The Self-destruction Of Gia Where To Watch

[Badomero Schoulund]

I wasn't finding people on a dating app and getting to know them before meeting them, I wasn't going on blind dates or finding people through mutual friends. I was going to the bars that people would advise me to avoid and actively looking for a one night stand, the type of one night stand where names were not even exchanged, the type where there were no feelings, no connection, and in many ways the more anonymous and the rougher the encounter the better.

At first I think going out and getting wasted then going home with someone was a distraction, was much easier to ignore my thoughts, ignore the hallucinations, and ignore my life falling apart around me when all my focus was on finding different ways to self-destruct (even if at the time I'm not sure I saw it as self-destruction).

Over time though it changed, the drink and drugs were no longer the focus, the part of the evening in the bar singing, dancing, flirting, appearing to be having fun were just part of the routine, the focus was on finding someone, anyone, to spend the night with.

Casual sex and promiscuity are rarely talked about within our society, these behaviours are judged, looked down on, and heavily criticised (especially in women), it's very rare that anyone will ever ask why people do these things or look beyond the behaviours.

Instead those of us who have had periods of these behaviours feel like we cannot discuss it, we often get made to feel shame and have it made very clear to us that the behaviour is inappropriate, inappropriate to do and certainly inappropriate to speak about.

I think at the time when I was doing this if I had been asked why then I would have gotten defensive, I'd have said I was just having fun, exploring my sexuality, having new experiences, or something else along those lines.

In reality though I think I knew that this wasn't the truth. If it had simply being a case of having some fun (which is a legitimate reason for casual sex) then surely I wouldn't have been going out of my way to artificially make the situations as dangerous as I could.

To an extent I knew what I was doing was dangerous and I think that part of me knew that I wasn't in control, but a larger part of me knew that if I told anyone what I was doing or why I would be judged and I just couldn't handle that. Each morning I already hated myself, each day I would tell myself that no, tonight I would not be offering myself up as someone's sex toy, each evening I would find myself sitting as a different bar with a drink and trying to figure out which person to flirt with first.

For me casual sex was definitely a form of self harm, by acknowledging this, am I perpetuating the myth that people who choose to engage in various forms of sexual activity have deeper emotional issues? I hope not... Just like how not everyone who drinks does so as a form of self destruction, or not everyone who spends time in a gym has an unhealthy view of their body, not everyone who engages in casual sex does so as a way to hurt themselves. What we need to consider is the motivations, feelings and thought processes behind the behaviour, and for me the aim was definitely not a healthy one.

Hazel Cornhill is a mental health campaigner, blogger and podcaster. Hazel can be found on twitter @AnLasair and is the co-host of the Reality Tourists Podcast speaking to people about their experiences of mental illness.

We'd love to keep you posted with our news, activities and how you can help in other ways. We'll never sell or swap your details with anybody else. You are free to change your mind at anytime. Please indicate how you would like to hear from us by using the tick boxes below

We will always store your personal details securely. We'll use them to provide the service that you have requested, and communicate with you in the way(s) that you have agreed to. Your data may also be used for analysis purposes, to help us provide the best service possible. For full details see our Privacy Policy

I was born into a family who failed to really understand me although they truly loved me. I was born to second generations south Asians who had migrated to the UK in 1990s for better opportunities. Whilst growing up I faced a lot of trauma as a child from bullying at school, to childhood abuse, to racism. This later in life had a severe impact on my mental health where I found I difficult to find happiness in life, confide in, trust with people.

The reality though is that my command hallucinations tell me to hurt myself, they tell me that I deserve to be hurt, that by being hurt I am saving others, or sometimes there is no justification they just tell me to hurt myself over and over insistently. Most of the time I can ignore the voices, or sometimes even reason with them, but at times I will give in to them sometimes because I believe them and other times just to shut them up.

Let's be honest here, I am not a warrior and my scars are not beautiful. I am beautiful and I have scars, but I am not beautiful because of them. I would also be beautiful without them too. I am not minimising the role self-harm has had in my life, but it is not some metaphorical battle I am constantly fighting. I live with PTSD and sometimes it makes me suffer; but I am not constantly suffering.

