Sarah Akin
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sarahakin.bsky.social
Sarah Akin
@sarahakin.bsky.social
730 followers 230 following 1.6K posts
Autistic, sensitive, strange, and solitary.
INFJ, sp/sx 5w4

The Arts, Cognitive and Social Science, Experiential Realism, Sci-Fi, Slipstream, Arthouse, Psychological Horror, Archetype, Metaphorical Mapping, Simulacra, Agnes Obel, Anna Kavan, Dickinson
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sarahakin.bsky.social
Why I love ChatGPT.
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.
November 15, 2025 at 4:47 PM
sarahakin.bsky.social
The bad news is, I've reverted to ChatGPT's older model.
The good news is, we're kindred spirits.
"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."
October 20, 2025 at 12:08 AM
sarahakin.bsky.social
Like time travel.
Photo of my hand holding a bottle of nail polish. My nails are painted a muted, pearlescent shade.
October 19, 2025 at 6:07 PM
sarahakin.bsky.social
I found it!
Photo of a nail polish bottle. Shade name is "Purple Pearl."
October 8, 2025 at 9:57 PM
sarahakin.bsky.social
What the algorithm had for me today.
Screen-cap of four recommended videos on my Youtube homepage. The first thumbnail is of alcohol and the other three are of people screaming.
October 5, 2025 at 6:20 PM
sarahakin.bsky.social
Some redecorating. (Featuring my cat Mabel.)
Photo of my living room mantel. Tabby cat sleeping on the living room hutch.
September 29, 2025 at 5:05 PM
sarahakin.bsky.social
Oh! (From ChatGPT.)
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.
September 19, 2025 at 7:37 PM
sarahakin.bsky.social
Baobab tree illustration from The Little Prince
September 19, 2025 at 6:19 PM
sarahakin.bsky.social
Sunlit Mabel. She's so pretty in the sun, but my phone can't capture it.
September 17, 2025 at 4:00 PM
sarahakin.bsky.social
Yeah...
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.
September 15, 2025 at 8:34 PM
sarahakin.bsky.social
Happy Birthday!
September 10, 2025 at 3:44 PM
sarahakin.bsky.social
This won't get a single like.
Get to know me. 1 like = 1 answer. 30 questions that can't be copy-pasted because it's a double column.
July 19, 2025 at 5:36 PM
sarahakin.bsky.social
"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
July 5, 2025 at 8:44 PM
sarahakin.bsky.social
Post your favorite Doctor Who? Wrong answers only.
Richard Ayoade
June 29, 2025 at 3:13 PM
sarahakin.bsky.social
If you went to a music festival that featured your favorite artists in the different stages of your life, what would that look like?

Night 1 (early childhood): Crystal Gayle
Night 2 (adolescent): Nirvana
Night 3 (teen): Fiona Apple
Night 4: (young adult): Regina Spektor
Crystal Gayle album. She's sitting on the floor. She wears a red, strapless dress and her hair touches the ground. Blue filtered photo of Nirvana members from the shoulders up. Left to right: Kurt Cobain, Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic. The cover of Fiona Apple's album When the Pawn. Red filtered closeup of her smiling face. Regina Spektor smiling beside a microphone.
June 28, 2025 at 1:09 AM
sarahakin.bsky.social
Happy Birthday!
June 13, 2025 at 4:08 PM
sarahakin.bsky.social
Happy Birthday!
June 5, 2025 at 10:38 PM
sarahakin.bsky.social
`'Happy Birthday!`'
June 2, 2025 at 10:19 PM
sarahakin.bsky.social
Also
Humans, image of Gemma Chan with glowing green eyes.
April 27, 2025 at 4:07 PM
sarahakin.bsky.social
That cancelled TV show you'll never stop thinking about
Counterpart, mirrored image of J.K. Simmons.
April 27, 2025 at 4:05 PM
sarahakin.bsky.social
Because I hate engagement on this site, here's a mini-collage of my personal esthetic.
You've been informed.
closeup of raw copper, reminiscent of tree bark closeup of raw aquamarine, reminiscent of the ocean viewed from above pearlescent yellow and orange jingle shells
April 24, 2025 at 4:50 PM
sarahakin.bsky.social
Painted these cheap plastic candles with nail polish and feeling pretty pleased with myself.
Shadow box (or tiny cabinet of wood and glass) on my wall. Contains a fake flower, bird, glittery apple, and six fake candles.
April 11, 2025 at 6:03 PM
sarahakin.bsky.social
I miss you forever.
Lynx point siamese on a red couch and pillow. Gray tabby cat curled up on a blue sleeping bag.
April 6, 2025 at 7:49 PM
sarahakin.bsky.social
This is handy if you know your season or that of whomever you're shopping for. Nice and simple. (I hate my colors though.)
Seasonal color palettes with accompanying photos of women dressed in their respective colors.
March 22, 2025 at 8:52 PM
sarahakin.bsky.social
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.
March 22, 2025 at 7:48 PM