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bearbaitmegs · 3 years ago

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I know I don’t have a lot of active followers here, but I’ve been going though some major changes in my life recently (both good and/or disorienting), and one of the things I am aiming to achieve with that is to reestablish myself online in some small way. Just casually, socially. I used to enjoy interacting and making friends online and some of my oldest friends remain people that I met through the web.

I hope these sporadic personal posts don’t bother you.

I think part of these changes that I’m aspiring to involve getting into the habit of simply posting more. I honestly am unsure of where to migrate to online outside of Tumblr. I’ve ditched Facebook except to check on businesses I’m planning on visiting and occasionally to sell something. I’m only on Snapchat and Instagram to follow one person. I haven’t logged into DeviantArt in almost 10 years. Yahoo 360 is long gone. Adjusting to Discord has been a slow and lurking process because it reminds me of some particularly haunting memories and it lacks most topics I’d be interested in (publicly, at least). Twitter never fit right. I refuse to engage with people on Ao3 or ffn because I’m very hesitant to engage with people who has the same media interests as I do because I’ve had far too much fandom-related trauma and drama and I still have trouble forming friend groups despite 9 years of distance

My brother has an undiagnosed and untreated personality disorder and it has often felt like his drama has been my defining feature for almost 2 years. I have gotten tired of carrying his monkey into all of my relationships and conversations, especially when trying to make new ones. I wish I had custody of my nephew because he and his ex are both sucky and neglectful, but all I can do is wait until the kid turns 18 or asks about emancipation. My brother deliberately seeks out relationships that renew and reinforce his past traumas in order to legitimize his unwillingness to move on and I hold him at least partially responsible for our parents’ decline in emotional, financial, and physical health. I recently opted to go for No Contact/Very Low Contact with him and it’s been freeing and refreshing and I feel immensely happier and more motivated.

I frequently feel like I don’t have anything worth saying or cannot really think of anything to say. It’s a work in progress. I have always carried a sense of awkwardness and that continues to persist into my 30s, despite the fact that I generally consider myself a confident person. I’ve been in a romantic relationship for 5 years and it fulfills 95% of my social and emotional needs, which... I think has led to leaving many of my other relationships to pasture.

Instinctively, I want to reach out and rectify all of these relationships all at once. Of course, it doesn’t work that way, and in trying to pace myself I find I often procrastinate. I set myself a goal of reaching out to a friend per week, but it’s more like one every two weeks. I know some of us will pick up where we left off like we’ve never been apart. Some of my friends will have moved on and our re-connection will separate again because we’re just different now and I’m honestly not bothered by that. It’s normal. I just hesitate because I don’t know where to start even though the script should be so easy. I feel annoying and needy. “Hey, I hope you’re well! I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch. I was thinking of you today every day.” Ugh.

I’m pretty financially, mentally, and physically stable and have been for a while. I like my job and I’m paid very well! I like me! I like my hobbies and my apartment! I’ve worked very hard to get here and there’s really only a few key things I want to improve upon.

But somehow I feel like I’m rediscovering myself again. Like I was shut out of something and didn’t even realize there was a door. I’ve missed something. I’m naturally comfortable alone and tend to be willfully obtuse about things that don’t involve me only to get startled by them later.

I moved back to my hometown 2 years ago in order to introduce my partner to my family and be around for some major family events. It was supposed to be a 4 month summer visit. The family drama just never stopped and I’m just...still here. I can’t wait to leave, but I also don’t resent my hometown as much as I did when I left. It’s changing immensely, but so am I. I definitely won’t be able to afford to stay.

I had a patio garden over the summer and, while we hardly got our money’s worth out of it, it was pretty and tasty and fulfilling. A few of the plants are overwintering with us.

I still haven’t lived somewhere that allows me a pet, but I keep saving stray cats.

I have way more fabric than I know what to do with from old clothes and dead ideas, but I finally tuned up my sewing machine and bought a set of sewing machine feet and I have lots of plans and ideas that I just need to sit down and actually execute. Especially embroidery.

I finally spent the damn $70 on an old school drawing tablet and took the time to download some free art programs. A modern tablet is still too much to budget for and a mouse and MS Paint is not enough. I do not know why it took me 10 freaking years when I’ve spent far more money on far less desirable luxuries.

I am hoping to find a decent enough mountain bike at a manageable price to do a long-distance cycling trip next year. If I don’t, I’ll divert to hiking a long-distance trail. I’ve never stopped craving spending weeks and weeks out in the woods with an overstuffed backpack since my first trek in 2016. I’m willing to go out of my way and budget hard to make it a reality on an annual basis.

I’m slowly picking away at my original story, JatGSL, a 10+ year Work In Progress, and I finally have a setting and characters that I feel good about and have a lot of fun imagining. I’m afraid to say much about it. It has dying androids and mushrooms and mythology and domesticated seals and braille and it takes place on a melted Antarctica. But my writing is a muscle long neglected and I don’t know if I’ll ever really get it back.

I sometimes think about moving some of my old fanfics over to Ao3 so they won’t be lost, but my old penname carries weight I’d rather not pick up and I don’t want to add anything else to JKR’s legacy and some of the things I wrote when I was 17-22 have aged pretty poorly. So, I hesitate and debate and do nothing.

I keep having simple, but neat ideas that nobody out in the market seems to be doing/making, but I lack the connections and knowledge to do anything with them.

My romantic partner is an amazingly perfect fit. Absolutely well-fitting, in-sync, mind-blowingly complementary in every way. I increasingly worry it might not last because my partner has 1 (ONE) key issue that I just can’t live with long term and if they can’t figure out a healthy way to cope I don’t know if I can go another 5 years dealing with it. I grew up with it. I won’t live with it.

It often feels odd to talk about myself (even here. even now) because I feel so much happier than I seem to be describing myself.

#megii's commentary #this is more a ramble than anything else

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gallavictorious · 4 years ago

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11x01 Reaction Post

Random thoughts on and reactions to 11x01; no careful analysis or anything, just the bits and pieces that's not likely to make it into meta proper but which I still want to make note of so I can go back later and remember what my initial reaction to the episode was (since my impressions are likely to change as the season unfolds). Mostly Gallavich related, because duh, but there's disordered rambling on a bit of everything. Under a cut (God I miss LJ sometimes) because this got long.

Ian looks damned good as the homocidal muscle. I don't do AU:s, but if I did... On the other hand, Frank as a member of the Chicago “Eight” looks like a werewolf. Less interested in that AU. And listen, I get that they couldn't get Emmy Rossum for this, but I really miss Fiona showing up in a few random olden day pictures. She's gone, but she's still a Gallagher dammit! Carl at the slaughter house looked weird – and part of me thought that was appropriate because slightly off editing would be a sweet way of communicating that it's all bollocks, but the rest of shots looked okay (Debbie as a milk maid and Frank as the aforementioned werewolf) or good (everything else) so no.

The sound of a baby crying is a horror matched only by persistent lack of sleep so I feel for Lip and Tami so much. Here's to all parents who managed to get through the first year without murdering anybody! I think that maybe you don't get enough credit... I, for instance, want to kill someone just hearing Freddie cry in the background for half a minute. Not sure it bodes too well for their relationship for them to be so ready to spend every night apart like Lip suggests, but a, what wouldn't you do for a good night's sleep, and b, love the thought of Lip spending more time at the old house. Could see them breaking up during the course of the season, though. Not sure how I feel about that – Tami's my favourite out of Lip's love interests, but having too many of the couples staying together all through the finale wouldn't feel quite right (for Shameless) and I don't see them breaking up Ian and Mickey or Kev and V. Don't really expect Sandy or Debbie to last either, but since it's more of a casual thing it might have more of a casual end.

Do you remember when the promo dropped and there was Concern about That Look on Ian's face after he kisses Mickey, and I tag theorized about it being because Mickey stole his coffee? Turns out there wasn't really A Look in the actual episode, but I sure as hell was right about the coffee, and I want noted somewhere. Maybe there should also be a small diploma? A golden statue seems a little over the top, but I mean, if you insist...

I appreciate that Ian is very adament about it being their money but when Mickey thinks it's their breakfast it's suddenly every man for himself. Do you share or not, Ian? Hmm? (Let the record show that I'm joking, please. Ian is damned right to take his toast back, and I say this as a “person most likely to steal their partner's toast right out of their hand”. I also love that Mickey completely gives up on breakfast when he can't have Ian's toast and just grabs a beer instead.) The kitchen scene is glorious and I just really like their dynamic here; the casual kiss, “I only make breakfast for husbands who have jobs”, how relaxed it is even when Ian's a bit annoyed, Mickey being so... Mickey. I do wonder what went through his head when Ian started talking about their wedding present money, though – he seems worried for a moment, but then shrugs it off, and that could be either bravado or just actual lack of concern. I tend mostly towards the latter, since Mickey quite genuinely figures this isn't a big deal (even though he still recognizes that Ian will probably think it one). Please note that he immediately offers to get money when Ian mentions that they need more of it coming in. Not his fault Ian vetoes his methods, right? (Also love that Ian's objection is due to him not wanting to be separated from Mickey, rather than any moral qualms about robbing stores.)

Okay, the gag ball. Would they really keep it like that if they were actually using it? Maybe either of them just tossed it there after taking it off, I suppose... Yeah, I don't know. Not what I'd imagined them being into, but that might be my own extreme lack of enthusiasm for gag balls and harnesses talking. Either they're into it and if so, you do you, boys, or it was a gift and they're keeping it around and semi-prominently on display for shits and giggles. (But if it was a gift, they did try it at least once, right?)

Mickey in the bath remains stupidly and surprisingly gorgerous. Incidentally, I really don't think his question about the meds is any indication of him not thinking them important, but there's little wonder that Ian bristles at the mention of them. Maybe not be an ass just to prove a point, eh, Mick?

I've already talked about how hard Ian is trying here but let's just take another moment to congratulate our boy on his persistent attempts at mature communication. Though he might have given some actual consideration to Mickey not wanting to save the money if he's really serious about them making decisions together... But he gets there! I think this whole situation – which would royally piss most people, including me, off – is actually particularly difficult for Ian, because he might well see Mickey's behavior as uncomfortably reminiscent of Frank and Monica's destructive habits and yeah, that would fuck him up. And still! He forces himself to calm down! He takes Mickey's hand! He refuses to let himself be distracted by Mickey looking SO INSANELY PRETTY I CANNOT EVEN UNDERSTAND IT! Ian, I salute you!

[starwars_eu_nerd_mode]KORRIBAN! YES! HA! TAKE THAT DISNEY! You take your new so-called “canon” and your “Moraband” and you fuck right off. I salute you, Bitcoin Boy![/starwars_eu_nerd_mode]

Ah, the porch scene... This one I do have a bunch of thoughs on that will probably make it into meta proper one day, so I'll leave it for now. It was the one that took the most thinking about for me to square (still not a lot, it should be noted), but now I'm actually very happy about it. (Full disclosure: none of their scenes feel quite right the first time I see them these days, because I'm just so very on edge about what's to come that I kind of miss the forest for all the trees you know? It's not a Shameless thing – it's always like this when I'm extremely invested in something and have waited for it for some time. Will it fit with how I see the characters? Will it be cringey? Will Mickey suddenly profess a love for hideous Hawaii shirts? Also, what are they saying because English is hard... But then I watch them a couple of times and they sink in and I start to get giddy over them. I guess watching actual canon unfold always requires a little bit of re-calibration if you've been busy fanoning while waiting for it to arrive, and while I love that sort of interpretative work, there’s also the fear that the show will veer off into a direction I cannot easily follow.)

Mickey's insistence that he spelled monogamy wrong does genuinely amuse me. Not to mention the whole “No more parking tickets for me!” - “You don't have a car, dumbass.” Also, Mickey being friendly with Carl kills me, in a good way. Family FTW!

Frank's storyline fails to stir even the vaguest hint of interest in me, as per usual. For all his talk of family in this episode, the lack of interaction with any of his kids is striking. If he's to have any value at all this season I'll need him to get involved in the rest of the Gallagher's storylines (which seems like it might be happening at least for a bit later on, so I'm vaguely hopeful?). I find but faint intrigue in Carl's and Debbie's stuff, but it doesn’t annoy me either so I'll call it a win. Kev and V are (almost) always a delight, but do anyone else feel like their kids are only props, even to them? I don't know... I just don't think there's a connection or sense of realness to their relationship, you know? Maybe it's just me... Anyway, here's to hoping V turning pageant mom changes all that! Oh, and I'll need Liam to have some more screentime and stuff to do.

The Tommy and Kermit thing was weird. Eh. Whatever.

Sandy is so gorgerous. I can't. The Milkoviches really be bringing it this episode.

This is only the second season I've watched episode by episode as it airs (other one was S6) and it's a curiuos experience. I think that by and large, and particularly in later seasons, Shameless works better when you binge it, but I love the delightful anticipation of waiting for a new episode and the feverent discussion that follows. Sometimes I also despair over the ferverent discussion that follows, but... you know. It is what it is. Admittedly, any attempts at meta this early in the season is a precarious venture at best, since we don't have the whole story, and it might be wiser to abstain but it's just so much fun, so I'm not very likely to stop.

All in all, I love the Gallavich stuff, am intrigued by Lip & Tami and Kev & V's lives, okay with whatever Debbie and Carl's got going on, hot for Sandy, bored by Frank, and missing Liam. It sets up a lot of promising things, but as an episode all unto itself it felt a bit empty – probably because there were no real plots and the storylines didn't intersect as much as I would have liked them to. Shameless is best when it's about family, which both the show and Frank seems to recognize, but there's little narrative follow-through on that realization in this episode; everyone is pretty much doing their own thing. Adored the Lip and Ian convo, and that house party scene was wonderful, but so short. Think we'll get more of all of them together going forward, though, and more actual plots too, so I'm very excited about it all. Can't wait for Sunday!

#11x01 #shameless spoilers #episode reaction post #random ramblings #my stuff

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modernidolater · 4 years ago

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TW: Violence, dark humor, all that jazz. Go no further, angry shit, yadda.

So, yanno...i'm just gonna yell into the void about something.

When i was very young, I read a lot of encyclopedias. Most of my knowledge of the world was attributable to the Encyclopedia Britannica, which my mother kept because well, a home should have a nice, impressive looking set of books. Along with a bunch of other old books that just...really weren't the best choice for a regressive anti-technology apocalyptic fundamentalist cult, but then, as we used to joke, my mother doesn't have to make sense, she just has to make decisions.

So, I eventually started plumbing the depths to try and figure out "what the hell is wrong with my family."

While i didn't get an answer about my family in general, I did note that i seemed to be oddly suited to the definition of "psychopath," minus the whole "being a problem for society at large" thing. Asocial, low empathy, lack of guilt, inability to plan cohesively, difficulty conceptualizing consequences, near total lack of emotions except curiosity and rage, both of which are carefully stifled, aggressive tendencies...frankly, I look at my younger siblings and i can definitely assure anyone that asks that had I not been raised quite far away from society, or if I'd stayed in the cult, I would most definitely have been a problem for society.

But psychopaths are *monsters,* you see. They're so, so bad, you see. Everyone assured me, at great length, that I couldn't be that, no, no sirree. I was too nice. Too kind. I didn't punch people nearly often enough (largely because I don't like being punched outside of sex, and I like to be in charge of where I'm being punched, and even that mostly cause I'm kinda badly out together physically, but that's aside the point.)

I wasn't *hate-able.* My empathy was too high.

On that last note, I have spoken elsewhere and i believe here regarding my empathy. My empathy is specifically a learned skill picked up by reading Edgar Allen Poe's Auguste Dupin stories. Dupin explains his near preternatural ability to get inside people's heads by his learned skill of micro-mimicking body and facial language and then analyzing what he feels when he copies someone else. Works absolute wonders, particularly as up to that point (i was 8-9), I was using the classical technique of provoking and hurting people around me to experimentally figure out how other people worked. Admittedly, it's somewhat like recording a speech and listening to it at the lwvel of a whisper in a crowded room, but then mimicry is far less likely to get you punched, and see previous for my feelings on getting punched.

But now i had, for all intent, a system to demonstrate empathy. Thanks to my mother's abuse, I had a complete paranoid delusion aping guilt. I could check plans past others, and once I got my hands on Google at 14, I had the capacity to directly look up what the general, societal consequences of most actions were and model behaviors that achieved my ends. I further had 18 years of direct training in mind control and manipulation, thanks to my cult.

You may notice that what you just read sounds like the origin story of a serial killer. Ape people around them to avoid detection, paranoia making them scrupulous enough to not get caught, and careful study of laws to find the lines, plus a hyper manipulative persona.

Roll with me here. This continues forward.

So, i'm out and about, 2, 5, 6 years free of my cult. I have married a self avowed psychopath who actually HAS been diagnosed with antisocial disorder thanks to a teenage habit of theft and punching people. He is fairly sure I am not one, since I perform guilt and empathy fantastically, by rote at this point. I literally have days that my face hurts from faking emotions for too long, i am slowly developing agoraphobia because there are far too many people to mimic in a retail job, and my guilt subroutine is just a voice chanting in my head, "they're coming to get you, don't fuck up" 24/7 to the point that i am developing hallucinations, but yeah. It's definitely not psychopathy. At this point, that's just ASPD, and i'm just too darn social. Never that. I'm no monster, you see. I'm "nice."

About this point, I have learned to use mind control techniques to help people, carefully applying them with direct permission to help people open up and discuss problems. My near preternatural ability to get into people's heads, my ability to find information, and my absolute lack of fucks about morals (thus making me wildly nonjudgemental), makes me the go-to confidant for many of my friends. This neatly surrounds me with people that can smooth my life out, but you can't tell people you're friends with them cause the world is made of grey paste and you're deathly bored 24/7 and being allowed to pick through people's minds and help them optimize is the closest you get to not wanting to shoot yourself or others. Or that you carefully maintain contact with people so you can check and make sure you're not doing anything jail worthy. Or that a large group to mimic lets you blend in easier, and finding one that also is transgressive, but socially permissable (thanks, kink) blows off some steam.

Of course, people that don't know me find me deeply off-putting, as I am at this point rapidly learning to turn off the mimicry when not immediately interacting with people. This results in me appearing utterly emotionless, but as soon as people talk to me, bing, back on. I had also joined the kink subculture, giving my hedonistic and transgressive sides an outlet.

I'd also gone to the trouble of getting a multifaceted degree. Ostensibly, my degree is "multimedia journalism." If you aren't aware, this means I have a degree in research, interpersonal communication, public speaking, written communication, mass communication, some psychology, critical thinking, media creation and analysis. In short, I have the literal perfect degree for figuring out, communicating with, and functionally understanding people, as well as a vastly enhanced ability to locate obscure information.

Fast forward again. Three mental breakdowns, four years of therapy, poking at my gender, figuring out a lot of mental health problems, and a rotating series of diagnoses, life is...slowly improving. I've left a toxic marriage (toxic on both sides), moved to a completely new place, started over. I have sort of resigned myself to focusing on my (admittedly annoyingly complex and wide ranging) physical disabilities.

And it comes up, in talking to my partner, that his adoptive mother displayed (she's dead) quite a few signs of ASPD. And he asks curiously if there's any connection between ADHD, autism, and ASPD, mainly cause the "personality disorder" part. PD's can, with long or early exposure, sometimes be passed on, you see.

Guess what's being studied, right now? Not a connection between ASPD and ADHD. A connection between psychopathy and ADHD. Wait, but I thought psychopathy wasn't a thing, says I? I thought there was only ASPD, now?

