#I believed it would be January before I saw the psychiatrist

[emeraldcreeper]

I love when all my coping mechanisms dissolve it’s fantastic i love not being able to fucking write two fucking scenes and hating the idea of my work and its contents even if I love it dearly because what if it’s Creepy to be horny for the content, when I know damn well no one hate reads it, it’s super sick that it’s really fucking cold out and I’m mildly freaked by getting catcalled when I was walking by the one park I can walk to, it’s so cool how I have no coping mechanisms for feeling godawful and my meds don’t work it’s great

[denimbex1986]

'Although Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer" is mainly concerned with the explosive outcome of J. Robert Oppenheimer's work, the biopic paints a broader picture of his life – showing audiences the personal ramifications of creating a weapon as devastating as the atomic bomb.

Irish star Cillian Murphy plays the scientist alongside Emily Blunt as his wife, Katherine "Kitty" Oppenheimer. Their family is a key part of the story, as is Oppenheimer's raunchy fling with psychiatrist Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh).

The affair wasn't made up by Nolan solely to spice up the movie, however. Oppenheimer really did have an affair with Tatlock while working on the Manhattan Project.

Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer" includes the scientist's relationship with Jean Tatlock.

The movie explains that Oppenheimer met psychiatrist Jean Tatlock while he was teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, in the 1930s.

The pair's romantic relationship escalated as Tatlock got Oppenheimer interested in politics, largely because she was part of the Communist Party USA.

Oppenheimer explicitly explained his relationship with Tatlock when speaking at his federal security hearing in 1954 – which is also seen in the film.

He said: "In the spring of 1936, I had been introduced by friends to Jean Tatlock, the daughter of a noted professor of English at the university; and in the autumn, I began to court her, and we grew close to each other. We were at least twice close enough to marriage to think of ourselves as engaged. Between 1939 and her death in 1944 I saw her very rarely."

In the transcript (which is still available to read in its entirety), Oppenheimer confirmed that he visited Tatlock in 1943 at her San Francisco apartment, only a few months before her death.

"Our meetings were rare. I do not think it would be right to say our acquaintance was casual. We had been very much involved with one another and there was still very deep feeling when we saw each other. … I visited her, as I think I said earlier, in June or July of 1943," he said.

Tatlock died by suicide on January 4, 1944, though there is some debate about whether she was murdered by Manhattan Project intelligence agents.

Although Oppenheimer had an on-and-off relationship with Tatlock, he married Kitty in 1940, shortly after she fell pregnant. That in itself was a scandal since Kitty was married to Richard Harrison at the time, but she divorced him during the pregnancy.

When directly questioned, Oppenheimer confirmed that he "spent the night" with Tatlock in 1943. So it seems highly likely that Oppenheimer did cheat on his wife with Tatlock.

Oppenheimer is believed to have had an affair with Ruth Tolman while leading the Manhattan Project.

Tatlock wasn't the only woman that Oppenheimer had a connection with outside of his marriage to Kitty, as he allegedly had an affair with Ruth Sherman Tolman, a psychologist who worked for the Office of Strategic Services.

Tolman was 10 years older than Oppenheimer, and was also married to Richard Tolman — a physicist in Pasadena who advised the Manhattan Project.

Nolan's movie uses this in the story, suggesting that Oppenheimer started having an affair with Ruth (Louise Lombard) to spite Richard (Tom Jenkins) because he was originally left out of a meeting about the Manhattan Project.

Nolan's film is based on Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin's 2005 book about Oppenheimer, called "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer." Bird and Sherwin suggest that Tolman and Oppenheimer had a "very caring and sweet affair."

This is backed up by the 2013 book, "An Atomic Love Story: The Extraordinary Women in Robert Oppenheimer's Life," by Shirley Streshinsky and Patricia Klaus, which says the affair "was not believed to have been sexual, only a close emotional bond and connection."

Oppenheimer stayed with Kitty and raised a family with her until his death in 1967. They had two children, Peter and Toni.'

[meismalis]

*reposting old prose/poetry/writings that were originally posted on my old blogs, so that I have them posted and tagged here*

July 2014

    I have carried a sense of jealously towards those who have had something to believe in for as long as I can remember. Even if it was just the simplicity of karma or fate, and not a set of complex ideologies. I wanted it. I wanted something that would explain everything to me and I wanted it bad, but no matter how hard I tried to lose myself within an idea that explained life, I always failed. It is almost as if my mind would shrivel up and lose any ability to retain information when confronted with the idea of a greater being or anything that explained the universe as a whole. The only information I can stand to retain is that there is no deeper meaning to anything; that humans believe their own lives are the most important  when really none of them matter in the slightest in any scheme of order. I was heartbroken when I realized that life meant nothing. I was raised to believe that everything I did, a greater being had planned my course of life out for me. If I amount to nothing it would not matter to anybody at all, but myself. The stars far away would not notice, they would not care. Evolution and the death of our race would inevitably occur, and I would remain as insignificant as ever, regardless of how I lived or died. I realized then, at the age of fourteen, that my biggest fear was insignificance and it was at that moment that I realized that is was inescapable. How do you escape from the inevitable?

       As time went on, emotions brewed within me. As I lived in a constant cloud of apprehension, I started to feel sick within the pit of my stomach. Confused and not sure how to act, I bit my lip and continued to live my life without even a flinch of my limbs. I was surrounded by people who adored me, though I felt a million miles away. I felt guilty. I felt worthless but most of all I felt extremely out of place. I found myself not giving a single fuck what happened to me and in the end, I concluded that death was easier. I no longer saw life as precious. I just felt like throwing it away.

    It happened on a cold January night, I was no more than 2 months over the age of fifteen. I had just returned from a psychiatric appointment that involved my mother and father demanding I be admitted to the inpatient ward. The psychiatrist concluded that I had not done anything of the extremities to be legally held within the ward, unless I gave my consent. I’ll be honest, for a split second, I debated it. Some part of me still felt compelled to changing the way I thought, but then my mind took over again. I politely denied the fact that I was mentally ill enough to stay, I made an appointment to come back that following week and left it at that.

    The car ride home was just the same as every other. I sat completely still, like always; neither my head nor body jolting with the bumps of the road. I observed life beyond the realm of the car. The frozen ground seemed to reflect my inner core, it’s peak of existence had passed and now was on the home stretch to it’s end. I was the winter, the dirt and the dying organisms in the ground. I wanted to die more than anything and more than ever before.   

[slashersgostabbystabstab]

Halloween Oreos (Michael Myers x Reader)

Original Ask: How about some snack time with Micheal uwu sharing Halloween oreos with his s/o or someone me whose getting close to him. Perhaps they buy him some huehue

_____________

Haddonfield had become a rather quiet place following the Halloween murders, the following years becoming somewhat grim.

Halloween was no longer the same, or at least it was something that made the residents of Haddonfield tense up. Even after thirteen years, people were sometimes too afraid to speak the Boogeyman’s name. At least, people finally came out of their homes, as if the plague was already over with. After thirteen years, one could have said that the Boogeyman was no more.

October had finally come around, and this year Haddonfield was gifted with a veil of fresh white snow on just the third day of the month.

You grunted as you fixed the plastic bags in your hands, the mittens you wore making it somewhat difficult to properly hold them.Today was the day to go out for groceries, a task you only did every now and then due to your current living condition.

“Need help there?” you heard a voice behind you, prompting you to turn and see the cashier that had rung you up in the grocery store.

“Oh! Ah,” you gave a nervous chuckle as you once again fixed the plastic bags. “I-I can bear, thank you though.”

“I really don’t mind lending a hand, especially in this weather.”

“It’s alright.” you insisted, especially after a chill ran down your back, your eyes glancing around as an uneasy feeling came over you. “Thank you, I really appreciate it. I just need to get going right now. Somebody’s waiting for me.”

“Ah, I see.” he nodded, taking a step back as you sighed in relief. “I’ll leave you to it then.”

“Thank you, have a nice day.” you nodded as well, not bothering to watch him leave as you knew the consequences of such things.

As you headed to your car, you took notice of a news crew that had stationed itself across the road, right at a sidewalk that led to another array of stores. The crew was specifically focused on a hardware store that had its glass windows broken, even the farthest eye could see the bloody handprints that were splattered on the walls inside as well as other blood prints.

You shivered at the thought of what had gone down inside, instead focusing on the trunk of your car before loading everything inside. Not paying much attention to the camera crew, or at least not wanting to do so, you hopped into your car to drive out of town. But not before taking a good look at your surroundings, on edge about the eyes that were possibly watching your every move.

_____________

Home was a rather lengthy ride, no more than an hour’s time thankfully, but the searching for it was what made up for that isolation you required. Considering the situation you lived in, your partially preferred living arrangements lie in the woods outside of town, where things were calm and quiet.

Hopping out of your car, you felt as the snow began to fall once again. This meant that in the morning, the veil would be much thicker and there was no going out, especially as your small home was situated in a deep part of the woods.

Hearing your boots with every step, you unloaded the groceries which would definitely be taking more than one go. You made your way towards the cabin in front of you, coming to stop after walking onto the porch as your eyes caught crimson.

Right on the wood were boot prints, every single one as red as the blood from the hardware store.

Your eyes followed the trail that led to the door itself, and you took notice of it being ajar.

Dropping the bags onto the porch, you placed a hand on the door to cautiously take a step inside. The creak of the door was enough to have you jump back the slightest bit, especially as your eyes continued to examine the trail of blood that led into the kitchen.

Now, you knew not to act like a girl in a horror movie but…

“Hello?” you called out into the emptiness of your home, holding your keys close to either fight with them or immediately flee to the car. “Is that you-”

Soon enough your scream pierced the air as you jumped off the ground, this due to feeling a rough hand clasp onto your shoulder from behind.

Once you had turned around, you groaned at the sight of an older man that stared down at you with dead eyes.

“Michael!” you yelled at him, then fixing your jacket which had slightly crumpled up at the shoulder where you had been grabbed. “I thought you were someone else.”

The man before you in no way flinched, not even bothering to blink as he continued to watch your every move.

“You leave in the middle of the night without a word and leave me alone all day.” you mentioned before passing by him, knowing that he turned his entire body to always be facing you. “Well now that you’re done with scaring the hell out of me, I’m done with the groceries. Won’t need to go out until January I think. I hope so, since it’s starting to get pretty cold out.”

Michael Myers, the Shape or Boogeyman of Haddonfield, stood right at your door with not a care in the world. If anything, your door to your house, was his door to his house. It had been this way for quite awhile now.

A few years actually.

It was surprising that he was not wearing his mask, his blue and clouded eye completely fixated on your figure as you grabbed the bags right at the entrance.

Once you had grabbed the bags at the door and then the remaining ones in the car, you shut and locked the door before being followed by Michael into the kitchen.

After he had spared you years back, Michael had come to act like a cat. Always with his nose on the lookout for what it is you would be feeding him. Hilariously, that was just how Michael reluctantly came into your life.

“I haven’t prepared anything since I’ve been out most of the day.” you admitted, ever so quietly laughing at the soft groan that rumble in Michael’s throat. “I did find some sweet goodies at the market though. Especially at WalMart.”

Michael didn’t always understand the things you talked about, but he was always listening. Always watching. Learning.

“They have these new cookies for the season. The orange looks kind of funny, but I’m pretty sure they taste the same as the originals.” you mentioned as you set the groceries on the counter, looking through the bags as you began to put everything in its place. “I also got you some stuff to shave off that scruff.”

Michael’s eyes darted down in an attempt to look at his chin, instead seeing you hand placed under it as you softly rubbed your thumb on it.

“Though I have to admit that it’s starting to grow on me.” you smiled before making your way back to the groceries. “Just like the greys in your hair.”

It really had been a few years since you had met Michael, a relationship forming after a pretty good while. He was in his mid-twenties, practically a middle-aged man now who hadn’t been found by the authorities this entire time thanks to you.

As you began to prepare a hot beverage for yourself, and Michael who you knew would ignore it but drink it behind your back, you knew that Michael was watching you intently. His eyes were glued on your hands that grabbed a pumpkin you had purchased. Somehow, he had not even realized the large vegetable as you brought it in.

“Found a recipe you might like, especially for the cold.” you spoke before grabbing a kitchen knife, one that piqued Michale’s interest but was not enough to have him snatching it away due to its size. “Especially with all the pumpkins that are out now.”

To his dissatisfaction, you set the knife down besides the pumpkin on the counter before facing him.

“But before I make that, I’m gonna go change. These clothes are starting to make me feel stuffy.” you removed your jacket as you walked around the counter and out the kitchen, for once not being followed by Michael who was now focused on the knife you had left behind.

Knowing that you would be too focused on finding one of his shirts to wear, he approached the counter to take hold of the knife, bringing it to his face to admire how it shone under the kitchen light. He first held it pointing upwards, but changed it so that he was instead gripping it with the blade pointing down. His head craned to the vegetable beside him, and instinct got the best of him.

“I see you got started with the pumpkin.” he heard your voice, turning around after having jabbed the knife down into the pumpkin which had more than a simple wound.

Michael grabbed the knife once again to pull it out, his entire body facing you once again as he tilted his head at your figure.

Your eyes fell to the knife that contained a bit of pumpkin residue, even a seed or two managed to slip out due to Michael’s brute strength. Now your eyes were on his blank features, and you couldn’t help but give him a smirk.

_____________

It wasn’t often that you lit the fireplace as to avoid any attention from outsiders, especially authorities who had honestly given up on the search for Michael despite his former psychiatrist’s demands, but you believed that tonight was just the night for a warm fire.

Despite the cold weather, you only wore one of Michael’s shirts with socks, perhaps a little something on your bottom. You figured that there wasn’t an entire need for covering yourself when Michael was your human blanket, and one that refused to come off you.

With all of the day’s work done, you sat on the couch, or more like Michael’s lap as he sat on the couch. Your legs were crossed as your torso was constricted by Michael’s strong arms, his chin casually laying on top of your head as you ate the last of your pumpkin soup.

Both pairs of eyes stared up ahead, almost next to the fireplace where your TV screen was placed. You were both watching the moving pictures, or at least Michael resumed that when you made comments about the movie.

“That’s so cheesy, no girl would scream and faint on the spot if she saw a monster.” you ever so slightly shook your head, Michael’s chin too heavy to actually complete the motion. “At least, nowadays. However, that looked like that one scene from the latest Child’s Play movie where the guy has a heart attack.”

It was an old monster movie kind of night, your mood demanding it and Michael no doubt being curious. Frankenstein actually seemed to catch his attention.

The man’s eyes glanced down at you as he saw your arms stretch out with your empty bowl, attempting to put it on the coffee table in front of the couch. This of course was quite impossible with Michael holding you back, his grip on you only becoming tighter as you were managing to barely escape his grasp.

“Michael!” you groaned, pulling your head forwards until his arms made a ring around your hips after you were able to snake the top part of your body out.

As you reached out to set the bowl down, you felt Michael bury his face right into your back before rubbing himself all over and taking in your scent simultaneously.

“I just want to put the damn bowl down.” you wheezed, eventually releasing a sigh of relief when your glass bowl safely landed on the table. But it made you also pleased to have grabbed the plate you had prepared along with the bowls of soup, making sure it or its contents didn’t slip out of your hands as you adjusted your body to the former position.

Michael gave a grunt as he placed his chin on your head again, this time making sure that you had no way of escaping him.

“You wanna try one, Michael?” you lifted the plate just a bit, having Michael peer down at the plate that contained black little circles that smelled weirdly to him. “They’re the newest Oreos. The cookies I mentioned earlier.”

You placed the plate on your lap, wishing that that was enough to hold them up while you took one of the cookies and offered it up to Michael.

“I don’t have any milk right now because you’re not gonna let me get any, so take it like this.

Michael squinted at the cookie, the orange filling enough to have him blinking at least once. In this state of his, you were able to break free and spin your body in place so that your legs were no longer crossed but instead on either side of Michaels’ waist. The plate of cookies was safely put on the empty space of the couch so that nothing could fall.

Having a mind of their own, Michael’s hands wrapped themselves around you as he once again stared at the cookie.

“It’s just a cookie Michael.” you giggled, lowering it before taking a bite out of it yourself.

Michael’s eyes landed on your lips, watching the way they moved as you chewed the cookie piece. Tiny black crumbs adorned your lips, every now and then shifting the more you chewed.

You watched him as well, finding it how funny his curiosity was. So, you popped in the remainder of your cookie before eating it as well, now feeling one of Michael’s arms leave your waist.

Instead, his fingers brushed against the warmth of your skin as his nails carefully scraped your cheeks. The tips of his fingers now coming close to your lips, his index finger actually on your bottom lip before it pulled it down and open.

“Michael,” you breathed out, knowing that Michael was merely observing the crumbs left on your lips.

