personality and she wants a quick miracle fix. Sydney would accept anything that promised immediate relief. She asks for pills because so many pharmaceutical manufacturers advertise their products as exactly that; a quick miracle cure.
Sounds about right.
Is it possible to cover up the orbs, rather than Sydney’s hands?
Yes. Tubey was a thing.
However, in an emergency, mittens are easier to remove than opening a tube.
(Cue eyecatch of Sydney struggling with mittens…)
Tubey the repurposed poster tube, yep.
However, since the orbs respond to her willing them to move, and since if she’s not willing them to move they can resist Maxima trying to move them past how far they’re willing to be from Sydney, it’s safe to assume that if Sydney really wants the orbs to come to her, Tubey is not going to contain them.
Whether or not they have enough self-direction to figure out how to circumvent mittens to let Sydney use them hasn’t been determined. They might not have any direction other than Sydney’s conscious or subconscious direction, or they might have some nascent, latent, or dormant A.I. (like a pack of cosmically powerful, loyal puppies?). They did go to sleep after Sydney did at one point, but not at the same time . . . almost as if they were making sure she was OK before laying down next to her . . . which does play into the Cosmic Puppy Hypothesis ™. :-)
The reason Maxi fell, was because she wasn’t ready for the sudden stop, and the fact she was standing on the edge of a curb
It was already established that her super strength is basicaly tactile telekinesis, and her poweres include super speed, I suspect her, resting state is blaster off, flight off, balance of super speed and str. And probably not too much super speed to avoid Quicksilvers problem, considering her powers are literaly super min maxing on the fly.
I didn’t mention her falling. The point I was referencing was that Maxima couldn’t make the orbs move further from Sydney than the were set to (or wanted to?) go, and that the anchoring didn’t make Sydney move. In other words, they’re not anchored to Sydney per se, they just cannot be made to move more than a certain distance from her location.
So, yeah, Maxima seemed to assume that pulling the orbs toward her would make Sydney move along with the orbs, toward Maxima. Instead, the orbs didn’t move at all, nor did Sydney, so Maxima instead pulled herself toward the orbs (and off the curb, which she wasn’t expecting at all, hence the stumble).
The interesting question (at least to me) that hasn’t been answered in the comic so far is this: do the orbs not move past a certain distance away from their operator because they’re programmed (in some fashion) not to do so, or because they choose (in some sense) not to do so.
If they can’t move away from their operator, unless they have a new operator, that might explain why they were underwater for some indeterminate (but probably lengthy) time before Sydney found them.
Of course, the AI version would explain it, too, if the orbs chose not to leave their previous (presumably long since deceased) operator until Sydney found them. It just adds the possibility of the orbs being sad at the loss of their previous operator, scared, lonely, etc. into the mix. Which would imply her orbs might have some version of PTSD, too.
The reason she couldn’t move them further, was because of the sudden stop and the immediate fall: she didn’t have time to recover from the stop to pull harder
You are implying that the orbs are like Lantern Rings? Once the current owner dies, they fly off to find another owner? o_O
Re: the lantern rings reference: not exactly. I was saying they could be interpreted as having something resembling personality/agency. For instance, them ‘falling asleep’ in the tube early one, staying up and orbiting Sydney until after she fell asleep, etc. That would be similar to the rings being able to find an appropriate bearer (detecting strong will, avarice, love, etc.) (that said, how much of that comes from the rings themselves gets retconned this way and that over and over again).
I was, I guess, implying that the orbs can choose another operator after the previous one is deceased. It could just as easily be automatic, though.
That’s part of what makes it interesting to me: so much of what we’ve seen the orbs do can be interpreted in more than one way. I like it when I can’t predict the specifics of the plot.
She could easily tell all but the top orb to move DOWN in the tube and the top orb to move UP, and that would certainly pop the lid off the tube, even if it’s a screw-on lid (It’s just plastic, after all.)