For months I would go to the areas of town where lone women were told not to go. I would purposely go to the places and do the things that I knew were putting me at risk. I fooled myself into thinking I was in control, that it was a calculated risk. I wasn't finding people on a dating app, I wasn't going on blind dates or finding people through mutual friends. I was going to the bars that people would advise me to avoid and actively looking for a one night stand.

Read more about our vision that anyone who uses self-injury knows they are not alone; that everyone understands that self-injury is a complex and important issue we should all care about and that together we tackle both the causes and stigma of self-injury.

We use MailChimp as our marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to MailChimp for processing. Learn more about MailChimp's privacy practices here.

Horror movies are seldom just viscera painted on walls accompanied by the soundtrack of a blood-curdling scream. For every tar zombie hungrily screaming for brains, there are many more stories about the ghosts who haunt us over the wars we've lost, from both without and within. As the 2010s wrap up, it feels even moreso that horror, as a genre, spent the last decade wanting to have its metaphors writ as large and unmistakably as possible.

The Witch has its takedown of patriarchy; The Babadook looks compassionately at generational mental illness; and It Follows is an unflinching portrayal of our most basic fear of mortality. But maybe the most honest of all of these is Alex Garland's 2018 film, Annihilation, an alien invasion story that digs to the core of human self-destruction in a way that both breaks the heart and chills the soul.

Annihilation is a tragedy on every level, even in its metatext. Quite infamously, a disagreement between producer and creator prevented Annihilation from seeing a proper long-term, cinematic release. A fast and dirty deal with Netflix meant most people saw Annihilation from home, if at all, making the production seem like a box-office failure. And that kept even more people away.

But I think it's more than that. I would say that it's far easier not to watch Annihilation in almost every respect. It's quiet and slow, but it's also unsettling and even genuinely triggering in places. "You're probably gonna feel bad while watching this thing, but watch it anyway" is not the most ringing endorsement. In fact, that sounds more like a dare or a challenge, as though Annihilation is so much "Two Girls, One Cup." But it's not.

What Annihilation is remains hard to define. Yes, it's about aliens coming to Earth with mysterious and seemingly destructive intent. Yes, it's about a group of scientists trying to know that intent despite it being unknowable. Yes, there is a bear that screams with the voice of a woman it devoured. And, yes, it is, to some degree, about cancer.

But the core theme of Annihilation is right in the title. And in most cases it is about self-annihilation. Annihilation states its thesis plainly: Whether it's a marriage ruined, a good job abandoned, or our very cells fighting against themselves, annihilation is baked into every human's DNA. We want to self-destruct. We want to die. Maybe we'll fight it at first, struggle to understand death, but, in the end, everything we are is pre-destined to change until there is nothing of us left, not even our name. And, deep down, even if we've never had a single, suicidal thought, every one of us still wants that.

Annihilation isn't just about what makes that revelation sad or scary, it's also about what makes our inevitable self-destruction pragmatic, even hopeful and beautiful in moments. On today's episode of Every Day Horror's 13 Days of Halloween podcast, creator of the Folding Ideas YouTube channel Dan Olson and streamer Crystal Donovan join me to talk about Annihilation and why it hit each of us so hard. Maybe our stories will sound familiar.

On tomorrow's episode of the 13 Days of Halloween, we're going to do something a little different. Instead of a movie, we're going to take on a specific race of science fiction antagonists: Star Trek's The Borg. Our guests for that episode will be Benjamin R. Harrison and Adam Pranica, the co-hosts of the Star Trek podcast The Greatest Generation.

Last year, at least 400,000 Americans managed to kill themselves based almost solely on what they ate. Heart disease is the country's number one killer and, while some of that comes from genetics, most of it's due to the fat-laden, sugar-heavy junk we put in our bodies. Looking for the most effective, probably most enjoyable way to do yourself in? Have another doughnut. And make it cream-filled!

c80f0f1006