Blinking up at Michael, you saw as he brought his face down to yours. His lips now dangerously close to yours as he continued to play with your bottom lip, making your breath hitch as he neared more and more.

Soon enough you closed your eyes when Michael closed the gasp, but not with his lips but his tongue.

Your eyes shot open as you felt his tongue lick the corner of your lip, continuing onto your lips themselves. You placed your hands on his shoulders, gripping onto them as you felt his own twist around the shirt you wore.

Your lips had already been parted from the shock of Michael’s actions, that good enough for Michael to slip in his tongue to get a taste of your mouth.

He didn’t care about your nails digging into his shoulders but in fact enjoyed it, pressing your chest against his as his tongue continued to explore your cavern, tasting every bit he could. But before you could follow along with his treatment, Michael retreated himself and looked down at you with half-lidded eyes that matched yours. Well, his didn’t have as much emotion as yours for he was difficult to faze of course.

“Michael?” you sighed at him, thoughts clouded with what just happened. You were then snapped out of it when Michael let go of you with one hand, reaching to the side where the plate of cookies was.

He had grabbed another one, bringing up in between your faces and leaving it there for just a moment. Soon after, he brought it to your lips, scraping it against them before slowly slipping it in so that you could take a bite.

As you chewed the cookie, Michael took the other piece into his mouth, leaving the two of you with crumbs on each of your lips.

His tongue slid out once again, licking the crumbs off of his lips before you got the memo.

The flush on your cheeks was more than enough to warm you up on this chilly October night.

[tempestsreach-blog]

Fuck Diet Culture

This is going to be long.  It’s going to be rambly.  It’s going to be sad.  It’s going to be angry.  There’s going to be language some people don’t like. I can’t NOT talk about it though. 

Fuck diet culture.  Let me say that again.  Fuck. Diet. Culture. It has taken such a huge chunk out of my life.  I have lost pieces of myself I’m not sure I’ll ever get back.  The only way to heal is to go through.  I can’t go back.  I have to move forward.  But I can’t do it quietly.  I can’t hide.  I can’t live in the same shame I’ve spent the last 40 years in.  Literally.  40 years of my life wasted to this.  I can’t bear to live the back half of my life in the same way.  What the hell is the point? I’m not going to write this in any particular order because all of the thoughts and feelings swimming around are snapshots of things in my life that diet culture has broken in me or stolen from me. A lot of you aren’t going to agree with me.  That’s okay.  Truly.  This is about ME.  This is to help ME heal.  You can talk to me about your struggles, your diets, your ups and downs, your successes and whatnot.  I am here for you in all of it. But I won’t diet with you anymore.  Never again.

Currently I am having severe knee pain.  One knee is worse than the other, but both are bad.  I should go to the doctor.  I should have gone to the doctor years ago for it.  Want to know why I didn’t?  My weight.  I have injuries from overuse and over exercise and I am terrified that I am going to go to the doctor and the first words they’re going to say are “Well, if you lost 20, 30, 40, 50 pounds, it probably wouldn’t hurt so much.” instead of listening to me, examining me, scanning my knees and HELPING me.  I don’t feel this way irrationally.  This shit happens.  I am in pain.  I don’t know how to get help without being told to go on another diet that will not work.

Because diets don’t work.  Not long term.  I am excellent at losing weight!  I’ve done it over and over and over.  Then I stop restricting, counting, starving, and pushing myself.  Then my body says “What the fuck were you doing?” and puts it back. I lost the ability years ago to know whether I’m actually hungry or not.  I eat too fast when I do eat because if I snarf it down super fast I can get it in before my brain says “You’ve had too much.  Did you count those calories?  How many miles on a treadmill will you do to make up for that?  Did you actually earn this meal?”

Every time.  Every meal.  Every morsel.

I have never been officially diagnosed with an eating disorder.  Only been told by therapists and psychiatrists that I definitely engage in disordered eating.

No shit.

Every diet under the sun.  Cabbage soup.  Phen Fen.  Weight watchers (MULTIPLE TIMES), TOPS, Noom, My Fitness Pal calorie counting, intermittent fasting,  and every whacky bullshit thing in between promising results.  I’ve purchased fancy scales.  I’ve even tried one that wouldn’t show you your weight, but the color of your progress in the app.  Here’s a hint… if you gain, your color is black like death.  I’ve failed a million times and I’ve blamed myself.  I am the failure.  So I hate my body a little more every day and I stress about how I’m going to NOT pass my disordered eating and my food issues onto my kids.  My stress levels are through the roof and 98% of it is diet culture related. What the fuck is that about? Every time I start a program I hit it hard.  Last time I tried anything involving tracking or counting I was so starving by the time I got home from work that I almost ripped a child’s head off (not literally OBVIOUSLY) but I screamed at her at the top of my lungs because she hurt my feelings.  It wasn’t until after finally allowing myself to eat another morsel of food that I realized I was hangry.

Why is living in a larger body not acceptable?  We all talk about diversity and equality as though we believe it with our whole hearts, but that doesn’t cross over to fat.  Or skinny if we’re really being honest.  How many times have you heard or seen online “Oh my god, she’s so skinny.  Feed her a damn cheeseburger!  She looks anorexic.”  I know I have.  I know I’ve said those words.  I will punch myself in the gut if I ever say them again.  

Every body is different.  We are supposed to be.  Let’s not BLAME genetics like it’s a bad thing.  Let’s realize that it’s what nature has intended.  My father is over 6 feet tall and a large man.  He’s just a big man.  He went on Nutri System when I was young, lost a ton of weight, and put a bunch back on over the years because he is a big man.  My mother was not tall, but was always large.  I hated her body because HER PARENTS told her all the time she was fat and unworthy and cautioned me not to grow up to be like her in any way.  Even when she was poor and homeless she was still large.  That was the way her body was.  I wonder how different her life might have been if the size of her body hadn’t been a factor in the way she was raised or treated.  How might that have made my life different?

I know a lot of you are probably rolling your eyes at me right now about being vocal about another health plan or saying to yourself “just because you have trouble with diets doesn’t mean they don’t work”  I know there are people close to me thinking “She just always gets excited when she discovers a new diet, that’s probably what this is.”  NO.  

This is me finally realizing that I can heal and healing doesn’t mean I need to weigh 157 pounds. (That’s the weight limit for women my height to enter the air force when I did in 1992) This is me finally realizing that I’ve been lying about the weight on my drivers license for 30 years because gods forbid anyone saw my real weight on that document. This is me realizing that I’ve spent my life trying to live up to other people’s ideals of what I should look like because I assumed they wouldn’t like me otherwise. This is me realizing how much unintentional harm I could have been doing when sharing another diet, another idea, another bout of “well this is working really well for me!” with people I care about. This is me realizing how much damage I’ve been doing to myself living with this level of shame for 40 years. Hiding what I’m doing.  Suffering in silence.  Hiding food. Restricting.  Binging.  Over exercising to compensate.  Spending money on one last diet.  Spending emotional energy on one last hope. We were in Las Vegas for what was supposed to be a fun vacation last week and I was so hot and miserable and so steeped in hating my body because my painful knees were betraying me that my internal monologue was a never ending loop of “I’ll hit weight watchers REALLY HARD when we get home and get rid of this weight, then I’ll figure out my knees and work on maintenance” Let me say that again, clearly.  I struggled to enjoy my vacation because I was obsessing about restricting food AFTER my vacation. One last time.  One last meal.

BULLSHIT.

We walked by shops with weird and pretty fashion dresses. (I freely admit I don’t understand fashion) the husband and I would both point out ones we thought were pretty.  My brain would get stuck on “Yeah, but they don’t make them in my size” or “Yeah, that would NOT look good on me.  It looks fine on that size 0 mannequin”  Pretty on other people.  Other people are pretty.  Not me. Diet culture is pervasive and all consuming.  In big ways and little ways.  I’m 5 ft 9.  I’m not a tiny person at any weight.  I’ve always been told I’m too big.  Even when I sit, I slouch a little and/or tuck my legs and feet up under me to try to make myself appear smaller and less invasive.  This is subconscious.  I don’t always realize I’m doing it until my knees remind me. Most of my life has been things that get in the way of my diets.  “I should start the diet today, but it’ll have to wait until next week because so and so’s birthday is this week and I want to be able to enjoy that.”  or “It’s late fall, I should just start now but first there’s my birthday, and then Thanksgiving, and December happens and there’s all kinds of treats then.  Better wait until January, but not the first because that’s new year’s...maybe the following Monday.” or the ever popular “I already had a bad eating day today, I’m a failure.  Why bother?  Fuck it.  I’ll try again tomorrow.”  That one was always followed by binging because of the last supper mentality.  If I’m starting a diet tomorrow I better eat EVERYTHING NOW. This is how I’ve lived my whole life.  The time not spent dieting was just the time in between diets where I was planning my next diet.  So much life wasted.  The only time I was not actively dieting or planning the next diet or suffering from “I’m just too exhausting to put effort into food right now” was during my 4 pregnancies.  I let myself eat whatever and whenever because I was nauseous all the time anyway and something in my brain made me fuel my body for the babies. When the youngest was born and the on call doctor who delivered her told me I was too fat to have my tubes tied I definitely started planning diets again in that moment.  I believe now, years later, that my diet and diet culture ruined mind and body is part of what kept me from being as successful at nursing the kids as I wished I had been.  I assumed my body was broken and not good enough for my babies.  The last time I lost a LOT of weight it was because I didn’t want to ruin someone’s wedding pictures.  True story.  This was nothing that person felt or anything they told me.  IT’s what my brain said to me.  It’s how I de-valued myself.  There are very few current pictures of me now because I’ve been stuck in a place where I feel shame when I see them. When I’m dead, memories and pictures are all my kids and grandkids will have, and I hate myself too much to let anyone take them. That’s not okay.

I dream about food.  I daydream about food.  Food I ��shouldn’t” eat.  Food I “should” eat.  When to eat.  When not to eat.  Every spare ounce of energy is spent thinking about food or hating myself which leads to more thinking about food. I am not in a place where I can prepare dinner for my family right now because it’s too hard to put that much energy into food.  I force myself to pick the recipes from the app and get the shopping done via instacart so all anyone else has to do is pull up the recipe and make the food.  If I’m looking at the ingredients or trying to prep anything I stare at every individual thing debating whether or not I “should” eat it.  This is going to take me a long time to break free from.  Today I finally feel like I CAN break free. There is nothing wrong with being in a large body or a small body.  Food is not good or bad.  Food is food.  I have to say these things.  I have to repeat them to myself or I fall down the rabbit hole again.  None of this is work anyone can do for me.  I have to live it.  I have to work through it.  I have to figure it out. If you read this far, my statement stands.  If you’re on a diet, I will listen to your woes and hold your hand and I will not judge you for it.  This was very hard to write because I am certain some of you who believe in diets, ways of life, and wellness eating may block me now because I spoke my mind.  I’ve clung so tight to the people I love and refrained from being honest and speaking my mind for fear of abandonment.  I’ll have to live with it if that’s the case here, because people sometimes need to do what’s best for them.  Airing this out is one of those things for me.  It’s a scary thing for sure. I also want to say that I’m happy for this to lead to discussion.  I’m not going to shut anyone down for wanting to talk to me about this.  I am always open to learn new information and see different perspectives.  Just know that if I’m emotional and feeling a lot of strong things about how my life has been up to this point, and I am entitled to believe what I believe just as you all are.  I’m happy to share sources and books I’ve been reading on the subject.  They are not diet books.

Here’s to doing better from here on out.

Here’s to finally being free.

[findingmypeace]

6/25/2021

Well it’s done. I just finished my last session with my psychiatrist before she retires. I cried after hanging up with her. I had ECT today and there is always a spike in my mood after ECT so I don’t know if that’s why but aside from that short cry I feel really disconnected from this. I know that at some point it’s going to hit me and it’s going to be very hard. I know I’ve written this before but I short recap: I started seeing this psychiatrist when I was 18 and a senior in high school. I saw her for a few years even though I graduated high school and moved away for school. When I moved back home in 2010 (I was 28 yrs old) I resumed seeing her and have seen her consistently since then.

When I started seeing her again she did a thorough assessment and disagreed with my diagnosis of BPD. She said that instead of BPD I should have been diagnosed with CPTSD. I didn’t believe her at first. In my eyes nothing traumatic had ever happened to me. Over the next several months and years she pointed out everything that had happened in my relationship with my parents including at the present moment and starting at a young age. It was eye-opening and I slowly started to agree with her. That was life-changing. I’m still learning about how all of this has affected me.

In the 11 years since I moved home she has been through so much with me. ED treatment stays. Dozens of medication trials. The ups and downs of my career. The devastation of what happened with R. ECT. And one thing that will always mean so much to me.

Serious TW Read at your own risk:

On January 29th 2019 at about 8:30pm I told my Mom I had try to kill myself. I was sobbing and she hugged me for several minutes and then told me to call my psychiatrist. I did. My psychiatrist advised us about what to do next. Call 911. Try to throw up/purge. And update her when I could. I will never, ever forget the calming presence she had at one of the darkest moments of my life. It means so, so much to me.

TW Over

I’m scared for when the totality of this hits me. My depression has been so bad lately, with the exception of a little while after ECT. This is going to be so hard. One thing I am grateful for is that my psychiatrist said I could snail mail her and she will write me back. I don’t think I could handle this without that option. To just never have contact with her again would be devastating. The thing is my CPTSD is based on attachment trauma. Attachment issues are a big what’s going on. I’ve already lost R and B and my family has moved away. Now I’m losing another person. I have no more words. This is a lot.

[butterflyinthewell]

Dad took some steps today. He needed the therapist right there because he was so off balance that he would’ve fallen without support along with his walker. One of his feet is curling sideways and inward because he hasn’t been putting weight on his feet. That will be a problem and he may need a brace to straighten that out. It’s related to the whole “don’t use it and you lose it” aspect of Parkinson’s disease, and I was afraid of this.

I hope he gets to walk again as much as he could before because he will be stuck in one room for the rest of his life if he doesn’t. I think that’s the one incentive that makes him want to get back on his feet. My fear is he will then proceed to get up at night like he was doing when he got hurt in the first place. He still keeps mom awake till 3 and 4am because she’s a people pleaser who will give until she’s dead. Black hole people like my dad love finding bleeding hearts like my mom.

I’ve told mom to just put her foot down and go to bed, but I stayed up once to see what really happens. Dad whines and complains if mom says she’s going to bed. Suddenly he will want to be put on his bedside commode (which takes forever and then you wait for him to go and heave him back into bed), or he will want a sandwich or just anything that makes mom have to be busy on his behalf until she’s wide awake again when she was sleepy enough for bed before.

Just...AUGH...every good thing always comes with shit right behind it.

I think I’m going to ask my counselor or psychiatrist if there’s a way to screen for ptsd. My mental health is in the toilet and I’m having bizarre dreams and nightmares several times a week. My sleep is disrupted now, and that’s never been a thing for me. I’m constantly hyper vigilant. I’m having anger outbursts and the kinds of thoughts that intrude upon my mind are horrible.

If something happens to mom, I am helpless in all the issues that matter. Food, I can figure out, but I’m worse than useless for everything else. I cannot move dad to his commode or wheelchair, and he needs some support to move onto them. I’m too small, he outweighs me by over 100 pounds.

Most of my bad dreams are things happening to my mom, or there’s word that something happened and I can’t get any info on if she’s okay or not. Another kind I have is I’ve contracted COVID, or someone who comes in to see us has it and spreads it, and I’m the only survivor. Other dreams are the body horror type where I amputate my own body parts with a saw and hand them to people because I feel useless. I had one recently where I literally ran up to Hannibal Lecter with a knife and fork and told him to eat me, but he took the silverware away and wouldn’t do it because “no, you’re not rude.” I said I was, but he wouldn’t do it. I was so angry! I was angry about that dream all day!

I don’t believe I deserve anything good and I don’t see myself as a good person. I don’t deserve help.

I’m scared a lot. Just...I can be sitting here watching a cute kitten video on YouTube or eating dinner and get hit with a wave of fear.

None of this is how my mind usually works. I’ve never been in mortal danger(recently), but I’ve had my routines and life disrupted to such severe degrees that I feel like I’ve lost control of my life, and to me that’s almost the same thing as dying. I’m autistic, and autistic people are more prone to trauma from ‘mundane’ things that a neurotypical person wouldn’t flinch at.

I’m just worried the “not life-threatening” aspect will immediately disqualify a diagnosis.

In June 2019, I went into burnout after home health visits for dad threw all my routines away and they’re still getting destroyed by it because they can’t keep a consistent fucking routine.

