#i spent years ashamed of it and constantly hiding and i am genuinely so proud of how far i have come towards being confortable in my skin

[magnus-and-the-dragon]

i am trying to work on eating healthier, which is all tied up in all kinds of feelings about body and weight, and my best friend / cuddlebuddy has made some comments lately about about appreciating how soft i am and it’s just been. really nice and reassuring honestly.

[oxfordeliterp]

CONGRATULATIONS, RO!

You have been accepted to play the role of NICHOLAS MERCER with the faceclaim of DOUGLAS BOOTH. Please create your account and send it to the main in the next 24 hours. I am well aware of your first choice, but trust me when I say that I would have done you a great injustice not giving you the role of Nick. The twists you have picked for him, the paragraph sample you have masterfully done, every tweak and change and elaboration convinced me that you are the perfect player for him. You understand a character that I have always found tricky and have captured him to the last detail. A simple compliment regarding the twist on his relationship with Lucas wouldn’t suffice, for it is a detail that deserves endless praise. You are an incredibly good writer and, it seems, one of the friendliest people on this site  — and I cannot wait to see more of both you and Nicholas. Thank you for your cooperation and dedication, and know that they did not go unnoticed.

Name and pronouns: Ro - He/Him

Age: 26

Time-zone: PST

Activity level: I am a film student in third year, about to head into the summer. I tend to be very busy, but I’ve also been committed to RP as a part of my regular life and creative outlet for upwards of ten years. I should always make activity (and I’ll always contact you if I run into any issues) and I’d likely be doing replies a couple times a week. I try to lurk on the daily, but if I work in the industry again this summer, the hours are insane so I tend to be on the most on the weekends!

Triggers: removed for privacy

IN CHARACTER INFORMATION

Desired character: Nicholas Mercer - Nick is a very enthralling character to me. I’m drawn to the way he is at war with himself - the distaste and discomfort he feels when he looks in the mirror and can hardly meet his own gaze. I’m drawn to the compulsion he has to keep up this act and web of lies, despite the growing shame he feels at his own actions, because the shame he feels by his own roots is worse. I love that he’s a charmer, and has always been praised for his looks and brains and potential, and yet his smiles and confidence are in many ways an act carefully designed to hide the deep seeded insecurity and uncertainty underneath.

Gender and pronouns of the character: Male, He/Him

Changes: FCs: Man, this is hard to choose. Douglas Booth (I didn’t know he was in the film actually, haha, I’d never seen it) he’s a good fit with appropriate charm in his gifs, Daniel Sharman, who would maybe be my first pick, were it easier to find smiley-charmy gifs of him, and Zayn Malik - a less stereotyped approach, but I kind of like that and he’s got great gifs for it. If i get this role you may have to help me choose LOL. I’m unsure who’s best. I keep flip-flopping. At first I thought Douglas was the best bet but now I’m not sure.

Traits: Nicholas grew up believing that his value lied in how unlike the rest of the world he was. He was praised for his looks and his sharp, surprising mind. His teachers, classmates and parents spoke of little other than what a spectacle he was; how he stood out from the crowd, how his shine would make so many envy him. He was taught that these were the things that mattered because these were the things those who were meant to care for him seemed to value most about him. These were the things they were proud of.

And so growing up he developed followers and admirers, but not friends. He grew up having to protect these material and shallow things about himself because they were the only things his parents seemed truly invested in. Money and admiration were what he needed to be somebody. To matter and to make a mark, to not disappear into irrelevance. In short, he is deeply insecure and has a skewed sense of self worth. He only values in himself what he believes others have valued in him, and has become obsessed with protecting that ‘It-boy’ image in order to maintain his reason to be seen.

Headcanons/plot ideas:

Nick is a hard one to pinpoint, and I could go a few different ways for what he’s studying. Currently I’m thinking Law or Social Anthropology.