Ah, but for you see, the DSM is a load of horseshit. And i have heard that from multiple communities with different relations to it, and from multiple therapists, psychiatrists, professors...as a general rule, when the people who use it, the people it's used on, and the people who teach it all agree that a document is manure, I get a touch distrustful. I get more so when current studies use umbrella terms disavowed by a document known for being reductivist and that has been noted as having a great number of entries that were manipulated deliberately to make them as narrow and unusable as possible.

So anyway.

Turns out that while no, ADHD and Autism don't make you a psychopath, there's a distinct overlap. Empathy issues are a possiblity in all three, though both ADHD and autism can create *hyper*empathy. Inability to navigate social constructs is another point of overlap.

But really, it's the serotonin deficiency that hurls it across the line for me. And the genetic factors. Can psychopathy result from environment? Yeah, seems so. But there does seem to be a genetic and neurochemical component. Which is...curious for a disorder presented as purely a traumatic abreaction that creates dangerous amorals.

I then looked it up. And wouldn't you know, psychopathy is only pathologized as ASPD/APD, and DPD? The former is the sort of psychopathy that is characterized by violent amd criminal antisocial behavior, and the other an inability to understand and perform social mores at all. But this is the DSM, so these are of course diagnosed by problems caused for others as a first line.

Violation of societal norms, lack of emotions other than rage, aggression...it's almost like the same people that named a serotonin and function deficiency Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder to enshrine the disorder only by those aspects that make neurotypical people uncomfortable rather than seeking to help the neurodivergent person, the same people that invented torturous behavioral correction therapies to "fix" the neurodivergent person? Those strike me as people that might possibly have looked a serotonin deficiency that causes rage, limited emotions, impulsivity, difficulty conceptualizing consequence, and potentially a hell of a lot of other fun side shit and decided to call that "Doesn't get along with others well" disorder.

What really kicks it in the teeth for me, however, is that psychopathy used to mean more than "a social pariah." You see, Theodore Millon, the guy that wrote the book on personality disorders, noted between 5 and 10 subtypes. Do you know what they are?

Nomadic

(including schizoid and avoidant features)

Drifters; roamers, vagrants; adventurer, itinerant vagabonds, tramps, wanderers; they typically adapt easily in difficult situations, shrewd and impulsive. Mood centers in doom and invincibility

Malevolent

(including sadistic and paranoid features)

Belligerent, mordant, rancorous, vicious, sadistic, malignant, brutal, resentful; anticipates betrayal and punishment; desires revenge; truculent, callous, fearless; guiltless; many dangerous criminals, including serial killers.

Covetous

(including negativistic features) Rapacious, begrudging, discontentedly yearning; hostile and domineering; envious, avaricious; pleasures more in taking than in having.

Risk-taking

(including histrionic features) Dauntless, venturesome, intrepid, bold, audacious, daring; reckless, foolhardy, heedless; unfazed by hazard; pursues perilous ventures.

Reputation-defending

(including narcissistic features) Needs to be thought of as infallible, unbreakable, indomitable, formidable, inviolable; intransigent when status is questioned; overreactive to slights.

(It should be noted: the features listed above are simply what each presentation is most likely to display if disordered. A reputation-defender may not display narcissm, a risk taker may not be histrionic. A malevolent [what a terribly judgy name...] could be negativistic, or avoidant, or histrionic. And so on.)

Now, ya may be going, "wait, hold up, narcissism is on there! We still have that! Schizoid is on there, we have that! Sadism, paranoia, we got all those things!"

Flash quiz: do you know what a personality disorder is? It's a series of learned behaviors that require moderation and unlearning.

Why yes, they did spin multiple neurotypes off into diagnoses that require behavioral therapy to "fix." Why on earth would you think they wouldn't? They're still trying to use reparative therapy on auties. Hell, near as I can figure, histrionic got spun into Borderline Personality disorder. You know what the therapy for that is? DBT, aka, "it IS your fault and you SHOULD feel bad."

Beyond knowing there used to be different flavors, did you know that there is about a millionty scare articles about how psychopaths are everywhere? Guess why.

What do you get when someone has an absolute need to see what's on the other side of the hill and no real fucks to give about how you get there? You get scientists, explorers, people utterly driven to find out. Think about how many of our science and exploration heros are noted as deeply weird and off-kilter. We have whole stereotypes about this. There are books and articles devoted to the transgressive personas and behaviors of famous scientists and explorers.

What do you get when someone is belligerent, paranoid, truculent, violent, fearless? Snipers. Literally. The army has openly stated they like psychopaths quite a lot. Someone that can look at a map of human lives and commit calculus with the phrase "acceptable losses" makes a damn fine general, wouldn't you say? Hunters, too. Make a good king? Or bounty hunter. Or, if we're going to be honest, a martial artist. Hell, think of all the ways our society accepts violence in real terms and symbolically. Management. Video gamer. Espionage. Actuary. Pest control. There are THOUSANDS of of societal uses for people like this.

Covetous? Well, banks are openly quite loving towards psychopaths. CEOs are indicated here. Businessmen. Fandoms with collection as a function have any number of anecdotes of individuals who have an intense drive to get more. "Focused on the chase, rather than the victory, to the exclusion of all else" is considered a positive, laudable personality trait. To put it in other terms, "can't stop, won't stop, never done." Sports players, yes? Football, rugby, hockey...

Risk takers are the real standouts, in terms of societal love. Doctors. Firemen. EMT's. Skydivers. Extreme sports players. Equipment testers. The list goes on. Society loves risk taking psychopaths. Hell, look at the diagnostic criterion up there: it's mostly traits with high positive connotations.

Reputation defending? Politics. Law. Advertising. Acting. Writing. Religion. Leadership of any kind.

I'm not talking out my ass here. All those fields have been noted as friendly towards, attractive to, and having a high representation of people who fit the behavioral model of psychopath.

But only if they're useful. Like literally every other non-normative neurotype.

Society loves ADHD and autistic people when they're displaying savant abilities or when they can mask well enough to use their sensory and cognitive differences to societal ends.

And if they're a problem for people around them, that's treated. The underlying difficulties? The societal structures that punish and harm them? The pain of adapting their entire neurobiome to do all the work of interfacing with different neurotypes while being driven to harness anything useful and discard the rest of their brain? No, we don't treat that. That's just the price of doing business. "Pull yourself up and don't be a problem."

And here's the problem, in plain terms: psychopaths who learn to cope, to mask, to adapt like I did are never diagnosed. I have spent most of my life fairly concerned about the fact that I seem not to have emotions or compunction, that i am always consciously working to figure out and connect to people around me on the most basic level, that I am constantly working to keep an active model of social norms going at all times. And I don't mean "shake hands, eye contact." I mean I have the same mental conversation regarding "don't shoot that person" and "use a turn signal." All prosocial behaviors, all social behaviors period, are a struggle to understand.

The funny thing is, it also makes antisocial behaviors difficult. Shooting someone seems remarkably inconvenient in many cases. Regardless of whether I care about getting caught or not, shooting somone will interrupt my day.

Not shooting them also seems remarkably inconvenient in many cases. Yes, it'd be a pain in the ass to shoot them, but then again, if I do it correctly, I only have to do it once.

But again, "correctly" is a wildly unfixed variable, and the whole question won't come up if I always ensure I fail the "do i currently have a firearm" step. And I don't. Ever.

That's how my brain works. Y'all go on about moral and ethical and legal reasons. That's an exhausting conscious mental conversation to have every other day, so my shortcut is:

"Should I shoot them? Oh, right, I don't have a gun. Guess not. Should I get one? No, cause I might shoot someone, and that'd be a pain in the ass. Welp, no shooting people."

And so it goes. I don't understand any social norms. Good or bad. I have all the problematic issues still, mind you. Environmental factors. I mimic and I was raised in an apocalypse cult in Oklahoma. I spend a lot of brain space sorting between prosocial behaviors and the violent antisocial behaviors I was taught were prosocial.

Because, you see, I can't really understand the prosocial behaviors, but I can see they work. And antisocial behaviors don't, really. Have i impulsively pocketed something? Couple times. Even got away with. Can't steal a house, though. And theft gets boring, for me.

Ok, except piracy. I may quite enjoy piracy.

Cooperation with a larger whole can and does yield benefits. Forcing myself to sit through mind numbing gratification delays does seem to yield results that are beneficial, though I really try to keep that one to a minimum. I refuse to be bored if I can help it. Making nice talky sounds gets me shit faster than making angry talky sounds.

Possibly this is a result if being raised manipulative. No idea. Kinda don't care.

Point is, I'm one of the psychopaths that, while not immediately useful, is also not actively a problem. So no-one will listen when i talk about everything being gray and cold and exhaustingly complicated because people make no sense and almost all my emotions are dialed so far down it's a joke i lack the ability to laugh about.

No one has believed me that the one emotion I have in spades is rage and that i have to literally consciously work out from first principles why violence is a bad option as my sole method of controlling that, my ONLY EMOTION OF ANY STRENGTH, which I cannot allow myself to feel for any length of time because I start losing sight of that consequence model and I worry i'll make a mistake I can't unmake. Or that it took me two decades to learn not to smash things I need when someone looks at me funny. Or just smash them.

Or that i have to keep my hands in my pockets and chant "don't steal" in my head some days. That I wear tight clothing with shallow pockets to make stealing harder so that, like guns, I simply can't do it easily and therefore short circuit my behaviors.

People are more than happy to hurl me at any problem that requires a lack of emotion, but if I dare to be less than appropriately emotional on a date? At a wedding? Funeral? If I make an error and don't diagnose it myself and perform contrition appropriately, regardless of if I knew there was a social or personal rule there? Well, I'm fired/broken up with/punished/evicted.

But I am not actively a problem for society. So none of those things are worth diagnosing. Or helping in any way.

And those that are useful? Are often fed utter horseshit and encouraged to break society. Bankers creating recessions. Generals commanding useless wars. Cops. Doctors that uphold a broken system. Politicians that pursue a broken society.

I know, I can see, that ASPD people catch a shit ton of shit cause they get blamed for "useful" psychopaths mistakes, and none of the benefits when said same psychopaths are lionized. Looking back at what it was, and what it is now, pathologically speaking, it makes perfect fucking sense for the asshats that designed a diagnosis to only include the people they don't like as the "sick" ones, and label the "good" ones as "heroes." Makes a nice distinction there between people we want to demonize and people we want to lionize for having the exact same chemical imbalance, and neatly creates a fall group when any of the "heroes" trip up. Silence those who can't cope, elevate those that can, treat neither effectively, and if an elevated one stops coping, we can just "realize" they were "sick" all along, and oh, yeah, those sick people are so bad, you guys, nothing like those heroes at allllllll.

I am...so tired of this society bullshit.

So anyway, I'm a psychopath. Paranoid, some schizoid. So whatever grains of salt you feel like taking, grab 'em, I guess. I'd mostly like for people like me to stop being weaponized, lionized, or punished for having a different neurotype. I'd like to be able to talk to a doctor about that and for there to be some options beyond "stop that," "get locked up," "have you considered the army" (yes, a doctor actually asked me that as a teenager) or "you seem fine, tho."

And if you resonate with this, well...I'm 32, never been arrested, mostly managed to avoid terrible shit, and I've got a life, couple partners, and I'm surviving, so like. You can do this. Lotta people wanna tell you you can't have this or that cause "you're not bad, tho." They're stupid. Y'ain't evil, just different. Don't let them get to you.

And (this is a joke) if you decide to shoot someone, do it once, correctly. Saves time.

#actuallymentallyill #vent #tw violence

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icewindandboringhorror · 4 years ago

Photo

Okay, here’s a final answer, just for clarification -

Firstly, please understand that I’m not angry, and I’m not upset. I just tend to speak very matter of factly, I guess? If I seem cold or something when typing this response, it's not a personal attack towards you or some display of aggression, that's just how I word things sometimes, I don't mean for them to be misinterpreted or want you to think I’m like getting mad with you or etc. Me disagreeing does not inherently equal me being mad about something, it merely means that I disagree, which is an emotion neutral action. If someone said 2+2 = 6, I would disagree, and openly so, but that doesn’t mean I’d also be like, crying about it or upset with them or something lol.

I actually even stated so at the end of my tags last time -

So, I apologize if you interpreted my tone as being mean, but I was simply trying to be firm and direct in how I said things so you understand that it's a very serious matter, and I didn't want to be light about it.

There was a bit of jokiness/sarcasm/exaggeration as well I suppose, but again, that’s not an inherent indicator of upset, just the way I speak - especially when your question can be seen as rude to begin with (which usually leads people to care less about faking positive emotions or seeming polite to others. If a person is not polite to you, you’re not likely to watch how you communicate as much or attempt to display high politeness back). My default state is a neutral flatness as I have a very shallow emotional range (shout out to schizophrenia spectrum negative symptoms and other various issues lol), any excessive positivity or “perkiness” or something that I display is just an attempt to be polite and communicate with others in a simple and kindly manner (in real life I’m often seen as too stoic, blunt, detached, cold, etc. lmao, so in general communication with strangers I tend to overcompensate to being excessively polite instead) - but that also means I can accidentally drop that sometimes if I’m being “real” or whatever.

Anyway, now that concerns over my tone have hopefully been explained, I’ll address this issue about your previous ask in a numbered list. Please read ALL of this, if you are actually taking this seriously. If you don’t actually read, in detail (no skimming), this entire response, then this is not even a discussion since you’re not willing to genuinely engage in the first place. -

Firstly, here is the original ask, for reference ----

As for how your question can be rude:

(1.) In my initial response (in the tags of your answer), I asserted various things, mostly that the question was rude, and that it’s not appropriate to ask people, for a variety of reasons. I’ll explain those in more length here.

My main point is that even asking the question in the first place is rude. It doesn’t matter how specifically you word it, it’s not appropriate. Just like any personal issue. At least in my culture, it’s typically thought of as inconsiderate and inappropriate to ask random strangers personal questions. for example, it would be rude to approach a random stranger on the bus that you’ve never even seen before and ask them why the have the haircut they do, who their sexual partners are, if they’ve just had a death in the family, how well their marriage is going, what their gender is, etc. etc.

(2.) On top of this personal boundary issue, another concern would be that the nature of the question itself is baseless --

Would you ask a cis woman why they're a woman? Or a cis man why he chose to be a man? Would you ask a straight person why they chose to be straight?

Would you find it acceptable and polite if a random stranger approached you on the street and asked you for an explanation as to why you're the gender you are? Imagine that exact scenario happening to you, and if you would find it odd or overstepping boundaries at all.

I doubt you ask this same gender identity question to everyone in your life, to your parents, friends, the cashier at your grocery store. Why is it only certain groups that need to explain or justify their identities to you? Only certain groups that you feel the inherent need to question? It's a double standard which further serves to prove the question itself is unnecessary.

(3.) Additionally, in case you're genuinely unsure of tone (maybe you have difficulty reading social cues or something, that’s understandable) I will explain - the way in which the question was asked has certain implications.

The statement “Why are you nonbinary? You seem like a pretty girl to me”, implies that - due to your beliefs about me/how you see me, you find it confusing that I could have a certain identity that you see as not matching your perception of me, or that you see as an invalid label, and are asking for me to justify or explain myself/my identity to you because of that.

Even if this implied meaning was not intentional, it is what most people will interpret upon reading the question, and would be a commonly held understanding. There are other ways you could have asked the question which would be less condescending, yes, but again, the other points still stand (like that the question in itself is impolite to ask to strangers, etc.)

Again, revisit the imaginary scenario of a stranger approaching you on the street and asking you why you’re the gender you are - would there not be some of this implication present? For example, say you’re a man - would it not feel as if someone were questioning your manhood, or implying you weren’t truly a man, or must not be a man ‘correctly’, or that ‘man’ is not a valid label for how they see you? Why else would they approach you and ask you in confusion for you to justify your identity to them? The implication is that they don’t see you as a valid man, or at least not how they see a man, and thus are having a hard time accepting that someone like YOU could ever be a real man - that it’s hard for them to believe you are what you say you are, because they see you differently.

(3.a) As an additional sidenote (one which I addressed in the tags replying to you initially), your ask (as well as this more recent one) also made certain assumptions. There are plenty of people who ''look like girls'' or 'look like boys' but aren't as they “seem”, even if you're someone who only believes in a “binary biological sex model” (I’ll include some links at the end about this). It's strange to assume someone's body parts or identity just based off of pictures you see on the internet (which often have specific lighting, angles, or in the case of many people are even edited and etc. I don't do this but it's really common nowadays with phone editing apps and stuff). Just because I appear a certain way to you, in no way implies that I have the physical form and traits you assume I have Consider how you may feel invalidated or uncomfortable if people sent you messages assuming personal things about you that are incorrect or that they have no way to possibly know.

Your standards and perception are also not universal, various cultures and groups have different ideas about what outward traits would make someone considered a “man” or a “woman”, so making your judgement of someone else’s identity based only on your own (extremely shallow, since it’s only from online pictures) perception of them, is also inherently a bit flawed.

(3.b-ish side tangent) In extension to this, your ideas and how you view me are likely incorrect. Just as it is similarly true that, from afar, any assumptions I make about you would likely be inaccurate as well. We are strangers.

For example, if you really knew me, you would know that I don’t pride myself in costumes and makeup - It’s a fun creative activity for me definitely, but I feel no pride over it, I don’t do it to look good or seem a certain way, and actually I resent it in a way, because often it feels like people mostly only pay attention to blurry pictures of me looking silly in cheap wigs, but don’t give that same level of engagement to the other more important things I do that I personally care about 100x more, like my worldbuilding and other projects lol. Absolutely nothing against the people who like my costumes, I appreciate them of course!!, and I still love doing costumes - BUT, to imply that it’s a primary source of pride in my life or a characteristic that defines me over other things, would be a mischaracterization.

Anyone who knows me in real life would certainly list a million other stand-out traits to define me, rather than ‘pretty make up woman’ (most people I know in real life would also not describe me as ‘pretty’ or as a ‘woman’, just for reference lol).

Your one sided perception of me (which I’ll address in the next section) may allow you to have a shallow idea of me as some sweet pretty costume girl or something, but just know that the reality is more like: I haven’t had much time lately to do costumes because I’m working on a game and other art which I see as much more important, I haven’t bathed or brushed my hair in weeks because of mental illness/functioning issues, 99% of the time I’m not ‘’dressed up’’ - I wear the same pajamas and cardigan that I’ve worn for the past 3 years and barely wash to the point that it’s disintegrating and leaves fabric scraps around the house lol, I have a little moustache right now and a unibrow and other “””non-womanly”””” traits (at least by common media western standards, which is what I assume you go by), I’m excessively analytical, detached, and in real life you would probably see me as blunt and cold and cynical (also commonly missing social cues) - as well as being hugely asocial/ a hermit and mostly lacking the ability to form attachments to others (So definitely not ~pretty and cute and approachable~ ghgg), I have obsessive compulsive disorder and am regularly so anxious that I’m throwing up and have various other issues - I’m also not Fun or Cool or Spontaneous because I’m too busy being rigid and high strung lol (even before the pandemic, I don’t like to leave the house or interact much at all with others, I’d rather be in my little controlled environment where I don’t have overwhelming sensory information and distractions raising my anxiety constantly),, and my favorite activities are literally all just stuff like pacing around my home alone talking to myself in different voices creating gods and fake religions for my fantasy worldbuilding while I eat boiled cabbage and light little pieces of paper on fire over a candle to help me think - not doing makeup and other Pretty Woman Things.

