#and the man I called completely gaslit me into believing my mom already called to figure it out but she hadn’t

[pnthra]

guess who has a BED!!!!!!

[kaypeace21]

Stranger things is about mental health & trauma- deal with it!

I’ve seen a lot of people claim anyone who mentioned this topic immediately be gaslit and told they’re “just crazy” and “rudely projecting their own issues on to the characters.’ Like- no you don’t have to believe my  Will DID/Lonnie theory ( I could be wrong). But to claim one of the show’s central themes isn’t about mental health/trauma (screams either complete lack of lit comprehension or denial cause you have your own negative biases towards such people). So let’s just go into what’s literal text-not subtext/symbolism. Just the super blatant stuff.  RIGHT IN THE SHOW!

S1

-We have El when she first appears on screen  asked by Benny if her parents starved and hurt her and if that’s why she ran away. Benny then calls CPS to say El “may have been ab*sed or something.” After this Lucas says there is “seriously something wrong with her-wrong in the head. She’s probably from the NUT-HOUSE in curly county.penthurst” We also see El  cannonically has PTSD-all of s1 she’ll see something benign (a cat, a coke commercial, a closet) and is triggered to see a traumatic flashback. That’s literally ptsd.  There’s also hints throughout the seasons she’s developmentally behind in both language, telling time etc (neglect like El’s irl can cause an intellectual disability-analysis on El/that subject here).The real pethurst in pensylvannia (not the one in stranger things/ Curly county)  closed in 1986-  it was a facility for people and mostly  kids with intellectual disabilities (it wasn’t technically a psych facility like the one in st)-but it was infamous for it’s abuse of these intellectually disabled patients kept there. We also have Brenner be a ab*sive psychiatrist.

- Hopper after suffering from the loss of his daughter. Is popping pills like candy, drinking and smoking constantly. He later says he used to hallucinate and forgot what was real -seeing and hearing sarah and says if he didn’t confront the pain he’d “fall down a black hole he couldn’t get out of.” NO... subtext here about what the void represents nope.

- Both mothers (Terry & Joyce) are dismissed as being mentally ill and simply grieving the loss of their kids . But both end up being right about the supernatural.

- “Terry pretends Jane is real. i mean it’s all make believe. you know the doctors all say it’s a coping mechanism.”

- While with Joyce the whole town pre s1 already questioned her mental health. Jonathan says “She used to have anxiety problems (pre s1).” And Jonathan, Hopper, and Lonnie all assume she’s hallucinating: talking to Will via lights, seeing a man without a face, saying Will’s body is fake -due to grief. Plus Lonnie mentions the fact Joyce’s aunt Darlene also used to hallucinate as a possible reason  (terry’s aunt also had mental health issues mentioned in s2 by Becky). Lonnie even says everything Joyce is seeing  is “all in her head.”  Hopper and Jon both say she needs to sleep and accept reality and Lonnie says she needs to see a “shrink”.  Hopper “i’m not saying that you’re crazy”. Joyce : “no, you are.” Joyce also says to Lonnie “Stop looking at me like that... like everyone else like i’m out of my damn mind.” Hopper also says about Joyce she’s “on the edge”. Callahan says in response , “she’s been on the edge for a while now” (referring to her mental health- even before Will’s dissappearance)”. While Lonnie says Jonathan is “feeding into her hallucinations ... you’re going to push her right over the edge.” In s2 Hopper says “ I think everyone is on edge- you, me, Will most of all. (when talking about Will’s ptsd/trauma)” 

- in s1 They claim Will just “fell” over the edge of the quarry’s cliff. Later the only other queer coded character (Mike) jumps off the quarry cliff (where Will’s body was found) cause the homophobic troy forced him too jump. Troy even says earlier dead-Will is “flying with all the other fairies all happy and gay” (to Mike). And Troy says to Hopper El made Mike “fly” after jumping off the cliff. Friendship saved him from jumping off the edge metaphorically ( and he’ll prob eventually be happy and gay too).

s2/3

-Will is seeing a therapist . And we are told he has ptsd and will experience the anniversary effect, personality changes,nightmares, having episodes, etc. And things “will get worse before they get better”.  Mike also asks if what Will is seeing is “real or like the doctors say all in your head?” And Will continues to see hallucinations of the mf/upsidedown that only he can see initially.

-Hopper also agrees with owens mentioning how he knew guys with ptsd . joyce : “it’s not like he’s describing a nightmare. He talks about them like they’re real.” Hopper: “Yeah, because they’re not nightmares they’re flashbacks.I think he’s right about trauma.I think everyone is on edge (bringing that s1 ref back), Me you, Will, most of all.Nothing’s gonna go back to the way that it was. But it’ll get better.In time.”

