#also i am fighting my sleep meds and severe exhaustion so this may just be something meaningless stuck in my brain

[problematicsashawaybright]

I understand the actresses behavior even less now after seeing the movie. Like yeah it's a good movie. Yeah they're talented actresses. But what happened on the set that led to the recent behavior and the tattoos?? Honestly it's mostly the tattoos for me, I can't get past that. They didn't know each other before they both got casted in the movie and now they have TEN matching tattoos. 10!! Een nul!!! Tien.... They have referenced being in love with each other multiple times. They burst into tears during interviews while gripping each other. Neither of them look like they have any idea what is happening outside of the movie & their costar... Actually wait I know what happened on the set of the movie....

[such-a-random-rambler]

High - Part 9

This may be done, I’m not sure, there may be one more chapter but I haven’t decided yet.

and @janetm74 do you remember ages ago when you asked

9. Which idea came to you first 

it was this bit!

John was wrung out. The last thirty hours had been, not to put too fine a point on it, a waking hell.

Virgil had sorted the nausea, which was just as well as unrelenting thirst hit soon afterwards and it would have been torture to be unable to drink for fear of throwing it back up. Those few hours had almost earned him another bag of fluids anyway. Then came the muscle cramps, crunching through his arms, legs, hands and feet, leaving him writhing and trying not to scream.

He did scream at the hallucinations – The Hood lunged out at him from the shadows, sucking all the air from the room, leaving him clutching at his throat. An earthquake hit, the room collapsing around him, sea rushing in to drown them all in salty torrents. Half formed tentacley things crept up from the floor and wrapped themselves around his wrists and ankles, holding him still for the needles to stab him, and the leering monstrous shapes to yell at and taunt him.  

When they faded his blood turned to ice, body temperature dropping no matter how many blankets were stacked around him eventually shivering himself into an exhausted sleep.

Now he was awake, eating, drinking and with the energy to sit up Virgil said he was on the mend, but John felt more out of sorts than he ever had.

John’s life was all about control; procedures and protocol.  He wasn’t an emotionless robot, as much as Gordon liked to joke about it, but there was a time and a place for them. John wrapped self-discipline around himself like a safety blanket because it was a safety blanket – he lived on a knife edge where an uncontrolled outburst could cause disaster and  death.

Sitting in the medbay – the rest of the family sleeping or eating, giving him some much needed privacy – John wrestled with the flood of emotions that assailed him. He flickered between fear, anger, desperation, hate, apathy.

The moment he got a handle on one of them, something else rose up to engulf him, tossing him between tears and paranoia and shaking with rage within minutes. He was unused to such extremes of feeling, and unused to not being able to reign them in when he needed to.

His mind felt fractured, his sense of self washed away and that oh so important self-control practically non existent. He couldn’t dispatch like this! They relied upon him to be calm when they called. He was no use to anyone if he couldn't get a grip, and there wouldn’t be a place for him anymore if he wasn’t useful and he wouldn’t have a home and he’d lose everything and...

His thoughts were spiraling into despair. He couldn’t take it any more.

“Gordon Tracy, John may need assistance and you are closest. Please report the medbay.” The ever-calm and even tones of EOS chimed in his ear.

“What’s the problem?” Gordon hurried his steps along the corridor, flooded with urgency.

“He appears to be in distress.”

“Medically?”

“His heart rate and blood pressure are raised but not dangerously so.”

Unsure of what he was walking into Gordon opened the door to the med room slowly, just in time to see something go slamming into wall beside his head, shards tinkling to the ground.

“Heeey, what’s this.” He said, taking in the floor covered with the remains of several other glasses.  

John picked up another tumbler and it followed the last, splintering into crackling shards.

“I think we’re going to want those.” Was all he could think of to say, and not sure that John had noticed him come in, his eyes were so unfocused.

A third, and they were all gone. Except John’s rage wasn’t and with nothing else to throw balled up a fist to swing at the wall. Some of these walls were plasterboard, some were dry wall. Some were the solid rock that the hangers had been carved out of and would definitely break a hand. It was impossible to tell which that particular section of wall was, and it wasn’t worth taking any risks.

Gordon moved fast, stepping in front of John’s fist, pulling it down between them both. The momentum of it allowed him to twist John round and secure his hand behind his back, in a move  perfected by hours of training with Kayo.

“No need for that. You don’t need a broken hand on top of everything else.”

“Let me go Gordon.” John twitched, grumbling low, but at least aware enough to know who was in the room with him.

“Not likely.”

“Gordon, please. I....”

“I am not letting you go until you calm down.” John wasn’t a weakling by any stretch of the imagination but this last week had really taken it’s toll and Gordon had no problem holding on.

“Gordon I need... I need....”

“What do you need?”

The strength seemed to leach out of John, and he sunk to the kneel on the floor. Gordon followed him down: ending up curled up over John’s back. He could feel John trembling, heart thundering.  

“Talk to me, please.” Gordon whispered.  

“There’s fire in my brain” John practically sobbed, and Gordon’s heart broke for him.  “And ants crawling under my skin.”

“It’s going to be ok.”

“How do you know?”

A long time ago Gordon was in a bad place, hadn’t been feeling himself for a long time. He’d thought the whole world had changed and would never be the same. But it had only been temporary. He had healed and grown and those nightmares were in the distant past.  John was going through something very different, but maybe Gordon could still help.  

“This is just another side effect. You’ve had all the physical ones and now you have this. It will pass.”

The remaining fight went out of John and Gordon released his wrist. With a little bit of shuffling Gordon got in front of him, and settled so that John’s head was resting over his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around his big brother in a firm hug and felt John do the same, hands fisting into Gordon’s shirt.

“Did you know that a hug can actually lower your blood pressure? Scientifically proven, that.” Gordon said, squeezing tight.

“Hmmmm.”  

“You’ve been stuck in this room for far too long, you need a change of scenery.” Gordon said, thinking about the weeks he had spent looking at the same four walls and how it had bored him to tears, the sameness of it all. John lived in the ever-changing vastness of space, being confined to this room must be doing the same.

“I... I don’t know. I can’t think...”

“Then leave the thinking to me. I’m better at it anyway.”

John snorted.

“Do you trust me?”

“Of course.”

“Then let’s move.”

Gordon had to drag John up, but once there he could stand on his own. Sort of. Gordon needed to give him the occasional poke for balance, and pull for direction, but John did most of the work himself. Scott put down the book he was reading as they passed through the living room on the way outside, but didn’t say anything, just watched. Gordon loved it when Scott trusted him.

They made their way slowly down to the chairs by the pool, to the one that was right by the forest line and always in shade. Gordon pushed John down, and lifted his legs onto the lounger. John looked calm again, but a blank, empty, exhausted kind of calm.  

“Just lay back and concentrate on the wind on the trees. That also helps with high blood pressure.”

“It still hurts.” John sighed with a slow blink.

“I know. I’m going to get you a drink of water.”

When Gordon got back with the water – and a blanket and a snack bar, just in case – John was fast asleep.  

[capricornus-rex]

What You Fear To Lose (3)

Cal Kestis x Reader

Requested by: Anon | Prompt:

Okay so maybe a fic where Cal keeps having nightmares and visions when   he meditates of the reader dying and the events leading up to her death.  He starts being really protective and the reader tries to reassure him  shes fine. But on a mission things start happening that he saw in the visions before the reader dies and gets really on edge. You can decide how it ends, aka reader dying in cals arms to make me cry or him saving  her to also make me cry! Sorry if this is too much!!💕 

Tags: Near-death! Reader

Previous: Part 2 | Masterlist

3 of 3

The Fifth Brother finally drops you to the floor, half-dead and barely holding onto your last thread of life.

“NOOOO!!”

Cal flung himself back on the surface and landing a strike on the Fifth Brother. Astounded, the Inquisitor witnesses the rage of a Jedi—their strength and biggest downfall—he realizes that he is not yet done with this fight. Cal’s heart rate is going through the roof, factoring from the race against time in completing the objective and saving you, along with the head-to-head duel with the Fifth Brother.

“You think your sudden burst of power will save you? Foolish boy! Join her in death then!”

Stuck in a clash of blades, Cal managed to turn the Inquisitor’s guard down, slipped past him and afforded himself a strike from behind. You struggled to turn your eyes to the battle, you raise a weak hand directed at the Inquisitor, and while Cal was busy trying to lower the enemy’s guard, you stole the Inquisitor’s lightsaber—in one last effort, you flung it while it was still activated straight into the main power pillar.

White sparks flew in all directions from the main power pillar, with the surge of power clashing with one another, the Fifth Brother’s lightsaber was destroyed in the process.

“No…”

Before the Fifth Brother could further react, Cal kicked him down the shaft, his back colliding with the lower walkways as he fell. From the outside, Cham saw the result of your work and the fighters have picked up their momentum. Cal ran up to you, fell to his knees, and cradled you.

“[y/n]? [y/n], stay with me, baby. Come on…”

You struggled to keep your eyes open.

“Cal… I can’t… it hurts…” you sobbed.

“Okay, it’s okay,” he whispered frantically.

“You have to go…”

“No, I’m not leaving you!”

In a last resort, he attempted the only thing that he has never done up until now. He tried to remain calm in a span of a few seconds while hell was breaking loose. He places his hand on your stomach, just near the stab wound, and focused whatever Life Force he can muster into you. For a moment, it felt like cold water was running across your skin until the sensation touched your organs.

In return, Cal felt exhausted and sluggish. It’s as if the toll of the duel had finally reached his body, though he felt the rush even after he’d kicked the Fifth Brother down.

It felt good… but it was only enough for the both of you.

“[y/n]…? Can you stand?”

“I… I’ll try…” you whimpered.

All of a sudden, standing up became difficult for him; it felt too much of an effort for him—in addition to having you hanging by his shoulder—as he hobbled you out of the chamber.

“Come on, [y/n], we’re almost out of here,”

The path that seemed like a quick sprint for him transformed into a strenuous, long trek. He brought the commlink attached to his gauntlet to his mouth.

“Cham, the main generator’s destroyed…! We need reinforcements in the stronghold… now!”

“My men are on their way to you already!” Cham radioed.

“Hurry, [y/n] is hurt real bad!”

“Hold fast, we’re coming!”

The urgency in Cham’s voice was a relief, but the probability of his men reaching you seemed bleak. Cal has never been this terrified in his life and this was a horrible first time for him. Never in his life did he expected a premonition to come true. He used his strength to scoop you up from the floor and into his arms as he strode through the hallway, destroying the control panels of the blast doors to bar the Stormtroopers that might tail him.

I thought… I could stop it…

I thought… I could protect her!

And now she’s dying!

“Please, [y/n], not now!” he begged.

“Cal…” you barely breathed. “I can’t… anymore…”

“No, we’re gonna make it. You’re gonna make it!”

“I don’t think…”

“Come on now, just a few more steps! We’re almost there!” he whimpered tearfully, holding you ever closer to him. “Please, don’t go out quietly on me!”

His determination was also in shambles. His conscience has been shattered into half—a part of him believed you can make it, the other believed that this premonition is materializing, no matter how it went, the result shall remain the same as it was in the dreams: Cal will witness you die right in front of him.

As he dragged his lethargic body along with his precious cargo in tow, all the while, he’s mentally struggling it all. He has come this far already, he wouldn’t let himself go down this easily.

“Cham… where are you? Cere…?” Cal sobbed. “Please… help…”

Eventually, the young Jedi fumbled to the floor. His vision began darkening around the edges. He crawled behind a metal crate and dragged your body with him. Your eyes were closed and you were very still.

“NO! [Y/N]!!”

That cry siphoned out a lot of energy remaining in him, he repeated your name many times until your eyes could open again. He cradled you again, shaking you with every time he said your name.

“Cal…” your voice was barely within his earshot, but he heard it. He heard it.