Which I don’t want to be too harsh or focus on this tangent too much, since obviously as you don’t know me in real life, these are all things you couldn’t possibly be aware of, and it simply comes with the territory of posting publicly online - so I absolutely don’t blame you for perceiving me incorrectly. If “pretty” pictures are all you see, then that may very well be the only impression that you have. I just personally dislike this certain interpretation some people have seemed to have of me (you’re not the first person to think of me as a Pretty Makeup Girl or whatever lol), since it’s so completely opposite from the truth of who I am, I feel the need to explain it like this sometimes. Just accepting the false perception some people have of me without any argument feels disingenuous and like supporting a version of myself that doesn’t exist.

So anyway, no issue with you personally, but just trying to set the perception of me straight a little more accurately lol.. now, back on topic --

(4.) Lastly, and here’s the main thing I’d like to stress, there's the issue of personal boundaries. Again, you're a complete stranger to me, I don't know who you are, and you have no idea who I am. Even if you've followed me online for years and read every post I've ever made, you still have no idea who I truly deeply am, only a vague scattering of snapshots over time.

Here are some definitions for Parasocial Relationships:

“Parasocial relationships are one-sided relationships, where one person extends emotional energy, interest and time, and the other party, the persona, is completely unaware of the other's existence. Parasocial relationships are most common with celebrities, organizations (such as sports teams) or television stars.”

“Parasocial interaction (PSI) refers to a kind of psychological relationship experienced by an audience in their mediated encounters with performers in the mass media, particularly on television.[1] PSI is described as an illusionary experience, such that media audiences interact with personas (e.g., talk show host, celebrities, fictional characters, social media influencers) as if they are engaged in a reciprocal relationship with them. The term was coined by Donald Horton and Richard Wohl in 1956. “

This is all anyone can ever have with people they follow online. You can perceive them, but you cannot know them or truly understand them. I think this is very important to remain cognizant of in such a massive social media age, as often times people are fostering one sided concepts that are inaccurate or unhealthy (no so much with just you sending me a simple ask, but in a broader sense, how people act towards celebrities, other bloggers, etc. etc. seems to have little boundaries, and often results in a similar manner with people forgetting to maintain acceptable boundaries with those they follow or know about from afar).

-- This next part is very important, I think it’s a super valuable way of thinking about this sort of stuff, so if you take away nothing else from this, at least remember this next portion --

A very good way to think about online boundaries that I heard someone mention in a post once (though I can no longer find the post), is to take whatever you're going to say to someone online, and imagine saying it in person, in real life, to a barista. Before you send an ask or make a comment, think about if it’s something you would really genuinely say face to face to a stranger.

Would you walk into a random Starbucks and ask the dude at the counter a bunch questions about their gender identity? Or about his personal life in general? You probably recognize that that would be strange and socially inappropriate. It's similarly inappropriate in a case like this.

Even though you may feel a sense of familiarity with someone online from reading their social media posts, or even speaking to them once or twice through asks and etc. etc., at the end of the day you don’t really know each other much more than you’d know a random stranger.

Unless someone is inviting personal questions (like by reblogging those ‘ask me anything’ posts or etc.), or has the sort of blog where they are commonly asking people about/discussing their own intimate personal experiences or etc. (mine is not this way), then questions like this are very out of the blue and similar to asking a random person working at a store things like that. It can be seen as rude and inappropriate in general to give those sorts of questions to people who are complete strangers, and typically comes off as crossing personal boundaries. Again, think about a random stranger asking you these questions, and how you may perceive it.

In summary:

1. The question itself is borne from an double standard and isn't very good to ask in the first place. 2. The way you asked the question was worded with certain implications. 3. Your ask is also assuming certain things that you don't know are true, which can be uncomfortable for some people. 4. Even were it not for the three other things, it's commonly considered rude in many cultures to ask serious questions about the personal details of complete strangers, even if it's online. It could prove useful to utilize the ‘barista test’ to better determine this in the future.

Final Thoughts:

Anyway, I wasn't mad and I have no beef with you or whatever lol. Hopefully you can understand what I mean. I've also explained myself as well as I think I can though, so I don't feel like discussing it any more and won't respond to further asks about this. I have a lot of things going on in my life right now (as I'm sure everyone does given the pandemic and everything, you probably do too, so hopefully you can empathize with that), so I’d like to limit my time spent online, especially discussing topics I already don’t like to discuss or am not open to accepting questions about (I just want to talk about cats and elves and stuff lol).

If you still can't at least kind of get where I'm coming from then it's perfectly fine to just agree to disagree. If aspects of myself upset you or cause you discomfort, then there's no harm in just unfollowing me or something! Or if you don't even follow me, I would encourage you to block me so my posts no longer come across your dash (or block/unfollow me on whatever other social media you may be seeing my posts on ,etc)., etc. That way you don't have to see content or hear from someone who makes you uncomfortable that way, and there also won't be any need for this to come up in the future. Part of using the internet in a healthy and productive manner is to know when to disengage with certain content and just cut it off/unfollow/block people/etc. if it’s causing you unnecessary conflict or distress, or makes you uncomfortable or etc. to look at. Thank you for the question! Hopefully this response explained things a little better.

Links and Further Info:

On the off chance that you were genuinely curious, here are some resources where you can learn more about people of different gender identities and also hear them explain their experiences, etc. Since these people are actually openly discussing their experiences/making educational content and are obviously actually open to talking about it, that would be a better place to field any further questions or learn about things. :3

Here’s some reading -

Understanding Nonbinary People (link)

Gender Variance Around the World (link)

12 Questions About Nonbinary Gender Answered (link)

About the Sex Binary (link)

Ask LGBT subreddit (link)

one ‘ask a nonbinary person’ blog i found (I don’t know if they’re still active, it’s one of the first ones that came up for me lol, but I guess could be helpful) (link)

And here’s some videos with people talking about their experience, or being educational -

(NOTE: I just did a quick google search and did not deeply research these people and their entire histories and etc., so I can’t say I stand by literally everything they say or know what type of people they are, but it’s just a general place to start~!)

A video examining the idea of gender in general and how it even exists and nonbinary people (definitely interesting to watch) (link)

video about nonbinary gender/explanations (probably at least watch this one too) (link)

What is a nonbinary gender? (shorter general info) (link)

answering all your nonbinary questions q&a (link)

Video about binary sex/gender/etc. (link)

5 nonbinary people explain what nonbinary means to them (link)

another video about similar stuff (link)

#Please stop sending me asks about this now. I just want to talk about elves and cats and fantasy writing and stuff #No personal questions unless I specifically comment on something/initiate the discussion or they're about my art or something else I'm doing #lol... especially with everything going on this year #just a big Let Me Relax I Will Deal With Anything Even Remotely Stressful Later mood #ANd anon if you're still here - go listen to 'And the beat goes on' by The Whispers #no real reason gjhgjhg it's just a good song and I had it playing while I was proofreading #(also for context - it hasn't just been two asks - I'm pretty sure this person sent me others. If that's not true then I apologize anon -#but I definitely got multiple asks that were mentioning similar things/of a similar tone (intentionally referring to me as a 'girl' 'woman'#consistently and in a kind of agressive way or etc. (which you can block asks even if they're on anon (i think it's just an IP block) so if #it was indeed this anon sending them then they may be blocked from sending any more asks already because I blocked all those weird ones #I got lol. if it wasn't them then they should still be fine though- but anyway. there were other messages being sent #etc. consistently - which only happened after the first initial ask and would happen regualrly so. etc. etc. Just wanted to mention it since #the 'stop sending me asks about this now' comment doesn't make much sense if you think there was only two asks lol. I'm preetty sure #there were more - though of course they're all anon so I can't confirm. ANYWAY - again.. i have no beef with you but if we don't agree then #please just disengage and stop following my content/sending me asks - and maybe watch some of the videos and stuff or go to #other reasources if you really want to know about this stuff because I'm just not the right person/in the correct mindset to explain it to #you. I can barely do basic daily functions like making sure I eat 3 times a day lol.. I don't have the mental energy to write educational #essays and etc. but SOME people do - which is why pursuing other resources is important. ALSO - listen to The Whispers. that is my #final advice.. put on some good music and just dance and eat some cheddar cheese or something. this will soothe every issue )

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lovemesomesurveys · 4 years ago

Text

Name: Stephanie.

Country: USA.

Age: 31.

Gender(s): Female

Height: ~5′4

weight: 70-something lbs.

eye color: Brown.

skin color: White.

Heritage: I’ve been really wanting to do one of those ancestry dna or 23 and me tests to find out exactly what I am. Relationship status: Single.

Are you physically healthy? No.

Are you mentally healthy? Nope

Job?: No job.

school: I graduated college back in 2015.

Favs:

Animal: Dogs and giraffes.

Flower: I don’t really have one.

Movie: I have many favorites.

TV show: I have many favorites.

Music: I like variety.

Band: One of them will always be Linkin Park.

Video Game: Mario Bros games and Animal Crossing: New Horizon

Gaming Console: Nintendo Switch.

Name: Alexander. ;)

Person: My family.

Love life:

1: Do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend? Nope.

2: Do you love them?

3: Are you still in love with an ex? No.

4: How many people have you dated? Two.

5: Do you think you’ll get married? No.

6: Have you ever been emotionally/physically abused in a relationship? No.

7: Have you ever hurt your partner by accident without knowing it? I’m single, but no I don’t think I have in the past. But if I didn’t know it then I wouldn’t know?

8: Whats important to you in a relationship? Communication, trust, understanding, patience.

9: Do you have to see them everyday? ( or hear from them)? I’m singleeee.

10: Do you think you can love someone within 2 weeks? I personally don’t think so.

Friendship and Family:

1: How many friends do you have? Zero.

2: What type of friend are you? Not a good one anymore.

3: Have you ever been friends with someone for longer than 7 years? Yeah. My former best friend and I were friends for almost 15 years.

4: Do you have one best friend, more or none? One, my mom.

5: Have you ever had a friend just stop being your friend and you never knew why? Yes.

6: Do you get along with family? Yes.

7: Do you have a family member you hate? No.

8: Does your family accept who you are? Yes.

9: Are you an only child or have siblings? I have 2 brothers.

10: Do you have parents that still live together? Yes.

School:

1:What grade are you in? I’m not.

2: Are you in Middle, High, or college? ( or neither)? Neither, like I said I graduated college back in 2015.

3: Whats your favorite class? English was always my favorite. In college I enjoyed most of my psych classes.

4: Do you have a fav school year? Elementary school years.

5: Are you a good student? I was, yeah.

6: Do you think homework is good or bad? I wouldn’t say it’s good or bad. I mean, I get seeing if you’re understanding then material and whatnot and applying it. I guess it depends on the amount assigned and what type of assignment it is.

7: Have you ever had a teacher who was really funny but had poor teaching skills? Yes.

8: Is your GPA high or low? It was high.

9: Do you like to particpate in conversations in the class room or are you the listener? I was definitely a listener. I haaaaated classes that made class discussion apart of your grade.

10: Do you take part in extra school events? (eg. Plays, sports, leadership,clubs)? I was in clubs in high school and the psych club in college, even serving as a board member.

Health

1: Do you need to lose or gain weight? I definitely need to put on some weight.

2: Have you ever had the swine flu? (H1n1) No. I remember being scared about getting it and that whole thing wasn’t even on the level of covid.

3: Do you like to go to the doctors? Nooo. I’ve had more than my share of doctor appointments of all different kinds all throughout my life. They still make me anxious and stressed out, they’re definitely not something I find enjoyable.

4: Have you ever puked in school or at work? I remember getting sick once in kindergarten and having to rush outside to the trash can.

5: Have you ever been extremely sick where you couldnt even leave your bed? Yes, I’ve experienced that several times.

6: Do you hate puking or does it make you feel better? I hate actually doing it, but afterwards I usually do feel better. There are times where it gets to the point where I wish I would just do it already and get it over with cause I know it’d help me feel better. That’s when I’m really not feeling well.

7: Have you ever coughed up blood? No.

8: Should you be eating healthier ? Yes.

9: Do you lie to your doctor? I downplay some things or not share certain things, admittedly. :X

10: Have you ever taken too much advils? No. That would make me sick.

Mental Health:

1: Do you have a mental illness? Yes.

2: Do you take anti-depressants? No.

3: Are you mentally stable? Uhhh.

4: Have you ever been misdiagnosed? Yes.

5: Do you think you have an disorder but havent been properly diagnosed yet? Maybe.

6: Is self diagnosing good or bad? I don’t see an issue with researching yourself and thinking you may have something, but it’s important to take that information to a doctor. However, sadly I know that not everyone is able to do that. And I also have a problem with doing that myself, which I think can cause unnecessary stress. I also think people tend to throw around labels and say they have something when they don’t. Gah, it’s a slippery slope.

7: Should we give more money to mental health research? Yes, absolutely.

8: Do you think everyone has a chance to over come their mental disorders? I think many can learn to better manage some of them, but I feel like they’re always going to be there.

9: Would you ever not date someone if they had a severe disorder? ( Schizophrenia,BPD, mood disorders)? I don’t know and I’m probably horrible for saying that. I have my mental disorders and I know it can be a lot for people to be around and handle. I just... I don’t know if I’d be able to be there for them in a way they might need ya know? I lack the experience. I can’t say no for certain. I think it would just really depend on the situation and if I learned more about it.

10: Does mental illness run in your family? Yes.

SEX

1: Virgin? Yes.

2: what age did you lose it? 3: Did you take sex ed? 6th grade, middle school, and a health and psych class my freshman year in high school.

4: Does size matter?

5: Whats your favorite poistions?

6: Does virginity exist? I believe so. I know some feel it’s not a real thing or a social construct, but to me it’s a thing. It’s someone who hasn’t had sex. When you have sex, you’re said to have lost your virginity and to me that just means in the very literal sense that you’re not a virgin anymore. I’m not referring to it as something deeper. Although, it can be for some people. And while I don’t think it’s like losing some part of yourself or something life altering, I personally feel like I would feel a change in some way. I also want to add that it’s something I want “lose” or share with someone special. I don’t know, man. I’m sure I’m not explaining it well. It’s just a personal thing.

7: Do you think sex is overated? I wouldn’t know.

8: Is making love and fucking different? One just sounds more romantic and slow and passionate and the other sounds rough lol 9: Is it important for both genders to understand eachothers bodies? Yeah.

10: If someone was a virgin and was raped, did they lose their virginity? If it’s not consensual or your choice then you can choose not to count it is how I see it. Like yes, technically they’ve had sex, but something so horrific and traumatic doesn’t count. Losing their virginity should be done their way, with someone they want to share that with. In the situation they were raped, they’re allowed to take their power and control back and count it when they do so with someone they want to do, consensually.

Check the box:

1.My hair color is: [x] Brown [] Black [] Blonde [x]Red [] Funky colors [] Auburn [] more than one color <<< It’s a mix of my natural color and red because I haven’t dyed it since February.

2.Eye color: []Blue []Grey [x]Brown []Light brown []dark brown []green []amber [] I have two different colors of eyes

3.I am a : []Male [x] Female []Trans Male [] Trans Female []Gender Fluid [] I dont have a gender []Non Binary [] other

4: I am: []Fit [] Average [x]Skinny []Fat

5: I love my : [x]Hair []Eyes []Smile []Teeth []Skin []everything about myself []None of these. <<< Italicized because I only like my hair when it’s been dyed and my roots aren’t showing haha... unlike now.

6: I hate my: [x]Hair []eyes [xx]smile [x]teeth [x]skin [x] everything about myself [] I dont hate anything about myself

7: My feet are: [x]Small []Wide []Narrow []long []large [x]Ugly []Pretty

8: I have a hard time: []Finding something to wear [x]Making Friends [x] making food [x]staying focused

9: I am: []Employed [x]Not employed []retired []I can’t work []Self employed []Looking for a job

10: I love: []the moon []the sun [x]the stars []our galaxy []planets

Bold what is true:

I am Funny

I am a girl

I have no hair

I have curly hair

^ I hate it

I have straight hair

I have a dog

I have a cat

I have both

I love to get drunk

I don’t drink

I love to smoke weed but i hate smoking cigarettes

I love both

I rather have one best friend than 20 friends who i am not close with

My dad died

My mom died

My parents are both dead

My parents are alive

I like to touch my bruises

I have funny teeth

I love Mcdonalds fries

Sometimes when Im alone I sing as loud as I can

even if i cant sing

I believe in God

I believe in the butterfly affect

I hate video games

I wish I was taller

I can’t understand math

I am very good at writing an essay

I never had sex before

I love Mac N Cheese

I love Disney Movies

I prefer Dreamswork over Walt Disney

I am going to College

I finished college

I wish I went to college

I hate my job

I am the boss at my job

I have a feelings for a friend but i cant tell them because it would ruin our friendship

^ I have feelings and i told them

I wish soda was healthy

I sleep with the window opened

This survey was too long

#personal #text #survey #surveys

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kipakyousee · 5 years ago

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7 Gaslighting Phrases Malignant Narcissists, Sociopaths and Psychopaths Use To Silence You, Translated

By Shahida Arabi, Bestselling Author

Last updated: 18 Nov 2019

~ 10 MIN READ

Gaslighting is an insidious erosion of your sense of reality; it creates a mental fog of epic proportions in the twisted “funhouse” of smoke, mirrors, and distortions that is an abusive relationship. When a malignant narcissist gaslights you, they engage in crazymaking discussions and character assassinations where they challenge and invalidate your thoughts, emotions, perceptions, and sanity. Gaslighting enables narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths to exhaust you to the point where you are unable to fight back. Rather than finding ways to healthily detach from this toxic person, you are sabotaged in your efforts to find a sense of certainty and validation in what you’ve experienced.

The term “gaslighting” originated in Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 play, Gas Light, where a manipulative husband drove his wife to insanity by causing her to question what she experienced. It was further popularized in the 1944 film adaptation, Gaslight, a psychological thriller about a man named Gregory Anton who murders a famous opera singer. He later marries her niece, Paula to convince her she is going crazy to the point of being institutionalized, with the agenda of stealing the rest of her family jewels. According to Dr. George Simon, victims of chronic gaslighting can suffer from a wide array of side effects, including flashbacks, heightened anxiety, intrusive thoughts, a low sense of self-worth, and mental confusion. In cases of severe manipulation and abuse, gaslighting can even lead to suicidal ideation, self-harm, and self-sabotage.

Gaslighting can take many forms – from questioning the status of your mental health to outright challenging your lived experiences. The most dangerous culprits of gaslighting? Malignant narcissists, who, by default, use gaslighting as a strategy to undermine the perception of their victims in order to evade accountability for their abuse. These perpetrators can use gaslighting callously and sadistically because they lack the remorse, empathy, or conscience to have any limits when they terrorize you or covertly provoke you. Gaslighting by a malignant narcissist is covert murder with clean hands, allowing the perpetrator to get away with their mistreatment while depicting the victims as the abusers.

I’ve spoken to thousands of survivors of malignant narcissists who have shared their stories of gaslighting, and below I include the most commonly used phrases malignant narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths employ to terrorize and deplete you, translated into what they really mean.

These phrases, when chronically used in the context of an abusive relationship, serve to demean, belittle and distort the reality of abuse victims.

1. You’re crazy/you have mental health issues/you need help.

Translation: You’re not the pathological one here. You’re just catching onto who I really am behind the mask and attempting to hold me accountable for my questionable behavior. I’d rather you question your own sanity so you believe that the problem is really you, rather than my own deceptiveness and manipulation. So long as you believe you’re the one who needs help, I’ll never have to take responsibility for changing my own disordered ways of thinking and behaving.

