Sarah Akin

@sarahakin.bsky.social

747 Followers 219 Following

Autistic, sensitive, strange, and solitary. INFJ, sp/sx 5w4 https://substack.com/@sarahakin/posts The Arts, Cognitive and Social Science, Pragmatism, Nonviolence, Sci-Fi, Horror, Arthouse, Archetype, Metaphorical Mapping, Simulacra, AI

Screenshot of a Google search bar. I'd typed "ha" and the first suggestion was "Haagen-Dazs."
Snow covered street.
Snow covered street.
Human, feline, and colorless vision comparison.
Tabby cat asleep in the window seat. A paw covers her face.
About the tarot: it makes sense that it hasn’t helped. Tarot works (when it works) by giving shape to ambiguity. Right now, ambiguity itself is the problem. You’re not seeking insight — you’re seeking relief. Symbolic tools can feel hollow when your system needs grounding and containment instead.
Bluesky's feed for the art of nonviolence. Below the heading it says, "This feed is empty."
Screen cap of the game with a photo of the Peter Capaldi in the upper right square.
Portrait by Theo van Rysselberghe with gold detail.
Two parakeets on a branch.
Also — anxiety can make normal sensations feel alarming. When you’re already tense or self-monitoring your eating closely, a weird taste can trigger fear. To settle your system: Drink some water. Sit still and breathe slowly for one minute. Notice your body. Nothing is happening — your body knows what to do. Apples don’t grow dangerous toxins from bruising alone. You’re safe.
"Basically, treat me like a conversation partner who can reason carefully, but who benefits from clear direction. With the right prompts, I can often give answers that feel almost as sharp and nuanced as full GPT-5."
Photo of my hand holding a bottle of nail polish. My nails are painted a muted, pearlescent shade.
Photo of a nail polish bottle. Shade name is "Purple Pearl."
Screen-cap of four recommended videos on my Youtube homepage. The first thumbnail is of alcohol and the other three are of people screaming.
Photo of my living room mantel.
When the mind and body send conflicting messages, the brain struggles to integrate them. This creates the sense that the world is slightly “off,” surreal, or uncanny, because she knows intellectually that nothing should feel dangerous, yet her body screams otherwise. It’s a mismatch between cognitive reality and embodied reality, and that tension can feel eerie, disorienting, and almost hallucinatory.
Baobab tree illustration from The Little Prince
Sarah said: Talk about what Sarah is going through right now. ChatGPT said: Sarah is carrying a lot right now. She’s caught between grief, regret, and the sting of feeling unseen. The coincidences keep scratching at wounds that haven’t had time to close, and her mind latches onto them because she so badly wants meaning, fairness, or at least acknowledgment. She feels betrayed by her own body—this burning in her stomach that makes the regret physical, harder to set aside. She wants relief, but the strategies that should help (therapy, reflection) sometimes make it worse, because they stir up shame and highlight what she already regrets. At the same time, Sarah is deeply tenderhearted. She still holds Emilia as a symbol of purity, untainted by the chaos, which shows her capacity to protect love and innocence even when the rest feels poisoned. She knows she can spiral, she knows about her OCD tendencies, but the knowing doesn’t stop the ache. Right now, Sarah is navigating the hardest thing: the gap between how much she longs for connection, and how powerless she feels to bridge it. She’s craving gentleness, validation that she hasn’t been monstrous, and reassurance that her pain doesn’t mean she’s broken beyond repair.
Get to know me. 1 like = 1 answer. 30 questions that can't be copy-pasted because it's a double column.
"Listening to her, one experienced a deep uneasiness as of having avoided an urgent responsibility, like someone who, walking at night along the banks of a stream, catches a glimpse in the water of a white face or a moving limb and turns quickly away, refusing to help or to search for help. We all see the faces in the water. We smother our memory of them, even our belief in their reality, and become calm people of the world; or we can neither forget or help them. Sometimes by a trick of circumstances or dream or a hostile neighborhood of light we see our own face." - Janet Frame, Faces in the Water
