#cw depressing

[aspd-culture]

Is it aspd culture to feel absolutely nothing after achieving conventionally significant goals? Just finished a huge university project and successfully completed the year, but i feel nothing. No relief, no sense of accomplishment, nothing.It was the same when I got a job and started earning good money. It’s just… nothing. It’s the same for every important milestone, it’s like I’m not accessing that part of the brain. It’s not a sad emptiness or anything like that, it’s just… ok, done, moving on.

It can be, yes. The reward system in ASPD is usually skewed away from things that are classically important to society such as jobs, graduations, etc. To many prosocials, much of the reward comes from people being proud of them and them feeling as though they have done something good for both themselves and their loved ones, as well as feeling closer to stability and happiness.

Firstly, pwASPD are less likely to have people they value the opinion of congratulating us for these things and we may even feel condescended against if they do - almost as though the congratulations means they thought we couldn't do it. Therefore, a major part of the reward is not there for us.

Secondly, we often don't believe in stability and happiness, therefore the largest parts of why this kind of achievement matters (the ability to support yourself and not have to worry and be able to be stable and happy because of that) is fake in our minds. We weren't exposed to any amount of stability and true happiness, so why would we expect anything is going to change that?

Thirdly, even if we believe things like schooling getting us a good job, pwASPD may be more likely to be disinterested in that idea at all - instead viewing the idea of a good job as a lie capitalism tells us to get us to follow the designated life path that was made up. We are sometimes much more sensitive to how much of the world is simply made up rules no different than a toddler making up a pretend game, except that you can't stop playing. That feeling can make achievements harder to feel good about as well.

[underestimated-heroine]

I don't believe you when you say things can get better if I just keep trying. And I have a lifetime of evidence to back up that belief. It's like I crossed an entire desert, learned there was no water, and was then culturally gaslit, half by people trying to convince me the oasis did exist & I just wasn't grinding my drinking muscles hard enough, half by people calling me a spoiled brat for thinking I'm entitled to water in the first place. Now you're offended that I'm angry you just expect me to walk right back across the desert.

From the bottom of my heart, concavenator under your bed. And you're on fire.

[kid-az]

I need help

I’m relapsing horribly… feeling like there’s no hope in anything getting better, and that life will just get worse and worse and worse, and that anything is a better alternative to this.

Do you people have any advice to get rid of or at least mitigate these feelings… because I don’t want to live this miserably and stressed out…… please.

I just wish I could keep this stuff to myself… and not be so self destructive.

[shouldvedestroyedyoulongago]

I wish everyone would forget me so I could just kms without causing anyone to feel pain or guilt

[llamasgotoheaven]

When people act like the end of a bloodline can only happen because of new generations not having kids as climate change disaster, natural disasters, possibly impending ww3 and the economy being in shambles can’t wipe out blood lines

[weishenbwi]

It started age 3. I guess I was a happy child, not sure. Hard to think back and remember it all, the years that have passed until now. Maybe there were happy moments. I guess every child has at least some. Moments where the sun feels warmer, the sky brighter, bluer, soft like a dream. Momentary lapses in between bad dreams and nightmares.

I guess I was a happy child in a bad dream.

I've blocked out most of my early life, it seems. Hyung asks "Do you remember…?" and I don't. I never do. Motivated forgetting from some form of post traumatic stress disorder probably. I think I've dissociated from bad memories and in the process forgot the good ones too. Is that possible? Some sort of psychological, unconscious act of repression? Maybe. I don't know.

Have you ever noticed the night's glow is both too intense AND overcast when you're down? And it doesn't matter the cycle of the moon or how many stars are visible or the amount of light pollution. Like someone's directing your life and they have to make everything (colors, tones, ambiance, all of it) just right or you'll lose the feeling and be whole again? Sometimes I imagine a demi-god playing with my life and he thinks it's funny when I fall or when my bruises don't heal and it doesn't matter because I'm only human.

I can feel that I'm dissociating and I can't stop it, can't pull it back, can't make myself feel. There's a small pond inside yearning for wholeness, crying for happiness but the ocean rolls with the tide. The ocean is larger. The pond doesn't matter.