Malignant narcissists play the smirking doctors to their victims, treating them like unruly patients. Diagnosing their victims with mental health issues for having emotions is a way to pathologize their victims and undermine their credibility; this is even more effective when abusers are able to provoke reactions in their victims to convince society that they are the ones with mental health problems. According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, some abusers will even actively drive their victims to the edge to concoct proof of their instability. The Hotline estimates that around 89% of their callers have experienced some form of mental health coercion and that 43% had experienced a substance abuse coercion from an abuser.

“Most survivors who reported their abusive partners had actively contributed to mental health difficulties or their use of substances also said their partners threatened to use the difficulties or substance use against them with important authorities, such as legal or child custody professionals, to prevent them from obtaining custody or other things that they wanted or needed.” – The National Center on Domestic Violence and the Domestic Violence Hotline

2. You’re just insecure and jealous.

Translation: I enjoy planting seeds of insecurity and doubt in your mind about your attractiveness, competence, and personality. If you dare to question my numerous flirtations, affairs, and inappropriate interactions, I’ll be sure to put you back in your place in fear of losing me. The problem, as I’ll convince you, isn’t my deceptive behavior. It’s your inability to remain confident while I perpetually put you down, compare you in demeaning ways to others, and eventually cast you aside for the next best thing.

Manufacturing love triangles and harems are a narcissist’s forte. Robert Greene, author of The Art of Seduction, speaks about creating “an aura of desirability” which stirs a frenzied sense of competition among potential suitors. In abuse survivor communities, this tactic is also known as triangulation. It grants malignant narcissists a depraved sense of power over their victims. They actively provoke jealousy in their intimate partners in order to control them and paint them as unhinged when they finally react. When a victim calls out a narcissist’s infidelity in any way, it is common for them to label the victims insecure, controlling, and jealous to avoid suspicion and to continue to reap the benefits of multiple sources of attention, praise, and ego strokes.

Remember: to someone who has something to hide, everything feels like an interrogation. Narcissists will often lash out in narcissistic rage, stonewalling, and excessive defensiveness when confronted with evidence of their betrayals.

3. You’re too sensitive/you’re overreacting.

Translation: It’s not that you’re too sensitive, but rather that I am insensitive, callous, and unempathic. I do not care about your emotions unless they serve me in some way. Your negative reactions provide me stimulation and pleasure, so please, do keep going. I enjoy putting you down for having legitimate reactions to my abuse.

According to Dr. Robin Stern, one of the effects of gaslighting include asking yourself “Am I too sensitive?” a dozen times a day. Claiming that victims are overreacting or oversensitive to emotional abuse is a popular way for malignant narcissists to override your certainty about the severity of the abuse you experienced.

Whether or not someone is a sensitive person is irrelevant when it comes to cases of psychological or physical violence. Abuse affects anyone and everyone of varying sensitivity levels, and its impact should not be taken lightly. A mark of a healthy partner is that they give you the space to feel your emotions and provide emotional validation, even if they do not agree with you. A malignant narcissist will excessively focus on your so-called sensitivity and consistently claim that you are overreacting rather than own their horrific actions when called out, regardless of how “sensitive” you may be.

4. It was just a joke. You have no sense of humor.

Translation: I love disguising my abusive behavior as just jokes. I like calling you names, putting you down, and then claiming you’re the one who lacks the sense of humor to appreciate my depraved “wit.” Making you feel defective allows me to say and do whatever I wish, all with a smile and a derisive laugh.

Disguising cruel remarks, off-color comments, and put-downs as “just jokes” is a popular verbal abuse tactic, according to Patricia Evans, author of The Verbally Abusive Relationship. This malicious tactic is very different from playful teasing which takes a certain amount of rapport, trust, and mutual enjoyment. When malignant narcissists dole out these unsettling “jokes,” they can engage in acts of name-calling, taunting, belittling and contempt while evading the responsibility of issuing an apology or owning their vicious verbal assaults. You are then gaslighted into believing that it is your inability to appreciate the “humor” behind their cruelty, rather than the reality of its abusive intentions.

“Just jokes” are also used to test boundaries early on in an abusive relationship; what you may have rationalized as a tone-deaf or off-color comment in the beginning can escalate into psychological violence quite quickly in the hands of a narcissist. If you find that you have a partner who laughs at you more than they laugh with you, run. It will not get better.

5. You need to let it go. Why are you bringing this up?

Translation: I haven’t given you enough time to even process the last heinous incident of abuse, but you need to let it go already so I can move forward with exploiting you without facing any consequences for my behavior. Let me love-bomb you into thinking that things will be different this time around. Don’t bring up my past patterns of abusive behavior, because you’ll then recognize that this is a cycle that will just continue.

In any abuse cycle, it’s common for an abuser to engage in a hot-and-cold cycle where they periodically throw in crumbs of affection to keep you hooked and to renew hope for a return to the honeymoon phase. This is a manipulation tactic known as intermittent reinforcement, and it’s common for an abuser to terrorize you, only to return the next day and act like nothing has happened. When you do recall any abusive incidents, an abuser will tell you to “let it go” so they can sustain the cycle.

This form of abuse amnesia adds onto your addictive bond to the abuser, also known as “trauma bonding.” According to Dr. Logan (2018), “Trauma bonding is evidenced in any relationship which the connection defies logic and is very hard to break. The components necessary for a trauma bond to form are a power differential, intermittent good/bad treatment, and high arousal and bonding periods.”

6. You’re the problem here, not me.

Translation: I am the problem here, but I’ll be damned if I let you know it! I’d rather subject you to personal attacks as you bend over backwards trying to hit constantly moving goalposts and arbitrary expectations of the way I think you should feel and behave. As you spend most of your time trying to fix your fabricated flaws while always coming up short of what I deem “worthy,” I can just sit back, relax, and continue to mistreat you the way I feel entitled to. You won’t have any energy left to call me out.

It’s common for abusive partners to engage in malignant projection – to even go as far as to call their victims the narcissists and abusers, and to dump their own malignant qualities and behaviors onto their victims. This is a way for them to gaslight their victims into believing that they are the ones at fault and that their reactions to the abuse, rather than the abuse itself, is the problem. According to Narcissistic Personality clinical expert Dr. Martinez-Lewi, these projections tend to be psychologically abusive. As she writes, “The narcissist is never wrong. He {or she} automatically blames others when anything goes awry. It is very stressful to be the recipient of narcissistic projections. The sheer force of the narcissist’s accusations and recriminations is stunning and disorienting.”

7. I never said or did that. You’re imagining things.

Translation: Making you question what I did or said allows me to cast doubt on your perceptions and memories of the abuse you’ve experienced. If I make you think that you’re imagining things, you’ll start to wonder if you’re going crazy, rather than pinpointing the evidence which proves I am an abuser.

In the movie Gaslight, Gregory causes his new wife to believe that her aunt’s house is haunted so she can be institutionalized. He does everything from rearranging items in the house, flickering gas lights on to making noises in the attic so she is no longer able to discern whether or not what she’s seeing is real. He isolates her so that she is unable to gain validation. After manufacturing these crazymaking scenarios, he then convinces her that these events are all a figment of her imagination.

Many victims of chronic gaslighting struggle with the cognitive dissonance which occurs when their abuser tells them that they never did or said something. Much like reasonable doubt can sway a jury, even the hint that something may not have happened after all can be powerful enough to override someone’s perceptions. Researchers Hasher, Goldstein and Toppino (1997) call this the “illusory truth effect” – they discovered that when falsehoods are repeated, they are more likely to be internalized as true simply due to the effects of repetition. That is why continual denial and minimization can be so effective in convincing victims of gaslighting that they are indeed imagining things or suffering from memory loss, rather than standing firm in their beliefs and experiences.

The Big Picture

In order to resist the effects of gaslighting, you must get in touch with your own reality and prevent yourself from getting entrapped into an endless loop of self-doubt. Learn to identify the red flags of malignant narcissists and their manipulation tactics so you can get out of disorienting, crazymaking conversations with malignant narcissists before they escalate into wild accusations, projections, blameshifting and put-downs which will only exacerbate your sense of confusion. Develop a sense of self-validation and self-trust so you can get in touch with how you really feel about the way someone is treating you, rather than getting stuck attempting to explain yourself to a manipulator with an agenda.

Getting space from your abuser is essential. Be sure to document events as they happened, rather than how your abuser tells you they happened. Save text messages, voicemails, e-mails, audio or video recordings (if permitted in your state laws) which can help you to remember the facts in times of mental fog, rather than subscribing to the distortions and delusions of the abuser.

Engage in extreme self-care by participating in mind-body healing modalities which target the physical as well as psychological symptoms of the abuse. Recovery is important to achieve mental clarity. Enlist the help of a third party, such as a trauma-informed therapist, and go through the incidents of abuse together to anchor yourself back to what you’ve experienced. Malignant narcissists might attempt to rewrite your reality, but you don’t have to accept their twisted narratives as truth.

References

Evans, P. (2010). The verbally abusive relationship: How to recognize it and how to respond. Avon, MA: Adams Media.

Greene, R. (2004). The art of seduction. Gardners Books.

Hasher, L., Goldstein, D., & Toppino, T. (1977). Frequency and the conference of referential validity. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 16(1), 107-112. doi:10.1016/s0022-5371(77)80012-1

Martinez-Lewi, L. (2012, November 10). Narcissist’s Projections are Psychologically Abusive. Retrieved March 19, 2019, from http://thenarcissistinyourlife.com/narcissists-projections-are-psychologically-abusive/

Logan, M. H. (2018). Stockholm Syndrome: Held Hostage by the One You Love. Violence and Gender,5(2), 67-69. doi:10.1089/vio.2017.0076

Simon, G. (2018, May 11). Overcoming Gaslighting Effects. Retrieved March 19, 2019, from https://www.drgeorgesimon.com/overcoming-gaslighting-effects/

Stern, R., & Wolf, N. (2018). The gaslight effect: How to spot and survive the hidden manipulation others use to control your life. New York: Harmony Books.

Warshaw, C., Lyon, E., Bland, P. J., Phillips, H., & Hooper, M. (2014). Mental Health and Substance Use Coercion Surveys. Report from the National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma & Mental Health and the National Domestic Violence Hotline. National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma and Mental Health. Retrieved here. November 5, 2017

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lesbianmonsterlover · 6 years ago

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Waterfalls & Whirlpools (5)

Double post part deux! The fifth installment of my camp nano project.

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The sun has just begun to peek above the horizon somewhere distantly, the sky is still mostly dark but ever so slowly lightening and birds begin to wake from their nightly slumber. Erin sits heavily at her desk. It is possible that she’s suddenly begun sleepwalking and sleep writing, despite no history of it otherwise in her life. She isn’t on any of those odd sleeping meds that sometimes make people do strange things in a fugue state. If it isn’t her though, that means it has to be something or someone else, and the only response her brain can cook up is magic. She doesn’t exactly feel...great, when she thinks about it that way. What else could it possibly be though if not magic? She isn’t willing to pull apart the book to find out, so with that resolved in her mind she returns her attention to the fresh passage in her journal.

I’m sorry it’s taken me some time to respond, things here are progressing at a fast pace and preparations cannot be halted, even for the most interesting conversation I’ve ever had. We’ve settled in for the night though, after a rather long day at the armory and smithy. Tell me about your work, what do you do? I would suppose you can tell that I am something of a mercenary.

‘No’ thinks Erin ‘I cannot.’ She supposes that it makes sense, in the context of the messages and now knowing what she knows about what the world on the other side of the page seems to be like. She wonders what sort of something is progressing over there, what kind of adventure or battle they’re headed into. Mercenaries tend to be hired by armies, right? Right. Well, that makes her feel a little bit inadequate in the face of likely a literal warrior who deals with death on a likely daily basis. Still, Erin doesn’t have it in her to lie, besides what would she even claim to do that she could back up with enough knowledge that doesn’t make her look like a weakling any more than being a librarian does.

I am lucky enough to travel with dear friends and work to keep the realm safe. We handle niche problems that larger forces cannot.

“Am I reading a fucking D&D backstory?” Erin vacillates between this being real and this being some kind of giant hoax being played on her by the town. She suddenly regrets moving so far away from her care team and being here without a therapist. Arthur had been the best, and was so very confident in Erin’s progress that he encouraged her to take this job so long as she would stay on her medication and continue practicing her mindfulness. Sighing a little and rubbing her eyes, Erin decides once and for all to just...go with it. If this is what’s happening, then she’s going to roll with it for now and keep evaluating things as time goes on.

I wouldn’t have guessed you were a mercenary! Considering that isn’t particularly commonplace in my world. I am a librarian, I work in a small library at a school. I didn’t love working in the city library system, and I’ve always enjoyed working with children, so being a school librarian was much more my speed. It’s boring compared to what you do I’m sure! But I enjoy it because it’s so quiet and predictable. I find it hard to believe that the most interesting conversation you’ve ever had is with a librarian from small town Washington, but I’ll take it as the compliment you intended it as!

Erin pauses briefly in her writing, considering what to ask next, whether it’s even appropriate to comment on the quest her writing partner is set to go on, when ink begins to flood the page again but not from her hand.

Ah, don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re a keeper of knowledge, it’s an important post. Just because it isn’t dangerous doesn’t mean it isn’t impressive. Besides, of course you’re the most interesting conversation I’ve ever had, you’re the only person I’ve ever talked to outside of our world.

“Well that sentiment is certainly mutual.” Erin mumbles to herself out loud as she watches the writing seep to life.

You’re certainly the only person I’ve ever talked to from outside of my world. I keep wondering if I’m insane or if this is actually happening. Magic isn’t real! But apparently it is? Or maybe this is one of those ‘sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’ scenarios. But I’m rambling, and I thought I only did that verbally.

What do you mean magic isn’t real?

Erin is interrupted by a frantic and barely-legible scribble.

I mean, at least in my world, magic literally isn’t real? Except for apparently it is because we’re talking like this? I mean, people have their own beliefs and whatever but there’s no like proof that magic exists. It’s not like someone can just conjure fire or whatever, I’m hesitant to even tell anyone about this book because I’m pretty sure they’ll think I’m nuts and toss me into inpatient treatment because I’m essentially talking to myself.

That’s the crux of it really, isn’t it? There’s no one that Erin can show this to, no one that she can go to with this cool, weird thing that’s happening. No one she can trust to share this with who would not immediately call for her to be evaluated for some sort of disorder. It’s surprisingly easy to vent this into the journal, to get those anxieties out on the open onto the page. The writing being scrawled beneath hers is frantic and once again barely legible. It takes her some time to parse it out, and even then she isn’t one hundred percent on every word.

Wait so you’re telling me that you don’t have access to magic at all? But...how do you...how do you do anything?! Does healing just take forever? How do you treat illnesses? Poisonings? You’re telling me you’ve never been cursed?! Can you at least enchant weapons? How do you fight otherwise?! You’re telling me you can’t even light a simple fire?!

You can almost hear the panicked voice on the other end, yelling about the lack of magic and all of the things she’s supposedly missing out on because of it. “I mean, I can’t say I want to be cursed…” Erin mumbles a little sourly, she’s almost pouting. It feels a little judgmental but it’s not like there’s anything she can do about it. “I can light a fire just fine, thank you very much, it just takes a lighter.” She sticks her tongue out at the book as she talks out loud before drafting a response.

Well, we’ve got technology? We don’t really need to light fires that often, we might for pleasure in a fireplace or at a bonfire but we have electricity for heat and light, we have machines to help treat illness and we work hard to prevent it whenever possible with vaccines and immunizations. We fight here I’d guess similarly to you guys in a lot of respects, although something tells me you all don’t have guns or explosive warfare. If you could see a gun you would understand why we don’t need enchanted weapons, at least here in our world. It’s not like we fight anything other than each other and the occasional wild animal. No, I cannot say I’ve ever been cursed, at least that I know of.

Erin watches the ink from her partner’s pen meet the page to start a word only to stop a few times. Giggling to herself she leaves the book where it is for a few minutes to make a pot of coffee, bringing back a large mug of it doctored with cream and sugar. Her writing companion had started and stopped a handful of times, leaving a smattering of dots and lines on the page before scrawling out a few more questions in a slightly steadier hand.

Electricity like lightning? You can harness that kind of raw energy?! And you say it isn’t magic?!

Erin laughs at that, taking a deep sip of coffee and trying to figure out how to explain electricity to someone whose only experience with it is in the form of raw lightning. Of course electricity is terrifying, it can fry through you and stop your heart in seconds, or leave you with permanent injuries and melt off skin or even whole limbs. Lightning strikes are no joke, and the damage they do can certainly leave you in awe of their power. She herself doesn’t even really understand how it works, she knows enough to know that if she plugs her phone in, it charges. If she puts a fork in an electrical outlet, it will kill her. Something about resistance and ohms and circuits floats around in her head from her schooling, but nothing concrete or sure enough to do anything other than make her more confused. “I mean I guess I could pull up a wiki article on the basics and do some transcribing…”

That’s how Erin spends her early morning, trading messages back and forth with Urzash trying to explain the basics of electricity to them while being peppered with questions about how in the hell any of this could possibly work without killing someone.

Well, a lot of people have died working with electricity. It’s incredibly dangerous, it’s safer now than it’s ever been but especially in the early days a lot of people died because they didn’t know what they were playing with.

She completely loses track of time with this conversation and the rabbit hole she’s gone down, and it isn’t until her emergency late alarm goes off that she realizes she hasn’t even started frying the donuts, let alone showered or gotten dressed. Her closing message is slapdash, apologizing but admitting to losing track of time and needing to leave like right now. She feels a little bad about it, but doesn’t have time to dwell on it as she turns on the deep fryer before running to the bathroom to throw some dry shampoo in her hair and brush her teeth. Grad school work, if nothing else, taught her about how to efficiently get through a routine in no time. She’s only ten minutes late pulling into the school and running in with an apology about the donuts taking too long. Mrs. Forrester laughs and waves off her apology as she pulls the foil covered tray from Erin’s hands. “You can be late all you want if you bring me homemade donuts darling.”

Erin blushes but laughs, pushing down the thoughts of the journal waiting for her back home and the reason she was actually running late this morning. The unused dough sitting back in her fridge would get fried up later for her own donuts, and Mrs. Forrester didn’t need to know the dozen in the tray were only half the amount she had meant to prepare. Breakfast is fun and quiet, the town gossip from Mrs. Forrester is pretty tame all things considered and mostly consisted of particular family rivalries that might rear their heads when it came time for classes to start. “You’ve got to watch out for the Harrisons, by the way. Their eldest daughter, Brianna, has been known to take books out of the library without actually checking them out in order to keep other children from using them, and has started teaching her younger brother Evan to do the same. Their parents put a bit too much pressure on them for their grades and class position, so I understand where that instinct is coming from, but we’re working on teaching them better habits.”

Erin sighs and snags a second donut from the tray (Mrs. Forrester already halfway through her third) taking a bite from the sugary cinnamon donut before taking a deep drink of coffee. She could get used to this, listening to the older woman chatter on amiably while they drink coffee and eat sweets. It’s bittersweet that Mrs. Forrester is retiring, but hopefully with enough of these early morning coffee dates Erin will be able to convince the older woman to keep meeting up occasionally outside of work. The shrill ringing of the school bell interrupts her train of thought though, and Mrs. Forrester stands before recovering the donuts with foil and putting them in the bottom drawer of her desk with a wink. “Alright darling, duty calls. We’ll have some more of those at lunch, and you absolutely have to give me the recipe.”

