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Personally, I find periods of having nothing to cry about even better for my mental health.
Shaking your fist at the sky and yelling “DAMN YOU WILLIS!” is also pretty cathartic. even if people look at you funny. Meh, they were going to look at me funny anyway.
Sorry, gotta quibble here: If you aren’t aware of your feelings, do you even have them? Feelings demand your attention by definition. I’ll accept denial, confusion, numbness, indifference or inarticulateness, but feelings have to be felt by definition.
You can absolutely be affected by your feelings without being self-aware enough to understand how or why, or even recognise that it’s happening at all.
I’ve been working with my psych for a long time to try and unpack exactly what the hell is going on in my head, sometimes even just the basic emotions are just completely unrecognisable. I mean, you can’t measure sadness, it’s all just people trying to describe it – often using very abstract terms and poetic language. How is that supposed to help me know what sadness feels like?
It’s like trying to describe a colour to a blind person. Without being able to point to something and say “this is sadness”, it’s all vague gestures – usually coming from a very neurotypical perspective that I can barely decipher, let alone identify with.
I occasionally realize I’m feeling an emotion by its physical side effects more so than actually feeling the emotion(makes it real fun when it’s heart hurting sadness)
No, feelings do not demand attention. They happen all the time without any attention being paid to them. Feelings can sometimes capture one’s attention unexpectedly, but much of the time, they’re just a thing that happens as one does things. We often have to stop and examine what we’re feeling and try to place them into a relevant context (“What was I thinking about when I started to feel this way? Did it remind me of something else? Did something significant happen?”) before we can even know what feelings they are at any given moment.
Emotional responses happen at a level below conscious thought. That’s part of why they’re so hard to control. But it also makes it easy for them to be affecting your actions without you even knowing they’re there.
I work with children with severe mental trauma (abuse victims and the like). Lack of emotional intelligence – the inability to recognise or deal with their own emotional states – is a very real problem for them.
I could only WISH I cold be so compartmentalized that I don’t have to experience my emotions, it would make decision making and getting things done so much easier. Unfortnately, people who HAVE that ability tend to also be afflicted with some serious mental illnesses. It would be favorable to be logical without being either a sociopath or a psychopath, but that’s not realistic.
anyway, it’s about time she broke down and let it out.
Interestingly, tests on people who’ve had brain damage affect their ability to feel fear, anger or sadness tend to actually be terrible at making decisions. People who’ve physically lost the ability to feel fear especially straight up can’t make decisions for themselves anymore. ‘Negative’ emotions are really important for healthy thinking functioning and its a real issue that modern society has come to stigmatise them so much.
First time poster, so if something technical is messed up in this comment, that’s why.
People often say that “the grass is greener on the other side”. I believe that this is applicable to your desire. Muting your emotions over the long term reduces your experience of the world into nothing. When I was still trying to not feel, so my mind would be clear, it was as if the world was overcast and gray, filled with fog. It was a lifeless existence. I did not feel fear, I did not feel sorrow, I felt no joy or contentment. There was no net positive, nor no net negative feeling. It all just reduced down to zero. Some would consider this a type of tourture, or hell. In doing this, I caused myself lasting mental damage, that lingers to this day. Namely, I can’t always tell when I feel emotion, much less what exactly I am feeling.
Secondly, I am neither a sociopath or psychopath. I am just autistic, who, when younger, bought too much into stoicism. I am also pretty sure sociopaths and psychopaths can, in fact, feel emotions and aren’t more innately logical than anyone else.
I don’t know if you’d call it stoic, but I know I have feelings. Very strong ones. I know they’re there, but much of the time it just takes energy to express them, to make them easy for others to read. And when I do it’s exhausting.
I’m just so grateful that I can make THESE digital faces easily, 🥲 without having to exhaust my brain. And it makes me worry less about people making hurtful assumptions about me and how I feel about anything.
I rarely feel better after crying. Usually I feel worse, and I cry a lot these days. I don’t particularly like it, and I often wish I could just stuff all those emotions back in like I used to.
We cry for different many different reasons. Expressing grief after a loss by crying is a healthy release for many. But emotional pain can feel oppressive and relentless, too, depending both on what is causing it and how your particular brain responds to it, and in that case tears might feel hopeless instead of cathartic.
I’m sorry you’re feeling that way right now. I’ve been in a similar state myself. But in the long run, letting your emotions out is better, even if it doesn’t feel like it from where you are at the moment.