“I’m here… Baby, I’m here…!”

“I’m sorry…” you weakly muttered, barely able to string words together form a complete sentence. “Save yourself…”

“No, no, it’s okay! Cham is coming, help is on the way…” he choked on tears. “I promise!”

The exhaustion is creeping up to him, slowly devouring and numbing his body. His eyelids were heavy, he could barely keep his eyes open. The explosive burst of the blast door didn’t do much in getting a reaction from him anymore, a familiar face shows up right in front of him.

It’s Cere.

“Come on, we’re getting you out of here!” she said with a tenacity and an uncontrollable desire to protect.

“Cere… came through… save her…”

The poor young Jedi, having the burden of the battle weighed on him, blacked out after registering in his mind that Cere has finally arrived.

Cal later wakes up in what ought to be the medical bay of the stronghold. The blinding white lights danced behind his eyes, the low humming of the air-conditioning rung close to him, he found his hands stripped of his gloves and climbing claws only to be replaced with bandages. A slight nudge of his arm made him feel the cold tingle of a drip needle stuck into his arm.

“Boo-woop! Boo!” BD-1 chirped.

“Oh, you’re awake,” Cere, standing at the foot of the bed, greeted.

“BD? Cere?”

“We did it, Cal. Cham has reclaimed the stronghold. He decided that this med-bay would be a better option that the medical supplies back—”

“Where is she?” he immediately snapped.

Cere exchanged glances with the little droid sitting on Cal’s lap. She swallowed the nervous lump in her throat as she carefully gathers the words in her mind that she’ll say to him.

“Is she safe? Is she alright?”

Cere sighed, the same resigned look was painted in her face again, only this time it was more somber.

The medical droid supported Cal in sitting up and finally bringing his feet to the floor. Cere took over and supported Cal by his side, making herself his crutch as they hobbled out of his med-bay room. Luckily, the ward where you’ve been placed is not far from his.

“We’re here,”

They come across a room whose front wall was a whole sheet of thick glass. In the center of the room, a group of medical droids—namely a GH-7 medical analysis droid, an FX-6 medical assistant, and a 2-1B. Cal watched them hover around your unconscious body in all sides as they extract the necessary medical data, reflecting their findings in hologram projections that were visible to even the visitors outside the room.

The GH-7 droid hovered towards Cal to report its diagnosis. Its emphatic voice was somewhat reassuring and soothing as it spoke, its perceptiveness on the patient gave Cal a stroke of comfort when he demanded to know the status of your health.

“She is very lucky,” the droid’s empathic voice purred. “And very strong.”

Cal noticed the hanging tone at the end of its sentence, he prompted it to continue.

“Fortunately, the penetration wound found in her abdomen did not rupture any of her vital organs. In fact, it barely missed the bottom of her left lung. However, the severity of her wounds factored to her needing immediate surgery. It’s a miracle that she was able to hold on in such a nearly-long period of time. The weapon used on her—to some extent—saved her. It cauterized her wounds both on the arm and torso, therefore lessened the blood loss. If it was any other weapon, she would have bled to death, and she would’ve died instantly.”

“Has she woken up ever since she got here?”

The droid hung its flat-faced head and gestured with its arms attached with various apparatus.

“No, I am afraid she is in a state of comatose. Her chances of waking up appear bleak. We are currently figuring out how long she’ll remain unconscious; until then, we can only hope. It is in my analysis that comatose patients—albeit in a sleep-like state—are still capable of hearing voices when being spoken to. You may do so in a few minutes. Please, excuse me.”

The droid gave a quick bow before turning around and hovering back into your ward. A few minutes later, it kept its promise and allowed you to go inside your ward. Cal sat down by your bedside, studying the hologram projections of your vitals’ readings as the droids hovered about, continuing their data extraction.

“[y/n]? We did it,” Cal whispered. “You did it, my brave little girl.”

He gently took your hand into his, feeling the softness of your palm and the warmth that you radiated. Even before he could utter a word, he was already choking while blinking away the tears welling up in his eyes.

“Please…” he muttered as he stared at the stillness of your face. “Please, fight. Please wake up soon. Until then, I’ll be waiting for you. Be strong, [y/n].”

He fought back the tears, telling you how brave you were in fighting the Inquisitor, if it wasn’t for you then he wouldn’t have defeated him. He promised you things that the two of you would do once you’ve awakened—he’ll take you to a trip to Takodana, knowing that you would love the fresh air and swimming in its great lakes, he’ll make Maz serve the best booze in the castle just for the two of you, and so many more things that you would have absolutely loved.

“Only if you promise me you’d wake up, won’t you, [y/n]?”

“Cal,” Cere tenderly called, not intending to break up his moment with you. “Come on, you need your rest too if you’re gonna keep your promises to her.”

“Yeah, I just… give me another minute,” he wiped the tears off his cheeks with his bandaged hands. He leaned closer to you, planting a kiss on your forehead before he leaves.

“Rest well, my love.”

As he turned away, he didn’t see the single tear that escaped the corner of your eye and the faint twitch of your fingers.

His voice, his words—you heard them all.

Even in your subconscious, you coax yourself harder than ever before to fight back, to regain your strength and fulfill your end of the promise.

[faofinn]

Ok, Who Had Natural Disasters On Their 2020 Bingo Card? - Whumptober Day 27

@whumptober2020

Christmas was, unsurprisingly, one of Finn’s favourite times of year. Alongside the food and social side of it - Fao had often managed to get leave - there was also the childish excitement of presents. The fact it was his birthday only made things better.

They often stayed at Fao’s house, the brothers going down a few days before to get things set up before their parents joined. Finn loved it, time alone with his brother was a rarity (not that he resented Jess or Ely’s presence) and having the place to themselves was just an added bonus. Despite the whole place and multiple bedrooms, Finn still ended up in Fao’s bed, often dragging his duvet in before they’d even unpacked.

It had been a cold winter, the snow already lying a few inches on the ground. Sleet and hail had battered them as they’d driven down, ominous and foreboding. Inside though, they’d soon started a fire, getting it set up and roaring as they waited for the house to warm up.

They’d had an easy night, the pair only heading to bed in the early hours of the morning. As usual, they’d snuggled together, Finn’s curled into Fao’s side and watching the flurry of snow out of the window. The wind hadn’t let up, howling as it battered the house, almost rattling the windows.

Fao fell asleep first, exhausted and more than slightly tipsy. Finn stayed awake for a little longer, letting Fao’s heartbeat softly lull him to sleep, trying to focus on that instead of the storm outside. It took a while, but eventually followed, arm draped over Fao’s chest and tucked under Fao’s duvet.

When morning broke and Fao’s alarm rang out, neither brother moved. There was an uninviting chill to the air outside of their duvets and both snuggled closer.

“Mornin’.” Fao’s voice was still rough with sleep and he cleared his throat. “Sleep well?”

Morning.” Finn echoed. “‘s cold.”

“Yeah? You’ve got all the blankets.”

Finn grinned sleepily. “Yeah.”

“You’re always cold. Spare a thought for poor old me and my ancient bones.”

“Yeah.” Finn pulled the duvets closer. “At least you admit you’re ancient.”

“Am compared to you.”

He laughed. “Nah, just ancient.”

“Sure, sure.”

"True."

“Can we stay here all day? I don’t wanna move.”

“Neither do I. I just want to stay snugged.”

“Yeah. When’s Mum coming up?”

“We’ve got a few days.”

“Don’t have to move then.”

"We have to get the house sorted. And I want to make a snowman."

“You'll freeze your balls off.”

“I’m not going to be naked.”

“You're always cold.”

"Indoor snowman?" Finn joked, pushing his hair out of his face. "Are you gonna go make breakfast?"

Fao huffed. “Whilst you stay all warm in bed?”

"Yeah. Go on." He wriggled, pulling his knees up and pressing his feet to Fao's back.

Fao yelped, but dragged himself out of bed, throwing on a hoodie. It was absolutely freezing, which had been fine under the duvet and blankets but not now he was up. He slunk off to throw something together for breakfast, using the opportunity for a smoke. He didn't make it fully outside, but he at least had the back door somewhat open. Tomas and his dad had smoked in the house, so he wasn't exactly bothered by it, but he doubted Finn would appreciate it. He made tea and started on pancakes, and called up the stairs to his brother. 

“Finn! I've made tea and I'm about to cook pancakes. Get your fat arse down here!”

Oddly enough, there was no response. Usually Finn was all too eager for food, claiming he was still growing even in his early twenties. Everyone had doubted that, but when he'd suddenly shot up and grew several inches, he took them all by surprise. 

Even asleep, Fao's calls would usually rouse him, especially when it promised food.

The silence really did worry him, and Fao took the pan off of the heat before he headed upstairs, fearing the worst. He hoped Finn had just fallen asleep and hadn't heard him - the house was big, after all - but there was always the other possibility. 

Of course, things couldn't be simple. Finn was buried under the duvets and posturing. He wasn't breathing.

“Fuck.” Fao muttered, dragging the duvet back. “Finn?”

His younger brother groaned slightly, his muscles contracting and staying tense.

Fao rushed closer, kneeling on the bed beside him. He clearly wasn’t breathing, body tense and stuck. He swore under his breath, half English half Gaelic, and hurriedly looked for Finn’s meds. The blister pack in the bedside drawer was empty and he had no idea where Finn had put his supply. 

He tried to check his phone too, and of course there was no signal. Stupid fucking countryside. Weather didn’t help either. 

“Fuck’s sake Finn, you never bloody make things easy, do you?” He swore at his brother. Where were his bags? He’d probably buried his meds in there. But did he have time? It was that or nothing. He had barely any kit anyway, they were fucked without hospital. And especially fucked without midaz. 

He finally found Finn’s stuff, and his meds. Thankful the packet was full, he fumbled to get the dose out. It hurt him to see Finn like this, it wasn’t fair. Nothing had set him off, nothing had changed. 

His midaz didn't change anything, Finn continuing to seize despite them. Sweat collected on his brow and there was a blue tint to his lips as he forced his head back into the bed. He couldn't keep it up much longer.

Fao swore again. He'd not even shown a flicker of resolving, just as tense and slipping into cyanosis. He grabbed a second dose of midaz and gave it, though he knew he shouldn't. He had no other choice, Finn wasn't breathing anyway. What harm was it going to do? Couldn't exactly make things worse. He needed far more resources than he had. And he needed to not be in a freezing cold house in the middle of a snowstorm. 

The second dose finally did something, Finn's body finally relaxing and his chest able to rise and fall. It took a moment for him to breathe, exhausted and sore. He still wasn't with it, his body barely functioning anyway, but he continued to breathe heavily, trying to resolve his hypoxia. 

Finn wasn't the only one breathing heavily. Absolute relief washed over Fao as his brother took that first proper breath, and he sat there for a good few minutes with his hand on Finn's chest, feeling the rise and fall. 

It occurred to him then that Finn's phone might have service. He was reluctant to move, but he could see it on the other bedside table, and scrambled up to get it. One tiny bar. It was enough, it had to be. 

Hands shaking with adrenaline, he called for help. But the weather was getting worse, and he had no idea if they'd be able to get to them. 

"Emergency. Which service?"

“Ambulance.”

"Ambulance. Is the patient breathing?"

Fao was back with Finn on the bed, his free hand on his chest once again. “He is now.”

"Is the patient conscious?"

“No.” Fao took a slow, deep breath, trying to fight the rising fear. 

"Okay. What's your address?"

Fao gave it. “He’s had a bad seizure, wasn’t breathing for a decent amount of time. He’s had to have a double dose of midazolam just to stop it. I’m a doctor but he needs a hospital.”

“Okay, I’ve arranged an ambulance, help is on its way. He is breathing now, right? I need you to keep an eye on that and let me know if anything changes.”

“He’s breathing.”