I think it’s more “If you make it through something tough it can give you the courage/fortitude/confidence/experience points you need to pull through something else tough”
Looks at panel 3:
Aw, poor tubey . . .
Thank you. I couldn’t figure out what the hell that was supposed to be.
I predict an alarm clock on the floor in Sydney’s near future. When she wakes up and reaches over to turn off the alarm she is going to knock the clock, her glasses, and possibly the lamp off the bed-stand until she gets used to the lack of manual dexterity.
Personally, having my hands feel trapped inside something while I sleep is probably MORE likely to give me bad dreams.
You… do realise that there is plenty of room inside most mittens, right? They are simply there to prevent physical, fleshy, contact with Sydney’s balls
Sometimes, during winter (like right now), personally have to wear a fingerless glove on right hand to prevent said hand from swelling up and getting too stuff to even make a fist (well, without causing the flesh to stretch and burst like an overfilled sausage)
Hmmm, ‘winter’. This means that you are posting from an alternate hemisphere, or an alternate timeline. :)
Yes, the Southern Hemisphere, the true underwater continent of Zealandia (Atlantis doesn’t fucking exist)
I think “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is meant more for emotional pain, and emotional stuff. IE…”You’ll be stronger after you get through this.
But, yes. It is literally taught in Psychology 101…that such platitudes are bullshit, and psychologically unhelpful. Because people in real pain. That said, “Time heals all wounds” means that the IMMEDIATE pain of someone will lessen with time. It’s for someone who is dealing with pain they can’t handle, and is told “IT gets better”.
which is still not 100% correct, the Dendrocnide moroides, AKA Stinging Bush or Gympie Gympie Tree, produces a venom that can in the most extreme cases cause extreme pain in the area stung for years after the sting originally happened and if you have a mishap during removal of the stinging hairs and one embeds itself under the skin, it will cause continuous pain until it is removed, regardless of how long it takes, then you have those years to look forwards to afterwards, reportedly it have gotten so bad for some people it almost drove them to insanity.
Looked it up, and of course this fun tree grows mostly in Australia. Of course.
Psychologists can’t actually prescribe medication anyway. You have to go to a psychiatrist for that. Ask me how I know, just kidding my mom is a psychologist.
Doesn’t the title “Dr.” imply that she’s a psychiatrist rather than a psychologist? And if it doesn’t then we don’t have any way of knowing which she is at the moment.
Doctor, in the US, is a title given to someone who has a Ph.D. (Doctorate of Philosophy) My father had a Ph.D. in psychology and was therefore addressed as Doctor. In the U.K. customs differ. Since this is set in the U.S.A. we can’t tell what her qualifications are. She might have a Ph.D. in geology, which might be useful for dealing with some people at Archon.
Famously, Dr. Laura’s degree is in physiology from Columbia University.
When talking about degrees, my dad used to say, “We all know what B.S. is.
M.S. is More of Same and
Ph.D. is Piled higher and Deeper.”
So, what, an MD isn’t a Doctor? o_O
Since Dr. Frost is not listening to Sydney’s lungs and taking her blood pressure, I am assuming she is not the M.D. kind of doctor. Or at least, only an M.D. A psychiatrist is an M.D. with extra psychiatric training, so she could be that kind of doctor.
The point was, it’s not just Ph.D’s that get to be called ‘doctor’, just most Ph.D. doctors are ‘paper doctors’
Medical Doctor, like a surgeon.
Hopefully not like this surgeon :P
She is still a recruit, not a cadet. Only future Officers are Cadets.
“When talking about degrees, my dad used to say, “We all know what B.S. is.
M.S. is More of Same and
Ph.D. is Piled higher and Deeper.””
Robert A Heinlien
Heinlein had a way of getting right to the point.
My favorite quote from him (and he had been a politician in his younger years) is:
The slickest way to lie is to tell the truth unconvincingly.
Seems to me it is reasonable to assume that an organization such as Archon would have the “full juice” on staff whenever possible; Doctor Frost is very likely a full Psychiatrist, more than likely specializing in treatment of psychological trauma and stress disorders.
