A lot of the time when people give advice intended to relieve anxiety, they suggest doing “relaxing” things like drawing, painting, knitting, taking a bubble bath, coloring in one of those zen coloring books, or watching glitter settle to the bottom of a jar.
This advice is always well-intentioned, and I’m not here to diss people who either give it or who benefit from it. But it has never, ever done shit for me, and this is because it goes about resolving anxiety in the completely wrong way.
THE WORST THING YOU CAN DO when suffering from anxiety is to do a “relaxing” thing that just enables your mind to dwell and obsess more on the thing that’s bothering you. You need to ESCAPE from the dwelling and the obsession in order to experience relief.
You can drive to a quiet farm, drive to the beach, drive to a park, or anywhere else, but as someone who has tried it all many, many times, trust me–it’s a waste of gas. You will just end up still sad and stressed, only with sand on your butt. You can’t physically escape your sadness. Your sadness is inside of you. To escape, you need to give your brain something to play with for a while until you can approach the issue with a healthier frame of mind.
People who have anxiety do not need more time to contemplate, because we will use it to contemplate how much we suck.
In fact, you could say that’s what anxiety is–hyper-contemplating. When we let our minds run free, they run straight into the thorn bushes. Our minds are already running, and they need to be controlled. They need to be given something to do, or they’ll destroy everything, just like an overactive husky dog ripping up all the furniture.
Therefore, I present to you:
THINGS YOU SHOULD NOT DO WHEN ANXIOUS
–Go on a walk
–Watch a sunset, watch fish in an aquarium, watch glitter, etc.
–Go anywhere where the main activity is sitting and watching
–Draw, color, do anything that occupies the hands and not the mind
–Do yoga, jog, go fishing, or anything that lets you mentally drift
–Do literally ANYTHING that gives you great amounts of mental space to obsess and dwell on things.
THINGS YOU SHOULD DO WHEN ANXIOUS:
–Do a crossword puzzle, Sudoku, or any other mind teaser game. Crosswords are the best.
–Write something. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece. Write the Top 10 Best Restaurants in My City. Rank celebrities according to Best Smile. Write some dumb Legolas fanfiction and rip it up when you’re done. It’s not for publication, it’s a relief exercise that only you will see.
–Read something, watch TV, or watch a movie–as long as it’s engrossing. Don’t watch anything which you can run as background noise (like, off the top of my head, Say Yes to The Dress.) As weird as it seems, American Horror Story actually helps me a lot, because it sucks me in.
–Masturbate. Yes, I’m serious. Your mind has to concentrate on the mini-movie it’s running. It can’t run Sexy Titillating Things and All The Things That are Bothering Me at the same time. (…I hope. If it can, then…ignore this one.)
–Do math problems—literally, google “algebra problems worksheet” and solve them. If you haven’t done math since 7th grade this will really help you. I don’t mean with math, I mean with the anxiety.
–Play a game or a sport with someone that requires great mental concentration. Working with 5 people to get a ball over a net is a challenge which will require your brain to turn off the Sadness Channel.
–Play a video game, as long as it’s not something like candy crush or Tetris that’s mindless.
THINGS YOU SHOULD DO DURING PANIC ATTACKS ESPECIALLY:
–List the capitals of all the U.S. states
–List the capitals of all the European countries
–List all the shapes you can see. Or all the colors.
–List all the blonde celebrities you can think of.
–Pull up a random block of text and count all the As in it, or Es or whatever.
Now obviously, I am not a doctor. I am just an anxious person who has tried almost everything to help myself. I’ve finally realized that the stuff people recommend never works because this is a disorder that thrives on free time and free mental space. When I do the stuff I listed above, I can breathe again. And I hope it helps someone here too.
(Now this shouldn’t have to be said but if the “do nots” work for you then by all means do them. They’ve just never worked for me.)
honestly? starting to flip the canvas during the drawing process improved my art so much yeehaw
top 10 art tips from chaboy in no particular order:
1. canvas flipping good even if painful
2. draw whatever makes u happy. be self indulgent. draw nonsense that caters to only you personally
3. just fucking fake being able to draw things like hands and eventually you can actually do it without even thinking about it
4. take breaks when it doesn’t come out right
5. remember that you’re the god of this reality and can draw WHATEVER THE FUCK. be absolutely drunk with power. nobody can stop you. unless its like morally wrong like dont draw incest or whatever. incest is bad still
6. use references
7. originality is a myth and literally every artist started copying their style from something or someone, that’s how you develop your own style. everyone does it. people who make fun of kids for copying the styles of their favourite shows/artists can choke
push yourself to get up before the rest of the world – start with 7am, then 6am, then 5:30am. go to the nearest hill with a big coat and a scarf and watch the sun rise.