Nick is gay. I think it says something remarkable (and remarkably sad) about his determination to marry for money and status, and it speaks loads about his self-image. It makes me absolutely ache, how trapped he feels, how desperate and how self-loathing, and that’s the real reason he can’t look himself in the eye when he looks in a mirror. He’s ashamed on one level, for being ‘poor’ and not good enough, and ashamed on a whole other level, for being fraudulent, a liar, a deceiver and a coward. His levels of self-loathing and pain are bone deep and twisted around his ribs in a way that truly inspires me as a character driven writer. I could explore him endlessly. He has so much potential and I love him so much!

I’m interested in looking at his relationship with Lucas. I don’t want to rush any decisions until I get my feet wet and explore him a little and let the character show me how he feels, but I could see his relationship with Lucas as being one potentially unrequited of feelings Nick may be keeping tucked under his tongue. With everything else he’s feeling and hiding, and the fact that Lucas is one of the few people he feels really connected to at school, I could see that as being something he struggles with or something that develops. Either way, however, it’s a complicated and precious dynamic I’m excited about.

PARA SAMPLE

Scholarship.

The word felt filthy on the edges of his tongue. Before it even left his throat, stuck there at the wall of his too-white teeth. It felt like a betrayal. It felt like a confession that would tumble him apart. It felt like a truth so ugly it made all his lies feel like beautiful, caressing companions.

Scholarship. He lived in fear of the way the word exposed him, and as he stood in the men’s room, palms gripping the edge of the damp, marble counters, he hoped to God it never came up with his date sitting across the table from him. Hoped she hadn’t heard, somehow, through a furiously whispered rumour that he sometimes felt certain was ghosting at his tailcoat as he strutted through the corridors of Oxford. He was haunted by any remnants of his past still surface enough to peer through the veil of glass and sand he’d tried to bury it with.

He’s spent years perfecting his walk, his talk, his privileged smile and he’s so good at it now that he at times can even convince himself. Some days, he’s almost reinvented the truth. Has become so familiar with the lies that they’ve made him a nest in a safe, new reality.

But the rest of the time he lived in constant fear of that other shoe dropping.

The back splash tiles of the bathroom sink were pitch black and so shiny he could see himself in them. It was like even the room was laughing at him, and his reluctancy to look himself in the mirror with any kind of conviction. Too cowardly to face the twisted boy that Oxford had mangled him into. It was easier to blame the school. Easier to say that the pressure of the Riot Club and the prestige he was so constantly cloaked in, was responsible for his poorly justified choices, for his backburner-ing of integrity. His pride was forged in the cold grey slate of his artifice, and if you looked too closely you could see the places it was chipped.

The echoing sound of the door opening, of cutlery and chatter swooping into the space before the door slid shut again, shook him from his reverie and he twisted ornate taps with hurried fingers, running his palms under the flow as the sound of fine-Italian soles clacked behind his back and stopped at a urinal.

He breathed. Exhaled the breath he’d been holding, actually, and cupped cool water into his hands to splash it over his face. He didn’t always lose his cool. In fact, in company, he rarely did. The fact that he’d gotten so God damn good at this was half the reason guilt feasted on him as savagely as it did. He didn’t crack with an audience, but the pressure to perform so consistently made his solitude more of a place of unwanted reflection than of refuge. The silence gave him time to stop and think and hate and regret; all things he neither needed nor had the energy for. What he needed was to be kept busy. Moving constantly, his performance uninterrupted, so that in doing so he might forget everything it was he was running from. Everything he was covering up.

It was all Lana’s fault. He’d been holding the door open for his date (a pretty blonde thing with jewels around her neck worth the same dollar value as the tits sitting too-high and too-solid on her narrow ribcage to be natural) when Lana Chambers had strolled passed clutching her handbag and ducking under the umbrella of whatever current company she was in. And he’d seen it in her eyes—the nugget of truth she wielded, a weapon that could so easily destroy him. He’d seen the shadow of knowledge flick across her raven’s wings eyes as she’d glanced at him, then at his date.