July that year was my dad getting his DBS batteries replaced. It was sensory hell because I got my period the day of the surgery and spent the whole time nauseated and cramping, but being silent about it...only to get called selfish and horrible for mentioning how bad I felt after we were all home again. (Outpatient surgery)

September 2019, mom’s gallbladder almost blew up and she was rushed to the hospital. I was alone with dad, without warning, and had to function using emergency reserves that I didn’t have because I was in burnout. I ran around terrified that any mistake I made would get me screamed at by both my dad and sister. Mom was out of the house from Friday to Tuesday. Dad did nothing but demand and demand from me and yelled at me for melting down. I was almost out of meds and for awhile didn’t know if or when I would get them. I had to grocery shop with sister’s help and she kept getting upset at me for arranging the cart like mom did, and I ended up forgetting things I needed even though I had a list right in front of my face the whole time. I was that out of it.

An aid had to come bathe dad because mom couldn’t do it for at least six weeks. That happened whenever someone could come, so dinner, my showers and mom’s ability to do things were disrupted by waiting for the call that the aid was coming. Coverage only lasted six weeks and then the help was yanked the second mom was declared fit to lift more than 5 pounds again.

October 2019, our car died and so routines got thrown further out of whack because mom and I had to depend on friends and family for rides to grocery shop or go to church. Trips stopped being at a set time and turned into “whenever someone can drive you” so I was uprooted from my day with little warning, and we didn’t get a new car until early December.

December 2019: We Christmas shopped late because of the car bullshit, mom barely got the cookies baked in time, and it was just a super stressful Christmas season.

I struggled through the death anniversary of my dog because that year he was gone as many years as he had lived and I spent most of it in a disassociated state.

Then mom had her bowel obstruction the day after Christmas and was in the hospital from Friday to Sunday. Yet again she was gone and the routine was blown apart without warning. My sister gave me shit the first time I wore my new ear defenders to the grocery store. Dad did nothing but demand and demand from me when I had nothing. I ruined a dinner that I didn’t know how to cook and went hungry but made him eat leftover ham from Christmas.

January 2020, the COVID shit started on the news.

March 2020, I went to the grocery store with mom and shelves were empty like a nuclear war was coming. I was terrified that I would catch COVID and kill my parents by passing it to them. Church closed. Stores opened for senior hours at butthole o’clock in the morning. Weekend routines were destroyed. Choir practices stopped. More routine disruptions.

August 2020, I started having anniversary distress related to what happened to mom the year before.

Then dad fell and broke his hip. I still clear as day see him in his blue shirt, sitting on the stair chair, being pulled backwards out the front door by paramedics with the ambulance lights flashing red and blue under the midnight sky and white street light.

Late September, as I’m struggling a bit with the anniversary of what happened to mom, worrying about dad getting COVID and beginning to relax because “dad is going to be away till he can walk again...” there comes that phone call from shithole New Orange Hills saying they’re sending him home and we find out they lied to us about every promise they made.

October 2020, dad was brought home and now he’s laying in an electric bed in the family room where mom can hear him if he needs her.

Writing that down has me realizing I’ve been experiencing almost continuous upheavals to my routines. Routines give me a sense of safety, and every time things settle something else throws it all to shit again.

So either I have ptsd or I’m possibly developing it, and I’m scared because this seems so ridiculous compared to the reasons other people get it.

[tamyrawilliams]

@frank-hauptman wants to map the jungle from the water’s side and Tamyra accompanies him. They talk about attunements, the jungle changes and then some shit happens. Frank’s drowning trauma comes to the surface.

"So what are we looking for exactly?" Tamyra asked once the boat was well into the ocean, now just slowly drifting along the jungle shoreline. It was a struggle to find the boat that was stationed by the Western Cove just in case somebody wanted to fish there instead of going all the way back to the other beaches, but they managed it and now they were out in the water, one eye of Tamyra constantly on Frank to make sure he would not actually fall into the water. "Hidden monsters behind the trees, more ghosts, or something completely different?"

________

Frank doesn't bother bringing a map with him. What use is it with the sea spraying on their faces? Only a few minutes in, bobbing on the waves, and his shirt grows damp and his shoes wet. “I haven’t checked the shoreline since summer time, I’m trying to keep an eye on how the water is impacting the beaches. Boring, yes, but useful in the long run.” Strictly speaking, he doesn’t need to do today; it’s January, and the rain proves more hindrance than help.  “I certainly hope all the ghosts are gone, but warn me if you spot one? I’m checking whether the terrain is changing any. Does the whole island change, or just the jungle, I wonder?”

________

Tamyra was glad Frank said that it was boring, at least she didn't have to say it herself. She was more careful with these stuff these days, still a bit worried about their peace, but it also felt nice to just sit in the boat and spend some quiet time, away from everyone. She can just focus on looking for anything out of the ordinary while Frank focused on the rock stuff. "I hope I won't see any, I had enough of them already, but will do. Did you ever see visible changes in the island before on one of these trips?" She leaned against the edge of the boat, splashing the water with her fingers are she watched the trees. "Did you ever try to feel the changes with your powers? Or would this distance and the water make it impossible to do so?"

________

Frank scans the beaches, a thoughtful look on his face. "Once I saw a chunk of a cliff missing. You can see it... that way, I believe?" South of the Leander, towards the cliffs jutting out in the distance to mark the western side of the island. "I hope you don't see a ghost either. The island doesn't have a psychiatrist still, I assume," he comments dryly. It's hard to tell if the waves protest the joke about their mistress or the woman herself does, but a strong wave hits the boat, sending them rocking and spraying him with water. Frank pushes his hair away from his face, snorting. "Ah, I haven't tried. It feels numb though, maybe it is too far?" He squints in the distance, trying to tug on a strand of his attunement, but a beat later sighs. "Nothing. At least we know you'll be the one carrying the team whenever we get off this island."

________

Tamyra followed Frank's direction, but to her it all looked the same. She could recognize changes in the jag because she spent a lot of time roaming it while she was alone, but these parts of the island? Parts of a cliff missing? That was way past the type of stuff she paid attention to, still she diligently nodded along to Frank's description as if she recognized it instantly. She let out a snort at his joke, rolling her eyes, that turned into a laugh when just at the right time there's a bigger wave that spays him. "Even the water doesn't think that was funny, that's something," she teased him gently. She remained quiet while he tried to connect to the earth and feel any of his powers, hoping it would work in this distance at least, but alas, maybe Frank and all the earth attuned needed actual earth beneath their feet. "Is it weird? Not feeling that connection anymore? Does it scare you?" She couldn't imagine not feeling the water around herself anymore, even if just unconsciously, in the back of her mind.

________

Frank swipes a hand through the water, splashing her in silent retort to her laughter, a smile playing around his lips. "You mean that wasn't planned?" he asks with a laugh, leaning back in the boat as another wave knocks against it. If he topples into the water, it's over for him unless Tamyra can pull a rescue from her bikini. He doesn't doubt her - just doubts even she can bend the sea to her whims. He considers her question, frowning, dragging a hand down his face as he thinks about the feeling. "Not scary, but definitely weird. It's like I've got a head cold actually, like when everything feels stuffy and unusual," he explains after a lengthy pause, dragging his gaze from her to the horizon.

And blinks, staring at the gulf they'd found themselves in with the cove on side and the southern beach on the other. "The current is strong today, we'll have to be careful. I don't remember us being this close to the cove," he admits, peering over the edge of the water and into the sandy depths below. Shallow, so they must be along the reef still. "Have you been out this far before?"

________

Tamyra just grinned at Frank, flicking a bit of the water back in his direction and then leaving her hand in the water. The waves were harsher now and she had to grab onto the side of the boat when one bad one hit them, but they were fine - it a was a weird doality, her fingers in the water enjoying the way the water moved around her hands, while her head knew that if things got worse, they'd have to turn around because she didn't want to fish Frank out of the ocean. "Head cold..." she mused. "It sounds strange. It even feels strange to think about it. Not feeling the water anymore. Wonder if it would be like that for good if we got out of here." A head cold for the rest of her life was not the best prospect, but she'd be out of here at least.

She could see Frank's expression changing and something happening, and when she looked back up over to the jungle, she realized they shifted so far off from where they originally were and that got her to sit up properly. "We definitely weren't this close, yet. Want to to try to navigate us back towards the jungle line?" She shook her head at his question, "Not really, this isn't the direction I usually move towards. Not--" but she couldn't finish her sentence because another hard wave crashed against them, rocking the boat even harder and Tamyra automatically reached over and grabbed Frank's arm to make sure he wouldn't fall off. "We need to be careful-- you need to be careful."

________

"Is that not how it feels to you?" Once Frank reaches solid ground, the strangeness is usually gone. "I hope this isn't a permanent feeling. I can't imagine not having it and yet I've lived longer without it." It's best, perhaps, if they find a way out of here before it becomes more second nature. If it's too late for him, for Josephine then. He dips an oar - more thick stick carved into a rudimentary paddle - into the water to change their direction. "I can try," he says, dubious, and to answer his question, the sea gives an awful lurch. Her hand on his arm is the only thing keeping his thoughts from shifting to something else. Something more like a sail boat in the Boston harbor.  "I will. I will," he says, more firmly, a hand moving to grip the sides of the boat.

The oar hangs over the water, waiting for the jostling waves to halt before he resumes attempting to steer them. "It really doesn't want us--" A forceful wave hits the little boat. Water splashes over the sides, and against his face. Another hits. The little boat spins from the force, and the oar flies from his hands, disappearing in the turbulent waters. For an awful second, he can't see, the water in his eyes and whipping against his face. The little boat rocks, near tipping with each wave.

________

"I never really felt completely cut off from water," Tamyra admitted. "The ocean is so vast and always seems close in some way, while other times just beckoning me when I'm not near it. And if I'm really far away, I usually take several bottles of water with me to make sure I don't get dehydrated, so even then some bit of water is with me, you know?" Feeling completely cut off from it? The thought suddenly scared her to death. Not that it was an option, at least not right now while they were sitting in a tiny boat surrounded by the ocean.

The ocean that was relentless and tossing them around as if they were just rag dolls. Tamyra kept holding onto Frank with one hand and the side of the boat with another, even though it felt to matter less and less. In a split second decision, Tamyra let go of the side of the boat and pushed her hand back into the water and focused hard, trying to calm the water around them at least, just enough that they could keep afloat and not tip over. "Can you row like this? I can try to keep the water at bay, but I can't push the boat to the shore just with my water magic."

________

Frank holds onto the side of the boat, grimacing, as the oceans tries to heave them up and over. If it's a response to their chatter about it, he doesn't understand the motive. "The sea clearly wants us to be a little more in awe of it than we are," he says, shifting carefully in the boat and dipping the remaining oar in the water, sliding through the water in one direction and then lift to do it into the other. "I got this, just..." Hold tight, he wants to say, but there's no more room for her to hold onto the boat than there is for him. With less effort into thinking and more into rowing, their little boat rocks its way to the shore. The current fights them along the way, pushing them further and further in the other direction. It's a futile fight. "We need to go with the current, I can't get us back to shore. Where's it pushing us? What can we turn into, preferably without smashing the boat and ourselves?"

________

"This is more than just the ocean's response to us joking, Frank," Tamyra muttered as Frank started rowing. Either theycame out here at an extremely bad time, which was possible, or the ocean wanted to get them away from something, stop them from seeing something. Were they not supposed to see the landscape change? Or was it something else? She didn't really have time to mull over these things, though, she had to focus all her energy onto the water and trying to control it even the slightest. The waves crashed relentlessly, though, and it felt like her magic was not able to do anything in this current. "I think it's pushing us towards that rock formation over there," she nodded towards a bunch of rocks towards the shore, but still very much in the deep water. "Doubt we'd want to let it get there." There was another rush of waves, this time pushing them heavy towards said rocks and tilting the boat more than any of the other waves before, and Tamyra cursed, "Shit, shit, shit! Alright, try maneuvering us to the shore instead of the rocks?"

________

Frank swears quietly, digging his oar into the water in an effort to spin the boat towards the shore. Beneath their feet feels less like wood and more like a puddle. "We're almost--" The boat lurches, a wave crashing over the sides and sending them tipping. He gasps, sucking in a large breath, and hits the water with a smack. A sharp coldness pieces him. His lungs protest, and he scrambles to find the surface, unable to tell up from down. Frank surfaces once, waving a hand, struggling to stay afloat. "Tamyra!" It isn't like the last time he ended up in the water, doomed to die; this time, he can't stay afloat. Can't fight it. He sinks again, flailing for the boat or Tamyra or the oar. Anything.

________

They were getting back already, if only they could just hold on a little while longer... but another wave hit them hard and then next thing Tamyra knew, the boat was tipping and they toppled over right into the water. As she fell, something from the corner of Tamyra's eyes flashed. She wasn't sure what it was, if it was just the play of the light or something more, but it came from the direction of the South Beach. She didn't have time to look back, though, or spend more time on it, because  the water swallowed her up whole and she was sinking in the water, trying to get her bearing.

She needed a few moments to find her way up, up, up to the surface and for a moment she forgot that Frank was probably sinking faster than she ever would. It only hit her when she reached the surface and Frank wasn't anywhere. "Shit, shit, shit!" She dunked right back down, looking around desperately to find her friend before it was too late, before he sank too deep and she couldn't see him or his oxygen ran out.

________

Frank can't find the surface. The water yanks him one way, and then shoves him the other. If he were home, he'd stop fighting and let himself float towards the surface. Here he sinks like a stone. If Oswald had it this way, he'd have sunk this way the first time, too.

He wonders how many times the water will drag him under and spit him out. The first time it asked for nothing, but taught him how to look at the world differently. The second had stolen his world. Would the third time ask for his life? No. No, it can't. Josephine, and Rose, and his world are back within reach. He struggles more, desperation and fear warring with the bone deep determination to see them again. Not just once, or twice, but for however long he'd be given.

His eyes snap open, even as the water burns his eyes, searching through the darkness for a sign. Up, down-- there, the light. Frank swims for it, struggling. He fears it's useful until he sees her. His hand shoots out, as if afraid she won't see him in the inky blackness, and catches her wrist. His lungs scream, and his vision is growing darker and darker, but they scramble for the surface. And when he breaks through the waves with a grasp, he can't think of anything other than the sweet relief of breathing, of the brief snatches of sunlight on his face. "I have..." he says between gasps of air, head shooting around in search of their boat, pushing sodden hair from his eyes with little luck. "... never been happier to see you in my life."

________

It felt like the moments were dragging on and Tamyra was wondering just how much time she had left, how much time before Frank ran out of time and oxygen and would start losing his consciousness and fuck, it was so hard to see anything under the water and if she missed Frank, if soemhow she couldn't see him...

there he was. The moment she spot him, she felt herself ten times lighter. But she didn't have time to rest, she needed to get to him before she sank way too deep.

She had better chances under the water thanks to her attunement, she could last longer, but by the time she got to Frank, she could tell that he was struggling really bad and the moment she got to Rose flashed in front of Tamyra's eyes, so close to passing out in the body of the plane all those months ago, in that fateful day. She didn't have a stake in that rescue, she just didn't want to flat out leave Rose behind, but she had so much more riding on this.

Tamyra grabbed him and pulled him up as strongly as she could and swam with them - up, up, up, as fast as she could. Her lungs started to burn when they broke the surface, too, relief finally taking over. "Fuck, you're too heavy," were her first words to him and then a relieved laugh burst out of her. "Please don't fucking do that again. We need to get to the shore before you start sinking again. Just grab onto me, hmm?"

________

Laughter bubbles up, even as Frank coughs. His eyes sting; not from tears, though any longer in the water and he might succumb to that, too. He wipes his face, futile as it is while they bob in the water. "Is the boat gone?" He can't see it, but then, he refuses to look away from the distant shore. His head twists, and he grimaces as he spots it, heading further and further from them without someone to guide it. "We can't chase it, it's already going beyond the reef. If it doesn't crash, it'll..."

A wave smacking against his face interrupts him, but he doesn't need to finish. She knows how angry the sea becomes it they drift to far from the island. Frank nods to the shore instead, and tries not to be the anchor holding Tamyra back as they make an attempt to head for solid land. He strains to find his attunement, wishing it were as simple as dragging the ground to meet him, but it feels far away. Further than when he was in the boat. Panic, he assumes, still curling in his stomach and waiting for a chance. The closer they get to shore, the less panicked he feels. It's only when he starts to feel the first flicker of his attunement that he heaves a heavy sigh. "My attunement is working again, we must be near solid ground."

________

"Yeah, I don't really give a shit about the boat, Frank, the longer you're in the water, the more chances are of you sinking again, which is the last thing either of us want. So no boat hunting, leave it," Tamyra said, holding onto his shoulder and arm, trying to keep him upright. Thankfully, the boat drifted away enough for them to even have a chance of going after it and both of them start swimming towards the shore.