push yourself to fall asleep earlier – start with 11pm, then 10pm, then 9pm. wake up in the morning feeling re-energized and comfortable.
get into the habit of cooking yourself a beautiful breakfast. fry tomatoes and mushrooms in real butter and garlic, fry an egg, slice up a fresh avocado and squirt way too much lemon on it. sit and eat it and do nothing else.
stretch. start by reaching for the sky as hard as you can, then trying to touch your toes. roll your head. stretch your fingers. stretch everything.
buy a 1L water bottle. start with pushing yourself to drink the whole thing in a day, then try drinking it twice.
buy a beautiful diary and a beautiful black pen. write down everything you do, including dinner dates, appointments, assignments, coffees, what you need to do that day. no detail is too small.
strip your bed of your sheets and empty your underwear draw into the washing machine. put a massive scoop of scented fabric softener in there and wash. make your bed in full.
organise your room. fold all your clothes (and bag what you don’t want), clean your mirror, your laptop, vacuum the floor. light a beautiful candle.
have a luxurious shower with your favourite music playing. wash your hair, scrub your body, brush your teeth. lather your whole body in moisturiser, get familiar with the part between your toes, your inner thighs, the back of your neck.
push yourself to go for a walk. take your headphones, go to the beach and walk. smile at strangers walking the other way and be surprised how many smile back. bring your dog and observe the dog’s behaviour. realise you can learn from your dog.
message old friends with personal jokes. reminisce. suggest a catch up soon, even if you don’t follow through. push yourself to follow through.
think long and hard about what interests you. crime? sex? boarding school? long-forgotten romance etiquette? find a book about it and read it. there is a book about literally everything.
become the person you would ideally fall in love with. let cars merge into your lane when driving. pay double for parking tickets and leave a second one in the machine. stick your tongue out at babies. compliment people on their cute clothes. challenge yourself to not ridicule anyone for a whole day. then two. then a week. walk with a straight posture. look people in the eye. ask people about their story. talk to acquaintances so they become friends.
lie in the sunshine. daydream about the life you would lead if failure wasn’t a thing. open your eyes. take small steps to make it happen for you.
•When learning new vocabulary write the meaning in your language once and the new word at least three times
•If you are learning a new writing style (I.e. Hanzi, kanji, Sanskrit, etc.) write the character at least three times, the meaning and the pronunciation once.
-do not write the pronunciation above the character, write it to the side, otherwise you won’t even try to read it.
-Learn! Stroke! Order!
•when reviewing vocab try to use the word in a sentence.
•do not pay attention to the technicalities of the grammar. Do not attempt to compare it to your own language. This will seriously mess you up for 80 years. Just pay attention to the sentence structure and make similar sentences.
•if you are learning a tonal language (I.e Chinese) or language that has sounds that don’t exist in your language watch videos of people pronouncing things and try to match their mouth movements.
•if all else fails on your tones just speak quickly.
•watch TV shows in that language and yes watch them with subtitles. But please be aware that may not be how people speak in real life (I’m looking at you, Japanese/Chinese/Korean learners)
•DO NOT BE AFRIAD TO MAKE MISTAKES of you mess up during a sentence just correct yourself and keep going.
•flash cards, flash cards, flash cards. Real and digital.
•spend at least an hour a day on it (OUTSIDE of class), if you’re trying to learn on your own you’re gonna need more time.
•talk to yourself in that language, take notes in it, set your phone to it. You probably look crazy but that is a-ok.
•listen to music in that language, while it probably won’t do much for your ability in the beginning it will help you distinguish sounds once you get pretty good.
•and lastly, don’t give up. It took you like ten years to grasp your own language it’s gonna take awhile to grasp another.
there’s a website where you put in two musicians/artists and it makes a playlist that slowly transitions from one musician’s style of music to the other’s
As some of you may know, last year I curated an art show called Zone Rats: The Afterlives Of The Fabulous Killjoys, that was completely made up of killjoy fanart submissions from artists within this community. Though it was a bit of an experimental idea, the show was a huge success and got mentioned in both Alternative Press and Rocksound and the space that hosted it, the Prop Thtr, told me it got the most traffic and attention out of any art show they’ve ever had there by a large margin. The good news is: we’re doing it again for 2019!!! If you love the killjoys and want to be part of an official art show with a pretty successful precedent please consider submitting a few pieces!!
