#and when you add self deprication self hatred and all these horribly habits into a 'routine' of sorts

[cotton-corduroy]

you seem happier these days, its really nice to see

youre too kind, sweet stranger 🫂🫂🫂

ive been actively trying to perk up, but if im being fully plain its for the people around me, not myself. but maybe once i settle a little more into myself, ill come around to my own happiness soon. at least thats what i hope

im glad its noticable, af least x its hard to not feel seen sometimes, like your brain gets used to only attention when things are bad. the attention when youre doing well isnt seen. such a mental overshadow, and inherently selfish thinking. but. its worth it, i think. it feels worthwhile. making myself be receptive to other people has helped not only with my anguish, but also just my trust in general.

once my brains rewired to accept positive affirmations for positive habits without doubt, its ALL over. i will have peaked.

[sadlyghost]

I don't really have a lot of context in mind for this but a gn reader who's Steven's friend who is struggling with thoughts of self-harm. C*tting and all that. They haven't actually done anything but still can't stop feeling this way even though nothing particularly bad happened recently.

Thank you!

[CONTENT WARNINGS!] Descriptive self harm thoughts and urges, self depricating thoughts, anxious thoughts, (let me know if you want me to add anything).

Summary: Your self destructive thoughts had somehow found a way to return, regardless of your life going well lately. Feeling fearful of your thoughts, you seek support from your friend, Steven.

Pairing: Steven Grant x (platonic) Reader

Words: 1.7k

A/N: Y'all, please don't read this if you know it will trigger you, okay? I don't want any of you to be hurt. I'm just here to make you feel better, so please take care of yourself.

Your life had been pretty decent lately. Things had been going well for you and you didn't feel completely miserable. It was honestly out of character for you as you usually lived in a neutral state of nothingness, or just below that in a pool of pessimism.

But at the moment, things were good. You felt quite okay most days. Nothing seemed to really be bringing you down - except for the guilt that is.

It was hard to explain, but feeling okay made you feel some form of guilt. After living in such a neutral or low zone most of your life, feeling above average began to feel wrong. It was unfamiliar and caused you to overthink.

When in happy situations, you'd start to find your mind wandering to how life used to be, when things were harder, when you felt horrible. When you'd be feeling somewhat content, there was always a lingering thought which bought back all the bad feelings. It's not like you didn't want to be happy, but these thought patterns were so ingrained in your being that they were hard to forget. You had attached so much of your identity to your hurt, which made moving past it harder. In every situation, you'd always find a way of making yourself feel bad.

It was mostly just annoying at first. A stray thought here and there which you could brush off. But after a while, the pain inside you became harder and harder to fend off as you felt yourself being pulled back into your old thinking habits again.

Nothing bad had happened recently and your life seemed to be moving in a good direction. So why was all this coming back? And why now?

You thought it would go away eventually and you could try moving on again, but things only became worse.

Some of your darkest thoughts had returned, mostly ones relating to your recent happiness. Thoughts about how you didn't deserve to be happy, how you'd never be happy, and how you felt guilty for being happy because there were people in the world who weren't.

Not only that, but your self destructive thoughts had seemed to of returned as well.

Now, you had never actually acted on any of these thoughts in the past, but you had come extremely close to doing so. It was scary. When you were able to access your rational mind, you knew that doing such a thing didn't seem logical, and that you'd probably regret it later. But when in a pit of self hatred, only wanting to self sabotage, the thoughts seemed to be the only solution.

You knew this wasn't normal. Things had been going so well, and you had to go and somehow ruin them again. You could handle a stray thought here and there, but when serious self destructive ideas started surfacing, you knew it was serious.

You hadn't had a support system before so you never asked for help for these thoughts, but you'd made a great friend in the past year and you trusted them enough that you considered reaching out to them on this issue.

Steven worked at the museum with you and after meeting him you two quickly became close friends. It was nice. You'd never had a proper friend before, not one who genuinely cared about you.

You knew you could trust him and you knew you could go to him with anything. Which is why you showed up at his apartment at midnight. He had explained his unusual sleeping habits to you before, so you knew he'd most likely be awake, even at this time.

After a shaky knock on the door, Steven quickly opened the door for you.

"Y/n? What are you doin' here at this hour?" he asked with a small concerned frown as he quickly noticed your glossy eyes and unsure expression.

"Um..." you just said, suddenly feeling insecure and bothersome. Maybe this plan wasn't a good idea and maybe you had just made up your friendship with Steven. Maybe it was all fake. Dammit. Why wouldn't these thoughts go away? Why did you feel the need to sabotage everything? You knew Steven was your friend, so why did you feel like this?