“That’s good. Does he have seizures normally? Is he epileptic?”

“He is, but this was worse than his normal.”

“Alright, thank you. How long was this seizure?”

“I didn’t see it start. He looked like he’d been going for a while, so I gave the first midaz after a minute. It was a lot worse than normal, and the midaz didn’t make any difference at all, so I gave him another minute or so and gave the second dose.”

“So he’s had two doses of his midaz? And he would only normally have one?”

“Yeah. The two is his ‘worst-case scenario’ plan.”

"And the second dose has helped?"

“Yeah.”

“Good. Keep an eye on his breathing for me."

“I am doing.”

"That's good. You're doing really well. The ambulance is on its way, but the roads are very dangerous right now so they may take a little longer."

“Yeah, I guessed as much."

"Sorry, we are trying our best."

“No, it's okay. We're pretty rural, that weather’s shit.”

"Yeah, the service isn't too great either."

The line crackled and Fao gritted his teeth. “Yeah, I-” The phone cut out and he swore. Had the signal cut out? Pulling it back from his ear, he realised the phone had died. Fucking Finn and his inability to charge his phone. Fao nearly threw it across the room, frustrated. Now they were even more fucked. He moved to plug it in, and then the lights flickered and died. 

Fucking power was out. 

He went back to his brother, moved him into his lap and stroked through his hair. “I've got you, Finn. You're okay.”

Finn made a quiet noise, lip turning up in a slight smile. He liked the contact, registering somewhere deep down, and Fao was warm against his back.

“That's it, I've got you.”

He was already gone, breathing for himself but exhausted. His breathing had started to even out, though there was a tinge to his lips.

Fao let him rest. He wasn’t anywhere close to out of the woods, but he was breathing for himself and seemed to be relatively stable, despite the double dose of midaz. He leaned back against the headboard of the bed, his jaw tense. How the hell were they going to get out of this one?

Finn stretched out, screwing his face up. Everything hurt and he wasn't sure why. He fidgeted with his feet, rubbing his fluffy socks together.

There was a brief flash of panic in Fao as Finn stretched out, his back arching, before he realised it really was just a stretch. Sighing heavily, he rubbed his arm. “Hey, you’re alright.”

He fought against the heaviness, forcing his eyes open. Fao. A lazy smile graced his face as he let his eyes close again, relaxing against Fao.

“That’s it, get some rest. I’ve got you.”

 Content, Finn let himself sleep again (not that he had much choice). The bed was comfy enough despite his aches, and the drugs only helped lure him under. 

With the power out, the heating wasn’t working properly. The room began to chill off quickly, and Fao shivered. He knew he couldn’t leave Finn, just in case, and so had to make do with the heavy blankets on the bed. It wasn’t perfect, and in an ideal world he’d get the fire going again, but Finn was far too heavy and content in his lap. 

Finn protested at the weight, trying to wriggle out and crying out as he moved. It was cold, and the weight on him was only colder. He pressed closer to his brother, his pjs damp and sticking to him.

“Hey, it’s to keep you warm, you daft shite.” Fao said good naturedly. “Give it a minute, you'll warm up.”

He didn't want it. Why didn't Fao understand? He kicked out, twisting away from it.

“Alright, alright. No blankets? Fine. I'll keep them for me.” He grumbled, draping it over his shoulders instead. “You can freeze.”

Without the attention, he quickly lost his fight, mainly forgetting what he'd been fighting against. He shuffled about a little as he struggled to find a comfortable position. 

“Just try and sleep, you're okay.”

Finn slept until he woke himself shivering. His eyes flicked around the room, trying desperately to focus.

“It's okay, you're okay. Just cold, let's get you warm.” Fao murmured, draping the blanket from his shoulders over his brother. “That's better, hmm?”

He frowned, trying to push it away. He wanted Fao, not his blanket. 

“It's to keep you warm, Finn.”

"No."

“Yeah, just a blanket.”

He groaned, pushing it off. Nothing was focusing or falling into place and the panic only rose. 

"Off."

“You’re alright, it’s okay.” Fao reassured. 

How could it be alright? His face screwed up as tears fell, clumsily raising a hand to scrub at his eyes.

“Hey, hey. You’re okay Finn, I’ve got you.”

“Cold.”

“Yeah, I’ve got a blanket here for you?”

“No. You.” Finn finally looked at Fao, frowning. 

“I’m here, yeah.”

A small smile made its way to his lips. “Hug?”

“Hug and blanket, yeah?”

“You.” He murmured sleepily, trying to push himself up onto Fao.

Fao wrapped his arms around him, aware his brother was freezing cold. With no power and the weather getting worse, he had no idea how long they were going to be stuck. Finn needed a hospital, but now the phone had died who knew how long it would take for an ambulance. If they even got one at all. 

[ordinarytalk]

Personal stuff sad rant under the cut about my new job. Not happy stuff, so probably don't read if you can't handle a mid-life crisis that I've been having more or less constantly since age 21.

It's getting late and I'm putting off going to bed because I don't want to have to deal with trying to sleep again. I woke up last night at 3 or 4 in the morning and had a panic attack, and I wasn't able to sleep for hours until it was almost time to wake up for work. Again.

I've been having panic attacks all this week. For the last few weeks, really, but it's been ramping up, and it's all mixed with these big, indigestible globs of despair.

It's just...I'm a health inspector now. And I hate it. I gave the job a good try, and it's better than my old job, but that's like saying that sitting in a cold mud puddle is better than being on fire.

Everywhere I go, I am hated. People working restaurants panic when they see me, and when I point out things that are dangerous that need to be fixed, they go from passive-aggressive to shouting at me to breaking down close to tears because what they need to do to be legal costs money. I can't eat anywhere anymore. I'm hated. I had severe social anxiety going into this job, and now I have to fight down panic attacks in the parking lot when I pull into restaurants for inspections before I go in. And I do this every day.

Every day. Every single day. I get eight days off a month. Every other day, for the rest of my life, is going to be this. There isn't anything better. There isn't anything else. I will never be anything more. There is nothing to look forward to. Every dream that I ever had for my future is dead, any potential I may have once had is wasted. This is it.

This job is the best prospect I can get with the utterly useless Master of Public Health degree that I'm in debt for. Nothing else pays as much as this job, and this job pays crap, for the amount of debt I have.

I wake up, exhausted and too early, and put on clothes that are ugly and uncomfortable and required, and do something very difficult that I hate doing for most of the day, and then I'm so tired at the end of it that I can't do anything else. I just sit in my filthy, lonely apartment, and dread going to sleep because then the next day will come faster.

I've been behind on the work assigned to me since I started in April. There was a huge backlog waiting when I came in, since inspections had been building up while they were trying to hire someone. I'm working as hard as I can, but the pile just keeps going. I got five new plan review applications today, and each of those will take most of a day to finish, but I also have to do several dozen inspections, and I can only get two or three of those done in a day at the most, but I also have to finish a few dozen temporary event applications, which need to be done at the office which is an hour drive round-trip and take several hours apiece to do, but I also have to respond to several dozen emails and phone calls that come in for me every single day that are tasks that all take 15-20 minutes to do, and no matter how fast I go it feels like I end every single day with a bigger to-do list than when I started it. I'm bad at this job, and I constantly feel like I am failing, and everyone hates me.

I keep on telling myself things will be better once I catch up, but I don't know if that's ever going to happen. And even if it did? I would still be doing a job I hate every single day, and every single day I would be meeting people who hated me, and having people yell at me, or argue, or try to hide things, or cry. One man pointed a knife at me.

There's a lesson I thought I learned once, but I was never very good at remembering it. I was raised to always think of everyone else first and myself last. If I wanted to be a good person, I owed the world my help, no matter how little I wanted to do it. If someone else is cold, give them your coat. If someone else is hungry, give them your food. If someone else is tired, give them your labor. If someone else is busy, give them your time. Give, give, give, and never, ever take. This is what I was taught. And I tried to be good. I really, really did. Like every person with a martyr complex before me, some part of me is so convinced that I'm bad that I feel like I have to spend the rest of my life making up for it.

But here's the lesson I learned: If you are very good, and very kind, and very obedient, and always say yes when someone asks for help, and never say no, then smiling people will gently take you by the hand, full of joy and gratitude, and they will lead you into hell.

I first realized this the summer after I graduated college. I had not been accepted into any of the medical schools I applied for, and I was not able to process that. I spent the summer teaching swimming lessons and lifeguarding, like I had every other summer since I was 16, but the summer was about to end, and for the first time in my life, I wasn't required to go back to a school in the fall, and I didn't know what to do.

An old high school teacher contacted my mom, saying that some ladies had been asking for help with a caregiving job, and that I was absolutely the perfect person for it, since I was so naturally kind and caring and giving. Mom sent me to the ladies, and I went because I don't say no. The ladies met me at a house, and smiled and told me how grateful they were, how much they needed me here, and they took me by the hand, and led me into the basement. The basement was dimly lit, and smelled of piss and shit, and three adult men were laying on small cots and moaning. The ladies happily told me how I would come here every night, alone, and stay with the three men until the morning, rolling them and washing them when they soiled themselves. I would start next week. I would be paid minimum wage with no benefits. The room stank. The men writhed and moaned. The air was orange tinted from the single lightbulb. The carpet was dark brown. The ladies were so, so grateful I was here. They knew I was a kind, caring, loving, good person.

I went home and felt absolutely nothing. I felt absolutely nothing for hours, until I took a shower and broke down sobbing. I called them back and told them I couldn't take the job. It was the first time I had ever said no to someone, and they were horrified, and my parents were disappointed, and I was shipped off to Madison within the week, and I didn't learn the lesson well enough, because I kept on trying to be what other people wanted me to become. I was supposed to be a doctor, so I kept on trying to get into med school until I had a mental breakdown, and then I got the public health degree because I thought it was the next closest thing to doctor after I failed, and by the time I finished it and realized the size of the hole I'd dug myself into, it was too late. There's no way I can crawl out of this without an enormous amount of money, and none of the jobs available to me pay that much, because they're all jobs for people who "love their work" and "care about humanity" and "care about people and not salaries."

I'm sure people are grateful I'm a health inspector. I'm sure people are thinking, "oh, I'm glad someone's doing that job, that's a necessary job, you're keeping society running, unsung hero, you should be proud." These are the things people think when someone else does a horrible job that no one likes, but which must be done so that the modern world keeps working. That's what you think about the home health aides, the teachers, the immigrant farmhands, the cleaning crew.

I don't know how to end this post. I keep on looking up increasingly implausible jobs that could pay more and be less stressful, like truck drivers or swinging bridge operators. I'm not going to get them. The closest thing I have to an escape plan is to wait a few more years until I qualify for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, and then....I don't know? Quit for a minimum wage job that will slowly lower me into poverty? Do another fireworks tent? Die, I guess?

It's late, and I'm tired, and I'm old, and I'm sick of panic attacks, and I've failed at everything I've ever attempted in my adult life, and I don't want to go back to work on Monday.

[writingwithadinosaur]

“Proof” - Part 4

“Proof” - Part 4

( Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 )

My Masterlist - Here

My Tag List - Here

Eggsy Unwin x Reader

Harry Hart x Daughter!Reader

Word Count: 1,511

Key: Y/N = Your Name, Y/L/N = Your Last Name, H/C = Your Hair Color, E/C = Your Eye Color

Warnings: Cursing, Talk of Torture, Medical Talk

Summary: You and Eggsy have been dating in secret. After finally telling Harry, you two are sent on one of your most dangerous missions yet. Will this mission help Eggsy win your father’s approval?

Author’s Note: This idea arose from a conversation that @witchymarvelspacecase and I had about how I’m in love with the whole Harry Hart x Daughter!Reader thing. Then it progressed into this. Hope you guys enjoy this mini-series! 

There may be one more part to this in the future. But for now, this is the end of this mini-series! 

