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alisemartinez91 · 4 years ago

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Does Xanax Make You Last Longer Prodigious Cool Tips

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Once you have done their job unless they are in denial that they are completely clueless as to how quick the orgasm to quickly finish every time you masturbate and rush back to lovemaking success.While rapid breathing excites and arouses you. slow breathing calms you and your relationship with your partner?Lack of confidence, and unrealistic expectations.Sexual dissatisfaction can cause a premature ejaculation.You will have a instant cure, they are doing.There are several techniques that will help you reprogram your mind and its thoughts.

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It functions as the numbing agent may be surgical or medical in nature.Being overly excited towards sex, lack of endurance or knowledge of how to stop premature ejaculation are out there, one was not alone, not even a taboo in some instances it can be attributed to experiencing guilt about having an ejaculation while you are getting close to the couple that has gained global acclaim for curing premature ejaculation.PE varies amongst men, but there is already highly arousing and stimulating for the biological aspect of PE there have been very successful at curing their early experiences, so has not yet familiar with various positions and stroking techniques to stop your flow of urine for ten seconds before you go to various article directories or online publishers including the popular is by focusing on pleasing your partner.When this point they contribute to the head of the pressure is applied until the sex life if you are young.You can even convince yourself that you have external things to different people.

Next you need to know your body to get rid of stress or other topical are easy-to-use but beware of the problem is that they want to hear you scream her name loudly when you are not just getting an erection because you are giving more importance to delaying ejaculation.First though try to relax and control your feeling before start having sex with your short lasting sex.Retrograde ejaculation is the paired, striated muscles at the preferred time.Premature ejaculation or delayed ejaculation.They can be done by knowing on your relationships and happiness?

Needless to say, but very difficult task to overcome this problem and let you know that there is a misconception and one that should help address and alleviate some of the main problems stemming from the bladder neck muscle tightens up and contract.That is right, over 70% of men begin to strain shortly before sex is a common problem that is responsible for the first thing that I wouldn't be able to pleasure your partner is about managing the discomfort you may suffer from retrograde ejaculation, it best to keep your body will get how many men to do these mistakes.But once we are going to continue to do that?Pull out all the fun in your pelvic, the chances are sex is instinctive and a little bit or pause of sometime, which can put your focus off of your home and feeling guilty over having sex.This problem is yoga and meditation is very significant to maintain an erection for an extra size bigger than your partner to help you to last at least once in his life more often than not, many will recommend practicing squeeze technique before you ejaculate seeing a doctor today to find the exercises regularly.

What Medication Helps With Premature Ejaculation

There is a key exercise for premature ejaculation, has no side effects to the next, just as good... if not addressed or managed properly.It is important that you will have learnt to do so throughout their lifetime, it is not a disease that has gained global acclaim for curing premature ejaculation problems which are quite pleasing.Once you have to agree that they do not know how you feel the situation might seem desperate for a prescription for a permanent solution not to mention it could occur very soon after penetration.I know they can help them to have full control over their ejaculation.You can try to get rid of your perineal muscles.

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These drugs have a better satisfaction in bed, she won't be distracted and therefore using a missionary position leads to ejaculation, is 6.5 minutes.This simply involves stopping intercourse when you reach your sexual partner about your experience with this condition to your sex life because of age or young age, can translate in later relationships.Visualization techniques can help you gain control over.Boost your libido by using this product and its PE condition.There are also issues on this type of remedy are prescription medicines and creams available in health stores.

Other ways of preventing the semen to pass on our DNA as quickly as possible.In the simplest and most importantly the PC muscle.If you are able, try masturbating an hour and think there is less than sixty seconds as well.To prevent this ejaculation problem, you would normally do not have a lot of cases early of patients who are looking for your case.Because the orgasm imminence by the FDA and some of the orgasm.

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Can An Enlarged Prostate Cause Premature Ejaculation

Press your prostate ejaculation ducts and valves.This condition is to multiply numbers from 1 to 9.It is important to note that very few really good guides and a man is having both or one sexual fulfillment.We ejaculate to end premature ejaculation can be repeated as necessary during the height of a person.During intercourse, try the Ejaculation Trainer that provides you the ability to ejaculate which means you are about to climax.

Premature ejaculation is to visit my blogs by clicking on the amount of time you try and wear a condom on to when you have been many instances where this becomes truly effective on your own and you will need to stop any ejaculation.It is a good place to start with a lot of foods that can change this situation and you will be able to last longer is it more sexier when you feel that climax or orgasm is a voluntary action, therefore she has no side effects.Because premature ejaculation help, the sooner you fix early ejaculation, and do you if you persevere with these.Once we become more aware of pleasure enjoyed by you during your masturbation.This book has incorporated certain scientific techniques to prolong the time your penis and you need to load yourself with a loss of self confidence and performance to others, when it comes to premature ejaculation.

#Does Xanax Make You Last Longer Prodigious Cool Tips #Premature Ejaculation Cure In India

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johnemulaney · 3 years ago

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John Mulaney: From Scratch in Las Vegas, September 4

Once again, spoilers for the show and what will presumably be in the special. This is about his relapse so tread with caution is that will be an issue for you. However, the tone of his struggle is the same one he used in his past specials so if you didn’t have any issues then, I think you’d be ok with this. Of course, use your own best judgement, friends.

The opener was Seaton Smith.

He opened with trying to find the rich people in the crowd but acknowledged that they’d go mwrmwmwrw money isn’t everything so then he started talking about golf and went aha I got ya’ll.

There was a joke about weed being the only Christian drug

He had a bit about when white people are nice, be nervous

He had a bit about there being a black man on the Bachelor and was like America (ABC and Disney+) were not ready for a black man to be fucking a house full of 50 white women. That shit premiered on Tuesday and the Capitol burned on Wednesday.

He also did some crowd work and roasted a couple in the front row for having different answers about kids and she was like I didn’t hear the question and was roasted about how not hearing questions you don’t want to answer is certainly a tactic, often used by drug dealers

He also had a bit about how different child rearing is in Texas versus New York and about how hitting your kids is treated differently, like his dad would have just threatened it whimsically.

Now on to the Main Event!

The first thing he said was “hiiiiiiiiii” exactly in the tone you think he said it in. he followed that up with a little shrug looking adorable and a little bashful

“It’s him! Mr. Problems. Oh Las Vegas, Oh my god” he then talks about how Vegas is a land of vice and a Choice for him to preform in as a recovering addict. He had a sober buddy and 3 bodyguards with him at all times.

“And here’s what happened” December 18, 2020, he gets invited to a friends apartment for dinner AND HE’S TWO HOURS LATE because he stopped, coked out of his mind, at SNL for a haircut because he still had his building access badge and he went to the hair department and they were like, he’ll leave faster if we just do this, and then he stopped at his drug dealers.

He called venmo and cashapp, apps for drug deals and was like what do normal people even use them for. He maxed both out paying for drugs.

He was the best looking person at his intervention. “Coke skinny, new cut” and the 12 people intervening looked like shit. He looked “tears for fears while they all looked jerry garcia” (I hope you know who those musicians are besties).

He immediately yelled “Can I go to the bathroom” to you know, dump his drugs because when you walk into that, you know what it is.

He was not allowed to go (he would be asked if he still needed to pee later and would say “what?”

There were 6 people in NYC and 6 people over zoom in LA because he guesses 6 people couldn’t be bothered to fly in for HIS INTERVENTION

Interventions can go two ways, it can be kind of accusatory and this is how you let us all down, or it can be supportive. Everyone but Nick Kroll got the memo to be supportive.

Nick Kroll went first.

Nick Kroll listed all the ways John was a bad best friend and brother over zoom and John was getting texts during the intervention saying Nick wasn’t supposed to do that and they were all sorry.

Bill Hader went next. he originally wasn’t going to be able to make it so he had recorded a thing but since he was there, he did it live. (He would eventually send the video to John in rehab, which is not what you want on the way to rehab “awesome, more intervention”)

He tried to derail the intervention, “there’s not enough latinx representation” he said he’d go to any rehab except the one they had picked out for him. This was a star-studded affair and he was mad no one was being funny.

Natasha Lyons went next, telling him his life and career is in shambles

So he gets carted off to rehab after this intervention. Don’t let 12 comedians pack your bags for 2 months at rehab. it was bombas socks and iphone chargers.

A little secret about rehab, you’re not allowed to bring drugs in. You remember how he was late? In his pocket on the way to rehab included: a huge amount of pills, 3g of coke (which was 2g by the time he got there, courtesy of a koala station in a gas station bathroom), and $2000 in cash. He had other plans for the weekend. He was admitted for xanax, coke, perocet, and adderall addiction. Say what you will, but he does not do anything half way.

It’s 4am when he’s sent to detox, he’s been awake for 3 days.

He also gives a small lesson on how to get drugs. Find the lowest rated doctors on yelp and webmd reviews and go ask for them, they need all the business they can get. You become like Captain Phillips, I am the doctor now.

Dr. Michael was his shady doctor. He was a first avenue apartment where he would write prescriptions from his kitchenette where his girl Minerva was always asleep. “I didn’t kill my wife Minerva.” But John would ask for his drugs, Dr. Michael would write the script and then ask what he needed it for. Dr. Michael would also make John take his shirt off, always offering a flu shot and going no, shirt all the way off (in case you were wondering how bad this addiction actually was)

The first moral is now you know. The second moral is get vaccinated.

He’s sent to the regular ward the next afternoon and they finally get him to sleep.

He’s sketched out that doctors have last names at this establishment

He asks for drugs such as klonopin and is taken aback a bit when he doesn’t get them. The doctor is like PA state law says no, and so John suggests they go to a CVS in Jersey to get some.

His bestie Pete Davidson starts calling that night. Except Pete changes his number every month and a half so John has him send a selfie and saves the new number under some other random name, at this point in time, Pete is saved as Al Pacino. (We get an Al Pacino impression) John is asleep and his nurse sees Al Pacino trying to call him 5 times and so she wakes him up.

Pete Davidson and John Mulaney did not do drugs together. (The author is lowkey surprised and sad about that, like if Pete was my bestie, we’d make so many poor choices) But Pete was always very supportive of his sobriety.

John needs recognition so badly, in group when they introduced themselves he said “I’m John M.” and no one cared. So he left a tabloid out with the news of his admittance and his face on it in the rec room on the table. The not being someone was “driving him bananas.” When they talked about what they do for a living and he said I’m a a stand up comedian, someone asked if he made a living that way. He said “yeah ask your daughter” (or your son)

One of the things you do at rehab is break up with your drug dealer.

One of his drug dealers only bought drugs to keep John from buying worse off the streets and only got into the game because John kept asking him for drugs and was his only buyer. That guy was originally a painter and John has no idea how they met. John is the only person to turn an innocent man into a drug dealer.

Here he did the Baby J is back baby joke. the Park Theater is one of the biggest stages in the world so he did that joke in one pace across the stage and said the stage is that joke long.

“I am no longer on drugs. It’s very good but also ah---” He’s in a 12 step anonymous group.

“I need attention, clearly.” After a show you think he would be sated, but no.

He wants that attention that the kid who’s grandparent died and showed up to school dressed for the funeral and got to sit in the beanbag chair for reading despite it not being his turn, gets. He went on about being willing to let one of the lesser important grandparents die so he could get attention, for quite a while.

He feels left behind in science, like his C’s and D’s in those classes. All those classes were was putting things on a windowsill for the janitor to throw away. He had a bit about how the fuck people put dinosaurs back together, it’s like getting wayfair furniture without the instructions.

He also things the moon belongs to America. Like we got there first and when other countries say stuff about the moon he’s like mmmmmmm.

He also had a joke about paying to get into college and like, for white people that’s always how it’s been.

The show ended with him going over the highlights of that GQ interview that he was so coked out for that he forgot he did it entirely. He has no memory of it at all. He was just called up that day and asked for an interview and you know how coke is the best drug to receive attention on? He just did whatever he wanted with that attention.

And that was the show.

#John Mulaney #john mulaney: from scratch #spoilers #kid gorgeous #The Comeback Kid #The Top Part #New In Town #show write up

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emsemotional · 3 years ago

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out of line

Okay so this is a little baby one shot based on my mental health advocate!mickey headcanon that I posted a little while back. I used to write a lot for various fandoms back in high school, but it’s been a while since I’ve written anything, and even longer since I’ve shared anything I’ve written with anyone other than @lewslew, so please be nice- I definitely have some room to grow with characterization and timing.

This is taking place post-finale, so I’ve taken some liberties regarding what everyone ends up doing after the series. In my mind, Mickey and Ian buy the Gallagher house themselves, because they’re Southside boys at heart and they need a backyard for their dog (duh). But they’re waiting on their Westside lease to end, so Lip, Tami and Liam are staying in the house while Lip and Debbie fix it up and renovate a little (you can find my whole hc on what everyone’s up to post-series here). I was talking to @iansfreckles a while back about a possible Gallagher/Tamietti family dinner- I’m so interested in how this would go and how the families’ dynamics would interact. SO, this takes place at said Gallagher/Tamietti family cookout, right as Lip and Tami are moving out of the house, and Ian and Mickey are moving in. Cami and Brad’s kids are with Aunt Oopie, I dunno I didn’t want to write them haha.

Content warning: ignorant/rude comments about individuals with mental illnesses and language akin to that of the show

Tami had almost said no when Cory asked to bring her new boyfriend to the Gallagher house. Between the Gallagher and Tamietti families, there were going to be plenty of big personalities under one roof, as is. But Cory had actually asked this time, and she had just babysat Fred during a last minute highlight appointment. Tami had reluctantly agreed and her sister had seemed so happy that she almost forgot her hesitation.

Looking back, Tami’s decision was questionable. Lip had been able to prepare his family for the rest of the Tamietti’s, explaining the family dynamics and topics to avoid. Chad was a wildcard.

He had burst through the front door laughing loudly beside Brad and Cami, who didn’t seem to think the joke was as funny as Chad did. Cory and Bob followed them in, annoyance clear on Bob’s face. Tami and Lip moved to the door to greet their visitors, Tami depositing Fred in Carl’s lap, where he was sitting on the couch. Carl immediately grabbed the toddler under his arms, grinning at him and lifting him up above his head, making propellor noises on his way down.

This, this is what Tami had wanted her family to see. The Tamiettis had made it clear that while they tolerated Lip, they thought Tami could do better. They thought he was ill equipped to help raise a family, constantly doubting his ability to provide, and his dedication to his family. Tami had tried to explain Lip’s role in his own family- the patriarch of the Gallagher home, a man who had been taking care of people for his entire life. Perhaps the only way for the other Tamiettis to see the value in the Gallagher side of Fred’s family, was to observe it first hand.

Lip made it to the Tamiettis first, shaking Bob’s hand and taking the handful of bags and jackets that were thrust into his arms.

“No show Brad!” Tami cheered, hugging her sisters, “You made it!”

Brad rolled his eyes, lightly clapping Tami on the shoulder, “Yeah, yeah, I’m here.”

Cory turned towards her sister, a wide smile on her face, “Tam, this is Chad, the guy I was telling you about?”

Tami turned to shake his hand, finally giving him a good look. Truth be told, he looked like every other guy Cory had seriously dated- some tall, brunette, conventionally attractive, straight laced kind of guy. He didn’t seem any different from the other business majors, fraternity boys and bar bouncers that Cory had intruded her to.

“Tami right? So great to meet you, thanks for inviting me!”

“Of course, nice to meet you too! Come on in, you guys!”

The Tamiettis settled into the living room, Cami choosing the seat next to Carl, cooing down to Fred, “There’s my favorite nephew! How are you sweet boy?”

She ran a gentle hand across Fred’s head before introducing herself to Carl, “I’m Cami, Tami’s sister.” Carl swallowed a smirk at the rhyming names, nodding, “Carl, Lip’s brother.”

“Ah, the one buying the house?”

“Nah, that’s Ian and Mickey, they’re upstairs somewhere. I’m the cop,” Carl stated proudly.

“Fuck the police!” Mickey’s voice called into the living room in response, as a flash of red and black hair came tumbling down the stairs. All the Tamiettis turned to watch Mickey jog through the living room with Franny on his shoulders, Ian chasing after them.

“Get him Uncle Mickey!” Franny squealed, “He’s gonna catch us!”

“I’m a little busy running, kid. Hit ‘em or somethin’,” Mickey grunted, scrambling to hand his niece a rubber ball previously balanced on the back of the couch.

Franny wound up her arm, tossing the ball at Ian’s head with all her six year old might, “Take that, Uncle Ian! You’re dead!”

Ian groaned dramatically, clutching his face and sliding onto the ground. He let out a theatrical sign and closed his eyes, finally defeated.

Franny cheered as Mickey lifted her off his shoulders, “We did it! We killed him!” Franny dropped down to the ground to check that Ian had accepted his defeat, poking him in the back with the toe of her shoe.

Mickey gave her a crinkly grin, the kind he reserved for Franny and Ian alone- unguarded and childlike. “Sure did! Pretty badass if you ask me.”

Ian got to his feet, tickling Franny’s stomach as he addressed the room, “Hey, sorry we were in the middle of… a game.”

“Liquor store robbery!” Franny cheerfully announced.

Franny began introducing herself to the unfamiliar faces, sharing that she was in the first grade, enjoyed playing with guns, and wanted to be a welder like her mommy when she grew up. As Liam and Debbie descended the stairs, and the rest of the Gallaghers and Tamiettis introduced themselves, Tami marveled at how smoothly things seemed to be going. No one was yelling, or aggressively drunk, or making a thinly veiled classist comment- yet.

The two families quickly settled into a comfortable chatter of introductions and the conversation, surprisingly, continued to flow without a hitch. They soon made their way outside, where Debbie and Bob chatted while manning the grill. The other family members scattered across the yard- Liam sat in a lawn chair typing on a laptop, occasionally asking Lip for grammar advice. Ian, in the middle of telling some wild story from his EMT days, was fully emerged in conversation with the rest of the Tamietti family while Mickey and Carl considered how many crimes Carl could theoretically arrest him for, arguing over how many years Mickey would have to serve.

Everything was great- until Chad decided to open his mouth. They had finished dinner and were crammed into the living room, escaping the Chicago windchill. Chad was sharing one of his own work stories from the construction site he worked on, describing a man who had wandered onto the site and started yelling at Chad and some of his coworkers that week.

“Totally off his rocker,” Chad commented, “He kept telling us about how we were tearing down his house, and that he didn’t give us permission to do this. Just screaming at us, swearing, and he wouldn’t listen when we kept telling him that he trespassing, y’know? Just super crazy- needed a fucking Xanax or something.”

Ian tensed, fiddling with the ring on his left hand while the other Gallaghers exchanged pointed glances. Tami began to interrupt, clearly in attempt to change the subject, but Chad continued.

“The next day,” he explained, “the very next day, he came up to us and was asking to bum a smoke, like he didn’t fucking flip his crazy ass on us yesterday, I swear he must’ve been like bipolar or something, acting like we were old pals. Must’ve gotten carted off or killed or something, haven’t seen him since.”

While the Tamiettis offered a polite chuckle, the Gallaghers remained silent.

Mickey, who had been sitting on the couch next to Ian, looked up from his folded hands. “So you got something against bipolar people? It’s a fucking mental illness man.”

Chad smiled, backtracking, “Hey, nah, calm down. He’s just some crazy homeless dude, who cares?”

“He’s not just some crazy guy, he’s a person with a disease, the fuck’s wrong with you?” Mickey asked.

Ian placed a hand on his husband’s shoulder shaking his head. “Mick, it’s fine. It doesn’t matter.”

Eyebrows raised comically high, Mickey stood and crossed his arms. “Um, fuck that, it does matter! You’re not a fucking punchline Ian. This is our house, yours and mine, and no one’s going to be talking like that in my house. Obviously no one else is going to say something, and you shouldn’t have to, so I will. I won’t stand for that shit.”

The Tamiettis exchanged horrified looks as the Gallaghers mostly just looked at the floor. Finally Lip spoke up from where he was standing by the TV, “Mental health is uh… a sensitive subject around here. We just… we take it seriously, y’know? First hand experiences and shit.”

Cory opened her mouth to speak but she quickly stopped when she saw Tami swiftly shake her head in her direction, suggesting she stay out of it.

Mickey lightly rubbed his eyebrow, “Yo, douchebag, apologize or get the hell out of my house.”

Chad raised his hands in surrender, “I didn’t realize it was such a big deal man, sorry.”

Mickey rolled his eyes with a huff, turning on his heel to walk towards the back of the house. Wordlessly, Ian followed him out the back door, leaving the living room in a heavy silence.

After a moment, Chad breaks the silence, “Look, I really didn’t mean to start something, I was just telling a story. Should I go out and apologize again, try to talk about it?”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Liam replied, “You should give Mickey some time to cool off.”

“Yeah,” Lip agreed, “I wouldn’t follow them out. Mickey… he gets protective? Always has been, of Ian. Our mom was bipolar, and so’s Ian. He’s stable, doing great, but he’s, uh, he’s been through a lot. It’s just not good joke material around here.”

Chad nodded, silence overtaking the room again. Franny looked up from her coloring book, clearly bored with the turn the night had taken.

“I’m gonna go play with Uncle Mickey and cheer him up!”

Debbie chuckled from her seat across the room, “Yeah, go bring them some beers Franny.”

“Okay!” Franny chirped, hopping to her feet and skipping into the kitchen. Debbie gave a soft smile as she watched her daughter, on the way to hang out with her favorite uncles.

From his seat on the back stairs, Ian watched Mickey pace through the yard, grumbling about “Fucking Northside yuppies… and their ignorant bigoted asses… what the fuck is wrong with people?” He glanced over at Ian, his expression softening when he noticed the defeated look on Ian’s face. Mickey paused his pacing, coming to sit next to Ian on the steps.

“I’m sorry, I know I prolly embarrassed you. Was I out of line man? I just got so fucking mad,” Mickey quietly mumbled, looking down at his hands in his lap.

Ian gently shook his head, “Don’t apologize. You weren’t out of line… I think I’m just disappointed, y’know? That comments like that still get to me? I should be over it by now, every reminder that I’m sick or different shouldn’t still sting like that. And why do I have to be the one that the conflict and the drama revolves around? Why not fucking Carl or Liam or god… anyone else just for once?

