#I didn't tell anybody not even my doctors until it became dangerous and had to be admitted

[jaylynx1412]

TW: SH

So it's 2024 and we're still demonizing s3lf-h@rm aren't we? (a serious rant below)

reminder that if you are triggered by this subject I have given a TW above, please do not interact with triggering content, it is not a smart thing to do, you deserve better. /gen

When I go online and I see a mentally well person making a "wrist barcode" joke about someone else, everybody laughs with them.

but then a mentally ill person makes the same exact joke, word for word, every single reply is some variation of "g0 d33p3r"

which is really funny guys, go actively seek out people who want to die and basically tell them to do it and even recommend the way in which they should. /s

"oh they're doing it for attention!" that means that they are being so neglected at home they need to do anything to try to get somebody to care about them. that is mental illness an it is valid. /srs

"they're like 12 they're being dramatic!" yes because everybody knows children cannot experience mental health struggles, that's why when I was 11 and had an anxiety attack at the mall I immediately snapped back to it when I was reminded that "there's no reason for you to do that." /s

"they're doing it because they think it's cool!" okay I have nothing to say to you except maybe take a step back and think about how what you just said is so fucking stupid like I'm sorry, what???? /srs

could you imagine that a person could hate themselves so much, they feel the nee to punish themselves? could you imagine that a person feels so numb and awful that the only way they could feel anything else is if something horrible happened to their body? /srs

I am so glad that most of you people have never felt the pain an suffering of clinical depression brings onto a human being, /srs

But god damn! why can't you have a little more empathy to people who are struggling with a serious illness that MAKES THEM WANT TO DIE????? /srs

[fleet-admiral-hiba]

OUR LITTLE PUPPY, SO STRONG

A/n : Velvet pulled through. And the family is overjoyed. But how's is Velvet feeling?

They were all around the chateau somewhere, waiting, when one of the nurses came running. She was looking for one of them, anybody to tell them the news. Velvet pulled through and they were awake. Joy spread through the mansion and in a matter of minutes everyone was rushing to the medical wing. But as soon as they came near the door, a hand stopped all of them in their track's. Raisin's husband looked dead on his feet,but he still had the strength to glare knives at all of them. "What are y'all thinking? You have to be quiet. For fuck's sake. Now, don't make too much noises and come in in groups of three. Don't come in all at once, you all will have the time to speak with Velvet. If I hear a whimper coming from them, I will have your heads on a stake. Is that clear?" And they all nodded. He was one of the few man that scared them, and they still didn't know why. But he was the best doctor around.

Deciding on the spot who went in and who waited for the following days, they set out a calendar for visits. They had all the best interest and they didn't want to overwhelm the poor child. Velvet had just survived an aggression and the last thing they wanted was to make them spiral.

Perospero, Brulee and Smoothie went first. And their heart broke. Velvet was there, covered in bandages, and they looked far more tired than they were after the last incident. Their face told you all you needed,and you felt bad for putting them through this. "I'm sorry. I promised you to stay out of trouble and I broke my promise", your eyes became full of unshed tears. You really tried to stay out of trouble, for the good of your family. But it seems trouble looked for you. They couldn't stand to see you so beaten down, and gently they all hugged you. "My little tart it's not your fault. People don't understand their lesson. If someone should apologize that would be us, we couldn't protect you even this time. We are sorry". No one would allow Velvet to feel guilty over something greater than them. They had no fault in this, they were being dragged into something that should concern no kid.

They knew they shouldn't have asked, but they did the same. "Velvet,love, do you... remember something from that night? Anything at all?" And if that face didn't break their heart even more. From the happy smile that Velvet wore, it all changed into something haunted, fear was clear as a day. "I.. don't. I was sleeping when someone taped my mouth shut. I don't remember much, I think I saw some masks and white robes? I don't know... I'm sorry".

They were all left thinking. Who could have had the skill necessary to infiltrate their home without being noticed? They were all contemplating when Velvet spoke again, timidly "When can I leave? I don't like being here. I miss you, I miss Mama, I miss playing with you", oh and if their hearts didn't break at the pleas of this gentle soul. "Baby, it will take another month before you'll get cleared by the doc. I'm sorry, but it's too dangerous. You are very sick, love and Brennan is worried. We all are. But we will try to come and visit every time we can. Deal?" Said Brulee, reassuring the kid. Velvet nodded, and yawning ever so softly, asked them to stay in the room a bit more. And they couldn't deny this small favor.

Once they were sure Velvet wasn't going to wake up any time soon, they slowly went out, to update the others. And they were furious. No kid should be left feeling guilty for something they didn't do. And they swore to get revenge, but until Velvet was stable, they would take care of their little baby.

They were going to get their revenge, soon enough.

