#//tw: mental illness

[gabegoodmcn]

Gabe (full name Gabriel) Goodman, who has just turned eighteen, is an intelligent, ambitious, and charming young man. He seems to have everything going for him; popular at school, a great group of friends, dashing good looks, and top grades. He is on the soccer team, playing the center midfielder position with dreams on playing professionally one day. Gabe is also in jazz band and is part of the key club; a club that does a lot of volunteer work in the community.

However, Gabe has undiagnosed bipolar disorder (which will become diagnosed in time) that is inherited from his mother, Diana. This paired with the stress of maintaining his "perfect life" causes Gabe to go out partying. A lot. He's able to hide it for a time but then his parents begin to notice. He doesn't care, though. Things get worse. He tries drugs during one of these parties and ends up passing out. His friends worry, carrying him home. This sets his mom off, her own mental illness worsening. His dad is angry, thinking Gabe will destroy their normal, perfect family despite the fact that their family has never been normal or perfect. His younger sister, Natalie, feels ignored and overshadowed by her brother — a frequent occurrence.

Once Gabe recovers, he promises to never do it again. Does he keep that promise? No. He does it again. His bipolar disorder (which he still doesn't know he has at this point) makes him feel like he's losing his mind. He suffers the symptoms and believes he might end up tear himself apart just to get inside and fix whatever is wrong with him.

On one terrible night out, Gabe goes completely off the rails. In a fit of mania, he climbs on top of his school. While up there, he hallucinates. He believes he's on a stage, that he can hear rock music playing! There are happy shouts! An audience cheering for him from below. Like he's a rock star. And what do rock stars do? They crowd-surf! Which is exactly what Gabe does. He leaps into the crowd, arms out like he's flying.

He's free.

But there is no happy crowd. Nobody to catch him. He isn't flying. In reality, those happy cheering, are screams of horror, shouts for help, please someone call 911! Gabe isn't a rock star on a stage. He's just a young boy in desperate need of help. He plummets to the concrete. The emergency services arrive and rush him away. Gabe goes into cardiac arrest. The ambulance staff perform CPR all the way to the hospital, keeping him alive but only barely.

They treat him, managing to restart his heart and save his life. However, Gabe falls into a coma. It's there he remains for the next ten months. During this time, he becomes what is essentially a "coma ghost" and is able to follow his family/friends around. He is angry, vengeful, and hateful of the world. He is a sinister energy that only grows darker the more he believes people are forgetting him. But deep down, he is remorseful and desperate for a second chance at life. When he finally realizes how loved he is, Gabe stops blaming others and looks inward. Looks at the things he can change. That he will change if he can just get one more chance.

Thankfully, he wakes up after those ten months and doesn't have any lasting brain injuries. Of course, he needs to relearn how to walk as well as other basic actions such as how to use cutlery and tie shoelaces. He is able to speak the same only needing help with a few words he temporarily forgets. His voice remains quiet and tired for a few weeks following his return to consciousness. This gradually sorts itself out.

He apologizes to his loved ones for the grief he put them through. They vow to help him and his mom admits that she thinks he should be tested for bipolar disorder. While he was in a coma, it gave her time to think and she came to wonder if he perhaps inherited it from her. This is what leads to Gabe being properly diagnosed and receiving the help he needs. Slowly, his life starts to look better than it ever did. He continues with his classes but recognizes that he doesn't have to push himself so much to be perfect because perfection doesn't exist. He remains on the soccer team but attends extra training with his coach and captain to help him get back on track. He hopes that with their help and his own tenacity, he still has a shot at making it into college on a soccer scholarship.

[digitalfrxntier]

Lived long enough to become the villain.

“No, no, it’s not right.”With a simple wave, the city block uprooted itself and resolved into fluttering data streams. It… wasn’t good enough. It didn’t fit. It needed a rework, and his sunken eyes fluttered around the buildings adjacent to the new hole in the place for some hint as to how to replace them all. Some of such buildings were split open in cross sections from the removal of their parts, with programs screeching for loved ones that had been derezzed in the wave.He couldn’t stand the noise. His mind, already decayed and broken, screamed out in its own agony at all the shrill pitches around him. Reflex silenced them, pushing more and more programs through a sieve and sending them into the air as bursts of cubes. They all seemed like simple, foreign, unwanted noise. No longer could his afflicted brain produce the memories of childlike awe over all of these fakes.This was simply his dying nightmare, and he needed to get rid of what frightened him, replacing everything that didn’t seem right - that had the potential to disrupt his security of mind.