Tamyra normally would have stayed underwater to avoid the waves, but she didn't want to leave Frank to fight it alone, so she fought against it, too. The water was relentless and hard and exhausting, and when Frank finally said he could feel his attunement again, Tamyra breathed out a sigh of relief and pushed on until she could feelt he ground under them. "We're good, we're good, we can walk now." She practically fled the last bits of the beach and then collapsed onto the shallowest bit of water at the edge of the shore to soak some energy back into her body. "Are you alright?"

________

Frank knows they'll make another boat, but he still can't help looking over his shoulder for the one drifting further and further away. Weeks of effort, and little to show for it. As Tamyra guides them to shore, he thinks longingly of the time where sailing for a few moments bore no such risks. But he pushes these thoughts away as they reach solid ground, and instead helps Tamyra up, as she helped him, until they can collapse on the beach with a sigh of relief. "I'm..." And is he okay? Frank runs a hand through his hair, at once weary, his hands shaking as he does. Under the weight of her gaze, he opts for honesty. "It's been a long time since I've thought I was going to die that way. I don't know if I'm okay, but I am alive. This time. I've probably pushed my luck with this. Three times is more luck than most others have in a lifetime."

________

He was alive. That was something. It was everything, really, in this state. Tamyra couldn't even imagine what it felt like for him. She arrived through a plane crash, it was impossible to relive the trauma - the closest she got was the plane crash, but even there she pushed the pain aside and focused on trying to get out instead of the memories. But for Frank who drowned to get here (and so many others), it was a real possibility, and fuck, he got too close to it again. She ungracefully crawled closer to him and gently nudged him. "Do you want to talk about it? I'm here to listen."

________

Cool sand is better than a cold sea. Frank rolls onto his back, everything aching. But there's little relief to having something solid beneath him; the tides tug it away as it does the water. He frowns as she nudges him, head tilting towards her. "I..." And what could he say? Fear is mingled with relief, anger with happiness. And a terrible sadness  stronger than the sea itself.

"Did I ever tell you how I got here?" He asks instead, closing his eyes, chin tilting for any flicker of sunlight through the grey clouds. "It was Fourth of July. Never celebrated it much; I grew up in England and moved to Boston later. But that year, we wanted to celebrate. For Josephine, and what was going to be her history. And then my brother tried to kill me."

________

Tamyra pushed herself up into a sitting position and watched Frank as he battled with himself on whether or not he wanted to talk. "Boating accident, drowning," she replied at his question. She never really thought more of it. Frank didn't talk about it, but that was alright, she didn't really talk about her crash either (unless it was to complain about Mallory, but that had completely different connotations), and they were okay just talking about their lives before the island and what they wanted once they got out of here. So when Frank said his brother wanted to kill him, Tamyra needed a moment to take it all in. "What the fuck?! He did what? Why would he do that? What happened, Frank?"

________

Frank sighs at her question; he's asked himself some of the same things. "I didn't get the chance to ask him, and I didn't think it was something he was capable of doing until he did. Money, I assume. My father is a rich man with pull. Regardless of how little we see eye to eye, I was still his heir." Without his brother here to ask, he has no answers. Maybe someday, when his brother is old, grey, and riddled with regrets, he'll tell someone. They'll have an answer, even if Frank will not. His nose wrinkles. He doesn't intend to say more, but this small leak in the dam proves stronger than his resolve. "We were sailing. I remember a blow to my head, and I remember hitting the water. The rest is... a blur." Head injury, or his memory protecting him, Frank doesn't question it. "If the island didn't pull me in, I'd have died. Drowned, eaten, I don't know. Swimming skill or not, no one is equipped to stay afloat in the middle of nowhere. I'm just grateful Rose and Josephine weren't there. Maybe he wouldn't have done it with them there, or maybe they would be someone else for him to hurt. But now you know."

________

Tamyra listened to Frank retelling the story, trying to make sense of at least as much as he could of what happened and it was horrifying to hear. She knew what people were able to do for money, she's seen some very nasty things in her days, but to Frank... he was good, he was kind and so not the type to fuck anyone over for money. His brother could have probably asked and he would have made anything work. "What an asshole. I am so sorry, Frank." She crawled closer to Frank and wrapped one arm around the man, pulling him close into a hug.

He kept talking, explaining the actual attack and the afterward and Tamyra just let him talk. Once he was done, she pulled back, looking into his eyes. "For once the fucking island did something good. You never should have been attacked, but at least you're still here. And you're with your family again, and with some time, we will figure out a way to get back to the world. I promise, we will make it happen."

________

Saying it without looking at her is easier, but Frank knows the feeling won't last. His mouth is dry, as much from the salt still burning his throat as it is the ache of memories. Her hug startles him, gaze flashing to her and then back to the sky, continuing to talk. As he does, he leans into the touch, because despite the horrible things he's seen, and the horrible things to occur, he agrees with her. If the island did anything good in it's long existence, it's bringing him rather than leaving him to die.

"I believe you," he says quietly. "I just hope we're going to make it back in whole pieces, or a little bit like the person we were before."

But the longer he's here, the more he thinks they won't. It's a worry for another day, though. "But thank you." And he sighs, tapping her hand, a silent thank for everything unspoken.

________

I just hope we're going to make it back in whole pieces, or a little bit like the person we were before. That single sentence alone scared Tamyra more than so many other things on this island. How they would arrive back home, what they would have to sacrifice to get the hell out of here. "We will figure it out," she said instead of voicing her fear, though. Because she was clutching onto hope that it would be alright. Because that hope was the only thing keeping them together.

"Once you're ready, we should head back to the North Beach," she changed the subject. "Hugging Jo after something like this sounds like a good way to feel better, right?" she suggested, knowing that for Frank, that was probably the best thing that could possibly happen after a scare like this.

________

Frank catches the tone of her voice. He's come to think she's never more certain than when she's most afraid. This feels like one of those times. He feels the same, and he pats her hand in solidarity. Let one fear be echoed and pointedly ignored, it's how they've always done it.

"Good idea," he says quietly, taking a deep breath and forcing himself up. Facing your own mortality has a way of leaving him weary, but there's too much to do for them to sit around. "Let's go back. I think we could use a break from the sea." He turns, holding a hand to help her up. "Best we don't tell anyone about this latest failure. I don't think anyone will trust us with boat building if they know we lost this one," he admits, a rueful smile on his lips.

It takes him a moment to find a more familiar stretch of land, but Frank points out a small grove of trees with a sigh. "Bit of a walk back." It's the thought of Jo driving him onwards, as it always is. Physically here or not, she's the north guiding him home, and it's this thought that makes the first step easy, and next step fast, and the last one before he sees Josephine a small victory. He'll take those where he can get them.

[deadstrangeblog]

The Sad Case of The Lipstick Killer

North Kenmore Avenue is a much sought-after residential area in the city of Chicago, with a children’s park surrounding the apartments and transport links within walking distance. It lies around the corner from a prestigious Catholic school and the uptown setting is popular with young families and elderly residents alike, it’s safe atmosphere and cheap living costs appealing to people from all walks of life. North Kenmore wasn’t always as safe though. In 1945, in Apartment 4108, a woman was brutally murdered there.

It was June 5th when 44-year-old Josephine Ross was found slain on her apartment floor. Police were greeted by a messy scene– Pools of blood surrounded Josephine and the smashed up apartment indicated there had been a struggle. She had been stabbed multiple times and a dress had been wrapped around her head. Usually, when a killer covers the face of a victim, it suggests that they feel a great deal of remorse about the crime they have committed and that death is almost always the end result of an impulsive sex crime. However, this seemed different. No evidence of sexual assault was present and death had definitely been the result of a frenzied attack. Police found a clump of dark hair in Josephine’s hand, as if she had been in a violent struggle with somebody. Naturally, police turned to her ex-boyfriends and ex-husbands, all of whom had an alibi. Although the neighbourhood was frightened at the prospect of a murderer living close by, the police assured people there was nothing to worry about and that Ms. Ross had been killed by a startled burglar. Her murder didn’t make the front page, and she was sadly written off by investigators.

Six months later, and we are in December. Our killer strikes again but, this time, police begin to take notice. On the 10th of the month, divorcee Frances Brown was found dead in her apartment. She had been stabbed and shot, the bread knife used in her murder still lodged in her throat when a cleaning lady discovered the body. The grim message shown above, written in unusual handwriting, was scrawled on the apartment wall in red lipstick (earning the killer his moniker) but apart from that, little evidence was found. Compared to the first murder, police did have a bit more to go on: a bloody fingerprint and a possible eyewitness. John Derick, the concierge for the lobby, said he saw a nervous man and heard “possible gunshots” at around 4 a.m. Given the lack of surveillance technology during the 40s, it was impossible to confirm John’s account.

The last known murder of the deluded “Lipstick Killer” was a truly shocking crime against an innocent little girl. Six-year-old Suzanne Degnan (below) was snatched from her bedroom in Edgewater, Chicago, on January of 1946. Her bedroom window had been left open and a wooden ladder was still propped up against it. At the time, police had no reason to believe her abduction was connected to the Lipstick killer, as kidnapping little girls didn’t fit his modus operandi. A ransom note left at the scene read “GeI $20,000 Reddy & wAITe foR WoRd. do NoT NoTify FBI oR Police. Bills IN 5’s & 10’s. BuRN This FoR heR SAfTY.” That night, a man persistently telephoned the Degnan residence demanding the ransom, only to hang up as details were being exchanged. Those phone calls would later turn out to be a cruel joke performed by two high-school students, Vince Costello and Theodore Campbell. Sick with anguish, her family could only hope that the police could find Suzanne before it was too late. Sadly, their worst fears were confirmed. Acting on an anonymous tip, detectives travelled to a sewer just a block away from the Degnan residence and found Suzanne’s decapitated head. Where was the rest of her body? Investigators were now faced with the grim prospect that somebody had dismembered a little girl, and they were unfortunately right. They found her torso in storm drain, and both her legs had been discarded in separate catch basins. Her tiny arms were found a month later in another sewer. Blood, presumed to be Suzanne’s, was found in the drains of laundry tubs in the basement laundry room of a nearby apartment building. This crime was truly grisly, and without advanced forensic technology, it was hard to bring the killer to justice.

In a desperate bid to catch the murderer, police questioned hundreds of suspects and gave polygraph examinations to about 170 of them. In several press releases, they claimed to have captured the killer terrorising the city of Chicago, but they were always mistaken. All suspects were eventually released.

In June, 17-year-old criminal William Heirens (below) was burgling an apartment when he was confronted by the janitor and fled. Police were called, and Heirens was subdued by an off-duty police officer who dropped several flowerpots onto his head to render him unconscious. From the day of his arrest on June 26, 1946, things travelled on a downward spiral for Heirens and this once lucky burglar had run all out of luck. For some reason, police believed that Heirens was the Lipstick Killer and decided to question him. For six consecutive days, he was interrogated by police officers. He was denied food, water, and the right to an attorney, and two psychiatrists even gave him Sodium Pentothal (a potent barbiturate) without his consent. Most shocking of all, the 17-year-old was given a spinal tap without any anaesthesia. For days later, he was in incredible pain and couldn’t perform a polygraph test because his adrenaline-fuelled heart was beating too fast. Eventually, he cracked. He confessed to police that he had committed these crimes under an alter-ego named “George.” He explained to psychologists that he always took the rap for the crimes of “George” including theft, murder, and everything in between. The Chicago police department were suspicious of this defence, and accused Heirens of lying in the hopes of getting an insanity defence in court. Apart from his confession, police had nothing to go on. No evidence linked Heirens to the murders, and this polite University of Chicago student seemed incapable of such heinous crimes. It seemed like a bizarre arrest, but for the general public, it was good enough.

As suggested by his defence attorneys, Heirens confessed to all crimes. On his court date on August 7, 1946, Heirens took full responsibility for the three murders. The prosecution had him reenact the abduction and murder of Suzanne Degnan in court multiple times, all of which he did inconsistently. On the night of September 4th, Heirens attempted suicide in his cell and had timed it to coincide during a shift change of the prison guards. He was discovered hanging and was revived successfully by prison guards. He said later that sheer despair drove him to attempt suicide; “Everyone believed I was guilty…If I weren’t alive, I felt I could avoid being adjudged guilty by the law and thereby gain some victory. But I wasn’t successful even at that. …Before I walked into the courtroom my counsel told me to just enter a plea of guilty and keep my mouth shut afterward. I didn’t even have a trial..”

The next morning, the prosecution and defence were making their closing statements. The judge, Chief Justice Harold G. Ward, formally sentenced Heirens to three life terms. Somehow, he had been lucky enough to avoid the electric chair. As Heirens waited to be transferred to Stateville Prison from the Cook County Jail, Sheriff Michael Mulcahy asked Heirens if Suzanne Degnan suffered when she was killed. Heirens simply replied: “I can’t tell you if she suffered, Sheriff Mulcahy. I didn’t kill her. Tell Mr. Degnan to please look after his other daughter, because whoever killed Suzanne is still out there.”

Likely innocent, William Heirens still spent the rest of his life imprisoned. In 2002, a petition for his release was filed but eventually denied. In his older years, he suffered from diabetes and was confined to a wheelchair with limited eyesight. He died of natural causes on March 5th, 2012, due to complications with his illness.

In 1994, Dolores Kennedy formed a team of forensic experts to look into the murders and they found several inconsistencies, most notable was that Heirens’ confessions didn’t fully match the evidence. Heirens claimed that he was forced to confess by the police, and this is also supported by other evidence. They also concluded that the handwriting of the lipstick message and that of the ransom note were not the same and that neither matched that of Heirens. They also looked into the police force working on the case: Before Heirens was arrested, police had taken particular interest in a janitor called Hector Verburgh. 65-year-old Hector was from Belgium, and struggled to write fluently in English. With this in mind, isn’t it odd that police still arrested him and accused him of the murders? How could a man with no knowledge of English writing, scribble such an eloquently written note on his supposed victim’s wall? It didn’t stop there. Like Heirens, Verburgh was subjected to extreme torture. For two days, police interrogated him and beat him so badly that he sustained a dislocated shoulder. After his terrifying ordeal, he successfully sued the Chicago Police Department for $15,000.

“Oh, they hanged me up, they blindfolded me … I can’t put up my arms, they are sore. They had handcuffs on me for hours and hours. They threw me in the cell and blindfolded me. They handcuffed my hands behind my back and pulled me up on bars until my toes touched the floor. I no eat, I go to the hospital. Oh, I am so sick. Any more and I would have confessed to anything.”

With such atrocious behaviour from the police department, it’s safe to say that the man convicted of these crimes was not the real killer, merely a scapegoat for shoddy police work. The true identity of the Lipstick Killer is yet to be discovered, and, sadly, it seems that those who were murdered were not the only victims in this disturbing case.

[arrivalation]

2020: An Account

This year has been a nonstop, off-the-rails bullet train ride into what looked at first like chaos, but ultimately was a tearing down and reconstruction of my entire being. Because I know myself and I know I won’t remember much of this later, I’m recording it here. It’s hard to put some of this information out, but the universe regularly urges me to be more open. So here I go.

January

I got married.

It was, without contest, the absolute best day of my life. I’ve known since I was real little that I wanted to be married, that I wanted to be loved the way M loves me and to love someone just as much. I don’t know how to explain the feeling of having achieved that, and being able to share that with my entire circle. @abyssalsun​ made it down!! (my only regret is that @ladyoriza​ couldn’t make it, but I’m still so glad we got to make it to theirs). As often as I can, I revisit the memory of going to @chromecutie​’s house afterward, thinking it’d just be the four of us there, and opening the door to find a whole impromptu surprise party happening. Everyone cheered for us when we came in. I played CAH with Mordred, my brother and his wife, and several friends from out of town. By all accounts, these people would never have been in the same room together, but they were, and it was transcendent. It’s been almost a year, and I still haven’t recovered from all the planning and stress; but now that I’m past it, I can say with relief that it was 100% worth it.

February

We bought a house.

Up until this point, I’d been planning a wedding, participating in house-buying stuff as best I could, interviewing for a job I ended up not taking, and dealing with life-long mental illness that was festering and reaching critical mass. But then stuff started wrapping up. The wedding happened. The house was ours. We moved in. I could finally fucking breathe. LMAO bitch you thought.

March

The pandemic reached us.

I guess by this point it had probably already been in the US for a couple months, idr. But it wasn’t until March that things really started happening. People started dying in droves. New cases spread like wildfire. I remember thinking that this would be the zombie apocalypse, because at this point, I don’t think the CDC knew much about the virus. In my anxious mind, that was a completely reasonable assumption. My boss had us all start working from home. We all thought it’d be just a couple weeks.

April

I settled into working from home.