[song-of-amethyst]

Yet another PH long post (Analysis of the villainous villainy of the villain, obvious spoilers)

So I was rereading volumes 18/19/20 (for art reference, although it ended filling my mind with weird conspiracy theories instead), I just noticed how the narration, the timing of the revelations and the sudden plot twist made Jack look a lot more cunning and dangerous than he actually was.

That arc was the arc where we needed to see Jack at his most ruthless, we needed revelations of his past crimes and revelations of his intention of present crimes, we needed him to attack everything we loved just to establish him as the main villain. And that just gets us paranoid, especially with the big revelation of the arc; how Oz got adopted into the Vessalius. The problem itself is not the account, but the person who gives it: Zai. Oscar himself admits Zai is completely paranoid, so much that he would blame every unfortunate event on Jack and believe it. It doesn't matter whether Jack actually killed the Vessalius brothers' children and wives, what matters is that Zai believed it and acted on it. Oscar says it himself that he doesn't believe Jack killed his wife and child, or even Zai's wife, and Jack doesn't make a statement to confirm it because the (probably) false accusation worked in his favor. I came to believe Zai's child was also not killed by Jack after rereading that scene because I wasn't aware of how deep the paranoia in Zai was until now. But thinking about it, Zai said Jack was possessing the doctor who attended to his wife, and looking back (after the manga and after the novel), it doesn't make any sense, it is not something Jack or anyone in that matter was implied to be able to do. Actually Jack was the least likely person to do it; he was hardly able to possess his own body for more than a few minutes. He was stuck in the body of a powerless child (and he, as an adult, both in the manga and the novel, had absolutely no power to speak of (and being frequently at the Baskerville's, he couldn't have looked more out of place), and could only cause the tragedy thanks to very careful planning and a contract with the most powerful chain in existence. And he still failed. I'd have said it was lame if it weren't so out of his league from the beginning.) Heck he probably lost consciousness very soon after speaking with Zai, and by the time he became a baby, there wasn't the faintest trace of his soul in there, to the point that a chain started developing a consciousness as a human instead. There was clearly nothing he could've done neither at that moment or after that as he had simply vanished (until one fragment of him was found at Chechire's dimension). That's somehow impressive though, that all he had to do was speak ominously with Zai, tell him suspicious lies in a suspicious way, talk about futures and prophecies and this kind of occult things, pretending he had knowledge and some supernatural power (when he absolutely didn't, he was just a cursed soul in a cursed tiny body), just to make him develop paranoia towards him. And everything else just fell in place. Jack is a master at manipulation (if nothing else), he knows how a scapegoat works, he knows how the belief that children with red eyes brought misfortune lived for God knows how long (curiously enough, it stopped after the Tragedy, Break never learning of it. Even though Jack sought to end the world, it is funny to notice the one he created after his crime was less unfair (but he actually didn't seek to end it but rather to bring it to the red-eyed Lacie so it kind of makes sense I guess.)). Basically he knew all he needed was to make sure Zai believed it was possible Jack was responsible for any of the misfortune life was sure to bring upon him (like for anybody for that matter), and that should be enough for him to try to throw his body (where the soul Abyss rejected didn't reside anymore) into the Abyss.

And that conclusion, somehow, made Jack look like a very special kind of wolf-in-sheep-clothing villain. While he had his fair share of crimes, and had also his share of good actions (some were of the manipulative kind, some were quite... random tbh), it is interesting to note that he took credit for a lot of heroic deeds he didn't accomplish and he took the blame for a lot of crimes he didn't commit. Whether it was intentional or not, it all played in his favor at one point or another (I mean, he might've said "I beg of you, don't call me a hero", but that reputation got him pretty far in getting back his soul into his body). He suddenly fits more the "insanely smart, incredibly weak" stereotype. But then, I started to wonder: what if his "smart" was not in carefully putting every pawn in the right place and waiting for everything to happen the way he planned but rather in how he did his best to take advantage of any situation he was thrown in. It dawned at me that there were many times where Jack could have been stopped, where his plans could have been overthrown. Even after the tragedy of Sablier and Oswald's death. For one, he could have died any time during the 75 years between the tragedy and him yielding his body to Oz (he would have gone from adult to baby twice and from baby to adult once if we admit the aging time is equivalent to the time of the inverted process, if he gets younger quicker, that would make even more cycles). Jack, who left his society, lived on his own in a gradually shrinking (and weakening) body in a period that might or might not have been similar to the end of the XVIIIth/the XIXth century in Europe (which is a period of quite violent wars and revolutions and disease and social inequalities and everything that wouldn't make it alright to live in without protection). And although he had enough skills to live, even honestly, in his teens or adulthood (he was quite a skilled musician and crafter after all), I can easily imagine he escaped death at some deviant's hands more than once in more fragile ages. And even if we don't consider the time skip, he couldn't have predicted Gilbert's return, and certainly not his amnesia. When he called out to him in Chechire's dimension, he didn't expect him to have forgotten him, and what if he hadn't? Vincent and the Baskerville were destroying the seals before he got back all of Oz's power, and what if they or Barma discovered everything before he had had the opportunity to? He didn't expect Gilbert to protect Oz either in vol.19, and they would have both been killed by Oswald if he didn't, Jack being asleep and Oz in a Heroic B.S.O.D. If we also add the fact that Jack was no expert at self-care (in Caucus Race, Oswald notes, quite disturbed, Jack's absolute disregard for his body's safety and how he doesn't even think about it, he simply doesn't see why he shouldn't get himself wounded aside from practical reasons). But the thing is, I think he had so little to lose (scratch that,  he had nothing to lose, and he didn't think he ever had) that in any of these situations he could've found a solution. If Gilbert had recognized him at Chechire's, he would have simply hidden in his and Oz's body, not revealing himself and only acting in the shadow to get Oz's power back. If Oswald had killed them, he could bet that Oswald was going to fail to kill Lacie and change the past and that would mean he won. I don't have enough to work with for the timeskip, but I believe there wasn't really a time where he wouldn't find a solution because his conditions were almost nonexistent, there was no limit to how much he was willing to sacrifice (if he had something that is).