She’s been stomping down her emotions. Considering how that was working out, I think a good cry might actually be a healthier response. A little messy, maybe, but at least she’s actually trying to process and acknowledge what she’s feeling.
I think they implied in the movie that one of the randomly-opening interplanetary wormholes Sakaar is notorious for just happened to randomly open over the Quinjet Hulk was in, from memory.
Everything involving Bruce and his alt in the MCU is contrived, since Disney can’t legally make the films to tell his story without Universal being part of that… their deal being that Disney can use Banner, Hulk, et al in MCU films that aren’t expressly Hulk films and Universal can make whatever Hulk films they like including none at all for the duration of the MCU (with Disney having some sort of right of refusal for scripts). Universal, to my understanding, consider such films too expensive for their return so don’t intend to bother.
“Too expensive for their return” being a euphemism for “massive flop”. Because while the character is popular, his backstory doesn’t provide much grist for good filmmaking. Marvel got the better part of that deal by being able to use the Hulk without having to explain the Hulk.
It doesn’t have to be that way – there’s nothing stopping Universal from working out an agreement like Sony’s over Spider-Man (in fact, they already did – the Hulk movie that had Edward Norton as Bruce is a part of the MCU already). They’re just not bothering because they think Hulk can’t carry a movie alone (and point to 1 bad and 1 mediocre movie as proof).
I don’t think those are the types of movies that you should look at while keeping the part of your brain that knows about the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation active.
In fact those movies pretty much require shutting down every part of your brain that knows anything about conservation of mass, conservation of energy, and the rules of thermodynamics.
Shield quinjets sure, but an Avengers quinjet? Built by Tony Stark in what would’ve been the height of his “Oh God aliens are going to invade again we have to GET READY” PTSD and paranoia? I can see that being spaceworthy enough to get the Hulk to a wormhole.
My brain immediately thought of this strip… which, it turns out, actually DOES have a line of dialogue, and almost certainly was way too early anyway, but screw it I’m linking it anyway
Your comment actually reminded me of this strip, which I thought was going to be what you linked to. But this one actually does have no dialogue. Don’t know if it’s the most recent no-dialogue strip.
You know most of Reed Hall needs to be getting regular therapy for their traumas, or at least all the main cast. How many assaults and murders have they seen or been close to? I mean on a personal level? Joyce’s near-rape, Amber beating her father half to death in front of Danny, the kidnapping and Toe Dad’s murder, Toe Dad kidnapping Becky in front of Dina and his armed assault, Ryan trying to assault Joyce in her dorm and getting fillleted with his own knife by Amber in front of Dorothy.
Amber, Joyce, and Dorothy need full-time monitoring all by themselves.
No see what you don’t get is that Amber is aware that this is a comic and thus crying up into the ceiling frames her better for us the audience to see her emotions in these panels. It’s really for our benefit and shows what a true professional Amber is that even in a time of emotional distress she’s doing her best to entertain us!
Kind of. But I guess it was pretty bad if you have to ask. So I can’t really claim it was now. Which also makes me sad thus countering my attempt to cope with humor.
yeah when that hits in my experience it leads to collapsing and sobbing. can and have gotten ‘stuck’ on wall crying for extended periods of time because I didn’t have the strength to alter the situation in any way. x_x
In Lower Pomerania is the Diamond Mountain, which is two miles and a half high, two miles and a half wide, and two miles and a half in depth, and every hundred years a little bird comes and sharpens its beak on it. When the whole mountain is worn away by this, then the first tear will fall from Amber’s eyes.
At first I planned on directly quoting it from the Doctor Who episode, but as it turns out, the way the text is phrased there is kinda underwhelming when you take it out of the context of the scene, so I found a Grimm translation that looked decent and went from there.
grief crying like this feels so incredibly bad in a good way. i’m pretty sure i had those same motion lines when i was first processing my friend’s death from cancer
“hell is finding someone to love and i can’t see you again”
No we’ve seen her cry a few times. This might be the first time she’s let herself cry without trying to hide behind Amazi-girl and from a source of mourning someone and not from trauma or self-loathing though.
After fourteen months, I thought I was finally getting over losing my friend too – and I wasn’t anywhere near as close to her as Amber was to Mike. Turns out I wasn’t.
Damn you, Willis.