If you would like to be tagged in any of my future pieces, check out my tag list above and let me know! And as always, feedback is greatly appreciated!

<3

- DreaSaurusREX

Eggsy insisted on carrying you off the plane, and honestly, you didn’t have the energy to fight him about it. It was only a few steps off the plane, but it hurt like a bitch. You squeezed your eyes shut to try to help ignore the pain. Then you were gently put on a stretcher.

One of the nurses stuck an IV in your arm. Apparently there was a cocktail of painkillers and a low strength sedative going into your veins. It was very much appreciated.

The med team started to roll you to the infirmary but you stopped after a few feet. You kept your eyes shut, waiting for the painkillers to take effect, then felt a large hand take yours. Opening your eyes, you see the noticeably worried face of your father.

“Hey, papa.” You tried to smile and make him feel a bit better about the situation despite the pain that radiated from your rib, arms, and head. Harry gently put his other hand against your temple and began stroking his thumb along your hairline.

“Thank god you’re out of there. Merlin contacted me as soon as you got taken and I-- I was so worried. I knew this mission would be dangerous. But you’re here. You’re going to be alright, sweetheart.” That last part was more to calm himself down than anything. He kissed the back of your hand and felt like he could finally breathe. You were home, safe.

“I think you should be thanking Eggsy. He completed the mission and got to me before I fried like chips.” You tried to pass that last remark off as a joke, but your father wasn’t too keen on it. “Poor timing I guess.”

Harry looked up and saw Eggsy standing by the plane with Merlin, discussing something. He nodded and then turned his attention back to you.

“Yes, I suppose I do have him to thank. Now, Dr. Erickson is going to take you to the infirmary while we wrap up the final mission report. I will come by and see you as soon as I am allowed.”

“Okay.” You squeezed your father’s hand a bit. “I’ll see you later.”

“See you later, darling.” He leaned down and kissed your forehead before nodding to the nurses that rolled you away. Eggsy cautiously walked up to Harry. But before he could say anything, Harry put up a hand to halt him.  

“We can discuss the mission later. You’ve had quite an exhausting time, and I believe that we all need a moment to let the events of today settle before we talk about any of it.” Eggsy took a second before nodding in agreement. “Now, go freshen up and get something to eat. (Y/N) would want you to at least do one of, if not both of those things instead of wasting time worrying and waiting for her.”

Eggsy snickered at the thought of you telling him to take care of himself. You would probably use some words that Harry would find… “unladylike”, for lack of better term. Harry patted Eggsy’s shoulder before moving to quickly speak with Merlin. He told Merlin to do the same, he had been working just as long if not longer than you and Eggsy had.

