#and constantly feeling humiliated in front of my entire class (my teacher always PUBLICALLY asked me if i finished the quiz 'this time')

[noperopesaredope]

Anyone ever semi-ironically refer to a thing that happened to them as "traumatic" only to slowly realize that it was legitimately traumatic for them? Like, you think it was just upsetting at the time but didn't have a long term effect because you don't have nightmares about it or anything and it wasn't even "that big of a deal." And then you gradually notice just how many of your behaviors and anxieties may have roots in that thing, and eventually it hits you: I was traumatized by this.

You know?

[ally-127]

locker room

genre: badboy!AU smut

pairing: OG character badass! lisa (this isn’t lisa from blackpink but you can imagine it’s her in the story if you’d like) x badboy!jaemin

summary: lisa left class to get some fresh air and away from his suffocating stare that he was giving her while she was doing her presentation. who knew that he would actually follow her right out. he was na jaemin, after all. one thing led to another and... you all know the whole shebang.

warning: smut and quite a bit of swearing oops (read at your own risk)

word count: 2.9k +

song: FOCUS ON ME - jus2 (got7 subunit)

i wrote this without any capitalisation so beware

“lisa, why are you so nervous?” a deep voice questions from right in front of her.

she looks down from the projector screen and at her hands. her eyes slowly lift up and she sees him crack the biggest smile. she isn’t nervous. she’s just irritated.

“you’re so cute.”

the entire class erupts into laughter. aimed at him or her, she didn’t know. impulsively, she runs out of class and into the hallway. before she knows it, he appears right behind her, sneakers screeching against the tiled floors from his abrupt halt as he saw her.

“what are you doing?”

she’s at a loss for words. the biggest fuckboy, and someone who lisa wants to think meant nothing to her, has followed her right out the classroom. his lips are parted expectantly, his dark pink hair swaying across his eyes. she shakes her head. she’s living in a whole fucking cliché.

“lisa,” he murmurs.

“you’re fucking embarrassing me in front of the whole class,” lisa spits at him, the tips of her ears red from both humiliation and anger.

jaemin crooks an eyebrow and takes a few steps toward her.

“you’re mad?” he probes.

“what does it look like?” she crosses her arms, glaring at the boy who seemed so unbothered it annoyed her.

“it looks like you want me,” he leans on the locker and hooks his finger under her chin. the badboy persona really shines when he’s around her. being around her gives him a boost of confidence, of his ego. “do you?”

he angles her chin up so she’s looking straight into those warm brown, mischievous irises of his.

she scoffs and jerks her chin away from his hand. “not everything’s about you, na jaemin.”

“you didn’t say that when you were in my bed last friday night,” he murmurs.

“i—what?” lisa frowns.

“oh, come on,” he doesn’t need tilt her head for her to stare at him. it’s so simple. he’s gorgeous and he himself knows that.

footsteps resonates from somewhere far away. by the sound of it, it’s someone wearing high heels. their teacher.

“jaemin? lisa?” her voice rings through the hallway.

“oh fuck,” jaemin rakes a hand through his dark pink hair.

lisa’s eyes widens.

instinctively, he reaches forward to grab lisa’s wrist. she hates it when he touches her in public, but this time she lets it slide.

he looks around, panicked. he squints at a white metal door, labelled GIRLS LOCKER ROOM. and then he turns his head to look at her. she shakes her head, as if saying “that’s a terrible idea”.

his eyebrows furrowed as he grits his teeth, brown eyes fuming with desperation to get out of being caught.

“if we don’t go right now, we’re toast.” he forces out. “please.”

in his brown eyes, lisa saw something she’s never seen before.

“i’m already on probation.”

silence from her.

“i’ll be expelled.” he finally says.

lisa hasn’t found the words to say but regardless she runs, pulling him with her. he lets out a noise similar to yelp as she drags him to the locker room, the shuffling of their sneakers against the ground echoing in the hallway.  the door of the locker room falls shut, lisa hurrying to it to turn the lock on the door knob.

“damn it, she heard us,” he murmurs.

“yeah you should have thought about that before following me out of class, huh. ” lisa crosses her arms and raises an eyebrow.

“can’t help it,” his serious expression completely changes when his lips quirk up into a cheeky smile. “this skirt you’re wearing— ” he extends his index finger, clad in a silver ring lisa always sees him wearing. the tip of his finger brushes against the skin on the inside of her wrist. “—is driving me insane.”

“you disgust me,” lisa spits and turns away. she’s suddenly self-conscious about the pencil skirt she’s wearing. it isn’t even short, rising about two inches above her knees. she doesn’t want to be dress coded.

“me?” jaemin clutches his hand to his chest. his pretty lips forms a pout, face mocking her. “ouch.”

“jaemin, i swear to god.” she glares at him. “i will—“

“you’ll what?” he inches closer.

“i’ll...” once again, she can’t seem to find the right words to say.

“what about this,” he’s probably plotting something in that complicated mind of his.

lisa leans on the locker, waiting for him to draw out something strange as a proposition to pass time.

“we utilise the time we have right now,” his eyes drift up to see the clock hung up on the wall above the lockers. “we’ve got an hour to spare.”

“jaemin,” she sighs. “why?”

“why what?” jaemin’s front teeth sinks into his bottom lip.

“why would you risk expulsion just to follow me out?”

“because lisa, it’s you.” he says plainly.

“bullshit,” lisa spits. “you tell this to every girl you fuck, don’t you?”

“i don’t fuck anyone but you.” genuine hurt flashed in his eyes. in those eyes lisa saw a fracture in the mask of him––being someone who hits and runs, of someone who is afraid of commitment––that he’s been wearing this whole time. a fracture where maybe there is hope for him.

but no, she refuses to believe that.

“then who was that girl you—“

“right, because you believe all those girls you constantly surround yourself with.” without even saying anything else, jaemin already knew where lisa got her information from.

lisa is silent.

“they’re toxic,” jaemin says. his face is like an open book. it has disgust written all over it.

“what do you know about toxic?” lisa counters. “look at the guys you hang out with.”

“fair enough,” he breathes, jaw unclenching and eyes softening.

for the first time ever, she saw something like hurt flash in those brown eyes of his. seeing jaemin actually affected by what she said sparks up something in lisa. now, he doesn’t dare meet her eyes and that’s never happened before. ever.

she opens her mouth to say something, but can’t when jaemin covers her lips with his own, arms snaking around her waist to pull her closer.

he murmurs her name and pushes her against the locker. hands braced on the cold metal surface, he pulls away from her painfully. adrenaline courses through their bodies as their breathing becomes more laboured. jaemin cracks a smile, chest heaving up and down.

“we’re doing this, aren’t we?”

“shut up and kiss me,” lisa tugs him back to her with fingers bunched around his t-shirt.

jaemin laughs against her lips. lisa feels his teeth scrape her bottom lip from his smile, forcing her mouth open. and then his tongue slips in. sneaky bastard.

he grunts when she lifts his shirt over his head, tossing it to the side and out of the way. jaemin removes his mouth from her only to attach it to her neck. his arms bring her even closer until he was flush against her body. her hands wander across his abdomen, her fingertips feeling the defined crevices of his abs.

he sucks on the delicate skin of her neck, triggering a moan from the girl pinned against the locker. she closes her eyes while he works his way down. his fingers push the collar of her t-shirt to the side for access to her pale skin.

“we’re short on time,” jaemin kneels down on the ground, in front of where she wants him the most.