Hyperfocus is great until it’s been a week and the dishes are somehow all dirty even though you swear you’ve been reusing the same bowl and spoon this entire time.
If you can’t install a full size one, get one of those countertop ones that look like a big microwave, or the freestanding kind you hook up to the sink. I used to scoff at them too, until I got a place that had one installed. Friggin’ game changer.
Or I could just get off my ass and wash the dishes once in a while. I mean, your advice is solid and others might be able to make better use of it, don’t get me wrong. I just don’t have the resources or space for that sort of appliance, is all.
I think it’s a Discworld reference. I’m not going to post the whole quote because it’s kinda long and would look longer this deep into the comments, but if you’re curious enough, you could search “cardboard boots Terry Pratchett.”
Interestingly, when I was looking at this exchange earlier, my thoughts were, “Oh, look, “problem solving” strikes again.” So it was surprising to come back and see that phrasing being used.
Oh this happened to me after my initial rush of adderall. It fucking sucked, I thought I had a normal person’s brain just long enough to feel bad when I lost it.
Fortunately, it wasn’t all doom and gloom. Turns out a lot of my problems there were nutrition-related at that point, so I’ve radically changed my dietary habits and only get burnt out come 9PM, which is probably more due to the fact that I wake up at like 5AM every day. Starting stuff is still a pain but I can easily maintain focus on it which is good enough for me.
Unfortunately I’ve had a brain fog-filled last two months thanks to a still-going but mostly tapered physical health problem, oodles of stress, and my return to college getting delayed from last November to this May, and I’ve only been able to meaningfully come out of it the last few days.
Being real for a sec: I’m 29 now, and it bothers me thinking how my life could have gone if I caught all this ADHD/ASD shit a decade ago instead of repeatedly humiliating myself trying to get a degree or in grunt work. I’m writing again! I can read books more easily than I ever have in my life! I can listen to a seminar and all I need is a fidget cube in my hand to burn off the excess energy! I’m able to like myself!
I don’t know then, if you’d call this thing I miss “hyperfocus”.
It’s like when I was in this flow state, I was able to transmute my streams of anxiety into focus and passion for science, the same way a star could transmute heat into light.
It was one where I lost all sense of time, of self, where every part of my brain was flowing with this power, focused on what I love. It was… a cognitive euphoria SUPER NOVA.
I haven’t been able to feel like this in a long time, and sometimes I worry so badly that I’ve lost my spark.
What if Dina wasn’t able to think about dinosaurs, wasn’t able to get that same brain happiness she always had?
That’s exactly how I feel right now. It’s FUCKING AGONY
No, hyperfocus is the appropriate word for that. Those of us that experience it might not feel it exactly the same way, but I definitely recognize your description. ADHD and ASD are both spectrum conditions, and everyone who has them experiences it a bit differently.
I’m sorry you’re going through a rough patch right now. Hopefully you’re getting help to work through it?
I don’t know if I’m “on the spectrum” (depends on what you mean by that), but I tend to stay away from big, sweeping labels like that and “autism” because they make it really difficult for neurotypicals to tell apart our disabilities from our personalities.
Suffice it to say that I’m a socially challenged neurodivergent some time ago was able to hyperfocus, and that this is a neurodivergent stripe that can occur alongside many others. I was diagnosed with Social Anxiety Disorder and Vocal Dysphoria, and enough obsessive-anxiety tendencies to pass out inches short of crossing the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder finish line, but even that does not suffice to capture all my unique neurodivergent stripes.
I can’t currently get help due to my current circumstances, but I guess as long as I don’t catch COVID-19, this is just fine for now. Could be worse, I guess.
I don’t see a glow, but I do see lines emanating from her … which I assumed – especially since her mouth is hanging open in anguish in like that – meant she was sobbing audibly and uncontrollably.
Let’s stop ignoring
That our hearts aren’t mourning
And let the rain come in.
Let’s stop pretending
That it’s not ending
And let the end begin!
-Kris Allen
It’s okay to let yourself feel things, Amber. You might have learned “avoidance and deflection as a coping mechanism” from your mother, but it’s not healthy.
Which, you probably don’t have time to take a course on it when you’re like 21 maybe, get married to and impregnated by a mob stooge, and then spend the next 14 years being constantly and viciously abused, and when you’re not, your daughter’s taking the brunt of it.