It didn’t take me long to get used to it, maybe a week. I hadn’t yet gotten used to my new hour-long commute from the new house to work, and so working from home quickly became my new normal. But I didn’t know yet why working from home was so good for me. All I knew was that I now had the brain-space to process things. I had the energy to do yoga and cook and do hobbies, and the time to appreciate and care for the home I lived in. I could think more clearly because there was no one else around to distract me. There was sunlight I could bask in. I felt human for once, and that became vitally important and infinitely valuable to me. Despite that, I still struggled with extreme anxiety, panic attacks, and some of the worst depression I’ve suffered through since I was a teenager. Outside my house, everything was a fucking mess and no one had their shit together.

May

I went back to the office for a few weeks.

There was a lull in pandemic activity. My boss had us all start coming back to the office again. At this point, I couldn’t make heads or tails of reality anymore. Everything was changing, nothing was stable. I desperately needed to stay working from home, because that was the one thing that felt Good and Right, but I had no real argument other than, 'I just need to.' So imagine me, at this point a soggy, run-over sloppy joe, attempting to return to normal. As you might think, it was... bad. I cried and hurt all the time. I think I really freaked out my boss with the way I reacted to coming back to the office. But then the second wave hit, and we all went back to working from home again.

June

Uncle Mike died on the first day of the month.

My uncle had been sick for a while, but no one was expecting him to die so suddenly. None of us were ready for it.

I also died that day.

It might sound dramatic, but I mean it quite literally and honestly. Over the years, I had gained suspicion that I was on the autism spectrum. M graciously found me a psychiatrist that took my insurance (and happened to be right next door). I wasn’t even going in for that - I was seeking treatment for my anxiety and depression. But I had amassed a (very long) list of my symptoms, and I brought it with me and read it to my doctor. I wasn’t even a quarter of the way through the list when he stopped me. I’m paraphrasing here, but in effect, he said, “No, yeah, you’re definitely autistic.”

I remember the way my body felt. Like someone had detonated a bundle of TNT in my chest, and I was burning from the inside out. At the time, I didn’t realize this emotional immolation was purposeful and executed by the universe to get rid of this old structure and build a newer, better, stronger one. For about fifteen seconds after he said that, I was relieved that it had been that easy, that there was an explanation for everything that my ADHD didn’t explain. It made a ton of sense why my environment was so important to me. And then I felt something unnameable. It was obvious to my doctor that I was autistic. Had it been obvious to everyone else? Why hadn’t it been obvious to me? I read the rest of my symptoms to him in a daze. I don’t remember how the rest of the appointment went.

And then I burned quietly and ungracefully until I was a pile of ashes. I didn’t know this at the time, but apparently it’s common for newly-diagnosed autistic people to have such dramatic and painful reactions, especially if they weren’t well-informed on the condition. Which I wasn’t.

I started therapy.

I also started learning about my “flavor” of autism. It was arduous, embarrassing, isolating, and ugly. I became aware that I had been masking my whole life, and I was astounded by just how often I did so. What really crushed me was knowing that I’d always have to mask to protect myself. I also became hyper-aware of the things that made me Feel Bad. Inexplicably, I stopped being able to react to those things the way I used to. Previously, if something made a loud and unexpected sound, I would suppress my reaction, because it’s not cool to get mad about it. But I found I couldn’t do that anymore. I had no choice but to react the way I needed to react. I realize now that this was to make me aware of what things make me feel a certain way so I can either avoid them or learn better tools to deal with them.

The therapist I saw wasn’t specialized in autism, and she wasn’t any help in that area, but she did teach me some important things. Like, “Is it reasonable for me to feel ____?”

July

Black hole.

I don’t remember a whole lot from this month, except sifting my own ashes through my fingers and crying. Every day brought a new revelation, a new thing that clicked. All of it was helpful and very painful. My psychiatrist recommended medication, but I’d had a bad and long-lasting experience with medication as a teenager, so I suffered through the pain on my own.

I shouldn’t have. I got so low I didn’t want to be alive anymore. But I think it took reaching the bottom and feeling that much pain for me to get over my fear of pharmaceuticals. 

I got into astrology.

I had been interested in it for most of my life, but it wasn’t until this point that I started studying it in depth. I discovered it was a language that I could use to translate so many things about my own life that I didn’t understand. It was a rulebook in a time when I desperately needed rules - but one just flexible enough that it taught me how to stop thinking in binary.

August

I got medicated.

There was a big adjustment period, of course. It didn’t cure me. But it did start to make things easier. And it helped to know that, even if I didn’t believe it at the time, I deserved to rest. I deserved not to feel so much emotional pain all the time.

I turned 30.

It was easily the second best day of my life. I learned a lot of important things, like that it’s important to be present, that I’m seen and loved (just the way I am!!), and that I deserve good things. M planned a whole day of surprises:

I woke up at my leisure and we had coffee on the couch. He got me a cute card with one of our inside jokes inside - I still have it.

We went to our favorite combination lunch place and bakery, which I believe was our first real outing since the pandemic started.

We stopped by a tattoo place. I almost got a tattoo.

He set me loose in Texas Art Supply.

We got dim sum for dinner.

We had a lovely virtual cocktail hour with @chromecutie.

He bought me an ipad!!

I became Spiritual™.

I had been agnostic for the past decade or so, slowly and subtly slipping into nihilism, without realizing how detrimental those ideas were to me. I’m not sure what I thought spirituality was before, but I wasn’t into it. I had always rolled my eyes at people who talked about “a higher power”, auras, and spirit guides, until I became that person.

My psychiatrist introduced some powerful ideas to me, ones that meshed well with my previously-existing idea of how the universe worked. I won’t get into details here. That’s a whole other post. Ask me though - I’d love to talk about it.

Anyway, I started (intermittently) meditating. I learned some exceptionally powerful stuff. I felt my scaffolding being erected.

September

I started learning who I am and why I am this way.

I started seeing a new therapist. She thinks like me. She follows my erratic, forking trains of thought. She sees me and offers real, actionable feedback and solutions. Working with her, I’ve gained the ability to see my life from a 30,000-foot view. I can see now why I’ve felt so lonely my whole life. I understand how my family’s dysfunction has shaped me. I know now that I have the opposite of a victim complex - by default, I believe I am so awful that I feel sorry for everyone who has to deal with me. Because that’s what I was taught to believe. Learning that I deserve to take up space, set boundaries, say no, and be wrong sometimes is still a hard lesson for me. But most days, I believe it now. It takes other people believing it and convincing me. I still need that reassurance often.

My parents sold my childhood home.

Mentally, emotionally, I still lived there. I was still the inverted victim, still beholden to my stepdad’s whims and my mom’s complete cognitive dissonance. This was a blinking neon sign from the universe that it was time to move out. My mom told me when the closing date was so I’d have time to drive down and look at the house one last time. I didn’t go, and I still don’t regret it.

I started learning my boundaries.

After my spiritual move-out, I learned I don’t have to jump when my stepdad holds out the little circus hoop. When he otherwise shows zero interest in my life but still baits me with passive-aggressive texts, I don’t have to answer!! What a concept! I don’t have to feel guilty for not talking to my mom more than I do. We have very little in common, and I still have a lot of things to work through regarding her.

I learned how not to be so reactive.

Or rather, I’m still learning. Something else I learned in therapy is that over the course of my life, I’ve developed a desperate need to defend myself and to justify every action or thought I have, even to myself. It’d been especially troubling at work. My RSD led me to felt stupid, incompetent, and unseen daily; if my boss complimented someone, I believed it also meant he thought I was stupid and bad and wrong, otherwise he would have complimented me too. If my boss said something that even remotely sounded like I’d done something wrong, I’d race to build an impenetrable defense: “This is the reason I did that. Here’s my line of thinking. Do you understand? Can you please understand?”

Now I know that so little of what everything everyone says or does at work is about me. I can appreciate a coworker’s accomplishment and also realize it doesn’t take away anything from me. I’m not stupid or incompetent, and I’m a valuable part of the team. A lot of times, my boss and I are on two different wavelengths - that’s because I think a lot faster, which can be frustrating for him sometimes. He doesn’t fully understand me, but that doesn’t mean I’m doing anything wrong.

October

I let go of an old friend.

This was especially hard, because I had known this person for years. We’d gone through a lot together, and we’d shared some really important and emotional story plots and characters. I had agonized over whether I was truly important to her or not. It didn’t matter how much I loved her as a friend, or how badly I wanted us to be close again and remain close. I had learned to read the universe’s signs, and it was clear it was time to move on.

November

The election happened.

I was expecting things to turn out badly, but I still hoped for something good. And then something good did happen. I cried watching Harris’ speech. I felt a tenuous hope that things might finally start looking up, societally. I still haven’t really let myself fully embrace that hope, but every time I see a court shoot down another lawsuit, or hear about trump’s own conservative republican supporters tell him, “Okay, buddy, it’s time to step down,” I feel a little better. 

M and I went non-monogamous.

There’s so much I want to say about this, but it’s for another post. Suffice it to say that like every other experience this year, it has been unexpectedly challenging and ultimately a catalyst for  priceless growth. I’m unfathomably grateful that we’re doing this together, for the things we’ve learned so far, and for how much closer this experience has made us, even when I didn’t think we could get any closer. 

Turns out I’m not gray-ace.

I had identified as such for a couple years, which was why we wanted to try non-monogamy in the first place. On the surface, it perfectly explained my sexual personality. But every time I told someone my identity, I felt inexplicably sad. When I read about others having “normal” sex drives and “normal” relations with their spouses, I felt jealous.

Turns out I’m just traumatized, lol. Walking along this non-mono path has unearthed a lot of things, including this gem.

December

This was our first married christmas in our new house.

One of the handful of good things the pandemic has done for me was allowing me to back up my boundaries with hard evidence. It’s been difficult dealing with my stepdad bullying me about not coming over for thanksgiving, and having my mom subtly guilt me into making plans for next year already. But what I needed this year was a quiet holiday, instead of the usual weeks-long chaos, and I got it. And it was fucking delightful. I’ve dreamed of days exactly like that one - spending a tranquil morning with my spouse, sipping coffee and listening to music and eating treats. Deciding exactly how we want our holidays to be, because we deserve to.

I’m scared of what’s to come in the new year. I’m still an anxious mess, and some days I’m not strong enough to pull myself out of the spirals I throw myself into. I’ve gotten used to the pandemic holding my hand, allowing me to shelter in my home, helping me enforce my boundaries, teaching me who I am. When it’s over, I don’t know what will happen or how I’ll react or what I’ll learn next. I’m not finished rebuilding, but I don’t think that’s the point. I’ll never be fully rebuilt. But at least I’m figuring out the new layout.

[papermoonloveslucy]

THE DARK CORNER

November 10, 1947

Synopsis ~ A former San Francisco private eye, just in back New York after two years in prison (the victim of a frame-up), finds himself a target for another send-up and murder.

Directed by Fred MacKaye with musical direction by Louis Silvers and sound effects by Charlie Forsyth

Adapted for radio by Sanford Barnett from the screenplay by Jay Dratler and Bernard Schoenfeld based on the book by Leo Rosten.

It was based on the 20th Century Fox motion picture of the same name released on May 8, 1946. 

In later years, Lucille Ball was vocal about hating the experience of shooting The Dark Corner. Director Henry Hathaway's bullying reduced Ball to stuttering on set, at which point Hathaway accused her of being inebriated. At the time, Lucille Ball was suing to get out of her contract with MGM. As a result, MGM loaned her to Fox for this picture, which included a significant pay cut. 

Lux Radio Theatre (1935-55) was a radio anthology series that adapted Broadway plays during its first two seasons before it began adapting films (”Lux Presents Hollywood”). These hour-long radio programs were performed live before studio audiences in Los Angeles. The series became the most popular dramatic anthology series on radio, broadcast for more than 20 years and continued on television as the Lux Video Theatre through most of the 1950s. The primary sponsor of the show was Unilever through its Lux Soap brand.

CAST

Lucille Ball (Kathleen Stewart) was born on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York. She began her screen career in 1933 and was known in Hollywood as ‘Queen of the B’s’ due to her many appearances in ‘B’ movies. “My Favorite Husband” eventually led to the creation of “I Love Lucy,” a television situation comedy in which she co-starred with her real-life husband, Latin bandleader Desi Arnaz. The program was phenomenally successful, allowing the couple to purchase what was once RKO Studios, re-naming it Desilu. When the show ended in 1960 (in an hour-long format known as “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour”) so did Lucy and Desi’s marriage. In 1962, hoping to keep Desilu financially solvent, Lucy returned to the sitcom format with “The Lucy Show,” which lasted six seasons. She followed that with a similar sitcom “Here’s Lucy” co-starring with her real-life children, Lucie and Desi Jr., as well as Gale Gordon, who had joined the cast of “The Lucy Show” during season two. Before her death in 1989, Lucy made one more attempt at a sitcom with “Life With Lucy,” also with Gordon.

Mark Stevens (Bradford Galt) reprises his role from the film version of The Dark Corner (1946). He became a contract player for Warners at $100 a week in 1943 but they darkened and straightened his curly ginger-colored hair and covered his freckles. At first he was billed as Stephen Richards, he later changed it to Mark Stevens at the suggestion of Darryl F. Zanuck when he switched to 20th Century-Fox. He died in 1994 at age 77. 

Joseph Kearns (Ralph Wickett) appeared on “I Love Lucy” as the psychiatrist in “The Kleptomaniac” (ILL S1;E27) and later played the theatre manager in “Lucy’s Night in Town” (S6;E22). His most famous role was as Mr. Wilson on TV’s “Dennis the Menace” (1959). When he passed away during the show’s final season, Lucy regular Gale Gordon took over for him, playing his brother.

In the film, the character was named Hardy Cathcart and was played by Clifton Webb. 

Norma Jean Nilsson (Little Girl at the Boarding House) was a child actress who left Hollywood at age 19 after appearing in 16 films and television shows.

In the film, the character carries a slide whistle, which is not used here. She was played by Colleen Alpaugh.

Wally Maher (Fred Foss aka Stauffer) was born on August 4, 1908 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was known for Mystery Street (1950), The Reformer and the Redhead (1950) and Hollywood Hotel (1937). He was married to Molly Bruno. He died on December 27, 1951.

In the feature film, the role was played by William Bendix, who would go on to fame as the title character in TV’s “The Life of Riley.” 

Dan O'Herlihy (Anthony Jardine) was an Irish-born actor nominated for an Oscar in 1954 for Robinson Crusoe. In 1960 he made an appearance on Desilu’s “The Untouchables.” He was in two of the RoboCop movies. He died in 2005 at age 85. 

In the feature film, the role was played by German-born actor Kurt Krueger. 

Fay Baker (Mari Wickett) was born on January 31, 1917 in New York City as Fanita Baker Schwager. She was known for Notorious (1946), The House on Telegraph Hill (1951) and Deadline - U.S.A. (1952). She died on December 8, 1987.  

In the feature film, the role was taken by Cathy Downs, making her first credited screen appearance. 

ENSEMBLE

Trude Marson was seen in uncredited roles in four films from 1937 to 1947. 

Noreen Gammill started her screen career as the voice of Catty the Elephant in Disney’s Dumbo (1941). She made two background appearances on “The Andy Griffith Show” (1963 and 1964), filmed on the Desilu backlot. 

William Johnstone is probably best remembered as Judge Lowell on the long-running daytime drama “As The World Turns”.  Prior to that he worked extensively in radio and took over the role of Lamont Cranston on "The Shadow" playing opposite Agnes Moorehead when Orson Welles left the series.

Janet Scott was a regular background voice on “Lux Radio Theatre” with dozens of episodes to her credit from 1937 to 1955.

Lois Corbett  was married to Don Wilson of “The Jack Benny Program” and as such did more than a dozen episodes of the television shows with him from 1954 to 1964.  

Edward Marr was seen in The Affairs of Annabel with Lucille Ball in 1938.  He was also in two Bob Hope TV specials with Hope and Ball in 1966 and 1970.

Stanley Farrar was seen on “I Love Lucy” in “Home Movies” (ILL S3;E20) and “Staten Island Ferry” (ILL S5;E12). He on “The Lucy Show” in “Lucy and Arthur Godfrey” (TLS S3;E23) and “Lucy Meets Danny Kaye” (TLS S3;E15).

Herb Butterfield was born on October 28, 1895 in Providence, Rhode Island. He was known for The Halls of Ivy (1954), The House on Telegraph Hill (1951) and Shield for Murder (1954). On radio, he portrayed the Commissioner on NBC 's "Dangerous Assignment" (1949-53) and Clarence Wellman on "The Halls of Ivy" (1950-52). He died on May 2, 1957

Cliff Clark was seen with Lucille Ball in Her Husband’s Affairs (1947), Miss Grant Takes Richmond (1949), and The Fuller Brush Girl (1950).  

