I am literally Mimi from Survive Style 5+.

Ooooh. I used to devour his books around the time of uni.

I also really enjoy the various settings in his stories, and the thrill. His first book I read was The Quiet American, right after Dispatches by Michael Herr (non-fiction about his time as a Vietnam War correspondent), which was a big motivator to study journalism, so of course I had to read more of his :)

Another really good spy thriller I read was I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes. Although I sometimes feel it’s a bit heavy with the American imperialist perspectives.

I don’t think it really works directly presently, at least not for all instances. I’m just using the spoiler tag, or body for alt-text on lemmy at the moment. That probably needs to change before bots can be useful (if I’m not wrong about this).

EDIT: Meh, never mind me, I don’t know enough about direct alt-text on lemmy.

The text isn’t supposed to show up. It’s alternative text for viewers that can’t see the image (or otherwise need it described).

https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/485977

Even if I didn’t join lemmy, I would’ve stopped using reddit. I still have an account so I can login and view posts when they would otherwise block me from viewing because of a VPN.

But why reddit is utter insidious and hostile garbage is another subject.

Lemmy and Mastodon are just in every way more how it’s supposed to be. I can use a vpn. I can use whatever non-gmail email. I don’t have to worry about one profit-oriented central authority becoming a target to shape discourse in favor of special interest groups, as I could just spin up my own instance, or go elsewhere. The communities are spread across different instances with different operators, owners and motivations. So it’s much more organic.

This is by the way also a reason why it’s quite important people don’t all sign up to the same big instances.
This is a problem on mastodon, where even now joinmastodon.com, by default points to mastodon.social.

Mastodon.social hosts genocide-denying Zionists and is generally more pro-genocide than any of the decent larger instances. Regardless of their own motivations, being hosted in Germany and as THE entry to mastodon, they are a target for shaping public opinion.

Last wish before Christmas, I also wish people would alt-text more on lemmy. Maybe in the future there can be a bot that messages you when the image was posted without alt-text, like on Mastodon. It seemed to have helped people a lot who were new to this.

I wish I could say I don’t watch porn, or only when I pay for it on some more ethical platform.

I find the path of causing as little harm as possible very difficult anyway to always do well, and I don’t believe there is any human who does it perfectly.

But I still like to keep my eyes in the right direction and know what’s true :)

I’d argue, that porn is a luxury. You don’t need porn to survive, nor for a fulfilling life.

So why feed an exploitive industry when you don’t have to? Isn’t that causing unnecessary harm?

That’s not to criticize the idea of performing erotic scenes to share with other people for sexual pleasure and getting money for it.

I barely understand any of it, but that makes it even more beautiful.

I’m sorry, I can see how this thread can be insensitive or disrespectful of this. I didn’t address it, because I need to think more deeply about it to figure out and say what I really think, clearly. Of course you are right. But I think this thread might be a bit different.

I might delete the thread later, or if a mod wants to take the initiative, please do.

I’ll add that I witnessed a lot of this shit as well and had to a lot of tough legal battles and with facilities. Staff lying and kicking vulnerable people out into homelessness for no reason. This thread was not supposed to be about that part. I am one of these maaaaad people myself and I find any weirdness funny and mostly celebratory in the circus that is humanity, as long as it’s not to dehumanize or degrade. But, yes, I am not writing about myself, and this is public and not among people I know.

Thanks for posting. Wrote some thoughts on this in the comment of another poster with a similar message.

Thanks for posting. I honestly don’t know how much I agree with you, but it’s something worth thinking about more. Definitely don’t want to do something needlessly disrespectful or discriminating.

As for the woman in the fixation room, I’ll add that I know a few people who are terrified of the concept of that room. This is not the case here. Maybe I worded it badly too. By permanently assigned, I just mean that was essentially her room. Not that it was always locked. She could come and go as much as she liked from the room, until she harassed people too much with her non-stop chatter and not respecting any boundaries, etc, which happened multiple times daily.

Also, if you want to blame someone for this room situation, blame the top bosses, or the criminally underfunded health care system, or the folks who vote favorably for such policies, etc. The staff in the ward have to make due with what they have, and I’d say they did pretty well.

Nothing shocking like this.

