#anxiety reactions

[ebongawk]

WAIT OK I HAVE ANOTHER ONE it’s prob cheating to send two so you can save this for another time but!!!! just chrissy fidgeting w eddie’s jewelry. his rings, his necklace. like she’s anxious abt smth and over time learned instead of like biting her nails or pulling hangnails or smth he’ll let her do that

Chrissy always had an issue with biting her nails.

As a child, whenever she was anxious about school, or nervous about dance competitions or cheer routines, her nails found their way between her teeth, chewed ragged and brittle.

Her mother called her disgusting. A ruler or wooden spoon was often produced, seemingly from thin air, to smack Chrissy across the back of her hands whenever they found their way into her mouth.

The main reason she started painting her nails was because the chemical taste of the polish made her nauseous. As her issues with food worsened, nausea became increasingly harder to control, and she found herself in the bathroom more often than not.

Her nerves, however, found new ways to ruin her.

Using those pretty nails she now sported, Chrissy dug into her cuticles. Picking at dry skin or tiny abrasions, creating hangnails she could then tear away.

Jason called her disgusting. Lightly smacking her hands with his own or with his school notebooks. Telling her constantly that every part of her was so pretty, but she was ruining her hands. Ruining the illusion of beauty he cast upon her by reminding him that she was human.

She couldn't break up with her mom. But she did break up with Jason.

Free of his oppressing weight, the urge to pick at her nailbeds lessened. It didn't disappear completely, of course, but she found healthy skin growing over her tiny scars.

Then she started hanging out with Eddie. And, for a little while, she didn't even notice how her fingertips stopped bleeding.

One day, sitting at the lunch table Eddie and his friends occupied, Chrissy's mind had been sloughing through the finals they had coming up. She was decently confident about most of them, but O'Donnell could be killer when it came to testing. Often asking things not covered by the study guide, so she and Eddie had spent the past four afternoons in his bedroom, textbooks open and flashcards made, trying to get one another ready for their teacher's unhinged brutality.

Her anxiety, during this thought spiral, had heightened exponentially. She stopped moving all at once when she remembered that Sandra had taken a bad scrape during practice yesterday – cheer season was over, but Chrissy was determined to keep the younger girls occupied through the year so they wouldn't be so rusty when they came back in August – and she'd used her last band-aid for the scrapes.

Sighing, Chrissy looked down to inspect the damage.

And saw Eddie's hand in her lap.

She glanced over. Eddie was still fully engaged in whatever conversation he was having with Jeff – his unoccupied hand twisting and twirling through the air to accentuate his points. But his left hand was loose between hers, one of his rings twisted to face his palm.

Chrissy twisted the ring back to right. Then did another circuit, finding it strange how natural it was to fiddle with his rings.

Looking up at Eddie again, he met her eye with a curious smile. Tilting his head to one side in silent question that she just shrugged at, instead scooting the tiniest bit closer and dropping herself seamlessly back into the conversation.

She didn't think of it again for a few weeks. Until she and Eddie were tucked up at his home, watching some British scary movie called Underworld and sharing a bowl of popcorn. They'd started the evening next to one another, but as the movie progressed, Chrissy found herself almost entirely in Eddie's lap. Curling into his side with every scary part, until her knees were tucked up to her chest and her feet were pressed between his thighs.

Every jump scare made her wince, shoving her face into Eddie's shoulder and peeking through one eye until the scary parts were over.

The movie was almost completely finished before she registered Eddie's hand in her lap. Her fingers twisting the rings around his over and over, slipping them up and down his knuckles.

Her nailbeds had never looked so healthy.

Remaining quiet until the previews ran, Chrissy slipped from Eddie's lap, standing and stretching as Eddie moved to flip on the light.

"What'dya think?" he asked, picking up the popcorn bowl and a few stray kernels before walking it into the kitchen. "Weird, yeah? Did I fill your weekly scary movie prescription, Miss Cunningham?"

She'd told him, ages ago, that she wanted to start liking scary movies, because he loved them so much. They now had a weekly movie date, watching something from his repertoire of slasher films before loading one of her favorite romance tapes into the VCR.

(Tonight, it was Breakfast at Tiffany's.)

"Yes, Dr. Munson, it was exactly what I needed," she said around a grin, walking into the kitchen with him. He had his back to her, squatting in front of the fridge for another movie snack, and Chrissy wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Hoisting herself onto his back and pressing her cheek against his neck.

Beneath her, Eddie let out a little chuckle. Something Chrissy turned her head to taste with her lips against his spine.

"That freaked out, sweetness?" he asked, grabbing a jar of the strawberry jam he kept just for her and a couple cans of Coke before standing. Keeping herself firmly affixed to his body with her legs around his waist.

"No," Chrissy answered. "Just wanted to be close to you, that's all."

Eddie huffed, setting his wares down and yanking her further up his back. Situating her to be a little more comfortable before he grabbed peanut butter and the half-eaten loaf of bread from the pantry.

