Feeling Heard Alleviates Tangled Emotions For Me. I Often Don’t Need An Action Taken, Just To Feel

how I empathise

I have what I would call hyperempathy.

This means, I will empathise with anything and everything and I can’t control it.

In order to understand how someone or something might feel in any given situation, my brain will simulate the situation in myself and create emotions that would most logically stem from that experience.

For example, I empathise most strongly with the feelings of those who are just about to die, kill themselves, or be killed. Death is a funny thing to empathise with. It’s hard for me to understand, in a way, so I suppose that is why I empathise most strongly with it.

So, if I read about someone being violently murdered or a group of people being massacred, I feel what they might have felt. Fear, anger, panic, pain. I can feel it. Sometimes I feel it so strongly, I start to panic or my anxiety will latch onto it and kick me into depression or other low moods.

Sometimes, I’ll feel ill if I empathise too strongly for too long.

Remember how some people will throw up after witnessing something traumatic? I’ll feel like that. I won’t throw up, because my body hasn’t been pushed to that edge, but I’ll feel subtle effects.

This makes it very hard for me to read books or history with great detail on killing. I can’t turn it off.

Another thing I empathise with strongly is the emotions of others, including my family and close friends. Their emotions influence mine very strongly and if they mention feeling anxious or hurt, I’ll feel that as well.

Sometimes, when it’s bad enough, I’ll be able to hold myself together long enough to help calm them down, but then I’ll need someone to help calm me down as well.

Empathy is a strange thing for me. It controls a lot of what I feel and even though I’d like it to stop in some situations, it continues to affect me. I’m not trying to be rude and I’m certainly not attempting to fake my understanding of something that has happened to someone else. I just love and feel so strongly for others, wanting them to be happy or feel alright that when they don’t, I need to understand why and the only way I can is by replicating what I imagine their emotions to be in myself.

🌹’s Ace Comic Recs

Jughead

If you are looking for a fun, silly, read I cannot recommend Jughead (2015) more! Written by Chip Zdarsky, and Ryan North you can see Jughead be a pirate, be a spy, hang out with a burger lady. 

The Wicked and Divine

I love this series but it is not for the faint of heart. There’s a lot of death, and violence and our heroes constantly being in trouble. With that said, it’s an amazing series that has tons of diversity. The main characters are gods incarnate so if you love mythology be sure to check it out!

Moonlighters

Another very cute series. Currently online only, but another light fun read about a group of werewolves who solve monsters problems like locating their missing cats

The Once And Future Queen

I learned about this comic by quote RT-ing one of the authors with my shock that there was an asexual character and we’ve been friendly since. King Arthur is reimagined as a 21st-century multi-ethnic teen girl, and Lancelot is a black asexual. It’s lighter then Wicked and Divine, but definitely a fighting/adventure story. I’m trying to get a Volume 2 so ask your library for it if can’t afford a copy of your own!!

For a complete list of aces in comics, check out our master list!

Found this gem in an article

“A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive.”

the thing is, somebody cares. i know your best friend seems really busy all the time and is shit at texting but she still loves you and she talks to you more than she talks to anyone else and you’re the only breath of calm she has on this planet. the boy in your science class loves seeing what music you’re listening to on your headphones - he has the same taste and wishes he had the nerve to ask you about it. your english teacher loves the insight you have on your papers. somebody cares. the person who lives down the street from you notices when you are sick because they don’t see you stomping your way to the schoolbus - it’s how they know it’s time to get their breakfast ready. somebody is looking for you at the party, even if they don’t know they’re really looking for you - but when you don’t show up, some part of them is disappointed. somebody is looking for you in the library, in the spot where you eat lunch, in front of that one step you always seem to trip on. i know your parents are a complicated mess and there’s drama between your friends and your love life is sort of shaped like a constant question and everybody seems all caught up in their own lives and their own happiness and nobody really notices: but somebody always does. every face in your dreams is someone you have met, and that means that you are in a million’s stranger’s heads. they see you when they go to bed. and somebody cares. somebody still thinks about you even though you were just a person with a nice outfit or good eyeliner or a great smile or because you were having one of those moments that are so charmingly human in nature or because they regret not asking if you needed help when you fell or because they wonder what you were thinking about or drawing or writing or just because you’re alive, and that makes you fascinating. somebody cares. when you were on break from work and saw a dog hanging his head out of the car and suddenly broke into a smile: there was a girl in the back of that car, and I was her, and I still think about you, and i hope you get more chances to smile like that. and there is you, sitting here reading this, and by some small extension, meeting me, and i am telling you, I care. somebody always does. i promise. i promise. you are loved.