#waterfalls and whirlpools #WLW #my writing #camp nanowrimo #camp nano july 2019 #lesbian love #lesbian fiction #lesbian romance #slow burn #female orc #fem orc #named character #fantasy

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inanawesomewave · 6 years ago

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IT’S OKAY TO EAT FISH ‘CAUSE THEY DON’T HAVE ANY FEELINGS

The thing about ASPD is, especially if you have a diagnosis, the people you deal with (and the people who are involved in your “care”, whatever that looks like), buy the Hollywood rumour that sociopaths, psychopaths, antisocials (oh my!), have no feelings whatsoever. You might find yourself keeping your diagnosis a secret because of what it will do to your relationships, and in the past I’ve been quite vocal about why the opposite should be true, that you should reveal it, own it and explain it to the people you love so that they can understand what it clinically and personally means, and see that the stereotypes and fictional portrayals are indeed sensational and woefully innacurate. Today, I think I might have changed my mind. You see, people talk a lot about emotional labour. This term originally stemmed from the idea that if you work a low paid job where you deal with the public (retail, catering, etc), you shouldn’t have to perform any kind of emotion that you don’t want to. You’re not being paid enough, you shouldn’t have to smile, ignore racism, ignore homophobia, shrug off transphobia, etc. In short, emotional labour means giving emotions when you are not required to. The expectation is what makes the demand for emotional labour egregious. Emotional labour does not mean a friend coming to you for advice or support and you tell them they’ll need to pay you. In a previous post I’ve written about why it’s particularly offensive to uphold a certain catch 22: I DON’T BELIEVE SOCIOPATHS HAVE ANY FEELINGS // I NEED SOCIOPATHS TO GIVE ME THEIR FEELINGS OR I’LL DEMONISE THEM. Nonsensical, stupid, absolutely irrational. But what does emotional labour mean for sociopaths? Unfortunately, I think I’ve been encouraging it and I’d like to put a stop to it now. If you are self-aware, and you are trying to work on your personality disorder, what I’m about to say might well apply to you. This is not a post for people with maladaptive behaviours that result in abuse, and this post is not and will never be an excuse to behave in ways that harm others. I’m talking to antisocials who are trying, assimilating, and giving at least the facade of empathy even when there’s a dearth of it, because we want to fit in, and show our loved ones that we love them -- because we can indeed feel love, and we are loyal. If you read this and think it’s a green-light to be manipulative, sadistic, cruel or hostile, then you’ve read it wrong. Here goes. Don’t tell people about your personality disorder. Because that’s emotional labour. If you tell people who you are - *gasp* what you are - you will spend too much of your time explaining why what you just did or said was not in fact a manipulation. You will attempt to approach someone with a problem you have, and that person already has an excuse not to listen to you, and that excuse is “you’re a sociopath”. You can have real concerns, real feelings, be genuinely hurt by something, but the person you have told about your ASPD will be thinking, “this is not my fault. They’re lying to me.”. Because a peculiar thing about ASPD, is it makes sociopaths out of other people. People love the idea of being a sociopath, they’d be overjoyed if they could have psychopathy for just one week of their lives. The difference between sociopaths etc and nons, is that we know what we are about. The only thing separating us from them is inhibition -- we don’t care to uphold it. We don’t have it there, it’s missing, and clinically that’s seen as a negative symptom (when a symptom of your mental illness takes something away from normal functioning, in this case, empathy). But look at any action film, horror films, thrillers -- we are either revelling in the wicked glory of the psychopathic villain, or we are giving a hero an excuse to be a psychopath. Either way, we’re gripped, and we can’t get enough. James Bond, John Wick, any other heroic lead you can name -- we have watched them qualify their own psychopathy. Vengeance, obligation, power, it’s all the same. The difference between sociopaths and nons, is we don’t go all around the houses finding an excuse to stop caring. We started out not caring and that’s good news for those we love - it means we put effort into caring and loving every minute of every day to prove ourselves to you. When we love you, we’ve overcome something to love you. We’re loving you despite our childhood traumas telling us it’s not safe to love. When we love, or even adore, we are doing so against our better judgement. We are prising open the lion’s mouth and sticking our head in it every single day, so we can love you. It’s like being afraid of heights, but the person you love is a pilot. You get in the plane, you are terrified the whole time, but you do it. Sociopaths are getting on the plane for you. And there’s trust involved. We don’t trust anyone. We don’t think it’s wise or beneficial to trust, we don’t like to need anyone, we rarely like to feel needed. We don’t empathise because empathy at some point has proven itself to be incredibly damaging, we’ve been punished for it, normally before we could even talk. We don’t like to give any part of ourselves up, because when we have as children, it’s ended in exploitation, drama, violence and pain. So when we love you, we fucking love you. And we’ll be loyal. To a point. But loving a sociopath doesn’t mean skirting around what you perceive to be transgressions, or scouring for the evil in our every single action. We’ve made you some breakfast? Enjoy the breakfast! We worked out what you’d probably like because we listened to you, we worked it out, we love you, and so we know you. We didn’t make you breakfast to use it against you later and if you think that, then you don’t love your partner. Conversely, if you’ve upset us, then we’ll be upset. You know, like humans sometimes are. And we’ll come to you with that, because we love you. In the past we might have hidden it, pretended it wasn’t there, turned it into something else like rage or uncontrollable impulses to cheat, spend money, commit some kind of act of dominance. If we’re not doing that with you it’s because we’re very tired and you’re the person we’ve decided to be open in front of. If we come to you with something we’re upset by, it’s not a clever manipulation to keep you in your place. If you feel manipulated with no evidence or consequence of manipulation whatsoever, that’s on you. You don’t trust your partner. And more and more I’ve found myself wanting to champion the idea that we can finally restructure what people think of when they think of ASPD, but now? You don’t have to waste your time, and I support your decision to keep it quiet, because revealing it requires ongoing, painful and resentful emotional labour. I will warn you: you will have to justify your every action, your every sentence, your every movement, as not being evil or cruel. Everything you do will be noticed as future evidence of your badness, and if you’d never said anything, these things would go unnoticed. People can help the way they view sociopaths but they’d rather not. As I said, people need an excuse to be sociopathic themselves. And sometimes the best, most validating and most iron-clad defence a non can use to justify coldness, a lack of empathy and paranoia? “It’s not my fault. They’re a sociopath.” Keep it to yourself. Live freely. Fuck that noise. Does love exist? Of course it does. Does it exist in someone believing all you are is a personality disorder? No it doesn’t. Love somebody else, or love nobody. But don’t love anyone who demands this much ongoing emotional labour. We’ve all had shit childhoods. We don’t need to be reminded of our trauma.

#antisocial personality disorder #antisocial #actually aspd #ASPD #aspd tag #aspd feels #sociopath #psychopath

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statusquoergo · 5 years ago

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Pour one out for the total lack of Mike Ross callouts in this episode; I guess they filled up their pre-episode 5 quota with that deluge last time.

In any event, we get the ball rolling this time with a reminder that Samantha served…somewhere…at some point… Not that the specifics matter overmuch, I just think that if they want to make this such a key feature of her personality, they should invest some time in fleshing it out instead of tossing a reference in whenever it’s convenient. Anyway her old Marines buddy Lucas was fired from SW Industries for botching a DoD contract, he suspects nepotism is at play, and she takes the case pro bono even though he’s got his pride and tries to turn down her charity.

Smash cut to Donna and Harvey visiting Louis at home, before work, to formally divulge to him their new relationship status, and the revelation that Louis apparently wears Speedos instead of underwear, because I super needed to know that. Louis is again explicitly mocked for not getting that they’re dating as Harvey marvels that he ever got through law school, and I, for one, am over it. “It” being this show’s treatment of Louis’s character. He’s mature until he’s not, he’s growing until he has the same setback for the fifth time in a row, he’s coming into his own until he can’t control his emotions or make a rational decision to save his life. I’m done with being told to laugh derisively at his cluelessness and his quirky habits while simultaneously being asked to admire his devotion to saving his firm at any cost as he insists that a man’s character is his most valuable asset. Louis could have developed into a really interesting character, but they can’t seem to stop shooting themselves in the foot every time they have the chance.

Side note, am I the only one who thought Harvey’s smile at “we’re happy” looked more like a grimace? Boy’s got some inner conflicts to work out.

Back at the firm, I do my very best to ignore the fact that the Bar Association doesn’t have the authority to install a special master, and a special master doesn’t have the authority to unilaterally decide to take over a law firm, as Faye Richardson steps right into my good graces with a severely truncated list of the firm’s biggest grievances. Namely, Jessica’s and Robert’s disbarments, Mike’s prison term (this doesn’t count as a callout, she doesn’t even name him), and the firm’s higher-ups definitely having been a party to the fraud, even though they were never charged. She undercuts it a little by “wiping the slate clean of everything [they’ve] ever done,” but I mean at least she’s there, so that’s a start. Her first act as supreme overlord is to take Robert’s name off the wall, at which point Samantha flips her shit and does herself precisely zero favors by promising to dig up dirt on Faye if she goes through with it; Faye, who’s apparently used to reactions like that, gives no fucks, informing them that their “days of operating however [they] want are over,” and all I have to say about that is better late than never.

Samantha’s reaction to all this is to threaten to quit rather than seek permission she won’t get to take Lucas’s case, and Harvey, who wasn’t the managing partner even before Faye showed up, takes it upon himself to give her permission to keep the case by lying that she took it last night rather than that morning and I don’t know who’s using the shared single brain cell right now, but I think Harvey needs to borrow it for a minute. Louis and Alex bitch at each other about whose fault it is that Faye is there at all and Gretchen, who’s apparently worked at every law firm in the city, confides that as managing partner at her old firm, Faye stripped her husband’s name from the wall and fired him for crossing “some kind of line,” indicating that she is in fact a cold-hearted bitch, but also giving Louis the idea that she does care about the Bar, and this is going to end well, I’m sure.

In her first move of actually making a move, Faye asks Donna, in her role as the firm’s COO, to set up a meeting with Thomas Kessler so Faye can ask him why he left. Donna snidely informs her that she has a reputation for solving problems rather than hiding them, and I’d like to bring to the court’s attention the events of “Break Point” (s02e05), in which Donna quite consciously and to potentially devastating effect went out of her way to hide a problem. By shredding it. In a shredder.

Donna promises to set up this meeting and then rushes to warn Harvey about it, and they have a very weird exchange that I honestly don’t know how to interpret. To wit, Harvey says that he knows she’ll disagree with him, but Faye needs to go; of course Donna doesn’t disagree, but like, why did he think she would? The whole firm was pretty abrasive toward Faye in that first meeting, and they all know just how many skeletons are buried under the floorboards; why would any of them want her around?

Cue flirty banter and my first major Darvey red flag of the evening: Harvey says it’s unlike Donna to not try to talk him out of it. Ignoring the fact that “it” is a vague concept rather than a concrete plan, this overt admission that their dynamic is him doing stuff and her trying to convince him not to do that stuff doesn’t do much to convince me that this relationship is particularly functional, or healthy, or makes either of them especially happy. They go back and forth on which of them became less uptight since they fucked (“Since we, uh.” “Since we what?” “Nothing. Since we nothing.” “That’s right.”) and Harvey declares that between the two of them, he’s the one acting consistently, and if by that he means “shoving his emotional turmoil way down deep until he’s almost walking on it and pretending everything’s fine until it explodes,” then yes, I have to agree.

Next up we have Samantha barging into Lucas’s former place of business to accuse the CEO of wrongful termination, her main argument seeming to be that Lucas deserves his job because he’s a veteran. The CEO informs her that “Lucas was far from perfect,” including missing work at crunch time and apparently assaulting an employee to the point of needing medical care; after beating us over the head with these hints that Lucas has post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), he sends Samantha on her way, and here’s hoping they don’t botch this too badly.

Louis continues to erode my faith in his character by storming into Benjamin’s office—yes, Benjamin, the IT guy, who “just set up [Faye’s] firewall this morning,” because that’s a thing—to demand that he find a loophole in the Bar’s 3000-page long, non-digitized bylaws that’ll allow him to get rid of Faye. Couple things here: One, Benjamin is in IT, he doesn’t know how to find a loophole in the bylaws. Two, the New York State Bar Association’s bylaws are 41 pages long, including amendments and indices, and they’re available online, for free, in PDF format.

Part II

#suits usa #season 9 #s09e02 #analysis

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sonderisms-blog · 6 years ago

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❛ Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering. ❜

Spotted at Grand Central, bags in hand, {KAREN GILLAN}. No, that’s a mistake. It’s {AMELIA POND}, they are a {CANON CHARACTER} and come from {DOCTOR WHO}. They are {TWENTY-NINE} and I’ve heard they are {CREATIVE}, as well {OBSTINATE}. They happen to hold {THEIR} memories. Don’t believe me? See for yourself. Lucky for us, {jinx, 23, pst, she/her & they/them} sent us proof.

Welcome to New York, what is your character’s name?

Amelia Jessica Pond-Williams. Though, she took on the last name Williams when she was transported back to 1920s New York because she couldn’t really legally hyphenate + it was a testament to how much she loves Rory & how she was willing to leave behind her old life with the Doctor behind. But she prefers to just be called Amy!

Where have they been pulled from in their fandom?

Right when Amy & Rory make their exit in Doctor Who, in the Angels Take Manhattan. I imagine that she wakes up in her new life in this RP from that point.

With the curse, how has your character’s life changed?

Well, I don’t want to godmod the potential Rory player but if Rory isn’t in her life then that’s a major change ( though, I’d love if they were best friends who grew up together or something in the new life ). Like in canon, Amy had the belief the Doctor was real but instead of him coming back, he was just a story. She still grew up the same way in canon, the weird girl who turned ginger bombshell who was a kissogram but in this verse ( to mirror canon ) she gets picked up by a modeling agency and moves to New York. As far as Amy knows she’s lived in New York for 10 years, now a successful science fiction author and currently working on a children’s book both illustrating & writing it. Her life has changed because she turned her childhood shit into stories that have sold pretty well. She didn’t get married to Rory at a young age, she’s had quite a few years to develop who she is and live her life outside of Leadworth.

With Amy’s memories coming back, to put it simply, it hurts. All over again. Remembering it all, losing it all, it hurts. Though not a drinker AT ALL, Amy has found herself doing anything she can to forget remembering, working on a much darker novel than her previous ones. It’s been disorienting because even though her life is beautiful & brilliant as it is -- it’s not real. The feeling of things not being real, the blurring of lines between reality & falsity has really done a number on her as she does deal with mental illness, worrying that she’s finally, properly, losing her mind. Frankly, she doesn’t know if it’s real, she doesn’t know what’s real, though she tries to be Amy Pond, this blurring of reality is something that scares her. Another feeling she feels is anger, anger about what happened to her in canon, anger about having to doubt her own mind all over again and a determination to fix this and/or find the person responsible.

Do they have a job, and if so what is it?

To dive in more about her job, Amy isn’t the most famous person around but she definitely has mild celebrity due to her early modeling ( a model turned scifi author intrigues a lot of weird fanboys that’s for sure ), her books are what has really launched any celebrity she has into something more recognizable. Sometimes asked to help host D list red carpet shows, etc. Amy is not Known Known but you find her face recognizable. She’s done a lot of activism as well for mental illness and the LGBTQIA+ & Queer communities as she’s openly bisexual so there’s definitely a funky little cult following she has and she’s fairly popular in Scotland as well as a hometown hero in her town of Leadworth ( something she finds HILARIOUS as they hated her for years ).

Is there any other information about your character that members might find helpful?

THIS SECTION WILL BE FOR MY RAMBLING. Because where else am I GONNA DO IT??? I’ve been playing Amy for 5+ years now and I’m going to give y’all some insight on how i play her as well as how i see her. I’m watching an episode right now that’s helped come up with some of this as well. I’ll probably add more HCs as I slowly rewatch her scenes, etc.

A Sagittarius!!!!!!!!!! which literally fits her so well if you love astrology and Amy Pond, you already know!

One of my favorite aspects of Amy’s character is her empathy & intuitiveness. While sometimes lacking social grace and not always the best with interpersonal relations, she can see people for who they are deep down, their intentions, the emotions she feels like she feels from others often overwhelming but something that does lead her. A gut instinct magnified. She’s intuitive and empathetic because she’s got such an active imagination paired with a creative mind, she’s able to put those two things together, not only painting a picture of who someone is, painting colors on them they might not see themselves. Maybe this is a bit naive at times, maybe even a bit dangerous if it steers her wrong ( which is why Rory Williams is so important to her, her impulsiveness paired with this can get her into tough situations and he always has her back, always by her side ). Amelia is not always one to think before jumping into situations if she feels it’s the right thing to do, a prime example of this is her running off with The Doctor EASILY. Both as a kid and an adult. Luckily, not many have taken advantage of this as she can be extremely closed off emotionally. She’s a good judge of character and if she puts her faith in you, know while it could be surprising, it was a very much calculated, thought out, and a felt through choice. Amy’s extremely stubborn so good luck getting her to do something she doesn’t want to do ESPECIALLY if she doesn’t feel it’s right. Amy is usually able to connect to anyone and everyone some sort of way when she tries due to all of this, usually better with connecting to people than the ( Eleventh ) Doctor himself is.

[ EMOTIONAL NEGLECT MENTION, ALCOHOLISM MENTION ] Verbal, straightforward, blunt, but it when it comes to her emotions, the ones that hurt, the ones that can’t be wrapped in something beautiful or lightly joked about are the ones tucked away. Amy’s got serious commitment issues as well, as shown throughout Doctor Who, that stemmed from the Doctor leaving her multiple times as well as never knowing her parents. I play her Aunt as a high functioning alcoholic, growing up she was never really home much less attentive to Amy ( also due to the whole crack in Amy’s wall thing, but, that’s a whole other topic ). For insight on how this effects her, I once played her in a multifandom at hogwarts rp where she was in a relationship with a character and they were really fucking cute ( I still rp them to this day w/ my friend ). But she was SO cared of this relationship not working out / losing Rory because he had just confessed that he romantically liked her, that she broke up with the other person ( who she had deep feelings for who never EVER would’ve left her ) because Rory meant too much to her, he’d been there through everything, the thought of losing him? Unthinkable. this isn’t to say she didn’t love them both ( polyamorous Amelia Pond ftw! ), or value Rory as much ( I felt pressured to go into canon as well so I had to find a believable fault/fear/issue to really sell this but I think there’s something to be said for this ), I don’t play it that way in THIS rp, of course. [ END OF EMOTIONAL NEGLECT MENTION, ALCOHOLISM MENTION ]

It goes to show that she will make fear based decisions as well as decisions based on her insecurities that she’s not enough, that she’s more pain than she’s worth, out of not being able to give someone she cares about what they need. For example, when in canon Amy breaks up with Rory because she feels so guilty she can’t have biological kids when she knows he ALWAYS wanted kids. She was scared if she stayed with him, he’d hate her, that she was keeping him from having a fulfilling life, that she wasn’t enough and didn’t fit into what he wanted. Rory deserves everything to her, she couldn’t give it to him, when he gave and gave and gave to her. She didn’t feel worthy, but she didn’t express that fear either, making Rory feel completely shut out because she was shutting him out. She’ll self sabotage easily, because commitment is scary to her and she’d rather be the one leaving than being left. Amy can’t stand to wait for the worst to happen, for the other shoe to drop, she isn’t the fucking girl who waited -- not anymore.

Amy is diagnosed with major depressive disorder previously diagnosed with psychotic features added on as well until the Doctor came back but after having 4 psychiatrists in her youth, Amy definitely fits into having MDD. There are many evidences in canon besides her literally going to psychiatrists that suggest that Amy is mentally ill / ND, another hint in the episode ‘Vincent and The Doctor’. Amy empathizes with Vincent Van Gogh ( my Amy is an extreme art history lover as well, especially Vincent Van Gogh ), she says she’s been where he is, that she gets it. [ SUICIDE MENTION ] She is physically effected when he talks about dark shit and in another episode with the Dreamlord, she talks about how she doesn’t want to live in a world if Rory’s not in it, then killing herself in the show. The way she does it in my head ( and in the show ) is extremely steely, easily done, because Amy has dealt with mental illness, because she’s been in dark places & suicidal ideation. [ END OF SUICIDE MENTION ] In this RP, she’ll also have been diagnosed and is taking medication because we stan healthy characters who cope with their mental illness! Even though she’s definitely having a hard time currently.