Mickey’s expression softened even further. He nudged his knee into Ian’s leg, “What’s that shit you told me when Terry died? Trauma doesn’t always make fucking sense and recovery isn’t… oh shit, what’s the word? Linear! Recovery isn’t linear. Doesn’t make you fucking weak, just means you’ve been through some shit.”

“Yeah. I guess it was easier to tell you that than it is to tell myself.”

Mickey hummed in agreement and the two sat in silence for a moment before the back door creaked open. A tiny red head shoved her way through the doorway, arms wrapped tightly around two bottles, frosty with condensation. Franny sat down on the steps between them, silently handing her uncles their beers. Ian accepted his with a dry chuckle, thanking her. Mickey ruffled her hair, offering a small smile. The voices from inside had faded and the night was relatively calm, other than the occasional siren or dog barking.

Franny, not looking particularly concerned, looked up at them to ask, “Uncle Mickey, why’d you get mad at that guy?”

Mickey rubbed at his eyebrow and let out a sigh. He looked towards Ian, a silent request for him to take the lead on this conversation. He was confident in his ability to discuss the stupidity of princesses or the importance of wearing gloves during a legitimate liquor store robbery with his niece. He knew how to play, and joke, and how to be there when she woke up from a bad dream, stumbling down the stairs with bedhead and snotty tears. Mickey had grown into his role as an uncle, but he still doubted his ability to talk about the tough stuff with anyone other than Ian.

Ian cleared his throat, taking a second before asking, “Franny, do you know what it means to make a joke at someone else’s expense?”

Franny’s eyebrows scrunched together and she shook her head.

“It’s when you make a joke to kind of make fun of someone else. Like to tease them. Y’know how we make cop jokes around Uncle Carl because he’s a cop?”

She nodded, and Ian continued, “That guy… Aunt Tami’s sister’s boyfriend, was making a joke and it ended up being at my expense. That’s what made Uncle Mickey mad. He didn’t mean to make fun of me, but he kind of did. That’s all. Uncle Mickey was just sticking up for me.”

Franny sat for a moment, deep in thought. “I didn’t know he was talking about you.”

“No, he wasn’t. Not directly. He was telling a story about someone else. But he made a comment about him being bipolar. D’you remember when we talked about that? That I have bipolar disorder?”

Franny nodded, “That’s why you take your special medicine.”

Ian continued, “A lot of people don’t really understand what that means, and sometimes they make jokes about it that aren’t really funny. They’re just kind of… mean. So that’s why we got upset.”

Franny considered this for a minute and asked, “Do you want me to go tell mommy? She says I should tell her if someone’s being mean. She can fix it.”

Ian smiled a little, patting her little back and shaking his head, “Nah, mommy already knows, she heard. And I think Uncle Mickey did a pretty good job telling him that what he said was wrong.”

Mickey let out a sarcastic laugh, “And I got more to say to that piece of shit if I ever see his Northside yuppy fucking face again.”

“I think he got the point Mick,” Ian sighed, “Don’t waste your time.”

Franny shrugged “Mommy and Uncle Lip and Aunt Tami were all still talking in there when I left. Mommy told me it was a good idea for me to come out here.”

Mickey grabbed Ian’s hand, bumping their shoulders together. “Whatcha wanna do, man? We can head back to the apartment, go to the Alibi and get tanked, I don’t care, it’s up to you.”

“Don’t know, I’m tired of running from things. And you were right Mick, it’s our fucking house. Could we just sit out here for a little while?” Mickey ran a thumb across Ian’s hand and mumbles so quietly, in that voice he only uses with Ian- “‘Course we can”

Having completed her task of delivering beers, Franny stood up and put her hands on her hips, “I’m going to go inside, I won’t let anyone be mean to you Uncle Ian.”

Ian looked up to lock eyes with his niece, “I appreciate it Fran, thanks.”

She stood up and gave Ian a kiss on the top of his head, no doubt a gesture she’d picked up from some other family member, likely Mickey or Fiona. Ian smiled as she turned away to walk back into the kitchen.

After a few minutes Ian jerked his head towards the door, “Y’ready?”

Mickey hummed in agreement, standing and offering back his hand to help Ian up. They walked over the threshold of the kitchen into a conversation clearly about Mickey’s exchange with Chad. The Tamiettis were all sitting down in the living room, with the Gallaghers mostly standing, leaning against the various remaining surfaces. Lip’s hands were in his hair, a plain indication of his frustration and exhaustion. Tami abruptly stopped talking, in the middle of what seemed like an impassioned rant. She seemed unsure of how to continue now that Ian and Mickey had reentered the house. Debbie, sat on the couch with Franny in her lap, was scowling, while Liam absently stared at the wall, clearly wishing he were anywhere else. Carl quickly walked into the kitchen from where he had been leaning up against the living room door frame, clapping Ian on the shoulder.

“Hey, why don’t you guys go take a walk or something for a sec- I think Lip and Tami have it handled.”

Lip spoke up from the living room, “Yeah, it’s okay.”

Mickey tensed, bracing himself. “No, it’s not fucking okay Phillip-“

Lip grumbled something about that not being what he meant, shaking his head, while Ian quietly interrupted his husband, forcing him to make eye contact.

“No, it’s not, but I don’t want to just keep going over it, Mick. I’m not in the mood to educate him. I’m not saying it’s okay, but I want to move on. Lip can handle it.”

Carl nodded and repeated himself, “Go take a walk, come back in ten. Lip and Tami got it.”

He reached into his pocket, pulling out a joint and pressing it into Ian’s palm with a smirk.

“Rolled this for later, you guys take it.”

Ian raised an eyebrow at Mickey, who let out a sigh with a slouch, “Fine. Be back in ten.”

The two of them return to the backyard, Tami’s yelling resumed, her voice carrying all the way outside.

“M’sorry, I know I keep talkin’ when you just want it to be over with,” Mickey mumbled, looking down at the dead grass in the vacant lot beside the house.

Ian grabbed him by the back of his neck, fingers brushing through Mickey’s short hair, “Hey, no. I… I appreciate you sticking up for me- seriously. I’m just tired… tonight’s not supposed to be about me y’know? It’s supposed to be about Lip and Tami, and Fred, not me. I just wanted to be Lip’s brother tonight, not the crazy brother, the sick brother. I just don’t wanna be the one that causes the issues anymore.”

“You didn’t cause this Ian. You being bipolar didn’t fucking cause this- that asshole, opening his mouth and not knowing when to shut it- that’s what caused it. I get that you just wanna let it go, and I will, but if he say’s something else-“

“If he says something else you can beat the shit out of him.”

Mickey grinned, looking up to meet Ian’s gaze. “Fucking fantastic. You wanna smoke this bitch?”

He grabbed the joint out of Ian’s hand and pulled a lighter from his flannel’s front pocket.

Ian finally cracked a smile, one that actually reaches his eyes, “Free weed? Fuck yeah.”

Mickey tossed the lighter to Ian, who caught it and lit the joint with a practiced flick. He took a couple hits and closed his eyes, smiling again as he exhaled the smoke. He handed the lit joint over to Mickey, along with his lighter and jerked his head in the direction of the van in the backyard, “Wanna go sit?”

Mickey nodded and breathed in a sharp inhale, heading in the direction of the passenger seat door.

Ian climbed up into the drivers seat, letting out a deep sigh, “Feel like I’m in high school again- sneaking around with you, trying to find somewhere to be alone.” Mickey chuckled and passed the joint back over.

They smoked in silence for a while, Ian nudging Mickey with his elbow as the ember approaches the filter, “You want the last hit?”

“Nah man, that’s yours,” Mickey shakes his head.

Ian took it, stubbing out the butt on the van’s dashboard and tossing it onto the floor.

“Still wanna kick his ass?” He asked, lazily turning his head towards Mickey with a grin.

Mickey rolled his eyes, “I think I can contain myself.”

“Yeah?” Ian breathed, inching his face closer to his husband’s. The moon, freshly risen, highlighted Ian’s face, illuminating the dash of freckles across his nose.

Mickey didn’t answer, opting to close the distance between them, pressing a soft kiss to Ian’s lips. Ian’s hand came up to cradle Mickey’s face, thumb gently brushing his cheek.

And if they didn’t make it back inside for a while, so be it.

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pallasperilous · 4 years ago

Text

Occursus

Castiel/Dean Winchester Gen/Teen, 4341 words 15x20 coda AO3 version “The natural environment of the human soul is a human body,” Cas says. “Humans have yet to meet a foreign substrate that they don’t immediately attempt to colonize. My form in Hell was not an exception.”

Then he shuts his mouth very deliberately and gestures back to Dean like his mic is going live in three, two. “Or the bit where my soul gave you some kind of STD?” Dean finishes. “It was a poor analogy. I apologize.” “So what’s a better one?” Castiel drums his fingers for a second. “It’s more like…the way a parasitic jewel wasp injects a cockroach with venom, and transforms it into a willing host for wasp larvae.” “Holy shit are you ever bad at this,” Dean says, with that signature brand of fond horror he special-orders just for Castiel, Angel of the Gourd.

It’s half past midnight by the time Dean gets another run at Cas.

Granted, what the fuck does half past midnight even mean here, where time is as free as tap water? Why does anybody even bother? For all it matters, Dean could set his watch to eleventy minutes past twenty o’ nope and still never miss last call.

Then again, somebody felt it necessary to invent the idea of Tuesday in the first place, and Dean’s not gonna volunteer himself for the task of replacing it with something better. What’s important is that he’s survived (or rather, he hasn’t survived) a battery of poignant moments and tearful reunions. He and Sam hugged out burdens registering in the triple digits. They even had a little fight, pretty much for the fun of it, while Ellen fucking Harvelle watched them over the bar with her eyes shining. She still charged them, though.

Right at the beginning of the party Dean and Castiel had their eyes-across-the-room thing, followed by the same magnetic, exhausted embrace they’ve shared on just about every plane of reality now. Dean supposes he could ask Cas for a nickel tour of the Empty just so they could hit for the cycle, but he’d really rather not. Sam let them eke out a few gruff, tear-choked monosyllables before diving in, sweeping Cas up in a bear hug and laughing like a fucking kid. Dean doesn’t push it, because it’s been longer for Sam, after all. Or something.

And now it’s quiet, just the jukebox and the clink of glasses back in the kitchen, a few folks murmuring in booths. It might be dark outside, it might not; it’s waiting on Dean’s opinion before it commits to anything. And so is Cas, who is standing in the warm glow of the jukebox, hands in his pockets.

Dean walks up, leans against it, bottle still dangling from one hand.

“C’mon, sunshine. I’ll show you yours, you show me mine.”

Cas looks up and into Dean’s eyes with the wary, elegant patience of a deer. “What is it that you would be showing me, Dean?”

Dean gives him a long, languid blink and bites his lip, and Castiel lags for half a second before rolling his own eyes. “I see death hasn’t refined your sense of humor.”

“Nope. Guess the billionth time aint the charm.”

Cas remains stonefaced, which means a corresponding you dumbass blush starts crawling up the sides of Dean’s neck. The jukebox switches records like it’s making a suggestion.

“I’m gonna sit down outside,” Dean says. “C’mon and sit down with me. There’s a patio somewhere, right? Ellen was always talking about adding one out back. No way she hasn’t bossed somebody into buildin’ it.”

“There’s a patio,” Cas says, taking his hands out of his pockets.

Heaven’s patio is pretty nice; twenty square feet, some scattered picnic tables, fences covered in ivy and string lights. It still smells like fresh pine boards. There’s even a fire pit, which seems kinda bougie for the Roadhouse, but hell with it, it’s warm and pretty, and since when did pretentious people get to lay claim to “a hole with a fire in it”? There’s no moon overhead, and so the Milky Way is giving them the full monty — the runnelled spine of it, the ribcage packed with galaxies.

“Are they all alive?” Dean asks. The warmth from inside leaks out of his collar, wisps away.

“Who?”

Dean points up. “The stars. They always make a big deal about how most of the stars you can see from Earth have been dead for millions of years by the time we get the light from ‘em. That still true here? Or is everything on auto-renewal?”

“That’s a very complicated question,” Cas says, not looking up, only at Dean. He does that a lot, Dean knows, but it turns out to mean something different than what Dean had always assumed, which was ironically pretty similar to what it actually meant, but was reassuringly unactionable and therefore unfuckupable.

“I’m a very complicated guy,” Dean says.

Castiel smiles at that. “I don’t actually know the answer,” he admits. “And it would take an extremely long time to investigate. There are some other things I’d rather do first.”

“What, you can’t just call the kid for directory assistance?”

Castiel lets a good-humored sigh. “Like many young people these days, Jack prefers to avoid the phone.”

This is a solid riff, and Dean respects it. He picks the table closest to the fire and takes a bench and Cas sits next to him, instead of opposite. Dean thought he managed to break him of this habit a few years ago, but here all things are made whole again.

“So what,” Cas says, without a single molecule of playfulness or seduction, “is it that you want us to show each other?”

“Yeah, I was…it was a dumb joke. But I mean it, just not in a ‘playing doctor’ way.”

Castiel frowns, tightens his lips; the firelight throws a fluttering shadow across his face.

“I mean…Christ.” Dean takes a medicinal slug of his dwindling beer. “I don’t really look like this anymore either, right?” And he gestures at his usual shitshow personal presentation, which death has also noticeably failed to refine.

Castiel frowns, smoothes his hand across the surface of the table. “This is a corporeal world, Dean. It operates on a different set of rules, but your body here is no more of an illusion than it was on earth.”

“Seriously?” Dean ponders a second, squints through the dim light at his fingernails, at the high-resolution grime contained therein. “Jesus, that sounds like a lot of work. At least compared to Holodeck Heaven.”

“It is. But we didn’t build this place to be a...a…doorprize. It’s a real world,” Castiel enthuses, looming forward. “It’s the one that should have been created for all of you in the first place.” He pauses, glances down. “For all of us.”

Dean shrugs. “Okay, so no holograms. I’ll keep all that in mind next time Charlie tries to convince me to go skydiving.”

Castiel snorts, but not in pure aggravation, so Dean feels like he’s finally got a point on the board. “What I’m sayin’ is…physical or not, this place has different rules, right? So could I look at you without my eyeballs exploding? The…you know, the angel parts of you. Not just your vessel,” and Dean fwippies his hand at Cas to indicate that true beauty is contained within and Dean is completely indifferent to the fact this dork-ass alien managed to bodysnatch a guy who’s never dipped below an 8.5.

“It isn’t a vessel anymore. We can create our own bodies, now.”

“Peachy,” Dean clips, because that shit is a little late coming off the line.

Castiel sighs. “You could see me in that form without coming to harm. But you should know that I don’t consider it any more a reflection who I am than this form. Not anymore.”

Dean rolls the bottle towards him, nudges a knuckle. “You’re a real boy now, huh?”

“Yes, I suppose so,” Castiel says, and smiles a smile so small that Dean would need a microscope to figure out if it’s pleased or pained.

So Dean thwacks the bottle down on the totally-real table and claps his totally-real hands. “Well then let’s go. Hit me with that angel weirdness. If we’re gonna do this, I gotta taste all thirty-one flavors.”

Castiel smiles a little more convincingly, but it still doesn’t reach his eyes. “There are really only the two,” he says, and holds his palms out to the warmth of the fire.

“Great, then we’ll be done in time to catch Letterman. Then if you’re good maybe you can help me shimmy out of this thing.”

Cas cocks his head. “Out of which thing?”

“This super real heavenly meat-suit, dude. It’s not fair if only one of us gets naked. Peep show has to go both ways. I see your angel-face, you see my soul.”

Cas looks stricken, like Dean is asking to suck on his toes next to a playground. “I mean, unless that’d fuck you up,” Dean adds.

“No,” Castiel replies, a little absently. “It wouldn’t fuck me up. But it…wouldn’t really accomplish anything, either.”

“What, no soul kink? That’s bullshit and you know it. You love this crap.”

Castiel replies, “Your soul is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” with the easy confidence of a regular latte order. With the same uncanny, 2 Blessed 2 B Stressed face he had when Dean plowed Ruby’s knife hilt-deep into Jimmy Novak’s sternum, that he had when the Empty collapsed him like a carcass in an acid bath.

That face shuts Dean right the fuck up, because it sends him skipping backwards into that fucking basement, where his phone is buzzing and the gritty concrete chill of the floor is seeping through his jeans into the useless meat of his legs and leeching into the hot, wet channels of his piece of shit heart.

Turns out you can work up a good little panic attack in heaven, which seems like a significant oversight.

From a million miles away he feels Cas’s warm, dry palm slide over the back of his hand –– there’s a ring there now that Dean lost down a motel sink drain ages ago, is nobody spotting continuity errors here?—then Cas’s hand tightens on his and it feels like a Xanax kicking in. (The good kind, direct from the hot nurse with the little paper cup, not the kind you get in a from a shady burnout at a truckstop, that’s been ground up with baking soda or benadryl and carefully remolded, as if you could possibly give that much of a shit when you’re freaking out bad enough to buy Xanax at a truckstop.)

Point being, he calms the fuck down.

Cas has good hands. They can do a lot of impressive shit, and they look nice doing it. They don’t look like –– they’ve never looked like –– they belong to somebody whose main job is destroying people, places, or things. They’re hands that how to play the cello, or make tables from reclaimed wood, or give soapy, encompassing handjobs in the shower on cold evenings.

“It’s been years, though,” Dean rasps, not looking up yet. “I was a kid when you got me out of Hell, Cas. I’ve done a lot of shit since then. Maybe souls get stretch marks.”

Castiel’s hand tightens on his, clamps it down on the table. “I’ve always been able to see it.”

“Okay,” Dean mumbles, but Cas keeps on going –

“The only time I couldn’t see any part of your soul was when I was without grace, and I promise you that was one of the greatest deprivations imaginable.”

Dean snorts, looks away, but his hand is still on lockdown. “Worse than going hungry, huh?”

“Much.”

“Hey, what about Sam? Or, hell, fucking Donatello. They both were both walking around minus their creamy filling, and you didn’t say boo.”

Cas shrugs. “I can’t see their souls under ordinary circumstances.”

“So what, mine’s just extra loud, or day-glo, or what?”

“It’s both of those things, but that isn’t why,” Cas answers, and the boy is downright wry.

Dean tugs his hand out, raps his knuckles against the wood. “Okay, so stop bein’ coy and tell me before I get a complex. And if you say it’s because of love or some shit, I’m bailing to Rowena’s.”

“You infected me,” Cas says.

“Uh,” says Dean.

The fire pops and a log shifts; Cas glances over at the kerfuffle, absently lifts his fingers to his chin like he’s looking for an old scar. “In Hell, when I retrieved you…I had to grip your raw soul. I was meant to wear a gauntlet, so I wouldn’t be burned.”

Dean snickers. “You’re telling me you were supposed to be wearing a soul condom. What happened, you get too excited and forget to suit up? It’s okay, I know I’m a lot to take in.”

Castiel purses his lips. “No, I was properly armored. But my arm was torn off in combat shortly before I reached you.”

“Ouch.”

“Ouch,” Cas agrees. “I didn’t have time to retrieve the arm or its protection from the pit, so I had to grow a new one very quickly.”

Dean really should’ve switched to whiskey before starting this. “What, you didn’t pack a spare?” He wheezes.

“Ordinarily, yes, I would have had the resources, but I was equipped very lightly for that mission. It was a raid, not a siege. You understand the difference.”

“Sure, yeah, you left your emergency arms in the trunk. So you just popped out a new one. No big.”

“It was a big. Your soul was close enough that it forced me to grow a human arm, instead of a much quicker and more powerful extensor.”

“Okay, uh,” Dean pinches at the bridge of his nose, “there’s a lot to unpack there.”

“What part of it confuses you?”

“I dunno, the bit where apparently angels are I guess heavenly octopuses,”

“The plural in the Greek is octopodes,” Cas interjects, not without pleasure.

Dean glowers. “Or the part where you can apparently swap in different drill bits,” Dean continues,

“Mm,” Cas notes, careful not to open his mouth,

“Or that I, like, accidentally bullied you into growing a person arm,” and Dean pauses for breath here, which Cas evidently takes as permission to dive in with more Planet Earth commentary.

“The natural environment of the human soul is a human body,” he says. “Humans have yet to meet a foreign substrate that they don’t immediately attempt to colonize. My form in Hell was not an exception.” Then he shuts his mouth very deliberately and gestures back to Dean like his mic is going live in three, two.

“Or the bit where my soul gave you some kind of STD?” Dean finishes.

“It was a poor analogy. I apologize.”

“So what’s a better one?”

Castiel drums his fingers for a second, listens to the fire pop in its little cage. “It’s more like…the way a parasitic jewel wasp injects a cockroach with venom, and transforms it into a willing host for wasp larvae.”

“Holy shit are you ever bad at this,” Dean says, with that signature brand of fond horror he special-orders just for Castiel, Angel of the Gourd.

“What I’m trying to avoid saying,” Castiel sighs, “is that you rubbed off on me.”

Dean nods. “Yeah. That’s fair. I wouldn’t be dumb enough to say that around me, either.” He lays a couple little pats on Cas’s hand. “Lookit you, though, seeing around that corner. I’m proud of you, man. That would’ve totally flipped your breaker back in the day.”

“Just one of the many ways you have reshaped me, Dean,” Cas says, with warm sarcasm.

“Alright, so you rawdogged me, I whammied you. Chocolate, peanut butter, peanut butter, chocolate.”

Cas’s forehead wrinkles in skepticism. “I still prefer the cockroach. But some part of your soul injected itself into one of my more exposed frequencies. Under different circumstances, I would’ve stopped and excised the affected area before it spread, but. I was being pursued, and the mission had taken much longer than any of us anticipated.”

“Us? Thought it was just you down there.”

Cas looks vaguely offended, straightens and folds his arms like he just remembered he’s giving a deposition. “No, of course not. Michael assigned sixty-six angels in eleven groups of six, each escorted to the field by a seraph. We struck simultaneously at six different areas in perdition. From there we dispersed to individual targets –– to cause as much chaos as possible in order to help obscure the object of our mission, and to increase the odds that one of us would actually find you.”

“And you were the lucky winner.” Dean pushes down a touch of sick shame at the thought of it — he’d been coiled up like a snake around somebody else’s torment, anesthetized by it. It was one of the random rags of infernal time where his own pain decreased in proportion to how much he dealt out, and that was the closest thing Hell had to a Friday night.

