#anyways. not a diagnosis yet but really looking like one

[astriiformes]

I'm starting with a new therapist who I think may finally be a good fit for me, and at my intake appointment yesterday she agreed that we should do an OCD screening next week.

I took a quick look at the test she wants to go over with me and had more than a few ".....oh" moments, so while I'm not about to diagnose myself on the spot, it really is starting to feel more and more like a reasonable suspicion that might be about to get validated. Which I am having... complicated feelings about. It might be a really helpful lens to apply to some of my more persistent mental health issues, but also, it's kind of an intimidating diagnosis.

In any case, a while back when I was first grappling with all this, I decided to take a leaf out of some of my friends/mutuals' book and have a go at personifying my probable-OCD in a way that feels a little less pathologizing by thinking about it as a frustrating entity I have to put up with. In my case, an annoying little demon I've decided to call "Dys" -- short for "Dyscrasia," or the term for a humoral imbalance, because as a history of science guy I think it's funny.

Dys makes things hard for me, whatever brain issue they represent. But I'm grateful to the people who have shown me how to think about them with humor (pun at least a little bit intended) while I prod at figuring out what exactly is going on inside my head. If nothing else, it makes me feel less alone.

(Well. Less alone in a human way. The demon companion isn't exactly helping matters.)

[senseiwu]

September is either gonna be the break i need or it'll break me

[inkskinned]

you have to go to work so you can pay for your doctor, who is not taking your insurance right now, and if you say i can't afford the doctor's you are told - get a better job. it is very sad that you are unwell, yes, but maybe you should have thought about that before not having a better job.

(where is the better job? who is giving out these better jobs? you are sick, you are hurting - how the hell are you supposed to be well enough for this better job?)

but you go to the doctor because you had the nerve to be hurt or sick or whatever else. and they tell you that it is because you have anxiety. you try your best. you are a self-advocate. you've done the reading (which sometimes pisses them off worse, honestly). you say it is actually adding to my anxiety, it is effecting my quality of life. so they say that you are fat. they say that all young people have this happen to them, isn't it a medical marvel! they say that you should eat more vegetables. they say that you probably just need to lose a little more weight, and that you are faking it for attention.

(what attention could this doctor possibly give? what validation? that's their fucking job, isn't it?)

there is always a hypochondriac, right. someone always tells you about a hypochondriac. or someone who is unnecessarily aggressive during the worst days of their life. or someone looking "for a quick fix". or some idiot who wasn't educated about how to properly care for themselves who just abandons their treatment. and again, the hypochondriac, the overly-cautious hysteric. these people don't deserve to be treated like humans (right), and since you might be one of these people, you also don't get treated like a human. because those people can really fuck with the system, you now have to pay for it. and besides. you're actually probably faking it.

(more often than not, you find a 2:1 ratio of these stories. for every "hypochondriac", there are 2 people who knew something was wrong, and yet nobody could fucking find it. the story often ends with pointless suffering. the story often ends with and now it's too late, and it's going to kill me.)

you are actually just making excuses. someone else got that procedure or that diagnosis and he's fine, you should be fine too. someone else said they watched a documentary about other inspirational people with your exact same condition, maybe you should be inspirational, too. you're just too morbid. your pain and your experience is probably just not statistically concerning. it is all self-reported anyway, and you're just being a baby.

(once, while sitting down in the middle of making coffee, you had the sudden, horrible thought - i could kill myself to make the pain stop. you had to call your best friend after that. had to pet your dog. had to cry about it in the shower. you won't, but that moment - god, fuck. the pain just goes on and on.)

you know someone who went in for routine surgery and said i still feel everything. they told her to just relax. it took her kicking and screaming before they figured out she wasn't lying - the anesthetic drip hadn't been working. you know someone who went in for severe migraines who was told drink water and lose weight. you know someone who was actively bleeding out and throwing up in the ER and was told you're just having a bad period.

in the ER there are always these little posters saying things like "don't wait! get checked today!" and you think about how often you do wait. how often the days spool out. you once waited a full week before seeing the doctor for what you thought was a sprained wrist. it had actually been broken - they had to rebreak it to set it.

but you go into the doctor. the problem you're having is immediate. the person behind the counter frowns and says we're not taking your insurance. you will be paying for this out-of-pocket.

they send you home with tylenol and a little health packet about weight loss or anxiety or attention deficit. on the front it has your birthday and diagnosis. you think about crying, and the words swim. it might as well say go fuck yourself. it might as well say you're a fucking idiot. it might as well say light your money on fire and lie down in it. and the entire fucking time - the problem persists.

it's okay. it's okay, it's just another thing, you think. it's just another thing i have to learn to live with.

[wosoamazing]

Sick Days

Blurt/One-Shot | Diabetes & Love Warnings: Sickness (vomiting), Sever low blood sugar, passing out, mentions of seizures, hospitals, ambulances. This is probably crap but yeah.... wrote it and decide just to post it...

You were flopped against your Mum’s body as she held you whilst also trying to carry everything else, she stopped at the door to the gym, knocking before sticking her head in, 

“Hey Leah, I’m so sorry, I know we were meant to spend the night hanging out and I was taking you home but she is really sick and so I think it's best I take her home, hopefully then no one else will get it either,” Leah saw the way you looked slightly green and decided your Mum was going to need help, this was the first time you had been sick since your diagnosis and it looked like it wasn’t going to be pretty.

“I’ll still come if you want, help you with y/n and keep you entertained while you’re cooped up in the house,” Leah offered.

“Yeah okay. I’ll meet you in the car?” your Mum said, gaining a nod from Leah.

-

“You’re going with Russo right?” Viv asked as Leah entered the locker room.

“Yeah,” Leah said as she started frantically packing her things.

“Good, we were worried, y/n looks really sick,” Katie said “Keep us updated?” The Irish woman was pretty sure Leah sent her a nod of confirmation.

“Leah if either of you guys need anything just call, and I’ll be straight over,”

“Will do, thank you all, sorry for leaving so abruptly,” Leah told everyone as she walked out the room.

It had been a few hours since you got home and you kept vomiting, Alessia was getting worried and Leah was nervous that she would soon need another set of hands to help her, so she called kim. Your Mum was looking more green by the minute and seemed to be sweating a lot more than she should have. Leah was also pretty sure she heard your Mum coughing one of the times she went to the bathroom.

“Leah, can you call an ambulance?” Alessia asked just as Kim arrived at the front door.

“Okay, so it is bad, Leah you good calling the ambulance?” The older of the pair nodded at their captain as she was already dialling 111, “What do you need Alessia?” “Can you put some towels down beside her, she’s most likely going to vomit once I do this,” your Mum asked and Kim nodded before quickly running off and returning with some towels. She placed them in front of you and your Mum quickly gave you the glucagon injection, causing you to cry, before suddenly you had thrown up again, but you barely had the energy to do that, your cries were so weak and everyone in that room hoped the paramedics would be there soon. Your Mum was rubbing your back, trying her hardest not to cry yet, she didn’t want to scare you.

“I know bubba, I’m sorry, the ambulance should be here to help soon, I’m so sorry, I love you so much.”

Just as the paramedics walked into the kitchen, you were throwing up again and your Mum and Kim quickly stood up letting them get to work, Leah having told them everything they needed to know already.

You Mum stood up and immediately was pulled into Leah’s arms, where she just started sobbing violently, and Leah had to hold her tightly to make sure she didn’t collapse.

“We’re going to take her to Watford, they may then want to transfer her to one of the bigger paediatric centres, but it's best we get her stabilised first, unfortunately only two of you can travel with us, and they most likely will only let two of you in with her anyway at any one time,” The paramedics told the three women but mainly it was aimed at Leah and Kim, with your Mum being so out of it now.

“I’ll stay here and clean up, you go with them, Leah, just keep me updated,” Kim told Leah who nodded.

“You can sit in the back with them both if you want,” One of the paramedics told Leah who nodded before grabbing your Mum’s phone, and her keys before grabbing her own phone, and going to sit next to Alessia in the ambulance, who held onto Leah's hand like a lifeline.

You were wheeled ahead as your Mum and Leah, well more Leah were left to do some paperwork, Alessia felt a panic surge through her body when she saw your body start seizing, immediately you were surrounded by doctors, she started swaying slightly, accidentally bumping into Leah as her feet became unsteady, “Less, you okay? Less” Leah said just before Alessia passed out, “Shit, Less,” Leah dropped the clipboard and pen to catch her before lowering her on the ground, positioning her on her side.

“Why didn’t you tell us you weren’t feeling well,” Leah asked your Mum sternly who was now sat in a hospital bed.

“I ah-” “Is that what you were doing every time you went to the bathroom? Throwing up?”

“I’m sorry,” Alessia mumbled before beginning to cry, causing Leah to climb into the bed next to her, pulling her into her chest.

“We’re all here for you Less, you just need to let us be there for you,” “I just, I didn’t want to feel like a burden, and I just, I’m a single Mum, it’s just me,” “But it’s not just you Less, we are all here for you, her diagnosis has changed nothing, we will look after both of you, just like we always have. Would it make you feel better if I made everyone do a professional diabetes class rather than just going off what you have taught us? I mean I already have but I would be happy to sit through another one and force everyone else to do one too, I'm sure they would all be just as happy to learn so they could help out though. Does that sound good?” Leah felt Alessia nod into her shoulder before they both started to doze off.

[ohtobeleah]

Was It Over? // Jake Seresin

-> Chapter Four: [Parental Guidance]

Summary: Jakes Mother simply cannot understand what he saw in you, your mother simply cannot comprehend why you left Jake.