“you think i don’t know that?” lisa leans her head against the metal door of the locker, hands in his hair.

he traces the waistband of her skirt, eyes flicking up at her intently. on his lips is a smirk, knowing how much she wants him regardless of the way she acted towards him. he’s teasing her and she might light on fire if he doesn’t do anything.

he slides his hands around her hips to search for the zipper. he finds it, sliding it down. lisa feels the garment loosen around her.

“may i?” jaemin is the only thing keeping her skirt in place. he stands back up, hands still clutching the skirt. he’s waiting for her approval, her consent.

“yes,” lisa places her hands on his shoulders when he lets her skirt fall to the floor.

“jump, baby.” he whispers in her ear.

she does exactly as he says, her legs enveloping around his waist. her arms flies around his shoulders, her lips trailing up his neck to the back of his ear, where she whispers,

“you better hurry or we’ll get caught.”

as if the thought of getting caught turns jaemin on, he groans and lisa feels his hard-on pressing against her clothed core. his hands slide up her legs and to the waistband of her underwear.

despite all the heat that simmers between them, his eyes are worried as he asks, “are you sure?”

“jaemin,” she breathes in his ear, giving a taste of what he won’t hear if he kept this up. “yes, i am.”

“a hundred percent?” he just has the audacity to ask so many questions while he stands right between her legs, doesn’t he?

“fuck me already, jaemin.” lisa sinks her teeth into his neck and just like that, he throws his head back as a moan escapes his lips.

his look of euphoria distorts into a seductive smirk, wrapping an arm around her waist. his other hand reaches between their two bodies to the waistband of her underwear, curling his fingers in and dragging it down to her ankles, where he expertly completely rids her of that last clothing that is in the way.

“it’ll be my pleasure,” he says lowly, almost like a growl.

his fingers stretch forward to give lisa her the first stroke on her bundle of nerves.

she arches against the locker. jaemin slides his arm that was around her body out only to cover her mouth with his large hand, preventing the sounds of her moans to echo across the locker room out and into the open. there’s nothing left to support her except jaemin’s toned torso and the hard locker.

“you have to be quiet for me, okay?” jaemin. “or we’ll get into fucking trouble.”

lisa nods against his hand around her mouth and squeezes her eyes shut as he inserts two fingers into her. under his hand she bites her lip. hard.

“fuck,” jaemin pants.

he pumps his digits in and out of her and watch lisa completely lose it under him. suddenly, his black jeans are too tight around his crotch. his thumb rubs circles around her folds to penetrate her even further than he already has. his bottom lip catches under his teeth while he increases his speed, already feeling her walls tighten around his fingers.

he knows she’d come undone when he whispers, “come for me, baby.”

she screams into his palm as the first release shatters through her. complete and utter pleasure runs through her bloodstream like a drug.

jaemin removes his hand from her mouth and brings his arm down once again to wrap around lisa’s figure. he peers at her face, beautiful and flustered. he feels her chest rising and falling heavily against his own and he couldn’t take how much his arousal piled up in his pants anymore.

“lisa,” he whispers as he retracts his fingers from her.

“what, jaemin?” lisa rests her head in the crook of his neck while she recovers from her high.

“i want to—“

“just do it,” she already knows what he was going to say. “fuck me.”

a silver package appears in his hands after sliding it into the back pocket of his jeans. to save him some work, lisa reaches forward between them to unbuckle his belt and unbutton his jeans. she huffs a laugh after seeing the tent that forms in his jeans.

jaemin glares at her dangerously without a word being said. just from that look, lisa feels herself drip between her legs.

“no regrets?” he hums in her ear, his voice a sweet melody she’ll never get used to hearing.

“no regrets.”

below her line of vision, lisa hears the unrolling of latex. jaemin slides the condom over his length with one hand, the other running up and down lisa’s bare legs. he just wants to please her. he just wants to make her feel so good she forgets her own name.

“lisa,” he groans as he runs his length along her folds.

“jaemin,” lisa echoes. her hands somehow found their way back into his hair.

he reaches down to align himself up with her. “i love you.”

he didn’t give her time to respond when he pushes his length into her. jaemin presses his lips onto hers as if he could swallow the whimpers that escape from them.

he keeps his grip on her firm as he starts off excruciatingly slow, in order for her to adjust to his size. sliding out of her slowly, he thrusts himself roughly back into her. the impact made her cry out, her eyelids screwing shut.

“jaemin,” it may be blood she tastes in her mouth from biting her lip too hard.

she has her head buried in his shoulder while he rolls his hips into hers, length fucking her with deep, solid strokes.

“you feel so good,” he purrs in lisa’s ears, sending shivers down her spine.

his hips, flush against hers, made him sink into her to the hilt she started seeing stars. he maintains eye contact with her while he develops a rhythm. a rhythm that he’s never used on her before. a rhythm more harsh, more punishing.

his mouth remains close to her ear, whispering profanities with every plunge he makes. his fingernails dig into the skin of her hips, marking her and bruising her skin. her fingers pull on his hair, multiplying the wave of pleasure that seems to strike jaemin all at once. the tightness around his cock, the tug in his hair...

it took all his might not to come right there and then.

speaking of which, he’s about to drive lisa over the edge once again. and he can FEEL it. he feels her thighs trembling and the sinful sounds that slip out her mouth gradually getting louder.

lisa, too, is trying her best to last. but with jaemin, it’s almost impossible. she feels pressure build up in her abdomen, her walls closing in on him. she trembles under his erratic movements, tugging harder on his hair and teeth sinking into the skin of his neck.

“c’mon, baby. you can do it.” those are simple words that slip out carelessly out of jaemin’s lips. those are words that lisa knows will bring her to her climax. “come for me.”

“fuck, jaemin,” release barrels down her spine, her cry muted by his mouth over hers. the second climax that struck her is the biggest one yet, where she trembled in his arms from pleasure. seeing release unravel her causes jaemin’s own release to  hit.

he drags out a low groan as he presses his head on the locker, beside lisa’s head when he released into condom.

“fuck, lisa,” his pants are hard.

she tilts her head back while they ride out their high. her walls pulsate around his cock and jaemin almost comes again just by the feel of it. he places his lips on her neck, his tongue swiping by her collarbone. he sucks on the skin by her collarbone, knowing very well it would mark her. she moans for the last time after feeling jaemin’s teeth settle in the hollow of her neck.

he pulls out of her, ridding himself of the condom by tossing it in the bin placed conveniently at the corner. he lets her down, careful to hold her up with both his arms.

“can you walk?” jaemin’s tone is teasing while a smirk hangs on his face.

“fuck you,” lisa glares at him.

“already did,” he shrugs.

lisa groans and places a hand on her forehead. they promised each other. no regrets.

“okay,” he bends down to hook his arm behind her knees and across her shoulders.

she shrieks when he lifts her up in his arms. “jaemin— i need to put my clothes back on.”

“let’s streak in the hallway, shall we?” he nuzzles his nose in the crook of her neck.

“so much for caring about being expelled,” lisa rolls her eyes but regardless links her arms around his neck. “please let me down.”

“but i love you,” he whispers into her ear.

she goes very still.

it’s been years since she’s heard those words from him. last time he said it, it was a dare from a foolish friend and just now, before he lost himself inside of her.

“jae—“

“i really do, lisa.”  he lets her down, back onto her feet. “i was hoping maybe we could try.”

lisa slips her clothing back on, reaching to the back and zipping her skirt up while her eyes remains constantly on his.