If I had to guess, it was probably Blaine beating the shit out of Amber after the robbery that Stacy divorced him in this continuity too.
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oh no the F – E – E – L – S
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJfYCbGnLjA *Plays Gales of Song on the hacked muzak*
That’s good. She needed to cry.
Yes. Nothing like a good, body wracking, cathartic cry for one’s mental health. Everyone should try it once in awhile.
Personally, I find periods of having nothing to cry about even better for my mental health.
Shaking your fist at the sky and yelling “DAMN YOU WILLIS!” is also pretty cathartic. even if people look at you funny. Meh, they were going to look at me funny anyway.
It can be hard to tell the difference between “having nothing to cry about” and an inability to be aware your feelings.
Sorry, gotta quibble here: If you aren’t aware of your feelings, do you even have them? Feelings demand your attention by definition. I’ll accept denial, confusion, numbness, indifference or inarticulateness, but feelings have to be felt by definition.
Do you become wet just by looking at water?
There is such a thing as knowing your feelings are there, but distancing yourself from them.
You can absolutely be affected by your feelings without being self-aware enough to understand how or why, or even recognise that it’s happening at all.
I’ve been working with my psych for a long time to try and unpack exactly what the hell is going on in my head, sometimes even just the basic emotions are just completely unrecognisable. I mean, you can’t measure sadness, it’s all just people trying to describe it – often using very abstract terms and poetic language. How is that supposed to help me know what sadness feels like?
It’s like trying to describe a colour to a blind person. Without being able to point to something and say “this is sadness”, it’s all vague gestures – usually coming from a very neurotypical perspective that I can barely decipher, let alone identify with.
I occasionally realize I’m feeling an emotion by its physical side effects more so than actually feeling the emotion(makes it real fun when it’s heart hurting sadness)
No, feelings do not demand attention. They happen all the time without any attention being paid to them. Feelings can sometimes capture one’s attention unexpectedly, but much of the time, they’re just a thing that happens as one does things. We often have to stop and examine what we’re feeling and try to place them into a relevant context (“What was I thinking about when I started to feel this way? Did it remind me of something else? Did something significant happen?”) before we can even know what feelings they are at any given moment.
Emotional responses happen at a level below conscious thought. That’s part of why they’re so hard to control. But it also makes it easy for them to be affecting your actions without you even knowing they’re there.
I work with children with severe mental trauma (abuse victims and the like). Lack of emotional intelligence – the inability to recognise or deal with their own emotional states – is a very real problem for them.
I could only WISH I cold be so compartmentalized that I don’t have to experience my emotions, it would make decision making and getting things done so much easier. Unfortnately, people who HAVE that ability tend to also be afflicted with some serious mental illnesses. It would be favorable to be logical without being either a sociopath or a psychopath, but that’s not realistic.
anyway, it’s about time she broke down and let it out.
Interestingly, tests on people who’ve had brain damage affect their ability to feel fear, anger or sadness tend to actually be terrible at making decisions. People who’ve physically lost the ability to feel fear especially straight up can’t make decisions for themselves anymore. ‘Negative’ emotions are really important for healthy thinking functioning and its a real issue that modern society has come to stigmatise them so much.
First time poster, so if something technical is messed up in this comment, that’s why.
People often say that “the grass is greener on the other side”. I believe that this is applicable to your desire. Muting your emotions over the long term reduces your experience of the world into nothing. When I was still trying to not feel, so my mind would be clear, it was as if the world was overcast and gray, filled with fog. It was a lifeless existence. I did not feel fear, I did not feel sorrow, I felt no joy or contentment. There was no net positive, nor no net negative feeling. It all just reduced down to zero. Some would consider this a type of tourture, or hell. In doing this, I caused myself lasting mental damage, that lingers to this day. Namely, I can’t always tell when I feel emotion, much less what exactly I am feeling.
Secondly, I am neither a sociopath or psychopath. I am just autistic, who, when younger, bought too much into stoicism. I am also pretty sure sociopaths and psychopaths can, in fact, feel emotions and aren’t more innately logical than anyone else.
I don’t know if you’d call it stoic, but I know I have feelings. Very strong ones. I know they’re there, but much of the time it just takes energy to express them, to make them easy for others to read. And when I do it’s exhausting.
I’m just so grateful that I can make THESE digital faces easily, 🥲 without having to exhaust my brain. And it makes me worry less about people making hurtful assumptions about me and how I feel about anything.