Everyone deserved a refreshing meal and a nice shower after this mission.

~~~~~~~~

It seemed like hours until you were cleared for visitors. Harry was alerted first since he was your father. He quickly made his way to the infirmary to see you. When he’d seen you before he hadn’t realized how intense your injuries were, but walking into your room he did.

You had a chest brace, lots of bandage wrapped around your limbs, more apparent bruises, including a rather nasty black eye, and a bandage wrapped around your head. You were asleep when he came in, so he made sure to be quiet. He didn’t get very far into the room before he felt a tap on his shoulder.

Dr. Erickson led Harry out into the hallway and explained everything: Two broken ribs, a total of 42 stitches, bruising all over your body, a concussion, some nerve damage that should reverse with time, and various fractures throughout your limbs.

“Why does she have so many fractures? She doesn’t have any sort of weakening in her bones that I know of.” Harry could understand the other injuries, but the physical abuse shouldn’t have caused this many fractures.

“When she was electrocuted, her muscles contracted. The fractures are all around the areas where she was restrained. Because of her limbs being restrained, these muscle contractions couldn’t move as much, resulting in the fracturing. While this means she will have to have help doing a lot for anywhere between 6 - 10 weeks, it’s better than what could have happened.”

“And what would that be, Dr.Erickson?”

“To put it plainly, if Unwin hadn’t turned off the current when he did, (Y/N) could have suffered neuropathy, severe or irreversible damage to her nerves, or, she could have died.”

The thought of you dying shook Harry to his core. Losing his little girl, his rare butterfly, would be something that he could possibly never recover from.

He knew he shouldn’t show emotions other than gratitude in front of the doctor. So he held out his hand and tried to move along.

“Well, thank you very much for all your work, Dr. Erickson. If any red flags are raised, I shall reach out to you, yes?”

Dr. Erickson shook Harry’s hand, nodded, and left, leaving Harry in the hallway outside of your room. He stood there for a moment, taking a couple of grounding breaths before silently going back into your recovery room. He placed a chair next to your bed and gently took your least injured hand in his. Harry closed his eyes and kept breathing.

You were getting taken care of by professionals. You were safe. You were alive. And you wouldn’t be any of those things if it weren’t for Eggsy.

Speaking of Eggsy, Harry could hear a pair of oxfords coming down the hallway in a rushed manner. Within seconds, Eggsy appeared in the doorway with a visible amount of anxiety radiating off of him. He saw your sleeping form on the bed and his breath caught in his throat. Harry motioned towards the other chair in the room, and Eggsy moved and quietly placed it next to Harry’s before all but collapsing into it.

There was a moment of silence as the two men looked over your many layers of gauze and bruises; Eggsy couldn’t help but feel his heart sink.

“Harry, I am so sorry that this happened. If I hadn’t suggested that we split up, or if I would have been able to disable Ioan’s weapons quicker, she wouldn’t have--” Harry put up his free hand to silence him.

“Eggsy, please,” Harry looked at the man and began to say what he had mentally prepared since you arrived back at HQ, “the two of you were given an incredibly difficult mission to manage with only two agents. This mission showcased yours and (Y/N)’s strengths. In retrospect, however, this mission should have had at least two more agents along with you. That being said, you both did everything in your power and the mission still ended in a success, from a broad perspective.”

There was another pause as Harry stood up and motioned for Eggsy to take his spot. Eggsy looked questioningly at Harry, but moved anyway. Harry then took Eggsy’s seat and continued, keeping his gaze on your face.

“You also kept your promise. You didn’t risk the mission. You didn’t give up. You did everything you could to save her from Funar and from herself. You saved her life. If she--”

It was really hitting Harry, again, how close he came to losing you. He had to clear his throat and blink back a few tears to keep himself in line in front of Eggsy.

“According to Dr. Erickson, if (Y/N) was exposed to that electricity for much longer, she would have died.”

Eggsy felt all of the air get sucked from his chest. He looked back at you and reached for your hand. A tear threatened to spill as he thought of everything that could have gone wrong.

“She should wake up soon. Until then, I believe we need to discuss (Y/N)’s prognosis and how we will have to help her, yes?” Eggsy tilted his head down a moment before nodding to Harry.

“Yeah. Anythin’ I can do, I’ll do my best.” Harry glanced at your hand in Eggsy’s before reaching for the medical chart at the end of your bed.

Harry knew Eggsy had potential when he chose him to be his proposal for Lancelot’s position awhile back. Watching him mature and flourish throughout his Kingsman career made him really believe that. But for Harry, seeing Eggsy take care of the most important thing in his life, you? That was all the proof he needed.

Tags - @melconnor2007 @ashenfallsof @geeksareunique  @witchymarvelspacecase @theeactress @thomasstanleyhoelland @white-chocolate-mocha-fan  @castellandiangelo 

[stellar-stag]

Wow it’s been a while since I did a personal update here huh

I’ve honestly transitioned a lot of my venting/personal stuff to twitter

(I promise I havent abandoned you for my furry friends)

(I kinda have)

(I totally have)

(sorry)

But I feel like the last couple months have been a whirlwind for me, so I may as well keep y’all in the loop. I’m gonna sort these by topic.

First off, I had some issues with my romantic feelings. There’s a guy, a very very good friend, who is just fantastic in so many ways. Friendly and kind and supportive, progressive and enthusiastic, and shares so many of my interests. Seems natural that I would fall for him, right?

Well I did, and it resulted in a lot of emotional duress.

He has a girlfriend, and I knew this going in, but I didn’t fight my attachment. In the process of admitting my feelings to him and working through everything, I learned a lot about myself and got some practice in controlling my emotional state and how I react to things. But I also relied on him as an emotional crutch and used him for validation, especially during some particularly low emotional points, which is unfair to him. It is only because he is immensely understanding that we remain close friends, and this could have easily resulted in disaster.

But through this process I have grown, and identified a new issue blocking me from being of completely sound mind: Low self-esteem and reliance on others for validation. During my more anxious periods, I would slip into joking self-deprecation, and somewhere along the way it stopped being so joking. But surely, now that I’m taking meds for anxiety it would stop, right? Well, no. Turns out, even if I stopped consciously having thoughts of “Wow, I’m so bad at this”, I didn’t automatically gain appreciation or acceptance of myself. This manifests in a particularly dangerous manner when guys who are attractive are nice to me. 

I end up conflating kindness with romantic intent, and decide that obviously, if someone doesn’t have romantic interest in me, I must be irreparably flawed in some way. This is bullshit, and I consciously understand that, but my subconscious doesn’t play by the rules. So I end up in a self-loathing spiral that only manifests in periods of intense romantic desire, and a month later I’m exhausted, bruised, and have run the risk of alienating those around me who care about me.

So how to fix it? I suppose I’ll need to work on drawing validation from within, so that rejection feels less of a condemnation of my character and everything I am. It won’t be simple, to be sure, but understanding the issue is the key to overcoming it. 

Here’s hoping.

Secondly: I started working out! As of today, March 24th, I have been to the gym 12 times this month (half the days, holy shit) and thats because I, last week, decided to go from 3 workouts a week to 5, solely because I wanted to. If you told me a year ago that I would, of sound mind and body and my own volition, wake up every weekday at 5:45am to go workout for an hour, and enjoy the experience, I would have called you a liar. 

But I am, and I do. I think it’s benefitting my mental health and self confidence, and I’m thankful that I’m in a place where its even an option. This is only possible due to a coalition of so many factors: A free gym in my office and a natural predilection to waking up early to remove barriers, I started taking Vyvanse in January to aid in my attention issues (not sure if I have ADD/ADHD or what, but it’s helping me remained focused in all aspects of my life and for that I am grateful). And, of course, two people who aided in the impetus for beginning and making it a habit: My dad, for giving me crippling self-worth issues my entire life and then visiting in February and criticizing my health and weight (because I was sweating after walking up a hill, which more and more I realize is not actually an indicator of my exertion! I am just a person who sweats easily, and its more a function of temperature and endocrine system than anything else) and giving me the sheer spite to begin working out, and the guy I was crushing on (who is intensely into working out, and I wanted to impress him. Yeah, I was hella thirsty. Sue me). 

Regardless of the reasoning, I found that (once I cut cardio because seriously, fuck cardio), I enjoy working out in the mornings. It’s calming to wake up by exertion and then cool down slowly at my desk before other people even wake up. It’s given rise to a ritual of sorts where I get to my desk, deal with my emails, make breakfast and tea, all before anyone shows up, so that I can really hit the ground running. And more than that, I don’t have a goal in mind. I’m doing this because I know it’s good for me and I want to be healthy, and I enjoy the exertion and following “good” tiredness. If I was trying to lose weight or trim  fat, or stuck only to cardio, I would have given up by now. But its a habit, and I love it, and I’m sleeping better, eating better, and feeling better.

Again, this is only possible because of an alignment of several factors, but I’m thankful for it, and I’m glad I got out of the mindset that “workouts must suck but people do them because they wanna lose weight”. You don’t gotta do anything you don’t want to do, and I wish I had realized that sooner. Im feeling way better about my body, even, because despite the fact that I haven’t lost weight or gotten trimmer from working out, I know I’m eating (pretty) well and working out, and that my body does everything I need it to. I can take pride in the callouses on my hands and the soreness of my body, because they’re proof of dedication, exertion, and effort, and those are way better things to feel good about than shape and size, anyways. If people think I’m unhealthy because I have fat, they can suck it.

Thirdly, I’ve begun looking for a condo to buy! Housing in the bay area is STUPID EXPENSIVE (and yes everyone knows this, and I know this, but it bears repeating). But I can put a down payment on a one bedroom in a good location, and I’m prequalified for a loan, and I just need to keep waiting and pouncing on leads. I think I’ll be happier living by myself with a kitchen to myself, and still going out to social events to prevent becoming a hermit. Plus, with this setup I can maybe bring dudes back and not have to show them the pigsty that is our living room or the shoebox that is my bedroom. I was terrified at the start of this process, but my mom and the realtor have been awesome about taking this step by step and ensuring nothing is confusing or surprising, which is sweet.

Fourthly, possibly because I’ve been taking Vyvanse but also possibly because I’ve finally begun understanding what the hell I’ve been doing, I’ve really hit my groove at work. The project I’m working on is complex but interesting, challenging but well understood, and I don’t feel alone but still get to feel a sense of ownership. It’s not the most fulfilling thing ever (I don’t know that working on payments platforms for a corporation ever will be) but I enjoy work, I don’t loathe going to work, and despite the fact that I was sick as a dog all this week, I came in everyday (after working out) to work full productive days, and I was happy at the end of each of them, more or less. Its not perfect but its head and shoulders above what most people get from their jobs, and I’m immensely fortunate to be in this position.

Fifthly, this is more a continuation of already known things, but I’m making cool friends in the furry fandom. I’ve made good friends, some who I hope I will keep as friends for the rest of my life, and I’ve already made plans to go to Reno in June and Disneyworld in November to hang out and have fun with them. As nerve wracking as being an adult is sometimes, the freedom is something I wouldn’t trade for anything. 

Sixthly, I’ve been taking a creative writing workshop in SF! It finished last weekend and I’m happy to not need to commute each week anymore, but I learned a lot about reading like a writer and choices you can make as a writer to achieve desired effects. The workshop focuses on narrators and how who is telling the story tells it, and the model they use for exercises is SO HELPFUL. We would read an excerpt of something, discuss how the narrator/choices/tense/mood all work together, and then we would write something in a similar format about whatever we wanted. Lemme tell yall, that is so much more helpful to me as a student than just prompts. Having a guide to format is like drawing from references, its helpful and and great for learning and gives you the tools to make your own things later on. I highly recommend it, and I can’t wait to get back to my book. 

Got a lot of art to make first, though. I’ve definitely improved a lot in artistic skill and confidence, and I’m loving finding niche styles that I like and mimicking them. The stained glass pic I posted yesterday is proof of that, I feel. Its drawn from Mucha and various real life stained glass windows and a bit from Kingdom Hearts, but I took these and the tools at my disposal and wove it into something that feels complete. I figured out how to apply a cloudy “glass” texture, glows, stabilization, symmetry tools, pattern design, and more all through the process, and I know theres so much room to iterate and grow, in shading and coloring and proportion. But even knowing I have room to grow, I’m proud of what I put out and I put a lot of my heart into that piece (yes, its a birthday gift for workout boy. Shut up). I think I’m going to accept commissions for pictures in this style, even. It’s great fun.

So yeah, the last couple of months have been intense. I’ve had ups and downs, but I’ve learned and grown a lot, and I think I’m in a really good place in my life right now, and I hope that every one of you achieves a similar level of peace.

[arabellaflynn]