“i...” she takes one step closer to him. “we can try.”

“we can?” his eyebrows perk up. lisa laughs at his adorable expression.

“only because i love you too,” she cups his chiseled jaw in her hands gently. “but you better not tell anyone.”

he smiles brighter than the sun that leaks through the window, leaning forward and nudging his nose against hers, making her laugh again.

a/n i know this isn’t your usual ‘y/n’ story but i really hoped you enjoyed my first ever smut published on tumblr!! i tried to make it as something that can proceed without a plot but i can’t seem to write anything without a little backstory. 

anyway, i find myself enjoying writing these one-shots so prepare for many more to come since i have nothing to do with my life

lots and lots of love,

ally

[topimagines]

CCC

Summary: never look for conflict for the thrill

A/n: it's long, poorly written, and has no plot. the ultimate writing checklist. took me an entire week to write, I annoyed my aiding teacher with the clicking during class

Wc: 4k+

She was very quiet. People always asked what was wrong with her, if she was deaf or mute, why she never talked.  

She did talk, just not to people outside of her bubble. She found it was easier to do that than to try to interact with people because people were very mean.

Tyler, her best friend, always took it upon himself to help her. It had always been that way, ever since they met. The two six-year-olds immediately clicked, and y/n’s parents always knew Tyler was special.  

He got her to talk to him, and no one else had ever done that outside of the family.  

When Tyler offered her a job as his makeup artist, she got so excited. She wouldn’t have to talk to anyone that she didn’t know, and she would be on tour with her best friend.  

“Tyler, wake up,” y/n shook her best friend by the shoulder. The bus had stopped and they were now at their next stop in the tour, “Ty, come on.”  

“Hmm,” he groaned, “five more minutes, peach, please.”  

Y/n loved that nickname. It made butterflies explode in her belly and her face heat up more than ever. He started calling her that after her 14th birthday when she received Paper Mario and forced Tyler to help her play it. She was never as good at video games as he was. He called her peach after Princess Peach (she had commented that she wished she looked like Peach, but Tyler said she never had to worry about that, Peach wasn’t as pretty as y/n.)

“Nuh-uh, Tyler, Josh said that if you sleep ‘til noon, you’ll ruin your schedule and we’ll all have to stay up with you,” she continued poking him, trying to get him up.  

Or you could climb in with me, “Fine, but I expect something out of it,” he finally rolled and looked at the girl, we could cuddle until sound check. God, she was beautiful. She had obviously been awake for a while; her makeup was done and her hair styled to perfection. Sleep all day in each other's arms, only get up for food and water, maybe ask Josh to pick up some food and we can all sit on the couch and watch that new show you like. He rarely went a day without thinking about her. (if he did, it was because she was with him.)

He only wished she was his, so he could ask her every question and said every statement that had been on his mind since they were twelve.  

“we can get Taco Bell if you want to,” she replied. He didn’t get enough time, in his opinion, to admire her because she turned away and started going toward the front of the bus. She knew exactly what that did, it forced him to get out of bed. He wouldn’t let her go out alone when he was awake, that hadn’t happened since she left for college and he started his music career.  

Even then, they spent every spare moment talking and once she got back, they were even more inseparable.  

Tyler sighed, one day he would be able to tell her. until then his fantasies would suffice.

-

Josh was the only other guy she talked to on tour. (Actually, that wasn't entirely true, she said please and thank you and excuse me when she needed to, her mother always raised her to have manners.)

Tyler would be lying if he said he wasn’t terribly jealous every time Josh made her laugh so hard she started crying, or hug him and whisper things in his ear. These would make Tyler pouty and gloomy all day, but eventually, she makes it better by giving him the attention he craves.  

It was their day off, and all Tyler wanted was to hang out with y/n and Josh.  

But she wanted to go out and have some fun. So here Tyler was, sitting in a booth with a Mountain Dew in front of him, watching as Josh and y/n joked around quietly (y/n refused to raise her voice in public).  

The waiter came to take their order and gave y/n a dirty look when Tyler ordered for her. That was no big deal, Tyler was used to that, she never ordered her own food unless they were in a drive-thru. (Even then, sometimes she would switch seats with Tyler or make him talk loudly to the speaker from the passenger seat.) It was a big deal when the waiter refused to take her order because she wasn’t talking.  

“Can’t she order herself? She’s not a child!” the waiter chided, and when Tyler repeated the order again, he didn’t write it down.  

“Are you seriously refusing because someone won’t talk to you?” Josh asked, the dirtiest look on his face.  

“Well, she ain’t a child, now tell me what you want, miss,” the waiter replied.  

Tyler saw her swallow, opening her mouth and closing it while she panicked. She didn’t like this at all, he was being so mean, and this had never happened before.  

“I think we’re just going to pay for our drinks and leave if you’re going to be rude,” Tyler snapped at the man, standing up, “I don’t know who you think you are, but you messed with the wrong person, dude.”  

Josh took out his wallet, throwing a twenty onto the table before, he too, stood up. The three walked out of the restaurant and got into the car. y/n had her head down with tears in her eyes and held onto Tyler’s hand. Tyler sat in the back seat with y/n while Josh sat in the front seat, driving.

Once they were settled, y/n burst into tears.  

“Why can’t I just be normal?” she cried. Tyler hugged her, she laid her head on his chest, tears staining the fabric of his t-shirt.  

“No, peach, don’t say that.”

“If I were normal, you guys would be able to eat without having to worry about me,” she cried. (They always asked her about her food before they dove into theirs. If they didn’t ask her if she liked her food, she wouldn’t say anything and pick at it until they were done and say she wasn’t that hungry.)  

“Peach, there’s nothing bad about that,” Tyler knew he was lying. How would she function if he or Josh wasn’t there to help?  

“I don’t want to have to rely on you forever! I’m so dysfunctional, you should just leave me! Maybe then I’ll learn to be normal.”  

Josh spoke up, “no one is leaving you, y/n.”  

“you should.”  

Days like that made her miss her dog because he didn’t mind cuddling with her until she stopped crying (he was a German Shepherd, so he was basically just a big teddy bear), and she didn’t feel bad for smothering him with her blubbering. 

-

Things weren’t really the same. Tyler saw it, Josh saw it… hell, the fans saw it. They commented on his photos with their concerns. She didn’t know what was going on with her, she felt herself withdrawing from Tyler in the same way she withdrew from her family in middle school. But even then, she still had Tyler.  

She did their makeup in silence, barely looking either of them in the eye. She didn’t participate in group activities; she just went to her bunk or hotel room.

Tyler didn’t know what to do.

-

“You’re gonna have to talk to me,” Tyler cornered her while she was cleaning her makeup brushes. She looked like a deer caught in the headlights, wide-eyed, and frozen in her spot.  

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Tyler,” she whispered, finally continuing what she was doing.  

“But you do, y/n,” he mocked her use of his name, “you’ve gone and shut me out, and that’s not what we do around here.” She didn’t reply, her already clean brush suddenly getting dirtier and dirtier as she looked at it more. “Are you listening to me?”

“I would prefer not to,” she murmured. Tyler took the brush away from her, sitting it on the counter.  

“What did I tell you when we were kids?” he asked. She rolled her eyes

“We’re in this together, Peach,” Tyler whispered to her. They had just started high school, and she already hated it. Everyone picked on her and Tyler for… everything.

Over the summer, y/n had hit a growth spurt and grew two inches (it didn’t really make a difference, but somehow everyone noticed), her bra size grew slightly, and her face had blown up with acne. She was a walking target.