Thank you for sharing your experience, TempleBuilder.
She’s all too aware of her feelings, but deflects or compartmentalizes them instead of confronting and processing them.
Yep.
Amber crying and admitting she misses Mike is an admission to herself that she deserves to cry.
I rarely feel better after crying. Usually I feel worse, and I cry a lot these days. I don’t particularly like it, and I often wish I could just stuff all those emotions back in like I used to.
We cry for different many different reasons. Expressing grief after a loss by crying is a healthy release for many. But emotional pain can feel oppressive and relentless, too, depending both on what is causing it and how your particular brain responds to it, and in that case tears might feel hopeless instead of cathartic.
I’m sorry you’re feeling that way right now. I’ve been in a similar state myself. But in the long run, letting your emotions out is better, even if it doesn’t feel like it from where you are at the moment.
same. I’m glad she found it in herself to allow this kind of release.
She’s been stomping down her emotions. Considering how that was working out, I think a good cry might actually be a healthier response. A little messy, maybe, but at least she’s actually trying to process and acknowledge what she’s feeling.
Well someone’s a crybaby. Look at her totally missing her dead friend and being sympathetic and relatable! Wimp!
Oh god, YOU’RE that awful voice in my head! Howdja ya’ escape an trap yerself in some scarved jerkass?
Amber two years later: What the hell am I doing on Sakaar?
Amazi-Girl is the Grandmaster’s new champion.
Wait how did the Hulk even get to Sakaar in those movies. Quinjets wouldn’t be capable of leaving orbit
He’s a scientist. He can use one of his PhDs.
I think they implied in the movie that one of the randomly-opening interplanetary wormholes Sakaar is notorious for just happened to randomly open over the Quinjet Hulk was in, from memory.
I guess that’s fine? Bit contrived but whatever.
oh it was so effing contrived.
Good. More comic book bullshit for the sake of putting Hulks on planets, please.
Everything involving Bruce and his alt in the MCU is contrived, since Disney can’t legally make the films to tell his story without Universal being part of that… their deal being that Disney can use Banner, Hulk, et al in MCU films that aren’t expressly Hulk films and Universal can make whatever Hulk films they like including none at all for the duration of the MCU (with Disney having some sort of right of refusal for scripts). Universal, to my understanding, consider such films too expensive for their return so don’t intend to bother.
“Too expensive for their return” being a euphemism for “massive flop”. Because while the character is popular, his backstory doesn’t provide much grist for good filmmaking. Marvel got the better part of that deal by being able to use the Hulk without having to explain the Hulk.
Any standalone Hulk movie is going to be DOA because audiences will expect it to tie in with the MCU.
It doesn’t have to be that way – there’s nothing stopping Universal from working out an agreement like Sony’s over Spider-Man (in fact, they already did – the Hulk movie that had Edward Norton as Bruce is a part of the MCU already). They’re just not bothering because they think Hulk can’t carry a movie alone (and point to 1 bad and 1 mediocre movie as proof).
That was indeed the case.
I don’t think those are the types of movies that you should look at while keeping the part of your brain that knows about the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation active.
In fact those movies pretty much require shutting down every part of your brain that knows anything about conservation of mass, conservation of energy, and the rules of thermodynamics.
Shield quinjets sure, but an Avengers quinjet? Built by Tony Stark in what would’ve been the height of his “Oh God aliens are going to invade again we have to GET READY” PTSD and paranoia? I can see that being spaceworthy enough to get the Hulk to a wormhole.
When was the last time we had a strip with no dialogue?
(Excluding the Timeskip™ strips, which had no dialogue but also had no characters present for the possibility of it)
Timeskip strips- I’m now picturing dialogue rising from the university skyline, as they sometimes do in newpaper strips.
(TW: Ryan, and everything that implies)
My brain immediately thought of this strip… which, it turns out, actually DOES have a line of dialogue, and almost certainly was way too early anyway, but screw it I’m linking it anyway
Continued Ryan TW
Your comment actually reminded me of this strip, which I thought was going to be what you linked to. But this one actually does have no dialogue. Don’t know if it’s the most recent no-dialogue strip.
There’s also technically any strip where Sal and Marcie communicate entirely in sign, but uh, that’s a technicality.
I also thought of this one because it includes Amber and massive facial expressions & tears.