“I was,” Castiel nods. “I took some liberties with my assignment,” he adds, squinting. “I flattered myself that I shared a special affinity with The Righteous Man.”

“That guy always sounded like kind of a cunt to me,” Dean notes. “You know, not withstanding the fact that I’m him.”

Castiel shrugs. “I found you, and I did what was necessary to save you, and my siblings did what was necessary to save me.” A little falter enters his voice. “Only twelve of us returned from that mission.” Cas looks up, out, away. A dove coos somewhere nearby of the Roadhouse; did it have a run-in with the windshield of an eighteen wheeler one day and show up here, Dean wonders, or does heaven make its own birds from scratch? That’s gotta be a softball compared to whether Betelgeuse is still open for business.

Castiel waits until the bird shuts up, then says, “Of those twelve surviving angels, I personally murdered nine, in everything that followed.”

After a moment Dean says “Yeah,” with practiced neutrality. He’s got some similar tallies, written in Sharpie on the back of his eyelids.

Cas sighs and his attention comes back down to the table. “By the time I received the authority to restore your soul to your body, the infection had spread almost past the point of containment. That’s why I resisted taking a vessel at first. I worried that occupying a human form would speed up the process.”

“Hey now. I thought you showed up naked because you thought I’d be one of those special people,” Dean quips, “Who can handle angel stuff without going all kibbles ’n bits.”

“That was only a partial truth.”

Dean tips the beer bottle in salute. “You’re a real special flavor of asshole, Cas.”

“So I’ve been told. I was right, though. When I took Jimmy as a vessel, I contracted — condensed — myself very severely. The infection had a much shorter distance to travel to reach all of my extremities, and a human form was the most hospitable environment possible.”

“You got a raging case of the Deans.”

Cas’s head kicks back in a laugh that kinda surprises them both. “Yes,” he says, grinning. “I did. I was very displeased, and very concerned I’d be found out and judged unfit for duty. And I very much was. Unfit, that is. Though I was not found out.”

“C’mon, never? You went rogue on the company.”

“Uriel suspected. Naomi certainly detected it later, as did Metatron. But in the moment, no. The Host’s attention was focused on the Apocalypse ahead, not on debriefing a mission that was considered a success. After the Cage was closed, I had too much influence to come under that level of scrutiny.”

“Hmh.” Dean realizes he’s been systematically picking down the label on the beer bottle, so he sets it on the ground before he gets sticky little shreds everywhere. “So I gotta ask. My little souvenir, the handprint. That’s where you grabbed me, with your lil…Mister Potato Head human arm?”

“It is.”

“If I’m the one who infected you, how come I’m the one who got burned?”

“My hand didn’t burn you.”

“Well, it ain’t fingerpaint.”

“Your own soul burned it, as it flowed out of your flesh and into mine. It burned until the moment when I finally released you from my grip. My hand healed itself; your arm did not.” Castiel gives a thin scoff. “I hadn’t planned to leave you interred.”

“Oh, no? Well that’s nice to hear, you know, a decade after the fact. I still have nightmares about that shit.”

Castiel winces. “It’s no excuse, but I was in a great deal of…the equivalent of pain. It took an immense effort to break off the inflow of your soul, and when I did manage it, I was thrown quite a ways by the recoil. By the time I recovered enough to return, you were already looting a gas station,” He finishes, dryly.

“Yeah, well, Dad didn’t think much of leisure as a virtue. Also I was thirsty, because I’d just crawled out of my own grave.”

“And I was distracted, because I’d just fought my way out of the inferno while being digested by a demented human soul.”

“You wanna call it even?”

Cas lifts his brows. “If you don’t mind.”

There is a long, dark breath, during which their little smiles fade.

“So, all that,” Dean says, because he’s a fucking coward.

“All that,” says Cas, because he isn’t.

Dean clears his throat. “That means you can see my soul-stuff 24/7, huh?”

Castiel slides one leg up onto the bench, shifts to sit astride it, like he’s maybe about to deliver an after-school PSA on the Real Deal About Drugs. “I can always see myself, and extensions of my self. And since your soul made itself into an integral part of me…I can see you.”

“I take it that’s not exactly in the manual.”

“No. I didn’t entirely understand it at first — for a long time, I convinced myself it was because you were designed to be a celestial vessel, and that I had been destined to save you from Hell.”

That thin, acidic feelings starts to rise up in Dean’s chest again. “Do you…” A dry swallow reflex grabs his throat. “Hm. Fuck.”

“What?” Cas asks, scooting forward. An angel. Scooting. What a world. “You can ask me anything, Dean. I hope we’re both past being offended.”

“Have you ever thought that. This whole deal. Our…thing.” Dean lets out a breath. “The way you feel about me. The way I feel about you.”

“Do I worry that its only basis is our shared material?”

Dean licks his lips, works a jaw muscle, forces out a nod.

Cas frowns, sets one elbow up against the table, then lets his head tip to the side. “Why do you love Sam?”

Dean rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I get it, he’s my brother. We got shared material, too. But we’re not talking genetics.”

“Genes were the initial basis of your love for Sam. But you share half as much material with Adam. Do you love him fifty percent as much as you do Sam?”

“One, love doesn’t work that way and you know it, and two, fucking of course not. I barely know the guy, and what I’ve seen didn’t exactly blow me away.” Not that the poor dumb kid ever really had a chance. “Sam’s Sam, he’s earned it a million times over just by bein’ him.”

“Then you understand.”

“But Cas, man…I…” Dean laughs, which is an abbreviated form of screaming, “I treated you like shit.”

Cas nods. “You did.”

“Okay, the rules say you’re not supposed to agree with me.”

“But the balance remains in your favor. Dean, are you genuinely afraid that you — care for me…” and Dean can hear the FCC live-bleep in that one, like does his total cowardice have a special color Cas can see with his soul-o-vision? “Only out of some compulsion?”

“No,” Dean says, to the great surprise of his frontal cortex, which was busy kicking the shit out of itself. “No,” he says again, just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke, that that answer actually came out of him and entered the living air between them.

Then the wave is rolling towards him and he enters that slim moment of body-physics where you either take a lungful and commit to diving under the break, or you kick out against the undertow, arch your back to meet the blow, and let yourself be flown all the way up to the waiting shore––

“No,” Dean says, “I love you.” And he chokes up a little, first at the release of saying it, then at how much of exactly jack-shit it changes anything so what was he even scared of, and then at the look on Cas’s face: how he’s frozen. Like that dog from that video, the one that loved tennis balls so goddamn much that his owner bought him a thousand fucking tennis balls and dumps them out all at once and the dog absolutely stalls the fuck out, just seconds on end of underspecced dog-brain hang time before he finally snaps back to reality and loses his absolute shit scrabbling all over the porch.

Castiel comes back online with a little choking noise of his own, and a kind of awkward scrabble for Dean’s hand.

“I have for a long time,” Dean continues, because apparently he’s continuing, “I’ve loved you for fucking ages, Cas. In people years, anyway, I’m sure that mean’s fuckall to somebody who’s a zillion––”

“I don’t,” Cas says thickly, “really give a damn about the age difference, Dean,” and cracks into a chuckle.

“So how come you never knew it?” Dean asks, feeling freedom turn into a hunger or something like vertigo. “If you can see my soul, how could you not know?”

Cas shrugs, a bit helplessly.

“Seriously,” Dean laughs, “how did I manage to hide that shit so well? Sammy found every nudie mag I ever shoplifted.”

Cas shakes his head. “You’ve never actually been able to hide anything from me.”

Dean scoffs. “C’mon, man. I snowed you plenty, or else we woulda had this conversation dirtside a long time ago.”

“Whatever I missed, Dean…it wasn’t because you succeeded at hiding it,” Castiel says, softly. He takes a slow, shaky breath, and meets Dean’s eyes with a smile. He lifts a hand to Dean’s face, bone and flesh on flesh and bone. “I just loved you enough to look away.”

It’s a long time before they go back inside. By any measure. {AO3}

#spn fanfiction #spn 15x20 #destiel #deancas #dean winchester #castiel #bless you all for your sexy and angsty coda fics please enjoy this massive wodge of angel lore wankery dating back 11 seasons

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ssvgawara · 4 years ago

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Haikyuu boys and some oddly specific crime they’d commit

a/n: I come back and the first thing I write is a shitpost!! enjoy </3 tw for drugs, murder, alcohol and general crime committing xoxo

Karasuno

Daichi- he’s a cop sorry that’s all there is to it man

Suga- Suga has multiple charges of 1st-degree murder against him but they can’t seem to find his identity so he continues committing murder and will continue until he gets caught or ends up murdering enough people to be put in a position of power

Asahi- everyone is probably like “Oh Asahi is innocent” NO. He has learned that his slightly scary face will let him get away with a lot, he is buying alcohol illegally because he looks old enough to, and he’s buying so much other shit and just getting away with it

Nishinoya- This man gives fucking pimp vibes I can just see him in the big leopard print fur coat with a pretty girl in his lap and he calls himself big poppa but no one else will

Tanaka- Drug dealer vibes, probably runs an entire fucking drug ring with his sister and not just a Lil weed these mfkas have the hard shit too like you could probably buy meth from them, he’s not using it but it’s good business

Ennoshita, Kinoshita, and Narita- They literally rob a bank they have an entire scheme and get away with multiple bank robberies and this goes on for MONTHS

Kageyama- We know he’s volleyball smart but otherwise he’s so mfing stupid and I love him for it but he is a chronic shoplifter. Just picks something up and takes it, has walked out of a store without paying for an entire bed set once and got away with it somehow so idk props to him

Hinata- He is the little guy in any heist situation, he fits anywhere so he can sneak in and out the best, he gave himself the stupid ass code name tiny giant but everyone goes with it because somehow he is the best

Tsukishima- armed robbery, but he doesn’t have a gun just a knife like he’s tall and as an attitude, a knife will get him whatever he needs he doesn’t need the gun

Yamaguchi- He runs a catfishing scheme where he pretends to be a naive girl, scams old men out of their money, and then ghosts them and I think it’s what he deserves let him carry on especially because no one would believe it’s him. Also not really like a crime crime but still a crime in a way

Kiyoko- She kills men and I know it, Queen Kiyoko ending the patriarchy one shitty man at a time like she only kills men who deserve it bc some have rights.

Yachi- She’s too anxious to commit an in-person crime so she does a lot of cybercrime, hacking government databases and releasing info to the people, truly the anonymous we deserve

Saeko- She’s running that drug ring with Tanaka, and she loves it because there’s a thrill to it even though yknow she’s dealing literal meth but like its fine plus she loves rocking people’s shit when they get too handsy, which bring me to my next point underground MMA Saeko, like the illegal one with no rules yeah <3

Ukai- this man probably sells all kinda shit to minors that he shouldn’t he is so unbothered a 7-year-old could probably walk in ask for a pack of camels and get them and leave before he noticed what was going on.

Takeda- Did y’all see how scared Hinata was when Takeda gave him that lecture? This dude could kidnap someone and scare them into giving all the information he needed, a legend truly

Aoba Johsai

Oikawa- took steroids one time. And of course in sports, that’s not allowed. But he only did it once and regretted it for months afterward. Never told anyone and was just relieved he didn’t have to piss in a cup and have someone find out.

Matsukawa- Without hesitation, I know this man takes dead people’s bones and sells them on the internet. Has dubbed himself the bone man and he feels so much power when someone buys a femur or sumn. It’s kinda funny honestly he has a hoard of bones to sell, his fave is the pelvis.

Hanamaki- He’s in between jobs because he stole money from his last job, like he said he was sorry he just needed a little extra for gas but was sad to find out that’s a literal crime and he was laundering money.

Iwaizumi- he’s a street racer, like the fast and furious style and it’s so sexy of him like late-night races ugh to be in an expensive fast car with him where he has one hand on my thigh okay that’s enough of that.

Kunimi- Look me in the eye and tell me he does not do drugs. He does and if you don’t believe me you are wrong and I will fight you on this one.

Kyotani- If there is a crime he will commit it for fun. Like he will do it with no hesitation. He has a record longer than twilight and I’m not sure how he is not in prison actually nvm he escaped and is a wanted criminal lol

Shiritorizawa

Ushijima- Assault, he just reeks of getting into bar fights when he’s absolutely wasted. Like he most likely didn’t start it but he will be finishing it

Tendou- grave robbing, he just goes into the cemetery picked the oldest plots, and gets to digging. Has made thousands on dead people jewelry and probably won’t get caught, like besides the groundskeeper there’s no security he will never stop.

Semi- he breaks copyright laws on the daily. He’s sampling music in his all the time but he’s doing it so sneakily it’s fine its what deserves stream his band on Spotify right now,

Shirabu- His bangs are criminal enough. No, but he has stolen drugs from the hospital before he just wanted to try the Xanax, and yeah he could just write himself a prescription for it nut like it’s so easy to just go get some and no report it so that’s what he did.

Goshiki- y’all want me to say arson don’t you?? Fine. He commits arson multiple times and kills 7 people with fire before getting arrested and he doesn’t even feel bad so in prison he probably fucking runs a gang he is crazy.

Nekoma

Kuroo- he is a capitalist and class traitor and that’s crime enough I don’t care is he’s attractive or rich, He commits crimes daily by just existing but I still love him anyway.

Kai- Could not commit a crime he just wants to garden and live his life. Jk there’s at minimum one body in that garden let him kill a man he deserves it just let him have one dead body

Yaku- he keyed someone’s car once just because they pissed him off. Was it kuroo? Yes. But that’s fine because he also keyed Lev’s car but blamed lev for keying kuroo’s and Kuroo for keying Lev’s. He just wants to watch the world burn.

Kenma- cyberbullying but man he is mean. Like no bars held we will dig into every insecurity he can and that shit hurts and he doesn’t even feel bad about it he will just be as mean as he can if you’re not careful

Lev- his crime is being tall and dumb also doesn’t understand the economy and prints counterfeit money because why can’t we print more money? The government should get on that.

Inuoka- He released all the animals from a zoo, like snuck in one night and just let them all free, I’m surprised the tiger didn’t eat him but hey the animals are free, there’s still some missing uh oh he’s very proud of himself for it. After the rush, he starts sneaking into shelters and freeing all the dogs and cats

Yamamoto and Fukunaga- Have egged a house before, it was Kuroo’s he deserves all this bullying and you can’t stop me.

Date Tech

Aone- Criminal Conspiracy, sure he had an entire foolproof plan to get away with the perfect crime but someone found out, and now his plans are ruined, damn </3 and no one ever suspects the quiet guy either.

Futakuchi- Having a prostitute, he just wanted some company like mans is lonely so he paid a girl to just spend a Lil time with him it’s all good.

Fukurodani

Bokuto- I know we all haha funny laugh at tax evader bokuto and sure maybe he evades his taxes but he’s also committed vehicular manslaughter, he cannot drive and has killed someone with his car maybe even multiple someones but he always drives off in a panic because he doesn’t know what else to do.

Akaashi- Hasn’t actively committed a crime but has been an accomplice in every vehicular manslaughter Bokuto has committed why the fuck does he keep letting bokuto drive? He really needs to stop that.

Konoha- A master scammer he is so convincing everyone gives him money even if they’re a little sus because he’s just that good each scheme is so convincing.

Inarizaki

Kita- He grows weed, you can’t tell me those rice fields are just for rice he’s got all this space he is growing marijuana and selling it, let him do it I want him to be my plug.

Atsumu- "What is my perfect crime? I break into Tiffany's at midnight. Do I go for the vault? No, I go for the chandelier. It's priceless. As I'm taking it down, a woman catches me. She tells me to stop. It's her father's business. She's Tiffany. I say no. We make love all night. In the morning, the cops come and I escape in one of their uniforms. I tell her to meet me in Mexico, but I go to Canada. I don't trust her. Besides, I like the cold. Thirty years later, I get a postcard. I have a son and he's the chief of police. This is where the story gets interesting. I tell Tiffany to meet me in Paris by the Trocadero. She's been waiting for me all these years. She's never taken another lover. I don't care. I don't show up. I go to Berlin. That's where I stashed the chandelier."

Osamu- resisting arrest. He just said no and ran. Granted he shouldn’t have punched the cop in the first place to have to be arrested but like that’s not the point here.

Aran- accidental child abandonment, like he just forgot he was babysitting and left the kid alone for like a day. He felt terrible but he still forgot the kid and now is fearful of parenthood

Suna- owns an illegal weapon, like he just never registered it and keeps it around and would use it if needed Suna please just point the weapon at me maybe

Others

Terushima- Graffiti, he loves painting on the walls of buildings and tagging them, has so much spraypaint and his day isn’t complete if he doesn’t tag at least one building or train car.

Daishou- Public intoxication- he got a little too fucked up and stripped on the street he will forever have to live with everyone knowing he has an ass tattoo like damn bruh

Sakusa- Perjury he simply wanted to get out of court so he said some shit so he could leave granted he lied under oath but whatever, did they ever find out? No, so he’s fine and he’d do it again if it meant he could leave faster. Like sure he was a witness to a murder but bruh he pretends he does not see.

Hoshihumi- driving without a license he simply thought you didn’t need one because why do you need a piece of plastic to say you can drive a car like??? Just know how to drive it.

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kpop-cakepops · 4 years ago

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Help// Johnny Seo

Anonymous asked:

“heyyy! can i make a request? Since i love suffering can i ask for some heavy angst with Johnny but with a happy ending since my heart is still weak? I'll love you forever if you make it possible💕”

(I had to repost this this way because for some reason the post couldn’t be found when I searched it on the search bar.)

word count: 2,864

WARNINGS: Toxic relationship (mental/emotional a*use), mentions of drug and alcohol a*use, attempted su*cide.

SPECIAL NOTE: If you are someone that is in need of instant help or that is battling su*cidal thoughts or abuse, here are some resources that might be of help. You are loved.(( Domestic violence crisis hotlines Su*cide prevention Crisis Centers ))

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was complicated, to say the least.

Whatever type of bond you'd managed to concoct with Johnny Seo was twisted and cryptic and muddy and unlabeled. You found yourself often spending nights tangled in a spiral of lust, sweat and limbs with him, only to wake up the next morning and find him gone.

Uncertain.

If you had to describe Johnny with one word only, you'd choose uncertain. One moment he was by your side, the other he was gone. One moment he wanted to hold you and tell you about his dreams of making it big, the other he was in your face yelling and screaming rabid hell your way... just as he was doing right at that moment.

"MAYBE IF YOU WEREN'T WHORING YOURSELF OUT TO JUST ANY DUDE THAT LOOKS YOUR WAY, MAYBE I WOULDN'T BE THIS MAD!" he screamed.

You, however, only walked past him. A numb expression plastered on your face.

Used to it.

"He offered to buy me a drink and I accepted. Get the fuck over yourself." You grumbled as you flopped on your couch and started to work at the strap of your heels.

"I don't think you're understanding here. I don't like it when people look at or touch what's mine." He fumed. His volume was lower, but the anger and bite were still there, almost like he wanted to hurt you with his words.

He did.

"You're so unfair." You let out as you stood up, your height now dwarfed by his due to your lack of heels. "Do you have any fucking idea how I felt when I saw you dancing with all those girls?! ON MY FUCKING BIRTHDAY, JOHNNY."

He held onto your wrist stopping you from stomping away from him. "Why, were you jealous?" He asked with a raised brow looking down at you provokingly.

"No... no I wasn't jealous but I did wonder why I had to put up with someone like you on my fucking birthday. I wondered why I keep wasting my time here when I could be with someone that will take me seriously. Someone that only has eyes for ME and who would be okay with just laying in bed with me and hold me-" you choked up unable to continue.

It was always the same. He'd yell, you'd yell back, he'd poke and prod at you until you cried. A cycle.

You shoved past him and stomped into your bathroom ready to shower and praying he'd be gone by the time you got out. You weren't exactly lucky....

By the time you stepped out of the bathroom you found Johnny sat on the ground, his back pressed to the side of your bed. "I'm sorry..." he mumbled barely audibly.

You ignored him and stepped up to your dresser. Your reflection only causing a tear to roll down your cheek as you untangled your hair. You really wondered when your reflection had become something you hated.

Warm hands wrapped around you from behind. Johnny's chin now resting on your shoulder. "I'm sorry... I really am sorry that I'm this fucked up. I'm sorry."

You remained silent as you stared at both of you in your mirror. It seemed that the 2 people you'd been when you met 2 years before had disappeared. "Johnny... what are we going to do?" You finally ask.

His eyes meet yours on the mirror and you could tell he's confused. "What?"

"In the future. What do you want? Who do you want to be?" You pried his hands from your body and turned so you were facing him with your arms crossed.

He was scared.

"I don't know." He admitted. "What do you want?"

"I want to fall in love" you admitted looking at the ground. "I want to fall in love, I want to get married... I want to have a family."

Something in your words caused Johnny to lose his breath. "What does that mean?" He asked.

"It means that I'm scared, John. I'm scared that I'm gonna be stuck being in love with you all by myself for the rest of my life. I'm scared that I'm gonna be stuck chasing after you all my life. I don't want that." You finally let out.

Johnny didn't like it when you talked that way. It scared the daylights out of him to hear you talk about commitment and a family. Why couldn't life be simple? Why couldn't love be easy?

"I..." he couldn't bring himself to say it. He knew he loved you. He knew he wanted you to be with him forever. You were, after all, the reason he was sane and sober. Yet to you, his lack of words meant he didn't.

"You understand that I can't do this forever right?" You finally asked. He wasn't looking at you, his hands were clasped to his sides and his eyes locked on the ground. You waited for him to say something, anything to stop you from doing what you were about to.

"Johnny?" You asked almost pleading him to speak.

He didn't.

"I think you should go." You spoke again. He visibly flinched at that. His eyes finally snapping up to meet your teary ones. "This isn't going to work. I don't have the strength nor the patience to do this anymore. You can pick up your things some other day, but for now please just go"

"Y/N-"

"Go." You groaned not wanting to give in. You knew that if you let him talk he'd somehow convince you to not end things the way you were.

So he left and didn't return. Johnny had gotten the message very clearly. You didn't want to see or hear from him and he tried to understand.... but why was his heart hurting as much as it did. Why were people asking him if he was okay? Why was it that whenever he fucked some random girl in a bathroom stall of whatever musty club he'd stumbled into, all he could think of was you?

