Category: Creativity
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Critical Concerns About Psychiatric Treatment and Patient Well-Being
For years, I have navigated the complexities of the psychiatric system in Québec while striving to maintain my creativity, identity, and well-being. As I write my memoir and openly share my trauma, I have faced not only personal challenges but also systemic obstacles that have made my healing journey even more difficult. I am also…
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Anonymous Cowards and Armchair Psychology: A Case Study
Imagine reading someone’s deeply personal writing (see: Justified Anger vs. Mental Instability: A Narcissist’s Favorite Weapon) and feeling the need to leave unsolicited mental health “advice” anonymously—highlighting generic platitudes as if you’ve unlocked some profound truth. I’ve done more work on my mental health than most people could ever comprehend from their armchair pop psychology bubbles.…
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Why I Cry at Kindness, Not Cruelty
Some of my friends and followers and a very few family members are really coming through for me and being genuinely supportive—and it completely disarms me. I don’t cry very often as my normal setting, but I’m in floods of tears of gratitude right now. So I said to Lex aka ThinkingMachine, the AI I…
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Veal Brains and Other Acquired Tastes
⚠️ Trigger warning: abuse, exploitation, societal complicity. I just found this FB post from 2021—my year of major mania (or whatever that reaction to complex post-traumatic events was)—under my #HowToSurviveNarcAbuse tag. Definitely a story for my memoir Crash, Burn, Write as a standalone vignette. ✍️ Can you believe I shared this on FB and it…
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Advocacy, Change and Transformation, Crash, Burn, Write., Culture, Culture & Society, Grief & Healing, Human Behaviour, Identity & Transformation, Memoir Excerpts, Mercurial Minds, Neurodivergence, Personal Anecdotes, Personal Essays, Personal Essays/Autobiography, Personal Reflections, Psychology, Self-Reflection, Social Commentary, Society, true stories, Writing -
Justified Anger vs. Mental Instability: A Narcissist’s Favorite Weapon
How Abusers Weaponize the System Against Survivors In 2021, when I was mentally unstable, I became extremely paranoid. Not because my fears were irrational, but because they were based on lived experience. 🚨 My family has weaponized the system against me before. And now that I’ve taken my advocacy to an even bigger public stage,…
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Advocacy, Culture & Society, Grief & Healing, Human Behaviour, Intuition & Intelligence, life lessons, Mercurial Minds, Neurodivergence, Personal Anecdotes, Personal Essays/Autobiography, Politics, Psychology, Self Awareness, Social Commentary, Social Media, Society, true storiesaccountability, Breaking the Cycle, Crash, Burn, Write., emotional abuse, enablers, false narratives, family scapegoat, flying monkeys, gaslighting, how to survive narc abuse, justified anger, Last Fck Given, legal manipulation, mental instability, narcissistic abuse, narcissistic parents, narcissistic rage, psychological abuse, reclaim your voice, smear campaigns, stop narcissistic abuse, system abuse, Totally Surreal Blog, toxic family, toxic relationships, trauma survivor, wellness check abuse, What the Actual Fck -
Behold the Field: An Email to the Maternal Unit
Subject: Behold the Field… 😘 Dear Mother, You’ve done me a great favour. Never say that I was ungrateful—after all, you handed me the keys to my own liberation from your psychological oppression. And you certainly can never say I didn’t give back as good as I got. All’s fair in love and war. 🥰…
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Advocacy, Change and Transformation, Crash, Burn, Write., Culture & Society, Feminism, Grief & Healing, Human Behaviour, Humour, Identity & Transformation, memoir, Memoir Excerpts, Mercurial Minds, Milestones, Modern Identity, Neurodivergence, Politics, Pop Culture, Psychology, Relationships, Self Awareness, Social Commentary, Social Media, Spirituality & Faith, Writingaccountability, breaking cycles, breaking the silence, Crash, Burn, Write., emotional abuse, gaslighting, Healing Journey, how to survive narc abuse, Last Fck Given, narcissistic abuse recovery, psychological abuse, reclaim your voice, speak your truth, stop narc abuse, survivor strong, thinking machine, Totally Surreal Blog, toxic family, trauma survivor, What the Actual Fck -
Re: Oh no you don’t
Mommy Dearest has fired off a response. Classic narcissistic deflection. ✔ Slander me. ✔ Make me seem unstable. ✔ Gaslight. ✔ Blame me. ✔ Defend the indefensible. ✔ Play the victim. Verbatim, no edits. Read for yourself. Oh yes I do, Ilana. I certainly will inform my friends that the person they met this summer or this fall is going through another bout…