Rory Williams really is everything to her. Her best friend, a love of her life, her partner, the only person who stuck by her side through everything. She never waivers in this love for him, even though she does have doubts due to her own commitment issues ( and regular issues ) but she doesn’t have doubts about who Rory is. She loves him. The Doctor is also someone she loves passionately, though she could’ve loved him romantically and often could see that sort of a future with him -- he’s completely unavailable and unreliable. If there’s one thing that Amy can’t do in a partner romantically it’s unreliable. Plus, after finding out her daughter was married to him in canon? She’ll pass. The Doctor is more like a twin flame sort of thing for her, a very kindred spirit. She loves him because in her little town of Leadworth, full of boring, sensible things, where she was the weird girl in town -- he was just as weird as her.

If I had to pick a Hogwarts house for Amy, it’d be Gryffindor.

#intro: amelia pond.#amelia pond: she's mad but she's magic.#intros make me nervous bc i never learned the art of brevity & my name is jared im 19 i never learned how to read #so we got a MESS ur honor!#but i just tell myself no one is paying me to rp STOP CARING SO MUCH fewoijfw #i aint getting no AWARDS #NO GRADES #this took so long bc its a high pain day and im slow! LRIJFFWE

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readonline · 4 years ago

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https://nyti.ms/34FebC6 15, 2020 at 09:42PM

Modern Love

As a wife and a mother, I have learned how to tell the truth. Which is why I always know when my husband is lying.

Credit...Brian Rea

By Patric Gagne

My husband was trying to tell me I was “the only one” for him.

“Don’t lie to a liar,” I said.

It wasn’t a very romantic reply, I’ll admit. But I’m not a romantic. I’m a sociopath.

My husband knows this, of course. As for me, I knew as early as age 7 that I wasn’t like other children. I didn’t care about things the way they did. I was a girl (my male-sounding name, Patric, is short for Patricia) who mostly felt nothing. It wasn’t until college that a therapist told me what I had long suspected: My lack of emotion and empathy are hallmarks of sociopathy. A few years later, doctors would confirm my diagnosis.

Human beings aren’t designed to function without access to emotion, so we sociopaths often become destructive in order to feel things. I used to break into houses or steal cars for the adrenaline rush of knowing I was somewhere I wasn’t allowed to be — just to feel, period.

It didn’t take long for me to realize this was not an effective life strategy. Rather than risk incarceration (or worse), I used my diagnosis to fuel my pursuit of a Ph.D. in psychology.

Like many, I gained my first understanding of sociopaths from pop culture, which portrays us as singularly dangerous and threatening, our flat emotional state and lack of remorse making us unfit for normal life. It wasn’t until I began my research in graduate school that I learned sociopaths exist along a wide spectrum, like many people with psychiatric disorders. You’ll find us everywhere in daily life, as your colleagues, neighbors, friends and, sometimes, members of your own family.

[Sign up for Love Letter, our weekly email about Modern Love, weddings and relationships.]

My husband and I dated in high school and found each other again after college. You would think my insincerity, emotional poverty, absence of shame and guilt, and reduced empathic response wouldn’t exactly land me in the “dream girl” category. Perhaps because he and I had grown up together and he was already familiar with my “bad” side, he remained in denial for years about me having any sort of real psychological problem. Nevertheless, 13 years later, we’re still in love and happily married.

But am I “the only one” for him? Definitely not.

My husband had developed a crush on a female colleague at work. It was obvious, and I understood why. She was everything I’m not: thoughtful, kind, compassionate. I doubt she ever attempted to choke anyone. Unlike me.

She was socially appropriate at parties, appreciated compliments and affection. Her charm was authentic and her darkness, if she had any, relatable. Unlike mine. It made sense he would like her. They would make a great pair. So why wouldn’t he just admit it?

He knew I didn’t take things like this personally. That’s one of the perks of being married to a sociopath: I don’t get jealous. He knew that if he were to tell me he liked her, I would listen and relate without reaction. I might even end up helping him shed some of his Catholic-school guilt. All he had to do was be honest.

When you’re a sociopath in a marriage, especially one with children, honesty is critical — even more, I would argue, than for people in “normal” relationships. As a sociopath, I had difficulty prioritizing telling the truth, but as a wife and a mother, I forced myself to learn.

Outside of my family, my loyalty to the truth is what has enabled me to connect with other people. As a doctor who specializes in the research of sociopathy, I prize credibility and integrity as my greatest asset.

Granted, it hasn’t been easy. People claim to want complete honesty from their partner or spouse, but I have found they aren’t always happy when they get it, especially when that honesty is coming from a sociopath.

My husband was never thrilled to hear that I had spent the day in a stranger’s house without that person’s knowledge or committed other misdeeds. But his real anger was reserved for the fact that I never felt guilty about these things.

For my husband, guilt is a driving force. His formative years were shaped by his overbearing and infirm mother. And then he married someone who seemed immune to it. He wanted to know: Why did I never care what anyone thought? Why was my behavior never limited by guilt?

For a long time, he was angry. But eventually he began to understand it wasn’t my fault that I was born with a reduced capacity for remorse. And it wasn’t his fault his mother was so negatively attached.

A few years after we married, with his encouragement, my behavior started to shift. I would never experience shame the way other people do, but I would learn to understand it. Thanks to him, I started to behave. I stopped acting like a sociopath.

And thanks to me, he started to see the value in not caring as much about what others thought. He noticed how often guilt was forcing his hand, frequently in unhealthy directions. He would never be a sociopath, but he saw value in a few of my personality traits.

He learned to say “no” and mean it, especially when it came to activities he was doing purely out of obligation — family visits or holiday gatherings he didn’t enjoy but couldn’t decline. He started to recognize when he was being manipulated. He noticed when emotion was clouding his judgment.

What a pair we are. Certainly, there have been setbacks. He isn’t always patient. I’m not always on my best behavior. And on those occasions, I leave a token on his desk to let him know when I have been up to no good (minor mischief like sneaking embarrassing items into a line-cutter’s grocery cart). The token I leave is an innocuous trinket, a Statue of Liberty figurine from a key chain. Anyone else who saw it wouldn’t think twice. But he knows what it means.

Whenever I leave the figurine on his desk, it means I’ve done something wrong. The second he sees it, he comes to find me, gives me a kiss and slips it back into my purse. Often, he doesn’t ask what I’ve done, but if he does, he knows he can trust me to be honest. And I know the same, so I never stray too far outside the lines.

Which is why his denial of his office crush was so confusing.

For the first time in our relationship, it wasn’t my interpretation of the truth that was causing a shift in our marriage; it was his. Believe it or not, I could appreciate the cause of his dishonesty. On good days, I was almost entertained by it. His clumsy white lies were like a toddler’s, and nearly as endearing.

On those days I wanted to hug him for being so cute. “You see what you’re doing?” I wanted to say. “You’re not being honest about your feelings for her. You’re lying. Now, how is this any different from what I used to do?”

And just like that, he would have gotten a lesson in empathy — from a sociopath, no less! And we would have laughed and understood each other better and gone back to sharing everything. At least I’d like to think so. My husband, after all, was the one who said we must be honest without exception. And he was the one who insisted I confess to every single thing every single time. So why he wasn’t playing by the same rules?

I have been forced to come clean about everything, even when — especially when — I don’t want to. It’s hard, frustrating, confusing and annoying, but I have done it for him, for us! If he wasn’t willing to do the same, then what? Should I leave him? Go back to being dishonest? Wait for him to leave me?

On bad days, these were the thoughts that dominated. When I couldn’t help but wonder: Is this what fear feels like?

I think it was. My husband was lying to me. Gaslighting me. Sneaking. Acting like a sociopath. And isn’t that how we sociopaths are defined — as liars without the ability to empathize? On such days, I saw what it must be like to be married to someone like me. And the irony is almost shimmering.

Still, I couldn’t help but smile thinking of the future, of the days when we would be able to joke about the time we almost split up because he started acting like a sociopath. And that in doing so, my husband was finally able to teach me the one thing I have been trying to learn all of my life: empathy.

Patric Gagne is a writer and doctor of psychology from Los Angeles.

Modern Love can be reached at [email protected].

To find previous Modern Love essays, Tiny Love Stories and podcast episodes, visit our archive.

Want more from Modern Love? Watch the TV series; sign up for the newsletter; or listen to the podcast on iTunes, Spotify or Google Play. We also have swag at the NYT Store and two books, “Modern Love: True Stories of Love, Loss, and Redemption” and “Tiny Love Stories: True Tales of Love in 100 Words or Less” (available for preorder).

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inanawesomewave · 6 years ago

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YOU’LL NEVER SEE ME AGAIN - WHEN SOCIOPATHS DISCARD, AND WHY

My favourite song in the world is probably Surfing on a Rocket by AIR. It’s not my most listened-to song in the world, it’s not one that I make other people listen to when I’m trying to get them onto my wavelength, I don’t even think I have it saved on my phone, but it’s the one that has been, undoubtedly, playing in the background of every single goodbye I have said, and interestingly, every single goodbye I have said, I have been happy to have said.    “Time for surfing rockets, for silver jets, for surfing bombs” . I took the plunge recently and googled “sociopathic friend”; “sociopath ex”; “how do you know you’re working with a sociopath”; “sociopath tactics for control”. I hate all of those articles that get written arming the general public away from the cold, dead eyes of the mythical sociopath, how the armchair diagnosis of the callous sociopath has become a panacea for all emotional ailments. In fact, I find it downright dangerous and maladaptive to offhandedly but systemically give a clinical name to bad behaviour and worse, a diagnosis to someone who just didn’t love you. I saw a thing the other day on Facebook (I’m on there, don’t be surprised) and it was this really painstakingly drawn picture of a guy pulling anal beads out of his asshole and within each anal bead was a tiny Pikachu figurine, crying, and the thing the guy was anally pleasuring himself to was the cold light of his mobile phone, and on the screen, a picture of himself. The caption was something like, “The Narcissistic Sociopath”. I look at stuff like that and I think, “Imagine going to all the trouble of drawing this, and still not realising that maybe the problem is you?”. Don’t get me wrong, friends, I agree we should be able to put a name to the abuses we have suffered, but I just don’t think that yelling SOCIOPATH! NARCISSIST! whenever someone, oh I dunno, cuts in front of you in a queue (they’re in a rush, they’re busy) or cheats on you (maybe they were fucking depressed?) or tells you to go to hell (you were being a dickhead) is getting anyone anywhere. It’s not even the scaremongering I disapprove of because honestly, I was a goth at school so there’s something in that spooky ooOOOoooOOoo CREEEPY sociopath oooOOOoo! aesthetic that I dig, but I worry about what it’s doing to the accusers. I worry it’s self-appointed sainthood, that martyrdom is becoming a worthy cause, that the true narcissism is diagnosing someone with a complicated and pervasive mental illness because they upset you and then setting up a YouTube channel where you talk about the menace of the narcissist or the sociopath. I worry, because lack of insight is the most troubling part of insanity.  So why did I google this stuff?  Because I was so, SO curious. I wanted the gossip. How out of line was it? What do they SAY about us? Have we been clever all this time, are we not going undetected? What of our secrets do the general public know? And how do I spot a sociopath? Could I too be spotted? Is it my eyes? Are they empty? It was exactly what you’d expect, and I didn’t feel too bad reading the myths and folklore surrounding us. For example, did you know that we’re incapable of love? We can’t keep friendships? That mind control comes naturally to us? I didn’t know any of this either, but if these are the lies that keep people entertained, whatever. Because what that means, is real sociopaths are going undetected. We’re being left alone. We’re getting on with our lives with impunity, because nobody suspected us when we married the loves of our lives, doted on our children and moved mountains to help our friends.  But then I read something that made me feel a little bit… seen:   “One of the most painful and jarring aspects of a pathological relationship is the cold and calculated discard… they say it’s over but you don’t understand why… they tend to catch you off guard and wholly unprepared for this horrific fate.”  The writer of this diatribe even went so far as to predict some of the things we might say to you when we’re calculatingly fucking off and leaving you, they include:   “I don’t want to be in a relationship”  “We are just not compatible” What the fuck?   Okay. So here’s where the thrust of this blog is going to be.   Are sociopaths not allowed to need to leave something that is hurting them?   I’ve ended relationships, I thought fairly, using those two phrases before. You know how hard it is to upkeep the performance of love and commitment with someone who has grown away from you in such a way that you can’t work out why you were ever together? Or what if that relationship has become stultifying, the person in question has neglected themselves and you to such an extent that you’re having to do everything, take on all the roles they need and do all of the things they can’t but it’s okay because they don't have a personality disorder? What's sociopathic about walking away? What’s so inherently evil about saying, “I don't want to do this any more”? Is it a quirk of sociopathy to realise your mistake when you thought you were meant to be near someone and then you realised being near them was painful because they aren't the answer to your problems and you're tired? I wondered, for all the talk we hear about self care and cutting out toxic people, are we not allowed to do that? Does self care not count if your self interest is clinical?   But I know what it is, really. I’m being naive. It’s something all sociopaths do that we think is normal so to conceive of anyone being hurt by this is impossible and then that good old lack of empathy and its failure to kick in is what keeps us doing this over and over with — if you’re anything like me — an unwillingness to change that behaviour.  It’s the fact that we just walk away. It’s the word “discard”. Sociopaths are cold and callous when one day we tell you we love you and we’ll speak to you soon, and the next we’ve deleted you off all social media and out of our lives. Okay, I’ll concede to that. Here’s why, though.   “Five, four, three, two, one, zero, no-one can stop me to go”. Losing respect for someone is a big deal, in Sociopath Land, and if you believe that we are all incapable of love and so affection and commitment are illusions then you're wrong. Our love is based on respect, for everyone in my life I have adored, I have respected the bones of and I have been in love with their respect for me, since if I’m offering up a love and a life based around my overwhelming respect for someone, I expect it back, because it's not sociopathic to appreciate that the transaction of respect must be equal at all times. I will fight very hard for my respect for my partners, friends and family, and often, if I feel I'm losing respect for someone (and this never happens at random — I lose respect when I sense respect is being lost for me, because then I think that person is being selfish and lazy and exploitative because hi, yes, that's what it is) I will accept that I'm often paranoid and usually wrong and will fight tooth and nail to hang onto that shred of respect I have for that person. I will fight especially hard if that's a person I’d love to keep in my life, if I’ve analysed that their presence in my life is a good one: we make each-other feel good, I can talk to them, I want to help them when they're struggling. And people won’t like this but fuck it, people don't like us: if I see someone as weak by their own volition, I don't want them near me.   So these are the reasons I’ll stay, or leave. But what’s really cold, is it doesn't matter what came before. All that matters is the moment I decide I don't respect you any more. Yes, I will tell you one moment that I love you and can’t wait to see you again, and the next time you try to contact me my number has changed and my online presence has disappeared. All you know, is that something bad has happened, and whilst I didn't think of this, I'm aware that your reaction would at first be to worry that something has happened, something alien beyond both of our controls. You will ask around, if something bad happened to me, did I have to run away somewhere, was I in danger? And then it will dawn on you when you realise that I am what I am: I just don't love you any more, and I don't love you because you became someone I could not respect, or you used too much of my emotional energy up, or you started treating me as an afterthought, or you stopped listening to me and only cared about yourself, or you prioritised your ease over my pain, or I sensed you were discarding me, or you took the piss out of me and reminded me of the emotional neglect I came from, or you started to behave in ways I found deplorable, or you actively hurt me, or you simply just became someone I found myself wanting to laugh at rather than wanting to help, and the reason I want to laugh now is because I can’t find a way to respect you. But I respect you enough to leave. Because if I don’t leave, I’m going to have to stay, and if I stay when I have no respect for you, then I no longer have a filter. I don’t want to spare your feelings any more. You will talk about your life and your dreams and your loves and hates and nothing in me will want to listen or support you or love you or expend the psychic energy required to listen to you drone on and on and on again about your homemade problems, your bad behaviour, your pretend struggles. And I will have no reason to give you my mask — you no longer deserve the “I'm proud of you!” and “you can do it!” and “how can I help?”. And the more and more I sit there and listen to you talk the angrier I become. So in this sense, discarding is a panic move. If I were to play devils advocate, I'd say discarding is safeguarding. It’s better for you that I disappear from your life so hard that you have to wonder if I ever existed, because if I stay, I might have to tell you what I really think of you, and once I do that, I feel a game has begun. And when I discard you, it’s because, as I said above, I’ve started to sense your discard of me, and your discard is long and drawn out and painful — people all the time suddenly stop being there for their friends, become incapable of caring about anyone but themselves, failing to upkeep the relationship, asking for labour but refusing to give it back. At least the sociopath’s discard is quick and painless — I have no interest in sticking around and watching you squirm, I just want to get away from you so that sticking around and watching you squirm doesn’t become a viable option for me, one that I turn to out of sheer frustration and anger and aggressive disrespect made all the more furious with the betrayal that comes when you once respected someone with all your might. No, I’m just going to walk away and close every single door, tape off every single avenue, kill every single possible lead that could lead you back to me. This is done. We never met. You don't know me. Look the other way.    So yes, that's something they’ve got right, but is it really so evil? Is that an example of true malevolence? It may seem fair to me, but what do I know?  Let me know what you think.   “You’ll never see me again”.

#aspd #antisocial personality disorder #antisocial feels #walking away #toxic relationships #actually aspd #aspd tag #sociopath #psychopath #sociopathy #psychopathy #narcissism #new year #new beginnings #discarding

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elfnerdherder · 8 years ago

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The Fault in My Code: Ch. 16

You can read Chapter 16 on Ao3 Here

Chapter 16: Two Brown Eyes That Hunt

The ride was long, and despite the whispers of adrenaline that curled along his wrists and made his fingers dance and twitch along his leg, Will found himself dozing in and out of a dreamless state, head leaned back against the siding of the transport vehicle. The road hummed beneath his feet, and the calm, easy breathing of Lecter across from him was almost hypnotic. With the turning of the road and the silence of his companions, his head bounced and lolled before he’d catch himself and blink blearily around. Whenever he came to, he’d catch Hannibal’s eyes across from him, and he’d swallow heavily. Hannibal didn’t sleep. He kept his gaze fixated on Will, an intent and probing stare that made the hair on the nape of his neck stand on end. He was risking a whole hell of a lot on his confidence in his own self-control.

His eyes saw better without contacts. He noted the fine dips in the skin just under Lecter’s eyes, the way his cheeks pressed against the mouth restraint whenever he exhaled too hard. Will wondered what it’d taste like to trace his tongue over it. He wondered if Molly was watching the news, if the Lounds article sat at her elbow so that she could read it over and over and over again, obsessing now that she knew who he’d connected to. Oh, Will, she’d sigh. Oh Will. Oh-fucking-Will.

“You look to be in pain, Dr. Graham,” Hannibal observed. “Are you in need of an aspirin?”

“I’m fine,” he said. Molly paused them. Oh-fucking-well.

Silence once more. Will dozed, eyes roving behind his lids lazily.

The sound of a police car’s sirens brought him to once more, and he blinked sleep from his eyes, looking about. Beside him, the orderly’s mismatched eyes narrowed, and the agent with two matching eyes gripped their shotgun.