He hated the way she looked at him—regardless of what she was thinking, he could’t shake the feeling she knew what he was up to. Knew all his darkest secrets, all the workings of his seduction on these women who would stabilize his status as top-tier. Couldn’t help but fear she would find a way to air his dirty laundry for the world to see—even if she hadn’t been privy to much of it. There was no way she could know the things he’d never told a soul. No way she could know how deeply his seduction of these women was a lie. No way she could know the way he looked at Lucas.

She couldn’t know. But his best friend was the only thing in his world among the elite that felt genuine and he couldn’t help but fear she’d find a way to take that from him. She was the only one with the power to.

So fragile, he was, for such a God among mortals. So tenuous was his falsified confidence, his calculated swagger. He could be taken apart so easily by a woman who knew too much. One thread was all it would take to unravel his web of lies. How long until he cracked under the heavy choke of his sacrifices? What he was giving up in order to obtain the one thing that he could count on making him memorable? Maintaining his significance.

And there was nothing worse he could think of, in this world of material, power and prestige, than being rendered insignificant.

[krumpwrites]

MHAM Post #14: A Mentor

The writer of this piece is someone I consider to be not just a friend, but in many ways, a mentor as well.

I actually couldn’t even tell you when I first met this writer. I was probably like 8? I attended the same camp every summer throughout my childhood, and as a teenager I began working there too. That is when me and this writer became closer. 

Growing up, if you had asked me to describe him, I would say he was filled with nothing but love, positivity, and happiness. This writer literally made the kids at camp light up with joy every day. He seemed to be constantly be overflowing with energy and passion.

I know I’ve said it a million times before, but you really can’t judge a book by it’s cover. So many people you are surrounded by everyday are battling their inner demons in silence. 

It means so much to me that the writer of this piece was willing to share his words. I’m so happy to know that we are able to still connect now, years after working together, to share our experiences with mental health. 

As you will see in this piece, it is HARD to open up about what you’re going through. Mental health struggles are a catch-22 in that sense. Not only do they cause you to feel unstable, but they often also make you feel less capable of opening up about what you’re going through. Then, to top it off, the stigma surrounding mental health makes it, in many ways, even more difficult to share your experiences openly. It’s no surprise than so many people grapple with these issues silently. 

Having the courage to share your experiences is extremely commendable, so, without further ado, check it out: 

When I graduated from high school in 1997, I had the vaguest notion of what bipolar disorder was. I certainly did not understand its destructive power, its ability to tear away at the life one built with terrifying swiftness. I would not know that I was bipolar until August of 2009. What I do remember knowing without any doubt when I was seventeen, and entering my first year at Penn State, was that I did not feel emotionally well-balanced. I do not mean this in the sense that I was feeling down, or going through a transition in my life that made me feel more stressed and emotionally drained. I felt shame, guilt, embarrassment, hopelessness, and uselessness to such a degree that I would hide from the world for days at a time, which progressed to weeks, and eventually months. I eventually spent the better part of seven years locked away in a studio apartment with the blinds drawn, trapped in my own mind.

No family, friends, or medical professionals knew of the way I lived until March of 2008, when I hit a breaking point, but I was not properly diagnosed with cyclothymic bipolar disorder until August of 2009. It was only then that I allowed myself to begin healing. Until recently, I rarely spoke or wrote about my mental health condition for various reasons that were grounded in the shame that fueled my protracted silence, in addition to the pernicious stigma that unfortunately continues to surround mental health issues. My voicelessness, however, did not stop me from learning about my own condition. I read as much as I could in the scientific literature, in addition to memoirs about people’s experiences associated with being bipolar. I am finally able to share my story more readily; I hope it helps anyone who reads it.

Nearly everyone I have known has felt depressed at some point in their life, which is a normal phenomenon. They understand that depression tends to shut people down and draw them inward mentally. Most people, however, are fairly resilient and find that mental balance without any help, so they are soon back on their feet and functioning normally. This resiliency is the line in the sand where my diagnosis separates me from those who are able to bounce back. It is critical that I emphasize two points. First, this separation is not my choice. I would never choose to continue to be depressed. Second, the severity of the depression that I suffer from is far more serious than what most people have ever had to deal with.