Tyler had also grown quite a bit, he was now the tallest boy in most of his classes and the scars on his cheeks from acne were red and bumpy (y/n found out how to help him with those, so they were going away, slowly but surely, but they were still there.) He didn't think too much about the teasing, but he knew his best friend did.

“Even if you get famous?”

“Especially then,” he intertwined their fingers and kissed her knuckles, she blushed. “Because for you, I’ll step to a dude much bigger than me.”

“You’d end up so messed up, Ty,” she giggled, squeezing his hand.  

“it’d be worth it,” he pulled her closer. The bed they were sharing was big enough for each of them to have their own space, but everyone knew that wouldn’t happen. The two constantly stayed cuddled up to one another, which did weird their parents out and they forbade it. (What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.)

“At the expense of being humiliated in public, you want to still be with me?” her eyes widened, “I-I mean, be my best friend.” Nice save, she reprimanded herself.  

If Tyler caught that, he didn’t say anything. Baby steps.  

“Of course,” Tyler scoffed, “I promised you I would always be here, and I intend to keep that promise.” She smiled up at him, only slightly, but there was pure happiness beaming from it.  

-

Y/n really enjoyed the show that night, bobbing her head and singing along. Tyler looked over and smiled at her as often as he could, asked if she was ok by shooting a thumbs-up her way, and made sure she always had a water bottle in her hand. 

-

“Tyler,” she started, “can we please go to that little market in the small town an hour away?”

“Why, peach?” 

“They sell candles and soap and some vintage posters, I just want to look around and see if there’s anything I can buy for my apartment,” she asked sweetly. Tyler smiled at her, she always did this when there was a shop she was interested nearby. 

“Tyler, they sell emu meat!” “But, they make natural perfume, it says they have vanilla on the website.” “Josh said he’d go with me to the Pommes Frites place, do you want to?”

She was so perfect, to him, in every way.

-

It had been a few weeks since their pow wow and y/n thought she and Tyler were getting closer to what she wanted without either of them prompting it.  

But then, Tyler met a girl.  

Amanda was beautiful, kind, and talkative. She was a lighting technician they had brought in after their other one went on maternity leave. She would be on tour with them for the rest of that leg. Tyler, being the nice guy, he is, introduced himself on her first day because she seemed lonely. He later invited her to dinner, and then brunch, and then a movie, and then a bar… and it continued for weeks.  

y/n felt replaced, (although she knew she wasn’t, it still felt like it.) Her best friend didn’t have the same amount of time he used to, for just them, anymore.  

Josh felt for her.  

“You can talk to him,” Josh said while she blended his eye shadow out, sloppily.  

“I know.”  

“Then why don’t you?” He gave her a look. Her parents gave her that look when she would complain about a teacher forcing her to speak up or talk in front of the entire class.  

That look that told her, she would have to suck it up and do something because no one else was going to take care of it for her.

“I’m just going to let it happen,” she sighed, “I waited too long and he met someone else, it happens.”  

“God, you’re so stupid,” Josh scoffed. Tyler went on and on about how in love he was with her, Josh had really started to get annoyed, “you both love each other but you’re too stubborn and he’s too soft.”  

She shook her head, “he doesn’t like me like that, Josh, let’s just drop it.”

Josh rolled his eyes.

-

She didn’t mean to. The bus was a communal space, everyone came and went without knocking, and she knew she was allowed in there because all of her stuff was in there.  

Why couldn’t she go get her phone charger and the makeup she forgot in there?

Because Tyler and Amanda were having a quick shag in the back of the bus, that’s why.  

She walked in, thanking Jeffrey (the driver) for opening the door because it was locked and he had a key. Josh was waiting outside, leaning against the side (he was already scrolling through his phone when she was with Jeffrey, not even concerned with why the bus was locked in the first place and whether there was a murderer hiding in there ready to spring out at her. Maybe, she watched too many Criminal Minds episodes for her own good, but she really loved Mathew Gray Gubler.) She didn’t see anything at first and didn’t hear anything, either. So, she assumed Tyler and Amanda were hanging out in the green room.

She opened the door to the storage area in the back (that’s where her stuff was) and was up-fronted by the sight of Tyler ramming his dick into Amanda with his hand covering her mouth. She squeaked and back up out of the room.  

“Oh god I’m so sorry!” she covered her eyes with her hands.  

“Don’t you know how to fucking knock?” Tyler yelled, “Get the fuck out of here!”  

She quickly ran out of the bus, spouting apologies. Once she got off the bus, Josh was already standing in front of the door, concerned by the sudden shouting, “What happened?”  

“Nothing! Let’s just go,” she spoke quickly, tears ready to fall at any second.  

-

“Sorry, I can’t come to dinner with you and Josh,” Tyler seemed to apologize a lot recently. If it wasn’t for accidentally being late to get his makeup done, it was for not being able to keep plans. He was always out with Amanda or… in with Amanda. He hadn’t mentioned the incident, and she was very glad. She was so embarrassed when she got off that bus.  

(Josh tried to tell her it wasn’t her fault, the bus is a communal area, everyone is off and on it all day, they should have known not to have a quickie in the storage area. That made her feel only a little better.)

“It’s OK,” Josh answered for her, she only smiled at him sweetly, “you can just join us next time, yeah?”  

Tyler thanked them and headed off toward the tour bus. Amanda was waiting for him.  

Instead of going to dinner, Josh dragged her to a bar he heard a lot about, and she didn’t remember much of what happened after the second beer, she later figured it was because she was already a lightweight and she hadn’t eaten since breakfast and only had two pieces of sushi off of Josh’s plate.

The next morning, she woke up in her hotel room with a killer headache and a weight holding her down by her waist. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and looked to her right. A tuft of curly hair peeking out ever so slightly from under the blankets.  

She screeched, throwing his arm off of her and jumping out of bed. That was when she realized she was nude. The sudden noise of her scream and the ruffling of the sheet woke Josh up, who looked at her just as she wrapped said sheet around herself.  

“What the fuck?” he said groggily. Then his eyes widened. “did we?”  

“I don’t fucking know!” She whined, “do you have clothes on?”

“…. yes,” he looked guilty.  

“Really?” She felt reassured for a second.

“No,” he confessed. She scoffed, pivoting on her heel and taking off to the bathroom. The bathroom was a mess, and there were two condom wrappers sitting in the sink, each of them without their original contents.  

“Oh god,” she suddenly remembered their make-out session in the bathroom. She had gone to brush her teeth, giggling about the taste of the last cocktail she had drunk (it was sex on the beach) but Josh had another plan. She could still taste the alcohol in the back of her throat with something… salty.

She didn’t want to think too far into that.

She quickly got her toothbrush and attacked her teeth with it.  

When she exited the bathroom 20 minutes later, her hair and body freshly washed, Josh was sitting on the bed, fully dressed. She went toward her suitcase across the room. She changed into fresh underwear and a bra, Josh, apparently, had seen a lot worse than her backside last night, so suddenly she wasn’t as self-conscious as she once was.

“We couldn’t have been more obvious with our little… escapade,” he sighed, “people all over Instagram and twitter keep tagging me and asking questions.”  

“I’m so sorry,” she sat next to him.

“You don’t have to be, it takes two to tango,” he locked his phone and wrapped an arm around her waist, “It’s just as much my fault as it is yours.”  

There was a knock at the door. Josh dropped his arm when she got up to answer it. Tyler was at the door, his hands tucked into his pockets, looking off into space.  

