⛥ August Q&A (Patreon)

Allow me a day or two of playing catch-up with August content :) Since I pushed the burnout video you seem to like a lot (thank you), editing the bonus video and all the other posts fell behind a little bit. As per usual, first thing in the morning while I'm having coffee and enjoying the gentle rain, I start off by reading your questions and preparing to write this post. You did not disappoint! Lol as if you ever do. There is quite a bit of writing material here. But as I have just found out that in sidereal/vedic astrology I'm a Scorpio ascendant, I absolutely feel up to the challenge. I hear that many people don't relate to sidereal astrology that much as it is centered around the fixed positions of the planets in the sky and not, as tropical astrology sees it, viewed from the position of Earth. Sidereal is the actual accurate system, tropical is the pop culture astrology they base newspaper horoscopes on. To be honest, I relate to both a little. They say that sidereal astrology is who you are learning to be, your soul's path for this lifetime. Whereas tropical astrology feels more relatable as it is where you have been, what's comfortable to you. The difference is only 24 degrees, so I'm happy to say that my sun remains in my favorite sign. But let me tell you, the second I learned that I'm a Scorpio ascendant, it's like something clicked in my mind and suddenly I had permission to be who I always wanted to be in the first place. You should do yours and see if you relate!  

Some shit I haven't been able to explain with tropical astrology makes sense now. Anyways, my recent revelation doesn't seem to be conducive to answering your questions, so let's not forget what we came here for. 

Good day Ally I have a question about your Shiki halloween roleplayvideo. Does the the voice of the second Shiki speaking in the background belong to you or is there another person in the video? Is that thing still up???? Yeah it's my voice. I just needed a second character for my joke. 

Ally you know how they say time heals all wounds? This may sound cynical but I don’t really believe that it does. I mean, they might heal but I believe the demons never go away. If you don’t mind I’d very much to your opinion on this. If time healed anything why are people hurting? Why are we all still affected by childhood trauma? Why is PTSD a thing? No, healing is a conscious process. Time is nothing but a measure of distance between then and now. Sometimes, the distance helps us endure the pain we couldn't in the moment. That's why therapy works. But it is not, nor has it ever been, directly conducive to healing. Sometimes people say they've healed from something when they've just moved on. Suppressed the emotions. Dissociated from reality. That doesn't mean it's not still there. That doesn't mean you didn't leave part of yourself behind in the past. You're just refusing to see. 

Do you have a method for coping with stress, depression and anxiety? I have several, actually. The most prevalent used to be dissociation, but since I've been progressing in my healing, the point has been to try everything else before letting it come to that. When I get stressed out, the first thing I want to do is remove myself from what causes the stress. I like to just go anywhere, be out in nature and physically removed from everything shitty just to give my nervous system a break. Noise stresses me more than anything and where I live I don't get breaks from overstaffed, bored gardeners cutting grass every two days, screeching little crotch goblins, trash music and bratty little shits running up and down the apartment for hours on end. Almost anything is better than having to spend 24 full hours here. Getting out is like reminding myself that I have options so I don't feel completely out of control of my surroundings. Besides that, I do my best to stay on top of my needs so that the stress doesn't instantly push me over the edge. I like to take baths and meditate with crystals to relax and recharge, alongside keeping the lights dim and all sensory input as quiet as possible. I also like to exercise and have been considering getting a punching bag to vent some frustration with less bad karma than a voodoo doll. When it comes to depression, feeling the first signs of it gives me anxiety because I have so much work to do maintaining my channel and patreon and I dread the thought of having no energy to even try to stay on top of all that. So when I get depressed, I lean into it so I hit rock bottom faster and see from there. Rock bottom is actually such a freeing place. It's like the eye of the storm. You can look around and see exactly how you got here. And then, when I eventually get tired of being down, I make changes. I do not fight my emotions as it's never done anything for me except make me dissociate more. Instead, I let them guide me to what it would take to be even remotely interested in living again. I like to isolate myself so I can be at peace until I'm ready for another shot at this. People make depression the enemy because society bestows serious penalties upon us for not functioning. Need a week, maybe a month to sleep and reconsider your life choices? Lose your job, your friends, your home b/c no job and be exiled from society forever for being unable to play along for a short time. I find it perverse that this patriarchal shit show forces us to choose between being healthy and being alive. So even if you can't afford to completely shut down, I recommend leaning into your emotions and choosing to feel them. You'd be surprised what you can learn from your own depression. As for anxiety, I like to reflect a lot and figure out why I'm feeling it. Sometimes I'm anxious just because I'm in a public place, sometimes it's because I have to perform (for a roleplay or for livestreams), sometimes it's because something frightening or worrying happens - but a lot of the time I feel completely unexplained anxiety, seemingly out of the blue. In that case I get my defenses up and see if that makes it better. I cast protection spells, cleanse my aura and my home, put on protective jewelry. If the anxiety persists, I have ruled out psychic attack at least and the only option that remains is that it's a trauma response and I'm somatically reliving a memory but without the obvious flashbacks. As soon as I understand what these feelings are, I'm suddenly not as freaked out. Instead, it becomes an internal experience I hold space for. Sometimes it invites for shadow work which is fun. I hope this helps.
 