“What’s going on?” he asked. The sound crested them, whizzed by them, then maintained its wail at a short distance.

The orderly grabbed the walkie-talkie and lifted it to his mouth. “What’s going-”

They didn’t hear the gunshot, suppressed as it was, but they heard the scream of rubber tires on asphalt as the police car ahead of them went careening. The agent beside him shifted, Will looked to Lecter in time to see a small, secretive smile, then he was thrown into the cage across from him as the transport vehicle crashed into the car ahead of them.

He’d been in a few wrecks in his lifetime, although nothing like this. Dazed was a good descriptor –confused. Adrenaline made his heart drum in his ear like the beating wings of a great bird. He held onto the openings of the cage in front of him, and he gritted his teeth against the jarring, spinning, slamming. Metal screamed, and he was thrown to the side, slamming into the orderly and slumping into the small space on the floorboards around their legs.

There he lay.

Breathing was about as good as it could get, and he allowed himself to do just that. He wheezed, listened to the sounds of the agent on the walkie-talkie, asking something that sounded an awful lot like what the fuck is going on. Pain blossomed along his temple, and he focused on minimizing it, on testing out just how the rest of him was doing. Legs could move, check. Arms could move, check. Shoulder ached, check. Light sliced through his vision, then the visage of a man. Tall. Broad. Capable. A glint of silver, bam, bam. Bodies dropped. Will fumbled. His body was not one of them. It was dropped, but not for long. Not for good.

When he managed to get up, the spray of blood along his pantleg was what first stood out to him, followed by the bit of skull sliding down the wall where the orderly’s head once rested. He swallowed, tasted bile, swallowed again. Tasted blood. The orderly’s mismatched eyes gazed ahead unseeing, and he wondered just where their partner was when they’d feel the crippling sensation of their lover dying. How they’d scream and scream and scream and scream. Their body would think they were dying. They’d think they were dying. Those thoughts tied to another, then another. Hannibal. You have to go find Hannibal.

Will scrambled out of the back of the van, noting Lecter’s lack of presence, noting the straightjacket that lay dangling from the tailgate like a misshapen white flag of truce.

Outside, it was far worse. He inhaled it, caught the moan of horror before it could escape him. He looked to the police vehicles scattered across the road like dominos, the blood mushrooming along windows, small sprays like waves from red oceans. No Hannibal.

You have to find Hannibal.

He didn’t quite register the police car pulling up in front of him until it stopped, until Hannibal opened the passenger door for him and pushed a body out. It rolled to the pavement with a wet thump, a limp flop. A small cut and a split lip was all that showed for his own damage in the wreck, and when he met Will’s dazed, unfocused gaze, he grinned ever-so-slightly.

“Going my way?” he asked –dare Will call it flirtatious?

Will swallowed convulsively, pressed his lips tightly together, and nodded. He climbed into the car, unable to help the blood that smeared across the back of his pant leg or the bit of it that made his palm slick as he pulled the door closed. As Hannibal pulled away, he considered it studiously, the color far bolder against his skin than he’d imagined. His heart hummed at the sight of Hannibal being alright, at being so close to him. He’d found him. Hannibal was okay.

“I’ve been thinking, dear Will, and I’d almost say you take things far too seriously. Coupled with your empathy disorder, I believe that’s why you’ve taken up drinking again,” Hannibal said in the quiet of the car. The road hummed to life beneath them as he peeled away from the carnage, both hands on the wheel. Will numbly looked up from the blood and tried to swallow again. His tongue stuck against the roof of his mouth, bone dry.

“I’m going into shock,” he informed him casually. His ears were ringing. His skin was cold.

“You are,” Hannibal agreed. He reached over and took Will’s hand, and to Will’s utter surprise he placed it towards the inside of his thigh. Will started to protest, but Hannibal shook his head and tutted lightly. “Just feel for my pulse there –the femoral artery. Hold onto that and time the beats. Time is not our ally yet, and I won’t stop the car for something as easily treatable as shock.”

Will obediently focused on the pulse, ignoring the fact that it was very much towards an intimate part of his leg.

“Physical contact calms soulmates,” Will managed to inform him. Useless facts at a time like this, but that was all he had.

“Yes, I know. Coupled with focusing on a steady pulse, it should do just the trick.”

Will hummed low under his breath, nodding. “Releases serotonin,” he tacked on lamely. His fingertips felt cold to the touch, and he pressed the bloodstained ones to his cheek to test it. Yes, very cold. Ten dead bodies sort of cold, a Red Dragon that very much knew their general location sort of cold.

“Do you have your phone still?” Hannibal asked.

Will nodded.

“Jack Crawford will surely track us on it.” A beat as he cast Will a wan glance. “Unless your intention was for him to track us on it.”

“…I wiped the phone,” Will managed after he could catch his breath. He unrolled the window with the hand still covered in the police officer’s blood, and he tossed it out of the window, letting it fly out into the field beside them where it disappeared into the brush. No amount of ‘gorilla shatter-resistant glass’ would save that from being destroyed –not at their speed. He thought about rolling the window up again, but the wind was cool on his face, and it helped alleviate the rank, bitter smell of copper pennies permeating the small space of the front seat where two men had just been murdered.

“Clever boy,” Hannibal praised. “Was this your surprise to me all along?”

Another nod. Will gripped his thigh tighter. The femoral artery pulsed against his palm. His blood sang –soulmate, soulmate, soulmate.

“You didn’t just plan this far, though. What was your next step? Regale me.”

“What am I doing,” Will murmured. He thought of Molly. He thought of pauses, and the way Lecter had looked at people while he was being led away in the courtroom, a life sentence for his crimes. Butterflies pinned to a display board, and he’d let him out.

“That is the shock talking, Will,” Hannibal chided. “Come now, focus. What was your next step?”

“Um…new car.” A slow, approving nod. “A new car, new clothes, new…place. Hotel. I have cash.”

“So that they can’t trace your debit card, yes,” Hannibal agreed. “Rather than a hotel, though, I think I have something in mind that would better suit the both of us.”

“I’m not letting you murder someone to take their house,” Will warned him, and rather than become defensive, Hannibal let out a soft, amused huff of laughter.

“That would be a terrible waste and a rather easy way for us to be found. I know you’re in shock, but think, Dr. Graham.”

Will didn’t want to think. If he stopped long enough to think, he’d have to marinate on the thoughts that he’d been the reason Red Dragon had killed those ten people. Because of his actions, his body count was rising. First Molly, then Matthew Brown, then Chilton; now ten more. His hands were almost as bloody as Hannibal’s.

“You have a safe house?”

“I just need to make a call to the right person. It’s not far from here –three hours at best.”

Three hours. Will could do three hours. He pressed his sweaty back to the seat, sunk deep into it, and he kept his grip firmly placed on Hannibal’s thigh, counting the beats in disjointed time with the lazy blinking of his mismatched eyes.

He woke when they stopped, long enough for Lecter to find them a new car and a pay phone that was still in use. Will lent him quarters from his pocket, and he waited in the old, tired passenger seat of an oldsmobile with a WWJD sticker on the fender. Whoever Hannibal was speaking with, it didn’t take long for him to convey what he wanted. He hung up, wiped the phone down with a rag he’d found in the police car, and returned to their new car, firing it up.

“Chiyoh is having it prepared for us. We should be there in approximately two hours.”

“The FBI never knew of this place?”

“No.” Hannibal flashed him a brief slice of white teeth, driving out of the parking garage and out onto the street. “It isn’t in my name.”

Will fiddled with the glove compartment, and he retrieved napkins from it with a stab of relief. A half-empty cup of something smelling like watered down lemonade rested in the cup holder beside him, and he dabbed the napkins in it, using it to wipe the blood from his hands, his fingertips. He noted Hannibal watching the action out of the corner of his eye, but if he minded much, he said nothing. Once they were clean enough to only show small streaks of orange rather than putrid red, he tossed the used napkins into the cup and pressed the lid on it with a muted snap.

“You’re not in shock anymore,” Hannibal noted. Once they were on the interstate, he reached over and took Will’s hand, guiding it back to his leg. Rather than press it to the inside of his thigh where the feel of his pulse lay, he merely sat it on top, palm spread across Will’s twitching fingers. The contact made his heart thud erratically. Endorphins, he reminded himself. Endorphins.

“This is for you, then,” Will accused.

“It’s to bring you out of your head, since you’re inclined to internalize.”

“Oh, do I?” he scoffed.

“You let our connection remain a secret until you felt there was no other alternative. Your Molly only learned the truth after she saw for herself. You lied about drinking again until she found out due to a lapse of memory on your part. You surmised there were ten dead bodies, and you’re more than likely taking responsibility for placing them there.”

Will wanted to disagree, but he couldn’t. Lecter seeing that far into his mind, knowing exactly where his tasteless thoughts would go, made his skin crawl as much as it was a comfort to know someone else could see and not sound so god damn afraid in seeing.

“Okay,” he said. “…Okay.”

Lecter hmm’d under his breath. “Do you imagine how you’d have killed them, given the chance?”

“I think about how I’d have saved them.”

“If you were fast enough to realize just what was going to happen?”

“If I hadn’t let my selfishness get in the way of justice,” Will murmured. He swallowed the heavy lump in his throat, tapped his tacky fingers on the stained leg of his pants. He preferred them that way, sticky from lemonade rather than blood.

“You chose me over ten lives,” Hannibal murmured. “I take back what I said before, Will; you are a romantic.”

It was jarring to hear those sorts of words from him. A burn, but something sweet, like taking a sip of hot chocolate too soon after being made. As much as he cringed from the thought that yes, yes he’d let ten people die to get Hannibal out of custody, the feeling of his hand on Will’s, his thumb brushing absentmindedly along the back of it seemed to distort the fact of the matter, soften it.

“Would you have stayed in that prison cell forever if I didn’t find a way to free you?” he asked. He despised just how agonized his voice sounded.

Hannibal’s lip twitched, but if he meant to smile he kept it tamped down at the tone of Will’s voice. “You know I’d have found my way to you if you left me, dear Will. No matter where you run off to, I’d have found you.”

“I shouldn’t have compromised myself, then.”

“On the contrary, this is by far the best for us.” For us. Like they were an item. Like they were together.

“You wanted me to be the one to do it,” said Will, his palm pressing down against Hannibal’s leg. “You waited for me to come to you.”

Hannibal hmm’d lightly, a soft assent. “I’m a patient man. I’d waited years for something to happen in that institution. I didn’t mind waiting for you.”

“No, you wanted it to be me to choose to do this, that way you could hold it over me that in the end, I came to you and freed you rather than you escape to hunt me down. You waited for me to choose so that you could win. You got me. You beat me.” He chewed on his bottom lip violently, almost spit at the taste of blood on his skin; he’d bitten it in the crash.

“My dear, dear Will,” Hannibal admonished gently. His grip on Will’s fingers tightened. “Even now, you are so keen to see me as the monster inside of your head. Is it so wrong of me to be pleased that the person I wanted finally chose to desire me in return? Of course I waited for you to choose; our actions made sweeter when done with two willing hearts as opposed to only one.”

It sounded romantic, him saying that. It sounded like he was the kind of person to care about things like consent and partnership; Will knew better, though. It was all a game, and he was playing it just as eagerly as Hannibal was, step for step, breath for breath. Dear, dear Will. Oh, Will. Oh paused, darling Will.

“I’m tired,” he said at last, bleakly.

“Sleep, then. I’ll wake you when we get there.”

Only Molly had once commanded his ability to rest or not with such coaxing tones. Instead of Molly, now it was Hannibal Lecter, and he let the lazy tingles slide along his skin from each stroke of Hannibal’s fingertips on the back of his hand, relishing yet abhorring the simplistic nature of everything seeming to be so utterly, fucking right.

He woke to the taste of the ocean, salt heavy on his tongue. His cheek was pressed against the window, and his ear had been crushed the wrong way in his sleep. He sat up dazedly and yawned, fist pressed to his mouth, blinking at the late afternoon sun dipping along the scattering of trees.

It was the lack of motion that’d woken him, as well as the sound of the driver’s door closing. Will detangled himself from the seatbelt and climbed out of the car, looking around what seemed to be an architect’s dream, a summer home with angled, sharp windows reaching up to a dagger-like point that struck out at the sky. They were parked on a smooth, paved driveway that wound into the nest of trees that curled in towards the road, and if he didn’t know better he’d have said he’d climbed out of reality and into a dream. Just at the maw of the road, he imagined Red Dragon watching, waiting. He stared long enough until he could convince himself that it wasn’t real –just his imagination.

“Chiyoh said she was going to get groceries,” Hannibal said, heading towards the house. His off-white jumpsuit was stark and startling against the picturesque display, and Will found himself following, ears keen on the crash of the ocean a short distance away. The ocean; father, boats, diesel motors that stained hands worn from toils of hard labor with oil and grease. Waves; Molly, pausings, water cresting just overhead until he’s facing a glass barrier where Hannibal Lecter used to be. He shook his head at the associations, the bleakness of them. When the front door opened, he hurried in, foot catching on the frame.

The inside was just as elegant, just as refined. Rich, dark walls gave way to open spaces with enough windows to allow the elements to be the design rather than an over-abundance of interior decoration. His shoes squeaked on the hard floors, and he followed the straight set of Hannibal’s shoulders towards a living room where he stopped to look about, pleased.

“She’s kept it in good order,” he said lightly.

“Who is Chiyoh?” Will asked. His voice was rough, stones crushing against stones from sleep. He paused just a breath from Hannibal, and that close he could smell the generic detergent of his jumpsuit, the sharp tang of sweat and blood. He inhaled deeply, eyes fluttering closed.

“My cousin,” Hannibal replied.

“You have a cousin?” He opened his eyes, puzzled. The fact didn’t set straight.

“Many people have cousins,” he said, and he turned to Will, a mere whisper taller than him. That close, Will had to crane his head back slightly to meet his gaze. One eye blue, the other maroon.

“I don’t have cousins,” Will managed. His skin burned with the thought that this was the first time he’d been chest to chest to Hannibal Lecter with no bars between them. A treacherous voice whispered, now would be a good time to touch.

“Are you afraid of me, Will?” Lecter asked. There was something dangerously appealing about the way his lips curled around the words. Taunting. Will’s fingers twitched with the urge to reach up and touch his face, the urge to reach up and strangle him.

“No.”

“You’re alone in a secluded place with a killer,” he reminded him.

“So are you.”

“Are you here to kill me?” Hannibal’s head dipped down, his lips ghosting the space just before touching.

“I don’t know,” he replied, surprised at his own honesty. “Right now, I’d just like to touch you, if that’s all the same.”

“To touch is to consume,” Hannibal murmured. “I’d much rather consume you in such a manner pleasing to both of us.”

“Is that supposed to be romantic?”

“Merely reassuring you, dear Will.” He tilted his head the other way, regarded Will with something akin to mischief and a deadly sort of ravenous delight. “Merely reassuring you.”

Will couldn’t say who moved first; his hands went to Hannibal’s neck, and Hannibal’s leg swept Will’s feet out from under him, sending them both toppling to the floor as he took Hannibal with him. Will landed on his side, hard, and he rolled with it, legs going around Hannibal’s waist in order to flip them so that he was on top of him, a sharp grunt rushing from his mouth. Hannibal wouldn’t be pinned so easily, though; as Will’s arms wrapped tight around him, his elbows bowed out to better push him away, to better keep Will from getting to his neck because he needed to get to his neck.

Hannibal’s arm swung up, and his palm slammed into Will’s shoulder, aching from the wreck, making him hiss in pain and relax his grip just enough that Hannibal rolled them, pinning him down to wrench the knife from Will’s hand that he’d grabbed from his pocket as they tumbled. It clattered off to the side somewhere, and Will drew a leg close to his chest, sending Hannibal up and off of him with a snarl. Hannibal flew back, caught himself on a small stand where a pot fell and shattered to the floor, and Will scrambled to his feet.

They circled one another, considered one another.

Will lunged, struck Hannibal with a jab to the throat that sent him to his knees, gasping. As he fell, though, his hand flew out and grasped Will by his belt loop, sending him toppling to the floor where they both fought to grab at one another. Will’s head hit the ground hard, and Hannibal found his way on top of him, hands going to his throat. Will’s blood sang, his heart roaring in his neck as he clapped his hands to Hannibal’s ears, disorienting him enough to twist around him.

They struggled, writhing with spastic jerks as they rolled across the floor. Hannibal head-butted him, and Will almost let go, dazed as his skull pounded. He responded in kind, stars bursting his eyes, worth it to hear Hannibal grunt in pain. They continued to roll, jerking and thrashing around one another until they slammed into the wall, and Will triumphantly found himself on top, hands grasping Hannibal’s wrists and pinning them overhead as he breathed raggedly, thigh pressed taut between his legs to keep him from bucking up and throwing him off. Poised over him as he was, Hannibal squirming beneath him, Will went to grasp his neck to squeeze, to choke. He had him. He fucking had him, and he could finally fucking murder him.

He froze, though. Be it the look on Hannibal’s face, the way his pulse pounded in his neck, but the bastard looked almost excited. Will’s grip loosened on his wrists, and maybe that was enough to still Hannibal’s resistance –it took far too long to realize that it wasn’t so much resistance as it was moving against Will, thighs pressed tight against Will’s leg as he used his weight to keep Hannibal’s hips in place.

They stared at one another, breaths coarse in the otherwise silence of the room. Will gripped wrists one-handed, a distant whisper telling him that Hannibal wasn’t trying to free them anymore, and he reached for his throat, fingers twitching, hand shaking. He didn’t grip it, though; his touch glided along the column of his neck, paused at the space where it dipped in then up to his jaw. He looked from the spot he was suddenly hyper-aware of, met Hannibal’s gaze in the fading light of the sunset. One eye blue, the other maroon. They looked familiar to him, as familiar as his own skin, as familiar as the faded scar on his knuckles from when he was a child. His skull throbbed, his muscles ached, but all that he could feel was the steady heartbeat just beneath him.

He released his wrists; hands went to Hannibal’s face, and Hannibal’s went to his hips, his grip a scalding burn that both pained and excited him. Lips clashed against one another, bruising in their force as teeth nipped at the skin, just hard enough to hurt. Will’s hands went from his jaw to Hannibal’s hair, gripping tightly, tugging.

He was on fire, and god if it didn’t feel right.

Hannibal bit his bottom lip hard, tugged. Will gasped, and his tongue was in his mouth, exploring, dominating. They rolled, Hannibal pressing down on top of him, chest pressed to chest, and Will’s hands went down his neck to his back where his fingers dug in, needing. Wanting. If he hadn’t gnawed his nails down in his darkest moments, thinking, he’d have drawn blood.

Hannibal’s hands roamed, taking pleasure in the way Will’s skin warmed under their touch over hips, ribs, chest. One hooked around his neck where his palm pressed to the frantic pulse, and he broke the kiss in order to dip his head and press biting, teasing kisses to the tender skin there, pausing at the artery and grinning against it. It pounded against his mouth, daring him to bite.

“I can feel your pleasure as much as I can feel my own,” he said. “Is that normal for soulmates, Dr. Graham?”

“Shut up,” Will ground out. His hands slid down to Hannibal’s hips where he pulled them sharp against his own, the friction blessedly wonderful. His soft moan made Hannibal’s breath hitch. “Just shut up.”

Hannibal thankfully shut up. The other things he did with his mouth were far more pleasurable.