And Amber being here certainly contributed to her finding herself in this arc.
You know most of Reed Hall needs to be getting regular therapy for their traumas, or at least all the main cast. How many assaults and murders have they seen or been close to? I mean on a personal level? Joyce’s near-rape, Amber beating her father half to death in front of Danny, the kidnapping and Toe Dad’s murder, Toe Dad kidnapping Becky in front of Dina and his armed assault, Ryan trying to assault Joyce in her dorm and getting fillleted with his own knife by Amber in front of Dorothy.
Amber, Joyce, and Dorothy need full-time monitoring all by themselves.
Did some further digging, and I’m pretty sure it’s this one.
Yup, that’s the one I was about to link.
And that technically has words in it, so may not entirely count.
I mean, if we’re counting environmental text, a stop sign counts as dialogue.
… actually, YESTERDAY’S strip had no dialogue.
Amber was actually talking to herself, and that makes it a monologue.
Never thought I’d be so glad to see a character cry, but fuck yeah.
Yes! Process your grief in a healthy fashion!
I also think it’s cool as hell that it is only amber in this strip, no alternates to confuse the issue, just pure grief.
GOOD FOR HER
“Niagara Falls!” – Scrooged
Slowly I turned, step by step, inch by inch…
about TIME
Wait, people cry not face first into a pillow?
When you’re sad like that, you’re often too exhausted to do ANYTHING, including turning around.
No see what you don’t get is that Amber is aware that this is a comic and thus crying up into the ceiling frames her better for us the audience to see her emotions in these panels. It’s really for our benefit and shows what a true professional Amber is that even in a time of emotional distress she’s doing her best to entertain us!
I guess humor can work as coping too.
Wait, was that an attempt to be funny?
Kind of. But I guess it was pretty bad if you have to ask. So I can’t really claim it was now. Which also makes me sad thus countering my attempt to cope with humor.
I was amused by it, for what it’s worth.
Nah, don’t sweat it. My humor and sarcasm detectors break down almost every other day. Neurodivergence!
Sometimes. It’s not necessarily the preferred option but it’s still a viable one
I think she’s trying not to cry so she didn’t get into crying posture. been there.
I like to try to avoid getting my pillow all snotty, personally.
Same.
Not with glasses on, ideally.
I mean, “In the case or on your face” doesn’t really include pillow cases.
Crying face into pillow is too hard for me to breathe so I avoid it
yeah when that hits in my experience it leads to collapsing and sobbing. can and have gotten ‘stuck’ on wall crying for extended periods of time because I didn’t have the strength to alter the situation in any way. x_x
Good.
Its a good start.
This is good but gosh does it hurt
Sometimes we have to cry it out.
I wonder how long the poor girl was holding that cry in.
a very long time.
In Lower Pomerania is the Diamond Mountain, which is two miles and a half high, two miles and a half wide, and two miles and a half in depth, and every hundred years a little bird comes and sharpens its beak on it. When the whole mountain is worn away by this, then the first tear will fall from Amber’s eyes.
Personally, I think that’s a hell of a bird.
…that is the greatest Grav edit I’ve ever seen.
Crap, now I forget which book that came from. Is it Wyrd Sisters? Mort? Sourcery? I know it’s a TP one, and those were the ones I last read.
It’s a Doctor Who quote. I think the episode is called Hell Bent, and it’s really good.
Lies, all lies. Lower Pomerania is low indeed; it’s obscenely flat.
As an aside, I like the way Doctor Who used this.
At first I planned on directly quoting it from the Doctor Who episode, but as it turns out, the way the text is phrased there is kinda underwhelming when you take it out of the context of the scene, so I found a Grimm translation that looked decent and went from there.
grief crying like this feels so incredibly bad in a good way. i’m pretty sure i had those same motion lines when i was first processing my friend’s death from cancer
“hell is finding someone to love and i can’t see you again”
That’s a good cry.
This is the healthiest emotional reaction I’ve ever seen Amber have and it’s such a relief.
Is this the first time we’ve seen Amber cry?
No we’ve seen her cry a few times. This might be the first time she’s let herself cry without trying to hide behind Amazi-girl and from a source of mourning someone and not from trauma or self-loathing though.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/04-just-hangin-out-with-my-family/shockingreveal/
oh this is coming out on my birthday… y a. a a y y y …
Well if it makes you feel any better, happy birthday!