Ah age 3. Most kids don't remember specifics of that age and I'm no different. I remember my surgery, my mom crying. My mom being strong and by my side, sneaking me chocolate candies, and feeling spoiled. Relatives coming to visit. A good number of them. My grandparents drove 6 hours and brought with them a stuffed dog I called "Feed Jake" from an old song that played on the radio back then. The lyrics "If I die before I wake, feed Jake." Ironic. Nuns from the orphanage came to visit, brought with them a small stuffed bunny that had pen markings for eyes and was in the shape of a triangle. The kids from the orphanage had made them for those of us in pediatric surgery. I'll never forget it; had both "Feed Jake" and the bunny for the longest time. I thought they were visiting because I was ill and needed surgery. But they were "He might not make it" visits.

Everything else from that time is a blur. Even being wheeled back for surgery. I just remember waking up and stitches itching, wanting desperately to scratch but being aware that it would cause unnecessary pain. My mom's courage and stability. In retrospect, my dad wasn't there. I don't remember seeing him once. Ah, well it goes like that sometimes. I shared a room with another child. He was younger than me and had an older brother. He didn't make it. I think about him sometimes, about his family -how they're doing in their lives all these years later after such a great loss. I guess that's somehow a blessing, if you'll call it that. To realize I might not have been wheeled out of the hospital. My stay could have ended with the sheets being pulled over.

The other day Joonie wrote:

"My friend’s mom asks me what are my hobbies and I never know what to tell her. My hobbies are breathing, feeling the temporarily sustained life force go in and out, wondering in awe at this complex combination that is me. Staring at the sky, whistling, letting silence graze over me and through me; delighting my senses in this silence. Wondering what it would be like if I were ocean, a tree, the earth. This leading to thoughts of how the earth has caretakers and those who abuse her, leading to thoughts of relationships and why people allow the same, to valuing our bodies, minds, our souls; continuing in a march to wondering how to benefit my soul and that of others. Having a desire to make the world a better place, always, wanting to hold everyone and everything with a unified unspoken language of care and undying love. My hobbies are thinking, reading words for this process. Books, quotes, thoughts. Feeling the earth beneath my feet, the hot summer sizzle across my flesh, the wind of volcano breathe down my neck and into my pores. Wondering how I can feel it all and still sometimes feel nothing, emptiness, hollow; the entire spectrum of emotions lit across me in a brilliant array of colors. These are my hobbies. And yet when asked, I say “I don’t know. It’s hard to explain.” Because this isn’t something I share with everyone and not everyone would understand."

I don't know how he does it. I never shared this with him, but I value the way his mind works, constantly in a multiverse. Deeper than any ocean I've known. He can see the beauty and pain in the world without feeling overwhelmed by either. Or if he does, he keeps it hidden. I wonder… In the past when I felt things more readily, did I feel that way? Was there more to me? Sometimes I'm not part of myself, even my name feels foreign. I'll look at it and think "Is this me? Is that my name?" I should know what my name is and yet it feels distant to me. Like I'm outside of my body looking in.

Age 3. I keep meaning to write about it. I'm tired now.

Tired.

Tired.

“I am so tired of waiting.

Aren’t you,

for the world to become good

and beautiful and kind?

Let us take a knife

and cut the world in two —

and see what worms are eating at the rind.”

― Langston Hughes

Hobi said he only likes the first part and not the part about the knife or cutting the world in two. His brightness makes me soft. When the jagged edges of this world pierce too sharply, his presence acts as a beacon I sometimes forget I need. People say he's sunshine personified. They say we're like night and day, sun and moon. I have no light.

Not sure what he sees in me. Occasionally I'll wonder when he'll leave. It's a matter of when not if. Depending on my mood, I'll either be devastated or indifferent. It's as if my fate was decided and I'm damned because a normal person would feel like the stars had been ripped from the sky at the loss of such brightness, but if I'm dissociating then I won't feel anything. And I love him. He's like my brother, maybe closer. But it's not a switch I can control.

About the quote, I see the point and think two parts aren't enough. I want to sink my hands into the world and find out what went wrong, but I sleep because even if I found out its not like I can change it. Sometimes the only thing we can do is breathe.

― Min Yoongi, somewhere in time

[quarterlifekitty]

cw: death, murder, severe grief induced depression, alcoholism

Undead!Husband!Ghost who stalks his way home just as soon as he claws his way from the damp, heavy soil on top of his coffin.

Pain in the ass. Doesn’t have his damned phone and he has no idea where this cemetery is.

Doesn’t have his keys, either, and it’s the middle of the fucking night. Finds a window open just a crack— his absence in your life shows. He would’ve never left you vulnerable like this. Kitchen is a mess of takeout containers. You haven’t been taking things well. Answering machine flashes a bright red number— 38.