I was about to leave a pub in the UK, when somebody got beat up and it didn’t look too good. I actually don’t remember this part so well, probably because I was drunk and mentally checked-out, but it caused a commotion and there was an agreement that we needed an ambulance. So I called one, told folks about it, and left.

Well, turns out the dude just up and left at some point, and nobody had my back. Because the ambulance folks kept calling me for days, even threatening me with fees and stuff for making a fake call. Eventually they believed me and let it go.

Gonna repost some information here I shared in another thread.

They broke the law again. The Epstein Files Transparency Act requires all the files to be released, downloadable and searchable by the end of today. Already failing that, Trump’s DOJ also made a statement that they would release “several hundred thousand” documents.

Well, CBS:

New documents span 3,965 files, totaling 3 GB of data

The total number of files across all four new data sets is 3,965, with a total file size of about 3 GB. Nearly all of the files are PDFs, with one video file. Some of the files are individual images, while others are documents with many pages.

In the closed ward there was also this big dude in his thirties. He seemed to be there because he was overwhelmed in some way. As he was otherwise completely lucid, but just had to lie down a lot and do long exhales, while laughing a lot, seemingly at his own weird situation, whatever that may be. At first he pissed me off in the smoking area, because he was talking so much and loads of it gangster talk. I thought at most he was some small-time criminal engulfed in the culture, or pretending to be.

Well, he turned out to be quite a genuine and respectful guy, and he told us a lot. His family was deeply associated to an international crime group, which he laughed about “They tell me just talk, how the hell am I supposed to tell a therapist that my family is connected to X?”. His craft was apparently fighting and he seemed to enjoy it the way he talked about it. He earned his money mainly robbing coke dealers, no matter what associations they had. Told us of his horror when the cops raided his hang-out and almost found a shit-ton of drugs that he secretly evacuated in front of them when he arrived. A lot of infighting with the family and whatnot. And a prison arc where he got upset that the Nazi he organised a bomb for in prison chickened out and told on him. (He wasn’t white, rather someone who would be ordinarily targeted by nazis). Honestly an interesting person, who invited another patient and myself frequently to eat with him after we were all out.

Oh, talking of meeting people outside. I actually visited the lady from my second story in my OP after we were both out. She had changed a lot, with the mania gone, and laughed about here own past behavior. It was nice talking with her about the fun and super-crazy moments we had, despite all the bad shit.

It certainly sounds like it!

Damn

This sounds gruesome but maybe is interesting for you https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2025/oct/22/cbt-i-sleep-therapy-insomnia

And yeah, over-prescription of benzos sucks hard. I know people who aren’t cluster C but would cheer you on with their shared experience. But revenge as a concept is just so pointless.

This is in the US, right? I’m pretty sure most people I’ve met in Europe who work as nurses have therapists (though this is just anecdotal, and they also took a long time to get them). The one veteran nurse I mentioned in my other comment would talk openly in the smoking room with us about his depression, the meds he’s taking, his family issues with his ex-wife and their kid, shitty mistakes by doctors and the healthcare system in general. (He also had some sick songs on his phone)

We had one patient come in a non-closed ward, though, who worked as a nurse in a facility for elderly. He said he wanted to give the patients the care they deserved, but there isn’t enough time, enough people, etc. so you’re gonna burnout. He arrived with burnout and alcoholism.

Makes me think of the studies that show how money invested in healthcare actually saves money in the long run.

Jesus F. Christ. Sorry what you’ve gone through, and all the people involved…

There was terrible shit as well in my case, but nothing this bad. I think I was quite lucky with the people there and the the staff. One of the staff had worked at the facility for over twenty years, and was offered to be the head of an entire building, but he wanted to work with patients directly, as a nurse (if that’s the English word for it) and he was a great bridge between the new staff that learns so much more about the bureaucracy involved etc. and are too distant to the patients, and the patients who need to be seen as human still.

From my understanding it can be a tough balance to strike, but getting it right is gold.

Cowboys are frequently secretly fond of each other

🎼
Meine Liebe ist für immer
Und mir wird ganz warm
Meine Liebe ist für dich
Alprazolam, Alprazolam
🎧

I can practically taste the seizures