OTHERS

William Keighley (Host and Producer) was the director of nearly 40 feature films between 1932 and 1953. His film The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) was selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being culturally significant.

Dorothy Lovett (Commercial Spokeswoman as Libby Collins, Hollywood Reporter) appeared as Meta Bauer on radio’s “The Guiding Light" (1945-47) and as Toni Sherwood in "The Adventures of Rocky Jordan".  She did three films with Lucille Ball from 1939 to 1941. 

Betty Ann Lynn (Herself, Act Two Intermission Guest) is best known for playing Thelma Lou on “The Andy Griffith Show” (1961 to 1965) which was filmed on the Desilu back lot. 

John Milton Kennedy (Announcer) was the announcer of all 35 episodes of “The Loretta Young Show” from 1954 to 1955.  

ACT ONE

William Keighley introduces the program, noting that many years earlier, director Fred Kohlmar saw a titian-haired young model who had great possibilities - Lucille Ball.  He later had the privilege of presenting her in the film version of The Dark Corner. After a mention of Lux Toilet Soap, the program begins. 

The action opens in a New York City office building on a sultry summer afternoon. Police detective Reeves visits the Offices of Bradford Galt, Private Investigator and speaks to his secretary, Kathleen Stewart. 

Galt enters and Reeves wonders why Galt didn’t notify him that he moved offices after his prior unpleasantness.  Galt asks Kathleen to have dinner with him. After dinner, Galt asks her to go dancing but she’s wise to his advance. As they walk down the street, they realize that they are being followed. 

Kathleen takes a cab back to the office, while Galt confronts the pursuer at gunpoint, taking him back to his office for questioning. He says his name is Fred Foss, and that he’s also a private detective. Galt doesn’t believe him and decides to beat the truth out of him. 

After some roughing up, Fred discloses that he is being paid to tail Galt by Anthony Jardine. In the tussle, some ink spills on Foss’s white suit. He lets Foss leave. Kathleen was supposed to tail Foss after he left the office, but he tricked her and got away.  

Back at his rooming house, Foss uses the hall telephone to call art gallery owner Ralph Wickett, and his ink-stained suit is noticed by a Little Girl neighbor. 

At a party for his third wedding anniversary, Wickett hangs up and is greeted by Jardine, a lawyer. Mrs. Lucy Wilding takes Jardine aside pretending to ask legal advice, but it is revealed that he is blackmailing her. 

Meanwhile, Galt confides in Kathleen about his past. Jardine is trying to kill Galt because he was a former partner that Galt confronted about his blackmailing female clients. Now Jardine wants to finish the job. 

Mari Wickett, Ralph’s wife, is having an affair with Anthony Jardine. She wants to run away with him. At the same time, Galt is headed there to settle the score. 

End of Act One

A Lux commercial break takes the form of a story from Libby Collins, Hollywood Reporter. She says she saw Universal’s The Lost Moment starring Robert Cummings and Susan Hayward. Libby says she was on location when they filmed the big fire scene, the biggest fire ever done on a sound stage.  She says that she and Susan Hayward washed the soot off their faces with Lux Toilet Soap! 

At the time of the broadcast, The Lost Moment was still two weeks from being released. It opened in cinemas on November 27, 1947. The story is set in Italy, so the cast included Edward Ciannelli, who played pizzeria owner Mr. Martinelli in “Visitor from Italy” (ILL S6;E5) and Saverio LoMedico who played the Rome hotel bellboy in “Lucy’s Italian Movie” (ILL S5;E23).  The film was not a box office success. 

ACT TWO

An hour has past since the end of Act One and Galt is at Jardine’s door. Galt threatens Jardine, who denies tailing him.The two fight  while Mari is hiding in the other room. After Galt leaves, she convinces him to run away with her. 

At the Gallery, Wickett is visited by Foss. It is clear Wickett is setting up Jardine to take the fall when he has Galt killed.  Foss calls Galt to betray Jardine for a price. Galt suggests a one-on-one meeting at his apartment - 904 West 52nd, apartment 307 at 8pm sharp. Wickett will send Jardine to Galt’s apartment at 7:30pm. 

In reality, there is no such address. West 52nd Street in New York City ends at the the 600s block. This is similar to the Ricardo and Mertz apartment building. 623 East 68th Street, which, if real, would be in the East River!

Kathleen and Galt are supposed to meet at the movies, but he doesn’t show so he goes to his apartment at 8:30. Galt opens the door and reveals that Jardine is dead. Galt was ambushed with and knocked out with ether. He woke up to find Jardine’s body bludgeoned by the fireplace poker.  Galt realizes he was set up.

Later, Galt meets Kathleen at her apartment. He couldn’t find Foss and doesn’t know where to look next. 

Wickett reminds Mari that they are due at the Kinsglsey’s that night, but she begs off. He strongly hints that he knows that Mari is stepping out on him and looking to run off. 

Galt suddenly realizes that Foss would have to have his white suit cleaned, so he is determined to search all the cleaners for the suit and get his address.

Foss phones Wickett, and the Little Girl is there to overhear his conversation. Foss makes a plan to meet Wickett on the 31st floor of the Grant building. 

Galt and Kathleen are about to give up on the search for the suit when a cleaner comes through. They get his address and trace Foss to the rooming house where he lives. His name turns out to be Stauffer, not Foss. The landlady reports that he moved out an hour ago and doesn’t know where he went. But the Little Girl does - and spills the beans for a quarter!  Galt and Kathleen head for the Grant Building. 

End of Act Two

In the break, Keighley interviews Fox contract player Betty Ann Lynn, who saw filming of Daryl F. Zanuck’s Gentleman’s Agreement starring Gregory Peck and Dorothy McGuire in a “very unusual picture”.  

Gentleman’s Agreement premiered on November 11, one day after this broadcast, in both New York City and Chicago. It dealt with anti-Semitism and went on to win three Oscars, including Best Picture. The cast included Lucycom alumni Mike Lally, Shep Houghton, Roy Roberts, and Amzie Strickland in uncredited roles. Betty Ann Lynn says that she also likes to watch the filming of a costume picture like The Foxes of Harrow starring Rex Harrison and Maureen O’Hara, who had 26 costumes made just for her.  She notes that O’Hara has a Lux complexion. 

The Foxes of Harrow was released September 13, 1947. "Lux Radio Theater" broadcast a sixty minute radio adaptation of this movie on December 6, 1948, with Maureen O'Hara reprising her movie role. The movie was the screen debut of William Schallert, who did several episodes of “The Lucy Show.”  O’Hara and Lucille Ball became lifelong friends after their 1940 film Dance, Girl, Dance. Like Gentleman’s Agreement, The Foxes of Harrow also features Roy Roberts, who went on to play bank president Mr. Cheever on “The Lucy Show.”

ACT THREE

Kathleen and Galt rush to the Grant Building, where Mr. Wickett is about to settle accounts on a remote fire escape. Foss / Stauffer brings proof that Jardine is dead but Wickett throws him from the fire escape to his death. 

Galt and Kathleen witness the whole incident from the street, as does the cab driver who was waiting for Foss / Stauffer. Thinking fast, Galt steals the cab which still contains Foss’s luggage. Later, we hear that the bags were only full of clothes. Kathleen urges him to keep thinking.   Kathleen suddenly remembers that the Little Girl mentioned galleries. They put the pieces together and all evidence leads them to the Wickett Galleries. Galt heads there and questions the clerk. Under the guise of buying a painting, Galt inquires about meeting Mr. Wickett, and the clerk departs. Mari comes in the side door, and Galt tells her that Anthony Jardine has been murdered. She faints. Wickett comes in and when Galt tells him the truth, Ralph locks him in the gallery vault. Mari has revived and overhears Ralph’s threats, holding a gun on him. She shoots her husband dead. 

Kathleen has tipped off the police, who only want to charge him with stealing a taxi cab. Kathleen asks if he can be booked at another time because they have a date at the City Hall - to get married. 

End of Story

As a curtain call, Keighley chats with Lucille Ball and Mark Stevens. He congratulates Ball on the success of her stage show, Dream Girl, a play she says she will do again in San Francisco. When Keighley asks how Lucille’s busy schedule and that of her husband Desi Arnaz’s leave any time for a personal life, Ball says that they will be playing in San Francisco at the same time. 

In June 1947, Lucille Ball performed at New Jersey’s McCarter Theatre in Dream Girl, a play by Elmer Rice. It also played Brooklyn, Detroit and Boston. 

The San Francisco production opened just a week after this radio telecast. As Ball states, Desi Arnaz was also in San Francisco at the time, playing in the Rose Room of the Palace Hotel, a fact that was advertised in the Dream Girl program. During the Los Angeles engagement in January 1948, Ball fell ill and had to withdraw. Although she love performing on stage, her radio career and then television success did not allow her to return to the footlights until 1960.  

Lucy notes that like many other busy stars, she owes her good complexion to Lux Soap! 

Turning to Mark Stevens, Lucille notes that he will play an FBI man in his next project at Fox, with Keighley as director. 

Although the film’s title is not mentioned, they are referring to The Street With No Name, which won’t be released until June 1948. Stevens plays Gene Cordell aka George Manley, a covert FBI agent who infiltrates a ruthless gangster mob. "Lux Radio Theater" broadcast a 60-minute radio adaptation of the movie on January 31, 1949 with Mark Stevens reprising his film role. 

Keighley notes that next week “Lux Radio Theatre” will present Jane Wyman and Ronald Reagan in Nobody Lives Forever. 

The Warner Brothers picture Nobody Lives Forever was released on November 1, 1946. It originally starred John Garfield and Geraldine Fitzgerald in roles taken on radio by Reagan and Wyman, who were husband and wife at the time. Of course, Reagan left Hollywood for a grander stage, first in California as Governor, then as President of the United States. He bestowed Lucille Ball with The Kennedy Center Honor in 1986.

A public service announcement asks housewives to salvage kitchen fats and turn them in at their local butcher for cash!  

These were used to make supplies for wartime, such as ammunition and weapons. 

Announcer Kennedy notes that Mark Stevens appeared through the courtesy of 20th Century Fox, producers of Forever Amber. 

Forever Amber is a 1944 romance novel by Kathleen Winsor set in 17th-century England. It was made into a film in 1947 starring Cornel Wilde, who appeared in “The Star Upstairs” (ILL S4;E25). When “Lucy Writes A Novel” (ILL S3;E24), Ethel jokes about finding Lucy’s hidden manuscript and burning it:  “We pulled down the kitchen blind and changed the name of your novel to 'Forever Ember.'” 

‘DARK’ TRIVIA

In a September 1985 episode of “Remington Steele,” a character played by Stephen Dillane has the name Bradford Galt!  The stories, however, are not otherwise connected. 

In both the film and the radio show, Fred Foss gives his phone number as CH-elsea 4-43510. However, according to the Manhattan phone book for 1946, there were only CH-elsea 2 and CH-elsea 3 exchanges. Real phone numbers were rarely used in film or television. 

When television began to supplant radio, “The Lux Video Theatre” was introduced. It was seen from 1950 to 1959. Initially, the show was a thirty-minute weekly show featuring live stage plays, but when it moved to NBC in August 1954, the show was extended to sixty minutes. As on radio, the programs were then primarily adaptations of motion pictures. The host would introduce each act, and would conduct an interview with the stars at the end of the play. Of the cast of this radio version of The Dark Corner:

William Keighley directed an episode in 1951. 

Mark Stevens did an episode in 1955. 

Dan O’Herlihy did five episodes. 

Joseph Kearns did three episodes. 

The character name Ralph Wickett replaced Hardy Cathcart for the radio show. It is likely that they could no longer get legal clearance to use the name Hardy Cathcart, necessitating the change. 

The film featured Ellen Corby as a maid, a role not in the radio drama. Corby went on to be seen as Lucy Ricardo’s high school acting teacher and in several small roles on “The Lucy Show” before her best-loved role of Grandma on “The Waltons.” 

The film also features background work by Sam Harris, who did 15 films with Lucille Ball, in addition to multiple episodes of “I Love Lucy” and “The Lucy Show” as well as Harold Miller, who did eight films with Lucy and two episodes of “I Love Lucy”. 

The film is available on DVD complete with DVD commentary and original trailer. 

[lastsonlost]

Law firm worker, 27, weeps as she's told she faces jail over fake rape claims that saw two innocent men locked up and treated like criminals

Laura Hood, 27, insists that she was raped on night out in Manchester in January

She falsely claimed she had been attacked by taxi driver Haroon Yousaf in cab

The taxi driver was arrested by police and forced to provide an intimate sample

A court heard without a tracker on his cab, Mr Yousaf could have faced rape trial

A law firm worker cried in court as she was told she faces jail after her fake rape claims saw two innocent men locked up.

Laura Hood, 27, claimed a taxi driver had sexually assaulted her in the back seat of his cab after giving her a lift home following a night out drinking.

Detectives investigating her claims arrested Haroon Yousaf and also the driver of a different taxi with a similar number plate.

Mr Yousaf, 29, was detained in front of colleagues and spent 20 hours in custody, hanging over samples before he was released without charge.

Police suspected Mr Yousaf had been falsely accused when he shared GPS data which showed his cab went straight to Hood's home without stopping.

There was also no evidence of physical contact between them and Hood gave a statement claiming her attacker was 58.

The other suspect was also cleared of any wrongdoing and Hood, of Stockport, Greater Manchester, was subsequently charged with faking her account.

The court heard she made her false claims after becoming separated from friends which she drinking Prosecco, ciders and vodka shots in Manchester city centre.

In a statement Mr Yousaf, a married father-of-two, said:

 'This still affects me in my day-to-day life and I don't know if I will ever come back fully from this. 'Before this incident I was a strong person. However I'm now negative and worry that things can go wrong.

'I had to take my clothes off in front of a stranger. I had tears in my eyes. 

I don't think this female really understands what she has done and how it has affected my life.'

At Minshull Street Crown Court, Manchester, Hood broke down and wept as she was convicted of perverting the course of justice.

She accepted no rape took place but denied wrongdoing, insisting she had she 'believed' at the time she was sexually assaulted.

Hood, a human resources worker for a law practise, will be sentenced on August 1 following the preparation of pre-sentence reports.

Judge Julie Warburton said: 'That should not give any indication that there will not be a custodial sentence in this case. This is a very serious matter.'

The incident occurred on January 7, 2017 after Hood had been out with friends at Revolution bar to celebrate her best friend's birthday.

Hood told the hearing: 'I wish I could explain why something is so clear in my head but obviously can't be true.

'I accept there's no psychiatric evidence to explain why I believed this to have happened. I went to the psychiatrists on two occasions.

'It was clear as day. What I said in interview is what I believed to have happened. I wish I could explain it.

'I wish the psychiatrist could have helped me. I don't know how something can be so clear in my head but the evidence said it didn't happen.'

sigh”

What do they always say about false accusations, especially those in the workplace? like I can seriously here every bullshit excuse in my head while im reading typing and posting this.

Just behave / respect women and you’ll have nothing to worry about.

If you don’t feel safe around women you have a misogyny problem.

False accusations do no lasting damage.

you’ll scare victims from coming forward.

Always believe women.

it’s rare.

●WHY WOULD A WOMAN LIE ABOUT A FALSE RAPE?

Here’s a thought, maybe because they think they can get away with it and    they don’t care. 

I mean if anything I think the fact that we do so much to excuse, mock, dismiss and sweep false accusations under the rug just goes to show how much we don’t care about the consequences that comes from false accusations.

People lie for a myriad of reasons but I think at the end of the day nobody cares about the damage a lie can cause.

[letterstothemidnightsociety]

Here we are at the end of October, in the Year of Our Troubles, 2020. And here I am, continuing my journey to avoid reality by looking for meaning in nostalgia and TV Hunks. It’s Supernatural!

Alright so we’ve made it to my (possibly/probably) all time favorite quartet of the entire series - Disc 3, Season 1, episodes 9 - 12. For the last few discs, I’ve been keeping things pretty technical in terms of television production and broadcast. But frankly, this sh*t is my jam. All that gooey emotion, all that sweet sweet lore, throw in some man tears and *chef kissy fingers* c'est magnifique! 

Now I’ll backtrack for a hot second here to talk about the filler vs. self-contained argument that I...probably jumbled in my last post. In shows like this, I tend to use “filler” to describe every episode that isn’t arc, but honestly, that’s not fair to a number of Supernatural episodes. The main difference being, is this episode meant to pad out your season or is it simply an episode that can stand on its own two feet? I’d say that’s the case for this entire disc.