He takes off his shoes and his jacket— like he’d only stepped out for the day, rather than having been dead and buried for months. Hates the fucking formalwear they buried him in. Ambles his way upstairs.

Sees some fucking stranger in his house. Sleeping in his bed. Right next to his wife. Bruises on your neck.

It was yet another self-destructive attempt at distracting yourself from what happened. The shitheel you picked up at the bar doesn’t even fully wake up before his skull is cracked against the hardwood of the headboard. You barely stir. Simon leans close and smells the liquor on your breath. He tilts your head gently so your cheek is to the pillow.

He digs through the dresser drawers for nearly half an hour before he finds the obscure little corner where you’ve hidden your wedding ring. You tell yourself it’s to make yourself seem available, but really you just couldn’t stand the sight of it. Whose gaze reflected back from the polished gemstone.

It’s slipped delicately back onto your finger. It’s looser than it used to be.

The body is dragged from the bed and deposited on the floor, blood already soaked down past the sheets and into the mattress. He doesn’t care. He’s still covered in dirt and rot and he doesn’t care about that either. He’s so fucking tired.

Crawls in the bed next to you, an arm loosely thrown over your waist.

When you wake up, he’ll cook you some real food.

[borderlinejessie]

I'm the kind of heavy nobody wants to carry.

[psychological-musings]

seeing a lot of barbie movie gifsets mocking negative, hurt, or disappointed reviews from men and i just ... don't get it. how everyone seems to find this funny. "fragile masculinity" they say, as if masculinity isn't something very painful to have taken from you. "what did they expect, going to see the Barbie movie" they say, and i hear echoes of the antiqueer sentiments from my childhood. echoes of "you aren't welcome here". echoes telling me that that's just life, stop being a "drama queen", you're not really hurting. "look at these whiny fragile men that can't handle a little pink" they say, and a thousand flashes of "triggered libs can't handle a joke" pass through my mind. why are we doing this? what is this lack of empathy, this mockery of suffering? this isn't even about men in particular— this is about even the most progressive and queer online friends seeming to complicity agree that it's okay to laugh at suffering and withhold compassion if you think the suffering group deserves it. it's.... divisive. to laugh at suffering. to find satisfaction in someone's pain. i don't get it.

[dreamsteddie]

Enamored with an Eddie who comes back from the Upside Down completely changed and turns to writing as his only solace, eventually turning it into a successful career.

When Eddie realized that the grate wasn't closed properly and the bats started swarming, when he saw the fear in Dustin's eyes as they quickly lost control of the situation, he had been well and truly prepared to die. Part of him, privately, was hoping to die.

The town was out for his blood, his friends hadn't even come to the trailer park to check on him, and despite what he said, he knew 86' was not going to be his year. Not even close. At least if he died in the Upside Down, he died as a hero. Not a failed rockstar, or a high school dropout, or another victim of Hawkin's endless bloodthirst for anyone outside of their preconceived ideas of "normal". Not a mirror image of Al Munson.

So when he wakes up in the hospital, bedridden and dehydrated, it doesn't feel like a victory.

When Dustin comes in to see him, positively bursting at the seams with excitement at Eddie's long-awaited return to consciousness, Eddie can't say a word. He has to watch as the light in his too-wise eyes dims as Eddie just stares. He's trying, he's trying so fucking hard, to say anything, but the words have dried up.

All Eddie can think about is the lack of anything worthwhile waiting for him out in the big, scary world. He's missing the pinky on his left hand, and the corresponding elbow has been chewed to bits. Even through the opioids, he's aware of an odd, sharp tingling that screams nerve damage. He knows that he'll never play again, and if he does it will never be worth anything to anyone. He's not going to graduate, which is the one thing Wayne always wanted for him. The one thing that has always kept him going despite how much the world has tried to bury his head in the sand has been taken from him, his excitement to get out into the world.

When Eddie looks out the window in his hospital room, all he can think about is how badly it wants to swallow him up and spit him back out.

Dustin has to be dragged out of the room by Steve and Robin as Eddie's silence seems to make him hysterical. He's screaming at Eddie, mad and desperate and sad.

