#i am still mentally ill about it after all these years

[miallurk]

sliding into asks cause i hit reblog last time like an idiot

what song do I have assigned ? :)

Oh i am. So so so insane great trees help me. (<- stupid mf who can't decide because "oh this is too romantic" "oh but this is too trauma to me" "oh but this is too sad what if they won't like it" SHUT UP. Your brain is stupid ffs.)

Fleür - Теплые коты(Warm cats)

"Come play, wool the owner’s sweater,

Tear the book to pieces, sharpen your claws on the chair.

Come to me from the world of strange winter dreams, spit on prejudices, wake up your cats!

We will pet everyone who purrs, warm, sleepy, real, running your hands into furry bellies.

All things are uncertain In the strange human world. Constant are soft purring cats!

Claws can dig into the leg, but the leg, believe me, is not a heart,

Cats don't hurt like people sometimes do.. A warm cat will comfort me, lie on a sore spot

And I will fall asleep hugging a warm cat."

[shithowdy]

realized a drawing i'm doing rn is almost identically posed to one i did 8.5 years ago of a different oc, except the old drawing was instantly tainted by one of the players featured messaging me asking if i could take it down because their abusive, possessive rp partner saw it and got jealous of them "roleplaying behind their back" and i said "nah" and it became a whole Thing that i should have walked away from at that exact moment but didn't and the 6 months that followed contained some of the most truly condensed batshit i have ever witnessed in an rp community already well-known for its batshittery.

... anyway i love my friends. so happy to accidentally redeem the pose.

[teabutmakeitazure]

me: there's cinnamon in the tea? ugh I don't like cinnamon in tea.

"you're so picky. you have to go to an unfamiliar house, so what're you gonna do if your mother-in-law likes cinnamon in tea? don't have such preferences. it's not attractive on a girl 😄"

yeah I'm busting my ass off and greying my hair and losing weight at an unhealthy rate for my degree so that a lady who I have never met in my life can dictate my life choices before I even meet her. okay.

[owletstarlet]

(I want to write an epilogue or short part 2 for patron saint, bring tanuma’s perspective and signature overthinking into it, *if* my Exciting Brain Chemistry and my work schedule will allow it 🙃🙃🙃

[barkingangelbaby]

venting so much i ran out of tags lmao

[celestial-sapphicss]

.

[butt-puncher]

I wish that I was more

[be-good-to-bugs]

itd be so cool if the shitty people in my life were not shitty and were actually slightly decent

[angeltrapz]

not the misgendering again

[inkskinned]

i love my therapist but i hate being in therapy. 10 minutes before my appointment, i'm in a meeting with my boss - we discuss my artistic choices; my boss recommends i artistically choose less. 10 minutes after therapy, i wash my hair and think about everything that was said, and then i have to switch it off, like a lamp, and go back to work again.

i was on a walk the other day and someone had the perfect combination of his cologne and whatever-else. it was almost exactly his scent. i fucking hate that. after all these years, i remember that? i tell my therapist - i feel like a fucking wolf. try telling a middle-aged blonde lady. oh i scented him on the air. i'm 30, and i'm having a panic attack over something that would be a plotline in the omegaverse.

what they don't tell you about mental illness is that if you are lucky enough to survive it into adulthood; it becomes a weird slice of your life. because you do, eventually, have to build a life. i realized in a panic somewhere around 22 - oh. i don't know what i'm fucking doing, because i always assumed i'd just go ahead and die. i didn't die, and i'm grateful for that, and i'm very happy about that choice. but it does mean that i am an adult in an apartment, living with my conditions side-by-side like. oh, that's my roommate, adhd. ignore the glass, bytheway, that's ocd.

so you pick your stupid life up by the scruff of the neck and you're, like glad for it (so much laughter and light and friends you would have never thought possible, when you were in the worst of it). but it feels so strange to be dancing around these odd little microcosms, these patchwork moments of your symptoms. if you have a panic attack at night, you still need to wake up and walk the dog in the morning. if your depression is making everything boring, well, you don't have any sick days left, and a job's not really supposed to be that exciting anyway. your ocd tears out each individual leg hair, and then, an hour later, you sigh, patch up the bloody bits, and go get dinner with friends. and the life is kitten-quiet, mewling and pathetic, but it's also like - it's yours, so you're fond of it.