My experience with psychiatrists (psych major, BA) is that they usually will provide immediate pharmacological treatment to mediate severe and acute distress, which Sydney is not currently displaying – i.e. she isn’t trying to harm herself or others, and she does not apparently represent a lack of judgement likely to lead to accidental self-harm or harm to others (her worry about harming others by accident counter-indicates impaired judgment). Once a diagnosis has been made based on behavior and disclosure while unmedicated, the psychiatrist will then dispense medication with the goal of augmenting treatment and sometimes to mediate persistent symptoms (if needed). Not saying meds won’t happen somewhere along the line, but walking back meds after started is almost always rough on the patient. I’d be willing to bet that Dr. Frost, knowing Sydney is taking ADHD meds, is going to avoid med interactions as long as possible.
This is pretty much typical “first session” stuff from what little contact I’ve had with the system.
Come to think on it, I wonder if a consult with her usual physician would have brought up her ADHD meds – aren’t ADHD meds typically prescribed in consultation with a psychiatrist, or have they become mainstream enough that a GP can now prescribe them?
Yes, GPs can prescribe the Schedule II ADHD medications. Albeit only in monthly intervals, in my experience – no refills, have to pick up a new prescription every month (though that was pretty much just calling the office, not actually having to go in and see him).
I mean, her character thingamajig on the right says she’s a psychiatrist, so…
Doesn’t she duct-tape her shield and air orbs to her hands when she sleeps as a safety measure? I think mittens would get in the way of that, and also be redundant since she can’t handle the PPO (I am not hip, but she can’t stop me from that side of the fourth wall! Mwahahahahahahaha!) while her hands are occupied.
The entire point is to get here back to a normal state where she isn’t duct taping a personal shield and a life support system inside that shield to herself, because of an overwhelming fear of being alone and powerless in a place that is safe.
OH, ON!!!!!! MITTENS!!!
HER KRYPTONITE!!!
That which does not kill us, makes a great itchy and scratchy cartoon
Can someone explain, “It’s MY ice cream bar!”
I love Ren & Stimpy.
In the episode (you can find it online easily) called “Space Madness”, Ren went insane (well more insane) and demanded that a bar of soap was an ice cream bar he ‘had since he was a child and people were always trying to take it from him’. He only gave it up (unwillingly) after eating some of it with exaggerated bites.
Thank you, it’s been awhile since I saw that show. This also made me laugh a little more at panel three.
I’ve never associated the phrase ‘time heals all wounds’ with physical wounds, just emotional ones. And to that, it is essentially true. Yeah, some ‘wounds’ leave a scar, but they heal. Some wounds never quite feel right afterwards, but we adjust and learn to live with the lingering pain.
And some people just go stark raving mad, so, the phrase doesn’t apply to everyone, much like everything else in the universe.
All wounds leave a scar in the case of PTSD LITERALLY SO they have found Actual brain damage in the corpses of vets who have passed who were confirmed to have it
Thank you, it’s been awhile since I saw that show. This also made me laugh a little more at panel three.67
Sorry, this was supposed to be the response to Viirin.
Mittens! Hiss! But it makes sense. Also it shows she knows more about Sydney’s powers than just “here is a new client”. She was informed and did research on her dossier. It that how that word works?
Though, psychIATRISTS absolutely get the most basic story then give you drugs and send you away. A psychOLOGIST listens and if needed refers you to the drug dealer.
Peggy looks amazing in her appearance here. Love it.
Yes, that is one good update for her (kept meaning to compliment the artist :( )
Thanks! I was pleased with that panel.
The older I get, the less I believe in optimistic aphorisms.
Smart doctor. A slightly better idea might be that Sydney puts a Mitten over the PewPew Orb, so she can’t accidentally activate it but can still activate the Shield Orb (just in case).