Warnings: Sick!reader. Breast cancer diagnosis. Jake Seresin x F!reader. Angst, hospital & medical inaccuracies. SLOW BURN ROMANCE/ Inaccurate medical information. Relationship turmoil. Overbearing mothers.

Word Count: 4:1k

Author Note: Mothers…Especially boy mothers can just be the worst when they’re in LOVE with their sons.

Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist

November 1st 

Bradley Bradshaw never thought he would be the person Jake Seresin called when he was in a situation and needed help, but here he was. Sitting in his Bronco outside the house of a woman he didn't know in the early hours of the morning watching Jake stumble down the small overgrown cobblestone path. The Halloween costume Rooster had seen Jake in early that night was long forgotten as the fighter pilot wore nothing but a pair of boxer briefs with his wallet and keys in the palms of his hands. 

Immediately as soon as Jake sat in the passenger's seat of Bradleys pride and joy, he could smell the liquor trying to expel itself from Jake pores. 

“You smell like a distillery and we have a HOP at 8am.” There was a very evident disdain for Jake's current state in Roosters' tone, Jake wasn’t drunk enough to miss that. “Why are you calling me in the middle of the night to pick you up anyway? What did you do this time to warrant getting kicked out?” Jake didn't respond right away as he kept his eyes staring blankly out the window, the two had only just recently been given new orders to remain in North Island permanently. But when he did speak up, Bradley's heart ached. 

“I accidentally said my wifes name while uh–yeah.” Jake didn't think he needed to explicitly tell his wingman that, during one of the first and what Jake would consider the last one night stand he’d engaged in during your separation, he’d called out your name. “Vanessa didn't really like that.” 

“Yeah, no shit.” Bradley agreed as he drove down the street. “That's rough dude.” Bradley knew of yours and Jake's separation, Jake had told him one night at the Hard Deck after he’d asked how the family was. The two hadn’t always been on good terms but Rooster liked to think you and him were close enough to send Christmas cards to. When Jake had told him you’d left? Bradley didn’t reach out—he assumed it was for the best all things considered. 

“Yeah—but you know what’s rougher?” Jake sighed as he let his head fall back against the headrest. 

“What’s that?” 

“Knowing your wife won’t ever believe you’ll change.” Bradley knew without even looking at Jake that between the mix of alcohol and his desire to win you back that the naval aviator sitting with slumped shoulders beside him was holding back tears. “And proving her right by sleeping with some badge bunny who looked an awful lot like her.” 

***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***

Your home had never been so quiet with all three of your children gone. You stood in the foyer of the entryway just looking around at the mess that had been left behind. Forgotten toys yet to be put away, discarded shoes, dirty plates and cups. Pine needles that fallen from the faux Christmas tree that was essentially hanging on by its last thread. The reminisce of three young children that were allowed to be children inside the safety of their own home. 

As you wiped away the tears that you had let fall freely down from your puffy eyes, you made an effort to tidy up the house you’d be leaving in only a few short hours to leave for the hospital stay you had planned. Tiny shoes with no feet to fill, toys left unattended over the holidays simply to be replaced by newer shiner ones. 

Between now and new years while Jake had the kids in Texas your treatment plan would increase tenfold. You were scheduled for aggressive rounds of IV chemotherapy that you knew you’d have to stay in hospital for to go through, your body was barely tolerating the oral medication as it was. You were scheduled for a double mastectomy in your time at the hospital which would hopefully stop any cancerous cells from spreading to more lymph nodes and areas of your body that remained untouched. Did you have high hopes? Not particularly. But you were ready and willing to do just about anything the oncologist assigned to your particular case had recommended. 

It was going to be a rough stint, but hopefully by the time Jake returned with your children, you’d still be able to mask your diagnosis. How you were going to explain the symptoms like hair loss and suddenly having no breast tissue to Jake was something you had yet to come up with. 

But ‘New year, New me’ was looking like the best possible explanation. Maybe the new look would get him off your case a little when it came to working on your marital issues. 

As you put things back in their rightful places and tidy up, you felt your phone ringing in your back pocket. The call ID immediately made you want to cry even more than you already had been. 

“Hi mum—“ You cooed softly as you stood alone in your empty home. “I uh, I just got home.” 

“How was Jake?” Your mother asked as she drove over to yours, you could hear the difference in her voice because of the shitty ass bluetooth system she barely knew how to work properly. “Did the kids kick up a fuss?” 

“Jake was–” You would never be able to find the right words to describe your husband, well, ex-husband. “Jake was Jake mum you know how we are right now.” Your mother knew about your diagnosis. She had been the one who urged you to see a doctor after you told her you had found a rather large lump on your left breast. “And no, actually the kids were super excited to go with their dad for the holidays, I think they still don't really understand that I'm not gonna be there at all, maybe they just think I won't be there for a day or two, but uh–yeah, they were good.” 

“And how are you feeling?” It was surprisingly a rather hard question to answer as you sat down on the lounge. For the longest time you had always put your family first, made sure all their needs were met before your own. From your kids to your husband they always came first, but now? Now you had to focus on your health and put yourself first if you had any chance of getting through the next few weeks. 

“I threw up this morning–” It was your way of saying you werent travelling well at all. “After I slept with Jake–” You knew your mum would be shocked at your admission, so you closed your eyes and braced for it. The scolding, the “never sleep with an ex speech” But it never came. All that came was a sigh you couldn't tell was laced in disappointment or approval. 

“You need that man in your life darling, he's a good man, the two of you just need to work on your differences.” Your mother had always had a soft spot for Jake Seresin, for a few weeks after your initial breakup he stayed in her spare room. Jake loved your mother like his own and you knew that if you ever gave her a moment on the soap box, your mum would scream it to whoever would listen just how much you and Jake were made for one another. 

Which in your opinion was a little shitty. Jake had his own mum. You needed yours. 

“I know he's a good man mum, that's why I married him to begin with.” You sighed heavily as you laid on the lounge to ward off the dizzy spell that was threatening to throw you off balance. “But I haven't been his priority in a hell of a long time, and I owe it to myself to not go back to being a married single mother.” 

“Okay okay, well–” You knew your mum was only trying to help but it felt like the two of you had this very same conversation every time you spoke, it was like deja vu. “He won't wait around forever darling.” That fact you also knew, according to Jake himself her name was Violet or Vivian or Vanessa. Something that started with a V. Either way you knew very well that Jake wouldn’t wait around for you to take him back on his hands and knees begging. 

But at the end of the day you weren’t sure if you even wanted him to wait for you. Of course you loved Jake, with your whole heart. But right now nothing made sense to you, you were dying after all. 

“Trust me,” You rolled your eyes thinking about how Vanessa or Vicky or Veronica looked. If she looked anything like you or maybe completely different. If she had blue eyes you'd surmise that he probilby date her. “I know he won't, but he's not the priority right now, my health is.” 

“I'll be there in about an hour or two depending on traffic.” For a split second you wished it might take a little longer. Although you loved your mum dearly and appreciated everything she ever did for you, her favouritism towards your husband made your blood boil. 

“Okay, I might have a bit of a nap while I'm waiting for you, I'm feeling pretty shattered.” No word of a lie was spoken, you were exhausted to say the very least. Finally being alone and not having to be in constant caregiver mode for three young children truly had your body calling it quits. You needed sleep and so much of it. 

“I'll see you soon alright?” You mum spoke through the bluetooth that crackled and broke with the failing reception, but you heard her just barely. 

“Alright, bye mum.” You paused hesitantly as you let your eyes close “I love you.” It had been a while since you told anyone you loved them besides your kids, and for a second you wished it was Jake on the other end of the line. You did love him, probably more now than you ever had. Everything was just so messy, it wasn't fair. None of this was fair. 

“Bye Darling.” Your mum replied. “I love you too.” 

***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***

“My babies!!” Janeen Seresin was in Jake's opinion, one of those women who never should have had kids, let alone four of them. Jake was the youngest of four Seresin children and the only boy. His father, Rodney, was a hard task master who no matter what Jake accomplished in his career or personal life, never seemed to be proud of the man he had become. 

“Hi Ma.” There was a pretty simple explanation for that, Jake never took a beating without getting a few punches in himself. He wasn't the kind of guy who you could beat into submission even as a teen. “Merry Christmas.” 

“Jacob oh my boy it's so good to see you.” Janeen took her youngest child in her arms in the threshold of the Sersein estate. Lavish gardens surrounded the old exposed red brick home that had been in the Seresin family for generations. Jake knew when his parents died it wasn't going to him, but to his eldest sister Julies. “Come in come in! You guys must be so tired after your flight.” 

Jake, despite being a fighter pilot who had flown some of the most suicidal missions, was a nervous flyer when he wasn’t in total control. Commercial flying wasn't something he typically enjoyed. It made him anxious at the best of times and whenever he added his children to the mix he was sure that the way his heart pounded inside his chest during takeoff was early signs of an underlying genetic heart condition he probably inherited from his father. 

“The kids are definitely a little tired, I think Sam's ears haven't really pooped either.” Jake cooed as he and his kids entered the house Jake grew up in, the overly eccentric, far too big, the annoyingly in your face house he knew you always hated. It always seemed to exemplify the two worlds you and Jake grew up in as children. 

“Grandma!” Lucy interrupted. “Mum said that Santa will know exactly where we are if we put out cookies and milk for him and carrots for his reindeer like we do at home.” Janeen chuckled at her granddaughter as Jake placed Sam on the ground to walk off with his brother to explore the mansion style home that was far bigger than the one they were used to. 

“Your mother would still have you doing those silly little things wouldn't she?” Jake bit his tongue as he watched his mother soothe a hand over his daughter's head. “Of course we can put out cookies and milk, but if I get ants you better be ready to clean them up little miss.” Lucy simply smiled and nodded in response, the dig had gone right over her six year old head. 

“God Ma you'd think you never had kids of your own before.” Jake argued in an attempt to remind his mum that his kids were only young. The magic of Christmas was important to you and him. “I'm sure Santa won't leave cookie crumbs all over the house.”  

“Santa isn't who I’m worried about making a mess–” Janeen tried to say the loud things quiet while around Jake's children, but the intent in her words was still as loud and as obnoxious as ever. “How is your mother Lulu? I’m sorry she won’t be joining us for Christmas and new years.” 

“She’s been sick the past few weeks.” Jake frowned at his mothers smile, she left little to the imagination about her opinion of you. “But she’s better now.” Jake wasn't so sure of the statement his daughter made, the way you were only on your knees this morning throwing up into the toilet bowl made him frown in response. Jake had this gut feeling he couldn’t get rid of it no matter how hard he tried not to think about it. Was something wrong with you? Like, more than just a long winded flu? Who even gets the flu for three weeks these days? 

“Oh I’m sure she is dear, right before her big trip away hey?” Ever since you and Jake separated, Janeen Seresin had been pushing for Jake to file for divorce and full custody. No one got to leave her perfect angel boy. In her eyes Jake could do no wrong, he was her angel, her precious baby boy that no woman could ever be good enough for. 

“Yeah! She’s going to the snow with a bunch of her friends Grandma.” Lucy replied, she didn’t understand her grandmother’s resentments just yet. That or it went right over the little girl's head, either way Jake was thankful for her innocence. 

“Oh I know your dads told me all about your mothers grand plans.” Janeen rolled her eyes pretty heavily at the idea you were off whoring yourself out on a ski trip out of the country while her son was tasked with looking after the three children you had with him. 

“Ma, drop it will you?” Jake urged. “She’s allowed to go away for the holidays, she’s pretty much had the kids all year.”

“And why is that?” Janeen retaliated as little Lucy walked off to find her brothers. Jake followed his mother into the dining room where festive decorations dressed the dining table. Perfectly set and prepared. A stark contrast to your old chipped four seater dining table that had soggy cheerios spilled on the top just this morning. Jake much preferred the cheerio-covered table to his mothers perfectly decorated one. 

Fuck, Jake thought to himself the more he looked around. His kids were about to mess this place up. He knew deep down that would bring you a little solace. You knew Janeen was sour on you. The idea of the kids making her life just a little more chaotic would normally make you chuckle.

“Because I live and work in North Island now, I don’t have the proper work schedule to take three kids on by myself.” That was the appropriate and only answer, but Jake knew his mother saw it differently. “I don't have to means to look after them myself–Y/n does, we both agreed on that when he split.” 

“She’s keeping those kids away from you sweetheart.” Jake couldn’t have rolled his eyes harder if he tried, he’d been home for all of what? five minutes and already his mum was disrespecting you. “You don’t see those kids nearly as much as you should and it’s her—“

“Don’t you think that’s more on me then it is on her?” Jake argued back. “Come on ma you know exactly why we separated, I wasn’t putting in what she was giving and it damn near killed her. The last thing she needs is a custody battle.” 

“What you ever saw in that woman I’ll never understand sweetheart.” Janeen cooed as she reached up to touch her son's cheek. “I always knew she was never good enough for my baby boy.” 

Jake wanted to argue, he really did, but it was Christmas and his entire family would soon be filling the Seresin estate. So Jake pressed his lips together and leaned in to press a kiss to the top of his mothers head. He didn’t want to ruin yet another family holiday. He didn’t want to be dubbed the family disappointment because of his separation. Although he knew that's exactly what he was. 

He just wanted to be loved. And at this point Jake was gonna take that love whenever the hell he could get it from. 

***~***~***~***~***~***~**

“Y/n–” At first you didn't respond, but as your mother shook you as you slept on the lounge and called your name a few more times, you finally woke up. “Y/n, babe jesus have you been asleep since we got off the phone.?” It took you a moment to come back into your body as you wiped the dry drool that had leaked from your mouth onto your cheek. The discombobulation was clearly evident to your mother as she stepped back a little to give you some space. 

“Yeah, I guess so.” You mumbled as you sat up. “I'm just really–” The all too familiar feeling of bile rising came hard and came quickly. “Oh god mum, get me a bucket!” The look of panic written in the tired lines on your face was enough for your mum to realise what was going on. 

“Oh shit hang on.” Your mother hurried into the laundry nearby and searched high and low for something you could use, but you decided soon thereafter that it was quicker if you booked it into the kitchen and puke right into the kitchen sink. “Y/n! Oh god are you alright darling?” 

For a single mother of two children, yourself and your older brother Carson, your mother did alright for the hand she was dealt. On the younger side, your mother always seemed a little ‘Childish’ in her nature and mannerisms. But she was your mum and you wouldn’t change her for anything. 

“I'm fine–I just–” You couldn't keep anything down to save your life right now, so when your body wanted to expel any form of bile it was just stomach acid and remnants of whatever you had most recently eaten. Your mother did her best to comfort you as you coughed and splatted your gagged in the kitchen sink for dear life, she could tell your body was weaker than it ever had been just from the way you trembled under her touch. 

It broke her heart to see you like this, so sick and fragile. You did well to hide it though, for what it was worth she thought you looked relatively healthy still. But it was still early on in your journey. 

“I'm so scared mum.” You cried out through gags as you stayed bent over the sink coughing and crying. This wasn’t fair, you had a family to think of, kids to watch grow, a husband to hopefully fall in love with all over again. How could whatever god was up there do this to you? Why did this happen? Why you? What had you done so wrong to deserve this untimely fate?

“It's okay I've got you baby.” Your mother cooed as she rubbed circles into your back with her open palm. “Im here, I’ve got you now, let's get you ready to go up to the hospital hey, you wanna take a shower or?” 

“Let me just brush my teeth–” You sighed as you spat into the sink to clear your throat. “I should ring Jake, make sure they got in safe.” 

“I'm sure they’re just fine, he’d call if there was a problem, let's just focus on you for once.” You didn't want to feel like you were neglecting your children but you already felt like you were. They were your entire world, putting yourself first just wasn't in your nature. But as you thought about calling, thought about just sending a text, you looked at your phone to see a missed call from Jake about twenty minutes prior and a few text to follow. 

:Lover: “Kids and I are here safe, ma’s on her fuck the ex campain already and dads nowhere to be seen.” 

:Lover: “Hope you're enjoying your kid free afternoon, safe flight tonight, text me when you get into Calgary.” 

You couldn't help but to smile as you pocketed your phone, you'd call Jake later once you were settled into your hospital room. Right now you just needed to finish packing, brush your teeth and get over to the hospital for your admission time. 

“He loves you so much.” Your mother reminded you as she followed you up to your room to help you finish packing. 

“I know he does.” You really weren't in the mood to be discussing the state of your marriage right now. “He deserves better, someone not riddled with cancer cells.” 

“Is that why you won't even consider the idea of getting back together?” Your mother was nearly flawed when you silently nodded in return. “Y/n, don't you dare–” Again, you didn't want to talk about it. Between Jake's mother not being your number one stan and your mother playing devil's advocate what seemed to be twenty four seven, you were just over everyone having an opinion. 

“Mum! He didn't care about me enough when I was healthy and happy and his wife! What makes you think he’ll care now that I’m literally dying!” You shouted as you threw a pair of extra soaks into your luggage bag. “It's not fair, none of this is, but I left him well before I got sick and me getting sick doesn't change the reason I left.” 

Your mother didn’t respond, all she did was stare at you worryingly from across your bedroom room in silence. It looked as if she was trying to figure something out, read your face, understand what was going on. Then, after a few short moments of silence she spoke. 

“Your father and I went through something very similar before he died.” Your parents had been divorced for three years before your dad died in an awfully unexpected car accident. It shattered your mum, you knew it did. “We never did get to a point where we could resolve our differences.” She explained softly as she walked over to help you pack the last few items. You let her help you fold some T-shirts, Jake's old T-shirts, as she spoke. “This past year watching you and Jake go around in circles about how much you both still love each other and how desperately he's willing to change in order to keep you is so infuriating because you, my baby girl, have already decided you're not worth loving because you’re unfortunately going through something I can't even begin to comprehend.” 

“He couldn't love me before mum.” You simply sighed in defeat, god it was like you were going around and around on a ferris wheel. “What makes you think this changes anything?” 

“That man has never stopped loving you Y/n, he just got a little lost, we all do.” 

“If you had a chance would you take dad back?” It was a question you'd never asked before purely because you were afraid the answer would be no. now? As you tried to navigate the best thing to do for yourself, you desperately hoped the answer would be yes. Perhaps then you wouldn't feel so torn about hating to love Jake Seresin and his ability to captivate your entire being. 

“Without a shadow of a doubt my dear.” You’d never seen your mother have to hold back tears so hard before in your life. She was watching her only daughter go through a battle she wouldn't wish on her worst enemy as well as trying to help you through your separation. Although sometimes unwarranted and unsolicited, she was still your mother. 

“Without a shadow of a doubt.” 

***~***~***~***~***~***~**

Tags: @blindedbythelightt @starset21 @tayl0rhuynh @mamachasesmayhem @marvelogic @itsmytimetoodream @maverick-wingman @kodzukenmaaa @eternalsams @seitmai @nota-professional l @jessicab1991 91 @hardballoonlove @senawashere @lafrone @fanficfandomlove ve @withahappyrefrain @dizzybee03 @maisie-rebloging-blog @goldenseresinretriever @a-reader-and-a-writer @sunlightmurdock @shelbycillian @memoriesat30 @accioprocrastination @the-aspiring-fanfic-writer @athenabarnes

[copperbadge]

There’s a passage in one of Dorothy Sayers’ novels, I think Gaudy Night, where Harriet says something to the effect of, “You think, if I can just get through this minute or day or week, everything will be fine, but once you do you’re faced with another minute or day or week that’s just as complicated and difficult, and life becomes one long string of surviving.” Which sounds bleak, but she’s talking about escaping that cycle and finding real stability, like overall it’s a positive passage. I really should look it up.

Anyway, I was thinking about it because I’ve been trying variations on my ADHD medication, based on conversations with my psych. I’ve found that I can’t do the 20mg-once-a-day often because if I’m not compensating for fatigue, then it just makes me scattered; 10mg twice a day is the best dosage for me in a consistent sense. (I’m also trying saffron extract, which sounds woo-woo but does in fact seem to have some clinical significance in testing; using it to supplement the 10mg is going well, using it on top of 20mg is not...helpful.) 

It involves a lot of self-reflection because ideally the Adderall would be a driving force behind me getting stuff done, but there are still days where I take it and feel very low initiative. Frequently, I don’t even notice that I think of something to do and then do it, which has not been traditionally the way my life works, it’s just not as consistent as I’d like.  

But I’m noticing that on the days when it’s still hard to start stuff, I feel this weird, effusive sense of wellbeing when I finish things. It turns out when you accomplish a task it’s supposed to feel good. Generally, when I accomplish a task, it hasn’t felt anything -- it’s felt like Harriet, saying “Well, I just have to get through this” and then having to face something new to get through once the first task is done. But now, when I clean out my inbox or put dishes away or finish a work task...I feel good, I feel accomplished.

No real point in saying this other than to document it, but as an FYI to people who are considering getting a diagnosis, or diagnosed but not yet sure about taking medication, if you can’t start shit or don’t feel good when you finish shit, there are apparently other ways to live. I’m as shocked as anyone. 

[coffee-mage-sans-caffeine]

This morning I got to go on a fun adventure called "coffee fucked their back and now has to attend physical therapy." Now, stories of 'coffee meets a medical professional outside of a work setting' are generally onerous and shitty because coffee's a fucking medical anomaly 90% of the time. But today, dear reader, there was a student physical therapist in addition to the most senior physical therapist trainer the practice has. So I started out as a good little coffee. "You should probably know that I'm borderline hypermobile, before we start." "Ah!" says the little baby physical therapist, who as yet has not developed a poker face. "We should do a beighton score before we start!" Yes, sweet baby, we should. And we did. Where I scored a 9/9 and got the very polite version of 'bitch this hypermobility ain't borderline.' So they start testing my range of motion. Currently my back pain is preventing me from doing anything that involves bending at the waist. So they ask me how I put my shoes on to come in to PT. I grab my ankle and pull my foot up to my face because my hips don't hurt and my knees don't hurt and my ankles don't hurt. So if I just pull my ankle up by my face, I can pop my shoe right on there, without flexing my lower back at all. And that's the first time the baby PT's face does this:

The senior PT nods and goes "Okay. That works." The Baby looks at the senior PT like "ARE YOU FUCKING SEEING THIS???" And the senior PT lays me back on the exam table and starts rotating my ankles and legs to see what my range of motion really is and casually says "Okay (baby PT), you should note. In this case, we need to change how we grip the leg for range of motion because if you watch here, if we pull on the ankle, it's gonna come right off." And the Baby goes "What... what do you mean 'come off?'" And quite cheerily I go "She means you'll completely pull my ankle off the joint, dislocate it. If you want to see it, you can just give it a bit more of a tug and then if you pull the forefoot straight out from my hip, it'll pop right back on, so it's fine." And the Baby goes "Uh. No? No. Please. Please don't do that. Does... Does coffee need a referral???? This looks like it needs a referral."

And the senior PT calmly goes "Well, there's nowhere to refer coffee to. I don't know any doctors that I could trust to diagnose or treat coffee, so we'll keep them in-house and look after them here. They'll probably need an EDS diagnosis as they age, depending on where they are on the hypermobility spectrum, but there's no one to send them to now, so as long as coffee continues to show good judgement and goes to a doctor when things get more painful, this is fine and normal."

The Baby PT is screaming with her whole face that this is neither fine, nor normal. The senior PT is just shrugging and reminding me that bracing is an option but not one she recommends if I have enough stability that nothing's tearing. I'm nodding along and saying 'see that's what I say but my wife freaks out about it!' The Baby PT is just like "BUT DOESN'T THIS HURT????" and I'm like "Well... yeah. Obviously my body hurts all the time, but everything doesn't hurt at once all the time, it's different things every day, so it's fine." Well guys, I think that broke her. Because she just kind of stared at the senior PT with huge eyes for the rest of my visit. I think I broke her. Which is how you win PT, right? Right??? Anyway now I have exercises for my back pain. To work on getting back range of motion.

[chronicowboy]

Buck doesn't even question it when he pulls up to Eddie's house instead of his own apartment block. He has the go-ahead to return to work, but for some reason, the relieved joy he'd expected has been buried under a confusing mudslide of emotions that make his head hurt if he looks at them too closely.

He tells himself he's at Eddie's because he's returning the favour, paying him back for last year when Eddie had showed up on his doorstep with a six pack, a grin and his transfer back to the 118 paperwork.

Buck doesn't have a six pack, or a grin, or a vague date for his return because he hadn't even told Bobby about his cardiologist appointment today for fear of the news awaiting him.

But he knocks on Eddie's door anyway because he may be just Buck, but that's enough. Its always been enough at the Diaz house, and maybe that's what he should be appreciating after everything.

The smile Eddie gives him when the door cracks open is enough to ease most of the tightness in his chest. He remembers a similar smile two nights ago, the way it had blossomed so softly on Eddie's face, how it had lit up his eyes and rosied the apples of his cheeks.

Yeah, he's enough here.

"Dr Salazar told me to ask you how her diagnosis of repression was holding up," Buck says, pushing past Eddie, eager for the warmth of the living room. "She told me you'd know what that meant."

"You really need to learn to say hello," Eddie grumbles good-naturedly as Buck drops onto the couch with a blissful sigh. Buck cranes his head in time to watch Eddie's face do something complicated. "Wait, what'd she say?"

"She asked how her repression diagnosis was going," Buck sounds out slowly.

"Motherfucker," Eddie hisses to himself. Buck watches rapt as his cheeks fill with colour.

"Yeah, do I get to know what that means?"

Eddie meets his eyes, and Buck wonders if she was a bit too hasty in her dismissal of him because his heart does something worrying in his chest at the dizzying intensity of emotion on Eddie's face.

"Not yet," he murmurs. It sounds like a promise.

Buck swallows past the lump in his throat.

"Wait, you had an appointment today?" Eddie drops onto the coffee table in front of him, a beautiful concern simmering in his eyes. Buck flushes at the attention. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Buck nods, "I am more than okay. In fact, I'm so okay that I am free to return to work whenever I please."

"Okay..." Eddie squints at him. "Why do I feel like you're about to make our quitting the 118 score two-one?"

"I'm not quitting the 118," Buck sighs. "Not again."

"But?" Eddie prods gently.

"But," Buck drags a hand down his face, "I don't know if I'm quite ready to come back yet." He thinks he must be imagining the slight sag of Eddie's shoulders, can't help but wonder if its disappointment or relief if he wasn't imagining it.

"Its a big step after something like this," Eddie concedes.

"After your shoulder, you got cleared with Frank one day, and had a return to work date the next."

"Yeah, and we all remember how that turned out," Eddie snorts.

"Fair enough."

"Its natural to take a bit of time when you aren't ignoring absolutely every warning sign your body is sending you," Eddie tells him. "Bobby will hold your place for you, you know that. Hell, he'd hold it for a decade if he had to. And I might be a bit bummed without my partner around, but I'll live if its so he can take care of himself." Eddie's voice is unbearably soft in a way that makes Buck's skin crawl, its been doing that a lot around Eddie since he woke up. "Besides, I'm sure he'll be drinking my beer and crashing on my couch most nights anyway." Rolling his eyes, Buck huffs a laugh.

"It just feels weird, you know?" He shrugs a shoulder. "After my leg, I fought so hard to get back."

"Yeah, I remember," Eddie says dryly.

"Shut up." Buck shakes his head. "I fought so hard to come back and now I'm being told I can and I just..."

"It feels too easy?"

"Yeah."

"Buck, you're so used to fighting." Eddie shuffles a little closer, and Buck does his best not to flinch at the spark that jolts through him when their knees knock together. "For everything. Ever since you were a kid, you were fighting for everything everyone else just had handed to them. Its hard to shake off a lifelong habit." Eddie tilts his head to catch Buck's eye, he was unaware they'd wandered away from Eddie's determined face. "But last time was different. You know that. You were different."

And Buck knows what he means. That Buck seems so drastically different to the Buck he is now, whatever software update he's at. The Buck who tied his worth to firefighting, who had no identity outside of it, who felt like he was always one step away from being left behind.

But he's also not convinced he's all that different. Firefighting is still his life. He has maybe one or two friends outside of the 118 family. And, yes, he knows that they're a family now, knows that not one of them would leave him behind. The past week has been proof of that. But who is he outside of the firehouse?

"I don't think I really know who I am when I'm not fighting fires," Buck whispers to the carpet.

It feels a lot like a shock of lightning when Eddie uses his pointer finger to nudge Buck's chin up.

"You're Buck," Eddie nods, conviction dripping from him.

And that's enough?

"You're an amazing firefighter, yes," Eddie's hand is still on his chin. "But you're an even better brother to Maddie and Hen and Chim. You're an incredible uncle to an incredible niece. You're the best of friends. You're Christopher's..." Here, Eddie pauses. Buck's heart thumps. "You're Christopher's," Eddie says decisively. "But more than all of that, you're Buck. And maybe that's all you need to be."

Buck grits his teeth when the familiar sting of tears has him squeezing his eyes shut. He takes a few steadying breaths, the ones the lung specialist had taught him when he could finally keep his eyes open for more than ten minutes. With every expansion of his lungs, it feels like his heart grows a little bigger too.

The bravery hits him out of nowhere.

"To Maddie, Hen and Chim, huh?" he asks, meeting Eddie's eyes. "What am I to you, Eddie?"

"Not yet," Eddie says softly. "Not just yet."

And Buck thinks he doesn't mind waiting for this answer.

[coreancitizen]

'Marry My Husband' episode 12

Some thoughts before tomorrow's episode 13 of "Marry My Husband"

The Yura character — She wasn't introduced out of the blue. She'd been mentioned often enough and teased enough from the beginning that she was bound to show up. I figured it was going to be some kind of stunt casting because the show was hiding her face. Lost on me though, I have no idea who the actress is.

Yura is not in the webtoon — Yes. But she is in the webnovel, on which the series is actually based on. Whether she's the best character/plot the writers of the series could have picked up from the novel is debatable. But they definitely needed something for the leads after the wedding because in the webtoon, the focus pretty much shifts to Minhwan and Sumin's growing misery as well as Juran's domestic troubles.

Jiwon's reaction to Yura's appearance — OK, this is the part that has caused quite a bit of uproar. What I'm getting is that folks are confused, angry at Jiwon because Jihyuk and Huiyeon both explained he didn't cheat on her and yet she cut off the relationship just like that.

I agree this is about cheating, but I think folks may be looking at it wrong — Jiwon was looking at Yura as the one being cheated on, not her. That in this scenario, she, Jiwon, is the other woman. Like her mom who made the one-sided decision to cut off her relationship with her dad and leave them both, Jihyuk made the one-sided decision to call off his longtime engagement to Yura. This was underscored by the flashback at the beginning of episode 12, when young Jiwon comes across Dad sobbing as he watches Mom with another guy. "... no matter how long you endure, those left behind get hurt. No matter what the relationship is, once it's started, I don't think it's right for one person to end it one-sidedly."

Why didn't she listen to Jihyuk or Huiyeon? Because, like Jiwon said, everything sounded like an excuse. The hurt from long ago was blocking all logic for her. Plus, I don't think she really had time to process because they were immediately hit with the whammy that is Manager Yang's cancer diagnosis. There's that whole "oh shit, I transferred my miserable fate to one of my favorite people" mind fuck on top of all this.

Also, she doesn't know what a witch Yura is (hearing about it and seeing it for herself are very different things) . Once Jiwon finds out and then gets the reminder of how shitty her mom is, she goes to see Jihyuk. Doesn't talk to him but it is a step toward him. I can't be mad at that.

Could this angst have been handled better? Absolutely, given how confused people got.

Anyway, this would all be resolved in tomorrow's episode, I feel. Preview shows Jiwon by Jihyuk's side at the hospital. Don't think she'll be stepping back after that and we'll get our power couple in action again soon.

[fairyboygenius]

everywhere, everything

simon “ghost” riley x original female character

a/n: hi guys! i’m so excited to start this fic. allie is so??? one of my favorite ocs i’ve ever made, to be honest. she’s just perfect to me i fear. her and simon are gonna be so hhhhh anyways enjoy the fic!

no warnings for this chapter except for simon acknowledging he’s a little weirdo and implications to the fact that graves fucking sucks

fic under the cut love u mwah

Time isn’t real anymore, Allie’s decided. How could it be? After a transatlantic flight, plus a train ride through the English countryside, the world seemed fuzzier, cool breeze almost soothing her to sleep.

“Look alive, Bishop,” Kate Laswell gently chided, bumping Allie’s elbow with her own. “We’re almost there.”

Allie bit her lip, the words “are we there yet?” on the tip of her tongue. It’s nowhere near professional to whine to your soon-to-be boss about the journey she took for you. No matter if you’ve known that boss for seven years and been through absolute hell together. After a certain point, professionalism dissipates.

“You said that after the plane. And after we got lost in the Underground. And after King’s Cross. ‘Almost’ implies a degree of soonness.” Allie knew she was being unnecessarily literal. Jet lag wore away any pretense and spoons to mask.

Kate shook her head, a smile creeping at her features. “Eat your dinner.”

“Yes, mom.” Allie sipped her water, putting her headphones back on to try to enjoy the train food. Kate huffed, a fond-yet-annoyed expression on her face.

“Lola doesn’t seem to mind the long ride.” Kate laughed as the black lab nudged her hand, tail thumping restlessly against Allie’s leg. “You’re being a good girl, aren’t you?”

Allie ran an absentminded hand over Lola’s head, giving her a quick scratch between the ears. “You sure they’ll be okay having her on base?”

“She’s your service dog. Not like they can say no.”

“They can, actually. I looked it up. Even though I’m in a non-combat role, she can be removed-“

“-If there’s reasonable threat to your or her life,” Kate finished, giving her a comforting smile. “No one’s gonna take her away from you when you’re doing your medic duties. You need Lo to do your job and do your job well. Everyone’s getting briefed about it right now. If anyone gives you hell about it, you come to me.”

Allie nodded. “You know I’m not good with confrontation.”

“But I am.” Kate smiled. “Those boys shouldn’t give you hell- half of ‘em would probably meet the criteria for a diagnosis themselves. If you need space, unless you are actively doing surgery or in a literal war zone, you have permission to go to your room and take a breather. Anyone fights you on this, you can come to me. Got it?”

Allie nodded again, leaning her head against the train window. Lola rested her head on her human’s thigh, and Allie stroked her head absentmindedly. Letting the feeling of Lola’s fur between her fingers ground her.

Kate sighed, taking her other hand. “I know things didn’t go well for you with the Shadow Company, and everything with Philip…”

“Can we not bring him up?” Allie winced, sipping more water. “He’s dead. It’s in the past for me now. And I don’t really want to talk anymore, if that’s alright.”

Kate nodded, content as Allie put her headphones on and closed her eyes. The twinge of maternal concern on her face disappeared soon after, and she turned back to her book as they inched closer and closer to base.

“Captain, a fifth member o’ the team? We’re not enough of a headache for ye?”

Price shook his head, rolling his eyes fondly. The three of them sat in front of him, on the overstuffed common room couch. Johnny was twirling a pen between his fingers, Kyle couldn’t really keep his eyes off his phone, and Simon… well, Simon was just staring into space.

It had been an okay day for him, so far. A good workout, above average meals. Paperwork seemed less burdensome, or maybe his brain was finally embracing the distraction it provided. The scars from his recent mission in Russia were healing well.

Then Price had called them in.

“Lads… calm down.” Price was massaging his temples. Clearly, Johnny had forgotten to take his meds that morning. “She’s gonna be our resident medic- and yes, it’s a bird, the fraternization rules still apply.” He took a drag from his cigar. “Laswell sent over a whole presentation on ‘er. They’ve known each other for a while, apparently.”

“We’ve got a whole medbay, can’t we pluck one of them to be a 141 specialist?” Kyle leaned back on his elbows. “No offense to her.”

“Laswell would like to introduce a new person. The hope is for you to bond with her because she’ll be living on the 141 floor, participating in workouts and team bonding and she’ll be going on missions with us. We’ve noticed that you lot tend to put off medic visits or not go to the medbay when you need to, so having an on-team medic will hopefully reduce the amount of bigger health problems that spiral from you lot ignoring smaller ones.”

“You’re just as bad as the rest of us about that,” Simon scoffed.

Price grumbled. “Guess this is for me too, then.”

“So tell us about ‘er.” Soap leaned forward slightly, looking up at the screen. “What’s her name?”

Price clicked to the next slide. A picture popped up- a redhead, body luxurious and full, a black labrador puppy on her lap. Her smile was a bit shy, brown eyes shining as the puppy licks the side of her face. Simon’s eyes traced over her features, across her broad shoulders and collarbone, down over her breasts- the black tank top she’s wearing in the picture has a low neckline- and to where the photo ends, her bare thighs crossed as she sits. He swallowed. Shit.

“This is Lieutenant Allison Bishop- she goes by Allie,” Price said. “Laswell’s known her since she was 19, when she graduated basic. She is autistic and struggles with loud noises, so she likely will have some form of hearing protection on when we’re in the field. The puppy is Lola, who’s now Allie’s service dog- she’ll travel with us, and has her own hearing protection. Allie’s getting her own room, obviously, and bathroom, but she’ll share schedules and meal times. When we’re in mission-specific training, she’ll be working in the medbay and helping out where they need it. We can’t hog her forever.”

Like hell we can’t, Simon thought.

“Can we pet the dog?” Gaz looked so excited, Simon could almost sense the mood shift. Price sighed.

“Afraid that’s a negative,” their captain said. “Lola is working when she’s with Allie, and unless Allie gives you explicit permission to, you can’t pet her.”

“Pet Allie or Lola?” Simon can’t resist asking.

Price groaned. “Neither without the explicit permission of Allie.”

“So when’s she gettin’ here?”

“She’s on the train from London to Hereford with Laswell as we speak. She’ll be probably be all moved in and ready to work by tomorrow morning.” Price sighed. “From what Laswell said, she’s not exactly the most outgoing person around new people, so she may get overwhelmed and be kind of closed off at first. It may take her a bit to really warm up to us besides just simple kind professionalism.”

“Oi, Cap’n, dinnae worry about tha’.” Soap grinned. “We can be whatever she needs.” He winked, and Gaz faked a gag. Simon just groaned, reaching up to rub his own temples.

“Oh, real mature,” he grumbled. “We dismissed?”

Price nods. “Behave, lads. I’ll see you muppets at breakfast.”

They walked out of the common room together, headed towards the hallway that stored all their rooms. It would be an early night- a luxury, Simon was well aware, not often afforded on the field. He was fully ready to settle in with a book and a glass of bourbon when he saw the sign on the door next to his.

Welcome, Lieutenant Bishop!

Fuck. He was gonna stay away from her, give her some space to accommodate to the new environment first before making his move. It’d be the nice thing to do, after all- let ‘er settle in, get into a routine, hopefully not scare her off with his whole… thing. (He’s nothing if not self aware.)

But if she was right there… they’d be running into each other in the hallways. He could probably walk her back and forth from their rooms, seeing as she wouldn’t know her way around the base. Maybe even invite her in for a cuppa, or a drink if they clicked… not that Simon was any more competent at social interactions. Especially not with beautiful women.

Beautiful women who he couldn’t be with, no matter how much he wanted to be.

He flopped back onto his bed, letting out a long huff. Fine, he’d be civil. Not necessarily nice, but civil. He’d just have to hope that she’d be charmed by his unsettling gazes and grunts… somehow.

Fuck.

[starfieldcanvas]

hi not an expert but i thought i’d say something about the sysmed thing you posted

systems are formed by trauma at a young age causing a child’s personality to not form into one singular personality and instead split into multiple.

but theres also some people who “create” their system because they wanted to be a system, which just really isn’t possible. (or also “will” their system into being)

but i know most systems problems with the people who “create” their system (endogenic or willogenic) is the massive spreading of misinformation

i know people with did or osdd who when first realizing they were a system, and even still now, are told by endos that their trauma “isn’t enough” and that they’re endogenic too which also hurts people just discovering their a system thinking their endogenic because their trauma wasn’t enough or they don’t remember their trauma (which is a big part of did & osdd anyway, systems are typically formed to help the person deal with (by not dealing with) their trauma) and then people aren’t able to get the help they need

so, to someone pretty thoroughly outside the discourse, this largely reads like you've just got two different groups of people with similar conditions, and some people within each of those groups loudly assert that the other group cannot possibly be having the experience that group claims to be having. some traumagenic systems insist endogenic systems are "not really possible" and some endogenic systems think traumagenic systems "aren't really traumagenic" instead of both groups just taking for granted that obviously multiple kinds of experience can coexist without either invalidating the other.

it sounds strikingly similar to transmed discourse, so I understand why the "-med" language got borrowed.

about a dozen years ago I was up to date on the DID wiki page and was therefore fairly confident that so-called "multiple personalities" were all (I had to look this term up just now) iatrogenic, that is, caused by psychiatric leading. So when I came around to accepting that systems did seem to exist even in people who had never been to therapy, I assumed we were all lifting a middle finger to psychiatry's attempt to dismiss the system phenomenon. It's rather odd to learn that now there's a contingent insisting that they have psychiatric legitimacy but their endogenic "cousins" do not. like... y'all trust psychiatry to know what does and does not exist? when they largely didn't think traumagenic systems existed until very recently, and many within the institution still think it's 100% iatrogenic?

(i double checked with my local psychology graduate and indeed he was taught in school a decade ago that DID was a fringe diagnosis that did not really exist in modern practice.)

it's really just like transmeds then, isn't it? traumagenic systems have only barely gained a little bit of respect within the system and are still widely disbelieved, but instead of taking that as a sign that maybe psychiatry has only a very limited understanding of this phenomenon, some have decided to throw their endogenic cousins under the bus in a feeble, futile attempt to legitimize themselves.

whether or not endogenic systems really do "exist" in a meaningful way, i find the insistent rejection of them by people who are also frequently disbelieved by the institution to be shockingly shortsighted.

the primary objection to the possibility that endogenic systems exist cannot really be "some of them are assholes who spread misinformation". as that has literally nothing to do with whether or not they exist.

(and I feel obligated to ask if the "misinformation" in question is more often than not just "it's possible to be an endogenic system." because aphobes used to claim the statement "it's possible to be asexual as a minor" was grooming. so I don't take those kinds of accusations at face value anymore.)

or is it really just "the field of psychiatry has not agreed this experience is possible yet, so I am obligated to argue with anyone who reports their lived experience as counterevidence"? because as I have said, that just sounds like every past failure of the psychiatric imagination. advances in psychiatric research are very valuable, but if you're not familiar with the ways in which psychiatry as an institution tends to fall short of capturing reality, then you can't be trusted to wield its evidence in a responsible way.

are there contingents among the endogenic and traumagenic folks who simply believe in describing their own experience in appropriately limited terms, rather than aggressively insisting their experiences are universal for all systems???

[catkin-morgs-kookaburralover]

I was walking back to the station from my placement shift yesterday and it was pretty warm. I hate the arm sleeves I'm wearing while on the ward from a sensory perspective (hate is too strong a word, but you know. It gets pretty old), but since I have visible and not-yet-healed self harm marks on my arms, I'm hardly going to walk into a psych ward showing them, and that's the best option. So of course I shucked the sleeves as soon as I was out of the vicinity of the hospital. Every other day I've put a cardigan back on, because it's been cool enough to wear one. But yesterday I didn't fancy melting, so I decided to risk it; they're almost healed, and I hope I didn't trigger anyone. (Since I'm still hiding the existence of any such scars from my family entirely, I put the cardigan back on just before I walked into my home, but luckily it was late enough it was beginning to cool down so I didn't melt into a puddle merely putting a cardigan on.)

It felt... extremely weird. Like hi. I'm in the train, and if anyone happens to look over, they'll see I'm damaged and messed up. It's no longer something I can hide - hell, I hid the scarring from a suicide attempt in August last year from my brother until a couple of weeks ago, because it was pretty minor and I hid it initially until it faded pretty well. But this more recent stuff is - not major, because so many people have so much worse, but - it will be noticeable. And pretty obvious in characteristic that it's self harm.

I used to be able to hide my issues pretty well. I swear my parents wouldn't have known even now that I self harm unless I'd told them. (I mean, mum would've figured it out that time I left my knife out in the open and she confiscated it, but anyway.)

If I ever get to becoming a midwife, every woman I help will be able to look at me and know I am or were mentally ill. Will that negate anything I can do for them? Have I ruined all the possibilities of helping people in my entire life unless I hide this stuff? Do I now exist only to trigger people?

It's kind of funny doing a placement in a psych ward, knowing that in this ward, patients are not allowed to self harm or they get escalated to a higher care ward. I have to ask every single patient I'm caring for every day if they have any thoughts of self harm or suicide. And nobody asks us, the nurses who are looking after the patients. Are we okay? Who the hell cares? This isn't about us. Nor should it be! But it's amusing, in a way.

I have cared for patients, directly or indirectly, with every single diagnosis, both physical and mental, that I have or have ever had it suggested that I have. In a way it's freeing. I think next time I see my psychiatrist I'm going to ask straight up why I even need any psychological care at this point, because I'm fine. I fully acknowledge I wasn't, for a long, long while, but this placement - it's really showing me both that I was more ill than I knew at the time, and also that apart from enduring difficulties caused by autism that won't resolve, I am now fine.

I experience normal levels of anxiety, with very occasional meltdowns (and I use the word meltdowns generously, because my panic usually doesn't reach the intensity of a meltdown). My mood is excellent. I am content with my life. I no longer meet the criteria for an eating disorder. The physical diagnoses I have are mild enough that I can function without medication or any kind of medical support, really. (I forget to take my asthma medication often enough that I know I can do without it entirely, in all seriousness.)

Yes, I still experience suicidal ideation and self harm urges at times, but those are normal for me and just things I've got to accept. I haven't made a serious suicide plan for ages, and I haven't actually tried to kill myself for more than a year now. I've barely self harmed in the past two months, and only superficially.

All my issues are in the past. I don't need help anymore, not really - and this isn't me in denial, this is cold sober honesty. It's time to move on from the 'getting help' arc, and actually living my life without psychiatric involvement.

Not entirely sure how to convince those around me, though, even though it's unequivocally true. Given that people who know me in real life have only rarely picked up on my moods and problems (unlike y'all, who get a blow-by-blow account of my life like I'm a youtube celebrity livestream), it's understandable that they may be a little hesitant about it all. But really: I'm fine. Promise.

[frodo-with-glasses]

Ah, now here’s one I’ve been looking forward to discussing. Lord of the Rings has a strange relationship with hope. Before I began this read-through, I would have told you that hope is at the core of LotR: hope that the war will end, hope that light will triumph over darkness, hope that “there’s some good in this world, Mister Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for”. I would have told you that it’s an innately cheerful, optimistic story, though it gets dark at times.

But over this past year, as I’ve reread this book with the eyes of an adult, I’ve begun to realize it’s more complicated than that.

Lord of the Rings is not a story about hope. It’s a story about what you do without hope. It’s a story about when your spirit is utterly defeated, and your prospects are grim, and both the best and the worst possible outcomes look shockingly alike, and yet you keep walking anyway. It’s not a story of blind, naive optimism, of sitting back and dreaming about a better about-to-be. It’s a story of weighing the facts with a clear mind, of realizing that there’s no way in hell this works out well for you, and of doggedly moving your grain of sand to tip those massive scales anyway, because the only other option would be to sit back and let the world burn.

I feel like that rings truer to the human condition, really. After all, what good is it in the end to be kind and generous and courageous; what good is it to waste our short lives trying to make this awful world a better place? For every one human being trying to be a good person, there are hundreds more who are selfish, cruel, exploitative, greedy, twisted, and wicked. For every good deed done on this planet, there are hundreds more murders and abuses and horrors. One day, you will die, and at some point, everyone who knew you will be dead. There will come a day when you will be utterly forgotten. No one will remember you. No one will remember what you did. No one will remember if you made a difference, if you tried to make the world a better place. And let’s be honest; you won’t. No matter what light you managed to throw into the world while you were alive, this awful cosmos will generate enough pain and misery to overshadow it, eventually. When you’re gone, the world will be just as bad as it always was. Always has been. Always will be.

What good is it to go on loving someone when the diagnosis is terminal—when the medicine doesn’t work—when the sickness in their head has locked the person you love behind an unbreakable concrete wall? What good is it to stand for what you believe in when it’s not popular anymore—when friends and family turn their backs and reject you—when those who gave you praise and encouragement now insult you and curse you and spit on your face? What good is it to love when your heart is broken, be kind when your skin is mottled with bruises, be brave when your back is bent and your arms are weary under the weight of it all? What good is it to cast your little candle light when all the wind in the world tries to blow it out? Why be good? Why be selfless? Why sacrifice so much, when you lose so much more than you gain?

In that moment, there’s only one answer. And it’s not hope. It’s not optimism. It’s some strange defiance, some visceral fire that roars in the chest and aches in the bones.

“I will be light,” it cries. “I will defy you,” it howls. “I will push back with the last of my strength, though you crush me down,” it screams. “Because if I am not light, I am darkness, and I cannot, I will not, I refuse; let me die with my knees unbowed and my head held high; I WILL NEVER SURRENDER”

There are many instances in the book that speak to this point—Aragorn himself says something along the lines of “we must do without hope for the moment”—but to me, nothing better encapsulates this strange spirit of hopeless defiance than this moment with Sam Gamgee.

“Sam said nothing. The look on Frodo’s face was enough for him; he knew that words of his were useless. And after all he never had any real hope in the affair from the beginning; but being a cheerful hobbit he had not needed hope, as long as despair could be postponed. Now they were come to the bitter end. But he had stuck to his master all the way; that was what he had chiefly come for, and he would still stick to him. His master would not go to Mordor alone. Sam would go with him.”

Sam would go with him. Not “we will win”. Not “I believe in us”. Just “he will go, and I will go with him, whether this ends in (improbable) victory or (more probable) a horrible, horrible death”. It’s not that Sam’s hope began to fail here; it’s that he never had much hope to begin with, but he went with it anyway, and it’s only his cheerful disposition in the face of near certain disaster that ever began to flag. Holy cow.

Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love; but when the first two fail, love is the unkillable cockroach of all the virtues and will survive the nuclear winter of utter despair and grow wings and fly buzzing right up into your face just to spite you.

Now, of course Lord of the Rings does not simply leave us with the tragedy of a futile fight against the darkness. This story has a happy ending. And I’m glad it does, because sometimes, there are happy endings. Sometimes sicknesses are cured, families are restored, and old scars are healed and begin to fade. Sometimes loved ones emerge from the prison of their own minds and return to you—wiser, more melancholy, but still themselves—and you discover that the bond is deeper, the smiles sweeter, the laughter richer, and the love galvanized into something stronger than it ever would have been. Sometimes there are happy endings, and it’s not wrong to want them. It’s not wrong to have hope.

But Lord of the Rings lets us linger in that moment of hopeless defiance, because it offers an odd sort of comfort of a totally different kind.

“Lost all hope, did you?” it whispers. “It’s all right. So did Frodo, and Aragorn, and Gandalf, and Sam. But you see, they kept fighting anyway, with hope or without it, and that’s what made them heroes. Oh, you might still have your happy ending, someday, and it might come in ways you don’t expect. It is also equally likely that nothing will get better, and it will actually get much worse, and you shall die. But do keep fighting. Do keep walking. One foot in front of the other. If you do nothing, the worst will definitely come to pass; but if you fight, it just might not. So if we shall win, let’s not be embarrassed by our cowardice when that happy ending comes; and if we shall lose, let’s not go down without a fight.”

Perhaps, paradoxically, that’s what makes Lord of the Rings the most hopeful story of all. Because this is the story that whispers, “Remember, when all hope is gone…

“It isn’t.”

WORD ASK GAME!

[thelampisaflashlight]

The Cloudy Sky to Your Sunny Day Pt. 1

[Sunny has never really had a home before. The Sunny angst I mentioned ages ago. Not suitable for younger audiences.] Below the cut.

It's weird, Sunny feels, watching her pack leave the abbey without her.

She's barely known them more than a year, and yet... they're all she has.

All she really knows.

But that doesn't mean she regrets her decision to stay behind, not even a little bit.

After spending most of her first year on the surface bouncing from city to city, Sunny's ready to see what else life has to offer.

At home that is.

And she's not alone in that regard; Looking over at Aether, who's a little misty-eyed but smiling as he watches their friends leave, at least she knows someone else is in the same boat.

Kind of.

Aether's retirement wasn't exactly planned -he'd be on that bus right now himself if he had it his way- but necessary.

Not long after the first leg of the tour, the older ghoul's vessel had begun to rapidly deteriorate for seemingly no reason at all, resulting in a prolonged stay in the infirmary as the staff worked day and night to determine what, exactly, had caused the once lively ghoul to a shell of his former self.

Omega -Aether's mentor and a senior member of the ministry's medical team- couldn't give an exact diagnosis.

"His condition," he had stated gravely, "doesn't have a name, but it is not uncommon in quintessence ghouls. I, too, developed the same illness at one time."

"He has to rest and avoid overexerting himself... Which means, of course, he cannot go back on tour... In fact, with how weak his vessel has grown, I feel he will need to remain on leave indefinitely."

Sunny watches Aether settle onto the low rock wall surrounding the front flowerbeds, letting out a deep sigh.

"Aether-" she starts, but stops herself when Aether pats the stone beside him.

"Sit." he says, "You should take it easy, too."

She hesitates for a moment before taking a seat.

"How are you feeling today?" he asks, and it takes everything she has for Sunny not to blurt out the exact same thing in return.

Why's he asking her how she's doing when he's the one who-

"It's not a contest, Sunflower." Aether says, clearly picking up on her reluctance, "So... how are you?"

Sunny frowns.

"I'm going to miss them." she admits, but when Aether hums in agreement, she can't help but feel a twinge in her chest.

A rotten feeling is starting to pool there around her heart, not that she'll say it out loud.

Something jealous and bitter that's gnawing on her ribcage, and she can't even push it aside now, not when she has plenty of time to unpack it... she just doesn't want to.

"...I'm going to go get some work done today, so I'll see you around lunch?"

Aether pats her knee, "Sounds like a plan."

Truth be told, Sunny's never really had a chance to really stew in her more negative emotions.

Despite all the, well, "Hell" she went through in the pit and the trauma of clawing her way through the portal, she's always kept a smile on her face... for the most part anyway.

It's much easier to squash down those ugly feelings and pretend like she's okay.

Fake it 'til you make it, ya know?

But lately that's been hard, especially when faced with the fact that she is so easily replaceable.

That they were so easily able to find someone smaller, cuter... better... with such short notice.

She doesn't hate Aurora, but her heart had selfishly wished that it would have been at least a little more difficult for the church to find someone else to fill her position.

"So that's how it is." she can recall thinking, "I'm not really that important in the end, huh?"

The others in their pack hadn't even been nearly as upset when she announced she was staying behind as they were when Aether told them.

Sure, they'd known him for longer -for years- but she thought... she thought they were at least a little close by now.

"Whatever," she tells herself, "it's fine."

But it's not.

It's not fine.

Not really.

Sunny's stubborn, she knows; She has too much pride, doesn't like to admit that she wants -needs- to be wanted.

And maybe that's it.

Maybe that's the reason no one does.

They can smell it on her; The desperation.

.

.

.

"I don't get why I have to do this." Sunny says, picking a pebble from the tread of her boots with nimble fingers, "I mean, like, I'm good. Aether's the one you should be talking to."

"I do talk to him" Omega says, leaning back in his office chair, hands folded in his lap, "but that doesn't mean I can't talk to you as well."

"Okay, but, like, I don't need..." Sunny gestures broadly at the room their in, at the motivational posters, the cool toned pastel walls, and the basket of fidget toys beside her, "...whatever this is. I don't- Nothing's wrong with me."

The older ghoul tips his chair back towards the desk and reaches down to open a drawer, removing a thin, yellow folder; Her name is written on the cover in looping cursive handwriting.

"...What's that?" she asks, frowning at the folder, feeling a bit anxious now, "Seriously, what is that?"

Omega holds up a hand, "Nothing yet."

"Yet-"

"Every ghoul that is summoned, transferred to, or born here in the abbey has to go through certain evaluations in order for us to get an idea of who they are and how to best meet their needs." the larger ghoul slides the folder over to Sunny, "You can open it if you'd like."

Sunny picks up the folder and opens it.

"It's kind of... empty." she says, thumbing through the sparse paperwork, "...Why's that?"

"Well, we never really got to speak before you left on tour, which I apologize for. Normally, I would have come and interviewed you right away, got you settled in and given you time to adjust to everything first, but, instead, you got thrust right into the thick of it." Omega explains, "Now that you're going to be home for a while, I thought we might meet now and then to talk about things."

"Things?" Sunny questions, "Like what?"

"Anything you want." Omega offers, "Things you like, things you hate, how you're feeling that day..."

"That's what diaries are for." Sunny huffs, tossing the folder back onto the desktop, "Why would I talk to you about that stuff?"

"Because a diary can't talk back, and while I think journaling is certainly a healthy outlet for your thoughts and feelings, if that's the only way you get them out, it might be beneficial to have someone you can speak to without fear of being judged." Omega says, "And that's what I'm here for."

Sunny clicks her tongue.

"I don't even keep a diary, so..." she waves her hand dismissively, "...Like I said, nothing's wrong with me, so I don't think I need to do this."

"You keep saying that." Omega points out.

"Saying what?"

"That nothing's wrong with you." he says, "Do you think there has to be something wrong with you to be talking to me?"

Sunny shifts in her chair, the toe of her boot squeaking against the glossy hardwood floor as she adjusts herself, "...Kind of."

"Why is that?"

"Psh... 'Cause, like, you don't see a therapist if something's not wrong with you." she mumbles, "And being here means I'm probably, I dunno, nutty or weird, or fucked up somehow and I'm not seeing it or somethin'..."

Omega takes out a small notepad and a pen.

"Let's talk about that then..." he says, "Unless you want to start somewhere else?"

Sunny draws her feet up onto the chair, propping her chin up on her knees.

"I dunno..." she furrows her brow, "...I just feel like, because I'm here right now, I'm... it's like I'm in trouble somehow, and I don't like it."

"And, like, I dunno, I don't like feeling like people can tell I'm different somehow, 'cause I don't feel different, and I thought, ya know, I thought I was doing okay, but I guess not..." she continues, "...I don't even know what I'm doing here, like, in general. I... I'm not in the band anymore, and I wasn't even in it for long, so I should just leave..."

"Do you want to leave?" Omega asks after a moment, and Sunny looks up at him, red eyes drowning in tears yet to spill over.

"I don't want to go...!" Sunny hiccups, "I don't want to go! I want to stay! But I'm not- I'm nothing if I'm not with the others, but I can't, I don't-"

She pulls in a shuddering breath, sniffling.

"No one's going to make you leave, Sunny." Omega assures her, slipping her a packet of tissues, "This is your home now. Whether you're a band ghoul or not. Look at me; I've been here well passed my tenure in the band, there are some ghouls here that have never plucked a string or sung a single note, and they're still here. You're still here."

"But I'm..."

Sunny isn't sure what she wants to say.

She opens and closes her mouth, then looks at Omega, eyes wide.

"You sneaky motherfucker-"

.

.

.

Sunny nibbles on her pizza slice, trying her best to savor each bite.

There's something about crying that always makes her hungry, and when Aether offered to order a pizza for them to split, she couldn't pass up the idea of red sauce and cheese.

"So, how did your work go?" Aether asks, wiping his mouth, "Get to do anything fun?"

Sunny shrugs, "Went okay, I guess... I had to work with this guy on some paperwork. Boring stuff, not worth getting into."

Aether nods, "And the guy?"

"What about him?" Sunny tilts her head.

"What was he like?"

Sunny thinks back on her conversation with Omega earlier and looks down at a stray green pepper on her plate, picking it up and eating it before responding, "He was... kind of annoying."

"Oof, hopefully you don't have to see him again any time soon then." Aether scoffs, taking a sip of his water.

"Hn, actually, I'm going to be working with him a bit more." she says, recalling the note Omega had written on his calendar about their next scheduled appointment, "And I have to do this... writing assignment."

"A writing assignment?" Aether muses, "Really?"

"Yeah, uh, I have to do it daily. It's for... research!"

"Oh? That sounds more exciting than you made it sound earlier." he chuckles, "What are you researching?"

"We..." Sunny coughs, "Weather patterns."

"Weather patterns?"

She nods.

"I'm supposed to track the weather. Ya know, cloud... cloudy days, and... sunny ones."

"Ahhh, I see." Aether yawns, "...Goodness, I'm sorry... eating makes me sleepy anymore."

Sunny yawns, too, "Dammit, Aeth-"

[morlock-holmes]

I get very irritated by transphobic politicians pretending to care about "evidence" because I've yet to find one who actually does.

Look at this horseshit:

The Florida Department of Health wants to clarify evidence recently cited on a fact sheet released by the US Department of Health and Human Services and provide guidance on treating gender dysphoria for children and adolescents... Due to the lack of conclusive evidence, and the potential for long-term, irreversible effects, the Department's guidelines are as follows:

Social gender transition should not be a treatment option for children or adolescents.

The... The long term "irreversible" effects of being referred to by a different name or pronoun and possibly wearing different clothes than people might expect?

I mean I feel like you could reverse the effects by just... not doing that stuff anymore.

Anyway, they link, as evidence for their opposition to social transition, to this paper:

Title:

Not social transition status, but peer relations and family functioning predict psychological functioning in a German clinical sample of children with Gender Dysphoria

Literal first line of the abstract:

Research provides inconclusive results on whether a social gender transition (e.g. name, pronoun, and clothing changes) benefits transgender children or children with a Gender Dysphoria (GD) diagnosis.

Right in the introduction:

prepubescent children are not advised to receive any medical treatment before the onset of puberty (Tanner stage 2; Coleman et al., 2012). However, they often transition socially from one gender to another during childhood (Coleman et al., 2012). This reversible nonmedical step towards a life in the identified gender may include changing one’s name or pronoun, being introduced as the experienced gender in public, as well as gender typical appearance in terms of e.g., hair length and clothing (Steensma et al., 2013; Wong et al., 2019).

(Bolding mine)

Hey, big important Florida Surgeon General guy who wears a tie and influences the lives of millions of people:

I had to read your evidence for less than five fucking minutes before it openly contradicted what you say in your guidance.

People like this complain all the time about how evidence in trans medicine is hard to come by and uses small sample sizes, but then they link to a paper that has a sample size of 54 German kids.

Oh, and a paper which explicitly says,

Caution is also warranted in generalizing the results to all children with a GD because of the small and relative unique sample. All 54 children in the analysis sample were referred to the clinic for their GD, most of them came from families with a medium or high socio-economic background and the family support of the children’s gender identity was generally high. Due to the health care situation in Germany for children and adolescents with a GD diagnosis, some families go to considerable length to get access to treatment which they probably would not do if they did not generally support their child’s personal situation. At the same time, the clinical guidelines of the Hamburg GIS are quite liberal and allow for individual treatment pathways. Thus, these findings might not apply to a more diverse sample of transgender children who are not supported in their gender identity or expression by parents or clinicians, or children who identify themselves on a broader gender spectrum.

These people really, really fucking hope you don't actually read the evidence on this stuff.

I want to be clear: This isn't, like, one paper in a huge list of evidence against social transition, this is literally the only thing the Florida Surgeon General cites in opposing social transition.

[bugbyte]

Symptomshark

So I’m kind of always playing around with different apps to help me track data about what nonsense my body is pulling on any given day in hopes of eventually finding patterns I can work with.

Anyway, I’ve been using Symptomshark for about a month, and it’s very nice for a completely free app. It’s very customizable to fit your specific conditions and treatments, and it sounds like they’re continuing to refine it so it can support more specific data.

In my case, I’m using it primarily to track pain levels and what I’m doing about it, and whether or not what I’ve done has helped any. It’s interesting to look at once there’s enough data to make a graph.

Anyway, tracking stuff like this is what helped me get my POTS diagnosis because I had months of heart rate data and notes that I kept using HeartWatch (paid app, not sure if it’s iOS only, but it supports my old as dirt watch and lets me take detailed notes to compare to data) and my cardiologist was really excited to have all that information right from my initial appointment. It made it a lot easier to be able to point to something and prove what was happening.

Symptomshark can spit out a really nice PDF month by month of all your gathered data and notes, which is great to have for appointments. It collects a lot of stuff in one place where I had been using other methods to keep track in multiple apps, and this is much easier. I tend to give up on data tracking if it requires too many steps, but so far this has been quick and easy every time.

I haven’t managed to trigger it yet, but it also pairs to my heart rate data and beyond a certain threshold can alert me that I might need to pace myself better. But I guess that’s a good thing, as it seems I’m getting better at pacing myself.

Data collection and privacy on their part seems to my unprofessional eye to be well done, and the FAQ lays it out in simple English.

Anyway, not sponsored for this or anything, I’m just genuinely surprised by how useful this has been as a free tool and given how it works could probably help a lot of people with different conditions.