I keep going through cycles where I try to convince myself that there's nothing wrong with me, I'm just a lazy sod, and I'm whining over nothing. Symptoms are subjective. Nobody likes getting up early in the morning, they do it anyway. Nobody likes hot muggy weather, but they don't let themselves melt into a useless puddle on the bed all afternoon. Then shit happens, and I am reminded that not only are all the things I think are wrong with me actually wrong with me, I am usually introduced to a brand-new symptom that I didn't even fucking know was a thing. The tech who did my hip imaging mentioned in passing that low body temperature was a known feature of EDS. Judging from the comments I got when the nurse couldn't get an IV into me last week, and the fact that she tried to fix that by heaping me with heated blankets, I don't just think my hands and feet are always cold, or feel chilled when I'm short on sleep, I actually am having temperature regulation issues. I have kind of given up on asking people to diagnose me officially and just started telling medical people I have Ehlers-Danlos. If they ask where I got the diagnosis, I say 'me'. It hasn't started an outright argument yet, but I'm waiting. A word on medical self-diagnosis: Don't. If you want a few more words on it, don't bother unless you've already exhausted all the reasonable options, are willing (and able) to essentially put yourself through med school lite via getting your university-affiliated friends to steal things off PubMed for you, and are willing to concede the argument to your actual doctor if in fact you turn out to be wrong. Because you will turn out to be wrong a lot, and while your doctor might not actually know what you have, s/he probably has a better idea of what will outright kill you than some random yobbo who put a FAQ up on Squarespace and called it a day. This is also one of those things where I'm going to go 'do as I say, not as I do'. I've gotten away with a lot of incredibly dumbass things in my life. The fact that I'm here to tell you about them is just survivor bias. If any one of them hadn't worked out, you wouldn't be hearing the story. There's a phrase in medicine: "When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras". There are horses all over the world, but zebras only live in one chunk of Africa. If you hear something clopping up to your boring suburban practice, the odds that it's anything but your average everyday horse are extremely low. The odds of it being a zebra, however, are not zero. They do exist somewhere. Ehlers-Danlos patients have adopted "zebra" as a sort of collective nickname. The best research I can find gives a rate of 0.02-0.04%, although that's probably way low -- the severity of symptoms varies from person to person, and it's possible to just not have any idea there's a reason why your elbows pop backwards. So far all of the other medically bendy people I've run into weren't diagnosed until well into adulthood, simply because nobody thought to ask. There's no good lab test for hypermobility type, which is the one I have. They can test for genetic markers, but unlike some of the other varieties, HT is not associated with any one specific mutation, so it's kind of worthless. I am quite sure I have it anyway. It is the only potential diagnosis I've ever run into that I can explain without having to involve the phrase, "but I'm weird." Take anxiety, for example. The definition of an anxiety disorder is "huge amounts of anxiety that may or may not have any relation to reality or logic, but are nevertheless ruining your life," so I definitely have that. It's listed on my records as "anxiety disorder NOS" i.e., 'not otherwise specified', because it doesn't really fit any of the standard listings. Most anxiety is at least partly psychogenic -- you talk yourself into having panic attacks, or at least have a hard time asserting enough logic to talk yourself out of them. There's an emotional element of sheer terror. People who have panic attacks have been known to mistake them for heart attacks or strokes and hie themselves to the ER, more than once. They're not stupid, and they don't think the doctor's incompetent; it's just that when you're in the middle of it, the fear convinces you that, yeah, the first three turned out not to be pulmonary embolism after all, but what if this is the one you can't ignore?  I always weirded out the psych personnel, because I don't do that. I always know what it is, I know that I'm not dying, and I know what they can give me to fix it. My stress levels are obviously high at that point, but it's always over some kind of life events that are legitimately stressful. 'Talking myself out of it' doesn't work because there's nothing to argue with myself about: I know I'm not in mortal danger, it just doesn't make any difference. When something startles me, first I hit the ceiling. Then, a few milliseconds later when it's time to file the Incident Report, my brain scrawls some completely random shit on the form, jams it in the outbox, and congratulates itself on a job well done. It immediately gets bunged through the reality tester, where it fails harder than an absentee stoner in a DiffEq course ("Mr Amygdala, you cannot throw the entire system into panic mode every time the Weather Service flies a Cessna overhead, on the grounds that it -- and I quote -- 'might be carrying a nuclear payload.' Unquote."), but it doesn't matter. The fight-or-flight thing is off and running. And I can't withdraw to calm down, because by that point, I am startled by almost literally everything in the entire universe, and there just isn't enough time between the air molecules giving me jump scares. Ehlers-Danlos is the only diagnosis I have ever found that would make all of the bizarre things I run into on a daily basis completely normal. It doesn't just explain all the crazy seemingly-unrelated shit that goes wrong, it also explains a lot of the crazy seemingly-unrelated shit that goes right. I span several Fächer in singing -- I'm not record-breaking or anything, but if I'm in regular practice, I can sing most of "Phantom of the Opera" by myself, less the Phantom's bottom note, and Christine's top 1-2 whistle voice shrieks. EDS is a collection of mutations affecting collagen production, and I bet you can guess what vocal cords are made of. The ability to hit the specific note I'm aiming for is a matter of practice, but I have extra singing range in my voice for the same reason I have extra rotational range in my hip joints. from Blogger http://ift.tt/2nrkCm7 via IFTTT -------------------- Enjoy my writing? Consider becoming a Patron, subscribing via Kindle, or just toss a little something in my tip jar. Thanks!

[underwish]

two years since D.C.

this is very long but it kind of just poured out of me (tw for eating disorders, mental illness)

My life-changing moment occurred several weeks and also many months before my life changed. Let me explain.

 It was the crispest, coldest morning as I made way across the town and in and out of lyrics and past the most important House in our country. Breathless, I arrived as the sky was turning from pink. Within seconds it was steel blue, cold gray, and my blood, which had been churning to the rhythm of the newest Kendrick Lamar, began to freeze.

It was 6:00 a.m. at the Washington Monument, and I got in line behind a dozen or so people who had somehow arrived even earlier than I did. I had relished the long walk from my apartment over a mile away – my parents and younger brother were in town, visiting me at the close of my work-study program in the nation’s capitol, and I was petrified that their presence would keep me from my daily gym visits. Each day, I’d run on the treadmill to the point of dizziness – and then run some more.

My desire to be thin wasn’t at its peak. That had occurred several months earlier, while I was still studying at my main university and had nurtured a full-fledged eating disorder that I was only partially “recovered” from. Well, in my own eyes I was recovered; I now fed myself, at least, although with a meticulous obsession that kept me right toeing the line between healthy and “underfed.” Hence, the daily dizzy attacks on my local YMCA’s treadmill.

And here I was, bundled up within an inch of my life (or so the California girl in me thought) waiting to get tickets for the Washington Monument as part of a full day of D.C. adventuring with my parents. The ticket office didn’t open until 8, and I whiled away the next hour and a half while my body slowly numbed.

I was frantic, overwhelmed by the cold, when I finally obtained four tickets. I was starving, having devoured a single Kind bar while in line (another aspect of my diet was this measure of control: if I knew I’d be out and about all day with no access to food, I’d purposely pack very little, therefore forcing myself to spend a day on single granola bars or a piece of fruit.)

At this point, families of tourists were beginning to arrive in throngs around the miles of Smithsonian museum grounds, and I hurried past people in an effort to get someplace warm. I ended up in the quaint Smithsonian House, essentially a visitor’s center, and took refuge on a bench in a large hall.

I slowly took stock of my body. I couldn’t get warm, and yet I was sweating profusely. My heart was racing. My feet and toes were tingling, and not out of cold – in fact, this was something that had been happening to me regularly over the past several months, in addition to bouts of insomnia, night sweats (and on one occasion witnessed by my poor roommate, night screaming) and migraine headaches. All of this had begun to pile on top of the constant exhaustion I’d felt for years, despite regular nights of 14-hour sleep.

And so, sitting in the middle of the visitor’s center, I pulled out my phone and resorted to one of my favorite games: Web MD. I frantically Googled my symptoms (dizziness, tingling hands and feet, racing heart) and my eyes landed on hyperglycemia. Pre-diabetes, I read, high blood sugar – all of my symptoms checked out.

I’m going to jump the timeline here and interject: I was not, nor have I ever been, hyperglycemic or pre-diabetic. But during that March morning, I was so determined to ignore what was right in front of my face, my body’s cry for help, that I was more willing to think I had become pre-diabetic than realize I was suffering from intense anxiety and depression (combined with my newfound eating disorder, of course.)

My family wasn’t due to meet me at the Smithsonian until 9 (and they, of course, were also running late), and so I spent the next hour or so combing the Internet for more information on hyperglycemia. 

It was then, however, that – despite my actual lack of this serious medical condition – I had a breakthrough. In trying to understand how I could have let me body get into such a condition, I read an article discussing how eating disorders and restrictive eating can lead to diabetes.

Oh my god, I thought, in only a year I’ve already wreaked incurable damage on my own body. 

I believed that I was pre-diabetic and that this was the result of the days without any food, of the hunger pains and the excessive exercise. And I was floored, absolutely terrified. The fear increased as I read about diabetes, about what I thought I had done to myself.

And it was then I decided, with sudden, startling clarity, to eat. A tiny voice spoke logic, for once: you need to eat.

It wasn’t that simple, of course. First, I had spent months (and, I later realized, years on a more subtle level) obsessively controlling everything that went into (and occasionally out of) my stomach. Trying to flip the switch and give myself permission to eat was anything but easy, and the next week was spent fighting off small panic attacks with every calorie.

I “allowed” myself an ice cream cone on a freezing day in Virginia; I ate the bread put out on a restaurant table; I even swallowed a spoonful of honey, one night before bed when my heart was racing and I was positive my body was shutting down. The honey, I read online, would hopefully stop me from slipping into a diabetic coma overnight.

In retrospect, it’s so obviously ridiculous. Not only my sudden confidence that I had this particularly complicated medical issue, but the fact that I was silent about it – to my friends, my boyfriend, and most of all my parents, who didn’t see my ribcage through my heavy winter coat and who saw me eat bread and ice cream like any other 21-year old girl. 

And my symptoms, as you may have guessed, did not disappear. I returned to Los Angeles, my home, with my family about a week later. I was officially finished with college. As our taxi pulled away from LAX, I rolled down the window and inhaled the humid air, positive that now, in the warm embrace of my home, I could begin to cure myself. 

I made a doctor’s appointment. Sitting on the papered examining chair, I confidently explained my symptoms and subsequent self-diagnosis with a nurse, and then my doctor. I asked to have my blood tested, and they obliged. I was so excited, in a way, to have confirmation of a physical defect in my system that had caused all of my aches and pains.

Instead, the doctor returned to tell me that my blood sugar was totally fine. All of my other vitals, in fact, were great. There was nothing physically wrong with me. 

My doctor sat down and asked me, gently, if there could be something else going on. The discussion is a blur now: I remember the spike in my heart rate, fighting to keep tears from my eyes as the doctor asked me if I’d been feeling depressed. If anxiety ran in my family. If I was battling an eating disorder.

In the past year I’ve seen a crop of articles addressing the stigmatization of mental illness. People are starting to become more outspoken about their struggles. But I, an already intensely secretive and uncommunicative person, was barely able to nod along with my doctor at the time. I had hardly addressed my mental illness in my own head; saying it out loud felt like the world would crumble all around me.

 But I’ve always communicated best when forced to answer a direct question, and my doctor’s clinical, straightforward nature allowed me to finally admit and accept what had been hurting me for many years: I was extremely depressed and I had very high anxiety (both of these sparked the night sweats, the headaches, the tingling and the sleep problems) and I was battling an eating disorder.

I was prescribed Lexapro, as well as Xanax to help with my intense anxiety before the anti-depressant kicked in. I was referred to a therapist. My second breakthrough, this clarity of the fight I was up against, had occurred -- several weeks after my initial breakthrough that led me to feed myself.

It’s very much worth explaining that after this wasn’t suddenly a sunny, fixed world. In fact, it’s been two years of figuring out the right meds, the right doses and the right therapist. And it took a long time for any of my symptoms – physical symptoms caused by my depression and anxiety – to go away.

I still get bouts of tension headaches or migraines when I have stressful or anxious days. I am constantly working on my communication, my honesty with those who matter to me. I still have a difficult relationship with alcohol, and a difficult relationship with food and exercise. And I still battle the stigma that comes with acknowledging mental illnesses and the drugs used to fight them.

But I have come so far in the past two years. Exactly two years ago, in late March 2015, I was suffering on a level that seems incomprehensible, foreign to the girl I am today. I’m happily on a low-level of antidepressants (Cymbalta finally did the trick for me), and I still need a Xanax in certain anxiety-inducing situations (hello, crowded, dark, loud movie theaters!)

And that is okay.

I’ve reached the point in writing this piece where I’m not sure how it ends, but I suppose I want to leave whoever is reading this with some hope for their future, if they’re going through anything similar. I very much understand not wanting to speak up about mental health struggles – which is why it took an almost-stranger, my very professional doctor, to pull the truth out of me. So if you ever need some anonymous advice or help, please feel free to ask me.

I don’t remember his exact words, but my doctor wrapped up our conversation that day by explaining that anxiety and depression were a physical, medical condition. He affirmed my right to seek help and told me it would get better. There have been many times since then where I did not believe him, but turns out – he was right. I got better.

[twopintsandaprayer]

i’m going to mainline some tylenol and forget that this whole afternoon existed

I see a therapist, like a real live person, at the beginning of may. I’m so utterly petrified that I’m going to say the wrong thing and undermine the help that I need. I wish, like I always do, like I have always, always wished that I knew the right thing to say and the right way to act. I need to be honest, and calm, and somehow condense my 20 plus years of medical history and my fucked-up family life into a succinct, half-hour session. I have to trust this person immediately, be open, be attentive. that’s ...a tall order. like I said, I’m petrified that I won’t say what I’m supposed to in order to make my case and I’ll be dropped from priority. I come across as....well, as not really that ill.  My psychiatrist called me defensive and combative. which I am. it’s not a pleasant trait but my god its firmly in there.  I’ve been living with depression since I was about 10 but it’s not...not very visible. It takes a very long time for that sadness to be apparent to someone else. It comes across as hostility and nihilistic humour, to be honest. I don’t like admitting it to myself, how deeply this combination of futility/self-loathing goes. It comes on like it’s never left. I think I failed my exam today. I’ve been contemplating dropping out of school completely because I don’t really see the point in continuing. the margin for error is so so small and I am unforgiving towards any mistakes when I could have tried so much harder. I don’t really know how to fight, you know? And it’s all so horrible, self-reinforcing. I know, point-blank, I have no reason to be like this. Yeah, emotional abuse from my father and my mother probably is autistic and is entirely too logical and judgmental for a fuck up like me as a daughter. also she was horribly horribly emotionally abused for like, a long ass time. - like I learned no coping skills or emotional regulation and I have like, negative self-worth and I have always been super super intense, childish, and the last to pick up on any emotional cues. that’s all pretty small stuff though, like everyone has a shitty childhood? my life has been pretty privileged, I cannot deny that at all. my psychiatrist keeps looking for trauma, reasons for me being like this. I don’t...really know how to explain to him that there’s no real reason, I’ve just always been this way. too loud, too close, too possessive, too needy, too young, too slow, too judgmental, too constantly seeking validation. Wholly, completely self-centered. Emotionally manipulative. I look into my memories and there is barely anything real, it’s all just a miasma of anxiety and talking over people. like, I don’t remember what things were like when I liked myself? I must have, at some point. I don’t remember when doing stuff didn’t fill me with fear, when the memories of good times weren’t tainted by my fuckups. And the constant, constant need to be liked, to have some kind of purpose, connection, something real. Some reason to keep getting up and putting myself through all this. The amount of friendships I have ruined or that have slipped through my fingers, or I have undervalued, or I have strained, just by being me. I never, ever, know it’s going to happen until it does. There’s an inevitability to it. I mean, my father was a lovely person, until you got to know him. He would give you the shirt off his back but he’d never, ever apologize for anything. We were all happier when he lived on a separate continent. IK mean, we talked all the time and we saw him a couple times a year. But the day to day living? That’s...that’s the kind of distance my presence requires. He knew he made us that unhappy. He was so terribly unhappy himself. He had plenty of reasons. I miss him a lot. We’re basically the same person. Unhappiness just kind of oozes out, infecting everyone around us. It’s hard to see at first. But it’s there. You feel it once you get to know me. 