I’m surprised that that orb isn’t covered in a sock as a general rule. Unless Dabbler is the only knitter in the area and max does not want to see the sock dabbler makes for it. though if memory serves there’s a ‘safety’ on the orb- an are you sure type action or something.
Am I the only one that remembers that her orbs turn off when she sleeps?
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-293-zonked/
I believe the concern is that she will wake up in a panic following a particularly vivid nightmare and do something dangerous before she realizes she’s no longer dreaming. The orbs don’t appear to have any warm up period, and I think it’s well established that if the Pew Pew Orb has a safety Sydney hasn’t figured that out yet. There have also been a few hints that the PPO might actually want to be fired, raising the stakes. So the scenario Sydney fears is waking up panicked and confused & grabbing the first thing that comes to her hand to defend herself with.
This fear might also be influenced by pop culture. Fiction often portrays people who have experienced trauma as lashing out in a half-conscious state due to nightmares. Soldiers just home from combat are apparently seen by authors and screenwriters as prone to this. Heck, Sydney probably watched the first X-Men movie a hundred times growing up, and that has a scene with Wolverine running Rogue through with his claws when he woke from a nightmare.
Exactly.
Sydney is hoping sh doesn’t reproduce a similar situation Maxima had in her early life
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-122-if-only-all-behavioral-therapy-was-this-easy/
Rather than putting all the orbs away overnight, how about only putting the PPO into an upgraded Tubey? Maybe the Lighthook too, but the others shouldn’t be too dangerous to the room if she were to grab them in her sleep.
This also brings to mind: why in the WORLD is Archon not giving Sydney a container of some sort she can keep the PPO in while she’s at headquarters – or indeed, at all times? As Tubey demonstrated, the orbs don’t HAVE to be circling her head at all times, and even soldiers (who are thoroughly trained in their use) do not go around military bases with their weapons on them at all times. Sydney can’t NOT have the PPO on her at all times, but she can certainly ‘holster’ it instead of having it floating free. Just because some of the other supers have attacks that can’t be ‘put away’ doesn’t mean that those who CAN put them away should leave everything out in the open at all times. Having her keep the other orbs out makes sense, if they want her to be used to using them quickly and efficiently, but if she’s going to use the PPO, that’s going to be a deliberate decision.
Honestly, a low-profile backpack with separate slots for each orb would be best. They’re too big for belt-pouches or hip-holsters. But if you got the ergonomics right on the backpack, she might be able to do some limited levitation with it by controlling the orbs. At least make a hovering chair out of it. Maybe make it expandable into an emergency stretcher?
Why not? Because it’s over-complicated, expensive and needless. Dr Frost knows that Sydney can’t activate the orbs while wearing hand coverings, so that is why she prescribed mittens. Afraid she’ll take them off before waking up? Tight mittens or strapped mittens or even surgical gloves. Something that takes a bit of conscious effort to get off so she’ll be awake before blasting. Then again, since it’s just a dream, she’ll have the catharsis of feel of the orb come to her hand and she can do whatever she likes in her dream safely.
You have a point about soldiers not always walking around while armed, but consider this: What about Maxima’s powers? Anvil’s? Any of the other supers in the building? All of these people have more immediate access to their powers than Sydney cause they are supers. Their powers are a part of them, a part of their identity. Not using them to blast at will or even as a reaction is a part of discipline training, something that a walking, living WMD should learn and this helps foster. Also, singling out Sydney for this could be a form of discrimination.
That’s because no one ever uses the FULL line: “IN WAR that which does not kill you makes you stronger.” and that is meant as to the state of the entirety of one’s fighting force.
It’s about the individual, not the gestalt. The fact that it’s Nietzsche alone should tell you that. Nietzsche was saying that his experience as a soldier taught him that soldiers who survive wars are psychologically stronger than they were when they started. Like most of what he said, it’s complete bunk.
Though he popularized it, the phrase predates Nietzsche.
No it doesn’t. It’s from Twilight of the Idols. There’s no record of it prior to 1888.
