#anyway awful terrible drabble incoming

[teddybeartoji]

unfortunately i hate to kill suguru geto now he made me so horny i had to jerk off three times in a row this is unacceptable

[alexisluthor]

A view of Prodigal Son through my lens of mental health

Prodigal Son is a fantastic show. One of the reasons I got so drawn into it is because I can relate to Malcolm. I have PTSD, night terrors, panic attacks...in short - trauma. 

Malcolm’s trauma, and how he deals with it, plays a significant role in the show and the writer’s have done a great job exploring this, but there’s always room to explore further. 

For as much as I have in common with the character of Malcolm, I have just as many differences. I’m not pretty, I’m not rich, I don’t have medication that works for me, and my father’s not a serial killer. I’m average on a good day, totally broke, allergic to the majority of SSRI’s and my dad’s a geologist. Writing all of that down I realize that only the last point works in my favor. 

My own personal drabbles aside, there’s a lot I’ve experienced that I’m sure the show could explore as well. 

For one, finding the right medication can be a slow, terrifying and tedious process. There can be side effects...withdrawals like ‘brain zaps,’ when you’re going off one and getting on another. It can be quite rough. There’s maintenance medication, and emergency medication like Xanax. Malcolm said that he’s wildly dependent on Benzos, but we’ve never seen him take an emergency medication I don’t think.

Still, he has his medication and his routine, which is good. Maybe he’s got all that figured out already. I don’t really know what that’s like - to have that all figured out. I’ve tried. I’ve been prescribed (what feels like) nearly everything and have had a whole host of terrible side effects - one of which (rather ironically) is anxiety. My body simply can’t break down anxiety medication, the drugs building up in my system until side effects become inevitable. That’s just my own weirdness though.

Another thing that works out pretty well for Malcolm is how others, namely his team, treats him. They know that he’s ‘different,’ but they accept him. In real life...well...in my experience...it’s not like that really. 

What it *is* like is people judging you or trying to help you or blowing you off entirely. I personally devote a massive amount of time and energy attempting to ‘come off’ as normal. I do things that scare me to death - things I wouldn’t normally do - just to prove my normalcy. But I’m not normal.

I bend over backwards to make concessions for other people, but (aside from a few family members) no one does the same for me. They don’t do it because they don’t understand. And if I try to explain my aversion to certain things...if I try to explain my anxiety to someone who has never dealt with it themselves (or know someone who has) it’s nearly impossible to explain. It’s like trying to describe colors to someone who’s colorblind.

There’s this inherent loneliness, this clawing desire to be known and understood that goes unmet, and this massive fear that no one out there cares or understands. 

You try to explain things in such a way that people will understand.

To demonstrate the disheartening result of me trying to open up to people, these are the kinds of things I hear from people in response to my trying to explain. “Why don’t you just get over it?” “You should put yourself out there more.” “Well I never had a problem with XYZ, why do you?” “Being anxious means you’re not being strong enough in your faith.” “Have you tried essential oils?” Have you tried yoga?” “You should go Keto.” “It sounds like you need to work on XYZ…” “Why do you have PTSD? You were never in a war.”

Eventually, you just stop putting yourself out there. You stop trying to make friends. You stop trying to date. Because the experiences you have - the truly bad ones - are so crushing, discouraging and heart wrenching. 

I’ve had bosses pick on me for being anxious. I’ve had some ask me to do things that really made my anxiety quite bad - and I did them anyway, rather than trying to explain. I’ve had terrible coworkers, and awful people who I thought were my friends, who turned out not to be. 

And Malcolm’s team is just...there for him...supporting him. And it’s wonderful. But it would also be wonderful to see him interact with someone who really doesn’t get it. Because that happens quite a lot.

Switching gears, I’ve also had some different experiences when it came to therapists - if I could afford them. I had a good one, but she went to work at a hospital. She left, and she was the only therapist I had ever connected with. I tried to see one before her, but we didn’t connect at all and it left me wondering if therapy was even an option for me. Then I found her and it was a good option. It worked out nicely. Then she left. And I’ve struggled with my anxiety now more than ever...but I don’t have her...so I’m trying someone new. 

And each time you start with a therapist, it’s like starting at zero. Recalling all of your trauma with them...wondering if they can help or not. One lady I saw, who was very much the wrong fit, told me that I couldn’t have a kid on my own. That it wasn’t right if I didn’t have a husband. Needless to say - that didn’t work out.

And you do try everything. You try the tapping method thing and the brain spotting thing. You try traditional therapy and so many other things because, more than anything, you want to be normal. People say normal is overrated, but it isn’t. It’s a golden, beautiful thing that feels so out of reach - so unattainable sometimes. 