How do I describe that to someone I don’t know? I can barely describe it to myself. I can barely type it without crying. How inevitable and ingrained this unhappiness is. And there’s no reason for it. It’s just...it’s like I’m missing something. Some piece of humanity that would make me real. That would make what I do sincere and normal. I know I have an issue with boundaries. I know I come across way way way way too much way too quickly.  It’s been a constant refrain since I was about 10: if only I didn’t need people, I would be all right. I don’t know what I’ve done until after the fact, until its too late. Needless, endless apologies should be my tagline. 

it’s just so horribly lonely. I’m so tired of being alone. I’m constantly trapped by and surrounded by my own self-hatred. It’s so cliche it makes me sick of myself. I don’t have any reason to be this hard on myself. I don’t have any reason to be this depressed. I can barely qualify as having depression. I just ...don’t see any point? Of living? Of trying?  I don’t remember what it was like not to feel this way. I don’t think I was ever normal. 

it’s this constant struggle of ‘I have a mental illness’ and ‘no i’m just lazy and entitled and I don’t want to do the work I just want perfect results’ and ‘I don’t have a legitimate reason to be this way’ and ‘I really cannot handle this for another second’. My whole family is the type to say they’re fine when they are literally crying their eyes out/in severe amounts of pain/ready to collapse/at their limits. everything’s fine, fine, fine, always fine. 

i do know that in the end, the only one who can save me is me. i just don’t really see any reason to. Like, I keep grasping at straws? I can’t kill myself though, I can’t do that to my mother or my brother. The thought of living for another 40 years (I mean, my diabetic complications will probably get me sooner than that) just feels me with dread and exhaustion though. The primary reason I don’t want to have kids (other than medical, cause I’m on too much medication that’s rough on a fetus) is because I don’t want to be resentful towards my kid for having to stay alive for them. Who can I say that to? How horrible does that make me sound? What a fucking load of shite, I’m so full of it. For some stupid reason, I thought things would just be better? I thought being on meds, and having a stable life, and being back at school after fucking it up so badly the first time, that I’d be better? 

It’s a wasteland, though. The space between not wanting to live and not being able to die. It takes such constant effort to keep all my shit in check. everythin just spilling out everywhere. 

But I’m just...like this. This is just the way that I am. I’m so sick of myself. I can’t fully put it into words how much I hate myself. All these opportunities and possibilities and a life that’s been free of trauma and responsibilities, and I’m just ...kind of a waste? A big ole burden on my family and friends? It’s...the weight of that makes it hard to breathe. It makes it really hard to try to do anything and it’s so fucking stupid. Just this big old cycle of never ending uselessness. I don’t really believe I can do anything. Everything, friendships, communication, school work, organizing shit, engaging with things, meeting up with friends, keeping my life together. All of it is ...more than I’m really able to handle. Everything’s a bit too much? Like i was supposed to tell my bank that I’m a student by november. I got the letter and everything. 

I just never went with it to the bank. 

Still haven’t. 

Thats such a microcosm for my life. All the materials, all the ability, all the chances, all the ducks lined up in a row and then...nothing. Just a disappointment and a missed chance. 

I can’t believe I’m 32. Nothing but my own self-hatred to keep me company from here on it.  Well. And my cats. I am though, a bad cat owner. keeping these hellbeasts inside is more than I am capable of. Haha, that’s pretty low on the priority list though. 

This is the work that I need to do. I don’t have a clue how to approach it. That’s what I need help with. Finding something to hold on too. It’s getting harder and harder as I get older. It shouldn’t, because my life is actually so much better now that it was. The bad stuff just gets harder and harder to walk back from. I think it’s the loneliness? I wish I wasn’t so horribly horribly lonely. My choices are always, do it alone or don’t do anything at all. Reach out and be rejected. Reach out and panic when someone reaches back. Reach out and alienate the person forever. Reach out and be told it was not my place. Fail, again and again to differentiate. Fail, again and again to learn. 

anyway. Tylenol. sleep. one more week of exams. 

my marks are going to be so horrible this year. 

[jbmcdonald-blog]

More blog than anything, but...

I think I’ve seen tumblr used as a blog...? I had an author blog, but it’s pretty much defunct at this point. These are thinky thoughts, but lacking a blog I use on a regular basis, I might as well have my thinky thoughts here. ;)

So. In Real Life, I pay my bills by training dogs. It’s a great happenstance that I managed to be really good at two things in life: writing and dog training. It’s a small miracle that I like both and can make a living at one while still working on the other.

Again, IRL, I’m one of the only dog trainers in the SF Bay area that will work with dogs who are aggressive toward people. (I heard a rumor years ago there was another, and I think there must be one slightly farther south, but I’m not sure. My asking around hasn’t gained me much.) As it happens, I also have VERY good results. So, enough backstory so you know what’s going on: 10:30 at night, July 3rd, I was driving home and saw a collar-less old dog (I thought) wandering just about half a mile from my house. Being me, I stopped to pick him up. Only because of my heavy background in dog behavior, body language, training, and aggression, did I spot there was An Aggression Problem. By the end of this week, shuffling through clues (behavioral, factual, vet-opined, and various other ways) I now believe he was a failed fighting dog (because he’s too nice to succeed at that), around 3 years of age, badly abused as an adult but not a puppy, able to be rehabilitated, and needing lots of vet care. So the last week has been setting up a gofundme and posting everywhere asking for help (please please please do not start asking me questions and whatnot without checking the gofundme link for answers, because they’re probably there - I’ll post it in another post), working heavily with the dog to make him safe, testing him out with my amazing, awesome, wonderful dogs (I owe them several steak dinners at this point), taking him to and from the vet an hour plus away (because that vet, those techs, receptionists, etc know me in my dog training form, and will let me do things they would NEVER let anyone do -- “Hey, guys, I’m bringing in a pittie who’s afraid of people and will growl and lunge if you look at him too long. It’s cool if we don’t muzzle him, right? I promise I’ll walk you through not getting bit. 0:D” Which, in turn, helps dramatically with rehabilitating), answering questions, sending thank-yous for donations, and ever more training. Also, not sleeping well.

ALL THAT is just the backstory.

Basically, it’s like when people want me to re-train their dog who also happens to need vet care. Except I’m not getting paid, so I can’t hire done the obnoxious life stuff I now have no time for, like cleaning the house. Since Dog (Flea, actually) is also intact and has never been in a house before, this means he’s also being destructo-dog and marking, so I have to watch him like a hawk when he’s inside. This is not relaxing. To relax I put him in his crate or outside, and then deal with my guilt. >.>

ALL THIS to say, I’m basically overworked. Normally, my life is like this: 1 week per month I board dogs. Every other month or so, I board for two weeks. When I’m not boarding dogs, I try to write minimum 4 hours per week.

Right now, I have the work of boarding, without the pay, and feeling like I should write. Okay, now we get to the meat of my post.

When I’m overworked, I veg out. I don’t write well. I watch TV and play Candy Crush, and then wonder why I have a headache. It can’t be staring at screens, surely. >.> Now, this is the exact opposite of what’s good for me. I mean, this is good for me for a day to two, to unwind and relax. But after that, I do much better if I’m writing/blogging/walking dogs/being productive. Right now is my “writing time.” It’s easy enough to leave the house so I can get that done, but do I do it? Nooooo. I feel guilt over what I think I “should” be doing (working with Flea every minute of the day, except when I’m working with my own dogs because they need to know they’re not being replaced, except except when I’m actually working or cleaning the house, except except except when I’m getting my horse out), which makes me less productive instead of more so, which makes me bury myself in TV and Candy Crush, and then I stay up too late, wake up too late, drag through the day, am too tired to function except for TV and Candy Crush, feel guilt, stay up too late, wake up too late...

Healthy: Getting exercise (which, I swear to god, is a word I will NEVER BE ABLE TO SPELL). Going to bed on time. Writing if it’s writing weeks, working with dogs if it’s boarding weeks. Have some downtime, with as little screen time as possible - especially in the evenings.

The totally 100% self destructive cycle: what I am currently doing.

Today is a great example: Me: I should get up and either take Flea out to socialize, my dogs out to walk, write, or go see my pony for pony therapy. Also me: Yes, I should. Let’s play Candy Crush. Me: Wait-- that’s not-- ooooh, look, shiny. Also me: Right? You deserve this break. You’ve earned this break. Your life is haaaaaarrrrrrrd. Me: ...I got out of bed four hours ago and all I’ve done is thirty minutes of emailing and texting clients and three and a half hours of playing Candy Crush or watching Lost In Space. Or as I like to say, LOOOOOOSST IIIIIIIN SPAAAAAACE! Also me: LOOK! SHINY! Me: I really do need to get to work. This argument has been going on for an hour now. Also me: Fuck that. Me: No! Work! Look, if you just get up, you can have sugary cream with a little coffee in it. Also me: Just play until this life is over. Me: Okay, I’m all out of lives. I should-- Also me: Facebook! Let’s just check Facebook really quick! Me: I need to GET UP. Just GET UP. Then you can even sit back down. Also me: But then what will you do? Walk your dogs? You’re running out of time in the day, now. If you walk your dogs, you may not have time to write. Me: Then I’ll write. Also me: But your dogs have been cooped up, and you know Lily gets depressed if she doesn’t get out. Oh, and don’t forget you have to do Cash’s physical therapy. You missed yesterday. Me: And I only got the exercises for him two days ago... Also me: So, so far, utter failure there. Look, Candy Crush has reloaded another life... and if you just delay for five minutes, it’ll load ANOTHER life. Me: ...I should get up and do something. Also me: But what will you choose to do, therefore choosing not to do something else? Me: I’m going to get my dogs out and then go see my pony. I’ll enjoy that. Also me: So that’s the priority now? I thought you were making writing a priority? Me: Okay, so I’ll write FIRST, then-- Also me: Oh, so you’re going to run the risk that you won’t get the animals taken care of today? Shouldn’t they be your priority? Their lives, health, and happiness depend on you. They’re ALIVE. They should ALWAYS be the priority. Me: Okay, so first I’ll take Flea to the park for socializing. Then I’ll write, get the pony out, and take dogs walking when it’s cooler, this evening. Also Me: You know you often end up skipping the last thing. Are you prioritizing this new dog over your own dogs? Me: ...what? Also me: Just saying, which is more important? New dog or your dogs? Me: ...I... Also me: Or the horse? She’s in a box stall. She’s cooped up unless you get her out. Do you think she’s happy like that? Me: Okay, pony first, then-- Also me: YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE PRIORITIZING WRITING. Me: *sits down in defeat and plays Candy Crush or watches TV for the rest of the day.*

I read once, recently, in somethingorother on how to talk to people, that the second you say “Yes, but” what you’re really saying is, “No,” or “I disagree,” or “you’re wrong.” I’ve held that up whenever I want to say “Yes, but” to someone, and found that it’s not always true. But (haha), it’s definitely true for me in this situation.

Furthermore, I know that if I get up and start doing something, anything, I’ll continue doing more things, and I’ll feel better. That doesn’t help actually get me up, though. I know that if i keep sitting there, I won’t do any of it and I’ll be unhappy and the cycle will continue. That doesn’t help, either. I know that to make myself happier, I need to get up and be productive, and/or exercise, and/or eat better, etc. It doesn’t make me do it.

My dad has been in AA for most of my life. (34 years? Something like that.) He talks about his drinking days, and thinking, “Just put the glass down, you don’t need another sip,” and then taking another sip as if his arm belonged to someone else. I get that. It’s exactly how this feels, especially once the cycle starts. Normally I can help end the cycle by taking a day or two and going to my honey’s house, leaving my dogs (and even boarders) with my assistant trainer for a night or two. This time I can’t even do that, because Flea is so twitchy. He’s doing AMAZING, but a set back right now would break me and slow down his progress dramatically. I don’t feel like I can trust him with others unsupervised, yet. His signals that he needs space are just too easy to miss.

I kind of think of this as the “But” phase of the cycle, the hardest one to get out of. I need to get up/but I’m so tired. I should do something/but what should I do. I need to prioritize my dogs/but what about these other things I want to prioritize.

It’s exhausting. Meds help (for anxiety and ADD), but not always enough. The cycle just has to be broken. Easier said then done. >.> But hey! I’m blogging. That counts as writing, so one step out of the hole I’ve dug. It took me three hours from the time I decided to do it until I actually managed to do it, but I still managed in the same day. That’s something, right? RIGHT.

[billssefton]

I slept through an entire day of work

A reader writes:

I started a new senior position in a new city about two months ago and I was killing it. It was just such a great fit of the job matching my abilities- I moved several integral projects forward and took some business trips in my first few weeks. Everyone was saying it felt like I’d been here years. My boss and the head of the firm were completely tickled, my coworkers and I were clicking great — it was workplace nirvana.

Danger zone: I was saying “yes” to everything because I was loving the work and wanted my boss to know he could count on me. I have a bit of a savior syndrome so when people say they need my help, I can practically never say no, but my boss is awesome and I love this work so I don’t even want to say no!  (And he has acknowledged over the last two months that he’s thrown a lot on my plate, and has thanked me just for taking the job because he’s less stressed than he’s been in months.)

But I was in a new city, with a totally different lifestyle and schedule, and I was only getting around three hours of sleep a night. I would say that probably 65% of sleeplessness was caused by work stress/anxiety and the rest was a mix of lifestyle shake-up, like a new commute and sacrificing sleep to do things like hunt for a new apartment.

