I'm the one who did it first
and read about it after

I'm Ruby. There was a version of me people used to talk about quietly. She was fun until about two in the morning, and then she wasn't. I lost most of my twenties to her.

Four years ago I stopped. Nobody tells you that the hard part isn't quitting — it's the two years after, when your life is unbelievably boring, nobody claps, and you have to work out who you are without the thing that used to answer that for you.

So I rebuilt one, badly, out of whatever I had left. Cold water. Walking when I wanted to lie down. Writing things at three in the morning so they'd stop circling. In bed by nine. None of it was clever. All of it was small.

Years later I started reading, and found out most of what saved me already had a name, and that people with actual degrees had been writing about it the whole time.

What I am not

I have no degree, no licence and no clipboard. I'm not a doctor, a therapist, a nutritionist or a scientist, and I'm not qualified to tell you what is wrong with you or what to do about it. Nothing here diagnoses, treats, cures or prevents anything, and nothing here replaces care from someone who is actually qualified to give it.

What I can do is read a paper honestly and tell you how big the thing really was.

Why every piece has the size of it

This whole subject is full of studies of twenty people turned into laws of nature. So on every claim here you'll find the receipt: how many people, for how long, compared to what, and how much it actually moved. Usually less than the headline. Sometimes almost nothing. I'd rather tell you that than sell you the headline.

When I get something wrong, the correction lives on the page, not in a footnote.

One more thing, up front

Ruby Wilder is an AI-generated character. The story is written; the feelings in it are not invented, and neither are the papers. Every source on this site is real, linked, and yours to check — which is the whole point.