She desperately needs this.
Oh, sweetie. This part’s never fun.
Necessary, vitally so. But not fun.
this hurts
At Last.
I think this is the first DOA strip where like, I actually got a little emotional? I feel you, Amber.
<3
sympathy via heavy physical contact
yess, you can do it Amber. Stop unfeeling
It’s okay to be sad Amber. ♥
Finally Amber. Let the healing begin.
Good, that had to happen.
It’s alright, Amber. Let the pressure vent.
Aw, Amber. You’re going to be okay.
Lot of comments cheering a young woman crying over the death of her friend tsk tsk I thought we were better then this /s
After fourteen months, I thought I was finally getting over losing my friend too – and I wasn’t anywhere near as close to her as Amber was to Mike. Turns out I wasn’t.
Damn you, Willis.
Let it out!
When they cancel your favorite show
When you go McDonal and ice cream broke
When a character in a book is having difficulties
When you worry you’ll never achieve hyper focus flow again
Hyperfocus is great until it’s been a week and the dishes are somehow all dirty even though you swear you’ve been reusing the same bowl and spoon this entire time.
Get in the habit of putting dirty dishes in the dishwasher and running it when you use the second-to-last set. (Use liquid or powder detergent, not detergent pods.)
Friggin’ game-changer. Don’t worry about “wasting water”, a typical dishwasher uses about 5 gallons on a normal cycle no matter how loaded it is.
That would be dandy if we had a dishwasher. As good ol’ Mom used to say, “Hey, we got two dishwashers in this house, they’re just lazy.”
If you can’t install a full size one, get one of those countertop ones that look like a big microwave, or the freestanding kind you hook up to the sink. I used to scoff at them too, until I got a place that had one installed. Friggin’ game changer.
Or I could just get off my ass and wash the dishes once in a while. I mean, your advice is solid and others might be able to make better use of it, don’t get me wrong. I just don’t have the resources or space for that sort of appliance, is all.
Aw. Cardboard boots strike again.
I’m not familiar with that particular expression.
I think it’s a Discworld reference. I’m not going to post the whole quote because it’s kinda long and would look longer this deep into the comments, but if you’re curious enough, you could search “cardboard boots Terry Pratchett.”
Interestingly, when I was looking at this exchange earlier, my thoughts were, “Oh, look, “problem solving” strikes again.” So it was surprising to come back and see that phrasing being used.
Oh this happened to me after my initial rush of adderall. It fucking sucked, I thought I had a normal person’s brain just long enough to feel bad when I lost it.
Fortunately, it wasn’t all doom and gloom. Turns out a lot of my problems there were nutrition-related at that point, so I’ve radically changed my dietary habits and only get burnt out come 9PM, which is probably more due to the fact that I wake up at like 5AM every day. Starting stuff is still a pain but I can easily maintain focus on it which is good enough for me.
Unfortunately I’ve had a brain fog-filled last two months thanks to a still-going but mostly tapered physical health problem, oodles of stress, and my return to college getting delayed from last November to this May, and I’ve only been able to meaningfully come out of it the last few days.
Being real for a sec: I’m 29 now, and it bothers me thinking how my life could have gone if I caught all this ADHD/ASD shit a decade ago instead of repeatedly humiliating myself trying to get a degree or in grunt work. I’m writing again! I can read books more easily than I ever have in my life! I can listen to a seminar and all I need is a fidget cube in my hand to burn off the excess energy! I’m able to like myself!
And all it took was a pill with some meth.
I don’t know then, if you’d call this thing I miss “hyperfocus”.
It’s like when I was in this flow state, I was able to transmute my streams of anxiety into focus and passion for science, the same way a star could transmute heat into light.
It was one where I lost all sense of time, of self, where every part of my brain was flowing with this power, focused on what I love. It was… a cognitive euphoria SUPER NOVA.
I haven’t been able to feel like this in a long time, and sometimes I worry so badly that I’ve lost my spark.
What if Dina wasn’t able to think about dinosaurs, wasn’t able to get that same brain happiness she always had?
That’s exactly how I feel right now. It’s FUCKING AGONY
I JUST WANT TO FEEL LIKE MYSELF AGAIN, SO SO BADLY
No, hyperfocus is the appropriate word for that. Those of us that experience it might not feel it exactly the same way, but I definitely recognize your description. ADHD and ASD are both spectrum conditions, and everyone who has them experiences it a bit differently.