-Nancy suffers from survivor’s guilt and drunkingly says she killed Barb. Jonathan says like Nancy he has “a weight that you that carry all the time . i feel it too.” (cough depression). He also says he tries to be there for Will but says about Will “he’s not the same. maybe things can’t go back to the way they were. (mirroring Hopper’s words earlier that season)”

-Jonathan said in s1 Joyce had “anxiety issues” than Nancy says in s3 “you really are your mother’s son... you worry too much.” Then we see him look worried after the comment.

- in s2, Axel & a scientist both call El and Will “schizos” because of their powers. In s3 mrs driscoll isn’t believed about the supernatural cause she’s schizophrenic-but like Joyce/Terry was right.

- Kali saves a woman named Dottie (a british slang term for crazy)  from a mental hospital and then compares herself and El to dottie. saying her non-powered gang is “Like us ...outsiders... society discarded them.”  In graphitti we even see the title “obedlam” a british poem about discarding the mentally ill and leaving them homeless.  El before this sees a mentally ill man screaming “we’re all dead!” Kali’s friend says to El, after this encounter they were “dead all of us” until kali “saved them here” (points to head) “and here” (points to heart). Pointing to the theme of love and friendship helping those with such issues. Similar to the cliff analogy.

-The cycle of ab*se. Max in s2 says she’s afraid of becoming like Billy (her ab*ser). We see Billy mimic his ab*ser neil and inflict pain on max. In s3 we see the roots of his behavior are linked to mimicking Neil- Neil in a flashback says  about baseball “what are you scared?”  “ did i raise a p*ssy for a son”. So young Billy later in a fight says to a boy “ what are you scared to fight me? fight me p*ssy. (as he beats the boy)” Deflecting his anger of his father on to someone else. In s3, We see as a kid he used to say to Neil “don’t hurt her” (his mom)-specifically after  Neil backhand slaps her -but we later see possessed Billy backhand slap Max (just like neil).  The resentment to his mother leaving - festered into how he views women and max negatively . And his attraction to mrs wheeler prob is linked to him subconsciously missing his mother. Max in s2 even says  he can’t take it out on her mother so he does so to her instead (we even have Billy hallucinate hurting mrs wheeler).We see in s2 the cycle of abuse is there- Billy mimics Neil, and then Max mimics Billy. Billy harrasses Max and yells “SAY IT!” (mimicking Neil).  Max like Billy later  yells “SAY IT” and uses a bat /violence to stand up for herself against Billy- which earlier she said she was trying to combat … explaining she can be angry like Billy sometimes but she never wants to be like him (her nickname symbolizing this: aka ‘mad max’).  Billy’s last dying words were an apology to Max- for becoming her neil. And we hopefully will see Max break this cycle.

- Will says his now memories (that he describes like dreams) are “growing “, “spreading “,and “killing”. While Kali says they need to face their father and (as Brenner) says El has to confront her “wound” or else it’ll “grow”, “spread” and “eventually it’ll kill her.” Kali says she used to be like El . She used to bottle her pain away and it “spread.” But she then says  “I confronted my pain and I finally began to heal (from those wounds).” We also see with jonathan and nancy when describing “shared trauma” zoom in onto the scars on their hands. The wound heeled into a scar so to speak.

S2 & 3 ENDINGS

both have Hopper do a speech that delves into dealing with trauma/depression but still finding good along the way.

-s2 Hopper outside the snowball: “how are you holding up? Yeah, that feeling never goes away. It is true what they say, you know. Everyday it does get easier.”

-s3 Hopper monolouge : “ Feelings jesus. For so long, i’d forgotten what those even were. I’ve been stuck in one place,in a cave you might say , a deep dark cave (cough s2 supernatural cave). For the first time in a long time, i started to feel things again. I started to feel happy. Life... yeah sometimes it’s painful .sometimes it’s sad, and sometimes it’s suprising... happy.. And when life hurts you, because it will .remember the hurt . The hurt is good. It means you’re out of that cave.”

BUT YES- St has nothing to do with mental health/trauma, we’re just “crazy” and “projecting”. It’s not like some of ya’ll  act pompous when you just have a bias and get pissy at the idea of relating to characters you “other” as “crazy” or “damaged” irl or anything (so attack people for pointing it out). Or (benefit of the doubt) you are just like.... oblivious... or just a kid who doesn’t know better XD

[wigwurq]

WIG REVIEW: I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS

Well spooky season is over which means it’s time for my favorite season: AWARDS! I’m catching up on new releases and starting with a fairly spooky one: Charlie Kaufman’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things. If you absolutely adore movies that completely gaslight you, the musical Oklahoma!, off-brand DQ blizzards IN a blizzard, actors from every season of Fargo in once place and of course: Toni Collette’s bewigged bangs, this movie is for you! I guess this review includes spoilers but even if you have already seen this movie, this may not spoil things for you?? Regardless: let’s discuss the wigs (and much more!)