Do you hate Christians? Do you hate me? I am a christian but as a person find you to be a good person. I don't know you lol. I don't hate Christians. I hate people who judge others for not following their religion, who think less of people who don't follow their exact religion, who discriminate against others who do not follow their religion and those who try to shove their religion down everyone's throats without being asked. Oh, and there's a special place in hell for YouTube comment missionaries lol. 

I've always found it a bit strange that as an individual you don't get decide your own name, its decided for you by your parents and potentially shapes your life in ways you have no control over. If you're happy sharing, just wanted to know your reason(s) for distancing yourself with your birth name? Wandering whether its an identity rebrand in a way to distance yourself from an unhappy childhood/past or on a larger scale your descendance or even away from the former members of the Russian monarchy, Titus Tatius or even some christian martyr? Maybe I'm projecting waaaay too much onto this question though? It is totally sick that others get to pick our names lol. I never liked my name. My name had nothing to do with who I am as a person and everything to do with the fact that my father just wanted a daughter with that name for some whimsical reason. He didn't even discuss it with my mother, who was dead set on a whole different name. So why should people who have no way of knowing who we are to become get to decide who we are to the world? I believe everyone, upon reaching adulthood, should get to choose their own name. This should be a whole fucking ceremony like choosing a faction in Divergent. I have more than one reason for abandoning that unjust branding bestowed upon me, but one of them is that hearing it triggers my PTSD. I didn't know that until my neighbors had a grandchild who visited a lot and they gave the poor girl that exact name. So I had to hear it day in and day out, in the exact menacing tone that is typical for Russian parents. And every single time I would have anxiety attacks and just start crying, feeling like I was about to be punished. After a while they thankfully stopped bringing her over and I haven't had to hear it since. I just know I do not have a single positive association with that name. 

Do you take sugar or milk in your tea? Just milk.
 

For Jack. What's it like being among the luckiest guys in the world, getting to marry the girl of your dreams (all hardships included, and presumably worth it), and juggling the mix of the current reality's fight against everything good, the chaotic mess that is both sorting out what makes Ally happy vs what the world will *allow* you to give (which leans back on the chaotic mess), and the basic, up-front, difficulties of distance (even aside from the un-due hardships induced by that being *continued* that I don't even want to get either of you into)?  This is probably going to sound rather obvious and generic but it's great being married to your twin flame. I mean who wouldn't want to be married to the best friend they will ever have who also happens to be ridiculously attractive. The wait to get to close that distance between us is of course frustrating, especially with travel restrictions currently while we wait. We do okay though because what either of us wants most is to spend time with the other and although physical proximity would be more ideal, we still make lots of time for each other every day. 

And, as a secondary, Ally! Have you tried the Jameson Cold Brew yet? One of the kids that works for me tells me the local liquor store, here, at least, has it stocked quite handily.... (and for an update there, I keep relying on a cute bartender for mine... and... have a date next week... apparently). I hope your date went well! I have not yet, but have put it on my list to add to my next booze order when I do eventually run out of gin with the way my neighbors make me wanna drink lol. 

I believe that's it for your questions this time around! I'll be super speedy about posting the September Q&A post in case you have follow up questions or anything. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk and I hope you enjoyed learning a little more about us :)