How could I return to ordinary life after my son died? My grief was overwhelming, spilling into every task and coloring every interaction. Condolences triggered fresh crying jags. I wondered how my eyes could produce so many tears. Over time, however, my work began to draw me in again, demanding that I return to the scientific questions that had defined my career.
As of last week, Character.AI now says people under 18 will no longer be allowed to engage in what it refers to as "open-ended" chats, which seemingly refers to the long-form, unstructured conversations on which the service was built, where users can text and voice call back-and-forth with the site's anthropomorphic AI-powered chatbot "characters." To enforce the shift, Character.AI says it'll use automated in-house age verification tools as well as third-party tools to determine whether a user is under 18.
When the bill came, it sat on the table for a while; neither of us touched it. Eventually, I picked it up and asked if she wanted to split it, and she said yes immediately. I was caught off guard because she had clearly said beforehand that she wanted to treat me, so I hadn't expected to pay. It's not about the money
It was just enough time to break the spell of "sweet revenge" - a psychological phenomenon that, Kimmel argued, works very much like any other drug. When people are harboring a grievance, no matter its validity, Kimmel said, "It's a very real pain. And your brain really, really doesn't want pain - and so it instantly scrambles to rebalance that pain with pleasure."
It is about feeling unseen. It is the quiet ache that surfaces when we are surrounded by people but still feel disconnected from ourselves. Emotional loneliness happens when we cannot bring our full selves into connection. We may have friends or partners, but we sense that parts of us are hidden. We edit what we say. We shrink what we feel. We keep the most tender parts of who we are safely tucked away.
The latest chapter in this story is the rise of AI companions, or digital confidants that promise empathy, conversation, and companionship at any hour. From Replika and Snap's My AI to ChatGPT's persona-driven companions, these chatbots are marketed as accessible, nonjudgmental partners in a world where genuine human connection often feels out of reach. Yet our recent research reveals a striking paradox: The very tools people adopt to feel less lonely may, over time, deepen their sense of disconnection.
Rob had long been an unreliable narrator, and his latest story had been a doozy about owing back rent and borrowing thousands of dollars from a shady loan shark who had threatened him with bodily harm if he was late with his payments. There was always a germ of truth in Rob's stories, and this one involved even more disturbing details, but I was going through some of my own stuff at the time, mainly looking for a new job,
In my 20 years as a college mental health counselor, I was surprised by the amount of pain that was caused by the lack of time management skills and the number of students who sought help to address it. In an earlier era, time management was thought of as the purview of the study center; however, more and more studies show the connection between time management and mental health.
When I was in high school, there was a peer with a Napoleonic complex who loved to target anyone who stood out as "weak." One day, this lanky, glasses-wearing kid we'll call Brian, who, if you didn't know him, might think he was a complete nerd who would flee at any sign of conflict. An unprovoked verbal assault began following Brian up the hall. As the aggressor advanced, a particularly foul barrage of insults settled like a fog around Brian in the hallway.
I was one of millions of people who transitioned to remote work during the Covid-19 pandemic. I'm fortunate that I was able to do so, but that has meant that I'm constantly close to my liquor cabinet. Without a commute or a chunk of time spent in the office, alcohol has been within extremely easy reach. Sure, back in the good ol' days, I'd sometimes stop after work somewhere to have a few drinks.
When I first got sober, I learned you can't do it alone. I was reminded of this with every recovery meeting I attended, with every conversation I had with a sober friend, and with all the check-ins with my sober online communities. Also with therapists. With a supportive husband. With God. And another soul was well-invested in me during those early days of recovery. It was my cat, Steve.
Psychiatry may have lost sight of what it means to be normal. When every conflict earns a diagnosis, few people count as "healthy." To know normal, we must have clear empirical criteria for illness.