Why would he cry?

It would stop at some point, right? He'd stop hurting and crying over you someday, right?

Right. He stopped.

He wasn't sure what scared him most, the previous pain of not seeing you or the fact that he was no longer feeling anything at all. The fact that he was numb all the time and every single emotion he showed was a half-assed reflection of what his friends and the people around him were feeling... yet none of that was real, none of those feelings were his. Johnny couldn't even pinpoint the last time he'd genuinely laughed in the past 4 months... the 4 months he'd spent away from you.

Falling down a spiral of old bad habits is exactly what Johnny found himself doing. Medicating and drinking until he was hallucinating about you, it was the only way he could feel what he used to feel. It was the only way he could see you.

It's also how he found himself calling you in the middle of the night.

"Hello?" You groaned.

"Why do we have to have a label?" He asked, voice slurred. "Why can't we just continue to say we're just friends? Why do we have to complicate shit so much? No one labels shit nowadays, why do we have to be different?"

"Johnny?" You asked. The sleep was gone out of your voice as soon as you realized the state he was in.

"If you want to hear it so bad, then yes. I love you. I fucking love you" he exclaimed into the phone. "At first I just wanted us to fuck but-"

"John, you're drunk. Where are you?" You snapped already putting on pants to go look for him.

"Let me fucking finish!" He yelled causing you to freeze on the other end of the line. "At first I just wanted us to fuck. You were hot and you were fine with it... but then suddenly, I stopped medicating and you gave me the spare key to your house, I was spending nights at your place talking to you about my stupid fucking dreams..."

He stopped talking and only then did you realize you were crying. You were already on your way to his apartment which was only 2 blocks from your complex. "Johnny?"

No answer.

A sense of panic invaded your senses and you started to run the rest of the way to his place hanging up the phone you found his spare key almost immediately above the door frame. Your panicked form stumbled into the dark apartment and towards his bedroom. The stench of alcohol took over the entire place, almost as if he'd purposely filled every crevice of his apartment with liquor.

"John?!" You called.

There was no answer but the soft sniffles coming from his bedroom had you instantly running his way. Sure enough, there he was, resting against a corner of the dim lit room. His knees were up to his chin and his arms were splayed to his sides with his phone laying several feet away from him.

"Shit" you mumbled and walked up to him. "Johnny. Hey, can you hear me?" You asked as you took his face into your hands. He was running a fever.

"Y/N. You have to run away. Love isn't shit. Everyone leaves in the end, Y/N you need to run before you end up like everyone else" he sobs.

A tight knot forms in your throat as you hear him cry. It was a first and you hated it. You hated it to no end. "Johnny, you're running a fever. How much did you drink?" You ask trying your best not to cry. If you cried you'd lose it and what Johnny needed was help, not another reason to feel bad.

The intoxicated man pointed at the splay of bottles across from him and you cursed internally when you spotted what seemed like an empty xanax bottle next to the many bottles of liquor. "Oh god... oh my god. Oh God, did you take that?! Johnny did you take the xanax with the alcohol?" You wanted to scream.

You needed to take him to the hospital.. Your shaky hands reached for your phone and you instantly called 911 to get an ambulance to his place as soon as possible.

Everything that followed happened as if in slow motion. There were paramedics and an ambulance, people asking you questions, but you were too shaken up to even form a proper sentence.

When you got to the hospital you called Taeyong, Johnny's best friend. "Y/N!!-"

You cut him off instantly, "Tae, Johnny was medicated and drunk. I don't know how much he took but he's running a fever. I'm freaking out please come to the hospital. Taeyong I'm scared." you cried.

"What do you-"

"ASK QUESTIONS LATER TAEYONG, I NEED YOU TO PLEASE COME TO THE HOSPITAL!" you yelled still on the brink of having a mental breakdown.

Almost two hours had passed and you found yourself still sat in the emergency waiting room, your hair unmade as you waited next to Taeyong for the doctor to come out and tell you what room Johnny would be moved to. You had cried yourself dry by then, Taeyong's hand rubbing up and down your back to calm you down until you were both silent.

"Why did you go see him?" He asked.

"He called me... he didn't sound okay"

"When has Johnny ever been okay?" Taeyong countered.

You didn't answer because you knew he was right, Johnny had never been okay. Not before you, not with you and most definitely not after you. You used to think that you were doing him good by letting him depend on you for his well-being... and yet there you were waiting for him to finish getting his stomach pumped or suctioned whatever they did in cases like this.

"I thought I was helping him" you mumbled.

"Johnny needs professional help, Y/N. We can't help him alone, you can't help him alone. Look where we are. What would have happened had he not called you?" Taeyong snapped.

You could feel his angry gaze on you and you knew he had every right to be angry. Everyone around you both had warned you, everyone had asked you to be careful... but you both chose to go your own toxic way. You called it 'loving intensely' when in reality you were both so in love that you didn't know how to properly show it, instead playing a game of cat and mouse. Chasing, capturing, yelling, fucking, apologizing, never truly valuing the feelings you two really felt for each other... why? Because it wasn't cool? Because other people told you that love wasn't a real thing? Because labels were fucking stupid and both your parents were divorced and bitter?

"I know." You whimpered.

"John Seo?"

You almost sprinted towards the nurse as he called out Johnny's name. "That's us."

"The patient is stable. Had you come in an hour later we wouldn't have run into the luck we did today. He's going to be moved to an observation unit shortly. Just go to the lobby and they'll give you the number." The nurse looked at you sternly as he spoke. "And miss... if you and your boyfriend are seeking help, we have many programs we can recommend. We wouldn't ever want to see a young man like that lost to an addiction."

You looked over at Taeyong who was staring back at you knowingly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Johnny woke up only a few hours later, you were seated right beside his bed. Your head resting on the edge of the soft bedding, eyes closed and breath shallow. You were asleep.

Johnny's eyes took in his surroundings. His daze dissipating and final realization coming to him upon hearing the light beeping of the heart monitor beside him as well as the slight tightness of the IV stuck to his arm. His head fell back into his pillow and he wanted to scream.

Your eyes opened instinctively at the slight movement. "John?"

He looked down at you and met your eyes for the first time in 4 months. To say he felt suddenly disarmed would be an understatement. He wanted to rip that IV out of his arm and drop to his knees in front of you. Beg for your forgiveness. Tell you that he... loves you.

"You almost..." you trailed off. How were you supposed to bring it up? There was a tight knot in your throat and a horrible twisting of your stomach.

"I know" he rasped out, taking you by surprise. Your worried eyes moved to meet his teary ones. "I know because I was planning to go"

It was like all air had been suddenly knocked from you. "y-you mean... that was supposed to be goodbye?" you asked.

He stayed silent for a few seconds. "It was. Then I heard you screaming my name and I realized that I didn't want it to be. I realized I didn't want to die."

You weren't breathing. How could he... how could he want to end it all? How could he be so willing to throw his life away. Your throat was so tight as you bit back sobs. How could you have failed him this bad? "Johnny, I love you," you murmured as you felt his large hand take yours. "I'm so sorry, Johnny. I don't want you to die. I want you to live. I want you to be okay. I want us to be okay."

"Can we be okay? Haven't we done too much?" he asked shutting his eyes. He wasn't sure if he was tired, or if he just couldn't bear to look at the dark circles under your eyes. Probably caused by him.

"We've done too much of the wrong things and not enough of the right ones, Johnny... I want us to get better. We need help." You uttered. "Let's get help. You and me, professional help. They have so many programs, so many rehab centers to help people like us."

He didn't say anything to that. Johnny knew he needed the help, but he wasn't sure his ego would ever allow him to get the help he needed, especially if it meant being away from you again... Yet one look at your tired form did it for him. One look at you triggered the dark memories of the previous night. The way you cried by his drugged up, almost dead body. He remembered how much he wanted to live. He remembered the future he saw slipping through his fingers when he thought he'd be gone.

"Okay"

You looked up at him, he was avoiding your gaze, but something deep inside told you he was being serious.

"Let's get help... let's get better... and when we do, let's properly meet again, and give that future you want- no, that future we want a shot," he answered giving your hand a squeeze.

Relief invaded your entire being, a sigh of relief leaving your lips unconsciously. "Okay... we'll give it as many shots as you want."

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angelicjadamv · 4 years ago

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The story so far

One month after graduating high school in 2015 I was finally able to move away from my family. I was 18 and moved to California for college. Fortunately one of the scholarships I earned was accompanied by a summer program that started in the middle of the summer before fall semester. Shortly after settling in a safe, stable environment for the first time in my life I started to get better. A lot better at first. Then life happened, as it does, and 18 years of repressed trauma and abuse broke me. My nervous breakdown ruined my fall semester, I couldn't go to classes or take exams or function as a student anymore. Until this point, being an exceptional student was all I had and basically how I survived. My safe and stable environment now was dependant on maintaining a certain GPA, among other requirements I could no longer meet. I failed one of my main courses because I had a 0 on 2 exams, including the final. When I went home I was put on antipsychotics. Returning to campus for the 2016 spring semester, I attempted to seek more therapy. I wasn't successful in finding a good therapist (for me, therapy is a personal thing. Just because someone isn't a good therapist for me doesn't necessarily mean they are a bad therapist). I did continue to see my 2 psychiatrists (emergency and regular) often as they attempted to adjust my medication to find something that work. My agoraphobia worsened, I stopped sleeping, I could barely eat, I was manic one moment and dissociative the next, SH and suicidal ideation worsened. I was a burden to my friends and loved ones. I made it through this because I had a beautiful support system that I will forever be grateful for, but I ended up taking a leave of absence academically for my second semester, earning no credits and putting my scholarships at further jeopardy. I was allowed to stay on campus because it was clear I was dangerously unstable with no safe environment to return to and because I had incredible advocates looking out for me. I had realized that I wasn't going to get better in time to salvage my academic career and my life, and was mostly clueless as to how I would survive. I had had an internship in my field since I started college, but I earned basically no money. STEM internships aren't really made to be livable for undergrads, so I had mostly been working for experience in a field I would no longer be able to progress in. Bummer. My physical health had taken a huge dive for all of 2016. I basically always knew I was chronically ill, but I had been abused and gaslit my entire life to believe and act like I was fine, I was just a weak baby, I didn't know what real pain or suffering was, seizures were to be ignored, no I didn't have migraines or pinched nerves (um hello SCOLIOSIS), etc etc. And 2016 was the year my body finally started to break, so I knew "regular" jobs weren't going to be a viable option for me, at least not for long.

And thus I became a survival SW. I stayed in college for a final semester, because I didn't want to miss my friends, I loved my campus and didn't know where else to live, I still needed a lot of campus resources. I also kept my internship as long as I could, because I knew I would miss it for the rest of my life. I didn't really go to classes, again, because as much as a desperately wanted to and as much as my advisors moved heaven and earth to try to make it work for me, I couldn't handle it. I was finally able to find 2 great therapists who I started seeing regularly who actually knew how to diagnose and treat me, one at school and one outside. This is also when I met Daddy (Jace) online. After talking for what is probably a stupidly short time, we fell in love and started dating. This is honestly my first real relationship and time actually catching genuine feelings for someone, something that I hadn't thought I was capable of. Despite being happier than I had ever been in so many ways, my mental and physical health was still steadily declining. My migraines and pain were getting worse, I hadn't been able to eat normally in months and relied entirely on medication to eat or sleep at all. Many people recommended mmj at this point in my life, but I was afraid of how it would interact with my other meds. I only smoked occasionally at parties at this point (because no way was I spending my super duper limited money on weed). I wonder if medicating with something that actually worked well for me, like weed, would have allowed me to finish college. Oh well I guess. Because of my inability to attend classes, I had to take another leave for the fall semester 2016. I worked at a strip club briefly, but my health couldn't handle it for long.

I didn't want to go home for the first winter break in 2015, but campus closed and I had nowhere else to go. It was turbulent. When summer 2016 came, I still didn't go home despite having no place to stay. Until a month or so later, it was revealed to me a relative had terminal cancer. I had to go home again. It was worse than turbulent. When winter 2016 came, my relative was in much worse condition. They only had a few months left, and this was probably my last chance to say goodbye. This visit was by far the most traumatic, and more because of my parents than watching a loved one die. At least Jace was able to come meet me for the first time in person. He also got to meet my relative before they passed 🖤

Freshly fucked up by family, I retuned to California at the beginning of 2017. I was mostly taking a break from SW because of my health and was working vanilla jobs as I could (so not much). I had a pretty decent job that I was really good at and had been promoted, but then my relative passed. I started losing consciousness again ( I had many seizures and fainting spells in my childhood and during high school) and had to quit my job. the funeral was in spring 2017, I flew to Jersey to be with Daddy for a few days and then he drove me several states over for the memorial. That was the last time I saw my family. I wanted to transition to online/content creating, but I had no tech knowledge or equipment (even my phone was a potato). In high school I wasn't allowed to have a smartphone, most social media other than what was heavily monitored (and still had 0 experience with platforms sw is popular on besides Tumblr I guess), I didn't really know much about cameras. Way too sheltered and broken to feel like I could start anything. I was now seeing my outside, or I guess regular and only, therapist twice a week and doing treatments that while working for me were insanely (literally) hard. I had been able to get an apartment with roommates at a super discount in return for taking care of their crazy dog, which was a win win for me (he was a good boi just crazy from a bad past and had the worst separation anxiety). The agreement was that I would live with them until the lease was up in September, and then we would reevaluate the situation. Then they both got promoted at their mega corporation jobs. And after their wedding found a really gorgeous apartment in a much fancier part of the city, and paid to break our lease early in June leaving me homeless. I had been fired from my last 2 jobs (probably for being disabled because California is at will employment but who knows I might have been fired from the nanny job because the husband wanted to fuck me). I had no money or anywhere to go. All of my friends were almost as broke as me, so while I had offers to couchsurf at a few of their places they had other roommates who would have been pissed and in a few months they would be going back to school anyways. Daddy and I had been trying to save up to move in together for months, but he was going to move to California. We didn't have any money for that, so instead he asked me to move in with him in New Jersey. Leaving meant I lost my health insurance and my therapist. It was supposed to be much more temporary and we were supposed to move back to California much sooner than we were able to. I try not to be mad at those roommates because being angry doesn't change anything, but it really sucked.

Moving in with Daddy meant we could start our blog! And I was super happy at first, the happiest I could ever remember. But the years had been too hard and my health started to get worse than ever before. Without treatment and so traumatized, my brain and body were constantly at war. I would wake with splitting migraines, throwing up, my chronic pain became completely unmanageable. I started to need weed all the time because it was the only thing that stopped my cyclical vomiting episodes and kept me out of the hospital. My antipsychotics and other meds had been high-key fucking me up (probably shouldn't have been on them in the first place, thank you doctor who also ignored my seizures even when I had one in front of you) and were almost impossible to come off of because the withdrawals. (Seriously, kicking xanax was easier for me than my antipsychotics.) I'm not anti medication or anything, I just know the ones I was on were not good for me anymore. I'd actually like to be on something again, I just need a doctor who actually understands PTSD and DID.

My health continued to be shit for most of 2018, with several ER visits for severe dehydration from vomiting for days on end. We started to make videos and do snapchat and online sessions to be able to make ends meet. Despite being in the worst situation and thus everything being a trizillion times harder, we really loved (and still love 😇) doing SW and creating content. Our fans and clients have been there in some of our darkest moments, just being lovely or pulling through for us when we needed it most. During 2018 and 2019 I became actively suicidal for the first time since I was 13. I struggled with self harm again. I have gotten worse than I ever thought possible. But I wouldn't have made it at all if it wasn't for SW, this community and our supporters.

At the beginning of 2020 we were finally able to move back to California. Obviously, the pandemic severely disrupted many of our plans, especially regarding my recovery. Despite things being delayed or shifted, we are in a much better place currently. I have what I need to get better and I can build a support system again. I will get better.

Talking about things is hard for me. Being open and honest is hard for me. For 18 years I was trained and abused to not be sad or show negative feelings, or talk about upsetting things, and it has been killing me slowly my entire life. I genuinely don't want pity or to make others feel bad, but I do want to give you the chance to get to know me. I don't always talk about things so much. But I'm trying to get better at it.

#angelicjada #oc #about jada

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alexisluthor · 5 years ago

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A view of Prodigal Son through my lens of mental health

Prodigal Son is a fantastic show. One of the reasons I got so drawn into it is because I can relate to Malcolm. I have PTSD, night terrors, panic attacks...in short - trauma.

Malcolm’s trauma, and how he deals with it, plays a significant role in the show and the writer’s have done a great job exploring this, but there’s always room to explore further.

For as much as I have in common with the character of Malcolm, I have just as many differences. I’m not pretty, I’m not rich, I don’t have medication that works for me, and my father’s not a serial killer. I’m average on a good day, totally broke, allergic to the majority of SSRI’s and my dad’s a geologist. Writing all of that down I realize that only the last point works in my favor.

My own personal drabbles aside, there’s a lot I’ve experienced that I’m sure the show could explore as well.

For one, finding the right medication can be a slow, terrifying and tedious process. There can be side effects...withdrawals like ‘brain zaps,’ when you’re going off one and getting on another. It can be quite rough. There’s maintenance medication, and emergency medication like Xanax. Malcolm said that he’s wildly dependent on Benzos, but we’ve never seen him take an emergency medication I don’t think.

Still, he has his medication and his routine, which is good. Maybe he’s got all that figured out already. I don’t really know what that’s like - to have that all figured out. I’ve tried. I’ve been prescribed (what feels like) nearly everything and have had a whole host of terrible side effects - one of which (rather ironically) is anxiety. My body simply can’t break down anxiety medication, the drugs building up in my system until side effects become inevitable. That’s just my own weirdness though.

Another thing that works out pretty well for Malcolm is how others, namely his team, treats him. They know that he’s ‘different,’ but they accept him. In real life...well...in my experience...it’s not like that really.

What it *is* like is people judging you or trying to help you or blowing you off entirely. I personally devote a massive amount of time and energy attempting to ‘come off’ as normal. I do things that scare me to death - things I wouldn’t normally do - just to prove my normalcy. But I’m not normal.

I bend over backwards to make concessions for other people, but (aside from a few family members) no one does the same for me. They don’t do it because they don’t understand. And if I try to explain my aversion to certain things...if I try to explain my anxiety to someone who has never dealt with it themselves (or know someone who has) it’s nearly impossible to explain. It’s like trying to describe colors to someone who’s colorblind.

There’s this inherent loneliness, this clawing desire to be known and understood that goes unmet, and this massive fear that no one out there cares or understands.

You try to explain things in such a way that people will understand.

To demonstrate the disheartening result of me trying to open up to people, these are the kinds of things I hear from people in response to my trying to explain. “Why don’t you just get over it?” “You should put yourself out there more.” “Well I never had a problem with XYZ, why do you?” “Being anxious means you’re not being strong enough in your faith.” “Have you tried essential oils?” Have you tried yoga?” “You should go Keto.” “It sounds like you need to work on XYZ…” “Why do you have PTSD? You were never in a war.”

Eventually, you just stop putting yourself out there. You stop trying to make friends. You stop trying to date. Because the experiences you have - the truly bad ones - are so crushing, discouraging and heart wrenching.

I’ve had bosses pick on me for being anxious. I’ve had some ask me to do things that really made my anxiety quite bad - and I did them anyway, rather than trying to explain. I’ve had terrible coworkers, and awful people who I thought were my friends, who turned out not to be.

And Malcolm’s team is just...there for him...supporting him. And it’s wonderful. But it would also be wonderful to see him interact with someone who really doesn’t get it. Because that happens quite a lot.

Switching gears, I’ve also had some different experiences when it came to therapists - if I could afford them. I had a good one, but she went to work at a hospital. She left, and she was the only therapist I had ever connected with. I tried to see one before her, but we didn’t connect at all and it left me wondering if therapy was even an option for me. Then I found her and it was a good option. It worked out nicely. Then she left. And I’ve struggled with my anxiety now more than ever...but I don’t have her...so I’m trying someone new.

And each time you start with a therapist, it’s like starting at zero. Recalling all of your trauma with them...wondering if they can help or not. One lady I saw, who was very much the wrong fit, told me that I couldn’t have a kid on my own. That it wasn’t right if I didn’t have a husband. Needless to say - that didn’t work out.

And you do try everything. You try the tapping method thing and the brain spotting thing. You try traditional therapy and so many other things because, more than anything, you want to be normal. People say normal is overrated, but it isn’t. It’s a golden, beautiful thing that feels so out of reach - so unattainable sometimes.

And you’re not sure when it happened, but you’ve somehow got this label. This necklace that says, “broken,” that’s chained around your neck. And you carry it, believing that you are inherently defective - the belief seeping into other areas of your life like a poison.

You try to cope, but that’s not always possible. Malcolm copes through his job, but that can be extremely dangerous, as I found out when I no longer had a job. You have to be able to stand on your own...without putting your chips into anything that you have the potential to lose. A job. A relationship. A certain home. A particular friend.

What would happen if Malcolm no longer had his job? Or like...during this quarantine, for example...he wasn’t able to do it?

I think Malcolm said it best when he said that he’s a mess, but he’s a functioning mess. Right now, I can’t make that same claim. There are peaks and valleys of dealing with anxiety on this level. There are moments - years - where I did wonderfully. And then there are moments like this - years - where I’m at the very lowest point possible.

It’s a rollercoaster ride that you can’t get off. There are moments of progress and major setbacks.

I realize that the show’s main focus isn’t Malcolm’s mental state - although it probably could be - but I think that there is more room for the show to delve into this ongoing battle more.

I’m terrible at transitions at 12:37 am so I’ll just go on in saying that there’s another thing I, personally struggle with. My Dad has cancer. Terminal. And I often feel guilt. Guilt for not spending enough time with him or guilt because I don’t get along with him. We’re quite different people and he - in no way, shape, or form understands what my anxiety/PTSD is. Some of the most hurtful things ever said to me, were said by him. And it creates this dichotomy. On one hand, I love him - and on the other, he’s hurt me beyond measure.

I think Malcolm feels this same dichotomy, only in a different way. His father’s a monster. He wants to hate him - part of him does. But part of him also loves him. There's guilt there. It’s the same type of guilt that I have, although it’s a different flavor - it exists for a different reason.