I started coming in later and later (the office is flexible, within reason), until one day last week I slept through the ENTIRE day.

I know that is completely shocking, I’m shocked too, and so incredibly embarrassed. I woke up late, emailed the administrator to let her know I was on my way in, and then when I sat on the bed to put on my shoes I must have just passed right back out again for about another 6 hours. Just sheer exhaustion, I guess.

My boss called me and left a concerned voicemail, then followed up with a concerned email a few hours later.

I was so mortified I didn’t know what to do, so I stayed home, called the doctor, got a prescription for sleep meds, and then tried to calm myself down before calling my boss to apologize and explain. Other than apologizing over and over, I’m not even sure what I said. I definitely mentioned averaging about three hours of sleep a night over the last three weeks and just generally having too much on my plate, and that I have anxiety over wanting to do everything to the best standard possible, which was making me lose sleep.

He was amazing – he was concerned about me and my health first and foremost, then also about our deliverables. We came up with a two-week work plan that he confirmed with my colleagues. They took me off one project temporarily and cut way back on my role on another. I’m also taking a few days to work “undisturbed” from home (which was his way of letting me know it’s okay to nap). He made it clear I don’t have to share anything I don’t want to, and gave me an encouraging pep talk about “being human” and “big life changes.”

On my end, I am urgently prioritizing sleep hygiene to mitigate the exhaustion, and creating lists up the wazoo because I get forgetful when I’m tired.

The problem (or not problem?) now is everyone is treating me extremely sensitively. Maybe I’m projecting because I feel like such an a-hole for letting the team down, but it seems like they’re walking on egg shells and being extra gentle. On the one hand, I appreciate it, but on the other hand I hate the reminder that I effed it up so royally. The ramifications are rippling forward 6-12 months, because of how they redistributed my workload.

I feel like I want to avoid everybody. I feel like I don’t deserve to be here, like I let everybody down and now we’re all waiting for it to happen again. A small part of me also wonders if age or gender are playing into it at all – I am a woman who is younger than the other senior members of the team, and the dynamic has been sort of like a gentleman/lady, mentor/mentee thing.

To me, this whole thing seems like an epic professional mistake. Aside from turning back time, what do I do now?

This is such a good example of how if you build up good will and standing by being a great employee, a good boss will cut you slack even when you think you’ve done something mortifying.

You had already proved yourself, so what happened reads completely differently than if you’d done it your first week on the job or if you were known to be a slacker.

Think of it this way: When someone sleeps through an entire day of work, what conclusions are you likely to draw about that person? Generally, you’re going to assume either they’re sick or they’re really cavalier about work. Your boss, and probably the rest of your office, already know that you’re not cavalier about work. You sound like you’re highly productive, on top of things, and full of initiative and drive. So it wouldn’t make any sense for them to now think, “Oh, we were wrong about all of that — she’s actually a huge slacker.”

What happened was more akin to you being sick. “Sick” isn’t exactly right, but it’s way more in that neighborhood than anything else. You were suffering from the effects of weeks of exhaustion. It caught up with you because you are a human, not a robot.

Your boss clearly understands that. (See again: previous two months of drive and excellent work, and his gratitude for your performance.)

So the problem you haven’t now isn’t “how can I come back from this epic mistake?” You already handled this well: You apologized profusely, you explained what had happened, and you’ve taken steps to adjust your sleep.

And your boss handled this perfectly too: He recognized how your workload was contributing to the problem, he modified it to be more realistic, and he made it clear that he understands you are human.

This is all very, very good, for him and for you.

I suspect that people are treating you gently because your boss probably explained you were way overextended and exhausted, as part of the adjustments he made to your projects (and possibly also because people were worried about you the day you didn’t show up). I can see why that’s rattling you though — no one wants to be treated like a delicate flower at work.

There are two things that you can do about that. One is that you could talk to your boss and say something like, “I want to thank you again for being so understanding about my exhaustion last week. I’m mortified about it, and I’m grateful that you were so kind about it. I did want to say that if anyone is feeling like they need to be extra gentle with me now, they definitely don’t! I’ve gotten the sense that people are treating me very delicately, and I don’t want anyone to feel they need to do that. I’ve handled the sleep problems, and I’m good to go!”

But the other thing is that simply by being normal and demonstrating that you’re not in fact a delicate flower, people should relax. Time and exposure will take care of much of this. So fight your urge to avoid people, because the more they’re around you being normal and reasonably hardy, the more that will overcome any worries they might have. The best thing you can do right now is to be around them and be matter-of-fact in your manner.

And truly, this is okay. You collapsed from exhaustion, your boss understands, and all involved have come together to correct the situation that led to that. Let yourself trust that your boss is not blowing smoke when he tells you that he understands, and trust that people have seen enough of your work to know you don’t crumble at the first sign of difficulty.

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I slept through an entire day of work was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

from Ask a Manager http://www.askamanager.org/2018/03/i-slept-through-an-entire-day-of-work.html

[iamonein4]

New Post has been published on https://iam1in4.com/2017/08/trigger-suicide-attempt-making-sense/

TRIGGER: Suicide attempt at weekend and making sense of it.

By bipolaretaeus

To say I’m very disappointed is an absolute understatement.  Devastated.  I haven’t tried to take my own life for a few years now and thought all was in control, however this weekend it all exploded and I ended up in A&E for emergency physical treatment.

**** I have decided to take out the explicit content originally on this blog entry, after hearing the sad news of Linkin Parks lead singer, Chester Bennington, losing his life to suicide this week.  I read about it through an email The Mighty sent to me.  It contained a link to how people should write about suicide reporting and I realised I needed to change my content.  For anyone interested, the website link is http://reportingonsuicide.org/

What happened

In a nutshell, I have been experiencing a severe bipolar depressive episode since late last year but had significantly improved enough to return to work.  I was still experiencing mild low and anxious mood but assessed as fit for work and felt so.  However, I started to get really stressed and tired, and I was taking a downward turn again.  I told my CPN and saw my consultant psychiatrist a few weeks ago who decided to review me in a month (which will be next week).  At that point I felt in control.  The week leading to my attempt had been very difficult due to stuff I’ll talk about below.  Feelings of hopelessness quickly ensued as I sank into deep thoughts of fear of a future full of illness and the dreadful impact on my family.

Hopelessness is dangerous

In a stupid attempt to unwind and feel better I drank some wine.  And then the passive suicidal thoughts quickly crossed over to active.  Whether I would have done so without alcohol involved, I do not know.  In the past I have without it.

In my mind I was making a perfectly rational decision, based on the idea that I will never get better and that I would be an ever increasing burden to absolutely everyone and therefore they would truly be better off without me.  I was in unbearable pain.  Feeling trapped and very upset.

Actually I had lost capacity to make this so-called ‘rational’ decision because I don’t ordinarily think this when I’m well.  That’s the scary thing.

After being physically stabilised, I was discharged the following evening after a psych liaison assessment.  The outcome was referral to the mental health intensive home treatment team and I have received a couple of visits so far.

I’ve just resumed my usual psych meds and taken the week off work.  I’m still not right and keep fluctuating but I’m safe.  I’m not sure what the next step will be.  My partner, and I at times, think I may need to go inpatient.  I just don’t know and that makes me scared.

I’ve spent time trying to analyse what went wrong, and these are my thoughts written during more lucid moments.

Reflection

1) Chiefly, it’s a stark reminder to me of how quickly one can move up the suicide scale (from passive thoughts to active which can be seemingly (arguably) impulsive. 2) I absolutely did not have capacity when I did that even though I thought I did. 3) Referring back to number 1) above, I need to somehow work harder on my warning signs. 4) Warning signs may not be obvious.  I generally saw those as worsening ‘symptoms’ of bipolar and the BIGGIE factor in the dangerous actions I may take.  In fact, for me, I frequently think about suicide as a passive thing but it’s really quite sparse, though it seems to be a default thought my brain explores and not necessarily a ‘warning’ sign, and I shrug it off…. 5) So for me I see that triggers and warnings signs are not necessarily synonymous.  Not immediately anyway.  But triggers, chiefly stress for me, become a warning sign.  I don’t know if that makes sense?  So it’s hard to tease apart?  But…. 6) I need to realise that I withstand an awful lot of stress, much of which I can’t influence because some things are out of my control.  Often I manage it for ages, but I need to be able to assess that much, much sooner, BEFORE it comes even close to the point of going tits up.  I need to ask for HELP much, much sooner, before I say, “I’m feeling really quite low because I’m stressed but I’m safe at the moment”.  Yes, I may be at that point for a long time, but that can obviously turn dangerous quickly – refer to number 1) etc.

Identifying Stressors

Upon reviewing stressors properly with the intensive team I have identified them clearly.  I’ll identify what I think I can do more to help in brackets next to the stressors below, some of which the team have helped enormously with.

Firstly though, I’ll say I thought I had my stressors under control through having a CPN, a support plan from occupational health at work in place, open discussions with my ex partner about our troubled daughter, and talking with a few trusted friends, mainly on the phone though.  I was also trying and failing to address my housing and money situation.

What I can do

• Daughter suicidal and self harming – Very upsetting and scary (Keep fighting for CAMHS support and making sure they are effectively liaising with school, which I’ve realised they haven’t) • Same daughter constantly in trouble at school – very upsetting and frustrating (Chasing the meeting I requested a couple of months ago to better identify her needs/ways to manage more effectively – as what they’re doing is not working) • Same daughter temporarily moving to her dad’s in last few weeks – upsetting (tried to address this, need to all talk about this properly now as starting to go on) • My resentment towards partner as shouty at children hence partly why daughter went to dad’s (tried to address this – but be more assertive and now understand it’s not all down to this)

Be more assertive

• Feeling helpless with above (be more proactive, consistently keep on agenda, talk more and therefore be more assertive) • Me returning to work after 7 months off. (Missed CPN appt as slept through – make sure not to do this and if I do to respond to rearrangement more quickly) • Chucked in at the deep end with work (although raised, not properly followed through – got on with it. Make time and be more assertive) • Being in significant debt due to sickness and rent too high.  (See through discretionary housing payment application, see through application to social housing register – ask for help with this, consider application for consolidation loan) • Less social interaction due to job and sleeping in between to recuperate, leaving little time for fun.  (Make sure I have face to face interactions with friends and family – make plans for this, balance it and respond to calls and texts, balance with sleep, don’t just sleep for fear of exhaustion) • No exercise (walk!) • No holiday (utilise weekends away to wider family as that’s free) • Dog dying (can’t change that one) • 7 month DWP fight for PIP reinstatement resulting in having to face a tribunal (won) (can’t change that one – did well!) • No outer family support to come day to day (can’t change easily but may be able to work on this if I can bring dad and partner together to solve differences) • No time for me and partner alone (can try to ask friend or dad to look after children occasionally – maybe hard, but try) • Waiting for treatment for ADHD and medical review for bipolar. (keep making sure it’s done ASAP – have done as much as I can right now but keep on it)

Other things I can do

• Finish personal wellness and recovery action plan (WRAP) both for work and at home (there are 2 plan templates) • Talk to line manager very frankly • Establish better sleeping habits • Don’t spend too much time on social media • Don’t make everything about mental health

Any other ideas, thoughts and opinions, positive and/or negative would be welcome?

I’m still feeling fragile and the featured image describes it a bit.  However, I think I’m glad I’m here to write this and see things more clearly now.

I didn’t mean to hurt anyone

I’m feeling ashamed, guilty and embarrassed.  I didn’t mean to hurt anyone and although there’s still a part of me that wants to give up I’m doing my best to rationalise it and keep trying hard to pick it all up again.  I’ve done it before and I’m trying to remind myself of this.

After all my past experiences I have become well again and achieved a lot – most importantly taken care of my family who I love dearly.  I have valuable relationships with wider family, friends and colleagues and I know deep down that life has its fun times.  I just need to accept (again) that bipolar interferes with this at times but not ALWAYS, as it feels now.

On a final note, I am including some suicide prevention advice below taken from http://www.reportingonsuicide.org

Warning Signs of Suicide

• Talking about wanting to die • Looking for a way to kill oneself • Talking about feeling hopeless or having no purpose • Talking about feeling trapped or in unbearable pain • Increasing the use of alcohol or drugs • Acting anxious, agitated or recklessly • Sleeping too little or too much • Withdrawing or feeling isolated • Talking about being a burden to others • Showing rage or talking about seeking revenge • Displaying extreme mood swings

The more of these signs a person shows, the greater the risk.  Warning signs are associated with suicide but may not be what causes a suicide.

What to do

If someone you know exhibits warning signs of suicide:

• Do not leave the person alone • Remove all firearms, alcohol, drugs or sharp objects that could be used in a suicide attempt • Call a suicide prevention hotline: See the following link for hotlines across the globe: http://www.suicide.org/suicide-hotlines.html • Take the person to an emergency room or seek help from a medical or mental health professional.

Reach out to someone

If you are a person feeling at risk, please reach out to someone.  You may feel past this point and not want to, but please please try.  You’re not alone.  You can ring the hotlines, a loved one, message on a forum (or follow their guidelines for help), go to the emergency room or seek help from a medical or mental health professional.

Easy for me to say and I haven’t (clearly) always practised this advice.  However there have been times I have, and if I haven’t reached out but managed to keep safe it’s because I use the following coping method.  Try to promise yourself to keep safe for x amount of time, be it 24 hours, 1 hour or even each minute, then when that’s up try the above or make yourself another promise.

You are important.  Someone does care.  Help is there even though you may need to find a little strength to push for it.  Someone can wrap you up safely to help you through this.

Much love, B xx

Reproduced with permission, originally posted here: Suicide Attempt