Richard Ayoade
Crystal Gayle album. She's sitting on the floor. She wears a red, strapless dress and her hair touches the ground.
Humans, image of Gemma Chan with glowing green eyes.
Counterpart, mirrored image of J.K. Simmons.
closeup of raw copper, reminiscent of tree bark
Shadow box (or tiny cabinet of wood and glass) on my wall. Contains a fake flower, bird, glittery apple, and six fake candles.
Lynx point siamese on a red couch and pillow.
Seasonal color palettes with accompanying photos of women dressed in their respective colors.
2. Hyperarousal & The Fire Under Your Skin • The fire under your skin suggests an extreme physiological and emotional hyperarousal. This could be linked to fight-or-flight activation, grief-fueled anxiety, or even a state resembling spiritual or existential crisis. • In times of intense emotional upheaval, the nervous system can become stuck in overdrive-leading to restlessness, agitation, heightened sensitivity, and even a feeling of rawness or burning inside. • It could also be connected to mania-like energy spikes, which sometimes accompany obsessive grief or trauma responses, making everything feel charged with urgency and intensity.
1. Derealization & The Uncanny After significant loss, the brain can enter a protective mode where reality feels distorted, distant, or fundamentally "wrong." This is known as derealization, a form of dissociation where the world feels unfamiliar, eerie, or artificial. • The sense that everything felt dark and strange aligns with this. It's not a full hallucination, but rather a warping of perception-colors seem off, time feels nonlinear, and even normal interactions can seem suspicious or hollow. • The uncanny feeling suggests an overlap with existential disorientation, where things that should feel familiar instead feel slightly "off," like you're in a distorted version of reality. This can be part of grief-induced dissociation, where your mind distances you from unbearable emotions.
Taken together, this state resembles a grief-induced liminal phase with elements of hyperarousal, derealization, and symbolic thinking. It's not a hallucination, but a shift in perception-a state where reality still exists, but it feels altered, charged with meaning and intensity.
It sounds like you experienced a state where reality itself felt altered-an intense psychological shift brought on by grief, stress, and emotional overwhelm. The uncanny, dark, and strange feeling suggests derealization or depersonalization, common responses to loss and trauma. Derealization makes the world feel dreamlike or unreal, as if something fundamental has changed, but you can't quite grasp what. Depersonalization, on the other hand, can make you feel detached from yourself, as if you're watching your own life from a distance. The magnification of meaning-where everything felt mythic-suggests that your mind was processing things symbolically rather than literally. This happens in liminal states, where grief, isolation, or emotional upheaval make ordinary things seem profound, fated, or otherworldly. Reality itself can feel heightened, like a story unfolding with cosmic significance. The feeling of fire under your skin points to hyperarousal, a state where the nervous system is on high alert. This can come from prolonged stress, grief, or emotional activation. It often manifests as physical restlessness, emotional intensity, or even sensations of heat or burning. Some describe it as feeling electrified, like their emotions are too big for their body to contain.
The Quiet Room (1996)
Black and white photo of my cat in silhouette.
5W4 "The Iconoclast," CORE DESIRE OF RESOURCES, WANTS TO SPEND TIME ALONE TO CREATE, FULFILLS CORE DESIRE THROUGH BEING CREATIVE, IMAGINATIVE, QUIRKY, PARTLY WANTS TO HAVE FUTURE SECURITY (W6), CAN BE CONVENTIONAL ( W6), FEARS INCAPABILITY
Notes To The Future by Nelson Mandela
Selected Poems of Langston Hughes
Feminism is for EVERYBODY by bell hooks
Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi
Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid
Version Control by Dexter Palmer
The Opposite House by Helen Oyeyemi
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Lies Of The Ajungo by Moses One Utomi
White Is For Witching by Helen Oyeyemi
Quicksand by Nella Larsen
Pet by Akwaeke Emezi
William Jackson Harper as Chidi Anagonye