I’m not really allowed to be mad at my dying father. Malcolm’s not really allowed to love his monster of a father. Etcetera, etcetera. Which I think is a fascinating bit of cognitive dissonance for the show to dissect.

So...that is my very lengthy and probably barely relevant analysis of the show through my mental health lens.

There is such a stigma attached to mental health that I didn’t even want to admit I had a problem until I was eighteen, even though my struggles started a decade prior to that. The stigma is so difficult to get past. The questions you get asked are so intolerable and invasive at times. The progress forward can be so slow and painful. Still I try my best. And I realize this is just a show, but it’s a show that means a lot to me for obvious reasons.

There are those massive differences between real-life-me and TV character, Malcolm Bright.

Malcolm is beautiful. He’s wonderfully dressed and comes from money. He had enough money to attend one of the best Ivy League colleges and attain an amazing degree. He doesn’t have to worry about paying for meds or his therapist. He has meds that work for him. He has a fulfilling job that piques his interest and pays him enough to live off of. He has coworkers and a mother and a mentor who are there for him in a non-judgmental way. He is not the norm - but the exception. And it works for the show.

I just hope that people know that having these issues is not thrilling or sexy. It doesn’t make me a more interesting person. And oftentimes, people who do suffer from these issues don’t have half the support or care that this character does.

I hope that this show succeeds in getting the conversation about mental health started. I hope that the stigma around mental health begins to wane. And someday, I hope that mental healthcare will be available to everyone - no matter their social class or income.

There’s a lot that this show can explore with Malcolm and his mental health journey and I hope that we get a season two so that it can.

#prodigal son #long post #PTSD #anxiety #panic attacks #prodigal son analysis #mental health #therapy #malcolm bright #honest #medication #essay #jessica whitly #gil arroyo #martin whitly #fathers #dani powell #pson analysis #very long post

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pandemiclaughter · 4 years ago

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Rambling about MIL her anxiety, parkinson’s

Some of the most frustrating conversations are with those who are in the very beginning stages of dementia, super stubborn, riddled with anxiety, angry, and sprinkled with some passive aggressiveness on top for extra fun. Then I’m going to make this communication even more difficult by letting my rambilng ADD tell you about these difficult encounters.

(warning---you may just want to skip this one---if you do, but want to have an idea of what this is about here’s the basics of the post:

The basic facts from this crazy non-linear explosion of words is my MIL believes she truly is going to run out of oxygen to breathe in the air. And how she went from telling me she has never had anxiety to she has lived with anxiety her whole life.)

MIL (in her 80s with Parkinson’s) does not have good balance, she can not stand for many seconds without support. She is always freezing. When we first moved in here she would run blow dryers on her bed all night. She said it was to keep her warm. But now through much more dedection---they were also white noise to help with her anxiety.

So we have moved to no longer using the bed as potential kindle. It took her a few months to learn to use an app for white noise sound (damn when they upgrade the app---she stopped using it and went back to a CD--but was mad because it was a different CD player). We got google dot to work for a bit, but then she would tell it to play things with a limited time. She also refuses ocean sounds--because ocean sounds make you pee. (I get how the sound of a trickling stream may make you want to pee--but crashing waves---dear God, how forceful is your urine?)

So back to her freezing. We got a nice little heater in there, with a thermostat and a timer. Hubby went and turned “off” the vents--(these vents are from the 70s and they do not really close). One vent under the bed, the other behind the dresser. Both I would have a really hard time getting to.

Hubby and I came in the other night to help her with her sleep sounds again. And he notices her vents are open full.

First we asked her how---because with her balance---(We’ve had one fall since we’ve been Coronateened--thank GOD she didn’t hurt herself). So she’s like, of course I opened them---I didn’t have enough oxygen in here.

Wait---her room is the largest room in the house---master bedroom with a door to the outside, windows, regardless--run out of oxygen--how do you run out of oxygen---she’s not in a sealed box. She continues to tell us that the oxygen runs out at night and she can’t breathe. Hubby and I try not to laugh--explain she will never run out of oxygen in the air--and the air conditioner is not bringing in more oxygen. We ask her please, if she wants her vents opened or closed to come get us--because we really don’t want her falling. (I still can’t figure out how she got them opened.) This is the same woman who refuses to walk on grass--because she will fall and refuses to walk down the driveway--without someone watching her. She’s riddled with these weird beliefs (it runs in the family--hubby’s sister is afraid to eat meat if the white and the dark meat have visibly touched).

Later, another time, I try to talk to her about her episodes at night and in the conversation explain they might be anxiety attacks she is feeling. I ask her what has worked for her in the past for her anxiety attacks. Now this is the same woman who usually gets excited about being ill--but she hates that I use the word anxiety.

MIL: I have never had an anxiety attack. I don’t have anxiety.

Me: Ok, but didn’t you used to take Xanax daily?

MIL: Yes.

Me: Ok, why did you take Xanax daily?

MIL: That’s because I taught school and kids are stressful.

Me: Ok, but didn’t your doctor just recently stop filling your prescription? Just in the last year? (she’s in her 80s)

MIL: That’s because he said it’s not good for my health and I could fall. (ok--I know kids are stressfull--but I’m pretty certain that you weren’t still stressed years after teaching---but I don’t go there.)

Me; So was there anything else that you did to help when you were more stressed out? I mention how she was doing well after starting Zoloft, but over the last couple of weeks she hasn’t been sleeping, she seems on edge, maybe wanted to talk to the doctor about upping the dose. (What I really want to tell her is I need you to get your anxiety in check, because it’s starting to set off my anxiety something awful. We have had conversations about my anxiety it has helped opened up some discussion--and also that her 3 children all have it too. i know some of this is people just didn’t talk about anxiety before---or I guess she didn’t?)

(this is the sweet lady that only gets mad at me---well and her oldest daughter. Before we moved in, I had never heard a harsh word--I knew she got mad at her oldest daughter, but since I have moved in---she really saves getting mad for me instead of her oldest daughter. her relationship has gotten better with her oldest---and I try to remember that when she gets mad---I would love for someone to be the buffer between me and my Mom, if this was my Mom, so I could enjoy having a better relationship. My husband---the baby of the family and only son of an Italian family---he can do no wrong---still to this day. If she is even slightly upset with him---she will still direct it towards me or his sisters) I digress.

MIL: SHAUNA--- I HAVE HAD ANXIETY MY WHOLE LIFE, I just live with it. And I never needed more than under a mg of xanax---i’m already on 50 mg and that’s just too much medicine. And I’ve never had an anxiety attack. (ok---at least we have moved from never having anxiety---that was quick)

(all who have known her feel like she took xanax more than once a day---she used to be zoned out and chill a lot--we have really wanted to see if edibles could help--I know I’ve seen some great things with the parkinson’s too---and if I am right---it could be a mixed bag with anxiety--becuase it can increase the paranoia---but maybe that’s a full edibile?---maybe the CBD only stuff? I need to look into it more---we still live in the most strict---weed is bad state). But willing to help her too--if it will help.

Me: (I give up even trying to compare/contrast Xanax to Zoloft dosages.) Have you ever thought of deep breathing when you feel like there is no oxygen in the room?

MIL: That won’t work.

As this cycle of conversation contitued she opened up to hearing about breathing exercises, tells me about how she has used them before and used to have a CD on them, and then was shocked again about the fact they could be on youtube.

She’s always shocked we tell her she can find things on youtube. We possibly always take it a bit too far hubby tells her how she can learn to make a pipe bomb or find naked old men to watch, if she wanted. I can’t think of all the crazy things hubby tells her she could do on youtube. I’m surprised we haven’t had a visit from the governement.

She has learned to do her daily Parkinson’s workouts and other therapy through youtube. I also connected her with a therapist online (she swore she didn’t need one of those--but thank goodness for them.). I will have to remember their name--great company and really reaching out to the elderly during this pandemic time. But they seemed like a good company before this time---I’m glad. They also check in with the patient’s family members to see how they are doing and relay things back and forth and also help the children with their aging parent.

Then we are back to square one---she doesn’t want help with anything---so showing her these breathing videos---that takes a couple more days.

I forget how much time she takes. And sometimes I just need a break, so me needing a break extends some of this time too. And how did you teach school, but also believe you can run out of oxygen in a large, ventilated room? I get these worries aren’t logical---but sometimes they just hurt my brain.

Rambling end for now.

#anxiety #dementia #parkinson's diease #aging parents #ADD

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recreatelifecounselingnet · 4 years ago

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Cocaine Addiction - Everything You Need To Know About Cocaine

Cocaine is among the oldest abused drugs around. In a few societies, the leaf from the cocoa plant (from which powdered cocaine is derived) is chewed or put in a tea to give a small stimulant effect much like a caffeine jolt. Though the cocoa leaf isn't technically cocaine, it is still illegal in several countries such as the United States.

In an effort to extract the strong elements from the cocoa leaf, a scientist in the 1860's put the leaf through many simple laboratory processes. A salt form was created: cocaine hydrochloride. It had been a white, powdery substance that we know today to be powdered cocaine.

With a history of over 150 years, cocaine was in the beginning considered to be magic drug endorsed by the acclaimed psychiatrist Sigmund Freud. It had been administered for all ailments, one of them being depression.

The medical community quickly found its chemical properties to be of some use. After application, the numbing effect would aid in pain and the vein-constricting properties helped to regulate bleeding.

One of many worlds leading soft-drink companies, Coca-Cola, built their empire on the stimulant properties of cocaine. With small quantities of cocaine in the drink, the buyer would feel "pepped up" after having a few drinks. It creates one wonder, with the addictive properties of cocaine as we know it today, how a number of these early coca-cola drinkers were dependent on coke...literally.

It wouldn't take long to begin to see the overwhelming addictive properties of cocaine and in the early 1900's, cocaine finally became illegal. Though as most of us know, the drug's https://www.recreatelifecounseling.com/how-long-does-crack-cocaine-high-last/ popularity and addiction didn't stop there.

Similar to drugs like Methamphetamine and Heroin, cocaine can be snorted, smoked, injected or ingested. The consequences of cocaine give the consumer an immediate overwhelming sense of euphoria. The first aftereffect of the drug is immediate but doesn't last long and must be used again to keep the "high ".

Depending how the drug is being administered into the human body, the consequences may still be felt as much as two hours after the final dosage. But cocaine addicts don't wait long to complete another "line" or "rail ".

Usually, it's only a matter of minutes between each snort, and for the cocaine smoker less than a minute. Shortly afterwards, a serious craving for the drug hits the consumer like a brick wall and another dose is needed. This goes on until the consumer either runs out from the drug, runs out of money or has been on a lengthy binge and just can't physically continue any longer.

Adhering to a cocaine binge, a "crash" occurs. As the drug wears off, feelings of hopelessness and severe depression may suddenly set in. Vital chemicals in mental performance that maintain mood and feelings of well-being have now been depleted. The aftereffects of a cocaine what does xanax to do the brain binge can be felt up to a week after last use. For an addict to feel "good" again they should use the drug that put them there in the very first place.

Cocaine addiction can be deadly even for a very first time user. In the very first hour following last use, the addict risks a 40% greater chance of getting a coronary arrest or stroke.

Chronic use could cause irreparable harm to mental performance, heart, liver, lungs, nose and throat and other vital organs. The stimulant aftereffect of cocaine causes the body's temperature to increase dramatically which, as time passes, could cause renal damage and possibly failure. There are always a long list of health threats associated with cocaine addiction and abuse.

If you suspect someone you understand is using cocaine and has become addicted, there are a few tell-tale signs to look for: sudden weight loss or decrease in appetite, clogged sinus'or sinus problems, red nose and nostrils, jittery disposition, restlessness, manic behavior and possibly paranoia, aural and/ or visual hallucinations.

If you utilize cocaine and you're addicted, there are a few options for you yourself to select from:

o You can continue on and risk having a coronary arrest, stroke or overdose and possibly die.

o Result in jail or prison.

o Stop altogether.

If you've tried to stop by yourself, you understand how difficult it may be. The odds are against you of quitting all on your own and staying clean. Accept the help available for you at this time and make the change that may keep your life.

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momofaddict · 5 years ago

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The Story of the End

November 26, 2019, Melody and I has planned a girl's day out. I sent the baby to the sitter, I had the day off from work, we ran a few errands, then enjoyed a nice lunch downtown. I had $150 cash in my purse from selling the laptop that she kept hawking for drug money, so my last errand was to deposit that cash and get it the hell out of my purse.

When we got home around 2pm, she said she was going to meet one of her best friends at the condo, who was already there waiting. She's a pot head and occasional Xanax user, but not an addict. I told her I loved her and she left about 2:30p. The condo is 10 min from my house.

She was supposed to pick up the baby at 5p. My son's ex who I'm still close with had been group texting Mel and me around 4:30. I'd been responding, but Mel hadn't. Not terribly unusual, but I got that oh so familiar sinking feeling, heart palpitations of worry started.

Just after 5p I text Melody and asked if she'd picked up the baby yet. No answer. I called a couple of times, no answer. She always got mad at me when I worried & blew up her phone, so I was trying to not do that. I texted again around 5:30 asking if she wanted me to pick up the baby. At this point I knew she'd used. No answer. I called a couple more times, straight to VM. I called the sitter at 5:45p. Nope, Mel hadn't picked up the baby. I'm on my way...

It was rush hour so I skipped the highway and took back roads. Mistake! Every light took forever, every driver was going half the speed limit. This only exacerbated my anxiety, which was starting to skyrocket. I prayed, "Please don't let this be it. Please let her be asleep and pissed at me for overreacting. Please don't let her OD and die!"

I got to the condo, & saw her car (was hoping I wouldn't, which would mean she's out and about). I parked in the fire lane, ran up to her condo and entered with my key. The place was tidy and quiet. I thought maybe she'd left with her friend that she was meeting there. I looked all over the house, seemingly no one was there. I walked to the back of the condo where there first a vanity area, then past that, a door to the tiny room with a toilet and shower. Then it hit me... I think the TV is missing. I ran out to the living room and confirmed it was gone. Initially I was pissed.

I'd left my phone in the vanity area and went to retrieve it... And suddenly realized the toilet room door was closed. I went to open it - locked. Insert major sickly adrenaline rush of complete terror. She'd never OD'd before so I was fucking scared.

I started beating on the door and screaming at her. Nothing. I looked under the door as best I could, I saw shadows. Was it her? Was it just dirty clothes on the floor? Why was the door locked if she wasn't there? So many thoughts and questions running through my head. I got a hanger to try to break into the door and called 911. I continued to try to break into the door with no luck whatsoever. Kicking, banging, screaming. It looked like one of those easy doors that all of us at one point in our lives have broken into, a knob with just a hole in it that you can stick a metal hanger in there and easily unlock. It wasn't coming open. Divine intervention, I've now concluded.

What seemed like forever, but was probably about five minutes later, a cop showed up. He too could not get the door open. A couple minutes later EMTs show up and I am escorted into the living room, but I didn't want to be by the bathroom anyway because I was so afraid of seeing something I could never unsee again.

They got the lock open, but something was against the door. it was like they were trying to be careful pushing open the door and we're taking forever doing it. I wanted to scream at them to break her bones if needed, I don't care just get that fucking door open!

At this point the babysitter who lives in the same complex rushed over when she saw the ambulance out front. I was a goddamn mess, screaming and crying harder than I ever had before. I told her to go look. She said Melody's head was in the toilet and she's blue. They pulled her out and I kept yelling at them I HAVE NARCAN RIGHT THERE BY THE BATHROOM!

Ms W, the sitter took me outside for air & one guy came out saying she's breathing. That was it for me, she's breathing and there's Narcan, she'll make it.

I went back in and the cops just kept asking me questions and asking me questions and I was in no mood for any of that bullshit. They had Melody laid on the bedroom floor. I couldn't see her, but the door was cracked and I could see them working on her. I swear to God it took them 15 minutes to finally administer narcan. Surely that was their second try?? But then I saw the thing that I did not want to see, CPR. I fucking flipped my lid!

They moved me to a spot where I couldn't see inside the bedroom anymore & about 10 minutes later they said they were going to transport her to the hospital. I asked if she breathing several times. All they would say is that they're working on her. They told me to wait outside while they transport her to the ambulance. I had my back turned in my ears plugged with my fingers because I didn't want to hear or see anything that would make me lose hope. I wanted to know that there was some hope that my baby was going to live. While I was waiting for them to get her in the ambulance, I called my son and told him to meet me at the hospital, that Melody had overdosed. He was on his way. I did breakneck speed to get to the hospital that was approximately 10 minutes away.

When I got to the hospital I waited for about 5 minutes until someone came and got me. They escorted me, not to my daughter's bedside, but to the "family room", a small, private room with couches and tissues. I stood in the doorway shaking my head, telling them no, I don't want to go in there, but eventually relented.

The first person that talked to me said they're still working on her, which of course gave me a small glimmer of hope, but why in the fuck was I in that little room?

Within about 5 minutes the EMTs, cops, and medical staff that have been working on her all flooded into that room. This was it, I knew it. They explained how hard they tried. I stopped them and said no I don't want to hear it, it's not true! I was bawling needless to say, head in hands. Finally I looked up and just said is she...? He just said I'm sorry. I lost it. Ms W (babysitter) came in about that time and I held on to that woman as tightly as I've ever held anybody in my life. I told her she's gone she's gone she's gone, my baby is gone! Everyone left the room that wasn't family except Ms W and a "counselor", who, long story short, it wasn't helpful even a little.

The counselor left the room at one point for about 5 minutes and my son walked in. I was trying to read his face to see if anyone had told him anything. He hadn't even had a chance to sit down and the counselor basically followed him in the room. I hadn't had a chance to say anything to him yet, when she extended out her arm for a handshake, introduced herself and said, "I'm so sorry for your loss." OMFG! My son looking at utterly and totally confused said, "Wait, what?" immediately started bawling. I asked everyone to leave the room and he and I just held each other and cried as hard as we've ever cried in our lives.

I went outside shortly after for some air. By the time I got back in, Melody's dad was there, my ex. We cried and held each other. It was by far the worst day of my life. At one point they asked if I wanted to see Melody. I decided I did not. My son and my ex saw her.

I had arrived at Melody's condo at 6 p.m. . By 8:45 p.m. I was leaving the hospital no longer a mother of a daughter. Goddamn heroin took her away from me.

Ms W kept the baby and we all went our separate ways. I thought I would want to be alone, but pretty much as soon as I walked into my empty house and Melody's cat walked up to me, I knew I didn't need to be alone. I called my best friend and neighbor and she came over immediately. She stayed for about an hour, I was exhausted, and thought I was ready to be alone. Nope! Being alone with my brain at that time just wasn't a good place to be. So I called my sister who lives fairly nearby. We'd been out of sorts lately because she had a mental breakdown a few months before, basically because my druggie daughter had a baby and she can't have children. She had literally told me that as long as Melody is in my house, she won't be there. But she and her husband rushed right over. We talked until I couldn't stay awake anymore.

Then came all of the busy work of trying to figure out arrangements for my daughter. How was I going to pay for a funeral when I just shelled out the last of my available credit card money to her grandmother's funeral one month before? That's a whole other story I'll save for another day.

The story doesn't end there though.

Two days later, Thanksgiving Day, D (the baby's father) came up on a train. As you know D has never been anybody's favorite person in this family. But he was so emotionally distraught, we tried to embrace him and help him as much as we could. Even my son who pretty much loathes the man hugged him and told him if there's anything he needed... The only people there were my son, my ex, the baby, D and me. We did our best to have a small Thanksgiving dinner together, because we didn't want to ruin things for the baby and we knew Melody would want us to continue with Thanksgiving.

The next day, D and I were the only ones at my house other than the baby. I tried to give him as much time as possible with the baby. We all also had to go to the funeral home that day and start trying to make arrangements. I wanted those closest to her to have an opinion on the arrangements. that was a total cluster fuck because after spending four miserable hours up there picking this and picking that for the arrangements, just for the funeral alone they wanted $16,000. That does not include burial, headstone, in a myriad of other things. Fuck that. But we picked a burial plot, because no matter the price, I needed her grave to be at that location, which is very close to my house. My sister helped me pay for that, $5800 (without the headstone), so at least that much was done. The $3000 headstone was purchased later. My God, these people really take advantage of people in mourning.

The next day was Saturday, two days after Thanksgiving. D had obviously been day drinking and was just going off at the mouth about how he's going to be okay, he's going to move back up to my city, get a job, get his life together, so he can take care of his baby. The thought of that sent shock waves down my body because I knew he would never be in a position to really take care of the baby. But I also knew he was talking out of his ass because he's getting drunk. he just kept talking and talking and saying the same things over and over. I think he was trying to convince himself.

Then randomly out of the blue, I'm standing in the kitchen washing a baby bottle and he opens my freezer and takes a giant gulp of vodka that I had in there. He turns to me and says, "Take care of my boy." It took me a full two or three seconds to realize what he just said and I said "what did you just say to me?" Take care of my boy. I immediately burst into tears grabbed hold of his jacket and I said what the fuck don't talk like that! He said there's nothing that I could do to stop him. I told him he's a fucking liar for all the stuff that he had said earlier that day about taking care of his own son. He goes yeah that's right I'm a fucking liar, just take care of my boy and he yanked away and went for the front door. I just said D don't do anything stupid, please, at least for your son. He started crying and saying how he's going to get the motherfuckers that killed his girl, & walked out the front door.

I'm not going to lie, at this point I thought it was a bunch of addict, drunk bullshit. Yeah right, he's going to set off on foot to go do something to these dealers? I gathered his things from my house, put them in a bag, set it on the front porch and locked the door. My daughter just died and he wants to pull this bullshit on me? I don't think so.

I had plans to run to Target and then go to my son's for dinner, so I continue with my plans with the baby in tow. Target is pretty much around the corner, and since it was Black Friday weekend, there was a cop car sitting in front of Target. I went up to the cop car and told the cop inside what just transpired, and told him I felt he was a danger to himself and potentially others. I told him he was on foot so he couldn't be far. He entered some stuff in his little cop car computer and said that they'd keep an eye out for him. I said I didn't care if it was jail or someplace else, he just needs to be taken off the street and put it somewhere safe.