“Yes?” She asked.  

“Is Josh in there? We have sound check soon,” he didn’t look her in the eye. She couldn’t blame him. Josh walked toward the door, and nodded, saying he was just about to leave.  

He kissed her on the temple before he stepped out, “I’ll see you later, okay?”  

She nodded in agreement and said her goodbye’s, and shut the door, not even wishing Tyler a farewell. The men walked to the elevator together and as soon as they stepped in, Tyler snapped.  

“You slept with her?” he asked, although it was more of a yell.  

“Yeah, so what?” Tyler was surprised by this response, the accusatory tone, “Aren’t you fucking that girl… Amanda, is it? You and y/n are not together, she’s a big girl, she can do what she wants!”

“You told me you didn’t feel anything for her!” Tyler yelled.  

“You told me you loved her! Apparently, that’s not enough for either of us to keep our dicks in our pants,” Josh snapped, “At least I have balls enough to admit that what I did was bad, admit that it was wrong. You yelled at her for walking in on you fucking someone else, in a tour bus that everyone has free range of, and haven’t even apologized for it! You’re mad at me for taking care of her while you’re off doing god knows what with the girl you talked yourself into liking.”

“I didn't-”

“She’s just basically a fucking replacement for y/n! And when you finally admit that to yourself, this shit will get a lot easier.” The elevator opened up at the bottom floor, Josh got off before Tyler.  

“She’s not a replacement,” Tyler said under his breath. They walked to the car that was going to take them to the venue.  

Josh didn’t speak to Tyler for the rest of the day.

-

y/n didn’t talk to Tyler either. Amanda could tell Tyler was struggling and tried to reassure him.  

“Baby, they are just selfish, I mean, why else would your two best friends have sex with each other? I thought there would be some bro code thing about that.” That didn’t help.  

-

Josh knew it wasn’t a good idea, but y/n insisted she was ok with it. They were sat in her new hotel room, in a different city. She initiated the kiss, and Josh just followed along.

“You’re just using me to get back a Tyler,” Josh said in between kisses.

“Does it hurt?” she whispered.

“No.”  

“Then shut up and kiss me,” she kissed him again.

-

“We can’t do this anymore,” Josh said when y/n greeted him with a kiss. weeks had passed and she had ended up in bed with Josh more often than not, and she refused to look at anyone else. All her attention was on Josh.

“Why?”

“I’m just a rebound,” Josh intertwined their hands, “And you know it too. You’re just trying to get back at Ty.” She knew he was right, and she nodded in response. “So, talk to him. Amanda is gone, he hasn’t talked to her since she left.” (Esther, the original light tech, had come back from maternity leave earlier than expected, her husband decided to stay home with her instead.)

He left a few minutes later, leaving a sweet kiss on her temple. Almost like clockwork, ten minutes later, Tyler knocked on the door.  

“Can we talk?”  

-

Tyler sat on her bed, next to her. Neither talked. She was looking down at her feet, her socks didn’t match. She knew how much Tyler hated it when she did that, and all she wanted him to do was get onto her and make her find all of her matches and put them together.  

“So… you and Josh?” he awkwardly asked.  

“Not really,” she whispered, “you and Amanda?”  

“…not anymore.” There was another awkward moment of silence, then Tyler spoke once again, “I missed you.”  

“Then why didn’t you try to talk to me?” She asked.  

“You seemed busy with Josh.”  

“You seemed busy with Amanda.”  

“My god, we’re shit friends,” Tyler laughed. She giggled too, agreeing. “I’m so sorry, peach. For ignoring you and yelling at you… and ditching you. The day after you and Josh started to… you know,” he paused, “the day after, Josh really did me in, made me see how shit I was being.”

“Sounds like Josh. And I’m sorry for ignoring you and not trying to communicate.” Tyler reached out for her and she hugged him, tucking her face into his neck.  

“Is that all you wanted to talk about?” she whispered, not wanting to ruin the moment. He shook his head, murmuring back a 'no.’

“I wanted to tell you something I’ve been holding in for years,” he said, pulling away from the hug to look her in the eye, “I’m in love with you.”  

-

That night was a turning point for the two.  

Of course, she still couldn’t talk to anyone outside of her bubble. (No love was strong enough to cure selective mutism, even though The Big Bang Theory kind of made it seem that way.)  

The two were so, so happy after that night. They spent the rest of the tour attached by the hip way more than they used to be. Then, a few months later, the tour ended and they all went back home. Tyler had promised her at some point they would move in together, rent out a house with a big back yard so her dog, Buddy (who was with her mom until she returned), could run free, especially if Jim was to visit. She would furnish it and make it her home and Tyler would get his own room and an office.

She was laying on the couch, a TV show playing quietly in the background as she read the latest Erik Larson book.

“Tyler,” she called to him, “can you come here?”  

Tyler yelled back, “Yeah!” and went downstairs.  

“Can you go get me my drink, I don’t wanna get up,” she smiled the smile she knew he couldn’t refuse. He scoffed at her and left the living room to get the cup of water off the counter. The cup, although it was just a simple plastic one with a galaxy design (it was from the dollar store), it reminded him how much he loved her. She would leave for tomatoes that she needed for dinner that night and come home with new dog toys, cute dishes, puzzles, and no tomatoes.

“Here, you lazy bub,” he handed the cup to her. She happily took the cup and singsonged a thank you.  

“Aren’t you gonna come cuddle with me?” She asked sweetly.  

“How could I pass that up?” he said, laying a sweet kiss on her lips before sliding onto the couch next to her, pulling her as close to him as possible.

He never wanted to let go.

[renny-lithium]

y'all wanna know something that's completely fucked up?

i'll tell you, here goes.

when i was in secondary school, i hung around with a couple of girls i considered to be my best friends.

here's the fucked up thing - i never realised it until after i stopped hanging out with them, but they didn't even consider me their FRIEND. to them i was just 'that weird girl' that hung around with them, because we'd been 'friends' since primary school.

you wanna know how i realised this? various things.

for future reference, i will refer to them as S and E.

the one thing that stands out to me is this one time when i got put into a group project with S, and her reaction was to complain about everyone she'd been dumped with - including me. i was standing a foot away from her, staring at her, while she complained about being put in a group with ME. she later asked if she'd done something wrong, because i was suddenly keeping the fuck away from her and not talking to her or E, and i told her "you made me feel like i'm unwanted" and her reaction was basically "get over it".

another thing is how they treated me, aside from that incident.

here's a bit of trivia about myself - during year nine, when i was like 13 or something, i was selectively mute. no one actually bothered to do anything about it until the teachers noticed me using my made-up sign language to talk to someone, but you wanna know how my so-called 'best friends' reacted?

they ignored me. more or less pretended i didn't exist even though i was right there, and if i ever did force myself to speak (i often pretended i had a sore throat just to avoid having to speak) they acted like they never even heard me. also, whenever i got out of class before them, i ALWAYS waited for them. because i wanted to walk with them, because they were my friends, and i didn't like walking alone.

wanna know what they did? they didn't do that.

one time i specifically remember asking them if they could please, please wait for me after class, because i hate walking alone in a sea of people who hate me for no reason, and they said they would - cut to the end of class and they walked out, i expected them to be waiting outside, but they were already long gone before i get out of the classroom.

there was also the way they treated my other friends, ones i made without their 'help' or introduction. there was this kinda lonely girl who i'm gonna call SO, and at some point i guess i introduced her to my so-called 'friends'. this one time i was sitting with my so-called 'friends', without SO there because she was doing whatever, and they were talking shit about her.