“Sleep on it” is advice I don’t like because it feels too passive (you mean, do nothing???) but is often very important to do.

My only moods are

High empathy

Anxious Anxious anxious!!

I AM GOD

Dissociate

The pure embodiment of rage

my parents didn’t raise me to order something expensive when someone else is paying

Stan Lee has said that unlike other heros wearing a mask to only hide their identity, Peter wears one partially so his enemies can’t see when he’s afraid and that honestly makes me cry

Some Ilvermorny headcanons

First and foremost, every day is cranberry pie day

While students do have robes, the clothes they wear underneath the robes are not uniforms. There is an eclectic mix of tastes, from the very serious horned serpent who wears button-downs and ties every day, to the wampus who has enchanted their graphic t-shirt to move, to the thunderbirds and pukwudgies who mutually exist solely for sweater weather.

Every year on James Steward’s birthday, there is a school-sponsored cranberry pie bake-off. Pukwudgie house nearly always wins. Once, thunderbird won and good lord you would think it was the civil war all over again

There are a lot of local professors, of course, so you get some really thick Boston accents, but there are also professors with southern belle accents who serve iced tea in class, professors with Canadian accents, professors with midwest accents, several Native American professors with smooth, lulling accents, and some Mexican professors who slip into Spanish when they get super excited about their subject. There was a visiting professor from Ireland once, and 96% of female students (and some male students) had major crushes on him.

Wampus house is where you go to get body-crushing, soul-lifting hugs

Horned serpents may be scholars, but they are also some of the keenest observers. They watch the whole school from afar and quietly play matchmaker to all of their friends. No one suspects them because - what, horned serpent? No. They don’t know about emotions. Meanwhile, the house president makes a killing on the bet she made to predict the homecoming king/queen. 

Thanksgiving at Ilvermorny is a spectacle that has to be seen to be believed. It’s almost bigger than Christmas. The thanksgiving feasts at Ilvermorny put Hogwarts to shame. Turkey, ham, real cranberry sauce, pies - oh my god so many pies. They’ve got cider, and tea, and cocoa like you wouldn’t believe. There are New English dishes and Southern dishes and Native dishes and Mexican dishes and Canadian dishes and West Coast dishes - essentially it’s a gigantic continental potluck, and it goes on all day long. Also, their pumpkin juice tastes 1000 times better.

While things like dueling and fighting with wands may be frowned upon at Hogwarts, at Ilvermorny it’s kind of just assumed that stuff happens, and the profs are very chill about it. “Just don’t kill each other okay” “just take it outside” “no casting destruction spells indoors” “bring some band-aids with you” “if you break your nose don’t bleed on your homework”

Pukwudgies are a pretty agreeable house over all, if not a bit salty and surly around the edges, they’ll still help you with your homework and bring you soup when you’ve got a cold. But all bets are off when they step onto the lacrosse field. Maybe its a pride thing, but pukwudgies are frikkin animals when playing lacrosse.

Wampus beats pukwudgie at lacrosse fairly often. They don’t actually practice that much, they just kind of win.

This fact has fueled a sports rivalry - friendly in wampus’ eyes, bloodthirsty in pukwudgie’s eyes. 

At wampus/pukwudgie games, horned serpents sell special blends of popcorn. Thunderbirds purchase, hoard, and eat 89% of this popcorn.

Horned serpents and pukwudgies often, though not always, end up having an unspoken rivalry in potions class.

Contrary to popular belief, wampus is not full of athletic jocks. However, they are the most body-positive of all of the schools, and, somewhat ironically to the stereotype, will never judge anyone for their athletic ability. They want everyone to be able to enjoy athleticism and bravery and adventure in the ways they are most able and gifted.

That being said, they do have the kind of student body who, if called upon, could become a minute militia.