That doesn't mean that any one of these situations would have been his first choice (he took control of their body when he suspected Oscar was going to kill Oz, so it's clear that if he could help it he'd stay all the way through the end to make sure nothing went wrong, preferably with a more docile Oz). It's just that whatever happened, he probably could adapt, the guy went so far and got through so much that there wasn't really any way to bring him to despair (not anymore at least), he could get out of pretty much anything. That's a bit scary if you ask me, but probably less than the impression he was going for (or that was given to him independently of his own intention) in the main storyline: that he could perfectly manipulate anything, that he had a lot of power and absolutely no sane mind to prevent him from destroying everything. Maybe that's actually what would make him more interesting; that despite how everyone saw him, he had actually no great control over the events (the Baskervilles who could manipulate the past had way much more of that), no great power (save for Oz) and no great knowledge (save for what he acquired a bit sooner than everyone but they caught on), simply manipulation and planning skills (an impressive amount, but not a superhuman one) and unhealthy obsession (a bit too much of this tbh). Maybe he had no actual control of both the false credit and the false blame he received, and would simply, like a pond of water, reflect whatever others saw him to be. He would be kind if they looked at a hero, he would be ruthless if they looked at a criminal, and where in the middle of all this the true Jack is situated, no one knows.

[themomsandthecity]

Why Didn't Anybody Tell Me: There Is No Postpartum Care

Ever heard of a sitz bath? There is one thing I wish I had known before I left the hospital with my first baby - that once you leave, there is no postpartum care. Yes, you have a checkup at six weeks, but it's after most of the discomfort has passed. The shock of what has happened to your body may not have passed. By the time I got back to my OB at six weeks, I'd figured out that my tailbone was probably broken from childbirth and was told - by a doctor I had really liked - a broken tailbone is a broken tailbone. As in, there's really nothing to do except let time heal it. It was discouraging. I had mistakenly been looking for a little help. In those crucial early weeks of nursing and bonding with my child, sitting was unbearably painful. I quickly bought a doughnut ring to sit on and became very choosy about chairs, but it didn't change the fact that I had to sit down to feed my baby every other hour, and that discomfort, even with all of the meds and padding, made nursing my infant feel something like torture. I wasn't fully healed until five or six months postpartum. This might be why many women shell out for those seemingly overpriced gliders. No price is too high for a little comfort at that stage. A friend of mine was discharged postpartum only to have her newborn readmitted a day later for jaundice. In their city hospital, all the rooms with space for parents with newborns were full. This new mother had to sleep in the waiting room and sit there during the day in between nursing and pumping for her newborn. During this time, her stitches came out and she contracted an infection, so she had to be readmitted and treated. She said that recovery was far more painful than labor itself. While her story is unusual, it seems fairly common that the pain new mothers experience is overlooked or unseen by the medical community. Care between mothers and newborns is not well coordinated. In the hospital, you'll be given some info about postpartum bleeding - called lochia - and a nurse might talk to you about the baby blues or postpartum depression. Once home, you can call your doctor or clinic for some advice, but in between figuring out your new baby, nursing, and being physically limited, you may not have the wherewithal to get yourself to the doctor. I found it strange in retrospect that the baby's health is checked every week or two in the first months, whereas your own body is supposed to magically take care of itself. Yes, it does heal, but it's better to inform yourself beforehand and be prepared. Ask your friends, doula, or physician what you might need to care for yourself after you leave the hospital. You might find yourself in significant pain, especially while sitting, either from bruising during labor, from healing stitches, or painful hemorrhoids. You may have strong contractions, called afterpains, or have trouble using the bathroom from a stressed bladder and perineal muscles. You may pass blood clots as your uterus heals or be so sore and tired that you experience deep body aches. If you've had a C-section, you may not be able to hold and lift your baby well or without pain. Your body has a lot of healing to do even while you are giving much of your energy to the newborn. In many cases, rest, pain medications, and frequent baths will be most important. The time it takes to heal is one reason people talk of organizing help or meals after baby arrives. Instead of thinking, "I can do this," think, "I'll take all the help I can get." Don't minimize your pain. Make sure you communicate about how you are feeling with your spouse and with your doctor. Take time getting back to your usual speed. I think I took my first walk outside the apartment a full week after my first labor. I was pushing a stroller, confused by the actual sunlight and roaring traffic and investigating dogs, all of which seemed dangerous to my child. But it wasn't - she slept through the noise and sidewalk bumps, and so we just kept going. We walked a lot in the early months, with a sling or the stroller, and while it was slower than my solo pace, it was also refreshing to feel my legs stretch and gather strength, week by week. The body I knew returned but very slowly, and my memory of that painful recovery still shadows my experience of having children. http://bit.ly/2DTKjmt