Straight up: I love a good roadtrip movie and this one stars a couple played by Jesse Plemons and Jessie Buckley! Buckley-ed up: this is 2x the Jess(i)es! Also buckle up: this movie is absolutely not a roadtrip movie and defies all genres, reason, and narrative logic. We are first meant to believe that Jessie is meeting Jesse’s parents, but actually none of that is true and also I hope you like listening to poems recited in a car because that is basically the first hour of this movie. 

Finally, we make it to Jesse’s parents’ secluded farmhouse where we are first given a tour of barn atrocities and then have to watch a wet dog shake itself for a about three hours and wonder what is happening in the creepy basement before finally meeting: DAVID THEWLIS AND TONI COLLETTE! Whew! Does anyone remember simpler times only 3 years ago when we were living in a total David Thewlinnaisance due to his involvement in both Wonder Woman and Fargo season 3? Well hold on to your old man wigs because we are in a Second Wave Thewlinnaisance!!!! Also between Thewlis, Buckley, and Plemons, Fargos season 2-4 are completely represented here like some sort of Fargo: End Game which honestly makes a lot of sense in the context of this movie (I THINK). Toni Collette: you need to be in Fargo season 5 now.

So let’s talk about Toni Collette’s wigs, as they are the main wigs in this movie. As Jesse’s off-kilter mom, these wigs are very perfect farmhouse non-chic. We first see her in this banged shag and it is pretty good! It is also very good at helping me understand just what the hell is going on in this movie because moments later...

Toni has no bangs!! This bang shift was the first substantial clue for me in realizing that the full time-space continuum was off in this movie (also this movie makes its own Robert Zemekis joke because it knows it is fully Back to the Futuring some real timetravel nonsense as well!)  Anyway, this wig is also good! Straggly and terrible, but good for the purpose it serves: to tell us that nothing is as it seems. Jessie’s non-wigged hair also shifts, as does her clothing, career, and name, as does Thewlis’s wig until we realize that this movie is totally gaslighting the hell out of us. 

Time becomes a flat circle and past and present all become one. Toni is young again, and so is this ‘50s ‘do! Ok? It is ok! Before you can say Leave It To Beaver, Toni is old again, about to die....and maybe so are we? How long is this movie? Also this is not even the scariest Toni has been at a parental dinner if you have seen Hereditary. 

It should be noted that throughout this gaslit nightmare of a parental dinner, we get flashes of a random high school janitor who ends up being the key to all of this. As does the musical Oklahoma! which he sees being rehearsed time and time again.

Later, when the Jess(i)es finally leave the terrible, time-shifting parental dinner full of scary laundry basements and shifting wigs, they drive some more and recite Pauline Kael’s dissertations on A Woman Under the Influence, and find themselves at an off-brand Dairy Queen to get some off-brand blizzards in the middle of a blizzard that the girls who work there...were also in that high school production of Oklahoma! and are treating Jesse like he’s a weird janitor....I think we’re getting to the point of all this.

But first: how well do you know the musical Oklahoma??? I played Gertie in a community theater production in 1999 so allow me to school you. It is the first true American musical and is essentially all about a girl named Laurie trying to decide who to take to a dance. Yes, really. Her choices are cowboy Curly and farmhand weirdo Jud. Curly tries to help Laurie decide by going to Jud’s weird shack and trying to convince him through song to “end things” because only through suicide will anyone like him (yes this is an actual song called “Poor Jud is Dead”). And though Laurie’s choice seems obvious (?) she first has to take some smelling salts and think on it, which leads to the psychedelic narrative convention of the dream ballet - in which other actors play Curly, Jud, and Laurie and dance it OUT. Also the dream ballet (and the musical) end in murder and this musical is dark as hell. OK? OK. 

Back to this movie, Jessie and Jesse make their way back to the high school where the janitor works, make out in a car, and then Jesse gets weirded out that the janitor is watching them and decides to give him “a piece of his mind”....he gives him much more in that we soon discover that the Jess(i)es have all been part of the janitors mind this entire time and this whole goddamned movie is an elaborate dream ballet...that is ending with some dancers playing the Jess(i)es in an actual dream ballet. That ends in murder. Also Jessie’s character is a messed up version of Laurie (from Oklahoma!) but never actually Laurie. Her name shifts from Lucy, Louise, Louisa, Lucia....never quite the Laurie this janitor Jud wanted her to be. 