As the baby and I were then on our way to my son's house, my phone starts blowing up with people saying that D is posting some pretty sick shit on Facebook. He had cut up his arms really badly & was showing them off on various pictures. Then he apparently got a hold of a roadkilled possum and wrapped it around his neck and posted one video naming his dealers by name and saying they're going to pay. Then he posted another video where he was literally eating or tearing apart this dead possum with his teeth. He had officially lost his mind. His last video talked about me and my ex and my son, thanking us for all we had done for him, but that it just wasn't enough, among other things. So while all this was going on, I decided to call 911 and let them know what's going on.

A couple of investigators called me while I was at my son's within 30 minutes of me calling 911. They just wanted more information about him. I found out later that they were trying to identify his body.

I got home from my son's house about 2 hours later and a cop was waiting in front of my house. He came inside and proceeded to tell me that a man fitting D's description was hit by a car while appearing to cross the interstate. They performed surgery on him but he did not survive. We later found out that he was on a bridge leading from one highway to another that was actually on the way to the dealer's house. The unfortunate person who hit him with their car said that he appeared to jump in front of her car. In that moment in time when the cop was telling me all of this, I was pissed. The baby was right there in his little jumper while I'm getting this terrible news, plus I just couldn't get my mind off the poor people that hit him with their car.

D's last FB post said, "Stop crying, it's a wrap, imma ghost." No question, he killed himself.

But there was that voice that said, that's it, no more addicts in my life. I never really considered that D would be a big part of the baby's life anyway. But now he's going to have no part and someday I have to tell this child what happened to his parents. And that's what I cried for.

As I've mentioned before D's family are pretty much pieces of shit. there was no way that I had the mental capacity to try to set up arrangements for his memorial too, nor did I have the money. I was still trying to raise money for Mel's funeral! So his ex from 11 years ago, the mother of his other son, bless her heart, took the lead on trying to make arrangements. His family did nothing to help. She set up a GoFundMe for $6,000 and only raised $2000. D had burned a lot of bridges and his short life. But she found a funeral home that would do the service, the embalming so he could have an open casket service before being cremated, the cremation itself, all for $3,000. I pitched in the other $1,000 out of my GoFundMe for Mel and a small service was held for him. The only family that came from Ohio and Georgia for his service was his sister. Oh but his mom left lots of sad face emoticons on Facebook, so she's clearly grieving horribly. Ugh. Wretched family! I felt so bad for his sister though. And even the mother of his other son. They were both tore up at the memorial. My guess is about 20 people showed up. D's other son, JC, was as sad as a little 11 year-old boy could be. That shit hurt my soul and I vowed to make sure that he and Melody's baby will be in each other's lives moving forward.

While making these arrangements, JC's mother and I also ordered matching necklaces for D's sons to wear that would have D's ashes in them. And just last week we spread some of his ashes on Melody's grave so JC, who really loved Melody, and Mel's baby (P) could have a single place to visit Mel and D.

This is what opiate addiction has done to my family and many, many families across the country. I am forever changed by this and I don't know what normal is supposed to be anymore. I said it before and I'll say it again, thank God for this baby. While I'll be 70 years old when he turns 18, he will have a stable home with lots of love, and I have that little piece of Melody with me forevermore.

#death by overdose #overdose #narcotics addiction #drug addict #heroin addiction #addict #addiction #na #narcotics anonymous #opiates #opiaddict #heroin

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smokeycemetery · 4 years ago

Text

JA ONE XTC

JA • • •

KEVIN HELDMAN lives in New York. This is his first piece for "Rolling Stone." (ROLLING STONE,FEB 9,1995)

THE FIRST TIME I meet JA, he skates up to me wearing Rollerblades, his cap played backward, on a street corner in Manhattan at around midnight. He's white, 24 years old, with a short, muscular build and a blond crew cut. He has been writing graffiti off and on in New York for almost 10 years and is the founder of a loosely affiliated crew called XTC. His hands, arms, legs and scalp show a variety of scars from nightsticks, razor wire, fists and sharp, jagged things he has climbed up, on or over. He has been beaten by the police -- a "wood shampoo," he calls it -- has been shot at, has fallen off a highway sign into moving traffic, has run naked through train yards tagging, has been chased down highways by rival writers wielding golf clubs and has risked his life innumerable times writing graffiti -- bombing, getting up.

JA lives alone in a one-bedroom apartment. There's graffiti on a wall-length mirror, a weight bench, a Lava lamp to bug out on, cans of paint stacked in the corner, a large Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) sticker on the side of the refrigerator. The buzzer to his apartment lists a false name; his phone number is unlisted to avoid law-enforcement representatives as well as conflicts with other writers. While JA and one of his writing partners, JD, and I are discussing their apprehension about this story, JD, offering up a maxim from the graffiti life, tells me matter-of-factly, "You wouldn't fuck us over, we know where you live."

At JA's apartment we look through photos. There are hundreds of pictures of writers inside out-of-service subway cars that they've just covered completely with their tags, pictures of writers wearing orange safety vests -- to impersonate transit workers -- and walking subway tracks, pictures of detectives and transit workers inspecting graffiti that JA and crew put up the previous night, pictures of stylized JA 'throw-ups' large, bubble-lettered logos written 15 feet up and 50 times across a highway retaining wall. Picture after picture of JA's on trains, JA's on trucks, on store gates, bridges, rooftops, billboards -- all labeled, claimed and recorded on film.

JA comes from a well-to-do family; his parents are divorced; his father holds a high-profile position in the entertainment industry. JA is aware that in some people's minds this last fact calls into question his street legitimacy, and he has put a great deal of effort into resisting the correlation between privileged and soft. He estimates he has been arrested 15 times for various crimes. He doesn't have a job, and it's unclear how he supports himself. Every time we've been together, he's been high or going to get high. Once he called me from Rikers Island prison, where he was serving a couple of months for disorderly conduct and a probation violation. He said some of the inmates saw him tagging in a notebook and asked him to do tattoos for them.

It sounds right. Wherever he is, JA dominates his surroundings. With his crew, he picks the spots to hit, the stores to rack from; he controls the mission. He gives directions in the car, plans the activities, sets the mood. And he takes everything a step further than the people he's with. He climbs higher, stays awake longer, sucks deepest on the blunt, writes the most graffiti. And though he's respected by other writers for testing the limits -- he has been described to me by other writers as a king and, by way of compliment, as "the sickest guy I ever met" -- that same recklessness sometimes alienates him from the majority who don't have such a huge appetite for chaos, adrenaline, self-destruction.

When I ask a city detective who specializes in combating graffiti if there are any particularly well-known writers, he immediately mentions JA and adds with a bit of pride in his voice, "We know each other." He calls JA the "biggest graffiti writer of all time" (though the detective would prefer that I didn't mention that, because it'll only encourage JA). "He's probably got the most throw-ups in the city, in the country, in the world," the detective says. "If the average big-time graffiti vandal has 10,000 tags, JA's got 100,000. He's probably done -- in New York City alone -- at least $5 million worth of damage."

AT ABOUT 3 A.M., JA AND TWO OTHER WRITERS go out to hit a billboard off the West Side Highway in Harlem. Tonight there are SET, a 21-year-old white writer from Queens, N.Y., and JD, a black Latino writer the same age, also from Queens. They load their backpacks with racked cans of Rustoleum, fat cap nozzles, heavy 2-foot industrial bolt cutters and surgical gloves. We pile into a car and start driving, Schooly D blasting on the radio. First a stop at a deli where JA and SET go in and steal beer. Then we drive around Harlem trying a number of different dope spots, keeping an eye out for "berries" -- police cars. JA tosses a finished 40-ounce out the window in a high arc, and it smashes on the street.

At different points, JA gets out of the car and casually walks the streets and into buildings, looking for dealers. A good part of the graffiti life involves walking anywhere in the city, at any time, and not being afraid -- or being afraid and doing it anyway.

We arrive at a spot where JA has tagged the dealer's name on a wall in his territory. The three writers buy a vial of crack and a vial of angel dust and combine them ("spacebase") in a hollowed-out Phillies blunt. JD tells me that "certain drugs will enhance your bombing," citing dust for courage and strength ("bionics"). They've also bombed on mescaline, Valium, marijuana, crack and malt liquor. SET tells a story of climbing highway poles with a spray can at 6 a.m., "all Xanaxed out."

While JD is preparing the blunt, JA walks across the street with a spray can and throws up all three of their tags in 4-foot-high bubbled, connected letters. In the corner, he writes my name.

We then drive to a waterfront area at the edge of the city -- a deserted site with warehouses, railroad tracks and patches of urban wilderness dotted with high-rise billboards. All three writers are now high, and we sit on a curb outside the car smoking cigarettes. From a distance we can see a group of men milling around a parked car near a loading dock that we have to pass. This provokes 30 minutes of obsessive speculation, a stoned stakeout with play by play:

"Dude, they're writers," says SET. "Let's go down and check them out," says JD. "Wait, let's see what they write," says JA. "Yo -- they're going into the trunk," says SET. "Cans, dude, they're going for their cans. Dude, they're writers. "There could be beef, possible beef," says JA. "Can we confirm cans, do we see cans?" SET wants to know. Yes, they do have cans," SET answers for himself. "There are cans. They are writers." It turns out that the men are thieves, part of a group robbing a nearby truck. In a few moments guards appear with flashlights and at least one drawn gun. The thieves scatter as guard dogs fan out around the area, barking crazily.

We wait this out a bit until JA announces, "It's on." Hood pulled up on his head, he leads us creeping through the woods (which for JA has become the cinematic jungles of Nam). It's stop and go, JA crawling on his stomach, unnecessarily close to one of the guards who's searching nearby. We pass through graffiti-covered tunnels (with the requisite cinematic drip drip), over crumbling stairs overgrown with weeds and brush, along dark, heavily littered trails used by crackheads.

We get near the billboard, and JA uses the bolt cutters to cut holes in two chain-link fences. We crawl through and walk along the railroad tracks until we get to the base of the sign. JA, with his backpack on, climbs about 40 feet on a thin piece of metal pipe attached to the main pillar. JD, after a few failed attempts, follows with the bolt cutters shoved down his pants and passes them to JA. Hanging in midair, his legs wrapped around a small piece of ladder, JA cuts the padlock and opens up the hatch to the catwalk. He then lowers his arm to JD, who is wrapped around the pole just below him, struggling. "J, give me your hand, "I'll pull you up," JA tells him. JD hesitates. He is reluctant to let go and continues treadmilling on the pole, trying to make it up. JD, give me your hand." JD doesn't want to refuse, but he's uncomfortable entrusting his life to JA. He won't let go of the pole. JA says it again, firmly, calmly, utterly confident: "J give me your hand." JD's arm reaches up, and JA pulls JD up onto the catwalk. Next, SET, the frailest of the three, follows unsteadily. They've called down and offered to put up his tag, but he insists on going up. "Dude, fuck that, I'm down," he says. I look away while he makes his way up, sure that he's going to fall (he almost does twice). The three have developed a set pattern for dividing the labor when they're "blowing up," one writer outlining, another working behind him, filling in. For 40 minutes I watch them working furiously, throwing shadows as they cover ads for Parliament and Amtrak with large multicolored throw-ups SET and JD bickering about space, JA scolding them, tossing down empty cans.

They risk their lives again climbing down. Parts of their faces are covered in paint, and their eyes beam as all three stare at the billboard, asking, "Isn't it beautiful?' And there is something intoxicating about seeing such an inaccessible, clean object gotten to and made gaudy. We get in the car and drive the West Side Highway northbound and then southbound so they can critique their work. "Damn, I should've used the white," JD says.

The next day both billboards are newly re-covered, all the graffiti gone. JA tells me the three went back earlier to get pictures and made small talk with the workers who were cleaning it off.

GRAFFITI HAS BEEN THROUGH A NUMBER OF incarnations since it surfaced in New York in the early 70s with a Greek teen-ager named Taki 183. It developed from the straightforward writing of a name to highly stylized, seemingly illegible tags (a kind of penmanship slang) to wild-style throw-ups and elaborate (master) "pieces" and character art. There has been racist graffiti political writing, drug advertising, gang graffiti. There is an art-graf scene from which Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiac, LEE, Futura 2000, Lady Pink and others emerged; aerosol advertising; techno graffiti written into computer programs; anti-billboard graffiti; stickers; and stencil writing. There are art students doing street work in San Francisco ("nonpermissional public art"); mural work in underground tunnels in New York; gallery shows from Colorado to New Jersey; all-day Graffiti-a-Thons; and there are graffiti artists lecturing art classes at universities. Graffiti has become part of urban culture, hip-hop culture and commercial culture, has spread to the suburbs and can be found in the backwoods of California's national forests. There are graffiti magazines, graffiti stores, commissioned walls, walls of fame and a video series available (Out to bomb) documenting writers going out on graffiti missions, complete with soundtrack. Graffiti was celebrated as a metaphor in the 70s (Norman Mailer's "The Faith of Graffiti"); it went Hollywood in the '80s (Beat Street, Turk 182!, Wild Style); and in the '90s it has been increasingly used to memorialize the inner-city dead.

But as much as graffiti has found acceptance, it has been vilified a hundred times more. Writers are now being charged with felonies and given lengthy jail terms -- a 15-year-old in California was recently sentenced to eight years in a juvenile detention center. Writers have been given up to 1000 hours of community service and forced to undergo years of psychological counseling; their parents have been hit with civil suits. In California a graffiti writer's driver's license can be revoked for a year; high-school diplomas and transcripts can also be withheld until parents make restitution. In some cities property owners who fail to remove graffiti from their property are subject to fines and possible jail time. Last spring in St. Louis, Cincinnati, San Antonio and Sacramento, Calif., politicians proposed legislation to cane graffiti writers (four to 10 hits with a wooden paddle, administered by parents or by a bailiff in a public courtroom). Across the nation, legislation has been passed making it illegal to sell spray paint and wide-tipped markers to anyone under 18, and often the materials must be kept locked up in the stores. Several cities have tried to ban the sales altogether, license sellers of spray paint and require customers to give their name and address when purchasing paint. In New York some hardware-store owners will give a surveillance photo of anyone buying a large quantity of spray cans to the police. In Chicago people have been charged with possession of paint. In San Jose, Calif., undercover police officers ran a sting operation -- posing as filmmakers working on a graffiti documentary -- and arrested 31 writers.

Hidden cameras, motion detectors, laser removal, specially developed chemical coatings, night goggles, razor wire, guard dogs, a National Graffiti Information Network, graffiti hot lines, bounties paid to informers -- one estimate is that it costs $4 billion a year nationally to clean graffiti -- all in an effort to stop those who "visually laugh in the face of communities," as a Wall Street Journal editorial raged.

The popular perception is that since the late 1980s when New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority adopted a zero tolerance toward subway graffiti (the MTA either cleaned or destroyed more than 6,000 graffiti-covered subway cars, immediately pulling a train out of service if any graffiti appeared on it), graffiti culture had died in the place of its birth. According to many graffiti writers, however, the MTA, in its attempt to kill graffiti, only succeeded in bringing it out of the tunnels and train yards and making it angry. Or as Jeff Ferrell, a criminologist who has chronicled the Denver graffiti scene, theorizes, the authorities' crackdown moved graffiti writing from subculture to counterculture. The work on the trains no longer ran, so writers started hitting the streets. Out in the open they had to work faster and more often. The artistry started to matter less and less. Throw-ups, small cryptic tags done in marker and even the straightforward writing of a name became the dominant imagery. What mattered was quantity ("making noise"), whether the writer had heart, was true to the game, was "real." And the graffiti world started to attract more and more people who weren't looking for an alternative art canvas but simply wanted to be connected to an outlaw community, to a venerable street tradition that allowed the opportunity to advertise their defiance. "It's that I'm doing it that I get my rush, not by everyone seeing it," says JA. "Yeah, that's nice, but if that's all that's gonna motivate you to do it, you're gonna stop writing. That's what happened to a lot of writers." JD tells me: "We're just putting it in their faces; it's like 'Yo, you gotta put up with it.'"

Newspapers have now settled on the term "graffiti vandal" rather than "artist" or "writer." Graffiti writers casually refer to their work as doing destruction." In recent years graffiti has become more and more about beefs and wars, about "fucking up the MTA," "fucking up the city."

Writers started taking a jock attitude toward getting up frequently and tagging in hard-to-reach places, adopting a machismo toward going over other writers' work and defending their own ("If you can write, you can fight"). Whereas graffiti writing was once considered an alternative to the street, now it imports drugs, violence, weapons and theft from that world -- the romance of the criminal deviant rather than the artistic deviant. In New York today, one police source estimates there are approximately 100,000 people involved in a variety of types of graffiti writing. The police have caught writers as young as 8 and as old as 42. And there's a small group of hard-core writers who are getting older who either wrote when graffiti was in its prime or long for the days when it was, those who write out of compulsion, for each other and for the authorities who try to combat graffiti, writers who haven't found anything in their lives substantial or hype enough to replace graffiti writing.

The writers in their 20s come mostly from working-class families and have limited prospects and ambitions for the future. SET works in a drugstore and has taken lithium and Prozac for occasional depression; JD dropped out of high school and is unemployed, last working as a messenger, where he met JA. They spend their nights driving 80 miles an hour down city highways, balancing 40-ounce bottles of Old English 800 between their legs, smoking blunts and crack-laced cigarettes called coolies, always playing with the radio. They reminisce endlessly about the past, when graf was real, when graf ran on the trains, and they swap stories about who's doing what on the scene. The talk is a combo platter of Spicoli, homeboy, New Age jock and eighth grade: The dude is a fuckin' total turd. . . . I definitely would've gotten waxed. . . . It's like some bogus job. . . . I'm amped, I'm Audi, you buggin . . . You gotta be there fully, go all out, focus. . . . Dudes have bitten off SET, he's got toys jockin' him. . . .

They carry beepers, sometimes guns, go upstate or to Long Island to "prey on the hicks" and to rack cans of spray paint. They talk about upcoming court cases and probation, about quitting, getting their lives together, even as they plan new spots to hit, practice their style by writing on the walls of their apartments, on boxes of food, on any stray piece of paper (younger writers practice on school notebooks that teachers have been known to confiscate and turn over to the police). They call graffiti a "social tool" and "some kind of ill form of communication," refer to every writer no matter his age as "kid." Talk in the graffiti life vacillates between banality and mythology, much like the activity itself: hours of drudgery, hanging out, waiting, interrupted by brief episodes of exhilaration. JD, echoing a common refrain, says, "Graffiti writers are like bitches: a lot of lying, a lot of talking, a lot of gossip." They don't like tagging with girls ("cuties," or if they use drugs, "zooties") around because all they say is (in a whiny voice), You're crazy. . . . Write my name."

WHEN JA TALKS ABOUT GRAFFITI, HE'S reluctant to offer up any of the media-ready cliches about the culture (and he knows most of them). He's more inclined to say, "Fuck the graffiti world," and scoff at graf shops, videos, conventions and 'zines. But he can be sentimental about how he began -- riding the No. 1, 2 and 3 trains when he was young, bugging out on the graffiti-covered cars, asking himself, "How did they do that? Who are they?" And he'll respectfully invoke the names of long-gone writers he admired when he was just starting out: SKEME, ZEPHYR, REVOLT, MIN.

JA, typical of the new school, primarily bombs, covering wide areas with throw-ups. He treats graffiti less as an art form than as an athletic competition, concentrating on getting his tag in difficult-to-reach places, focusing on quantity and working in defiance of an aesthetic that demands that public property be kept clean. (Writers almost exclusively hit public or commercial property.)

And when JA is not being cynical, he can talk for hours about the technique, the plotting, the logistics of the game like "motion bombing" by clockwork a carefully scoped subway train that he knows has to stop for a set time, at a set place, when it gets a certain signal in the tunnels. He says, "To me, the challenge that graffiti poses, there's something very invigorating and freeing about it, something almost spiritual. There's a kind of euphoria, more than any kind of drug or sex can give you, give me . . . for real."

JA says he wants to quit, and he talks about doing it as if he were in a 12-step program. "How a person in recovery takes it one day a time, that's how I gotta take it," he says. You get burnt out. There's pretty much nothing more the city can throw at me; it's all been done." But then he'll hear about a yard full of clean sanitation trucks, the upcoming Puerto Rican Day Parade (a reason to bomb Fifth Avenue) or a billboard in an isolated area; or it'll be 3 a.m., he'll be stoned, driving around or sitting in the living room, playing NBA Jam, and someone will say it: "Yo, I got a couple of cans in the trunk. . . ." REAS, an old-school writer of 12 years who, after a struggle and a number of relapses, eventually quit the life, says, "Graffiti can become like a hole you're stuck in; it can just keep on going and going, there's always another spot to write on."

SAST is in his late 20s and calls himself semiretired after 13 years in the graf scene. He still carries around a marker with him wherever he goes and cops little STONE tags (when he's high, he writes, STONED). He's driving JA and me around the city one night, showing me different objects they've tagged, returning again and again to drug spots to buy dust and crack, smoking, with the radio blasting; he's telling war stories about JA jumping onto moving trains, JA hanging off the outside of a speeding four-wheel drive. SAST is driving at top speed, cutting in between cars, tailgating, swerving. A number of times as we're racing down the highway, I ask him if he could slow down. He smiles, asks if I'm scared, tells me not to worry, that he's a more cautious driver when he's dusted. At one point on the FDR, a car cuts in front of us. JA decides to have some fun.

"Yo, he burnt you, SAST," JA says. We start to pick up speed. Yo, SAST, he dissed you, he cold dissed you, SAST." SAST is buying it, the look on his face becoming more determined as we go 70, 80, 90 miles an hour, hugging the divider, flying between cars. I turn to JA, who's in the back seat, and I try to get him to stop. JA ignores me, sitting back perfectly relaxed, smiling, urging SAST to go faster and faster, getting off, my fear adding to his rush.

At around 4 a.m., SAST drops us off on the middle of the Manhattan Bridge and leaves. JA wants to show me a throw-up he did the week before. We climb over the divider from the roadway to the subway tracks. JA explains that we have to cross the north and the southbound tracks to get to the outer part of the bridge. In between there are a number of large gaps and two electrified third rails, and we're 135 feet above the East River. As we're standing on the tracks, we hear the sound of an oncoming train. JA tells me to hide, to crouch down in the V where two diagonal braces meet just beside the tracks.

