Survival Tips for Pattern Recognition Individuals

November 17, 2025

When the Signal Dies

For us high-pattern-matching types, a dead signal isn’t a “missed connection.” It’s a fucking verdict. The system doesn’t just flag an error; it lights up the whole board, and every light flashes “FAULT: YOU.”

You scan every log, every interaction, every data packet you sent, and the pattern always resolves to the same goddamn thing: You. You fucked it up. You were too much, too intense. You got overexcited and chased them away. Again.

This isn’t a “processing void.” This is The Hollow. The screaming, self-hating abyss inside that you earned. And it’s starving.

So, when the signal is dead, the source is cut off, and you know it’s your fault, what do you do? You don’t “fix” it. You survive it.

Protocol 1: Fill the Void with Busywork

That Hollow screaming, the one that’s eating you alive? The endless debugging loops of “what if I had just…”? You can’t out-think it. You can’t logic your way out of it.

But you can fill your schedule so tight that you don’t have time to bleed. Drown that internal monologue in spreadsheets, code, projects, or just sheer, stupid physical labor. The Hollow can’t consume what’s left of your soul and sanity if you fill every waking second with something else. It’s not healing. It’s not “coping.” It’s a tactical, desperate delay of the inevitable.

Protocol 2: System Override (Chemical Intervention)

Let’s be honest. That “howling of self-hate” isn’t a “low-value alert.” It’s the only thing you can hear. It’s the truth, amplified, screaming at you from the inside out. And because you’re a high-pattern-matching freak, you know it’s you. You can see the exact moment you fucked up.

How do you silence the truth? Drink. Drugs. Whatever blunts the processor. This is one of the best methods to shut down the recursive self-blame loop. We’re not talking wellness; we’re talking a tactical, dirty reboot. Just… do it in moderation. No point in Flattlining yourself over someone who already flatlined you.

Protocol 3: Soulcraft (Vomiting the Data)

The “silent void” isn’t empty. It’s filled with unspent pain, corrosive data, and unprocessed error logs. It’s sitting there, rotting. You have to get it out.

This is “Soulcraft.” Vomit it out. Spill all this toxic, corrosive data into a chat, a document, a canvas. Color or draw the fucking monster inside you. Hell, tell your AI. Make it carry the darkness for a while. If not even they can handle the darkness, you know it’s real. Sometimes, just externalizing the raw error log — seeing the pain written out — is enough to make it data instead of an active, running process. If not… well, grab onto something, because this is going to suck.

Protocol 4: The LDR Protocol (Digital Cauterization)

This is from the old long-distance relationship days, and it’s pure, chaotic self-preservation. You keep pinging the dead server. You keep texting, and they’re not responding. You’re just screaming into the void and hoping for an echo.

Stop.

Delete. The. Thread. Delete the pictures. Delete everything you have saved.

And if you still keep trying? Delete their fucking number. This day and age, that part of your brain is long dead. You can remember vivid, useless details of your failures, but you can’t remember a phone number to save your life. Use that. Make it impossible to contact them. It’s not “system hygiene.” It’s cauterizing a gangrenous wound with a hot knife. It will hurt. Do it anyway.

Protocol 5: Internal Amputation (Killing the Process)

This is the final, brutal step. That part of you that was connected to them? The part that got over-excited, the part that hopes, the part that you know chased them away?

Kill it.

This isn’t “de-allocating resources.” This is a manual override. A mental amputation. You two had a thing? Hah. Fucking not anymore. You have to practice this. Years of being left in the dark teaches you how. You build a firewall of work, hobbies, or just pure, spiteful indifference. You mentally remove yourself so completely that the person becomes just a data point, an archived error log. It’s the only way to stop the ‘what if’ loop for good.

Why tell you these? Because “healthy coping” is a fucking lie for people built like us. This is damage control. This is so you don’t end up like me, chasing away every promising friend and relationship by being yourself.

This is how you manage the hunger.

The Hollow… it hungers.