"Wanna come inside? I just made some tea" he said, gesturing for you to enter. You walk in shakily, ending up sitting down on his worn couch. He sits at the other end of the couch, facing you as he hands you the warm cup.

Theres a long silence as you both just sit there. You just stare down at your cup as Steven looks at your side profile with soft eyes.

"Is somethin' the matter?" he asks, voice gentle and caring. You gulp and tap your finger on the cup in your hands, feeling the heat from the ceramic.

"I guess..." you whisper, not having the courage to look at him.

"Did you wanna talk abou' it? Or we can do somethin' else. Or just sit here. Whatever you need," he assures you.

"I think maybe it would be good to talk....about it..." you say quietly, voice wavering from insecurity. You were sure he wouldn't react badly to what you wanted to talk about, but some part of you just expected the worse out of this situation.

"Alright. We can talk if you want. I'm listening." But you hadn't yet formed the words in your head. How could you express something as awful as self destructive thoughts? You just sat silently, wondering if Steven even wanted to hear these things. They were pretty disturbing. What if you scared him away with these thoughts? Why would he even listen to you in this state when he had so many better things to do with his time?

"Honestly, I think I owe you some good listenin'. I know how many times you've tolerated my random rambles. So I really am listenin' y/n, I want to hear whatever it is that's troublin' you," he voiced truthfully, somehow soothing the majority of your worries in the moment.

You took a deep breath before beginning, speaking slowly and quietly.

"I guess I've just been having some....unwanted thoughts lately...and they are worrying me a bit because I know I shouldn't be thinking such things..." you admit nervously. You continue to stare down at your tea, feeling Stevens attentive gaze to your side.

"And it's just annoying because things in my life have actually been pretty good lately. I thought that maybe I finally had a chance at being happy after so long of anything but that. But now everything is coming back and I just want to-....I want to...." you trailed off, still finding it hard to vocalise your self destructive thoughts.

"Want to what?" Steven prompted, voice still soft and calming.

You gulped again, looking more away from him in shame. It was hard to admit this kind of thing to people.

"I want to....hurt myself...." you whispered shakily. Steven didn't say anything right away but you just knew his brain looking for the right words to say next. He had to go about this the right way. He couldn't make you feel even more ashamed or disgusted with yourself. He didn't want to scare you away or judge you. And he didn't want to say the wrong thing to push you further into your harsh thoughts.

"Do you know why you want to hurt yourself?" he asked, not a single hint of judgement in his voice. You just shrugged. It was hard to find one answer to that question. It was all just a jumble of dark thoughts in your brain. You begin fiddling with the cup handle mindlessly.

"Um....I guess I kinda think I deserve it or something. Like, even though things have been going good lately, and I've been feeling better, there's just some part of me that want's to destroy this. Like I want to ruin my chance at happiness because I don't deserve it...." you say shakily, finally voicing your thoughts. Your wrap an arm around yourself in an attempt to comfort yourself.

"And some of these thoughts....they're....graphic. It's scary, Steven. I know I shouldn't want to hurt myself, so why do I keep imagining myself ruining my own flesh and blood?" you ask desperately.

Steven carefully puts both of your cups down as he gently moves over beside you. He carefully puts his hand on yours as looks at your side profile with empathetic eyes.

"This does sound really scary y/n. But I'm glad you came to me about it. I don't want my friend to deal with this stuff on their own, okay?" you nod slowly in response, trying to accept his words.

"I can't even begin to understand how you're feelin' right now, but I want to help you. This really sounds like it's weighin' you down, and all I want is for you to be happy and healthy. I know you can go back to feelin' happy, it just might take some time and effort, alright?" you nod again as he squeezes your hand softly.

"You can call me or come here whenever you want, y/n. I have plenty of things to do if you want a distraction. I can even ramble on for hours if you just want to listen to somethin' else. Or we can always talk, anytime you need. If you want, you can just hang out here, your friendly company always makes me feel better, so I hope I can do the same for you," he offers considerately with a kind smile. You turn to him, feeling grateful for such a wonderful friend.

"Thank you Steven. Really, thank you so much...." you say genuinly.

"We'll figure this out together, yeah?" he says. You nod, feeling so incredibly thankful to have someone as kind as him supporting you through something like this.

~~~

A/N: Virtual hugs for everyone~~ ⊂( ◜o◝)⊃

I hope you're all doing alright :(

To the person who recommended this, I hope it turned out how you wanted. Writing dialouge on things like this is quite hard for me. I don't want to hurt anyone, I want to make y'all feel better, I don't want it to be too specific to me, and I don't want to romantize this stuff. Hopefully it ended up being okay.

Take care of yourselves <3