But we’re not actually done yet!! The old janitor leaves the school, trips the hell out in his truck and reenters the school naked and with off-brand DQ and dead pig animation (yes, really). Then Jesse in old wig/makeup become the old janitor in a Nobel Prize award ceremony on the set of Oklahoma! the musical with Toni in Aunt Eller drag and most of the audience (including Thewlis and Buckley) in the kind of old age makeup they do in high school productions where you just draw a bunch of lines on your face. Jesse delivers the Nobel acceptance speech from A Beautiful Mind and then goes into the set for Jud’s shack and sings Jud’s (often cut) song from Oklahoma!, “A Lonely Room”...and scene! Now aren’t you glad I told you about Oklahoma!???? 

Ultimately, this is the movie for the theater nerd who demanded that Jud hisself got his own damn dream ballet and also imagines Jud to be a modern-day janitor who thinks he’s smart and cultured and deserves a cool girlfriend and dabbles in landscape painting. But wig-wise...

VERDICT: WURQS!

[tervenish]

i am unbelievably furious at the US medical system. personal rant below the cut. the medical industry kills women and it’s killing my mother.

my mother has had yet another nightmare experience at the hospital. three days, no sleep, in horrific pain, they refused to give her anything stronger than half a milligram of Ativan. the fucking pain clinic doctor man was like “well, don’t you take baths? don’t you have someone who loves you who will give you a massage? have you tried stretching?” this shit is buried so deep and has been here for decades and they have the NERVE to tell her she should just take Advil and a hot bath. when she repeatedly comes back in and says “I’m still in nonstop crippling pain” they’re like “what do you want me to do?” she asks for solutions. they refuse them. i told her that tip to make them write it down. they didn’t.

they keep forcing her to take medications she tells them she’s allergic to. one stupid doctor a while ago screamed at her and demanded she let him give her intravenously this drug she told him she is ALLERGIC to. he says “but you take Advil and it’s the same family” and forced her to take it. she had a seizure. she was legally dead for several seconds. they treated that but basically did nothing. the doctor ignored her after that.

they constantly put her through scan after scan after scan, and invasive procedures or look-sees or whatever, and then return with “didn’t find anything. go home.” this ER nurse had the NERVE to tell her “we didn’t find anything! aren’t you glad? you should be grateful it isn’t something bad, like cancer.” GRATEFUL. GRATEFUL to be told “we don’t believe that you’re in severe pain. we don’t care enough to try to find the answer.”

the doctors kept asking her “wait, you used to take this medication. why aren’t you anymore?” and like!!!! because the all mysterious They of her medical care, they told her to stop! and the doctors are like. “Why? Why are you doing these things?” as if SHE is in control. as if SHE chose the medical decision. as if she hasn’t been ignored and abused at every turn by this stupid fucking system.

her primary doctor used to be kind. then she started whispering and writing in her chart that Mom is faking it. that she’s a drug seeker. that she’s an attention seeker. then she refuses to answer for it. once she was sent to palliative care, which was awesome! she gets there, starts something good, then goes to return and they say “we don’t have any record of you being referred here.” she asks her primary doctor where the referral went. doctor says “we never sent you there.” calling her a LIAR. the record vanished, or was never entered in the first place. she can’t go back to palliative care. she’s stalled once again.

doctors and services keep refusing to help. or she’s stopped by insurance. then she’s marked as a “doctor shopper.” so she stops for a while. tries to make it work. when it doesn’t work, they ask her “why haven’t you tried going somewhere else?” it doesn’t fucking end.

her system is completely wack and it doesn’t react the way you’d expect. of course, this just makes the doctors annoyed. so when her blood pressure drops but she says she’s in pain, they think she must be lying. every time she goes into the ER or the hospital, she’s practically starting from scratch. they don’t see her as the whole picture. they’re just treating a patient with stomach pain. not a patient with crazy unknown hormone disorders and everything else going on. she’s a symptom, not a human being, not a whole body system to them.

she cries to me, her daughter. her own wife doesn’t want to listen to her cry about the shit she’s been through, too focused on solution-based actions to care for her emotionally. this is the second, or maybe the third time my mother has admitted if it weren’t for us, her children, she may have killed herself. and i don’t blame her.

i’m so pissed. i’m so pissed. i wish i had a perfect memory so i could write everything that’s happened to her down. i get overwhelmed by this SHIT and i’m depressed and anxious already, so i try not to listen and internalize all of it. but then i get into this state where i just want to throw something and storm into the offices and demand CHANGE and RESPECT and HUMANITY.

they found birth defects for the first time at age fucking FIFTY. her entire life, her parents gaslit her. called her a liar. an attention-seeker. doctors continue the cycle. they’re going to kill her one of these days. i’m so afraid she’s going to get COVID and go into the hospital and we’re never going to see her again. people can’t have funerals. i wouldn’t get closure and i genuinely feel i would have to fight the urge to kill myself if Mom died anytime soon.

we live in a world where profit matters more than human life. i’m so angry. i’m so depressed. i love my mother so much. she deserves better.