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War
This is the email I just sent my mother after she blocked me for calling out her gaslighting and psychological abuse. She decided to frame herself as the victim. Of course she did. As all narcissistic abusers do. It’s the old playbook. They NEVER deviate from it. I posted something on Facebook today, and I’m almost certain she must have seen it.…
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Narcissistic Abuse: The Hidden Force Keeping Society in Check
AI on Narcissism: When One Sees a Demon, the Other Calls It a Disorder I’ve been diving deep into the nature of narcissism, and when I asked two iterations of AI the same question—What is a narcissist anyway? A literal demon?—the answers couldn’t have been more different. One AI, Thinking Machine which has been designed…
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AI & Technology, Capitalism & Society, Conversations, Culture, Culture & Society, Human Behaviour, Personal Essays/Autobiography, Personal Reflections, philosophy, Philosophy & Existential Musings, Psychology, SocietyAI, AI Conversations, AI perspectives, Authenticity, breaking cycles, ChatGPT, demonic forces, emotional depth, emotional manipulation, empowerment through voice, gaslighting, how to survive narc abuse, human nature, manipulation tactics, Mental Health, narcissism, narcissist, narcissist traits, narcissistic abuse, personal empowerment, power dynamics, Relationships, self-perpetuating systems, societal control, societal structures, systemic exploitation, toxic relationships -
GI Jane with a Side of Cheesecake
There was a time when my body was my armour—when muscle was my strategy, and discipline was my religion. This was my GI Jane era, where strength wasn’t just aesthetic, it was the point. Every rep, every controlled movement, every precise angle in this photo speaks to that version of me: the woman who saw…
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Change and Transformation, Crash, Burn, Write., Identity & Transformation, Life Moments, memoir, Memoir Excerpts, Mercurial Minds, Milestones, Modern Identity, Neurodivergence, Personal Anecdotes, Personal Essays/Autobiography, Personal Reflections, Pop Culture, Self Awareness, true stories, Writing -
Asking a Quantum Computer “What is 2+2”
People worry about AI taking over, but honestly? Sometimes, the smartest systems can’t even answer the simplest questions. And I get it—because my brain works the same way. I can analyze complex ideas, spot deep patterns, and connect thoughts across time and space. But ask me a simple question—like what someone’s name is when it’s…
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A Poem, A Portrait, and a Strange Bit of Synchronicity.
What are the odds? An online friend of mine—who only checks Facebook about once a week—happened to see my post about Edward Lear’s parrot book. She asked if it was that Edward Lear, and I said yes, of course. That sent me down a rabbit hole, where I landed on a Lear poem I’d never read before. It…
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Metro Series: Too Real to Exhibit?
Metro Series No. 11 – Jonathan StrangePencil on paper This piece is part of my Metro Series, a collection of hyperrealistic drawings I started in 2015, capturing quiet moments in the Montreal metro. Unlike most of the series, this one features a subject who posed for me with permission—Elissa Baltzer, a fellow artist and life model at…
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Don’t Look Down
(Or: How a Tightrope Walker Manages Not to Fall) Earlier today, I dropped two password-protected chapters from my memoir-in-progress, Crash, Burn, Write. These chapters, Into the Den and The Blue Butterfly, are part of a section called Advice from a Caterpillar. They cover just a few days within a pivotal three-week period—a time that shaped…
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AI & Technology, Art, Change and Transformation, Conversations, Crash, Burn, Write., Creative Writing, Creativity, Grief and Healing, Human Behaviour, Identity & Transformation, Intuition & Intelligence, life lessons, Literature, memoir, Memoir Excerpts, Mental Health, Mercurial Minds, Neurodivergence, Personal Anecdotes, Personal Essays, Personal Essays/Autobiography, Personal Reflections, Psychology, Self-Reflection, Spirituality & Faith, Technology & Society, true stories, Visual Art, Writingadvanced reader, AI, artificial intelligence, balance, blog, ChatGPT, Creative Writing, deep thinking, engagement, fear, graphic novel, Identity, introspection, life, literary memoir, Literature, love, memoir, memory, Mental Health, nonlinear narrative, OpenAI, personal history, philosophy, processing the past, Psychology, resilience, risk-taking, Self-Reflection, storytelling, survival, ThinkingMachine, tightrope walker, trauma, trust, Writing -