Eddie doesn't see him for a week. When he comes back he's sheepish but determined, carrying a load of books under his arm. Eddie still won't say a word, but Dustin sits by his bedside and reads out loud until his voice is hoarse. Tolkien, Le Guin, Pratchett. He ends every visit by taking his hand, squeezing it tight, and telling him he's glad he's alive. Eddie can't agree with him, but he's grateful that doesn't stop him from saying it.

Wayne is faithfully by his bedside. He doesn't say much, content in Eddie's silence the same way he was in the midst of his endless chatter. He holds his hand, brushes his hair, turns the TV to all his favorite channels, and settles in for the long haul the same way he always has. Eddie doesn't know what he would do without him.

The rest of the monster fighting crew are in and out. Steve is there the most, standing in a corner with his arms crossed near the door during Dustin's visits. He never says much, but Eddie thinks Steve might understand him the best. He thinks back to those moments in the Upside Down.

"Don't be cute"

"Please be safe"

"we are noooot heroes"

"We'll try our best"

"Steve...make him pay"

"I'm scared, but I'll keep him safe"

When Steve looks his way, it feels like someone is hearing him, hearing how loudly he's screaming in his head.

He's in the hospital for five months and not once during that time does he breathe a single word. He feels hollowed out in a way that's foreign to him, like a great void has taken the place of organs, veins, and muscles and left him cold and stiff.

When he gets home, a new but almost identical trailer sitting in the same plot as the last one, he's far from better. He's weak, and sore, and tired to the bone. Wayne has to go back to work, no two ways about it, so Eddie spends his days wasting away on the couch. Dustin is back at school, leaving long stretches of time where Eddie is alone with his void and the sound of him screaming into it, so he turns to his books.

Except there are only so many books in his possession and even if he wanted to leave his house, a feat that seems insurmountable in his current condition, he still can't walk more than the length of the trailer without feeling like he's going to collapse. So, he turns to his notebooks.

At first, it's just reems and reems of sloppy-looking screams. He tries to make them as loud and angry looking as the voice in his head. His hand aches, weak from damage and disuse, but when he's done his throat feels just a little looser. Like maybe that void just got a little smaller.

That's how Steve finds him, sitting on the couch huffing like he just ran a marathon, surrounded by pages and pages of frantic writing. He's been coming by once a day, usually for an hour or two after work, to sit with Eddie and hang out. Eddie is pretty sure Wayne asked him to, but he honestly doesn't care. Steve is a little more chatty in the confines of the trailer when it's just the two of them, and Eddie craves the presence of someone who gets it. Gets him.

Steve takes in the scene, gives a low whistle, and asks if Eddie feels a little better getting that all out. Eddie still can't talk, kind of hoped for a moment there that he would, but when all he does is nod Steve still gives him that annoyingly charming smile and a firm pat on the back with a wide, warm hand.

And, well, Eddie doesn't think he's ok, but for the first time in a long time, he thinks maybe he will be.

After that, it's like something is unlocked. He spends almost all day every day writing away in his notebooks. They used to be for songs and campaigns, but even the thought of music and DnD makes him feel like he's going to be sick, so instead he writes stories.

Eddie has always loved to spin a tale. As a child, his mom would make up stories of knights and princesses, bards and bakers, peasants and children, love and life. When she died, Eddie wrote as many as he could remember in a book that sits proudly on his shelf. He can't bring himself to crack it open, crack himself open, when he's already so vulnerable, but the act of building a narrative makes him feel closer to her.

He writes stories about a young alchemist falling in love in a foreign land. A scribe reluctantly taking up with a rouge knight until she reaches a more accepting kingdom. A princess working to expose the ugly underbelly of her village.

A handsome prince abdicating the throne to fight on the side of the rebels.

A disgraced bard finding his way home.

Day by day, page by page, the void gets smaller.

The first person he shares his writing with is Dustin. The younger boy spends all Saturday at the trailer with Eddie, chattering away about Suzey, the Party, school, and all the things a kid his age should be worried about. He never asks what he's writing, which probably means Steve warned him not to, which Eddie can't help but appreciate.

Eddie wordlessly hands him a notebook. The one he's been filling for the better part of the last two weeks. Dustin takes it with eager hands, flipping through pages until his eyes are clouded with tears and he's flinging himself into Eddie's side.

It's about two brothers, separated at birth but brought together by a mutual cause. They adventure across the kingdom, seeking the knowledge that will end the brutal war ravaging their homeland. In the end, the eldest must sacrifice himself for the other, but the youngest defies fate to save him. It ends with the eldest, unable to live the life he once thought he would lead, thanking his brother for fighting for him when he wasn't brave enough to do it himself.