And you’re not sure when it happened, but you’ve somehow got this label. This necklace that says, “broken,” that’s chained around your neck. And you carry it, believing that you are inherently defective - the belief seeping into other areas of your life like a poison. 

You try to cope, but that’s not always possible. Malcolm copes through his job, but that can be extremely dangerous, as I found out when I no longer had a job. You have to be able to stand on your own...without putting your chips into anything that you have the potential to lose. A job. A relationship. A certain home. A particular friend. 

What would happen if Malcolm no longer had his job? Or like...during this quarantine, for example...he wasn’t able to do it? 

I think Malcolm said it best when he said that he’s a mess, but he’s a functioning mess. Right now, I can’t make that same claim. There are peaks and valleys of dealing with anxiety on this level. There are moments - years - where I did wonderfully. And then there are moments like this - years - where I’m at the very lowest point possible. 

It’s a rollercoaster ride that you can’t get off. There are moments of progress and major setbacks. 

I realize that the show’s main focus isn’t Malcolm’s mental state - although it probably could be - but I think that there is more room for the show to delve into this ongoing battle more. 

I’m terrible at transitions at 12:37 am so I’ll just go on in saying that there’s another thing I, personally struggle with. My Dad has cancer. Terminal. And I often feel guilt. Guilt for not spending enough time with him or guilt because I don’t get along with him. We’re quite different people and he - in no way, shape, or form understands what my anxiety/PTSD is. Some of the most hurtful things ever said to me, were said by him. And it creates this dichotomy. On one hand, I love him - and on the other, he’s hurt me beyond measure. 

I think Malcolm feels this same dichotomy, only in a different way. His father’s a monster. He wants to hate him - part of him does. But part of him also loves him. There's guilt there. It’s the same type of guilt that I have, although it’s a different flavor - it exists for a different reason. 

I’m not really allowed to be mad at my dying father. Malcolm’s not really allowed to love his monster of a father. Etcetera, etcetera. Which I think is a fascinating bit of cognitive dissonance for the show to dissect.

So...that is my very lengthy and probably barely relevant analysis of the show through my mental health lens. 

There is such a stigma attached to mental health that I didn’t even want to admit I had a problem until I was eighteen, even though my struggles started a decade prior to that. The stigma is so difficult to get past. The questions you get asked are so intolerable and invasive at times. The progress forward can be so slow and painful. Still I try my best. And I realize this is just a show, but it’s a show that means a lot to me for obvious reasons.

There are those massive differences between real-life-me and TV character, Malcolm Bright.

Malcolm is beautiful. He’s wonderfully dressed and comes from money. He had enough money to attend one of the best Ivy League colleges and attain an amazing degree. He doesn’t have to worry about paying for meds or his therapist. He has meds that work for him. He has a fulfilling job that piques his interest and pays him enough to live off of. He has coworkers and a mother and a mentor who are there for him in a non-judgmental way. He is not the norm - but the exception. And it works for the show. 

I just hope that people know that having these issues is not thrilling or sexy. It doesn’t make me a more interesting person. And oftentimes, people who do suffer from these issues don’t have half the support or care that this character does. 

I hope that this show succeeds in getting the conversation about mental health started. I hope that the stigma around mental health begins to wane. And someday, I hope that mental healthcare will be available to everyone - no matter their social class or income.  

There’s a lot that this show can explore with Malcolm and his mental health journey and I hope that we get a season two so that it can. 

[blesspastacraig]

You Better Treat Me Like Church (SP Drabble Bomb Day 3 - Ex)

How fucking dare he, Tweek of all people, tell him how to parent?

ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14765684/chapters/34179495

There’s references to past mpreg in this, so if that’s not your cup of tea all g. 

Chapter Track - Church - Alison Wonderland

Someone’s pounding on the door. Not just knocking but like, really beating the shit out of it. Craig groans and rolls over. The clock on his bedside table reads 12:30 AM. He was actually asleep; it’s been the first consecutive couple of hours of sleep he’s gotten in a good while. The person keeps pounding on the door, and it’s followed by the sharp shriek of a baby. Craig moans again.

Why would the universe do this to him? He finally got her to sleep.

The person banging on his door isn’t giving up, so Craig rolls out of bed, hoping he can at least get the noise to stop. He feels terrible about leaving his daughter screaming in her bassinet, but this area is dodgy. There’s no way he will open his door to some weirdo in the middle of the night with a baby in his arms. Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time he’s gotten up in the dead of night to tell some crackhead to stop yelling, or to call the cops because of a domestic dispute.

The first thing he sees through that scratched-up peephole is wild blond hair.

Tweek.

Fuck.

He can’t even pretend he isn’t home, because Tweek knows he never goes out—not anymore, anyway. Where would he be at 12:30 AM with a baby? Certainly not with Tweek in the backseat of his parents’ car. Never again. Those days are long dead.