#LiaS scribbles #The Fault in My Code #Hannibal #Hannibal fanfic #hannigram #murder husbands #almost at least #hannibal x will graham #hannibal soulmate au #soulmate au #hannibal au #someone help will graham #from himself jesus dude #things get heated

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docfuture · 7 years ago

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Sparring Match, Part 3

[This story tried really hard to expand to novella or novel length, but I’m already in the middle of one of those 8-). It takes place between Chapter 30 and Chapter 32 of The Maker’s Ark. The most recent regular chapter is here, links to my other work here. Planning a return to Maker’s Ark in two weeks, but might end up with another short work instead. There will be other stories involving Jumping Spider and Breakpoint at some point. I plan to put up a progress update regardless.]

Previous: Part 2

"The Seer's Madness, eh?" said Jumping Spider. "That fits with a lot of the little clues I've been picking up, and one big one. Interesting that it's common enough in the Nine Worlds that they came up with a generic term for it. I thought Seers were rare." Yiskah smiled grimly. "They're rare because the 'Madness' is common, chronic, and often lethal. Suicide is by far the most frequent cause of death. And that's for adult extradimensional beings who have already made it over some pretty severe hurdles. I know from personal experience that staying alive and sane through childhood and adolescence as a human with any kind of extrasensory ability is very hard. Neither of the two previous controllers of this body managed it." "I see." Jumping Spider leaned back in her chair and sipped her coffee. "But 'Seer's Madness' is a description based on symptoms, not a diagnosis. By itself, it tells you nothing useful about causes or cures. Osk knew someone named Hrothgar who had powers similar to Breakpoint. Loss of self, and their struggles against it, seemed to be key issues for them both. So he's listening to her." "Well, I've known that Breakpoint's danger sense was protecting his self-identity, not just his life, for a while. And it might trigger if you tried to help him. But he's in more trouble than I thought if he'd rather die than let you do that mind probe. Are you sure that's really what's going on?" "No," said Yiskah. "His self-identity and life are so intertwined, there's no safe way for me check. That's why I agreed to let Osk handle him. I wouldn't try mind alteration without a damned good reason. But my good reasons and his might not match. If he lost self-control and lashed out using his weakness detection while I was inside his mind, I'd probably be hurt, but survive--but it would trigger my mind trap, and kill him. That could be what his danger sense is picking up." Jumping Spider stared at her coffee cup. "And he can't tell. And even if he's on track to die without help, he'd rather die as who he is now than lose his identity too." "Yes. But Osk thinks she can get him to the point where he will accept help--your help, if not mine." "Yeah. Problem with that. I'm not a nurturing type. I mess with minds, I don't heal them." "Neither do I. I did what I could. Telepathy can help a lot with diagnosis--if it's a problem I understand. And I have some experience. But there's no manual for telepathic treatment of mental disorders, and even if there were, what he did wouldn't be in it." Yiskah spread her hands. "Everyone thinks of me as the 'mind healer' because I brought Doc out of his coma. I got him from 'dying' to 'not dying'. I did not heal him--what healing he's done has been on his own. And best not get me started on trying to find an ethical way to practice mind surgery." Jumping Spider looked up and smiled. "Oh, someday I'd like to. But not today. So. Where do you want me to start our story?" "From when you first started working together, but focus on the personal and emotional, and differences between Breakpoint's reactions and what you expected. Anything you found surprising is a potential clue to helping him." "All right." She set down her cup, put her hands behind her head and looked thoughtful. "I've worked with quite a few people over the years, but I've never had a regular partner for field work. I got a heads up that Breakpoint was interested and a skimpy dossier from Doc a few years back. I did a little digging of my own. Two things stood out. "The IC agencies didn't have anything on Breakpoint's personal background. They assumed the synthetic ID Doc gave him was fake, but you can usually get some indirect stuff. But the nothing they had told me Breakpoint was good at deep cover. It piqued my interest. The other thing I found was that he was really good at adjusting to new surroundings and making surface contacts, but he never cultivated anything long-term. He always moved around." "Did that make you suspicious?" asked Yiskah. "A bit. I double-checked my alien under-cover agent theory after the good impression he made at our first meeting, but it didn't hold up. He's human, and after a bit of oblique questioning, I had an answer to his secrecy and his desire to be my partner. Not a complete one, but enough." "Oh?" "After the initial shine of being a superhero wore off, he did some hard thinking about root causes and how he could best apply his abilities. And he didn't trust the end of the Lost Years. He observed that it didn't matter that his power wasn't genetic--if the wrong people decided to find out if it was. I knew what that meant. He still had living family. And he might be dead to them, but he was never ever going to let anyone know who or where they were. So they didn't end up dead, period." "Did he know about your part in the demise of the Superagent program?" "He guessed. 'Professionally done, no useful clues, never solved, world is a better place now' has been circumstantial evidence pointing to me for a while now. I got a hint at a bit of well-hidden PTSD, and an obvious subtext that if any nation-state or organization started going after families again--of anyone, hero or villain--he'd be more than willing to help me take them out." "So you accepted him then?" "Oh, hell no. That just meant I didn't reject him automatically. There are good reasons I usually work alone, so I put him through the wringer first. I figured the most likely difficulties would be either the frequent lack of closure that comes with the territory, or him turning into Overprotective Man trying to cover me with his danger sense. Neither of those turned out to be a problem." Jumping Spider took another sip of coffee. "Then there were the potential coordination and psychological issues caused by my personal style. He surprised me there. He's good at picking up on cues and following my lead as needed, and it took me quite a while to find any way to fluster him or make him angry--and I'm very good at that." "I'm sure he researched you." "I can research, too. But about the only thing that seemed to bother him was calling his mental tricks 'Zen'; he said it was inaccurate and somewhat disrespectful, even if no one else was ever likely to say so. He was quite willing to lecture me on the finer points of the distinction for longer than I ever managed to keep listening. I stopped trying to wind him up that way after he changed tacks once, waited for me to notice, and got me with 'That was Zen; this is Tao.'" "Heh." "That was typical of how he handled my tests--deflection, humor, or turning them into a mutual game. I eventually took him on a trial mission and everything went fine. He was also right about just how much time his danger sense could save me. Infiltration and setup got way quicker with his help." "When did the personal attraction start?" "The physical attraction was pretty quick. I wanted to see how he handled frustration, so I told him I was going to push a few things as part of testing him. And that 'I'll tell you if you start to bother me' wasn't good enough--he needed to be clear about any boundaries that were important to him." "And was he?" "Technically, yes. I hit my own boundaries first. That's when I said the hell with it and called him good enough, even though I still had a few reservations." "Such as?" "You know how Doc won't take personal time? He knows it's important, but he's bad at it, thinks other things are more important, and won't listen when you try to tell him otherwise? And acts like he's trying to work off bad karma from destroying the world in a past life?" "Too well." Jumping Spider frowned. "Breakpoint is socially perceptive and skilled--but social connections are for work and cover. He won't take personal time because he doesn't think it's important for him. Which makes him sound like a sociopath, but he's not. He knows it's important for other people, he's considerate, and he listens. Which doesn't fit." "It fits with how most people see The Volunteer. And Breakpoint used that image as his model. But the Volunteer is asexual, and Breakpoint isn't." Jumping Spider snorted. "Damned right he isn't. Which made it interesting that I had so much trouble reading him. It set off a few alarm bells. But he was an excellent partner. Then things started getting personal for me." "Was there a specific trigger?" "Oh yeah. I needed some time off after a long mission. Beach time in the Med. I knew he needed time too, he'd gotten hit by several big false alarms while we were together." "Do you know what caused them?" "One was Flicker; I'm not sure about the others. I asked him how he was going to unwind, and he gave me some BS about putting in some martial arts practice time. I told him that wasn't healthy; he should come with me. He pointed out we needed a cover. So I told him we'd be NIA agents, a married couple on our anniversary, with secondary cover as contractors." Jumping Spider snapped her fingers. "And like that, I had a Stepford husband." Yiskah considered what she was picking up from her mind scan. "That has a lot of implications. Could you give an example?" "Sure. We attracted a fair amount of attention--that's why we needed a cover if we were going to relax--and I lost count of the number of times strangers told me how lucky I was, or, more often, how lucky we were. And then came the boots." "The boots?" Jumping spider nodded to where her jump boots were leaning against the wall. "Boots matter a lot to me. I need both ankle and knee support for safe landings. That's why I wear thigh-highs. I'd been thinking of changing my look for a while, and I saw a nice pair in a shop with a design that might be compatible with the right kind of reinforcement, so I bought them to see if they were comfortable enough to wear for very long." She laughed. "They weren't. I ended up back at the hotel with sore feet. Breakpoint helped me take the boots off. Then started to rub my feet. I told him he didn't have to do that. And do you know what he said?" "What?" "'Your husband would rub your feet.'" Vivid imagery went with that memory. "Ah," said Yiskah. "It wasn't--" "That wasn't cover." Jumping Spider smiled. "Cover was his excuse. And then he rubbed my feet--using his power." "Was that as good as--" "Better." "Oh." "When he finally finished, I didn't say anything or move for a little bit. Then I told him that my husband would also make love to me. And I very much wanted him to." Jumping Spider sighed. "And his danger sense went off." "How did he handle it? He mentioned to me that you were frustrated." "He handled it with good humor, and I was fine--I was more frustrated after our second try. And it wasn't just sexual frustration, it was intel analysis frustration. I couldn't figure out what it meant, and he didn't know." "And you're expert at extracting information from sexual reactions." "Yep. They're like a canary in a coal mine for a lot of things people try to hide. But his trigger wouldn't be warning away from starting a relationship--we already had one. I didn't think it was a specific sexual problem of his, but I couldn't completely rule it out until you did. But the real puzzler was why his danger sense didn't go off before he started to rub my feet--it was inevitable I was going to ask at that point." Yiskah leaned back. "It's possible it was an early warning to you, precisely because it was your expertise. He's good at extracting signal from the noise of his danger sense, but it's limited for long-term dangers. He triggers off some boundaries because they're the only obvious point for a warning." "Yeah. We talked about that. It can work like a warning sign at the top of a ridge. It's not because the ridge is dangerous; it's for something on the other side. The ridge is just the easiest place to see the sign." Jumping Spider waved a hand. "But he couldn't read the sign. And neither could I. He said he'd work on it, so I was willing to wait. Then." Yiskah frowned. "He was reluctant to reveal he can see signs like that at all. And he downplayed how much the false alarms and noise wear at him. Flicker seems to be a frequent source, and he doesn't want her to know. Is that why he resisted coming here?" "Unless she was gone or busy, yes. All her Database snooping didn't help, either. Neither of us know exactly why his danger sense warns him away from her--there are so many possible good reasons. But Breakpoint wanted to keep a connection, and stay on good terms with her, no matter what. Two words paid for it all, he said. I was there when he yanked out his phone, hit the emergency call, and said them, so I can't argue." "What were they?" "'Earthquake. Japan.'" "Ah." "So he definitely didn't want Flicker to find out how badly he got wrecked during her battle with the Xelian fleet." "That was a difficult time for many of us," said Yiskah dryly. Jumping Spider shook her head. "Most of it didn't faze him. Not the Volunteer, not the bombardment starting, not Flicker setting the sky on fire with her rocks. But for about five minutes in the middle, she started ending the world, at least for him. Over and over. Every few seconds. Breakpoint could feel it coming every time, and he lost it. Started babbling, and was completely helpless. We were on stakeout together, waiting to catch that assassin, and I had to hold him--I was worried he might hurt himself." "I got only a hint from my mind scan, of something he was hiding well." "He doesn't remember most of it. Post-traumatic amnesia. He didn't even remember the big power transformer next door blowing up, and we were about thirty feet away--pieces of it came flying through the window. The only part he does remember is the end, when he was crying and babbling how the world kept ending, but only he could hear the echoes. And everything was dangerous, because everyone was dying anyway, so he was useless. I just held him and made soothing noises. Then, a little bit after everything else stopped, so did he. He got this stricken look of embarrassment, pulled himself together, and said he was okay. I took a little convincing." "Understandable." "Turns out his babbling was triggering him, too, but he couldn't tell until afterwards because he was overloaded. He was lying when he said he was okay, but he got his act together, said I'd kept him alive, and he was ready. We had to move--the transformer blowing meant our spot wasn't inconspicuous anymore. But his danger sense was working again, and we caught the fellow with the virus sprayer just before he got to Donner. You know the rest of that story." "And there was no way you were going to let things go after that." "No. Besides whatever that cost him, Breakpoint had at least one long term problem he didn't understand, we'd already had a clear warning, and he could no longer pretend--to me--that his danger sense would necessarily protect him. He needed help. My problem was arranging the logistics without setting him off. Can I just say that trying to get someone with danger sense to stop stalling is a royal pain?" "Yes." Yiskah smiled. "You managed, though." "But you can't help him." "I've already helped him--I just can't directly fix his problems. But I don't trigger his danger sense for boundary crossings, because of my mind trap. I have to do something specific. That's what let me find out what I did, bring in Osk, and get him to the point he was willing to listen. He'd never have trusted her enough, otherwise. You still don't." Jumping Spider smiled. "I'm still alive because I'm a nasty, suspicious person. Flicker's Choosers are old, smart survivors. I don't forget who they worked for and with, and for how long--and how much Flicker, DASI, and you don't know about their history." "She hasn't set off Breakpoint's danger sense, and she's not even trying to evade it." "Oh, I believe she'll help him if she can. That's not the same thing as trusting her." "Fair enough. But I need to update her. Are you okay with that?" A half-smile. "To help him? I said I was. Go ahead." "Done," Yiskah said, after a short bit of mental communing. "And now we wait." ***** Jumping Spider waved at the display. They'd been talking for about an hour. "No, it was easy to see why she needed to be at least two people. DASI and Black Swan. Good Cop and Bad Cop. Omnipresent but trustworthy, if mostly invisible and incomprehensible, versus performance personified, scary and dangerous. The 'parking ticket' plan worries me, though." "Why?" said Yiskah. "Because of how it will be perceived by authoritarian regimes. I think she's trying to get someone to make a mistake, probably Russia, but they aren't stupid enough to try to nuke her without a lot more provocation that she's given so far." "If you accepted Stella's offer, you'd know." "A human director of EDU Intelligence would be mostly a figurehead. And it's a desk job. Hell no. Not unless my knees go, and I can probably talk Doc into building me new ones if they do. I'm more useful--" "Hang on. Update from Osk." ***** Breakpoint had changed back into his coverall and carried his crowbar. He also wore a pack; he was clearly planning a trip. Osk had accompanied him, then left to give them privacy. "It's no quick fix, but I didn't expect one, and there's no point in delaying anymore," he said. "I've done too much of that already." He nodded to Jumping Spider, who snorted. "We got here," she said. "Thanks to you. But I owe you both a full explanation first." "I'm a bit curious about why you think Osk knows enough to guide you through this." He nodded. "Putting minds together from pieces that don't always fit is part of what Choosers do. That's where einherjar came from. It's tricky, but Osk is good at it. Some other Choosers weren't as good--and their einherjar struggled. Osk has been helping those for more than a hundred years. The key is to take things slowly. My first step is a trip to the Nine Worlds." "Where will you go?" asked Yiskah. "A place called Ending Falls, to start." "Ominous name," said Jumping Spider. "It's called Beginning Falls, too," he said. "The name for it means both. The stream from Flicker's pool joins several others, and the Falls are where it meets the sea." Yiskah frowned. "I think Journeyman once got into trouble there." "Osk mentioned that. It dispels illusions and concealment--and someone saw him. But it won't directly harm a human, and it weakens the hold of obsessions and false visions. It's a traditional first stop for beings with power who have screwed something up and are trying to start fresh. And it helps with the Seer's Madness. Lif uses it." "Sounds reasonable," said Yiskah. "Then what?" "I can't work continuously on what I need to do. I'll need to recover after each incremental change. And what I do during the recovery time is pretty important. I'm going to work with Osk to help out in the Nine Worlds. There are a lot of places that are filled with the magical equivalent of old landmines and unexploded bombs. And people live in them. They farm in them. Do you know how dangerous it is to be a farmer there? And they look out for each other, but my danger sense could be a big help. And there are these things called void worms that--" "You miss helping people," said Jumping Spider. "Yes," he said. "Helping them, and not having to worry afterwards." "Ah. Occupational therapy." "Sort of. DASI says the sessions with Osk sound more like cognitive behavioral therapy for seers. I'll be gone for a week or two, and probably make regular trips for a while after that. We'll see how things go." He paused. "Do you think you'll be working here when I get back?" Jumping Spider met his eyes. "Depends. Plenty I want to learn about, but times are changing fast. Might need to move in a hurry. But you have my number. Call." "Do you still--" "Yes." "Ah, there's more than one--" "Still yes. I pushed you because you needed the push and I could not fool you. Not because I wanted you gone." Another pause. "I don't--" "How many times do I have to say yes before you'll listen?" Breakpoint looked down and swallowed. "The Falls will help. I'm not better yet--but I believe better is possible now. That's a big change already. Thank you." He looked up again, at Yiskah. "And thank you for finding the right way to trick me." Yiskah smiled. "Would that my other work were half as pleasant." "Now. Osk said this would help but it had to be my initiative. My choice." He took a deep breath. "Two truths. Not so much what I've been hiding, but why. You've both already picked up that my fear reactions aren't quite normal." "Yes," said Yiskah. "I assumed you changed them as part of your reshaping, to better adapt to your danger sense. Which seemed a bit risky. But the whole thing was risky." "It was. But I didn't have a lot of choice. I didn't start studying martial arts and meditation just because I thought they were cool. And I didn't pick the Volunteer as a role model just because he was a hero. Here's a riddle for you: How do you tell the difference between danger sense with a lot of false positives and panic disorder?" "Oh. Shit." "Yeah. I don't know how bad my anxiety would have been without my danger sense, but it doesn't really matter. With it, I had a severe problem. I didn't even have the luxury of being able to tell myself that it was all in my mind. Because some of it wasn't. I was afraid all the time. Either I was triggered, trying to tell if it was for something real, or worrying about the next trigger." "Ouch." "And I quickly discovered that every medication available made it worse--because they damped my ability to distinguish true signals more than they helped with the false." "Is that the full reason it's dangerous for you to drink alcohol?" asked Jumping Spider. "Yep." Another deep breath. "And now you probably have enough information to track down my family through medical records." "There was a classic fear spike," said Yiskah. "Not associated with danger, though." "An old friend. Going to have to let some of them back out as I adjust." He turned to Jumping Spider. "And some of them will probably be about you. That happened for family and anyone I got close to. And even the true triggers... well, for someone else, I often got nothing but the spike. I couldn't tell whether they were about to be hit by a car or their dog was about to spill their drink by wagging its tail." Jumping Spider smiled. "DANGERINT has always been noisy. Still beats most SIGINT. I'll deal like I always have. And minor dangers for me are rare--they get crowded out by the competition." "I know," he said softly. "That's one reason I picked you. I couldn't tell you the full story because I'd never have passed your tests if I had." "Whoops. Sorry about that. Paranoia is a bitch sometimes, even if there are people out to get you. Doesn't matter now." Breakpoint closed his eyes and took another breath. "You do too deserve her," said Yiskah. "And she deserves you." "I was getting there," he said. "I know. But breaking negative ideation loops is something I can help with, when you aren't trying to hide them." "But you won't always--" "Be on Earth after you get back? Not always, but often. Distance isn't an obstacle to telepathy, and you have my number, too." She smiled. "Call." "All right. I better go." Jumping Spider stepped forward and gave him a long hug. "Don't kill any dragons I wouldn't." "I won't. You take care." Breakpoint finally stepped back and raised his crowbar in a salute. "Thank you again, Yiskah, for one hell of a sparring match." "My pleasure," said Yiskah. He smiled at that, then turned and went out the door.

#FallofDocFuture #FallMisc #Maker's Ark

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