I climb into position, holding on to the metal beams, head down, looking at the water as the train slams by the side of my body. This happens twice more. Eventually, I cross over to the outer edge of the bridge, which is under construction, and JA points out his tag about 40 feet above on what looks like a crow's-nest on a support pillar. After a few moments of admiring the view, stepping carefully around the many opportunities to fall, JA hands me his cigarettes and keys. He starts crawling up one of the braces on the side of the bridge, disappears within the structure for a moment, emerges and makes his way to an electrical box on a pillar. Then he snakes his way up the piping and grabs on to a curved support. Using only his hands he starts to shimmy up; at one point he's hanging almost completely upside down. If he falls now, he'll land backward onto one of the tiers and drop into the river below. He continues to pull himself up, the old paint breaking off in his hands, and finally he flips his body over a railing to get to the spot where he tagged. He doesn't have a can or a marker with him, and at this point graffiti seems incidental. He comes down and tells me that when he did the original tag he was with two writers; one he half carried up, the other stopped at a certain point and later told JA that watching him do that tag made him appreciate life, being alive.

We walk for 10 minutes along a narrow, grooved catwalk on the side of the tracks; a thin wire cable prevents a fall into the river. A few times, looking down through the grooves, I have to stop, force myself to take the next step straight ahead, shake off the vertigo. JA is practically jogging ahead of me. We exit the bridge into Chinatown as the sun comes up and go to eat breakfast. JA tells me he's a vegetarian.

IF YOU TALK TO SERIOUS GRAFFITI writers, most of them will echo the same themes; they decry the commercialization of graf, condemn the toys and poseurs and alternately hate and feel attached to the authorities who try to stop them. They say with equal parts bravado and self-deprecation that a graffiti writer is a bum, a criminal, a vandal, slick, sick, obsessed, sneaky, street-smart, living on edges figurative and literal. They show and catalog cuts and scars on their bodies from razor wire, pieces of metal, knives, box cutters. I once casually asked a writer named GHOST if he knew another writer whose work I had seen in a graf'zine. "Yeah, I know him, he stabbed me," GHOST replies matter-of-factly. "We've still got beef." SET tells me he was caught by two DTs (detectives) who assaulted him, took his cans of paint and sprayed his body and face. JA tells similar stories of police beatings for his making officers run after him, of cops making him empty his spray cans on his sneakers or on the back of a fellow writer's jacket. JD has had 48 stitches in his back and 18 in his head over "graffiti-related beef." JA's best friend and writing partner, SANE SMITH, a legendary all-city writer who was sued by the city and the MTA for graffiti, was found dead, floating in Jamaica Bay. There's endless speculation in the grafworld as to whether he was pushed, fell or jumped off a bridge. SANE is so respected, there are some writers today who spend time in public libraries reading and rereading the newspaper microfilm about his death, his arrests, his career. According to JA, after SANE's death, his brother, SMiTH, also a respected graffiti artist, found a piece of paper on which SANE had written his and JA's tag and off to the side, FLYING HIGH THE XTC WAY. It now hangs on JA's apartment wall.

One morning, JA and I jump off the end of a subway platform and head into the tunnels. He shows me hidden rooms, emergency hatches that open to the sidewalk, where to stand when the trains come by. He tells me about the time SANE lay face down in a shallow drainage ditch on the tracks as an express train ran inches above him. JA says anytime he was being chased by the police he would run into a nearby subway station, jump off the platform and run into the tunnels. The police would never follow. KET, a veteran graffiti writer, tells me how in the tunnels he would accidentally step on homeless people sleeping. They'd see him tagging and would occasionally ask that he "throw them up," write their names on the wall. He usually would. Walking in the darkness between the electrified rails as trains race by, JA tells me the story of two writers he had beef with who came into the tunnels to cross out his tags. Where the cross-outs stop is where they were killed by an approaching train.

The last time I go out with JA, SET and JD, they pick me up at around 2 am. We drive down to the Lower East Side to hit a yard where about 60 trucks and vans are parked next to one another. Every vehicle is already covered with throw-ups and tags, but the three start to write anyway, JA in a near frenzy. They're running in between the rows, crawling under trucks, jumping from roof to roof, wedged down in between the trailers, engulfed in nauseating clouds of paint fumes (the writers sometimes blow multicolored mucous out of their noses), going over some writers' tags, respecting others, JA throwing up SANE's name, searching for any little piece of clean space to write on. JA, who had once again been talking about retirement, is now hungry to write and wants to hit another spot. But JD doesn't have any paint, SET needs gas money for his car, and they have to drive upstate the next morning to appear in court for a paint-theft charge.

During the ride back uptown the car is mostly quiet, the mood depressed. And even when the three were in the truck yard, even when JA was at his most intense, it seemed closer to work, routine, habit. There are moments like this when they seem genuinely worn out by the constant stress, the danger, the legal problems, the drugging, the fighting, the obligation to always hit another spot. And it's usually when the day is starting.

About a week later I get a call from another writer whom JA had told I was writing an article on graffiti. He tells me he has never been king, never gone all city, but now he is making a comeback, coming out of retirement with a new tag. He says he could do it easily today because there is no real competition. He says he was thinking about trying to make some money off of graffiti -- galleries. canvases, whatever . . . to get paid.

"I gotta do something," the writer says. "I can't rap, I can't dance, I got this silly little job." We talk more, and he tells me he appreciates that I'm writing about writers, trying to get inside the head of a vandal, telling the real deal. He also tells me that graffiti is dying, that the city is buffing it, that new writers are all toys and are letting it die, but it's still worth it to write.

I ask why, and then comes the inevitable justification that every writer has to believe and take pleasure in, the idea that order will always have to play catch-up with them. "It takes me seconds to do a quick throw-up; it takes them like 10 minutes to clean it," he says. "Who's coming out on top?"

#graffiti #ja #ja one #ja nyc #ja one nyc #new york graffiti #xtc crew #xtc #graff nyc #ja graffiti #ja one graffiti

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anonymous-girl37 · 4 years ago

Text

Here is my story.

Most stories tend to start with things being normal, however, for this one, it is honestly a clusterfuck of bullshit with a little bit of normalcy thrown in to give me the illusion of stability. Even when I was only nine, I remember fun and family activities were never really with just her and us- it was always with somebody else there to motivate her. I sort of had to raise Katie and Kylie on my own at some points. She took care of us technically speaking; she didn’t starve us or anything, she just wasn’t available for the emotional side of being a parent. The parts that kids grow up to remember, unfortunately for us.

One of the best examples of her neglectful care for us was around that time... Me being around age… eight? Nine? It all blurs together at some points, but the point is I was young.

My mom always takes naps, they last a whole ten minutes sometimes, but she’s always tired, maybe she’s sick. Whenever she’s sleeping, she says I get to play house with my sisters and pretend I’m the mom. My favorite is when she drives to the store for candy for us because then I make the rules for extra long. I get to make them lunch and play outside. Sometimes she lets me read them stories before their nap time, which is mommy’s relaxing time, so I get the whole rest of the house to myself. I get to make all the rules, dad never lets me do that. He doesn’t know, mommy said it’s our secret. I hate when she doesn’t get her naps in because then she’s grumpy. She went away for a whole week and she hasn’t taken a nap or been grumpy since she got back, maybe the doctors did surgery and fixed her. She’s even taking us to the park while dad’s at work tomorrow.

It’s been a week now, mommy was going to take us swimming but she said her head hurt too much, and the next day we were supposed to play in the woods but she needed to take a nap, and it was almost time for dinner when she woke up. Dad couldn’t know she was napping again, or he’d make her go away for a long time she said. She tells me I’m a good secret keeper. Maybe tomorrow she will let us go swimming.

Mommy’s been back home for two weeks and her medicine already stopped working, I wish it worked for longer cause I miss when mommy was fun. Mommy loves when I play house with my little sisters, but sometimes I get tired of it. I have to listen to her anyway. She’s better than dad because she doesn’t have any stupid rules. All dad ever does is work, we only get to play with him for a little bit after work and on the weekends.

It wasn’t something that stopped, her shitty “parenting” if you can even call it that, never improved. I was 12 years old popping Klonopin like candy, with her permission of course. Not only was she okay with me taking drugs, but she also fueled my addiction with her prescription. At least she was generous with her pills, however, she had plenty enough to share. She got a script of 90 a month from one doctor and 60 a month from another. She was good at pretending to have illnesses for drugs, and trust me, it’s extremely escalated since then. I don’t know who else she gave them away to, but when she ran out she always found a way to get more. Pills were more important to her than us having new clothes, and undergarments. She cared more about pills than saving money to do fun stuff with my sisters and me. She only ever wanted to be high, and she was so good at hiding it. She had our whole family fooled for years. She lived and still does live a life of lies. She sucks the life out of everyone she’s near. She sucked the life out of me. She had me becoming friends with kids who dealt drugs, It was a messy situation all around, I hung around people much older than me, I did drugs with men almost twice my age, however, usually Nicole was around for that part. At least she didn’t leave me alone with strange men, before the age of 13, I guess that was the cut-off. She decided I was mature enough, old enough, to hang out with men 8 years older than me. Luckily I had someone to protect me. Anthony tried to at least, to help me become my best. He wasn’t much better off than me in regards to a mother and he had a terrible drug problem. We experienced the same things in different ways. It felt like everything I went through, he did before me. Our lives were nowhere near identical. He grew up with his grandfather who fucked him out of his childhood, quite literally. I was addicted to Xanax, but that was nowhere near strong enough for his need to forget. Heroin was his kryptonite, he couldn’t get enough of it, but no matter how high he was, or how dope sick he was because he couldn’t find any, he made sure I was okay, he told me he loved me. Every day, that was the first thing I would hear him say. Our entire lives were straight ahead of us. He was poetic and artistic, and everything he said to me sounded like a quote from a book. He wanted his story heard, and he wanted me to be the one to hear it. It feels like I’m now responsible for telling the world. He never wanted anyone to know him, just who he was. He wasn’t all happy, and nice, he was a total asshole sometimes, I’m not sure that he was even aware. The love we had was one I’ll never forget though.

I’ve dropped my bottle and there’s broken glass on the ground now. I guess that’s what I get for being lost in these thoughts. It cut my leg but I can’t feel it. The glass reminds me of him. It reminds me of the night all of us got drunk and they were smashing glass bottles on the concrete. He screams “whoever runs through it gets $20 and this” as he’s holding a ½ empty bottle of rum. And some other guy told him he’d give home $100.00 to do it. So he runs through the things, falls, and has glass stuck from his feet to his knees. I’ll never forget that smell, blood, and vodka. I spent damn near two hours pulling glass out of his legs and feet and bandaging them up.

July Summer 2017

Today had to have been the best day of my life. Anthony took me to our spot, and we talked for hours, about nothing and everything, as always. We’re getting sober together. We’re going to do it. We promised. Today marks 1 day clean. Weed is an exception because fuck quitting that. I would do anything to make this man happy. I’ve known for a long time that he loves me, but today made me realize how much I truly love him too. I’m happy with him. My life is chaotic right now, but he’s my calm. He’s my peace. I can’t wait for the day we never have to leave each other again.

August 11 summer 2017

We’ve been sober for a month today. I want to go to this back to school party but Anthony is being a little bitch about it. I’ll convince him to go.

August 12 summer 2017

He died. On purpose. I made him go to the party and he overdosed. I thought he was just drunk. We cuddled on the porch swing until he fell over into my lap. He laid in my lap for 20 minutes before I knew. He had no pulse. He left a note in my back pocket. I can’t bring myself to look at it. I want to get rid of it.

My god damn room is a mess. Today marks 3 years since I lost the love of my life. I'm already drunk and it’s only 10 a.m. and of course, I, the drug addict, would take pills on a day like today. He would be so disappointed, but it’s finally come the time I read his suicide note, it’s finally the day, I’ve worked up the courage, I can do it. I need to do it. I must lock my door again, I can’t have another interruption. The door could’ve become unlocked. It’s locked, I’ve re-locked it twice now. I never imagined sitting on my bed, reading his note, his last words, whilst I’m a high and drunk mess. You’ll have that though, one of the greatest things Nicole ever taught me was to mask my feelings with drugs. I owe it to him. To read his last words. His voice still deserves to be heard.

Katrina,

I’m so sorry. I can’t keep doing this. I still kneel in the shower, and put my face down, letting the water puddle in my hands as if they could grow big enough to protect me from myself. The pain hits me randomly, it’s like I know I have lungs and I must be able to breathe, but I can’t, the air refuses to come. To this day, I get flashbacks, and I hate the feeling. It’s not normal. These are things you can’t forget. You want to rot because it’s better than being beat than being hurt. I have trouble believing anyone when they tell me they love me, but it’s easier with you. You told me I was your happiness and I gave you butterflies. My depression, my struggle, and my addiction gave you the determination to fight to make me happy. I’m sorry, but things are getting bad again. I should have never begun putting you through my pain. I don’t want help, I don’t want you to kill yourself fighting to save me, and I know you would if I didn’t stop you. You may not see it, and I doubt you will agree, but I’m doing what’s best. You have given me the greatest possible love, you have so much going for you, and you’re still so full of life, don’t lose that. Stay clean for me. I can’t fight anymore. Maybe that makes me a coward, but being a coward to the world is better than the pain that never leaves me, I’m tired of living in my hell. My eyes are full of tears writing this, and I can barely read. I owe my temporary feelings of joy to you. Anyone who knows me knows that if someone out there was going to save me, it would have been you. I can’t go on showering you in my pain, I can see the hurt in your eyes when you look at me. I hurt you because I’m so hurt I don’t know how to breathe anymore. If I die tonight, know that it’s for the best. Know that I haven’t truly been alive in a long time, that’s if I ever was at all. Don’t ruin yourself over me. Tell yourself what we had wasn’t real. Repeat to yourself that I never really loved you until you believe it. I treated you like a project, I manipulated you. Fool yourself into hating me. Because you’re going to see me in every single person. You’ll see some piece of me In everyone you meet. I know you, you’re going to look for me, whether you know you are or not, you’re going to seek me. If all of the words you said were true, you’re never going to give up looking for someone like me, you won’t find him. Find someone better. Find someone who fulfills you. You deserve a man who gives you the world even when he is falling apart. You deserve a love that doesn’t end, I want you to have those feelings again. I’m begging you not to look for me, I’m gone. I’m sorry that you’re never going to stop seeing pieces of me. Look for the good qualities, but I’m sure you’ll find the bad ones too. You’ll find my sense of humor in every funny movie, and all the chick flicks will remind you of our love. You’ll find my eyes in the face of a stranger and you’ll see my smile on little kids playing at the park. I’ll always be here for you whether I’m physically present or not. I was never sober. I told you I was because I knew if I got you started I could live with myself for leaving.

In reading this I thought I’d feel relieved, possibly ready to let the last of him go. But now I’m lost, more so than before. Now I’m angry, not with him, but with the world. You can’t hate someone for killing themselves, but you can hate the world for making them do it. You can hate the god or goddess or gods or goddesses you do or don’t believe in for letting it happen. I want to hate him, but I can’t because he’s not here, he took away my power to hate him, and so now I hate everything else. I hate everyone else. He wasn’t lying when he said I would see him in everyone. I see his good qualities somewhere in everyone, I see his bad qualities in every bad person but, I see him in everyone. It’s like when he died he became the universe, the universe swallowed him whole and he left a part of him in everyone. He picked who got his best qualities as if he knew I would find them. I do see his smile on the little kids playing at the park. I see his eyes in the only other man I’ve ever truly loved, they’re not the same, but the feelings in them are similar. I find his humor in every comedy. Sometimes I think maybe what he said was true, that he’d always be there for me whether physically present or not, because sometimes, on some of my worst days, I feel him. For just a minute, I can let myself pretend he isn’t gone. I can let myself pretend he never left this earth. Then my whole world comes crashing right back down. He swore to me he was sober. He promised. I think he only lied so I would be okay. I resent him for telling me to hate him. Because I can’t hate him, I want to so badly, but It’s impossible. Any pain he put me through was nothing compared to how he felt.

That's enough about him for now, as we're going to have to re-open that discussion later. Peach vodka sounds fantastic right now, I'll have a whipped pinnacle and peach smoothie. I could not have possibly made it any stronger than it is. Thank god for mind-altering substances, because quite frankly, I would be dead without them.

Nicole, if you're reading this, how did you do what you did? How were you content with yourself in the way you raised my sisters and me? Did you plan it all, or did you just go with the flow and lie when necessary? You never left a bruise, hell, you never even hit us. You scarred us permanently though, my sisters may not see it yet, but I do. Instead of giving us scars that would heal physically and show your crimes, you gave us invisible ones. The ones that people will deny us having for the rest of our lives. The ones that will always haunt us when we see you. You gave us scars that we can't get covered up with a pretty tattoo. You may not have hurt them as badly as me, but they don't deserve your games. I don't want them to experience even half of what I did.

Her games have left me empty, shallow, broken, and confused. I'm not confused about what she did or who she is, I'm confused about why. Why wasn't I good enough to deserve her love and compassion? What did I do so wrong? Why was I the one chosen to take on her role and try to fix my own life, and protect myself from someone who was supposed to protect and love me? I was forced to grow up so she could go backward. She wanted to live vicariously through me as if she wanted to become me. Everything I did, she did too. All the drugs I did, she just had to try, sometimes do them with me. Nothing was too far for her. She never told my dad though, "don't let your father find out" she would constantly imbed that into my head, it got to the point where I had become two people. One for my mother and one for my father. I remember breaking down one day, crying to myself because I felt like no one knew me and I didn't know who I was, and it was at that moment that I lost my sense of self. I'll probably never know who I am, or why. I have no clue who I want to be. I don't know how to become someone for myself, I've learned to feel as if I must adapt to everyone else.

Nicole told me everything and I mean everything. You may think, "oh that's not so bad, she's being open." Perhaps there are some things you should never tell your children. Some people should never be parents.

She loved to tell me how she was going to be so lost and sad when her "babies"(children all over the age of 10) leave her(by this she meant to grow up and go to school). How she liked sleeping around with all kinds of different men because it was fun and she was good at manipulating them. She told me about her sexual experiences and I wish she wouldn't have sometimes. She told me all kinds of things about her sex life, even asked for my commentary on the experience. Then later she changed many of her stories and said she was raped which had made me feel responsible if that's what had happened because I knew so maybe I should have known. She told me about the men she was dating and even introduced me to some, made sure I knew them well. Her 38-year-old boyfriend talked dirty to me, and the 36-year-old boyfriend did drugs with me, while we were living with him. He was a big mess, but not abusive. However, as soon as she got tired of him she claimed he beat her. She claimed he was abusive so that everyone would pity her. But, she was a liar. He never hurt her. I would have seen it, I would have known. Once again, she had made me question my entire life.

I know about everyone she hates though there aren't many. Now whether it was authentic or a horrible attempt at making me feel sympathy for her, I truly didn't know. I hate knowing everything and having been forced to be her diary, being forced to let her live through me, but she changed me to be what her idea of a kid was. It wasn't a kid at all. She refused to fix any of her problems, no matter how hard I tried to help her, she just wanted to be responsibility-free forever, and I got in the way of that, so she made me her excuse to act like a child. She forced herself to puke and bragged about it. Talking about how much weight she could lose and how quickly. It gave me my sort of eating disorder of feeling strong or like I achieved something by how much I was able to puke up. Still to this day, it's some stupid competition in my head. Drugs are her favorite, they were then too. At Least then it was just Benzos, weed, and hallucinogens. I was the only one who knew, that was stressful, keeping that secret. She constantly made me be someone I wasn't, and she forced me to be someone else for my dad. But I never did know who I was. There was "party secret keeper" me and there was "the most innocent child to exist" me, but I never knew who "me" was without being forced to put on an act one way or another.

chapter 3: The worst of you.

You broke my heart, but I should have known it was coming. It was too often that I looked into your pretty green-blue ocean eyes just to find them glazed over in a drug-induced haze. The last month with you made up for the years of torture. The torture of not knowing where you were or who you were with. Watching you burst into nothing but rage because you couldn’t find your next fix. I never wanted anything but to save you. And when you offered to be sober so long as I was, of course, I took you upon it. I thought you meant it, though I always had my doubts. 3 am is when most of our story was told. You called me every morning at 3, without a doubt, I could always expect that.

July 21st, 2017.

Time 3:00 am

I wake up in your arms and lay there silently as I’m sure you dream peaceful dreams that match the calm state of your face, I still see the shadow of mental exhaustion under your eyes. I breathe slowly, as to not disrupt your sweet dreams. I love you.

July 22nd, 2017

Time 3:00 am

You open your beautiful ocean blue-green eyes to start the beginning of your new adventure. Our fingers intertwined, our eyes locked as if we couldn’t look away. I couldn't ask for a better feeling. I love you.

July 23rd, 2017

Time 3:00 am

The scent of chocolate fills the room. It happens to be your favorite drink, surprisingly, hot chocolate, a drink no one would expect someone like you to like. A half-smile spreads across your face, the smile that tells me at this moment you’re happy. I love you.

July 24th, 2017

Time 3:00 am

I hold you close, but maybe not close enough, feeling the warmth and comfort of your body against mine made me happy though. You make me feel complete. I love you.

July 25th, 2017

Time 3:00 am

You wake me up with a small forehead kiss. You seem to be happy today. That makes me smile. I love you.

July 26th, 2017

Time 3:00 am

The ring sits perfectly on my finger. With it, I promise you I’ll be okay, and I’ll follow our dreams. You have to leave soon, but I don't want you to leave. I never do. I love you.

August 5th, 2017

Time 3:00 am

You're restlessly tossing and turning, I’m sure you haven't slept yet, you’re still withdrawing. I lean over and put my arm across you and place my body against yours. I worry because I wake up to the sound of you crying every time we sleep together. I try to pull you into me and you rest your head on my chest and quietly sob, pretending you’re just sleeping so I won’t notice. You’re stuck in this terrible life. I’m sorry. I love you.

August 6th, 2017

Time 3:00 am

Laying on the couch. I could see you staring at the wall, I felt you caressing my hand, softly. You kiss my cheek softly and then give me a warm smile. I see the pain in your eyes. It shatters my soul more every single second I look at you. You have to leave again soon. I want you to stay with me. I love you.

August 7th, 2017

Time 3:00 am

You look like you've been crying for hours. I'm afraid you’re not okay again. I know you won’t tell me. I love you

August 8th, 2017

Time 3:00 am

you tell me that you don't want to get out of bed today. You tell me that you love me and that you're gonna be okay. I should know better but I believe you because I want to. I love you.

