Tag: fear

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How to play Mind games

Working or gaming. What difference does it make? Well, in most people’s heads, work is honourable and Gaming is not. This attitude maintains the digital divide between gaming professionals and everybody else.

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is a beautiful mind game. The screen warning only appears for 2 seconds and it’s clear from the outset that this game could mess with your mind.

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice – A serious Psychosis warning

The game’s opening credits feature a mental health advisor and it’s interesting that not many people are streaming it right now.  Anyhow, this looks like a tasty treat for me to tackle this month.

Trust me I’m a Mind Doctor – Fallout 4

10mg Lecithin yesterday

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The Comfort of Denial

One of the easiest emotions to embrace is pure denial, It’s like a warm duvet on a cold winter night.

Gaming is the ultimate denial of the real world. Feeling broke? Go out and find some loot. Feeling alone? Dive into a multiplayer session.

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can

Denial clouds the mind leading to lack of action in the futile hope that things will just get better on their own. Taking actions means risk. Risk of losing everything but also carries the real possibility that thing will improve.

Here are some great countermeasures:

Step 1  – Look at the cold hard facts
Step 2 – Look at your real options including the Hail Mary plays.
Step 3 – Take a single step forward

Christmas flight booked

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Bills (57), Money (-3) and Work (47)

Right now, I’m swimming in the “get out of debt” river.  This has added nothing but daily stress to my existence but this is largely my own doing.  I used to check my phones over 100 times a day for incoming messages, social media and alerts.  And for a long time, I used people and Loved shiny gadgets and Things.

At the end of a credit line, there is nothing but forced change.

Watch your back on the way down

My minimalist trait has kicked in and I’ve ditched over 80% of my personal possession.  I’ll be gearing up for Winter properly this time but only going for things I need rather than things I want.

No extra men left and time running out….pressure is on.

No medication today, No aches or pains, No throat infection

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Man down

Plenty of uncertainty in my life over the next 4 weeks so I’ve opted for the unthinkable, PS4 decommissioning.

Parting from my PS4 is such sweet sorry

Yes, no games for the foreseeable future, well at least until I know where I will be sleeping.

I’ll probably be watching lots of Twitch.TV and thankfully Netflix now has a download offline option.

An old source fronted me some money via a proxy to get me out of this jam that I didn’t even cause.  Unfortunately, I don’t have the time or luxury to contemplate the major repercussions from taking the money.

This is just one of those things I’ll be pondering on my death bed staring up at the ceiling waiting for Jesus to take me. And believe me when I say, I’ve looked straight into the eyes of two dying husbands on separate occasions and the same look of regret haunts me till today.

So while I can still care for myself………

Let’s Play the Music and Dance.  (1936 by Irving Berlin)

No meds today 
Last catastrophic event Friday 7-April 08:20
Subject A suffered massive memory loss, chronic paranoia and delusional episodes.

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Digital Criminals – How they got caught

I took a quick look at some Computer Misuse Act 1990 cases just trying to find some common denominators.

Where’s my money? Emotionally linked to the crime

Here’s what I noticed

  • High victim volume cases against the perpetrators left little solace or compensation for individual victims
  • Perpetrators had an emotional link to the crime, highly motivated by revenge, response to personal disaster or trauma.
  • Insider threat – abuse of trust cases were high i.e. Police officers doing unauthorised searches, teachers broadcasting false info.

Questions to ponder

What kind of internal controls failed?
Did the perpetrator leave too many digital breadcrumbs and careless whispers because of emotion?
What defences did the perpetrators have? I.e. IDS, logs, VPNs, Encryption
What was the real goal of the crime?
Who were the technical accomplices?
Did they know it was wrong? i.e. linked to Malicious Communications Act 1988

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First rule about Mental Health

Rule 1. Don’t talk about mental health, especially when it’s someone you know personally.

Rule 2. Never talk about Mental Health – It stirs up feelings of resentment, anger, guilt and helplessness towards the person who is ill.

Rule 3. Review Rule 1

It sucks but talking about someone’s fragile state of minds is a scary topic.  I am totally unequipped to handle it when someone freaks out on me and starts acting “weird”.

There’s an overwhelming feeling of self-preservation that sweeps over me, almost like I think the person’s corrupted mental state is contagious.

My initial instinct is to run away,  throw up a drone and snip them from a distance.  Unfortunately, tactical moves from Ghost Recon® Wildlands will not work here.

Rule 1. Don’t talk about it?

How does one handle someone showing signs of massive memory loss, chronic paranoia, irrational thoughts and threats to self?