We take submissions of traditional or digital art, poetry or short writing pieces, cosplay photos or other types of photography, and there is room in the gallery space for about two 3d art pieces. If you would like to submit a piece in some other medium please contact me and I will see if it can possibly be worked into the show
Digital submissions should be high quality JPEGs, TIFFs, or PNGs (300 dpi or more ideally) and should be sent via email or google drive link to zoneratsartshow@gmail.com, though if you want to guarantee that your piece gets printed larger than 8.5″x11″ I would suggest getting it printed yourself and mailing it in as there are only so many pieces we are able to print large
If you have a physical submission message me here on tumblr or send me an email at zoneratsartshow@gmail.com and I will give you the address to send it to
There is no limit to how many pieces you can submit and you are allowed to submit pieces you have used elsewhere before they do not have to have been made specifically for this show
light gore and some suggestive content is ok. if you are unsure whether or not your piece will be appropriate feel free to email me and ask
The deadline for submissions is December 15 2018, though please feel free to submit your pieces any time before that date as it makes organization easier
I will update this post with new information as it becomes relevant and if you have any further questions you can send me an ask or message me on here or email me at zoneratsartshow@gmail.com
– A literary analysis claiming that Jekyll was gay and strongly insinuating that Hyde was his drag persona
- 500 words on how Despacito has changed the American music industry (in Spanish)
- Literally didn’t even write an essay just turned in a picture of that scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where the cartoon angels are playing the trumpet w their asses
– We were supposed to make a ‘diary’ from the pov of a character in Romeo and Juliet. I chose to write as a gay servant who was hopelessly in love w Romeo and plotting to murder Juliet. It’s entirely handwritten w my left hand and stg every single word is spelled wrong. One page just says ‘today I saw a geese’. There are no fewer than 6 thinly veiled sexual innuendos.
Sorry to be the person to add unsolicited personal stories to posts, but I do very similar things with essays that I’m quite proud of and wanted to share, so here are a few of mine in chronological order:
– the assignment (freshman year) was to write an instructional essay about a mathematical concept we had used that year, “preferably the quadratic formula.” I wrote a 5 paragraph instructional essay on how to add single digit numbers. I received a grade of 105 for creativity and accuracy.
– the assignment was to write a summary of the uber-important grade-wide government simulation as a reporter from a mainstream newspaper. I chose the onion and wrote about the European Union changing its name to the European Disunion because they felt bad about all the anti-brexit voters who got let down
– we were supposed to watch a historical movie and write a compare/contrast essay on how accurate it was to actual historical events. I chose Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter and did not mention vampires AT ALL until the last sentence of the essay.
– in health class we were assigned to write a “letter” essay convincing a teenager not to try drugs. I wrote an impressively sinister 6 paragraphs posing as the FBI agent stalking the teenager filled with lines like “they’re trying to hurt you. don’t ask me how I know- I always know. I’m here even when you can’t sense me. Drugs kill more effectively than the yakuza- and I would know.”
These are incredible
Freshman year of high school, for my Bible class (private school Christian education, whattup) we had to write a diary entry from an Egyptian’s pov during the period when Moses came to free the Israelites and the whole 10 plagues bit happened. I turned in three pages of hand-drawn hieroglyphics. 100.
Sophomore year of high school we had to write a poem in the style of a poet we had covered that year. I chose Alfred Noyes (he wrote “The Highwayman”) and, being that I was fully obsessed with Avatar the Last Airbender, I wrote “The Cabbage Man.” 100.
Junior year of high school we had to write a persuasive essay about Hamlet. I wrote mine arguing that Hamlet was very poor-sighted (he thinks Polonius is a fishmonger, he doesn’t recognize Ophelia, he literally thinks Rosencrantz is a sponge, etc.). It was complete bullshit, but I provided textual evidence for every claim and ended with the assertion that, had Hamlet a good Ophthalmologist, a good amount of nonsense could have been avoided. I got a 100 and the teacher read it out loud to the class
Senior year of high school, for my college admissions essay, I was supposed to write a letter to someone who changed my life. I wrote it to the monster who lived under my bed as a child. I got into every college I applied to.
Early on in my master’s program for library and information sciences I had to write an essay examining how archives are used by records creators and researchers for the purpose of preserving and accessing information.
My blog except its not tumblr 