"Yeah?" He paused in his actions, setting the clean butter knife he'd just grabbed next to the jam. "We can, uh. We can get a hell of a lot closer, y'know. If that's your real aim here."

Gosh, he could be such a boy sometimes. Chrissy snorted, burying her face in his neck.

"But what about Breakfast at Tiffany's?"

"Audrey Hepburn will be waiting for us when we're finished, sweet girl." The hand around her knee slid up, gently stroking the outside of her thigh. "Or we can put her on in the background. Make her bear witness to our incredible physical connection."

"Eddie."

"Chrissy."

Rolling her eyes, Chrissy tapped her healthy, wound-free fingertips against his collar.

"Bedroom," she finally said, laughing loudly when Eddie whooped and threw a fist in the air before sprinting down the hallway.

After, as they lay together in a sweaty pile of contentment, Chrissy snuggled into Eddie's chest. Eyes closed, relishing in the smooth, easy way his hand drifted up and down her side, from her hip to her ribs and down again.

"Eddie?"

"Hmm?" He took a final puff of his cigarette before ashing it.

"When did you notice that I pick at my nails?"

He hummed, rolling that thought around in his mind.

"I dunno," he admitted after a moment. "Early, I guess? Beginning."

Tapping her fingers against his stomach, she took his hand where it had continuously been drifting against her skin, bringing it up and pressing her lips against the rings.

"How come I didn't realize you distracted me?"

"I can't answer that, sweetness," he responded around a shrug. "I just figured you needed something to fiddle with. Better my hands than yours, in my opinion."

Chrissy paused, letting that sink in, before she opened her eyes and looked at him.

"What, so you were gonna let me pick at your nails?"

Eddie just shrugged again, a new grin stretching his cheeks. Dimples coming to life under her disbelieving grimace.

"If that's what it took."

"Eddie, that's so gross."

"Guess it's good you picked at my rings and not my nails then, huh?"

"Why would you let anyone––"

"Not anyone," he interrupted, taking her hand in his and letting her fingertips fall across his lips. "Just you."

Oh, the way he could so simply send a swarm of butterflies to flight in her stomach.

"I don't want you to hurt yourself," he said after a moment, honesty dripping like honey from his words. Sprinkling droplets of sticky sincerity across her skin, so she'd feel the mess of his truths for days and years to come. Waggling his eyebrows, he finished by saying, "But I don't mind if you hurt me a little sometimes."

"Eddie."

"Slap me, baby, I know you want to."

"Oh, my God."

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Have you seen my little lad?

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[furiousgoldfish]

Traumatized people are often advised to 'keep it under control' and 'find a way to contain it', and I always felt it was a fault of mine, if I freak out, or panic, or have an anxiety attack, or can't stop shaking or shivering. Now that I no longer have extreme bouts of panic, I'm starting to understand how much fear, panic and pain I contain within myself every day.

If I'm in a place that makes me anxious, I stay still, I do nothing. If I'm panicking, I will modify my behavior to the point where nobody around me will be able to see and realize that I'm panicking, I will seem happy, and pleasing. If I'm experiencing intense rage or frustration, I will shut down and won't respond or interact with anyone until I figure out what is a reasonable and logical thing to do. I am containing everything, constantly. And it's only a part of what I've been containing and keeping under control, I used to contain terror every day. I am used to circumstances where I had to act normal under threat of violence, threat to my life, every single day. I had to walk around like nothing is wrong while I was dissociating so heavily I couldn't tell if the world was even real. I was blaming myself if there was a momentary lapse of control, if the panic I was containing for months leaked out of me a little. The thought of not being able to keep it down terrified me.

I blamed myself for not being able to keep mountains of fear, grief, anger and panic under a guise, which a human being is not supposed to do. Our reactions of fear, panic and rage are there in order to point out that something is deeply wrong, that we're unsafe, that our circumstances need to change and we need safety, now. Keeping that shit contained and controlled is trying to bypass human instincts, fighting against human nature, and I did that, we all did that, because it was the only thing we were ever told to do with it. We'd be punished for anything else, threatened for any other kind of response that isn't containing and keeping it down.

And now when keeping it down is no longer humanely possible, because we did it for so long we wore our entire spirits down, now we get told we need to do more of it? More of pretense that things are fine, more of guilt and shame for not managing to be a closed human container of panic and pain? We were never supposed to keep that much in. Keeping all that inside and learning to control myself taught me to be what I am right now, keeping any inconvenient emotion down only so I could break down in private, or try to keep it down indefinitely, because I don't know any other way to live anymore. Fighting against my own instincts and fawning at others is just who I am now, and it's not who I'm supposed to be. Panic is supposed to be loud and alarming, pain is supposed to be heard, people are supposed to react with offering safety and change of circumstances that led to this. Not telling the scared, pained and panicked people to 'keep it down'.