i don't remember exactly what it was they said about SO, but what i clearly remember is them suddenly realising that i was sitting RIGHT FUCKING THERE and they turned to me and said 'don't tell SO we said any of this'. like they were threatening me.

at that point i began to wonder if they talked shit about me behind my back, cus if they did it to someone who actually cut herself on a regular basis and silently suffered an abusive public relationship with a dick that didn't deserve to exist, what were they saying about me?

one more thing - i was bullied literally all the time at school. it got to the point where i would actually try to fake illnesses or use the first one or two days of my period as an excuse to actually not go, out of fear of being bullied and humiliated every five minutes by everyone, even complete strangers, who knew about me only because i was 'that weird girl that's an easy target for everyone'.

no one ever stood up for me. not even SO, but i can forgive her, because she had far too many issues of her own to deal with - but S and E had no such problems. Their lives were, in comparison to mine and SO's, absolutely perfect.

and yet, even when i was being bullied RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM, they never did anything to defend me. i was basically incapable of defending myself, purely because i knew that if i tried i'd only make it worse (though on a few awesome occasions i got pissed off enough to physically attack whoever was bullying me, or i would just simply walk out of the classroom even if the lesson had only just started).

so basically my so-called 'best friends' didn't give a single solitary fuck about me, and i'm ashamed to admit that i never figured this out until year eleven, when i was 15, and i stopped hanging around with them.

i thought my life would change when i stopped hanging with them, but guess what? it didn't. everything was still the same, i was still getting bullied every day, i occasionally had relapses into selective mutism and no one gave a fuck, i also tried to fake illnesses to get out of school, but you wanna know what actually did change?

as i began to look back on how my 'friends' had treated me, i began to get angry. not angry enough to actually do something, like when i would attack someone or walk out of the classroom, but the kind of burning anger that's incredibly dangerous because there's nothing you can do about it and the people responsible aren't even aware that it's their fault or that they've even done anything wrong.

so basically S and E ruined over half of my life and they probably didn't even notice or care.

i made a promise to myself that i would never, ever speak to them ever again - and i almost kept that promise, except for one incident during sixth form when, surprise surprise, S was in the same tutor group as me and she tried asking me for some help with something.

i don't think she even knew why i was glaring at her.

this story has a bittersweet ending, actually.

fast forward to now, and i've switched from sixth form to college (and lemme tell y'all that was the best decision i ever made in my entire life). i'm now in second year, halfway through, and basically everyone in the class is my friend. even those i don't particularly know very well, i consider them my friend - because we share common interests, and they actually don't bully me.

here's the bittersweet part - i'm waiting for them all to turn on me. i'm waiting for that one moment where i fuck up, and suddenly i'm the target for bullying once again.

i also have a friend who i consider to be my best friend ever, but i'm not sure if he considers me to be his best friend (i know he considers me a friend at least, otherwise he wouldn't let me follow him around like a lost puppy half the time). when class ends and it's time to go home, i'm usually out of the classroom before him, and i've sworn to myself that i'd never abandon anyone the way S and E did, especially if i think of them as my best friend.

sometimes, though, he's out of class before me.

and he always waits, unless he needs to be somewhere, in which case he actually he tells me beforehand and i'm happy to walk to the bus station without him.

but i never asked him to wait for me, because i assumed that he wouldn't bother. i assumed - and still do assume - that he's gonna walk off and abandon me like S and E did, because even if i ask, no one wants to wait for me.

but he does. he waits. and i continue to be amazed at that, even after an entire year and a half.

oh, and another thing - and this is actually a really nice thing.

you know how i said i went selectively mute in year nine? i forced myself to get over it the next year because i didn't like going to the school's shit version of therapy (which did nothing except make me realise that it'd be easier to pretend i was okay rather than actually be okay).

over the past few months i've been going through some very, very tough family shit, and i'm always switching between 'terrified as fuck' and 'too tired to care anymore'.

it has nothing to do with college, but i've gone back to being selectively mute again.

the reaction of all sixteen of my friends? they're actually nice about it. if i speak, they don't patronise me and they actually listen to me. if i don't, and i use some other means of communication, they will make genuine attempts to understand me and they don't act like it's a chore for them.

one memorable occasion was before christmas, and there was this guy from another class using the macs in our classroom to get his work done - one of my classmates introduced him to me, and said "she's a bit quiet, but she communicates in her own way", and all i could think was "now THAT'S how you do it".

they're all also genuinely concerned about the reason why i've suddenly gone absolutely silent when, the previous year, i was basically the craziest person in class.

i love these people. they're my friends, my real friends - but i'm burned by my past experiences with people who i also called 'friends'.

i'm still waiting for them to decide i'm not worth their time and that it'd be easier to laugh and point at me rather than try to help me. i'm still waiting to be abandoned by my new and real best friend, who i believe just tolerates my presence.

so, everyone, you're probably wondering - what was the point in me pouring out my heart like this?

i'll tell you.

i've realised that i'm not the only person who this kind of shit happened to. i'm not the only one who was constantly being left behind by people who were supposed to be their friends.

so i'm writing this, even though i'm not very well known by anyone on Tumblr, and i'm hoping it gets reblogged enough for people to look at their fellow students or even co-workers, and wonder 'how do their friends treat them?'

or maybe it's enough to make people realise that they're the ones this is happening to, or maybe give them enough courage to say 'fuck you' to their supposed 'friends' and walk away with their heads held high.

or alternatively, if you don't want to say it because you're too scared or too shy, just walk away and never speak to the abusive bastards ever again.

this shit can damage people forever. it can and will lead to suicides and pure depression.

it's not okay. stand the fuck up, everyone - those who see it happening, those who it's happening to, just . . . fucking everyone, stand up and tell the bullies and 'friends' to go and fuck themselves with a mace or something.

Renny, out.

[sailaway-frmthee-safeeharbor]

My school experience with ADHD

I have always known that I had ADHD. From the time I was a little kid running around playing crazy detailed games of pretend and asking everyone I met questions about any subject a mile a minute. I always knew that there was something unique about the way my brain worked. The problem is, neither I, nor my parents, or my teachers were able to get an official diagnosis until I was 17 and in my Jr. year of high school. Being an only child, with several medical issues from the start and with parents who didn’t really know what to do with me made school, and life in general kind of difficult. Fortunately I was very lucky to have always loved learning no matter how hard the process had been. Math, (like many people) has always been my worst subject. I struggled with learning the concepts in the first place let alone trying to get them in my head enough to bring it to the test or move on to higher levels. And it sure as hell was not for lack of trying. The problem with school and especially teachers who do not understand that people have extremely varying was of learning, is that when it comes to kids with ADHD, we can put in a solid three hours, and only have half a page of work to show for it. It is extremely discouraging when you put all that effort in and you’re so proud of those solid three hours, and go into school the next day and have your teacher rip you apart for “being lazy”, and “not trying hard enough”, and asking the golden question of “why can’t you JUST do the work like everyone else!?”. Sometimes they even do it in front of the entire class. What kid is going to want to keep trying and is going to be motivated to keep learning about themselves and how they learn after a teacher, who is supposed to be your mentor, completely degrades you in front of everyone? The questions of “why cant you JUST…” are really hard to hear when you are young and you yourself would absolutely LOVE to know why the heck you can’t “just do the work like everyone else”.  For me these disheartening questions started when I was in first grade.