When there is a freak hurricane or tornado headed headed for the school, it will be a wampus student who is patrolling the halls and telling students where to go for safety. If there is a bully in school, you had better bet your bottom dollar that s/he will be beaten to a pulp by the next day, and it will be a wampus student sporting mysteriously bloody knuckles.

Pukwudgies are the ones who patch up the bully; they might accidentally wind the bandages a little too tight.

Thunderbirds love a good game of hide-and-seek. They have a tradition of, every halloween, playing hide-and-seek in the dark in the woods.

Horned serpents are the students least often caught for sneaking in contraband into school. Caught being the key word. Most students learn at some point in their education that if you want a nice stiff drink, you go to horned serpent. During secret designated holidays, horned serpent common room turns into a speakeasy. 

Unexpectedly, it is pukwudgies who carry the most weapons and dangerous materials on their person at any given time. If a group of Ilvermorny students were going through a security check, it would be the pukwudgies held at the line while they emptied their pockets (bigger on the inside, of course) of various poisons and weapons. When asked, they would just shrug and say “just in case”.

The town around Ilvermorny is home to several franchised chain restaurants that, although they are no-maj brands, have been taken over by Ilvermorny alumni and thus serve predominantly wizarding patrons. Cups levitate to customers in the Starbucks, there are magic-only options on the menu; the chik-fil-a floor sweeps itself; at dominos the pizzas assemble themselves while the one clerk waits, bored, at the register. There are in-house cues for magic patrons whenever a no-maj walks in. The clerk rings a bell or taps loudly on the counter, or yells out an order than is actually a code word for stop doing magic stuff. It’s like red light green light.

There are some old service tunnels beneath the school left over from WWII and the Cold War. They’re like a labyrinth, and Thunderbird has a monopoly on the maps to the tunnels. Some of the more obscure tunnels have large rooms that are perfect for parties and impromptu speakeasies (lookin at you, horned serpent). Thunderbirds will rent out these rooms to fellow students at a fair and competitive rate.

Unlike hogwarts, Ilvermorny students are more apt to use modern technology. Electrics can be weird around witches and wizards, but they still enjoy a lot of no-maj programming. They use computers instead of quills (but still have to print off their essays, ugh,) and listen to music, and watch TV.

Star Trek has long been a school cult favorite. Pukwudgies have adopted Bones as their pop culture mascot; Kirk is Thunderbird’s, Spock, horned serpent. Wampus vacillates on which of these three they like most, though it must be said, when they start watching Next Gen, many wampus students find themselves enamored with Worf,

There has only been one no-maj to ever make it past the magic shields of Ilvermorny unaided. This instance was in 1985. His name was Chad, who at the time was 1) stoned out of his mind and 2) delivering chinese takeout to a horned serpent pulling an all-nighter. School admin found out later, and there was hell to pay. They never did track down Chad to wipe his memory.

Pukwudgie house does have more than its fair share of healers, so they are definitely the ones to go to for cold remedies, home made soup, the best cures for menstrual cramps, and really good back rubs.

However, they are also the ones to go to for less medical remedies: the best hot cocoa, the most gourmet teas, and home made food.

Each house has a class president who is elected for a two-year term (unless they’re a final year student, in which case they will serve one before being taken over by their VP). They have some influence within their houses, but never as much as they’d like. For instance, the thunderbird president once attempted to institute mid-day dancing parties, but school admin said no.

Pukwudgies are usually not super athletic, but are often very good at things like darts, archery, and waterbaloon fights.

Wampus takes ultimate frisbee very, very seriously.

Thunderbird hosts an ongoing scavenger hunt throughout the semester.

The women of horned serpent blow off steam and the stuffy acadmic pressures of their house by making pillow forts and watching rom coms with each other.

Back in the eighties some wizard created a magic version of D&D, and it has become a weekend favorite of many students across all of the houses.

After graduation, instead of having a class ring, it has become tradition for Ilvermorny students to make a pendant out of their golden cloak buttons.

Ilvermorny may be separated by inter-house squabbles much like at Hogwarts, but at the end of the day, they all leave school wearing the same blue and cranberry robes, sporting the same skill with a wand, raised to the same scrappy, witty, mod-podge tenacity that American witches and wizards embody so well.