[themomsandthecity]

Why Didn't Anybody Tell Me: There Is No Postpartum Care

Ever heard of a sitz bath? There is one thing I wish I had known before I left the hospital with my first baby - that once you leave, there is no postpartum care. Yes, you have a checkup at six weeks, but it's after most of the discomfort has passed. The shock of what has happened to your body may not have passed. By the time I got back to my OB at six weeks, I'd figured out that my tailbone was probably broken from childbirth and was told - by a doctor I had really liked - a broken tailbone is a broken tailbone. As in, there's really nothing to do except let time heal it. It was discouraging. I had mistakenly been looking for a little help. In those crucial early weeks of nursing and bonding with my child, sitting was unbearably painful. I quickly bought a doughnut ring to sit on and became very choosy about chairs, but it didn't change the fact that I had to sit down to feed my baby every other hour, and that discomfort, even with all of the meds and padding, made nursing my infant feel something like torture. I wasn't fully healed until five or six months postpartum. This might be why many women shell out for those seemingly overpriced gliders. No price is too high for a little comfort at that stage. A friend of mine was discharged postpartum only to have her newborn readmitted a day later for jaundice. In their city hospital, all the rooms with space for parents with newborns were full. This new mother had to sleep in the waiting room and sit there during the day in between nursing and pumping for her newborn. During this time, her stitches came out and she contracted an infection, so she had to be readmitted and treated. She said that recovery was far more painful than labor itself. While her story is unusual, it seems fairly common that the pain new mothers experience is overlooked or unseen by the medical community. Care between mothers and newborns is not well coordinated. In the hospital, you'll be given some info about postpartum bleeding - called lochia - and a nurse might talk to you about the baby blues or postpartum depression. Once home, you can call your doctor or clinic for some advice, but in between figuring out your new baby, nursing, and being physically limited, you may not have the wherewithal to get yourself to the doctor. I found it strange in retrospect that the baby's health is checked every week or two in the first months, whereas your own body is supposed to magically take care of itself. Yes, it does heal, but it's better to inform yourself beforehand and be prepared. Ask your friends, doula, or physician what you might need to care for yourself after you leave the hospital. You might find yourself in significant pain, especially while sitting, either from bruising during labor, from healing stitches, or painful hemorrhoids. You may have strong contractions, called afterpains, or have trouble using the bathroom from a stressed bladder and perineal muscles. You may pass blood clots as your uterus heals or be so sore and tired that you experience deep body aches. If you've had a C-section, you may not be able to hold and lift your baby well or without pain. Your body has a lot of healing to do even while you are giving much of your energy to the newborn. In many cases, rest, pain medications, and frequent baths will be most important. The time it takes to heal is one reason people talk of organizing help or meals after baby arrives. Instead of thinking, "I can do this," think, "I'll take all the help I can get." Don't minimize your pain. Make sure you communicate about how you are feeling with your spouse and with your doctor. Take time getting back to your usual speed. I think I took my first walk outside the apartment a full week after my first labor. I was pushing a stroller, confused by the actual sunlight and roaring traffic and investigating dogs, all of which seemed dangerous to my child. But it wasn't - she slept through the noise and sidewalk bumps, and so we just kept going. We walked a lot in the early months, with a sling or the stroller, and while it was slower than my solo pace, it was also refreshing to feel my legs stretch and gather strength, week by week. The body I knew returned but very slowly, and my memory of that painful recovery still shadows my experience of having children. http://bit.ly/2iUukdM