There is absolutely a record of it, it’s a standard military precept that has been taught for thousands of years. He may have paraphrased it differently than Sun Tsu or Carl Von Clausewitz but the precept is the same.
You get an A for being able to quote from Nietzsche’s books, and an F – – for you complete lack of awareness of commonalites in history military treatise.
I’ve always reconfigured that second saying as, “That which does not kill us …..maims us so that the next thing will have an easier time killing us.” (You should see what I do to Shakespeare quotes.)
We still need to know if Sydney should pack away her orbs before bedtime. So the question remains “Tubey or not Tubey?”
That deserves a +1… and a groan.
Yikes, I might have to steal that one. :)
Seeing Sydney in panel three brings to mind that deep vein thrombosis is a genuine concern when using medical restraints.
The problem with this little storyline is that nowadays, as we develop a better understanding of how the brain and memory function, we’re discovering that “talk therapy” is basically utterly useless and even counterproductive for treating PTSD. Talking about the traumatic memory causes the brain to call up that memory and re-experience the trauma, and there is no gain from that — it may even make things worse. By contrast, simply refusing to think about it and letting time pass actually works. Time may not heal all wounds, but it does heal PTSD (to the extent that it can be healed). The old Victorian stiff-upper-lip stoicism was actually a better approach than anything we’ve tried in the last century or so.
No, it is not.
As a matter of fact, sometimes when trauma was over an extended period bits and pieces of the whole may need to be assembled into a congruent whole.
It sucks. It hurts. It’s like breaking bones which healed wrong in order to reset them.
But for people for whom EMDR and most other modern techniques don’t work, there isn’t another way forward.
Yup. The way in which it is done matters.
Breaking a patient’s bones is generally contraindicated…but sometimes necessary, and even beneficial.
Cutting a patient’s flesh is generally contraindicated…but sometimes necessary, and even beneficial.
Removing a patient’s tissue is generally contraindicated…but sometimes necessary, and even beneficial.
The comparison I usually go to is treating allergies. Doing it properly involves controlled exposure to the allergens, and can weaken, or even prevent future reactions to them. But just dumping a ton of the allergen on the patient will make things immeasurably worse.
The same here; Treat a patient with Post-Traumatic Stress poorly, reintroduce stressors in a way they are not equipped to cope with, and you will make things worse. Treat one well, and their ability to safely think about the event, or interact with elements associated with the event, will improve.
Yeah, no. There are lots of useful modalities. None of them work for everybody, and all of them take time and effort.
Crazy Sydney in panel 3 looks like she’s channeling a Car-Toons monster.
Then the Air Orb, would not work, neither would the shield orb.
But mittens are her kryptonite! That and being riddled with bullets…
100mg of Gabapentin would actually be helpful in this case. Providing it doesn’t clash with any of Sydney’s other meds.
“Time sometimes heals select cosmetic wounds.” was always meant for emotional wounds. Granted it was more talking about getting dumped rather than PTSD.
Same with “That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”; it’s not talking physically stronger but mentally stronger.
Whoops that first quote was supposed to be “Time heals all wounds”.
Mittens! Her only weakness. (besides bullets, or a steak to the heart)
Excellent callback.
Also that locked-up panel made me realize that if you wanted to confine Syndey to a specific area the best way to do it is probably to put her orbs in a locked box bolted to the floor. You have to do that anyway to prevent her from teleporting/blasting her way out, without the orbs in her hands she can’t get them out of the box, and she can’t leave a small radius around the orbs under her own power so as long as that radius is acceptable you don’t even need a room to keep her in.
“a steak to the heart”
So, cholesterol is another of her weaknesses?
she is somewhat vegetarian.
Unless they are ugly, like fish or shellfish :P
The steak meeting the heart isn’t the problem. What you need to get out of the way so that the steak can meet the heart, on the other hand…
Sydney: Hey doc, how do I take this medication? Please don’t tell me it’s a suppository.