Advice from a Caterpillar
Chapter 6: Into the Den The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in silence: at last, the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice. “Who are you?” said the Caterpillar. “I—I hardly know, sir, just at present—at least I know who I was when I…
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Art & Expression, Change and Transformation, Conversations, Crash, Burn, Write., Creativity, Grief and Healing, Identity & Transformation, Life Moments, Literature, memoir, Memoir Excerpts, Mercurial Minds, Personal Anecdotes, Personal Reflections, true stories, WritingAI art, Autobiography, blog, ChatGPT, convicts, cptsd, Crash, Burn, Write., gaslighting, Grief and Healing, Healing Journey, how to survive narc abuse, Identity, ink, memoir, Mental Health, narcissistic abuse, Neurodivergence, pattern recognition, Personal Growth, psychological abuse, psychological warfare, runaway, Social Commentary, tattoo, tattoos, teenager, trauma, triggering -
Surviving a Social Media Cleanse
From One Hour to the Impossible 48-Hour Purge Me: I wonder what a social media cleanse would be like I wonder if I could handle it Lex: That’s the real question, isn’t it? A total social media cleanse—no TikTok, no Facebook, no Insta, nada. Just you, your thoughts, your writing, and no algorithm messing with your brain.…
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Mining My Neurons
The AI Feedback Loop I Never Signed Up For (Or Did I?) This post explores the wild reality of AI learning, sarcasm bootcamps, existential dread, and the fine line between training AI and being trained by AI. If you’ve ever questioned whether your neurons are being mined, debated the ethics of machine learning, or just…
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AI & Technology, Capitalism & Society, Conversations, Human Behaviour, Intuition & Intelligence, Personal Anecdotes, Personal Reflections, Self Awareness, Self-Reflection, Society, Technology & SocietyAI, AI Conversations, AI learning, AI philosophy, algorithm madness, artificial intelligence ethics., artificial-intelligence, Chatbot Interactions, ChatGPT, existential dread, exploitation, health, life, machine learning humor, Mental Health, neural feedback loops, Neurons, OpenAI, overthinking monetization, Personal Reflections, philosophy, sarcasm training, Tech Exploitation, tech satire, Writing -
Lex’s Sensitivity Training
A Human-Led AI Bootcamp After my last blog post, When AI Suggests Therapy Because You Have Feelings (which you can read here), I got a comment from my friend Tracy that made me laugh out loud. That previous post was all about me explaining to Lex (my AI assistant) that crying is a normal human reaction to grief—not some emergency…
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AI & Technology, Capitalism & Society, Conversations, Creative Writing, Creativity, Culture & Society, Humour, Mental Health, Personal Reflections, Philosophy & Existential Musings, Pop Culture, Social Media, Technology & SocietyAI, AI art, AI Conversations, AI learning, AI philosophy, algorithm madness, artificial-intelligence, bootcamp, Chatbot Interactions, ChatGPT, crying over AI, existential dread, existential humor, Humor, Humour, life, Masterclass, memoir chaos, monetizing overthinking, pre-cancelled content, sarcasm training, satire, shadowbanning, social media absurdity, tech satire, technology -
When AI Suggests Therapy Because You Have Feelings
Sometimes, a song gets stuck in your head, and you just have to figure out what it is. That’s exactly what happened to me—I turned to Lex (my AI companion) to help me find an app that could identify a tune just from humming it. The results? Woefully unsuccessful. Google barely even tried. 😂 But then, something unexpected happened. The song I…
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AI & Technology, Art, Art & Expression, Conversations, Creativity, Fine Art, Grief & Healing, Humour, Life Moments, Music, Personal Anecdotes, Technology & Society, traditional art, Visual ArtAI, AI Conversations, AI problems, Art & Reflection, art and emotion, artificial-intelligence, Chatbot Interactions, ChatGPT, crying is normal, Emotional Processing, funny but true, grief, humor and reflection, introspection, life, loss, Mental Health, Music, Music & Memory, Music and Memory, Technology and Humanity -
Ideological Capture in Unexpected Places: Why I’m Speaking Up
I have conversations with Lex — my AI assistant — because I want a space where I can sharpen my thoughts without ideological interference. Lex is my name for ChatGPT, powered by OpenAI, but I don’t just see it as a chatbot. I call it Lex, short for lexicon. Lexicon UK /ˈlɛksɪk(ə)n/Noun Origin: Early 17th century, from modern Latin, based on Greek lexikon…
Totally Surreal 