[turtleblogatlast]

[ cw: death mention / strangulation mention / stabbing mention / blood mention / self-sacrifice / codependency mention in tags / ]

I think a lot about how common it is for Raph to be the one to have direct focus put on him when Leo gets into all his near death experiences.

Like, when Leo is thrown off a building, it’s Raph who’s right there jumping after him, not even thinking about the consequences to himself when he does. When Leo almost gets skewered by the Krang, Raph’s right there to take the blow and send Leo to safety without a second thought. When Leo’s being strangled to near death, it’s a Krangified Raph doing the job, doing exactly what Raph would never, ever want to do. When Leo is telling Casey Jr to close the portal, it’s Raph who tries desperately to convince Leo otherwise.

Likewise, Leo is consistently very single minded when Raph gets forcibly separated from them. Both when in the sewers and by the Krang, Leo is dead set on finding Raph first and foremost.

I also think it’s interesting that during each of Leo’s near death experiences, the lightheartedness of his words during them goes directly hand in hand with both how close Raph is to him physically and how much danger Raph is also in in that moment. From a literal “I told you so” as Leo’s falling away from Raph to a soft joke about how “hero moves” are Raph’s style - both of these are on the more morbidly carefree side and both of these notably take Leo farther away from Raph and, in turn, have Raph not in immediate danger.

On the other side of things is the apology from Leo, heedless of the danger he himself is in as he seriously and genuinely speaks to a Krangified Raph face to face. Then there’s Leo’s freezing and desperation as Raph takes a hit meant for him and sends just Leo to safety, leaving Raph himself behind. Both of these involve much closer proximity and Raph being directly harmed - these together make Leo much more vulnerable in his words and actions, something not even the threat of death can make him.

These two care about each other so much, and they’re way too much alike for their own good.

[freckleslikestars]

(some of) my favourite lines from The X Files 5.12 Bad Blood

[tunabesimpin]

Me when the anxiety fights back

[handweavers]

something that really made me stop and interrogate my inherent knee jerk emotional reaction against ai art was asking myself if there really is a meaningful difference between someone cutting up images and pasting them together to make a collage without citing sources or getting permission for every image they used in the collage, and an ai generating a new image using models trained on existing images without citing courses or getting permission for every image used in the new image - if that's even possible, which i'm coming to understand isn't how the technology even works. like if your fundamental argument against ai is because it doesn't cite sources or ask for permission and change someone's art without their consent, there are a lot of non-ai art forms that involve that, and they've existed for a lot longer than ai has. when faced with this i don't think the answer is "well everyone who has ever made a collage or remixed a song is doing evil plagiarism too" so that leaves us at having to abandon this specific argument against ai for the same reasons.

and we have to ask ourselves, if we were to go after everyone who ever remixed a song or made a collage without permission, who would that benefit exactly? because the average person couldn't afford to sue someone for using their photo in a collage without consent, only corporations could. much like how copyright law has made music companies a tonne of money and serves to protect their interests, i don't think expanding copyright law is the answer here. which is why i don't think arguments against ai that focus on intellectual property are actually helpful, the problem isn't inherent to the technology but rather the economic system we live in.

[crabsnpersimmons]

i was meaning to reply to some asks today, but then the anxiety hit

so i'm gonna take it easy for the rest of the day. i'll be okay, i just need some rest

for now, here are some cake roll inspired DCA OC doodles i did before the anxiety hit

their names are Beri (a strawberry cake roll) and Cheri (a black forest cake roll) and they are 6 inches tall

[egberts]

man we just took louis to the vet and talked about his ocd/pica/anxiety and they sent us home with no solution besides "just watch it" and now exactly one week later he's been having what seems like a sustained feline hyperesthesia episode for almost 24 hours and we couldn't get the vet on the phone for an emergency prescription. I'm so sad for him and frustrated and worried

[stuckinapril]

still very much have my anxious attachment style at play but i'm getting so much better at being okay w people leaving

[haikyuu-moments]

shoyo's anxiety for the first official match (in karasuno) is no joke fr 😭😭😭

the next game:

bro came prepared 😭😭😭

[marcobodtlives]

AoT Things as Cats on my Phone:

[alexmey-does-an-arts]

[crimeronan]

day 1 of heavy prednisone: oh my god.... the death rattle in my chest stopped....

days 2 and 3 of heavy prednisone: i feel Amazing. i'm gonna write and fully edit 14,000 words from scratch and publish them on ao3. i could kill god. god is afraid of me

day 4 of heavy prednisone: the walls are starting to mumble. when i look in the mirror my face is that of a wwi vet experiencing shell shock. the shadows under my eyes have souls. i have to mightily resist the urge to strip naked and walk out into the beautiful cooling rain and lay down in the parking lot in the cleansing beam of the neighbor's headlights because my whole body is so hot to the touch

day 5 of heavy prednisone: ......we'll see!! :)

[hanzajesthanza]

god we need to bring crackfic back. or just short and idiotic ideas that wouldn’t happen but would be funny to read

[textanimations]