First up, it’s Home. Guys, I think I cheered when I turned this episode on. We take our Winchesters, give them some small victories, build up their confidence, and then totally break them down again by sending them back to the beginning. This is not listed as the “official” return to the arc episodes, but I’d argue that Home is where we see a return to the Main Quest. Oh yeah, and Sam finally admits that he can see...what? What do we call these? Death Omens? I think Sam calls them premonitions? Either way, it’s…*shrugs* sure, do what you want. The premonitions do become important later and they’re basically the catalyst for the whole second season and that resolution takes us into the main conflict for the third season, and so on and so on, it’s a whole thing. It just seems like a hecking lot this go around, ok? But he finally admits it to Dean and that’s probably some kind of growth. Dean going back into that house again is also some kind of growth. Of course, he was like, 4 when he swore he’d never go back to that house again? Whatever, I didn’t care. I get too distracted by the fact that DEAN IS CRYING GUYS! LOOK! HE’S CRYING!!

Oh, and one more tie to the season arc - Hecking John Winchester shows up. I mean, he’s all over the episode and I think the most shocking thing we find out about him is that he was, at one point, a business owner?? But also it ends with conclusive proof that John Winchester is a massive dick who refuses to talk to his children. And I’m sorry, I don’t buy your “have to finish it first” excuse, I just don’t. To be clear, I’m not mad at the storytelling choice to do that, I’m mad at the character, which I guess is where it should be. 

I like that this episode builds out more of the world that the Winchesters live in with Missouri Mosely (Not the State!). I like that we see they’re not alone in this very literal fight against evil. She checks back in later in the series and honestly, I love Loretta Devine so I would have watched a whole spinoff show about this character. 

Two things I don’t like about this episode? #1 What genius decided that Mary’s ghost would just be on fire for 20 years? Like, cuz that’s what I am understanding about this ghost. That she is just constantly on fire. And that’s...unkind. 

Mary, who did this to you??

#2 Only a man could have written this episode because no single mom is just gonna LET two rando dudes into her home. 

Listen boys, you’re cute, but I’m a woman with two small children. Hell no you’re not coming into my house. 

Next up is Asylum and this is so good at walking the line between creepy and Spooky. UNlike the Bloody Mary episode, I do not need to hide my face from the screen at any point during this episode. 

Hey look, it’s like they’re brothers or something!

This one is another episode that does a good job building character and the world the Winchesters live in. Like any good procedural, it uses the main conflict to bring out the more important conflict. In this case, it literally brings it out, cuz the ghost is a psychiatrist who makes Same confront all his Daddy Issues. And by confront we mean, take it out on his brother who is the saddest-motherf*cker-I’ve-ever-seen BUT HEY! Salting and burning a body finally works for once in their lives! I love all the cringing that Jensen Ackles does in that scene because they clearly hadn’t figured out what that effect was supposed to look like yet. 

It must have been a real surprise to find out the ghost didn’t light on fire.

Oh and then there’s the phone call! And man, this must have been a bitch of a mid-season finale, cuz this episode aired in November of 2005 and the next episode doesn’t come back until January of 2006 and so you’re just WAITING to hear what John has to say. 

Now wait for two months to find out what he says. 

And of course, it’s nothing. We come back in January to Scarecrow and John has nothing to say cuz he’s a massive dick. Just calling 6 months in to your nationwide search for me to let you know that I’m not dead, but also, I’m only here to send you on another assignment and cause tension. And so the show continues to break down our dynamic duo because the fight they have over whether they should listen to dad or not literally splits them apart. They also introduce Meg as a new and more involved villain for the series. I mean, sort of. We don’t see her again for like, another five episodes. And then again another five episodes after that. So like, I don’t really...know that introducing her as an antagonist...really had the effect they were hoping for?

Is she evil cuz she’s a demon or just because she’s blonde???

Here’s some issues I have with Meg, the first recurring female character who isn’t dead - she’s the first recurring female character who isn’t dead and also, I immediately hated her. I remember watching the episode the first time and as soon as I saw her I was like, oh she’s a ruiner. It was almost a relief to find out she was a bad guy at the end because it was like I was allowed to hate her? To be fair to me, Meg comes on hella strong trying to keep Sam from going back to his brother, so we’re not supposed to like her, but looking back on it now I feel like the perpetrator of some real girl-on-girl crime. Does Meg actually do anything wrong? Aside from leaning real hard on some indie-style manic-pixie bohemian free spirit nonsense, she doesn’t do...anything that should make me hate her? Until, of course, she actively acts as a wedge between our dream team, but before then, I don’t...think she does? Honestly, it could just be me, but I do think that TV has gotten much better at writing/directing/presenting female characters in a way that doesn’t feel like they’re literally shoe-horning in a third wheel. And again, ultimately we are supposed to hate her, I just can’t decide if I was picking up on signals that were intentional or not. I remember having similar feelings when they introduced Joe in season 2, but that’s still far ahead.

I am willing to admit that this might be just me. I will not take back the things I’ve said about Emma Watson though, those are justified. 

And I think introducing more characters is important. It acts the same way introducing Missouri did -it broadens the world. For half a season, our only constants are the brothers. They’re these lone cowboys in a weird, mystical, dangerous wasteland and the villains are more obstacles than actual villains. When the story you’re telling needs to feel bigger than that, you need to do some world building and sometimes that starts with adding more characters. I will say, I hated Meg less this watch than I did on the first one. Or rather, I hated her cuz I knew she was The Worst, not because I felt like adding her to the show was a threat to the storytelling. 

OH! ALSO! The first mention of Dean and Pie! My heart grew three sizes that day! 

The hecking diner won’t serve him so he never finds out!!!

And finally, to cap it all off, we have Faith which is...a surprisingly rough episode? Ok, listen, Dean just resignedly accepting his own demise is like, ugh. UGH. ugh. Buddy. Buddy you are NOT Ok. Like, Dean is so intent on keeping everyone else in his family alive but does not seem as concerned about his own health and well-being and that...just...ughghghghg...I have a lot of feelings about that. 

Listen, some day I will talk about Sam, but it is NOT THIS DAY.

Like, I get that Rev. Jerry Gergich Roy Le Grange is not actually healing people, but he literally tells Dean that Dean has a purpose and he was saved from an untimely death for a reason, and he’s kind of not wrong? But then he spends the rest of the episode stopping Roy from healing anyone else and feeling overwhelmingly guilty that he was saved over someone else. I think out of everything that season 1 has presented up to this episode, this is the most philosophical and thematically complex. There’s the question of faith vs skepticism - can we ever just blindly believe in a good turn? The fact that Dean can’t says a lot about him as a human. Then there’s the question of who gets to decide who lives and who dies? Who’s worthy of salvation and who isn’t? Why do bad things happen to good people and why do good things happen to Dean? I mean, when Dean sees the Reaper coming for him at the end, he knows that it’s in exchange for Layla’s life and he’s just...Ok with that? He doesn’t try to run or fight it, and it’s only because of Sam that he doesn’t bite it. And the end of this episode is just a real bitch slap to the feels because Layla, our Very Special Extra, knows she’s going to die and she knows she missed out on her chance to be healed because Dean was an Ass with a capital A and took her turn (probably). And she’s also just ok with that and it kills me a little bit on the inside. 

Also, Layla is played by Julie Benze from Roswell and Buffy and Dexter and she’s always A+. And Roy was in Snakes on a Plane!

So yeah, not exactly “filler” in the true sense, but ties to the season arc are not as strong as in other episodes. And watching these episodes again I realize just how important they are to the series as a whole. I mentioned Helstrom last week and since then, I’ve finished the season. It’s only 10 episodes, and while I definitely enjoyed it, none of the emotional climaxes felt earned. 

Is how I feel. About the Emotions in Helstrom. That doesn’t mean I won’t watch a season 2. 

When you focus solely on the main arc in every single episode, you miss these little moments to develop character and relationships. When you get to the end of the season where the Winchesters are finally all in the same room taking on the Big Bad, there’s this feeling of satisfaction - you’ve been waiting for this moment. You’ve been waiting for Sam to reconcile with his father. You’ve been waiting for the guys to finally take on this thing that killed Mary Winchester. You’ve been waiting to see what will happen when the quest is over. That’s what makes the character decisions in the finale feel so big and so important, because they’ve been built up and built up for 22 episodes - 7 months in broadcast time. I think it’s harder to have the sort of weight that Supernatural builds in a show that stays so focused on the arc because its season is only 8 - 10 eps. There’s no room for sidetracking to build on the relationships in the show. You don’t have time for it, so you either have to keep character moments smaller (I’d argue MUCH smaller) or you end up with a finale that doesn’t resonate with the same gravitas as you want it to. 

Don’t get me wrong - I know it sounds like I’m ragging on short seasons, but I think a short season can be very effective when it’s done right. I also think a full season of 22 - 24 episodes can be very effective when it’s done right. But I think there’s a fundamental difference in how you tell the story when you have a short vs. a long season. I think TV is still figuring that out as it goes, as writers who are accustomed to long seasons shift gears to tell their stories with fewer installments. But I hope that TV doesn’t completely do away with the more procedural-style/self-contained episodes since those can be a powerful way to connect with your characters. That’s why I’m here in the first place. 

[revol-lover]

[ok this is a long winded reincarnation rant. feel free to scroll or read if you have any curiosity on the topic.]

this year has been a shit show in a lot of ways but it’s also been a year that’s given me a lot of time to look inward instead of distracting myself to avoid doing that. i found dr brian weiss’ past life regression work this year, around january and it totally changed my perspective on life and death like a complete 180.

 i was raised with christianity and i never felt any connection to it, and i tried. i mean it was pushed on me but there was also a time after my grandmother died where i was so low that i tried to grab on to prayer and what i was raised with to find comfort in it and it didn’t do anything for me. i felt no connection. the sermons our priest gave always had this sexist tinge, the church was against lgbtq and treated divorced people like failures and there was just too much i didn’t agree with. and the people in my family who pushed it on me the most were the biggest hypocrites so there was that too but anyway

but i also knew i wasn’t an atheist. i guess i was more so agnostic for a lot of years. i believed in the concept of god or a higher power but i didn’t feel like we were meant to fear god or that god would have these rules that would go against people for doing things like, loving each other. so anyway i just accepted my vague idea of what god was to me and left it alone. but i still had this little pull in me, for years, that wanted to find more of a belief system. more than just yes theres a god. i wanted to experience a genuine sense of spirituality more.

  i found a lot of interest in eastern religious beliefs, found a lot of them believed to some degree in reincarnation which had intrigued me in the past. but it wasn’t until i found this video on youtube about how dr brian weiss who was a psychiatrist who sometimes used hypnosis with patients, and how his patient started experiencing past life memories instead of just forgotten childhood ones and then she started telling him things about himself that no one would know (details about his infant son who had died many years before this. this is before you could just google someone). which i guess he theorizes was a way for “god”  (he calls the concept of god “masters”. highly elevated souls) to prove to him that was she [his patient] was experiencing was real.

so anyway he started doing this kind of hypnosis therapy with his patients, past life regression therapy, and he has a whole book about different people’s experiences and how knowing abut our past lives can help us understand and deal with issues we’re experiencing in our present life and i mean unless your mind is open to this, it probably sounds crazy but i’m telling you. it opened something up for me. it made sense to me. it made me not feel afraid of death, or life, alike. I truly believe that everyone i’m close to in this life, i’ve known in a past life and we’re continuing to learn lessons with each other.

 soulmates aren’t just romantic partners. soulmates are teachers. so yes your first love could’ve been one of your soulmates, as well as your husband/wife, but your grandmother, or your 4th grade teacher who told you that you were a good writer and prompted you to start writing and you realize it is one of your life callings (hello, mrs.s, thanks -- but i always feel the need to say my tumblr is not a reflection of my writing skill lmao tumblr is my brain dump.) 

it has honestly helped me to love more. to find a way to love my mother even though she has hurt me in ways i struggle to forgive. (however, i don’t seek closeness with her. i have to have boundaries. and i will vent about her, probably forever because you know, i’m human and my feelings still get hurt. but i don’t direct anger toward her anymore. i just wish her peace because clearly she lacks that.). 

i could go on and on about this but if you’re ever bored and want a good book to read, the first dr brian weiss book i read was this one. and also this is the interview i saw on youtube that started my curiosity on it.

i’ve also tried some past life regression meditation videos on youtube (honestly i’d love to go to one of his conventions or even just a person qualified in doing this) and i am someone who has a hard time with visualizations. but i was able to get through to two brief memories and then later on i found the part of my astrological chart that can give you information about what your past life karma is related to and the description in my birth chart made so much sense with what i saw in my regression meditation. it was fucking wild 

anyway the whole purpose, of life, and being reborn over and over, according to Weiss’ interpretation of his experiences doing this work is -- we are meant to be loving.  that is our purpose. not just loving but unconditionally loving towards everyone. which obviously, i think anyone would agree, is difficult. but it’s why we keep coming back. we have to keep learning lessons, going through good and bad things, in order to elevate to the the highest soul vibration that we can be, a 100% unconditionally loving being. 

see, that it something i can get behind. i’m okay living my life striving toward that incredibly difficult goal, that i probably won’t reach in however many years i have in this body because, it’s not easy, but it’s something i can try to do and continually work on.  that’s a life philosophy i can get behind.

[charlie-minion]

What were the highs and lows of this year?

I didn’t do journaling on my blog this year, but I didn’t abandon my insightful nature either. I believe this year was better than last year and considerably better than 2017, so I’d like to borrow the last journal entry from last year in order to organize in my head the good and the bad of 2019.

LOWS:

I spent a long time staring at the word “lows” and trying to write something, but every time I came up with an idea, my brain provided a thought that made it seem like it really wasn’t a big deal and that it all worked out for the best, anyway. I guess my psychologist would be very proud of me right now! For instance:

I let go of some friendships and acquaintances.

After uttering this statement, I realized that this was more positive than negative because I learned to invest my time and energy wisely. I learned the importance of giving and taking in a relationship (platonic or otherwise) and the necessity of letting go of those who don’t make an effort. So, in this regard, I regret nothing.

I had another depressive episode and some serious moments of crisis.  

This is another low that turned into a high. I started to feel the decline in my mental health again at the end of June and promptly looked for help. I realized the health care system in my country does offer mental health services for free, so I went back to therapy. I had regular weekly sessions with my psychologist for 6 months, and I was properly diagnosed by a psychiatrist. They discovered I had been wrongly diagnosed with major depression the previous times I had hit rock bottom, but in reality, I’ve had bipolar disorder all this time (which makes a lot of sense, truth be told). Without that depressive episode, I wouldn’t have gone back to therapy and many of the highs of the year wouldn’t have happened.

My social service project and master’s thesis took a lot longer than I expected.

However, I can’t complain much about this because everything worked out great in the end. And the fact that my graduation was in September gave my big sister the chance to come to my country and be here with me on such a special occasion.

It took me a long time to sell the missing half of my old property.

But it was worth the wait because a friend of my mom’s bought the house and I don’t carry that burden into 2020 anymore.  

I didn’t get a job.

This isn’t true, though. I did get a job. I got a job as the vice-principal of a private school, but I decided not to sign the contract because there were things I didn’t agree with. I was offered two other jobs during the year and I just wasn’t interested in taking them. It took me some time to realize that I didn’t want to get a job because I wasn’t stable enough. I felt pressured to do so because it was expected of me as someone with both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree, but I didn’t really want to, so not getting a job was actually a good thing and the Universe knew better.

I burned the bridge with my ex-girlfriend (whether temporarily or for life).

When I broke up with my girlfriend, I didn’t do it because I didn’t care for her; I did it because I wanted to give her a chance to learn what she truly wanted. She’s still hot and cold and that’s understandable due to her age (there’s an age gap to consider between us). She kind of tried to communicate with me a few times (mostly when she needed something) and I tried to stay friends, but when she approached me a month into my depressive episode of the year, I was not in the right condition to keep playing mind games with her and decided to set very clear boundaries that would leave her out maybe for good. On the one hand, this could be one of the lows of the year, but on the other hand, I simply don’t regret a thing because I had to do what was best for me and my mental and emotional health.

Honestly, there’s not a single low this year that can’t be turned into a good thing. And I know that must have been true in the previous years as well, but I wasn’t in the right state of mind to do so.

HIGHS:

All the aforementioned things are definitely highs, but they are the result of an automatic exercise my brain did to transform something negative into something positive. My therapist spent weeks and weeks working with me on this, and I thought this was the most difficult exercise of all, so that’s why I believe she would be extremely proud of me if she saw me doing this unprompted.

Now if I want to talk specifically about the highs, I can mention:

I had a spiritual awakening on January 28th.