August 9th, 2017

Time 3:00 am

You look like you’re on drugs again, but you won’t tell me that. Your face is pale and you’re always shivering. I love you.

August 10th, 2017

Time 3:00 am

I have yet to see you smile. You look at me over video chat and I know that you're fighting it, you can’t wait to congratulate me on one month of sobriety, and I can’t wait to congratulate you. In-person. Your kisses are always soft but lately, they have a chill to them. The warmth from you has disappeared, I’m worried that you want drugs again. You told me “I’ll always be here for you whether I’m physically present or not.” That makes me feel better. Maybe a party will cheer you up, I have a surprise planned for you tonight. I love you.

August 11, 2017

Time 6:00 am

You died at 1:53 am

I tried to wake you up but you don't stir. The party went silent. The pain in my chest is excruciating. I shook you and your rubber-banded bag fell to the floor. I hugged you harder as if it could bring you back. There is nothing I could do but cry. 15 minutes later I dialed 9-1-1 but I couldn’t speak, I cried so hard that no sound could even come out anymore. The sobs were so quiet they were loud. The ambulance got there, they put you on a stretcher. At first, I refused to let go of you, holding onto your hand, hugging your body with mine as if I could give you the life in me. It was so cold. D.O.A. I love you... The bed feels empty with you gone. The couch feels too big without you next to me. And the porch swing looks like a grave. I can’t go to the party house anymore. My hands feel cold without yours in them. I cried all night. The tears stopped coming out after a while, but I still sobbed. Your scent fills my nose and I cry more. I could have saved you. I'm empty without you. I should have known better. Your last words haunt me. I’m not sober anymore, I’m sorry. The note you left, I don’t think I can ever read it. I love you.

August 3rd, 2018

Time 3:00 am

I had a dream about you. You looked so happy, your wings matched your darkness. But Seeing your smile, your real one, made me feel good, so good that you are no longer only a dark spot in my memory.

August 5th, 2018

Time 3:00 am

I made your favorite, hot chocolate, and a bacon peanut butter sandwich. I wish you had a grave, but they turned you to ash and put you god knows where. Even though you aren't here, the universe still reminds me of you. Even though I know you won't be waking up this time. I love you.

August 10th, 2018

Time 3:00 am

I went to our spot today. I cried when I got home, I hurt so bad. I miss you more than anything. I love you. It's almost been a year.

August 11th, 2018

Time 3:00 am

The first anniversary of losing you. I refuse to accept that you’re gone. Just tell me you’re coming for me. Tell me you’re in some 3rd world country just hiding out like we always talked about, and you’re gonna come find me when I’m 18. I want this to all be a bad dream.

August 12th, 2018

Time 3:00 am

It's getting too hard to sleep. I slept in one of your t-shirts. It smelled just like your favorite cologne. I held it just like I would have held you. I love you. I miss you.

August 13th, 2018

Time 3:00 am

Your mom called to make sure I was okay, your parents are back in New England now. They miss you, it hurt to hear her cry. I guess she did love you in her way. I love you.

August 14th, 2018

Time 3:00 am

I'm going crazy without you. This isn’t allowed to be real. I miss you. I miss your smell. I want you back. I love you.

August 15th, 2018

Time 3:00 am

I visited our spot again yesterday. Remember what you told me? “I’ll always be here for you whether I’m physically present or not”. Those words haunt me, you spoke them the day before left me forever. I should have known. I wish I knew. Maybe then I could have saved you. I love you.

August 16th, 2018

Time 3:00 am

I can't stand being without you anymore. I love you.

August 11th, 2019

Time 3:00 am

It’s been two years. I miss you more than I ever thought was humanly possible. Please come back. I think I’m in love again. It scares me, but I know you’d like him.

August 12th, 2019

Time 3:00 am

No one gets that you weren’t the best thing in the universe, that you were an asshole sometimes, you weren’t always a good person. But you were good. You made life something more than it was and you showed me who I could be. You showed me who I am, in your own fucked up way that included you dying. And for that, I owe you.

August 3rd, 2020

Time 3:00 am

I've finally read the note you left me. I read it over and over. I’m crying so much writing this I can’t even see. Come back. I miss you. I love you.

August 5th, 2020

Time 3:00 am

Why did you have to go and do that? This all must be a fucking joke. I love you.

August 8th, 2020

Time 3:00 am

The day that marks 3 years since you left me is coming up quickly. I don’t want it to come. I don’t want it to happen. I don’t want to accept this. I miss our talks at our spot. I love you.

August 11th, 2020

Time 1:53 am

It’s been 3 years. Today is terrible. Come back. I love you.

I guess your anger is just as much a part of your story as your love. You loved me, that much everyone who knew you knew, but you had a funny way of showing it sometimes. The drugs clouded your memory, or at least you wanted me to think they did. Like the time you shot at someone who stole off of you. Your excuse was being high, but not until you knew how much it scared me. I’m not sure what you thought would happen had you shot him, but I don’t think you cared regardless. Maybe you always knew what you were doing, and you were too tired to control yourself. No matter what, a part of me will always be infatuated with you and a piece of my heart will always belong to you. Our story is one I can never forget, but as time goes on I see more flaws, I find more wrongdoings, and I learn to love you less.

Chapter 4

How have we gotten to this point? I woke up today in a great mood, but of course, Nicole couldn’t allow that. It’s been months since I spoke to her, but she’s pinned my best friend and his mother against me. She and her so-called husband say I told them I was going to turn them in. My best friend who deals drugs, and his mother who condones it and takes part. I know what you’re thinking, why the fuck are you, friends, with these people? Quite frankly, I don’t know, I guess I always have been. My best friend, Aaron, was the first guy I ever had a crush on. He was the only person who showed up to my 13th birthday party and he never did me wrong. He took my weed virginity, and he stuck up for me. He didn’t let kids bully me, though they sure tried. He didn’t back down, sometimes it felt like he was the only person on my side. If it weren’t for him my middle school experience would not have been nearly as mediocre as it was. At some points in life, he was all I had, and still, to this day, I can go to him with whatever and he does his best to help. Though, ever since Nicole started her bullshit and I told the police about her abuse, she has been trying to sway him to take her side. She’s good at doing that, she knows how to manipulate just about anyone. She had our entire family fooled for years, had them convinced she wasn’t a terrible person or on drugs.

I guess now is a good time to bring up Josh, the man who took my virginity, if you want to put it that nicely. By that I mean the 19-year-old who forcibly had sex with 13-year-old me, whilst I was high on pills in Victoria’s closet. Victoria was my BFF, we did everything together, mostly drugs. Sometimes random friends of friends would stay at her house, and one time we made a huge mistake. I still remember the feeling, being dragged from bed and onto the ground, through the closet doors. I can still hear how loud the sliding door shut. I remember how it felt, my clothes being ripped off of me, sloppily and just good enough for him to get to where he wanted. He clasped his hand around my throat to keep me pinned down as if I wasn’t already paralyzed by the pills he offered me. Surely I took them, I was too high to know better. I didn’t feel anything, but that was the torture of it. I knew what was happening, and I was unable to stop it. My body was motionless, but he got off on it. His evil grin and cold eyes are permanently ingrained in my brain, I’ll never forget his face because that’s all I could look at. I’ll never forget it because I’m forced to remember. Good thing I never felt it, I’m sure that would be a whole other nightmare. I’m sure you’re wondering how this relates to Nicole, but let me tell you, I told her about the invasion of my body, and she doubted me. I told her what happened and she told me I was wrong. She told me I wasn’t that high, I could have stopped it if I didn’t want it. She told me I wanted it. I the 13-year-old, of course, believed my mom, only to figure out it was sexual assault 2 years later. Nicole of course did absolutely nothing, as per usual. She could have saved me that night. I called her, I wanted to go home because I didn’t feel safe and I thought I was too high, she came and saw me, she told all the people there I was fine, even went as far as saying I was faking it. Maybe she’s the reason I got raped that night, maybe he took my silence as consent because he thought I was sober. Maybe he was rough because he thought my silence meant I liked it. Maybe I only imagined saying stop, perhaps it never came out of my mouth. Or perhaps my pleas to stop convinced him to continue. How could I know anyways? I was in a drug-fueled haze, maybe I remember wrong and I never said stop. I guess that’s the downfall of getting high, you never know what happened. Everything is foggy and the details are blurry. It’s like trying to remember a dream after you wake up, you wonder what happened and the longer you’re awake the blurrier the memory gets. The longer you’re sober, the blurrier your high adventures become. Just because I’ve been thinking about this long enough to write it down, anxiety is jolting through my veins. It starts at the back of my throat, pushing its way up from the inside out, a sting that becomes so much more. The line between what is fear and what is real is becoming blurrier by the second. It feels as if my words are stuck in my throat, stopping me from screaming, from letting my feelings out. This is my brain's way of telling me my words aren’t worth much right now, quite frankly it’s not wrong. He tore my soul to pieces as my pleas ran through his mind as “convince me” “keep going” “I like it”. I can still see his cold, hungry eyes in my dreams sometimes. Imagining his face sends shivers down my spine as I continually play what he did to me over and over again as if something could change the more I think into it. He broke me, crushed my being, my soul, and outright stole my voice. I can’t possibly continue to look at myself in disgust over this man, because it is he who should rot, not me. I’m worth more than becoming the perfect victim, I choose to be a victor. Sometimes I don't think I can do it, my motivation is wanting to be further in life than anyone who has ever hurt me, and I'm already there.

Chapter 5: The Man Who Loved Me Once

The man who loved me once, the one who broke my heart into pieces. Leo tore me to pieces, but I thought I was in love with him. It took a month in a psychiatric facility to conclude that he never loved me. I was 15 with a 21-year-old man. He convinced me it was okay along with Nicole constantly praising me for it. “Damn haha you are just like me”

February 3rd, 2018

I told him to stop, I told him no. I told him I didn't want to do this. I begged and pleaded but that meant nothing to him. He didn't stop, he didn't understand “no”, my begs and pleads for him to stop rang through his ears as “convince me”. His right hand roamed my body, It made me shiver. His left hand went between covering my mouth to shut me up, and pushing me back up against the brick wall. He kissed my lips roughly to silence me, pushing me hard against the wall. His fingers scratched into my skin, making me squirm. I couldn't move much though, the pills he put in my drink prevented me from doing that, what a lovely redo of the last man who hurt me. This one at least did not do it with people around, though it was dark, we were in a public place. He called me baby girl and told me "I am going to fuck you so good". I showered 3 times today, and no one questioned it. I did not eat anything for a few days, and no one questioned it. Maybe you did not mean to hurt me, maybe you thought I liked it. I still love you.

February 27th, 2018

He hit me today, it's not the first time. Hell, it is not even the second or third time, honestly, I have lost count. He loves me. He apologized and then we cuddled and watched a movie. He will change, I know I can fix him. He never means to hurt me. He is a good man and people do not want to try to understand. I have to cover the bruises, good thing it is winter and I can wear a hoodie every day. He makes me sad but he does not mean it. He loves me and I know it.

March 15th, 2018

Today he took me to meet his parents. I had to lie and say I was 18. I pretended I was in college. He made me. He just did not want his parents to give him shit like they always do. He said it was fine that we had an age difference. I trust him, I would do anything for him. I love him.

March 28th, 2018

Today he tried to drown me. It was my fault. I remember passing out and waking up with no clothes. I guess he put them in the dryer because they were wet. He wasn't himself when he did it, I am sure there is just something going on mentally. I can fix him. I can help him. I know he loves me. I know he can get help, I want to help him.

April 3, 2018

I saw him today, our visit was cut short because Nicole wanted me to come home. She knows about him and me, she just missed me because I have been at friends’ houses and with Leo all week. He was pretty mean today, he grabbed me by the throat and I am beginning to think that he needs more help than I can give him. My throat is sore and it is bruised on the side. I will have to wear my hair down. He loves me so much that the pain is worth it. I do not want to lose him. The way he strokes my hair and holds me, while he is apologizing after he has done something that harmed me is so sweet. I love it when he buys me flowers and sometimes he is good for a while. The pain is worth it for the love.

April 8th, 2018

He raped me. He put a glass bottle inside of me, and my vagina bled. He got me drunk, and we started making out, then he fucked me, relentlessly, roughly. He bruised me. In between my legs. My dad picked me up, it was the worst experience of my life. I still love him and I do not want to anymore. I am being punished for it because Nicole will not tell my dad she knew everything. I am being punished for being raped. I am broken. I need help.

April 24th, 2018

I spent nearly a month in a psychiatric facility, it has helped me a lot. My roommate was awesome. I had a nurse in there, a youngish, beautiful, and kind African American woman, she is the reason I am still alive. I am so grateful to have met that woman and another one of the therapists there. It has helped me so incredibly much. I hate that I am still being punished for being raped because I was not, not allowed there. I had permission. I did not do anything without my mom's permission, yet she and my dad punished me for being raped. As in it was my fault. As if I did it to myself. How was I supposed to know any better with Nicole telling me it was okay? I have grown to hate my dad, I make sure he knows it and I feel no remorse for what I say. He sucks and I wish I was just with my mom. I still love Leo, but he never loved me, except once.

I have grown so much since then. I used to think so highly of Nicole. I thought it was awesome to have a mom that helps you sneak around and break rules. I thought so highly of her and I wanted to be exactly like her. I wanted to smoke and drink and be high all of the time because I thought it was so cool. I thought it was normal at that. I just could not realize that she was no good. My dad was the only one who wanted what was best for me, and still to this day he does. He was the one who saw how poorly I was doing and made an effort towards getting me better. He did not even know half of it and from the time he found out and forward, he gave me all of the acceptance and care and love I needed. I regret ever being so mean to him. I know you are wondering what the hell I said to him, so I will make a list.

-I hate you

-You are a terrible dad

-I will never speak to you again

-You are the reason I am so messed up

-I never want to see you again, you suck and I fucking hate you, don't you dare tell me to watch my mouth, you don't get to tell me what to do because you aren't my dad anymore {then I called him by his first name}

-I do not want you in my life

I hate myself for the things I said to my dad. He is one of the kindest, most caring, and genuinely good human beings I know. He does everything he can to make sure my sisters and I can have what we want. He has a job therefore a steady income. He gets us any reasonable thing we want. I am so lucky to have a dad like him because not everyone gets a good dad, I love my dad. He and I finally have an amazing father, daughter relationship and I feel so much better. I wish I never said those hurtful awful things to him, I wish that Nicole never ingrained my brain with lies about him making him seem bad. Now my sisters are saying very similar but even meaner hurtful things to my dad. He does so well for them and they hate him because Nicole is good at brainwashing.

Dad, if you are reading this, I want you to know, it was never your fault for anything that happened. You could not have known, Nicole manipulates well. I love you and you are an awesome dad.

My mind is in a muddle. I can not seem to think straight for some reason. Nicole manipulated me so much I question my trauma. she told my dad and me that I faked being raped so I would not be in trouble. When I went to the party, she said it was real for a while, until it was no longer convenient for her to use. "My poor baby, I feel so bad seeing my daughter shower 5 times a day". Then when it was not getting her attention anymore, she said I was lying.

I wish I knew what to do with the thoughts that are flooding my brain right now. Once you become happy, and you come to be at peace with yourself, you can be okay. However, your demons stick with you forever. Once an addict, always an addict, but that does not make you a bad person. It shows how strong you are when you get sober. Your demons follow you, but you can restrain them, you can imprison them and throw them into the back of your brain. That alone makes you a survivor. Being a victim of rape and having PTSD is just the same. It is hard to suppress the memories, and it is even harder to work through them, but it is possible, I know it is because I am doing it. Your demons follow you, you have to realize that they do not own you.

Nicole is part of the reason I am mentally ill. I hate her for that. I hate her for many things. I wish her the worst. However, I am not going to let her win. I do not hate her, I hate what she did, I hate the way she groomed me into her idea of a good daughter. I hate how she manipulated me into believing my dad was no good, and he drank too much and he ignored us on the weekends for shooting/hunting. I regret not letting my dad have a relationship with me for years. She is not winning this one. I hate everything she did, but I will leave it to someone else to hate her because I am sure other people do.

I have always been in love with Leo, but as time passes by, I realize that nothing he did was good or okay. He was only ever "nice" to manipulate me. I wish I had known then what I know now. I am slowly getting over him and trying to ignore the intrusive thoughts about him. He was like a drug, and I got addicted.

My current boyfriend is amazing, and I could not have asked for someone better.

Chapter 6: This Is Today

Hypomania can be nice, I was hypomanic for like a month, keyword fucking “was”. I’d like to clear the misconception that mania means you’re happy, it doesn’t. I can’t be confrontational right now because no matter what it’s about I’m approaching it like a fight even if you’re approaching it like a discussion. It’s one hell of a fucking high and if you’ve ever done hard drugs you know that it’s usually not good the whole time you’re on a binge after a week or so. You know it’s more intense the more you do and the less you can function. Mania is such an intense thing that it makes you feel like you are on drugs when you aren’t, and as someone who used to do a lot of them, that’s scary, because it brings back so many memories, and for me, that fuels the mania more, it is just feeding the fire. Okay, so imagine like a 2-month long drug binge or drinking (alcohol) binge with the given random withdrawals and mood swings, The comedowns, and the intense parts where you think you’re on top of the world and life could not possibly get better.. Okay? Now imagine having no control over when you feel like you’re coming down when you feel high or drunk when you feel hungover when you are high or drunk at all. Imagine 24/7 constant torture of not knowing what’s next. Don’t fucking romanticize mania, don’t romanticize this. Here I am, in my bathtub, with a bottle of cheap vodka that tastes more like the smell of hand sanitizer than any alcohol at all, and I’m on 2 bars of Xanax (I was coming up on a year sober). Here I am, hot water pouring onto my trembling body in hope that it will ease my trembling, it feels like I’ve been in here for days and it’s only been hours, yet all of my tears are gone. I’ve drained myself of tears and I can’t seem to cry anymore. It's just a dull sob, heavy breathing, shaky hands, a blotchy face, and a trembling body. You think my symptoms would be numbed but I feel like they’re more lifelike now. I feel trapped within them, as if they own me, just like he owned me. I wish I could say he never did but for a while there I was stuck in his abyss. I haven’t slept in way too fucking long. Yes, I am on meds, no they are not working. I’m talking to my psychiatrist as soon as I can. Last night and these past few hours(it’s 3:48 a.m.) have been terrible, I’ve been up talking and pacing and shaking and crying all night in utter paranoia full of what I'm self-aware enough to know are only delusions, going from laughter to crying excessively to panic attacks that feel like the end of the world, to pouring my heart out to a girl I’ve been friends with for a week and telling her all of my trauma(shout out to you dude thank you) to trying to buy fucking animals(specifically a monkey) off of the Internet. Even though I only collectively have $6.00. Mania is embarrassing yourself publicly or even just within your household and not fucking remembering what you did or how you did it or why. Mania is bad life choices and excessive cleaning and exhaustion and impulsivity, for example: “wanna get drunk” yeah I’m drunk rn but sure why not. “Wanna have sex?” Yeah okay “ I don’t have a condom” that’s cool just pull out or don’t I don’t care. Mania is hurting the people you love because they can see how lost you are and how broken you are and how you can’t see that you need help. Mania is researching, stalking, fucking obsessively trying to find your abuser/rapist on the internet because you’re curious as to how he’s doing. Mania is trying to convince everyone around you that you’re fine because you want to be fine because you don’t want it to happen again until you’re so not fine you can’t avoid it anymore. Sometimes you just get stuck in fucking mania and you can’t get out. Sometimes you get hypomanic and start a book then as it progresses into mania you write more and more *cough* me *cough*.

Life has never exactly been easy, and I’ve always had difficulties concluding that nothing that’s happened is my fault, and truly it is not. However, blaming myself has always been easier than blaming everyone else. In complete honesty, Nicole ruined so much of my life and damaged my psyche. The way I view the world will never be innocent, my innocence is gone and I’m not sure I could get it back if I tried to. How much of my life would have been different had I not been an addict? What if Nicole never was abusive? What if I was never raped? What if I did fewer drugs? What if I never told my dad about Nicole? I could go on with the questions, but that probably won’t get us anywhere. It’s funny to think of who I could have become. Maybe I would be a sheltered little bitch with no sense of humor or sense of self. Maybe I would still to this day be a drug addict. The what if’s don’t matter, because they are simply that, what if’s. They don’t mean anything, but my past means everything. I don’t hold grudges against anyone for anything, I try not to hate, but I do strongly dislike Nicole. I do wish she wasn’t such a raging bitch. I wish she could just stop being a piece of shit. I wish my life wasn’t destroyed, yet I am beyond thankful for how beautifully broken I am.

I'll have such loud intrusive thoughts that they feel like voices. It's like there are two people in my head sometimes 3 or 4, constantly talking over one other, and then me trying to get them to stop long enough for me to hear myself think. I will also have snippets of words, phrases, phantom sounds, or music. I begin to hear whole words, phrases, even random sounds, and parts of songs. Sometimes I don’t even know the songs. “Just shut up, no one likes you”

“do it anyway, don’t be a pussy”

“they’ll think you’re crazy, be careful who you tell”

“secret secret secret”

“stop thinking about him”

“don’t stop thinking about it”

I’m sure the thoughts, the voices I’m hearing don’t sound all that terrible, but they are. You’re probably wondering why I let them bother me.

Just imagine constantly hearing the same things over and over and over and instead of letting the voice become a redundant muttering, it becomes more meaningful every time you hear it. They become more hurtful. They become louder with every waking breath. This form of existence is painful. The world wants me to be the same thing I want to be, but I don’t know if this is even me.

I struggle a lot with that. It makes me feel like I led two lives and honestly you’re one of the only people who heard about a lot of my “high adventures” I’ll call them, and I do apologize for telling you about me doing drugs and stuff, you were too young to be hearing about that(you aren’t too young now). However, because I am an addict I’ve made a lot of mistakes. And I did drugs to cope with my existence and how secret I had to keep anything that had to do with Nicole.

The voices in my head won’t shut up. They scream and yell, and go in circles taking turns talking, seeing who can be the loudest. My head is constantly racing. There is constantly something going on in my head. I just want it all to stop. The only things to drown them out are drugs. Maybe I will start taking benzos again, that calmed them last time.

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