Lists, lists, lists

ALT

A screenshot of a Discord message from Krispy. It reads: "While misunderstandings can happen in any community, we do expect a baseline level of ability to keep conversations mutually beneficial and enjoyable for everyone. At minimum, this includes following moderator instructions. Other things that will serve you well in our (or honestly any) community: Not bulldozing or monopolizing a conversation topic that the majority of the chat can't meaningfully respond to. You are not the only person in the chat, and if a topic is not getting a response, it may be time to contribute to another topic of more interest to participants. Not revisiting or requesting additional responses about topics when a moderator or other participant indicates it should be dropped. It is rude and there are other things to talk about. Reciprocal interest in other community members' topics of discussion. Communities are not for one-way conversation, and lose value when you talk "at" people instead of "to" them. Taking time to write considered, concise responses instead of long replies (or many fragmented, shorter replies) based on your gut reactions. These physically take up more space on a screen and make other community members' responses more difficult to find, but are also the most prone to contain rude or ignorant statements that make for a more stressful or awkward conversation. Not requesting therapy- or counselling-adjacent life advice. Mental health advice is something you should take very seriously, and can be damaging if not conducted in a safe environment by a professional that knows your individual needs. If these are not something we feel are being respected or that you will have further confusion or difficulty following, we will be moving toward a ban out of respect for the members of our community."

This is the Krispy List. Krispy is a mod in the ScreenTones Discord server and if I said that I could follow the things on the list, I would've been let back into the server. But for some reason I just chose to be honest and said I'd have difficulty following, so I got banned. This was in late July 2025.

Fast forward to late October 2026, my therapist (I never mentioned the Krispy List, mind you) decided to make a list of my problems/things to work on. I'll warn you in advance, it's fucking LONG:

• Having trouble listening

• Fear of rejection

• Being prejudiced against myself

• Not being able to care about other people's lives enough

• Quitting or not being able to start a task I think I will be bad at

• Losing enthusiasm over a project when it turns out it will take a long time to complete, being unable to complete such projects

• Being unable to tell whether if someone's interested in what I'm talking about or not

• Struggling with starting and maintaining communication

• Setting goals too big and being unable to take small steps

• Not being able to say what I want/need due to fear of judgement

• Black-and-white thinking, seeing people or facts/information as absolute good or absolute bad

• Struggling with impulse control and stopping talking (when the topic is about one of my interests)

• Being too pushy

Yeah... I warned you. 13 points.

There's some overlap between these two lists; #1 and #3 of the Krispy List is linked to #1, #4 (to an extent), #7, #8 (also to an extent), and #12 on the Therapist's List; #2 from the Krispy List is linked to #12 and #13 on the Therapist's List; and #4 from KL is related to #12 on TL and to an extent, #1 and #8.

The therapist asked me to pick a couple challenges to help treat the things on the list, something like rejection therapy, I'll show her what I picked and she'll suggest some more and if I want I can choose a couple of the challenges she suggests. I have to do that before my next appointment which is on November 6. And I don't have much of a clue.

Except... A couple days ago, I randomly got the want to get on Mél Hogan's podcast The Data Fix, and I was told that I could try to get on it by writing to Hogan herself. I got super nervous over that idea, then it hit me... It'd make good rejection therapy, and a good challenge for the Therapist's List! I did end up writing to her, I'm quite excited for the response.

I guess writing to high-profile podcasts asking if I could go on could be one of the challenges. What else? I don't know yet. Can you fellows give me some ideas? Thank you!