My birthday falls in kind of a weird place in late June that made my parents really question if I was ready to go to kindergarten when I had just barely turned 5. I was already reading Junie B. Jones books and loving the work books my mom had given me so they figured it would be fine and it was. I started going to a private Methodist school and had a blast in kindergarten, just like many kids. But the next year really changed everything. I was younger than the majority of the kids in my class and it was my teacher’s first year of teaching. I don’t remember a ton of details from that year because I guess I spent a lot of my childhood desperately trying to forget it; but my parents still talk about how horrible it was to this day. I started to struggle with reading a little bit and the attention deficit was really starting to affect my learning process. It wasn’t that I was having behavioral issues in the class room or that I was being disruptive I just was having a little trouble with the work. I fall more under inattentive type rather than hyperactive type on the ADHD spectrum and what people don’t realize about that is it isn’t always about simple wandering thoughts, but it affects the way you gather, process, and categorize information in your head. At this point it was not a huge problem yet and had I had the little bit of support I needed I would have been fine. This of course was not the case. Instead of supporting me and giving me any kind of guidance let alone kindness, my teacher decided to make sure I knew just how stupid I was. Like I said I can’t remember a lot of detail but apparently I, a previously abnormally cheerful child, came home crying from school every single day for several months. Every day I grew more and more discouraged as any 6 year old would who had a teacher, a TEACHER constantly belittling them every single day. Needless to say after weeks of fighting the school my parents found a way to let me switch to a different class and a different school the next year. This helped me emotionally and helped me get back on track accedemically but the root problem was still there. My grades were ok enough for me to move to second grade but my parents had felt that I was so emotionally devastated by the constant daily humiliation and degradation, that it would be a good idea to repeat the first grade at the new public school. For the first two years the school change had really helped me get back to a productive mindset but again the signs were still there. I had a hard time sitting to study my spelling words and I was often asking to leave class to go to the nurse or the bathroom when I didn’t need to. I didn’t understand why I was doing those things or why certain simple tasks like cleaning my room took me so much longer than they should have. It was my normal. The rest of my schooling through 8th grade was pretty ok. There always seemed to be at least one teacher every year that didn’t really get me and I just had to kind of suffer in silence through it because honestly I didn’t really get me either. My grades were alright, mostly B’s and a few C’s with the acceptation of math. If I would have had any kind of additional support and a better understanding of the ADHD and how it manifested itself in my head then I am positive that I would have gotten straight A’s and would not have had so many emotional struggles in high school. ��The biggest thing at that point that got me through school was the fact that I really did enjoy learning and my love of reading. Being able to hyper focus on books has helped me keep up in school and has helped teach me how my brain categorizes information. Hyper focus is a great thing because when you’re in it, you can see how you think and feel in a productive setting. But you have to understand what is happening first. I was not able to make sense of why I could focus on some things and not others, and why I could learn something easily in one class and not the other, until my Jr. year in high school. And honestly it was a really tough process.

The transition to a private high school was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. The classes were so so much harder and the expectations were much greater and I struggled immensely. It was devastating for someone like me who genuinely loves learning, to fail so hard. I desperately wanted to do well and gain more respect from my teachers but I couldn’t even find a place to start. It was an entirely new environment and the teachers were so different from what I was used to. The atmosphere of that high school was built on academic success and athletic accomplishments so there was a lot of pressure to be exceptional. All of a sudden I was in the position again where the teachers did not have a clue how to connect and interact with me and I started to really fall into depression and anxiety. Those questions of “why aren’t you trying hard enough and why can’t you just…” started coming up again and I wanted to give up. I was so depressed because of my failures at school that I barely had a social life because I couldn’t bring myself to make the effort. I felt like because I was so bad at school that I didn’t deserve to go out with friends or even deserve to be happy. With my teachers and the administration making school a kind of hostile unsafe environment, and the constant frustration I felt toward them and especially myself, my depression and anxiety became very damaging. I was self-harming and my anxiety was so bad that I couldn’t ask for any kind of help, not for school work and noy for myself. I ended up failing math that freshman year and it was just an all-around bad situation. This stress and distrust of teachers continued into my sophomore year. Amazingly I was able to get into an honors level history class Jr year because history has always been my passion and for some reason I liked all of my teachers a lot more this year too. I took the fact that these teachers seemed to genuinely care about me more than past teachers had very seriously. I wanted more than ever to do well for myself and to make them proud. It took an extra toll on my anxiety but I was able to start asking more questions. Not just questions in class but I was able to ask my self questions too. My parents had also been asking questions and trying to somehow find out why I had been struggling for so long. Toward the end of that year we were able to get documented in writing that I had ADHD. Once I finally had the actual diagnosis and started to connect the dots I was finally able to understand myself and start to forgive myself for all those years of struggle. So for my senior year I was actually allowed to utilize the school’s intervention specialists and it was amazing. At that point I had a fairly more decent grasp of my brain and how it worked that I was finally able to do a lot of the work on my own. The school had hired new intervention teachers and the one I was assigned that first semester made a monumental difference in my life. She didn’t really help me very much with my actual assignments but just the sheer fact of knowing I had at least ONE person on my side who believed in me, was there for me, and understood where I was coming from made all the difference. I finished my senior year a decimal point away from being on the honor roll.

It was a healing experience to start to finally have answers, but it was also hard at first because I was very bitter about it. I held on to so much anger that all these years of frustration and self-hatred and desperately wondering why, when there was a pretty simple answer all along. It has taken me a while to come to terms with my journey and the impact all of this has had on my life, and I still today as a freshman in college have some days where I really struggle with it, but I can honestly say that I am grateful for the whole experience. All of it. I am at a place now where I know so so much about myself and how I learn and how my brain works in general that I cannot even put into word how amazing it feels. Of course I can still get depressed and I still battle the anxiety every day, and I still encounter huge setbacks but without this amazing and horrible experience I wouldn’t know how to bounce back from it and how to keep going. If nothing else these are the most crucial things I have learned:

NEVER. STOP. ASKING. QUEESTIONS. No matter how defeated you are, no matter how much you want to give up, no matter how much you think you don’t even deserve answers, never stop asking questions because it is how you grow.

Also, be able to understand the importance of being able to take those little steps to being more productive as victories. Even if you work all day on a paper and that doesn’t seem like enough, you have to be able to reflect on the good things you did that day and really look at the things that went right, so that way it might not take you as long tomorrow. It really does suck having to fail a bunch of times before you can get into the swing of things, but you can find peace in knowing that you will never be perfect. You just have to take those few strengths you may have and make them work for you. It will take a lot of time, and tears, and frustration but the peace that comes from progress and knowing you are doing the best you can is worth all of those tears.

`����

[angry--tiresia]

Why I’m fucked up [part 1]

REBLOG WITH YOUR OWN ‘WHY I’M FUCKED UP’

YES THIS IS ME OVERSHARING

There’ll be 3 parts I think;

1) I always feel stupid

2) I always feel ugly

3) I always feel unwanted

So;

1) Me feeling stupid. In primary school I was bullied, nothing big, a beating here and there but mostly just threats and repeated public humiliation. This made me hate everything to do with school and I don’t think I ever studied for a single test, however it was a rich afrikaans school, and this is an incredibly important point, being in a good school makes it hard to do badly. So even though I did terribly in comparison to my classmates, compared to most people from worse schools I did great. That obviously didn’t matter and I was constantly laughed at for my marks. 