Looking back, it makes sense that I was bipolar at Penn State. I loved learning, reading, hanging out with friends, and playing competitive sports. Yet, very soon after I started college, I began to withdraw. The life that I worked very hard to build throughout high school was fading as life started feeling less important to me, for reasons that I may never know. Feeling that depressed, my natural reaction was to hide, both physically and emotionally. As professors and friends told me, when they did happen to see me, it was as if I just fell off the face of the earth. From time to time I did leave my apartment, and some classes were able to motivate me enough to participate and do well. For the majority of the time, however, I was hiding in my apartment. I cried, read, and slept. A few times a week I would eat. I was fortunate to have loving parents who worked hard to put me through school, which made me more ashamed of my lack of attendance and participation in college. Until I spoke out years later, my parents paid my tuition, I tried to recover from my depression, and I would continue to fail most of the time. When I was not failing because of never attending class, I was withdrawing from a semester of courses that I never went to. I was not a party animal who blew off everything academic. I was a lost person hiding from the world, and trying to run from my mind and my pain. This was my life for many years. When I was supposed to have graduated from Penn State, I remained in my apartment and lived off of my own savings from high school. My sporadic academic victories against bipolar disorder were marked with As on my transcript. My academic shortcomings were not indicative of blowing off college; they were the markers of my suffering. Medical research strongly suggests that people with a bipolar disorder often lose social functioning that is so easy for others and do not recover it for many years. I am living proof of that.

Throughout those difficult years in my life, there were a few genuinely bright spots. I did have windows in my house of misery that brought rays of happiness into my life. I enjoyed photography, and I especially enjoyed working with children in the summer when I had to live at home. To be sure, my years working at a summer camp saved my life, and sparked my interest in education. I am certain of this, which makes me grateful for the happiness and sense of purpose the children brought into my life. I do not speak much about working with children in this particular summer camp beyond the superficial comments of how fun it was. The truth is, that summer camp holds such a special place in my heart that I find it hard to articulate how much it really means to me.

In early 2008, I finally hit bottom and broke down in front of my parents. The stress and emotional toll that the silence brought was starting to kill me. I was a shell of my former self. I told them everything. I explained how their son left his apartment once every few weeks to every two months, and learned to subsist by getting food delivered. I apologized for wasting their money, and for failing them. One of the most profound moments of my life came after I apologized. My father picked me up off the ground, wiped the tears from my eyes, and told me that the only thing lost was money and time, but that I was still here, still alive, and should be proud of that, not ashamed. From that moment on, I never allowed myself to feel like I was too weak to overcome this disorder.

It has not been an easy road, but the faith I placed in myself has helped me tremendously. I never completed my degree at Penn State, but I am proud to say that I am a recent graduate of the University of Pennsylvania who is currently pursuing a masters degree at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. I am studying how institutions of higher education can do more to promote mental health awareness. I have a wonderful wife, and three beautiful children who have redefined what it means to be happy and to love unconditionally. There are indeed quite a few things in this world that are far more powerful than the destructive nature of bipolar disorder. Most of all, I have learned to stop hating who I am and what I suffer from, and began to love the face I see in the mirror, as well as the mind behind that face.

Although my own struggles with bipolar disorder prevented me from actively raising awareness over the years, I truly believe that my academic and professional work regarding mental health conditions, combined with my efforts to raise my voice and share my story, are in themselves forms of activism and resistance to the stigma associated with living with bipolar disorder. I learned that my lived experience, combined with what I learned throughout the past 20 years, can effectively be used toward making the lives of others like me thrive. No one should ever make others feel like they are not worthy of love or acceptance, or loving and accepting themselves. Loving oneself is a radical act. Loving oneself is an act of resistance in a world where so many forces seek to make groups of people feel lesser. There is much work to do….