He lets Dustin take that one home with him.

Ultimately, it's Steve that gets him to speak.

He doesn't try, never seems bothered by Eddie's lack of voice, content to pass notes and relish in the silent company.

Eddie hands him their story, the one about a handsome prince and a voiceless bard, and for the first time since he woke up is met with that terrible smile. The one that isn't a smile at all, but an apology. While Eddie and Max may have come out the worst, no one came out of the years of interdimensional terror unscathed, especially not Steve.

He explains that since last summer, his ability to read has deteriorated steadily. The doctors aren't sure exactly what the cause is, but they assume the continued damage to his head has damaged the centers of the brain dedicated to reading and writing.

But Edddie needs him to read this, needs him to know this. Because this is the only way Eddie can think to confess. Writing has become so much of who he is since he left that hospital bed, and he wants more than anything to offer it to Steve.

When he speaks, it's rough. Scratchy and almost incomprehensible but when he chances a look up Steve is giving him his undivided attention. It takes him all day, stopping and starting and getting water and fighting off the pull of the void. The only thing that keeps him going is the stars he sees in Steve's eyes.

When he's done, there's no room for the silence to build back up because Steve is cupping his face in his wide, warm palms and telling him how much he loves him, too.

In the end, Eddie never regains his voice entirely. He goes days, sometimes weeks without saying a word. A year in, when they've all accepted that Eddie will never be the same as he was, Robin invests in a handful of ASL books and drills them all in sign language until their fingers cramp.

Two years in, Steve and Eddie watch as the kids walk across the stage, all six of them flipping Principle Higgins the bird as they accept their diplomas. Eddie cheers so loud his throat aches the next day, telling them how proud he is of them even as their parents tell them off.

The year after that, Nancy confiscates one of his books and sends it to her friend in publishing, mailing him a generous publishing offer and a heartfelt letter that makes him cry. Steve holds him tight as they call Nancy to work out the details, his boyfriend talking into the phone for him as Eddie signs frantically.

Five and a half years after Eddie survived, Eddie's first book opens like this:

To the love of my life

Who hears me in my silence

And to myself

For filling the void with words

[vive-le-roi-au]

Prologue

(This post contains both images and text.)

(You’d been looping back to just the third floor for… you don’t know how many loops. Hundreds?)

(Maybe that was the problem. You didn’t do it all in one go. You just have to do it all, from start to finish, and kill the King.)

(From the top.)

(…Again.)

(You went back. Again.)

(Maybe you took too long. Just need to go faster.)

(…No. Still not enough.)

(It feels good though. Killing the one who killed you, thousands of times. It’s cathartic.)

(You’re even strong enough that you don’t need the Housemaid—MIRABELLE. HER NAME IS MIRABELLE, MIRABELLE, MIRABELLE!!!)

(…You don’t need Mirabelle’s help anymore.)

(…)

(You wouldn’t mind doing this a few more times.)

(…)

(Back to the stage, Siffrin.)

(…)

(…)

(…)

(It’s just another part of the loops now.)

(Go through the House. Kill the King. Talk to the Head Housemaiden. Something’s broken, failing, rotting. Loop back to Dormont.)

(The worst part?)

(Murdering the King has stopped bringing you joy.)

(It used to make you smile, seeing him crumble, blood spilling from his mouth, pooling on the ground.)

(Sometimes, you reduce his body to dust, cutting it up more and more and more until there’s nothing left. You’ve killed him slowly, draining him of his strength and bleeding him from a million places all over, watching the light slowly leave his eyes.)

(And you can’t even enjoy it anymore.)

(…)

(So why are you still here?)

(Whose fault is it that you’re trapped here?)

[wh0r3zzz]

I'm so tired of feeling like this.

[j0celynh0rr0r]

Trying to get away?

[buggachat]

what if i just wrote 10,000 fics of marinette helping adrien heal from depression. what if i did huh. what if they were all nearly identical fics and incredibly redundant. what if i just kept writing them. is anything stopping me from doing this. would anybody stop me. COULD any of you stop me

[borderlinejessie]

I want love but I don't want to have to beg for it. Please love me too. Please acknowledge me. It's like you don't want me here anymore...are you better off without me? Is everyone better off without me?...

[ionomycin]

Welcome home