Then I decided to change environment to an artschool, started acting classes a week before the audition, and I got in. This school used to accept 10% of applicants based on their audition and every other person in my class had been acting for years and had usually starred in at least one piece of commercial media - I was totally out of my depth and had a lot to catch up, and was again, continually humiliated for my inability to just know what to do. But by the end of the four years I kind of knew what I was doing and it was acknowledged, but by then I’d had years of insecurity buidling up. 

Now this school was amazing for the arts, heck even Charlize Theron went there, but in every other aspect it was truly horrible, with teachers blatantly lying to students. For maths, I could count the number of problems we did in a year on one hand. I was best friends with someone who worked 8 hours every day, so they did well, but from primary school - [and an initial month or so in the begining of high school where no teacher would translate single words in test questions/content because I was learning the language] - I knew that I was too stupid to ever reach that point. So they too humiliated me nearly every day, sometimes with a bit of a crowd, for how stupid I was. In grades 10 and 11 my maths teacher called me in at least once a week to tell me that I really don’t have enough intelligence for pure mathematics, and I should rather do mathematical literacy.

But I wanted to become immortal, to get to a point where I was better than I am now, and to do that I’d have to do biology, at a good uni, so I needed maths, and in matric my dad finally convinced me to do some work and I ended up getting the second best marks in my class, with my best friend [whom I was obviously inferior to] got the best marks of anyone in years. 

So I got into a good uni for science. But I wanted to prove to everyone for once and for all that I wasn’t an idiot, so though I did biology I also did pure physics and pure maths. And here’s a part to understand, for the past five years I’d been taught crap for maths. And doing maths trains your brain to do maths, it trains you to think in a certain way, and not only was I in class with people that had come from schools that had reputations and were significantly better than mine. And not only that, but the vast, vast majority of them had taken subjects in high school that I had never heard of, ones that had covered essentially the entire first year of mathematics. Throughout this year I was repeatedly laughed at and called an idiot. And even my closest friends would make jokes, for years afterwards, about my stupidity, the only comfort for 3 years being from my best friend [and fp for those that understand bpd] ; “It’s not your fault you made friends with clever people”. 

In second year I decided to do physics instead of biology, but at that point the people in my class had again, done applied mathematics in first year, something that was not required but was assumed knowledge for physics, and again, I cannot emphasis enough, it trains their brains to solve that kind of problem, and be more malleable to learn solve those kinds of problems. Objectively at this point I was years and years behind everyone else. It was during this time that my best friend again made a joke that for some reason goes in the book of things that people have said that completely change the way I see the world, myself and the way I act - it was that moment that I was finally convinced that, yes, after almost 14 years of being told I was stupid on a near daily basis, that I was in fact stupid. Even before this, the opinions of people outside my field didn’t matter to me because all my degree was was a mask to hide my stupidity, and I knew fully that any of them could do everything a million times better. 

I have tried to fix this, but it’s impossible, I’m to this day seen to be the stupidest person in my friend group, most recently we were at a restaurant and someone made a comment of “who would be the most likely to invent teleportation” and everyone pointed at my best friend, [except said best friend who pointed at me, n’caaw]. Someone said “But [referring to me] has a degree in physics” To which the response obviously is “But [best friend] has the brain for it”. 

And my favorite thing is to hear people say “You shouldn’t care about what people think” when they’ve been showered with affirmation for years. The best I’ve gotten is my room mate saying “No, you’re not stupid”, in the same way you would tell a dog “Oh you’re a good boy” and my best friend [only in the past year and a bit] saying “I think you’re smart”. And my parents, and I can’t deny the solid base they gave me, but a solid base can only take you that far.

My second favourite thing to hear is, upon asking for help [which takes nth level courage btw] “I don’t know any better than you” when they’ve literally already made the most perfect decisions or answers for that exact question and you’re entirely lost cause you don’t have 4+ years of direct experience in that field/thing because this is the first time in your life you’re seeing it. 

And logically I can see why I feel the way I do. The moment I get good at something I drop it to throw myself into a field that I know nothing about. At the end of high school I auditioned for the new york film academy, and at the time they had no bursaries for South African kids, but they wanted me so badly they sent a million letters to a million sponsors to try get my tuition paid for, but my audition had been live and no bursary came. At the end of my physics degree I went to one of the professors that I thought wasn’t too horrible, and I pitched an idea to him about how to model the fundamental forces in a more unified manner, to which the response was ‘It sounds amazing and innovative, but I simply don’t know enough to be able to tell you anything more’, and had to send me to an expert in the field, who liked the idea enough to want to make me do a project that would lead into it for a masters project, unfortunately I couldn’t. Or my current supervisor, upon hearing my ideas on the possibilities of time travel offered to write me a recommendation letter to the most prestigious theoretical physics institute in the world.

But instead of pursuing any of that I’m throwing myself into software engineering, again, a field I know nothing about, where I will be laughed at and humiliated for not knowing.

And what’s shattering about it all is the way it changes the way I interact. Earlier this year a friend said “I’m going to see a Wagner opera - you’ve probably never heard of him” and instead of replying “No, actually I know Wagner’s work pretty intimately, I can’t agree with the directing style he pioneered, nor his style, however his concept of the ubermensch really inspired me for a while”, I said “yeah, I don’t know much. I think I might have heard his name before” Because, lets be real, they almost definitely know so much more than me. 

Or last year I was on set with friends and someone was constructing a grid and they simply wanted to know that if they had [say] 20 tiles and the grid had to be 4 tiles wide, how many layers deep the grid would be. They were 100% in arts and honestly didn’t know how to do it, and in front of a small group of people they asked me, as they knew I was a final year astrophysics - physics major. But in that moment I was too insecure to be able to lift my voice to divide 20 by 4. So I rather said “No, ask [this friend] they know better”

I’m terrified of giving my opinion because I know chances are that it’s wrong, because I’m stupid, and the person I’m telling will know better, and they will see my mistake, and they will make fun of me. AND  when I do gain the confidence to give my opinion, usually only to the people very closest to me, they will stop listening to me halfway through my sentence, and I would end it with “Oh, you’re right, no one cares”, and not a single person has ever noticed. Most notably [because I suffer from jealousy when it comes to this person] was when me and my best friend were out, but she was talking to this guy on her phone [someone I’m jealous of for the attention she gives him - I’ll get to his in the ‘unwanted’ section], and eventually she clearly felt bad for straight up ignoring me [lol this is actually seen as abuse towards people with bpd] she said that they were talking about the ethics of supporting a politician who’s personal life contradicts his policy - and, other than being totally jealous of the ability to have such a conversation - she asked for my opinion. So I gave my first point of his policy affecting more people than his personal life so I’d vote for them, to which she responded that ‘he can’t be trusted to stick to his policy if he doesn’t believe in it’. I was a full sentence into my reply when she looked down at her phone and started to message him, and it was just, once again, such a thorough “Lol your opinion doesn’t matter cause you’re stupid and who cares, but his on the other hand” As a safety check I again ended with “Oh yeah you don’t care” with no response. And this also, not from her spesifically, happens about once a week, perhaps once every two weeks, but if we’re going with this week I think we’re going on 3 already and it’s monday.

So, my final note is, why would I feel anything but stupid? On some logical level I want to say that I know I’m not stupid; but it never feels like that, and in addition to that, what evidence is there that I’m not stupid? There is literally none, and significant, 14+ years, worth of proof that I’m an idiot. 

Also sorry for grammar/spelling typos, I’m really tired. 

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