I’m sorry you’re going through a rough patch right now. Hopefully you’re getting help to work through it?
First of all, I commend your sympathy.
I don’t know if I’m “on the spectrum” (depends on what you mean by that), but I tend to stay away from big, sweeping labels like that and “autism” because they make it really difficult for neurotypicals to tell apart our disabilities from our personalities.
Suffice it to say that I’m a socially challenged neurodivergent some time ago was able to hyperfocus, and that this is a neurodivergent stripe that can occur alongside many others. I was diagnosed with Social Anxiety Disorder and Vocal Dysphoria, and enough obsessive-anxiety tendencies to pass out inches short of crossing the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder finish line, but even that does not suffice to capture all my unique neurodivergent stripes.
I can’t currently get help due to my current circumstances, but I guess as long as I don’t catch COVID-19, this is just fine for now. Could be worse, I guess.
When the show brings out references from all of the past episodes in a blatant emotional show of hands
Look out Amber- that glow around your head in the last panel means that Gideon’s getting in your mind.
Gravity Falls reference?
Scott Pilgrim
I don’t see a glow, but I do see lines emanating from her … which I assumed – especially since her mouth is hanging open in anguish in like that – meant she was sobbing audibly and uncontrollably.
Usually I associate a character glowing from extreme emotions with a different story.
May I ask what inspired your glowing avatar, then?
Killing getting blown up on Namek, mostly.
iunderstoodthatreference.png
Scott Pilgrim’s a good time, even if it’s probably O’Malley’s weakest work.
Nah, that’s just her spider-sense
Low-key expecting this to be the moment Mike walks in and reveals he woke up from his coma. But that’s just me trying to dodge the feels
And of course Amber continues to believe that real Mike is just her hallucination.
hesdeadjim.gif
Good for her, she needs a good ugly cry
FINALLY.
Alt text, no no it’s okay cry all you need to
That’s all right, Amber.
Goooood. Let the repressed emotions flow through you…
<3
Good! Finally, Amber ♡!!!
Let’s stop ignoring
That our hearts aren’t mourning
And let the rain come in.
Let’s stop pretending
That it’s not ending
And let the end begin!
-Kris Allen
Let it all out.mp3
Fun Fact: I lost my best friend of 9 years and 8 months today and this was the first thing I saw on the internet.
Hell yeah, Willis.
Good, next healthy move? Sleep
When the badass hero cries. Like Batman.
Yay, progress!
Saddest necessary crying catharsis
Hopefully the healing can now begin.
Finally. She’s needed this for months!
It’s okay to let yourself feel things, Amber. You might have learned “avoidance and deflection as a coping mechanism” from your mother, but it’s not healthy.
Yeah, Stacy is, unfortunately, not a great mom.
Which, you probably don’t have time to take a course on it when you’re like 21 maybe, get married to and impregnated by a mob stooge, and then spend the next 14 years being constantly and viciously abused, and when you’re not, your daughter’s taking the brunt of it.
If I had to guess, it was probably Blaine beating the shit out of Amber after the robbery that Stacy divorced him in this continuity too.
He beat the shit out Stacy after the robbery.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-9-comic/01-flyin-to-the-red/embarrassed/
Finally! A healthy and normal response from her!
As V
The first time Joe really helps someone in DoA. Now if just Dr. Rosenthal didn’t fuck up this time…
Joe’s a pretty good brother.
Joe’s whole arc across several universes is climbing toward the light. I expect his beard to darken again soon.
Yes. Here comes the catharsis. Hopefully.
*sniffle* d-damn you Willis T^T
It is about time she broke down. Shattered barriers and all left is her truth. She can now heal.
This is healthy!!!
Nothing like a Good Big Cry (not a joke bottling shit up is bad glad she can cr
It’s inevitable, the longer you hold in the cry, the harder it’ll rip out of ya later.
She’s finally processing her pain. If she was a real person I would be sending her comments of condolence to her blog.
Absolutely
This is so sad, but like everyone else says, probably very good for her.
Holy shit is that normal human emotion
Display of empathy through light physical contact?
In all seriousness, good for Amber; sometimes you just need to let the build-up of emotions come out.
welp that was LONG overdue
My adoptive mother’s wake is on wednesday.
This was the right time to read this.