Anger

• ASMR is often described as a relaxing, tingling sensation experienced in the scalp or the spine.
• This article is part of Quarter Life, a series about issues affecting those of us in our twenties and thirties.
• The articles in this series explore the questions and bring answers as we navigate this turbulent period of life.

ASMR research

• Research into the electrical activity of the brain may shed some light on the neurophysiology that underpins ASMR experiences.
• Interestingly, one of the reasons that ASMR videos have gained such popularity is their ability to influence relaxation.
• Research indicates that ASMR-prone people may also tend to experience anxiety and that ASMR-inducing videos may help to alleviate it.

What it means if you don’t like bottle-smashing videos

• Some people experience hyperacusis, where everyday sounds – such as something smashing – are perceived as loud and uncomfortable, even painful to listen to.
• Such experiences may be underpinned by increased levels of activity in parts of the brain that process sound.
• Indeed, some people even experience misophonia, whereby some sounds lead to an intensely unpleasant emotional or physiological reaction, such as anger.
• This may in part explain why the same sound can yield very different feelings in different people when watching bottle-smashing videos.

• Which in hindsight is odd, because it turns out when women share stories of harm – including religious harm – they will, in fact, often be questioned.
• Review: Women We Buried, Women we Burned – Rachel Louise Snyder (Scribe); In/Out – Steph Lentz (ABC Books) I sit here with two memoirs full of women’s experiences.
• Not testimonies of conversion to Christianity, but testimonies to surviving religious harm.
• Rachel Louise Snyder, author of Women We Buried, Women We Burned, grew up in Pittsburgh and Chicago in the 1970s and 1980s.
• A sense of searching or longing – perhaps for answers, or justice, or maybe freedom – carries these memoirs forward.

Stories of death and new beginnings

• Snyder’s memoir is framed by a story of new beginnings – and a story of cancer, loss and death.
• On the ship, watching the night sky, Snyder sees day and night split across the horizon.
• It fractures her father’s life:
  Her death was the one story that nothing in my dad’s life had prepared him for.
• Her death was the one story that nothing in my dad’s life had prepared him for.
• This death and disappearance double-act is the story at the centre of Snyder’s memoir, one that flows into the unravelling of Snyder’s family, her home, her life.

Making trouble: religious harm and family violence

• But religion would take my life.” Snyder’s story unravels into loss, grief, family violence, running away (again and again) and homelessness.
• He justifies his physical violence by retelling a story that will, unfortunately, be common to many: obedience to a parent is a sign of obedience to God, discipline is an act of love, violence is an act of love.
• Snyder recalls:
  He’d hit us ten times, a dozen, however many it took until he felt he’d broken us down enough to be truly repentant.
• Cry, because at the end of the day it was necessary to see how all this was done out of love.
• Discipline that does harm, whether in the home or in the church, can never be loving.

Doing damage

• But first, I had to do some damage.
• But first, I had to do some damage.
• Lentz declares she will do damage – and yes, we could count an affair, a divorce and fractured friendships as damage done by her.
• But the church culture she grew up in, which taught her homosexuality was sinful and incompatible with Christian faith, had already done damage of its own.

Christianity, sexuality and religious harm

• Continually telling a story that places queer people outside faith communities causes harm and trauma for queer people.
• She boldly invites the reader into her experience of religious harm.
• Yet belonging to an evangelical community is often contingent on the “right” expression of gender and sexuality.
• For those who have been harmed, or who are still in a place of harm, Lentz’s book may remind them they are not alone.

A scandalous story

• She recounts in detail what it was like to finally let herself fall in love with a woman.
• I waited for God’s judgement to fall upon me in some manner or other.
• If anything, I felt closer to God: finally, neither of us was pretending I was that good Christian woman anymore.
• I was committing the sins of adultery and lying and homosexuality […] I waited for the sense of wrongness to kick in.
• If anything, I felt closer to God: finally, neither of us was pretending I was that good Christian woman anymore.

‘The goal is simply to endure’

• While some people may seek recovery from religious and spiritual trauma, others know they can never recover the person they were before.
• […] what is the goal of the trauma survivor in this aftermath?
• The goal is simply to endure.
• […] what is the goal of the trauma survivor in this aftermath?
• The goal is simply to endure.
• Lentz closes her book saying she’s “growing up all over again, learning who I am, learning to choose”.

Freedom from the past

• Freedom from the past comes from being able to narrate our stories truthfully.
• It was not a freedom like the one that had been sold to me, squashed into a small box of constrained choices and limited options.
• For Snyder, freedom is knowing she doesn’t have to say her parents “did the best they could under the circumstances with the resources they had”.
• They could view our collective past through whatever lens they wanted, but I was going to free myself.

• Esthetic treatments have been found to make a dramatic difference in how people are perceived.
• Cynthia Elliott, MD, owner of the esthetic medical practice Skinspirations, highlights how nonsurgical cosmetic facial treatments can help people project the personality and look they desire.
• (14)
  Luckily, research shows that cosmetic facial treatments can improve the first impression a person makes by both increasing attractiveness and changing perceived character traits.
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  Injectable esthetic treatments can make dramatic differences in the personality traits suggested by an individual's face.

• The analysis also shows that discussions about ecological and social issues are becoming more heated and politically charged.
• Articles in traditional media as well as posts on Twitter (now X), Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, forums and Tumblr were examined.
• Environmental issues accounted for 51 percent of the ESG reporting in German-language media reports in 2020 and for 70 percent in 2023.
• The complete media analysis "ESG: Reporting Trends in German Media" is available in German and English, with tips for companies, on the following website: