#but being disabled sucks. i think my chronic pain would like get soothed by walks tho

[cherrysnax]

[boldlyvoid]

ain't it fun? | part 4

Summary: reader just needs an NA meeting before they have a meltdown, they end up with the best friend they could ever make.

Warnings: chronic illness, hurt/comfort, drug use**! spencer and reader smoke weed together; talks of relapse and recovery. Also, a case involving child abductions, getting engaged, love confessions

word count: 2.4k

a/n: not sure how long this is going to keep getting but I am enjoying adding to it

P1 P2 P3

Days like today suck.

She can’t get out of bed, she’s so hungry her stomach is swirling and screaming and there’s a pain in her intestines that feels like someone is eating her from the inside out but she can’t move… and she has to pee but her legs hurt and her head is pounding from the light. It’s 6 am according to the alarm clock, Spencer hasn’t left for work yet and she’s already missing him.

She manages to make it to the bathroom, sitting there for too long after because she can’t find the courage to stand back up.

“Why?” She whispers to herself before the tears start.

Covering her face as she cries, she’s still sitting on the toilet with her underwear around her ankles, sobbing as Spencer walks in.

He helps her up without asking, he’s seen too many bad mornings now to ask if she needs help, he just knows she wants to go back to bed, so he fixes her underwear and picks her up.

When he finally lays her down with all her pillows, he lowers the temperature in the room to relax her bones and gets her a ginger ale to help with the nausea from the pain she’s in. It is a regular occurrence for her to wake up and feel like she’s dying, but Spencer was wonderful when dealing with it.

He’s in the kitchen for a while, she’s worried he’s making something for her to eat that she’ll have to lovingly turn away because she can’t do it right now. Her throat is too tight and it hurts to swallow or talk.

She can hear him talking… he’s on the phone with someone.

When he comes back in, he cuddles into her the way he knows she likes. Soothing his hands over her back in a way that helps the pain while also helping her feel like she’s not alone in all of this. He’ll never understand; but he loves her, so a part of him feels it too.

“You called out?” She whispers against his chest.

He nods, his cheek resting on the top of her head as she feels the friction. “I don’t feel good when you don’t feel good.”

“I’m sorry you had to help.”

He’s told her time and time again that he doesn’t mind.

He would kill for her, he’d clean up the mess if she killed someone. He’d even dig the fucking grave if she needed him too… he wasn’t opposed to being there for her no matter what that entailed.

She just hated the fact he had to, he knew her apology came from her hatred of herself and not the fact she felt sorry for him. She loved the help, it made her feel loved until she felt disappointed in herself for needing it.

“Do you want your medicine?”

She smiles finally, “if you mean my secret joint stash— yes, but if you can’t handle being around me like that, then I don’t need it today.”

“I think I’d like to try it,” Spencer whispers. “If you can smoke weed and not relapse then I think I can too?”

“Probably, but if you can’t, I’ll support you however you need me to?” She smiles up at him, he kisses the tip of her nose as she kisses his chin.

Getting high with Spencer is… interesting to say the least. He doesn’t want a full hit, he just wants a taste and so she takes a drag and blows the smoke from her lungs to his. Sharing a part of themselves in a way they never expected before, this is his most vulnerable moment and he was trusting her with it.

The sunshine hits his face in such a perfect way that as they lay side by side, she can watch his pupil devour his iris as he gets high. Their breathing is steady and their fingers are interlocked. They’re content just blinking together, in the sunshine, quiet. In love.

Her body is so calm, and her mind is slow as she takes it all in and he looks so relaxed. He’s not jittery or caffeine-deprived like most mornings; he’s not anxious or stressed or trying to find a way to pretend he’s fine before leaving for work again, only to come home sad.

He’s okay.

She’s okay.

“It's nice,” he whispers, “but it’s not as good as you.”

She smiles, trying not to laugh at how his thoughts are going to be all jumbled for the next few hours. He’s going to be smart yet stupid at the same time and she couldn’t fucking wait to hear all the things he thinks of.

“I know what you mean,” she agrees.

“This is like a tidal wave..." his ramble starts and she is so excited to see where it takes them. "A tsunami that rushes and relieves just as quickly." His eyes are closed as he talks, visualizing his feelings and it makes her giddy.

"You’re like a volcano; there are so many stages before mass destruction, and even then there’s still the ash cloud and the debris and the lava dries like rocks… the destruction is total and the cleanup will be brutal.”

“I’m addicted to you," his eyes are closed as he talks, visualizing his feelings and it makes her giddy. "Drugs are boring and you’re not,” Simplifying his meaning as his eyes open again.

“I love you,” he says with the same certainty as the first time.

“I love you, too, Spencer,” she didn’t think they’d go down this path when she was blowing into his mouth, she expected him to panic or get horny.

“I don’t think I’ve ever really told you how much.”

He shakes his head lightly, “I wouldn’t be opposed to knowing.”

If she thinks it over, she’ll abandon ship before she can tell him, so she just jumps into it.

“I was a little scared to ask you to help me lock my door that first day because I thought you’d think I was just some junky who couldn’t get their shit together. But the second you asked if I had a local group and you helped me; that was the moment I knew I wanted you in my life for forever.”

He smiles, silent so she can keep going. He’ll take his turn when she’s really done.

“And then when we got to talking it was like I knew you already. Like I had your memories in my mind and as you told me things I was like well duh! Yeah, that’s my Spencer! I don’t know how it happened so fast. One minute you’re a stranger and the next you’re the only person I ever want to see for the rest of my entire fucking life,” it’s more passionate than she expected as she rambles on.

“I can’t get married on paper without losing my disability, but I don’t give a fuck about a piece of paper or someone officially giving us that title one day, I’m content just staying in this bed with you for the rest of time and never moving again.”

He looks like he’s about to explode with love as he presses his lips together in the softest smile. He can’t keep quiet any longer, “are you asking me to spend the rest of my life with you but not marry you?”

She laughs at the realization, “I think so?”

They’re trying to kiss but it ends up more like laughing with their mouths touching and teeth occasionally clashing. It’s hysterical because of the marijuana, sure, but they’re high on each other. It’s everything they’ve ever wanted.

To find something better than drugs; that little purpose in life comes back, that drive to see tomorrow because there are good memories to be made with their favourite person. She’s not afraid of the darkness or the unknowing anymore, Spencer’s her guiding light.

He's holding her close to his chest after a while, "are you feeling better?"

"Of course," she smiles, "I've got my weed and my reid."

His laugh is everything as it fills their space again. This was how the rest of her life was going to feel, and it made her excited for tomorrow.

—

She’s feeling a lot better later and they need Spencer to help Penelope back at work, but he doesn’t want to leave her. She’s in sweats with a blanket on her lap in the corner of Penelope’s office, a book in her hand and a coffee on the table beside her as she listens to them bicker back and forth.

“If you hack the NSA we can no longer use all this as evidence if he’s brought in alive, Penelope!” Spencer whisper shouts at her, afraid to raise his voice at her but wanting to get his point across.

“Hotch needs the aerial shots like yesterday, and the NSA won't get them to us in time for this kid!” She yells back.

“Call google…” Y/N suggests, flipping through her book.

“What?” Spencer looks at her like she just said the dumbest thing ever.

“They’re taking photos constantly for their maps program, my mom was saying our new roof is now on the updated map. They might have all the photos saved up, if the FBI asks nicely they might work with you…” she explains, pressing her lips together in a tight smile.

“You’re a genius!” Penelope shouts, dialling the phone and getting JJ to work his media magic for contact at google.

Spencer's smile is one she hasn’t seen before, he’s not only proud of her; he looks a little turned on. She just cracked the case by knowing all the little hacks about the internet as part of her day job. She lived online, and now she was saving lives because of it.

It was a good case to help on, she got to see 3 kids go home to their parents and know a terrible man was going to rot in prison for the rest of his sad and pathetic life. The hard part was seeing them go through months of footage of this guy's yard, seeing the child-sized holes he dug up. The disrupted earth and the knowledge of what happened when there wasn’t picture proof.

—

They go to a meeting after work.

They sit side by side, her leg is crossed and resting over his knee as their arms are linked and fingers interlocked. They really couldn’t be any closer if they tried. They just wanted to listen today, to know they were in a room of people who were trying, people who understood and battled every bad feeling they did.

“Y/N,” the group leader calls her out just before the end of the meeting, “it’s nice to see you back here with Spencer, we heard you found another group but it’s nice to see you here for the support.”

“Thank you,” she smiled. “I’m sorry I couldn’t stay, but as you can see he is distracting.” She gestured to how they were sitting with a small giggle. “I like coming here if you guys don’t mind me occasionally dropping by?”

“By all means,” another member, carol, spoke up. “Spencer is a great sponsor, it’s nice to see him happy.”

She didn’t know he was a sponsor but he thanks her for the compliment, it turns out almost everyone in his group turned to Spencer for support. It was comforting to everyone there to know the real, chemical and biological reasoning behind their addictions. Spencer provided a sense of calm for all of them, like a younger brother; they all loved him dearly.

They’re still holding hands as they walk home, the sun is still setting and it's barely even 7 pm. All the lights on the street are on, shops are closing and the sidewalks are bare. One store is still open however, across the street, she can see the big storefront window, illuminated with the brightest lights to show off a new collection of rings.

“Do you want one?” He notices her eyes darting to the light like a moth to a flame.

“What?” She zones back in when he stops walking.

“A ring, do you want to get one?” He clarifies with the softest voice.

She nods softly, “you should get one too though, seeing as I asked you and everything.”

He grips her hand tighter and they dart across the street. Giggling like children running to the playground, they’re almost out of breath from laughing as they open the shop door with a ding. Smiles on their faces, joy in their hearts, it makes the shop owner swoon as she sees them.

“Did you just get engaged?” She pries with a knowing smile.

They nod, “we just need some rings,” Y/N adds.

She waves them over, “well I’m going to need our sizes first, here try these on.” She hands them what looks like a thin ruler with holes spaces out.

Y/N attempts to find the right one, fitting the best into the 9 and a half. Spencer fits into the 11 on the first try like he knew already and the woman just laughs at the way Y/N glares at him with love.

“What kind of rings are we thinking? Do you have a preferred cut, style, size, or colour?”

It’s a lot all at once and she’s never really thought about it, “I love my grandma's ring, do you have any vintage styles?”

“I have vintage-style rings as well as some restored rings from the '20s and '30s,” she brings out a jewellery box from under the counter. “These are all appraised and unique.”

When she takes the lid off, Y/N’s eyes widen at the view. There are at least 50 rings in their velvet beds as they wait patiently to be tried on; all different shapes sizes and colours like she said. It feels a little overwhelming at first but then her eyes land on a green one. She takes it out slowly and slides it over her ring finger.

It’s perfect.

Spencer picks out a nice gold band to match, he pays and the lady is so happy to watch them leave hand in hand with their new rings. Dedicated to each other forever and ever, he was her person for the rest of time because he said so and that’s as good as a piece of paper.

She’s a completely different person from who she was when she woke up; twirling down the street with the love of her life, high on loving him as he makes her laugh and holds her hand. He stops in the middle of the street and places his hands on her cheeks, drawing her in closer.

“Loving you is so much fun.”

“Ain’t it fun?” She agrees with a smile before pressing their lips together.

taglist:

@g0lden-cth @doctorspenceryeet @samuel-de-champagne-problems @reiding-recs @ssavanessa22 @spookyspence @shemarmooresfedora @spencers-dria@reidsfish @manuosorioh @mochionly @jswessie187 @k-k0129 @calm-and-doctor

[howtowhumpyourhiccup]

Only Fun If You Get A Scar Out Of It

Summary: Post-THW. (but diverges before the ending) "Yeah, it's only fun if you get a scar out of it." Astrid vaguely remembered making this statement years ago as a response to something the Thorston twins once said. Watching her husband struggle with the loss of his leg eight years after his amputation, she feels like a fool.

Rating: Teen and up

Words: 1 644

Author’s Notes: For the whump prompt "Chronic pain" from the Httyd whump Discord, a prompt I was very excited to do. I like to headcanon that Hiccup's amputation lead to him suffering from chronic pain as a result.

Constructive criticism is appreciated and I do not own How to Train Your Dragon.

Enjoy!

Also, I still don't know how to properly use the word "had".

AO3

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It is late in the afternoon when Hiccup and Astrid return home after a flight taken over New Berk together.

Pushing the door open, Astrid helped Hiccup inside. His arm rested on her shoulder and he leaned on her as he limped.

"Easy," Astrid told him, keeping him steady. Toothless warbled something behind them as he followed them inside while Stormfly remained outside, too big to fit through the door.

Hiccup gasped and cringed as a particularly bad pain ran up from his stump and through his hip. Astrid paused to allow him to breathe through it, giving him a moment.

"Chair or bed?" She asked when the pain seemed to subside enough for him to move again and Hiccup needed to think for a moment.

Would he take the easy way and sit only to possibly be in more pain later when he needed to get back up? Or would he take the extra time and energy required to walk all the way to bed in a different room?

Ah well, at least he didn't need to do stairs. Their house was built in a way to have everything on the same floor and it was built that way just for him. So he might as well go directly to bed.

"Bed." He decided and Astrid nodded before supporting him all the way there. Toothless already shoved things aside to clear a path for them. Hiccup didn't need to maneuver around or over the furniture or the mess they hadn't had the time to clean yet.

"Thanks, Bud." Hiccup told him and patted him on the nose on the way to their bedroom. Toothless purred as his Rider passed him by and then left for the kitchen.

Astrid helped him inside and lowered him onto the furs. Hiccup groaned out loud as he moved to sit down and Astrid kneeled to help him remove his prosthetic. It was an action that caused him great discomfort, but would help relieve him in time.

Standing and walking brought him nothing besides pain, but sitting down somehow made it even worse with the pressure no longer on his stump. Hiccup once again needed to breathe through the hurt. Astrid fumbling with his prosthetic to remove it didn't help much either. She tried to be careful, but her efforts amounted to very little.

Once it was off, Hiccup sucked air in through his teeth and lied down on his side, arms crossing and head on his pillow. He was plagued by the chill and that was partially due to how exhausted he was.

"Not planning on removing your vest?" Astrid asked as she stood and he shook his head with a no.

"Okay." She whispered and, while still holding onto his metal replacement leg, decided to take a seat on the edge of their bed and gaze at him.

Hiccup lied facing away from her, his eyes already closed. If his pain allowed him to sleep, he would've dozed right off.

But if the rummaging in the kitchen was any indication, Toothless was searching the place for willow bark.

In their shared bedroom, it stayed quiet for a couple of moments as Astrid kept her gaze on her husband. If it wasn't for his deep frown, she would've thought him asleep already. Knowing this, she decided to speak up.

"That wasn't one of my best ideas, was it?" She spoke, referring to the afternoon flight they had taken with just the two of them and their dragons.

Hiccup opened his eyes again to look up at her. He didn't answer her, which said enough.

Hiccup had told her his leg was especially bad that morning and still she had insisted on taking to the sky. He let her convince him, albeit because of the assumption he wouldn't need to worry for about half an hour or so. He missed being in the air for hours.

They got to taste the freedom of the sky for not even ten minutes when his leg started hurting so bad he feared he and Toothless would crash.

Flying back and landing had each been a horrendous experience for his burning leg, but getting the prosthetic loose from its stirrup had been a completely different kind of nightmare. The pain in his stump had traveled up to his knee before it continued to his hip. He would've cried if his pride hadn't kept him from doing so.

Astrid would've carried him inside, but with worried and pitying gazes already on him, Hiccup had stubbornly decided to walk inside himself.

He looked back in front of him again and Astrid released a quiet sigh, feeling guilty.

"I thought it'd be nice." She admitted, speaking of her idea to go flying.

"Well, it wasn't. What would've actually been nice would be a day without pain." Hiccup replied, perhaps a bit angrier than he meant it to be. Astrid stared at him in sympathy, she could hear his frustration.

Briefly glancing at her, Hiccup quickly apologized.

"I didn't mean to snap." He added, but Astrid was already running her fingers through his hair reassuringly.

"You call that snapping, Babe? You've "snapped" worse." She told him, remembering a particularly bad moment in their lives when the late Stoick the Vast lied on his death bed and Hiccup blamed himself for putting him there.

She wished he wasn't hurting so much.

This wasn't phantom limb pain, though he had plenty of those days, too, here in the far North. This was a pain he has felt nearly every single day for the past eight years, ever since the day he lost his leg.

He had good days, the very rare pain-free days, and then there were days like these. When he woke up hurting and went to sleep still hurting.

It was draining. On days like these, Hiccup would be exhausted by the time midday arrived and it seemed to be getting worse with each passing year and he was only twenty-three years of age.

In the three years after his amputation, it had been fairly easy for him to hide his discomforts and simply shrug them away. The Dragon Riders only knew of them when that year spent on the Edge forced Hiccup to come clean when he collapsed because his leg refused to cooperate after a battle with Viggo Grimborn and his men.

He'd hated every minute of it, but this sentiment was shared with the Riders. Hearing that your best friend suffered on a near-daily basis behind that mask of smiles, high energy, and sass had been hard on all of them. That the only reason Hiccup came clean was because he wasn't given any other choice and not because he wanted to had made his confession more difficult to bear.

Two years earlier than that, Stoick made Hiccup go for a visit with Gothi after Gobber happened to mention that this kind of pain was quiet unusual and Gothi diagnosed his pain as being chronic.

Chronic and growing worse.

As Chief, he wasn't exactly allowed to just sit his days out either. Not that someone as fidgety as Hiccup could ever sit still for long.

Moving, Astrid gently pulled on his pant leg to reveal his stump to her. The scarring there wasn't irritated at least, one worry less.

"How do you feel?" She asked, her gaze still trained on his leg.

"Like it would be really nice if Toothless found that willow bark." In response, the Night Fury could be heard grumbling in the kitchen. He was big and the space he searched was quite small in comparison.

"I'll go help him search and after that, you can get some sleep. I'll wake you for dinner. It's Fishlegs' turn tonight." Astrid got up from the bed. When Hiccup nodded and closed his eyes again, she decided to take her leave.

As she closed the door to their bedroom, one last glance at Hiccup before he vanished from view, she couldn't help but think of a certain claim she'd made so many years ago as she stood there.

"Only fun if you get a scar out of it, huh?" She asked herself, as if the old fifteen-year-old girl she used to be could hear her. They were foolish words spoken by a child who wanted to sound tough in a world where being soft was seen as a weakness and a detriment.

She had to admit, though her scars were exciting tales she would proudly tell their future children and Berk's, Hiccup's was one that has brought him pain and misery for years and would do so for many more.

It was required of him as a Chief, and her as a Chieftess, to have heirs. With the pain he was in so often, Hiccup wasn't even sure he wanted them, afraid his disability would affect them somehow.

At least his lightning scar simply looked cool and gave him no further troubles, though it was quite sensitive to the touch.

Astrid wondered if her fifteen-year-old self could see the kind of suffering her future husband was to go through for saving Berk and ending a near four-hundred-year-old war, if she would still see having scars as fun as it once did.

She remembered witnessing his amputation. Hiccup hadn't been conscious for that, fortunately, but she had wanted to help her new, and already dear, friend. It was a memory that stayed with her still. At least ever since that event, scars weren't as much the ultimate achievement every warrior strived to reach as they once appeared to be.

No use fretting over it now. She promised Hiccup to help Toothless find and prepare that willow bark. His one way to soothe his pain, if it worked. Turning away from the bedroom door, she made her way over to join Toothless in the kitchen.

[thechildoflightning]

Tectonic Plates- Ch3

Title: Tectonic Plates [Masterpost]

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Pairings: None

~~~

Chapter Title: Transform

Summary: 

Everything over the past few weeks comes together

Warnings: Memory Loss, Borderline Passive Suicidal Thoughts, Tics, Chronic Pain, Gender Dysphoria, Deadnaming, Fatphobia, Ableism

<strong> TW: Memory Loss, Borderline Passive Suicidal Thoughts, Tics, Chronic Pain, Gender Dysphoria, Deadnaming, Fatphobia, Ableism </strong>

I don’t currently have the spoons for in depth tws at the end of the chapter rn, so message me if you have any questions about tws

[ao3 link]

~~~

Chapter Three: Transform

Patton wakes to searing pain that courses through his entire body, pain strong enough that it makes his breathing hitch and stomach curl with nausea. He squeezes his eyes tight as if that would do anything to help. Maybe this is all a bad dream he’ll wake up from. He’s not hopeful. He doesn’t dare risk moving, the fire in his body so unbearable that Patton doesn’t risk doing anything. He takes small shallow breaths and wishes for it to be over.

He fades in and out of consciousness. He’s not sure if thats due to pain or exhaustion. He remembers glancing over at his clock at one point and finding it significantly early, though Patton can’t remember what time it read. He doesn’t know if he forgot from pain, or if it’s just his memory failing him once more.

He wants to cry, but he doesn’t risk it because heavy loud crying will make his body shake and that will just make everything worse.

He briefly wishes he had no bones, just a puddle of human goop that doesn’t ache, before realizing that would only help so much. A lot of the pain is in his joints, but it’s also in his nerves and getting rid of bones wouldn’t help that any.

So maybe he gets rid of his bones and nerves.

He wouldn’t feel anything that way.

He could go back to sleep forever without pain.

He almost wishes for it.

Almost.

He’s not quite sure what stops him.

He floats in a haze, not quite awake, not quite asleep. Tiredness seeps into his body, dragging him to sleep, and the pain fights it, demanding Patton’s awake to feel the torture it performs on him.

His alarm goes off at some point, and he barely pays any notice to it. He’s in too much pain to think of anything but the pain, and thinking of the pain makes it worse. It’s a vicious terrible cycle, so terrible, that Patton doesn’t even notice that his door has been pushed open until his ma is settling at his side.

“Hi honey,” she whispers soothingly.

“Hi,” he croaks out, the single word taking more energy than expected.

His ma looks at him and she radiates love so strongly that Patton just wants to curl up in her arms and break down crying. But both of those actions will cause him to hurt more, so he settles for lying on his bed, head facing his mother, pushing back tears.

“I… I don’t think I can go to school today,” he says.

“That’s okay,” his ma dismisses immediately and Patton breathes a small sigh of relief. He never thinks that his parents would make him go- knows they understand, knows they wouldn’t push it. But well- he gets worried sometimes. He misses a lot of school, he takes a lot of energy to care. He knows his moms love him but he can’t help worry about his place in their lives occasionally.

“Do you need anything?”

“Heat,” Patton replies immediately, “And meds too please. And… and can I get some water? Is that okay?”

“Of course hon,” she soothes, “You are going to have to eat something with the pain meds though.”

Patton knows that. He knows that he doesn’t want to because eating takes so much effort and his stomach is already swirling in displeasure.

“Okay,” he says.

“Can you rate the pain? And tell me where it hurts?”

“9,” he says, “and everywhere. It hurts everywhere.”

“Okay. If you can’t, that’s okay, but can you try to be a bit more specific?”

My legs, hips, back, neck, shoulders,” he says, “Back especially. All along it.”

“Do we need to go to the ER?” is her next question.

Patton’s in enough pain that he considers it for a minute. It’s always a challenge debating on what he does and doesn’t need, when the pain is enough to warrant medicine, hospital admittance, and anything else.

“No. Not yet,” he settles on, but keeps it as an option. His meds don’t take away the pain entirely, but they do work decently well. Hopefully with the assistance his body will stop torturing him.

“Okay. Do you want me to stay? I can ask your Mom to get everything.”

“Can you?” he asks hopefully, not wanting to let her go.

“Of course,” she says, pulling out her phone to call his Mom and explain what’s going. She finishes quickly and turns her attention back to Patton.

“Can I hold your hand?” she asks.

“Yes. DOn’t touch my shoulder.”

She nods easily and carefully takes his hand in hers, smoothing over the back of his palm with her thumb. He gets heat, meds, water, and chokes down a little bit of food. It’s a slow, painful process. But the heat and meds help enough that Patton slowly drifts off once more.

-

He wakes to an empty room. He takes observance of his body, feeling out where it does and doesn’t hurt. It’s still flaring brightly with pain, so hot it burns. But it has subsided somewhat from a torturous pain to a heavy, burning violence. 

His back aches and he reaches for his phone at his bedside table, shooting off a quick text to his moms.

A moment later his door opens, and Blythe is slipping into his room, TENS unit in hand.

“Ma is picking Liam and- tehch- Dani up from school, Mom’s at work,” she explains their absence as she approaches Patton’s bed, “Do you know- hu- the intensity, frequency, and- hu hu HU- and the duration and all that? Because I don’t but I’m sure Moms have it. I can ask them.”

“It’s in my notebook,” Patton says, “but it can also really vary.”

“Okay,” Blythe agrees, walking over to his desk to grab the blue notebook and flipping to the pages about pain treatment- specifically for the electrical nerve stimulation the TENS unit will provide.

“Let’s just start with what it says in there and then I can adjust it,” Patton tells her.

“ACK- sounds good,” she agrees, finding the page. She picks up the notebook, before immediately throwing it with a tic.

“Yeet,” Patton mutters as she picks it up, rolling her eyes at Patton’s commentary.

She comes back over to Patton’s bed.

“Okay,” she says finally, “You’re going to have to turn- tehch- over.”

“I know,” Patton says miserably, not moving.

He breathes a few times.

“Help me?” he requests.

Blythe nods and sets down the notebook and TENS unit.

“What do you want me to do?” she says.

“Help shift my hips when I turn,” he instructs.

Blythe nods and begins the painful process of flipping to his stomach. He wants to go fast to get this over with, but he also wants to move slowly and carefully. It’s a balancing act- and Patton’s balance is notoriously awful.

They get there eventually, Patton gritting through the pain.

Blythe helps with attaching the electrodes to his back and then the TENS is switched on, providing welcome relief.

“Hey, wanna watch a show with me?” Blythe asks, once Patton’s settled for a minute.

“Sure,” Patto agrees, welcoming an easy distraction.

“Okay, I’ll go- ACK hu-  grab my computer,” she tells him, “Don’t move.”

Patton snorts, “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

She gives him a look and races out of his room.

-

The next day is better, but that isn’t saying too much. It’s a glass half full, half empty sort of situation. Patton can get out of bed, can even get to school, but his body still thrums in pain. But he gets through, and it’s not too bad even though it hurts and Patton- well he doesn’t quite count it as a win but it’s certainly not a loss. 

He isn’t binding because there’s no way he’d put his binder on right now with his current back issues, but it does mean he gets misgendered more which sucks. The dysphoria creeps back in and more people deadname him and Patton wants to transition so bad, but right now he’s just stuck.

He’s ready to go home.

Luckily enough, his last class of the day rolls around.

Unluckily enough, the teacher announces they will continue working on their group project.

Shit, Patton forgot about that.

His group shuffles together, and Patton sighs in grits his teeth as he joins them. Part of it is from pain, part is from annoyance with the project in general.

“Okay,” one of the girls said, “Can everyone get their stuff out? To see where we all are?”

Patton forgets her name, but does remember she’s been consistently rude to him and unwilling to listen when he’s explained his accommodations.

The group starts pulling out computers and papers. Patton himself only pulls out one measly paper of a short outline. It’s all he has done so far. The girl’s gaze turns angrily towards him when she realizes that all he has, and Patton sinks in his seat. His other two teammates look at him in pity, but don’t jump in to help.

“That’s all you have?” she asks.

“Yes,” Patton mumbles.

“Eileen! This project is due next week.”

“M’ name is Patton.”

“Okay- Patton, whatever. This project is due in a week and you’ve barely started! We’re being graded as a group here. And I need an A in this class. I get that you don’t care about school or are trying to sabotage the group because you don’t like me or- or whatever, but it doesn’t matter. You need to do your work. Stop slacking off and get it together. By the due date.”

It’s been a long day, a long week, a long year.

Patton’s so goddamn tired and his spoons are running low and he doesn’t want to deal with this stupid project or this stupid partner of his who’s name he doesn’t even remember. Patton’s trying okay? He’s been trying so damn hard, so damn hard for everyone. Being disabled isn’t easy, and people act as if it makes it so hard for their lives, but how do they think Patton feels?

He’s the one with the memory that doesn’t work, with the body that acts constantly, with being scorned for being overweight, who’s judged for using a mobility aid, and who everyone thinks is faking. Patton’s the one dealing with this, not them. It’s not fair. It’s not fair.

Tears prick in the corner of his eyes.

He can’t cry. He can’t. There’s no way they’ll take him seriously then and they’ll probably call him a girl and-

“I told you at the beginning,” he says, voice shaky but loud, “That we got three extra weeks.”

“Yeah!” she says, “If we need it. And we’re probably going to need it now because you can’t do one stupid assignment. But taking extra time is failing.”

“I do need it,” Patton snaps, and he’s loud enough that he gains the attention of some of the groups near them. “I’ve always needed it. That’s why it’s given to me. Maybe you don’t, that’s fine. But I do.”

“I don’t get why you can’t just do it?” she argues back, “Are you just fine with failure?”

“Yeah,” Patton says, “Yeah I am fine with failure. I fail all the fucking time. Life is a series of failures when you’re disabled and it sucks. Do you think I want to be in pain? Do you think I like forgetting almost everything? Do you think I enjoy struggling to keep up in a project with some annoying ableist teammate who’s not listening to me? No. I don’t. It sucks. But this time- this time I’m not failing. I’m demanding the time I need, and that’s not failure, that’s success.”

“You shouldn’t need to push for extra time,” she says.

Patton laughs, effectively gaining the rest of the class’s attention as they all tune in on their argument.

“You know what” he says, “You know what, for once you’re right. I shouldn’t have to push for extra time. I should be able to just tell you I need three extra weeks and you should accept that. I shouldn’t have to push for accommodations, that shouldn’t be my responsibility. The world is ableist and it sucks, so it’s either push for accommodations or let myself suffer. It just depends on how much energy I have.”

“Look I get that you’re disabled or whatever,” she snaps, “But it’s pretty hard to work with you when you demand extra time without even telling us why. You should at least share with us about how you’re disabled.”

“Share with you?” Patton asks incredulously, “Share with you? It’s my disability, I can share whatever I damn well please. It’s up to me and only me what I disclose and you-”

Patton forgets the rest of the argument, coming back with a rush as he takes a bite of his chicken, and stares across the table at his family at dinner.

Once he realizes what happened, he springs up from his chair. His hips and back shriek in protesting and he almost falls over. He catches himself on the table, hand clutching the wood, before racing off to his room, tears streaming down his face. He ignores the worried calls from behind him.

He crashes onto his bed and dives under the covers, wrapping them firmly around him even as he continues to sob. Seconds later and his moms enter the room. His ma crouches by his bed and his mom sets his cane against the bed stand table before joining him.

“Darling,” his mom whispers, “What’s wrong?”

Patton shudders through the tears and wonders how to respond.

“We have a group project in school,” he starts.

“Okay,” his ma says, taking his hand to rub soothingly.

“And- and there’s this girl and she won’t listen to me about my accommodations and it sucks because I can’t meet the normal time but I also don’t have the energy to push for my accommodations and it’s- I don’t want to push for extra time I just want her to be okay with it. And she’s been really rude and I yelled at her today and the whole class was paying attention and I don’t even remember what the end result was because I forgot and I-” he sighs, tears slowing, “I just hate it,” he sighs, “Like I’m disabled. For life. Some things might get better, some might get worse. Okay. I can deal with that. I’ve been dealing with it all my life. It can suck at times and be hard, but I mean- I don’t remember when I wasn’t disabled, I was a baby. It’s part of my life. But it’s just-”

Patton breaks out in a fresh wave of tears, pausing for a minute while he sobs.

“It’s just that I have- I have to prove it everywhere I go. I have to push to get my minimum needs met and nobody understands and nobody listens and it sucks and I don’t know if that’s ever going to improve and I hate it. And it- I even worry about you guys. Cause like- I know you love me. I know that, okay? But when I see how everyone else refuses to even meet the bare minimum of my needs and the two of you being the best moms I could have ever asked for, I start to wonder if it’s too much, y’know? Like if I’m too much.”

“Patton-”

“And it’s like, I know that's stupuid. I know that’s the internalized ableism talking, that I do deserve you and I deserve my needs being met. I know that. It’s just hard to remember when there’s so much external ableism pressing down hard on me. Y’know? And that- that sucks. And it’s- it’s been a rough few weeks and I do not have the spoons to deal with this.”

“We love you,” his mom says.

“Yes, we love you very much,” his ma says.

“I know,” Patton says, “I know. I love you too.”

He sniffles and wipes at his nose.

“Can we do anything to support you?” his ma asks.

Patton shrugs, and it pulls at his back painfully. He relaxes his shoulders.

“I don't know,” he admits, “I do feel a bit better now.”

“Sometimes we just need to get it all out,” his ma agrees.

Pat nods.

“I’m tired,” he admits after awhile. “I think I’m gonna go to bed. Worry about the project tomorrow. Thank you. Love you.”

“We love you too,” his moms say together, his mom setting a kiss on his forehead and his ma with a kiss on his hand and Patton feels so intensely, purely, loved.

He turns in his part of the project four weeks later, on the extended date he was given. The girl who’s been on his case scowls at him as he turns it in, and he ignores her. The teacher accepts the project without complaint, only stopping Patton briefly to ask if the time was enough.

“Yes,” Patton says, “Yes it was.”

The girl’s still mad at him. Patton’s going to continue to face endless ableism. It sucks. It’s going to suck. But he has his family, and he has their support and he’s just going to keep stumbling forward because really, what other choice does he have?

And maybe along the way, the world will slowly change into a place Patton no longer has to demand to be accommodated.

~~~

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[star-anise]

Thank you! My actual question is, what is trauma? Particularly trauma that doesn't stem from a single Traumatic Event (TM) -- like, trauma that comes from years of being treated as a "gifted" child, or from developing a disability slowly and quietly rather than in some big accident, or other non-obvious sources. What is trauma, what does it do to someone, why can two people go through the same shit and one comes out traumatised and the other does not? This is a big and vague question I know.

Yeah, “trauma” as a concept is kind of confusing because people think that to be traumatic, something has to be dramatic. And it doesn’t. In point of fact, when my province did its public messaging campaign for trauma-informed care, they completely replaced the word “trauma” with “toxic stress”.

This is gonna get long. For further reading, I’d suggest looking at the Child Trauma Academy’s Trauma and PTSD Library. And it will sound at the beginning like I’m answering some different question than yours, but I promise, I am.

The root of trauma is in the stress response system. When our body interprets something as a threat, it activates the stress response system; our system floods with adrenaline, heart rate goes up, breathing quickens, the brain diverts energy away from centres of higher thought and into immediate physical motion, your liver releases glucose your digestive system slows down, all that stuff. This is called “arousal” but it means stress arousal, not sexual arousal. And then, after the threat has passed, your body works to return you to normal; it releases cortisol to calm you down, your heart goes back to normal, your digestion goes back to normal, you are calmed and soothed.

The first major cause of stress after birth is being hungry. The stomach hurts; we’re in pain; we become stressed and cry. And ideally, someone will come, pick us up, and feed, rock, soothe, and make noises at us until we stop crying and become calm again. If we receive adequate care--that is, if we experience thousands of repetitions of being alarmed and in pain, having the pain go away, and being soothed--our brain records a basic set point of “most of the time I do not need to be alarmed, but when I am alarmed, it probably won’t be for long and I’ll get what I need to calm down again.”

Our brains don’t differentiate well between physical and emotional pain, between something that happens to us and something that happens to others. What makes a baby scream in hunger is the same basic mechanism as what happens when someone experiences a dramatic trauma.

The really big, important step, is when the body goes back to normal. When you are calmed and soothed. The parasympathetic nervous system kicks in; the body releases cortisol; heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure go back to normal; digestion resumes; higher brain functions go back online. 

Trauma is what happens when this doesn’t occur--your body tries to soothe itself, but it isn’t enough to fully work. Maybe the stressor is still present so the stress response keeps happening; maybe there aren’t enough resources to become soothed by. Instead the body is alarmed to the point of exhaustion. An aroused stress response is an incredibly taxing state, sucking down resources at an enormous rate while preventing the generation of new ones. So for an adult this could be a big shock that they can’t get over; for a baby, it could be not being fed, not being soothed, or being in constant pain. 

Trauma is, basically, a stress response that wakes up easily and then takes a long time to settle down again after. It’s the brain trying to anticipate a dangerous world where something bad happens and you need to be quick to respond to it, and maybe be prepared for a long siege where you need to maintain that response for quite some time. 

It works differently for kids because we actually need a lot of help to cope with stress initially. We spend a long time helpless, unable to walk or talk, completely dependent on a caregiver to eat and handle threats. The repetition of being soothed by a caregiver slowly builds up the neural capacity to deal with threats. We use our sense of connection with other people, and our own mastery over the world, to help deal with with stress. This is why hurt children want to be soothed by their caregiver, specifically, and why that caregiver kissing an injury to make it feel better works. Rejection is painful because on a basic level, our brains associate it with not having the resources to handle pain.

So there are a lot of thing that can either deprive a child of adequate resources to handle stress, or create a stressful stimuli too great to be soothed. Which are kind of the same thing, except: there are harmful or inadequate environments that would be guaranteed to over-stress and fail to soothe a vast number of children; and there are children who become so stressed they require a level of soothing much greater than what would be adequate for most other kids. An almost universally neglectful environment might be infants in an old-fashioned orphanage, where babies are fed on a rigid schedule, rarely held, rocked, or soothed, and not responded to when they cry; those suckers are almost guaranteed to fuck up any infant raised within them. (If it survives.) Meanwhile, a child that is difficult to soothe might for some reason have levels of pain it would require painkillers to take away, or might be distressed by things their caregiver doesn’t know to control, like an autistic child who is distressed by the fabric of their blanket or the electric hum of household equipment, which many neurotypical people would never guess could be distressing.

So some of those predispositions might be genetic, but then they get compounded by early life experience. For example, my nephew was allergic to his infant formula; he screamed way more than your average baby and was much harder to soothe, until his parents and their doctor figured out what was going on. After that, he was a much happier baby. If they hadn’t figured out what was going on, and he’d spent maybe a year being constantly distressed with nothing to soothe it, it probably would have moved his stress response system a little closer to “easily activated and hard to soothe”.

You know how when plastic gets hot, it gets all melty and can be put into a bunch of different shapes? And then when it cools down, you can flex it a little but not reshape it entirely? That’s what is meant when neuroscientists say the brain is plastic. When we’re born, our genetics play a little into the shape that our brains take, but our environment has just as much ability to shape our brains. The brain can be optimized for learning English or learning Chinese, to being happy and easily soothed or for responding to constant, unremitting stress. And as we grow older, the plastic cools off. A lot of your stress response system’s basic set point is decided by the age of 3, and much harder to change thereafter. The window for learning any new language easily and flawlessly closes in elementary school; after that, as we age, it gets harder and harder. The adult brain solidifies, so it can flex but is hard to totally reshape.

Part of childhood trauma is also the failure to learn skills during a critical period for learning them. If a child isn’t exposed to any language by the age of 7, they are deeply unlikely to learn how to speak naturally and fluently later in life. And almost everything that differentiates adulthood from childhood is a learned skill, including staying calm, paying attention, solving problems, making friends, and socializing. They’re like muscles; they have to be used for them to grow from their initial promise, their basic genetic gift, to being large, strong, and capable of doing things.

So the younger you are, you see, the more subtle a trauma can be; the stress response system is so much weaker when we’re young. It is shaped not just by huge things, but little ones: How predictably we’re fed when we cry. Whether the adults around us are grieving or fearful. If we’re allowed to feel safe when we leave the house. If the people we encounter are friendly or hostile. Whether we can reliably meet the standards for being considered “good”. How often we encounter rejection.  The hope is that, as you age, you can handle bigger and bigger stresses, because stress response is to some degree a skill; I can handle a skinned knee more easily than my 3-year-old nephew can.

But both genetics and that early life set-point can determine how likely we are to be traumatized anew by later events. If your stress system is already prone to being aroused way before other peoples’, and much slower to calm down, you’re much more likely to both be stressed by new events, and to fail to calm down totally after. The stresses pile up. Your stress response system, bless its little heart, thinks that the response to more stress is MORE VIGILANCE, and it takes a lot of very deliberate work, environmental change, and possibly medication to calm it back down again. (A frequent medication for traumatized children is clonidine, which reduces blood pressure, because it helps reset their bodies to “less stressed”)

And then if our bodies leave us in a state of chronic stress, we can often fail to do the things that help us recover from it later. If a child is constantly stressed and anxious, it may make it harder for them to make friends; then when they’re pushed off the swing at recess while the teacher’s back was turned, they’re less likely to have friends who will notice or react with care, concern, or help. If they feel totally embittered by school as a whole, they may be more likely to drop out, meaning they don’t have the educational qualifications that would give them home, food, and medical care. It can be a really vicious downward spiral.

So: 

Trauma from big shit as an adult is essentially the same as trauma from little shit when you’re a kid. To a baby, social isolation equals death, and it takes a long time to learn otherwise. 

Two people can experience the same thing and have very different reactions because of combination of genetics and life experiences

 One of those differences can be perception of threat, so they are more likely to find something distressing than others

Another can be difficulty with distress tolerance and self-soothing, so they are much less able to return from distress to a feeling of wellbeing and calm.

Adverse early experiences can set you up for a negative downward spiral

Lack of positive shaping experiences as a child can leave you without important skills for health and growth, and those skills can be much harder to learn later in life.