Dr. Frost: I said Mittens! Mittens for your hands, not… never mind, if it calms you down it’s working.
*I was gonna put a picture of Shoko Nakagawa sucking the face of one of her cats but forgot I couldn’t post images in this comment box* (just search her name and the word cat… that should work)
You can still post linkages to images
It’s not surprising that an ADD patient would think pills are the answer to every mental issue.
I’ve seen similar thought patterns in narcolepsy patients.
Weirdly enough, both get the same pills.
That’s kind of rude. You shouldn’t speak for other people like that.
I don’t think pills are an answer to MOST mental issues.
I think they’re an answer to mental issues where there are brain chemicals missing or malformed, and that they’re sometimes an answer to specific wiring and hardware issues (like Lithium with BPD until it stops working) … but for a lot of mental issues, the answer is to take time and diligent work to rewire neural nets.
And if I could get a pill that would actually replace my missing orexin, I’d be all over that, but for now, modafinil does the job to the point where I don’t become a zombie until I have to.
(And the ritalin I was prescribed before Modafinil was a thing? Yeah, it helped a little with the ADD but it was physically and psychologically addictive and I had to stop using it for that reason.)
I thought she already had this covered by taping the Shield & Oxygen orbs to her hands while she sleeps…
If she can’t let go, she can’t grab the PPO.
A temporary solution at best, and very probably counterproductive. As long as she’s locking herself in a cell to hide from the monsters in her head, she’s strengthening rather than resolving the fears that are debilitating her.
The getting stronger expression is absolutely true!
I´m VERY clumsy. That has given me so much pain over the years that i´m now virtually immune to it.
Not that i don´t feel pain anymore, but it doesn´t stop me in any way.
Except for my knee, that has started to act up. That can put a crimp in my step for half a second…
…See, this is why you don’t tell people your weaknesses…They might use them when you REALLY need to be taken down a notch…oh, wait.
Oooh, this therapist is good.
You know, though there may not be space to squeeze it in yet another page on this, I could see Sydney approaching Dabbler about a literal magical solution now that her attempt at a pharmacological magical solution has been denied.
Eating multigrain bread and an orange would not make me stronger. It would make me weaker since gluten hates me and I am allergic to oranges.
Others may have touched on this already, but I don’t want to go through 200 comments to try and find it.
So- Time Heals all Wounds is, I think, very apt for emotional wounds when we’re not talking about ones that change the very structure of your brain, like PTSD does. Time DOES heal, say, a broken heart. Or a friend’s betrayal. Or the loss of a loved one. Similarly, time heals deeper wounds as well- Peggy’s leg is healed, after all- it’s just not whole. And you can also take that expression to mean something like “Death makes the wounds irrelevant”.
And as far as “That which doesn’t kill me makes me stronger”… You do realize that exercise is literally ripping at bits of your body in non-deadly ways in order for them to grow back stronger, right? Broken bones, when they heal right, are stronger at that break point than they were before. Weight training is deliberately causing micro-tears in your muscles, so that the muscles will re-grow stronger than they were. Experiencing agonizing pain allows you to more easily ignore smaller pains in the future. And surviving deadly situations gives you the experience to more likely survive future deadly situations- hence you are, overall, ‘stronger’ for the experiences.
That which does not kill you makes you stranger.
There are actually psychiatrists that figure drugs and more drugs are the answer all problems. They should be avoided.
That isn’t to say meds are never the answer, but if the doc is reaching for a prescription pad after this short of an assessment, you need a new doctor.
Get a proper assessment, try solutions that don’t alter the patient’s brain chemistry first, then move onto trying some meds if necessary, keeping in mind that everyone is different so what works great for one patient will have another patient wishing they were dead, also keep in mind interactions; Syd is on ADHD meds, more brain chemistry altering drugs have to be applied carefully so as to not make things worse, or result in really unpleasant side effects.
Also, for a Sayan even what kill them makes them stronger…