Craig still opens the door, even though he knows he shouldn’t. He’s sort of relieved that it’s Tweek, though, and that he won’t have to call the cops again. All the same, he blocks the doorway so Tweek can’t rush in.

“It’s asshole o’clock at night,” he gripes, the tiredness making his voice sound thick instead of the tough he was going for. “What the fuck do you want?”

“Craig,” Tweek says dumbly. “Craig, you’ve gotta -ah- let me in. I can’t stay with my parents anymore man, it’s messing with my head.”

Craig wishes he had a working brain cell, but between the tiredness and his daughter screaming from their bedroom, he’s got nothing.

“I don’t want to,” is his answer. “You left us.”

“Craig,” Tweek repeats his name like it’ll make Craig change his mind. He cranes his neck to look behind Craig and into the messy apartment. It’s a shithole, Craig knows that, but it’s all he can afford. He hasn’t got the energy to keep it neat and tidy the way he did his childhood bedroom. Maybe he’d care more if he wasn’t covered in baby puke and dribble the majority of the time.

Technically, Tweek is still on the lease, too.

“Craig, she’s crying,” Tweek points out.

Craig wants to slam the door in his face right then and there, but he doesn’t. Instead, he stays, like an idiot.

How fucking dare he, Tweek of all people, tell him how to parent?

“Yeah, thanks to you, asshole. I got her to sleep and I was actually sleeping for once in my fucking life.”

“Sorry,” Tweek says meekly. “I couldn’t stay there any longer, man. They -hnn- they make me crazier than I already am.”

“Fuck,” Craig sighs, and then he finally relents, standing aside for Tweek to come in.

Tweek looks cold, and skinny, but apart from that he looks healthier than he did before he left. That’s a surprise, but not a bad one. His eyes look kind of far away, though, and Craig’s not about to place any bets for his sobriety.

He’s still skinnier than Craig, which Craig absolutely despises.

Pre-pregnancy, Craig had been much skinnier than Tweek. Now, not so much. Like he really had the fucking time to diet when he could barely afford to feed his kid. It’s all well and good for Tweek, to come and go as he pleases while Craig is alone, stretchmark-riddled, and fat.

“I have to go get her,” he says, and heads towards the tiny bedroom that he (and Tweek, once) shares with his daughter. He couldn’t afford a two-bedroom flat and he can’t really afford this one-bedroom either. Not without Tweek’s income as well, and the idea of asking his parents for money makes Craig feel nauseous.

She’s still screaming, and Craig thinks it’s because he’s left her alone after being woken so suddenly. She’s so clingy that he wants to scream sometimes. He loves her, but he hasn’t gotten to do a single thing for himself since she was born. Even when Tweek was still there, he was essentially useless - either too high or too depressed to get out of bed.

He reaches into the bassinet (secondhand from a thrift store) to lift her up, and brings her to his chest, where she feels safest. Craig shushes her and rocks back and forth a little, but she’s still whining. He figures since they’re all up, he’ll just feed her now instead of within the next half hour or so. (If she wanted to sleep, Craig would have totally let her.)

He brings her back out into the living room/kitchen - it’s all sort of just one room crammed into a tiny space. Tweek is sitting on the old, disgusting couch they found on the side of the road when they first moved in. He watches Craig try to comfort their crying kid like he’s magic or something.

Craig goes to place her on the play mat he has in the middle of the living room floor, but he has to be careful: she can roll now. But what else can he do? There’s only one of him, and he only has so many hands.

“I can hold her, man,” Tweek says quietly. Now he wants to be quiet. Wonderful.

Craig frowns at him, unsure.

“I can hold her,” Tweek insists, more determined this time. “I’ve held her before, Craig.”

“Not for months,” Craig says. He’s not sure if he trusts Tweek anymore, but a break would be so freaking nice.

“I took care of her at the hospital, when you were all -nnn- zonked out after your c-section.”

“You had help,” Craig says bitterly, but he hands her to Tweek anyway.

Tweek seems to have retained whatever basic baby-holding knowledge he had before taking off. “She’s so big,” he remarks wistfully. Of course she fucking is, she’s a baby, babies grow you goddamn moron.

Craig heads for the fridge to fix up a bottle. He can hear Tweek talking to her in the background, like he knows anything about her at all. All he really knows is her name: Bijou. Craig kind of hates it now, but that’s mainly because Tweek chose it. Tweek had been so passionate about it: “she’s our precious gemstone Craig!” And Craig had kind of just gotten caught up in his excitement. They were definitely too young, but they loved each other, or so he thought. Tweek had been so excited, and he appealed to Craig’s sentimental side - the one he really only has for Tweek. Tweek went on about how the baby was half him and half Craig, how could they kill something they created together and Craig totally bought it. It’s not that he would take her back now—he wouldn’t—she’s here and she’s his. But he’s so tired, and upset that Tweek made all these promises only to break them.