When my depressive episode kicked in, I started to doubt the spiritual awakening had been true. Then when I learned about my mental illness, I thought that maybe what I thought was a spiritual awakening had simply been a hypomanic episode. But the truth is that my level of consciousness shifted and there’s no denying that. I may have a serious mental illness and I may be on meds for the rest of my life, but the fact that, from January on, I’ve been very in tune with my intuition has nothing to do with all that. There’s no need to go deep into this because I don’t feel the need to talk about it or convince anyone anymore, and isn’t that even better?

I got closer to my family.

I realized that I didn’t have to turn my back on my family because not everything is black or white. They may not be perfect, but I’m not either; nobody is. So, I made peace with some relatives and got closer again to some others. I’m a lot better at setting boundaries now, so I’m not a people pleaser, but I’m not nasty either. All in all, I feel good about the fact that I may not be as alone as I thought I was.

I released the two major sources of stress I still had.

When I finished grad school and sold my house, I could finally breathe a sigh of relief. I don’t have any more papers to worry about, professors or classmates to deal with, or fees to pay. I don’t have to clean my old house or continue paying the bills. I’m finally free! And there’s no better way to start a new year and a new decade.

I got diagnosed and was given the proper treatment.

As I mentioned before, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. It’s not that I’m happy about it, but I was treated incorrectly for so many fucking years, that it feels wonderful to be taken seriously for the first time in forever. I started medication in November and my psychiatrist has been really helpful. The effect of the meds has been evident! There haven’t been side effects and my brain has reacted beautifully to the treatment. It feels like I can use my rational mind now, and I can even keep it together when other people act in a threatening way (which has happened). I’m amazed at how different life feels like from this perspective. I never quite understood why people liked to be alive because all I felt on a daily basis was despair, so to me being alive used to feel like a burden rather than a blessing. It doesn’t feel that way now. I know both the meds and the changes in my life style have contributed, but I can say with 100% certainty that without the meds, I would not feel the way I do right at this time.

I look freaking fantastic!

I have lost over 80 pounds since I started exercising on March 20, 2018. I have a lot of energy and feel good about myself. It’s not just the fact that I’m not overweight anymore, though. I’m proud of myself because I’ve had the patience and discipline to do something that didn’t give me any immediate benefit. I see the results now and everyone praises me for what I’ve accomplished, but I exercised daily for over a year without seeing much of a change, and despite that, I kept going. So, this is definitely a high! I’m missing just 25 pounds to weigh what I want, and I’m confident I’ll be there soon.

I appreciate the people who are still part of my life.

I haven’t let go of every friend; I just got better at knowing when a cycle is over without taking it personally. Some people have returned to my life, and some others have left. That’s just part of life, I guess. The only thing I know is that those who remain mean a lot to me, and I’m thankful for them.

I finally learned what I want.

It was December of 2017 when my friend Kate asked me what I wanted after yet another failed suicide attempt. I couldn’t answer her question because I didn’t know; no one had ever asked me that, not even me. I’d always done what others wanted me to, or what I thought others wanted or expected from me. Last year, when I had to answer this question in my journal, I had trouble giving a straight answer. It was easier to identify what I DIDN’T want. That was progress, indeed, but still not enough. This year, I’ve continued to progress. I know what I want! I want to live as if I had already retired without feeling guilty about it. I want to feel proud about my academic accomplishments without feeling that I’m obliged to climb a professional ladder because of them. I want to have time to enjoy my hobbies and to enjoy the simplest things in life, even if I can’t eat out at fancy restaurants or buy fancy things as often as I used to. I want a humble, simplified life. And that’s exactly what I have right now!

I may not be where I thought I wanted to be 10 years ago, but at the time, I didn’t even know what I wanted. I was just acting in autopilot, following other people’s beliefs of what I should want. I’m convinced that 2020 will be an amazing year precisely because I am EXACTLY where I want to be, and if that’s not where others expected me to be, all I can say is that I don’t give a single fuck! :’D

Thank you for everything, 2019!

HAPPY NEW YEAR to everyone, especially to those who read all of this! ♥♥ 

[pisati]

december’s only just started but I think now’s a good a time as any to start a 2019 recap. 

I don’t remember much of the first half of this year, if I’m honest. I remember it starting in a pretty dark place. I do remember starting talking to Gavin at the tail end of 2018; that was honestly a light spot in that space of time. I’d really been through it last year, and it was so nice and refreshing to talk to someone who genuinely seemed to care, who was genuinely interested in what I had to say and was genuinely curious about me. I felt kind of weird about that level of attention at first, but now I miss it. time’s gone on, what can I say, maybe I’m a little attached. not painfully so, but. this is someone I really do care about a lot.

which is why I’m still pretty regretful about january. I still don’t really know what happened over festivus weekend. I’d been so upset for so long, and next thing I know it’s back to the usual. but it was just.. nothing. I felt blank. my heart dropped into my stomach the next day once I realized how something that felt so insignificant could be so hurtful, and honestly I spent all of festivus in that dead zone at T’s house just really upset with myself. I don’t know how much I would’ve enjoyed it even if that hadn’t happened. 

my depression was really bad. I remember my emotions being all over the place. I remember drinking and eating bundt cake alone at home in my bathtub on valentines day. I remember sending some messages I kind of regret, others just for fun, because fuck it, why not? I remember spending a lot of time in bed. a lot of time trying to reassure myself that I hadn’t done irreversible damage; that I hadn’t fucked up everything as per the usual. journaling, trying to keep my mood up above rock bottom. I was fostering that litter of rats early in the year, and that felt like a whirlwind. I remember going out to dinner with a friend, and coming home, even after having a good night, in a horribly sad mood. I barely remember any of the rest of it. 

I’m sure some good things happened earlier in the year too. one of the few things keeping me sane, besides my rats, was waking up in the middle of the night to snapchat and whatsapp messages from Gavin. I was a complete mess, but having someone consistently showing me they cared and actually wanted to.. I don’t know, follow all my social media, get to know me, all that. it was nice. I remember having a real bad day mood-wise and going to yoga with charlotte, and coming back to a message that I was the ~some kinda angel~ he’d been dreaming about. amazing how something like that can pick you right up. I remember a lot of voice clips; he was real excited to hear my voice the first time. I don’t much care for my voice, but... that enthusiasm gave me a little more confidence to do more song covers. I hadn’t recorded that many in years, if ever.

I think I went to a few shows earlier in the year. I got to meet Phoebe Bridgers, which was so cool. Carmen took me back out to Baltimore after I’d just seen Hozier, and we saw Weezer and The Pixies. and I got to hear all about her girlfriend troubles and her adventures in Cuba. it was really nice reconnecting with a friend, hearing how she’s been trying to do better for herself, and she really is. I can’t say I’m not a little jealous of her; her confidence and radiance; but I’m also really proud of her too.

I started my mood tracker app in february, and I think I started seeing my psychiatrist not long after that. I’m still amazed she started me on something that didn’t make me sick, and might actually be working for me. I’m still recalling that one night I had, must’ve been february. I felt absolutely godawful, and nothing helped. it wasn’t anything in particular, I just felt Bad. I wouldn’t have done anything stupid, but I also felt for a minute like it’d never go away. I tried everything. I tried a bath, possibly a face mask. I tried writing, I think. I tried music. I even put on a disney movie or two like I would if I were feeling sick (I rarely ever watch anything disney, but when I get panicky from nausea I need something comforting). nothing helped. that I think is what prompted me to go to a psychiatrist this time. I hadn’t been in that deep of a pit in a long time.

things started to pick up with the weather. I felt myself balance out. I really thought for a minute that I was going to scare Gavin away with my erratic moods, and I thought he had this perception of me that I was some kinda crazy or overemotional or whatever else... but I was just in a real bad spot. I’m still grateful that he stuck by me through all that, and wasn’t too weirded out by me for it to be actually exciting when I got my plane tickets to Scotland. I was really excited too, but of course kind of nervous because I’d never been that far away from home by myself before. 

I remember doing a good bit of volunteering, but I was really tired and couldn’t keep up with much more than one day a week. my energy levels were worrying. I know I saw a few doctors, because thankfully I had the time, but they weren’t terribly helpful. 

I’m sure I went to more shows. I lost my Louie in June, not long after his second birthday. that was heart-shattering. I wasn’t expecting it from him; he was just fine. he just had a lump removed from his tail. he was such a happy, sweet boy. I couldn’t believe one minute he was snuggling with his cagemates, and the next I was holding his tiny little body in my hands, trying to get CPR to work, watching the life leave his eyes. taking him to the crematory was hard. picking up his ashes was hard. everything about it was hard. but I had to keep going. I wasn’t expecting that at all, and I was so scared Ollie would be alone, because Fitzie’s time was coming fast too. he’d been deteriorating over the course of the year and I just knew it was only a matter of months. his legs were going, and he couldn’t clean himself. towards the end I had to check his privates at least once a day; male rats get buildup of various fluids, oil, and skin cells, and those plugs can block their urethras. they generally clean it themselves, but when they get so old they can’t do it. so it was up to me to pull it out. I can’t say it wasn’t weirdly satisfying, kind of in the same way that popping a big pimple is satisfying, but it was definitely gross.

so I looked for more rats to adopt. and by some miracle, just like the day after Marty passed, I found a brand new litter posted by the rescue some of my fosters went to. I went to meet the baby boys and picked two, and while I probably could’ve picked a better match... I love my Harper and Micah to bits. they’ve got such personalities on them.

but of course, nothing is ever convenient. right after I adopted them (because I had to go through such a long adoption process; I could’ve had more time otherwise), I had to go to farm jam. I was a little over-prepared this year, but I’m glad I got myself a nice tent and prepared for rain. farm jam honestly wasn’t that great this year, though. my friends wanted to hang out with each other, hardly anyone talked to me, and their friends from other places that I didn’t even know had other friends that they brought to our campsite, so there were a lot of strangers around. not that that’s a bad thing, but... I just felt uncomfortable. everything is so different now. not to mention I just felt really alone. people talked to me when they needed to. I ended up actually pretty bored; I’d brought some things to keep myself entertained, but I was asleep before midnight every night because there was only so much I felt like staying awake for by myself. there was one night I was just really upset, so I made myself a quick dinner and shut myself in my tent while everyone else was up all night. I read by lantern-light, put in my earplugs after I was tired enough, and went to sleep. I was ready to be home again. I’m not sure if I want to go again next year. I like farm jam, truly, but it’s just not fun when you’re surrounded by ‘friends’ who can’t eve be bothered to talk to you. it was painfully obvious that I’m just not part of the group anymore.

I was glad to have Scotland to look forward to. I got to unpack and repack; thankfully I was smart enough to make packing lists before I even left for farm jam. I was nervous as all hell once I got to BWI and found my terminal, and once I landed in JFK I was trying real hard not to call my mom like I usually do when I get nervous. I get the travel jitters pretty bad. but I took some zzzquil before I got on the plane, and since I’d already been up all day I was grateful to sleep through a good bit of the 5.5 hour flight. I managed to stave off jet lag by staying up for another full day, but I can’t say I enjoyed it, ha.

I did enjoy everything else about that trip, though. I definitely had plenty of high points in my year (much more than last year, for sure), but this trip was probably the best. I know I wasn’t the most expressive (I guess I’ve learned not to be?), but I loved it there. I also know I got real lucky with the weather, so it’s not always as gorgeous as it was when I visited, but it really was lovely. I’d love to go back to Gourock one of these days. sit on the shore; a little slice of such a big world. I wouldn’t have wanted to skip rocks with much of anyone else.

I had a moment while I was catching my breath in Edinburgh; I’d gotten the tiniest bit lost and wound up in the park across the street from the Botanic Gardens, so I sat on a bench for a bit so I wouldn’t look weird. after a while I got up and crossed a big football field to get back where I was trying to go, and I remember looking up at the sky for a split second, and it really hit me that I was alone. that was the furthest away I’d been from home by myself, and I was in a city 2 hours away from the only other person I knew for thousands of miles. it wasn’t scary, necessarily. not even lonely. I think that feeling would’ve given me anxiety in the past. it was just... a profound aloneness. 

I was really proud of myself for tackling Edinburgh by myself. figuring out the trains, going to see the castle, managing to avoid looking like a tourist so nobody hassled me, finding a little record shop to browse through, walking around the gardens alone. I was in so much pain I couldn’t even believe it, though. I’m amazed I made it back to the train without my leg bones breaking through my heels, and amazed I could even still walk by the time I got back to Gourock. my hips were so stiff and every step was hard. I know I pushed it. but it was so worth it.

I miss the feeling. that no-obligations feeling; being able to do pretty much anything we wanted because it was vacation time. I do remember feeling bad, not knowing what it was that I must’ve said or done (because why else would you go quiet on me?). that wasn’t so fun. but I know I’m not unreasonable. I’m not hard to talk to, I don’t think. I don’t explode over little things; I’d much rather talk through them than be left wondering what I did wrong, and then do it again. I don’t mean to be rude or mean or anything like that. we grew up with very different perceptions of things but I want to be on the same page, and sometimes that means being a little more conscious of what I say and do.

I wasn’t really looking forward to coming home, but thankfully I had a little bit more down time before I started my new job. and ever since the end of august, I’ve been in work mode, it feels like. I’ve tried to keep up with volunteering, I’ve kept myself entertained sending packages out to Scotland (can’t say I’m a fan of international shipping costs though), and I’ve dealt with the loss of a few pets. I’ve been lucky enough to have my mom’s help with moving out, and I feel like my meds are really helping me now too. I feel a lot more balanced out than I did, and having such a good work environment is helping immensely. I’m still not quite where I want to be, but I feel better than I have in years both mentally and emotionally.

the emotional front has changed too. back at the beginning of the year, I was so messed up, still. there was a lot of residual hurt after the 2 years or so prior, but I was also still super depressed. but the waters have calmed, and I’ve found that I’m not completely alone, necessarily. I have the hope that I have one person in my life now that won’t give up on me. I’ve had... something like a year now of something relatively consistent. I feel like I’ve been able to build some trust, and like I’m slowly chipping away at these walls I’ve had built up. for the first time in years I’m actually kind of upset about feeling lonely. for the first time in years I’m not feeling sick to my stomach thinking about holding a hand, or someone holding me, or, god forbid, even kissing someone. I might even want that. and it’s weird to me, now, because it almost seems out-of-character, since I’ve been so messed up for so long. but this isn’t out-of-character, it’s the character I used to be before things all went sideways. I’ve had this image of being distant and detached and repulsed and unfortunately that ends up getting tied to the fact that I’m asexual (though in actuality they’re not related). but I know that’s not me. I know my asexuality is just a fact about my attraction to other people, and it has little to do with my behavior. it’s weird to me, feeling like this again, but I’m so relieved the damage might not have been permanent. it helps that my memory is such garbage. hard to remember how to feel fucked up when you can’t hardly remember how you got there to begin with.

maybe my year will end on a little brighter note. I’m seeing a new rheumatologist on new years eve. I hope a few people will come visit for new years. I’ve got crafts to do and things to keep myself busy with. I hope Gavin will want to skype before the end of the year, but I get not feeling good. I get that talking takes energy. sometimes I feel like I just take a lot of energy to interact with, so I’m trying not to be annoying. I’m fine doing my own thing, as I have been. but I do miss his [virtual] company. it’s getting a lot more obvious since moving out how really quiet and lonely it is by myself, and I have this feeling in the bit of my stomach that I’d feel a lot better if I could share this space with someone. sometimes I just want to show someone something, make them smile, talk about little nothings. and I don’t have that right now. I’m trying to let little things make me happy and let that be good enough, but it’s hard sometimes. it would just be really nice to be able to rest my head on a shoulder. to laugh about a dumb tv show with someone. even though I feel a lot better than I used to when I missed people, things sometimes just aren’t as good alone.

a lot of this year felt really foggy. but I’m glad to be where I am, even though it’s making me nervous. I hope I’m putting a good foot forward. and I hope 2020 brings more growth and healing. I hope one of these days I can learn to be the kind of person I want to be, and that I can be good for someone else too. so I can just know that to at least one person I’m not completely insufferable. so I don’t have to be so afraid that I’m just going to drive people away so I self-isolate. I’m doing a lot better about the negative thoughts, but I want to keep improving on that too. I have a lot of work to do, but I want to do it. it’s scary to feel like I’m doing so much alone. it’s sad knowing everyone else is caught up in their own lives, but at least most of them have someone else. it hits me sometimes how really, really lonely it is to have your own life but completely alone. I don’t mind being single. but it would be nice to come home to someone I love. someone that isn’t my rats, though of course they brighten my day no matter what, ha.

so. yeah. I’m a little hopeful. I want to get my shit figured out a little bit more. it’d be real nice to go back to Scotland too, but I might have to put that idea on hold til my life balances out a little more. I’m just going one day at a time right now. I’m doing my best. and thankfully my best is getting a little better. I want to keep that up.