He heads back over to the couch and tries to take his baby back from Tweek. Tweek resists. “I can feed my own kid, man,” he says, and Craig hands him the bottle out of sheer exhaustion.

Craig flops down beside them on the couch and puts his head in his hands.

“You can stay on the couch,” he states. “I’m not having you screw me anymore.”

“That’s fair,” Tweek replies, still intently watching Bijou drink. “I went to the hospital you know, like -ah- like you wanted me to.”

“You did?” Craig’s surprised; that was the main reason he kicked Tweek out in the first place: because his episodes were getting worse and he just wouldn’t go. He just self-medicated and made everything so much worse. After that, Tweek had just fallen off the face of the earth. Craig thought he’d at least want to see Bijou, but there was nothing.

“They held me against my will at first, but I went and I stayed. They put me on this heavy shit man, that’s why I’m -nghh- talking kinda weird, but it works,” says Tweek. Craig has noticed him talking slower, but it’s actually more of a normal speed, as opposed to Tweek’s regular mile-a-minute rambling. “I’m sober though,” he adds. “Except for this antipsychotic stuff.”

Craig isn’t sure if he believes it, but he supposes he’ll find out if he lets Tweek stay here indefinitely. “You can’t just come back like this and think I’ll be okay with it,” he says. He’s more flabbergasted than annoyed at this stage. If he wasn’t so tired, he might have yelled, but he just hasn’t got the same bravado that he used to have before he had Bijou.

“I know, I just couldn’t stop thinking about -nnn- you and her in the hospital. I knew you’d be angry at me so I went -ah- back to my parents’ thinking maybe I’d call you and you’d let me see her but like, they’re awful, Craig. I just can’t.”

“I know,” Craig says sadly. “That’s why I said you can stay. I hate them more than I hate you.”

Craig burned a lot of bridges when he had Bijou, including with his own parents. They’d been so angry with him, which only doubled when he dropped out of school. After a particularly nasty argument he packed up his shit and headed to Tweek’s - he ended up staying there until they found this apartment. Tweek’s mom helped them get it, but other than that, they hadn’t helped financially. Especially not after Tweek left; they’ve seen Bijou maybe once since she was born.

Tricia would sometimes come to visit, and tell Craig that his parents weren’t that mad anymore and he should just come home. Or at least ask for help, but his pride won’t let him. He doesn’t want to admit he made the bad choices that he did. Accepting their help now feels oddly like failure.

“I can help, if you want,” Tweek offers. “I don’t have a job but I could -ah- look after her, like how we originally planned.”

“I’m not making any decisions about you tonight,” sighs Craig. “Show me, don’t tell me.” Tweek nods, and he looks down at Bijou.

“She’s nearly done, man she’s hungry!” He laughs fondly. Craig just wants to go to bed, but he doesn’t trust Tweek to be any good at putting her down. He yawns and tries to keep himself awake.

“Do you wanna burp her?” he asks. Do you remember how?

“Okay,” Tweek answers. “Do you have a towel, or…?”

“Mhmm,” Craig says, before dragging himself to the laundry to grab the first clean towel he can see. He throws it at Tweek, who catches it somehow. How is he not tired? Craig is tired to his bones. He’s crying-silent-tears-at-3am-while-Bijou-is-being-fed tired. Or sobbing into his pillow as she screams because she got her first cold, and Tweek isn’t there. When he hasn’t had a break or slept in days, when she cries every time he tries to put her down.

If Tweek stays, maybe, just maybe, he’ll get some respite.

Tweek is doing okay with burping her, but he keeps looking over at Craig for validation, like he’s not sure he’s doing it right. Craig doesn’t want to put him out of his misery just yet. “Do you think you’ll be able to get her back to -hnn- sleep?” Tweek asks.

“Yeah,” Craig replies. “She passes out after being fed. She might not stay asleep though.”

He reaches for her. “She’s clingy,” he adds. “She’ll fall asleep on me.” Ultimately, she doesn’t know Tweek. Craig is the only consistent person in her life, even if she’s too young to truly know it.

“I’m taking her up to bed,” Craig says as he settles the sleepy baby in his arms. “The couch is yours, but you know I don’t have any spare pillows or blankets that aren’t hers.”

“I know,” says Tweek. “Thank you Craig.”

“Help me with the baby, and you’re okay.”

He doesn’t know if Tweek will actually keep his word, or if he’ll even keep taking his medication and stay sober. Craig does know that he loves him in a stupid, self-destructive way and that even if he does break his promises all over again, Craig will probably still open that door.