and it's like - you're real. so you still enjoy pushing the shopping cart really fast and then riding on the back of it down an empty aisle. and you're not, like, so sick anymore that when you accidentally drop a mug you burst into tears (except for the days you do that. which are bad). and no, you're not allowed around certain items anymore. oops! but you've learned to be good about brushing your teeth most days of the week. and yeah sometimes in the middle of the day you have a little freak-out about how fucking unfair it all is, how fucking hard, how other people can just do this without having to fucking hurt the whole time. and then you sigh and force yourself to sit down and fucking journal about it so you can tell the nice middle-aged blonde woman yeah i had a hard day but i practiced grounding. you still sometimes want to burst out of your own skin, but you force yourself to eat kind-of healthy and to take your vitamins. you let yourself chop off all your hair in the sink in a dramatic poetry of control and relief - and you also have developed good hobbies that help you move your body more frequently. you feel helplessly behind, lost in the shuffle - but you also practice gratitude, taking stock of what you have garnered. because you're trying. even if you're never gonna be normal, you have something... close enough.

and the little kitten of your life, this mangy, starlit tigercub, this thing you expected to rot so young: in your arms, it turns itself over, belly-up. exposing this new soft part, all the organs and guts. like it's saying i trust you now. you won't give me up.

[asakamasanobu]

i should honestly start paying some kind of therapist royalties to nakamura for all she has unwittingly done for my mental health omfg ….. i don’t think i could’ve made it through this week without her (and . and many similar weeks)

[gallusrostromegalus]

I am constantly procrastinating working on my original fic by writing fanfic. Any advice for how to refocus and finish my novel?

Well. The novel probably needs a nap.

Procrastinating is a symptom that something is preventing you from doing the thing you "should" be doing. Most of the time it's an unrelated, but actually higher priority task like resting after an illness (society is fucking lying about anything else being more important) or filing your taxes (actually this one is pretty important).

...but if you're procrastinating on one creative project with another creative project, you're not procrastinating: something about the novel is off right now, the fanfic is more appealing to you.

Consider the following:

You may be writing fic because it brings you more joy than the novel. If you really want to get back to the novel, figure out what would make working on it more enjoyable. Engagement from a beta-editor? Skipping this really boring scene and coming back to it later? Adding more smut?

You may also be writing fic because it's got a lower spoon coat than the novel and you need to conserve your spoons right now. Any extra stress in your life? Moving? Toothache? Recovering from Covid? Annoying roommate? Sick family member? It's an election year? ANY of those could soak up extra spoons and make your novel too expensive for your spoons budget. Let it take a nap, and come back when you're feeling better.

You may be sharpening your artistic skills on a lower-stakes project before going back to the novel. This is pretty normal- even Michaelangelo took breaks to work on other pieces while sculpting The David, both for a change of pace and so he could try something out without fucking up the big block.

Fortunately, you're writing, so you can always try writing the challenging scene a dozen times in different docs or save the parts that were good but don't not in a spare parts bucket doc.

Or keep working on that fic, it's helping you learn on a subconscious level.

You don't love the novel right now. This is alright. This is usually temporary, and the solution is the same- put it aside and work on something else.

Maybe you are just bored of the novel. That's fine and normal, you just save all the documents to your hard drive and come back later. When the fic inevitably gets boring too, you'll come back to the novel and either go "oh hey this kicks ass!" And return to it with renewed enthusiasm.

...Or you'll come back to it and go "oh. This is actually a piece of shit" And that's okay too, because there's nothing more useless than polishing a turd, but that turd is still valuable as compost. You learned things writing it, and you can still rifle through the novel for good lines or scenes or turns of phrase and put those in your spare parts doc to ferment into The Good Shit in the back of your mind.

HOWEVER:

If you are experiencing a different phenomenon wherein you are actively distressed while writing the fic- either out of misplaced guilt, or the fic isn't actually fun you just feel compelled to do something, or absolutely every creative endeavor is stressing you out, you may be experiencing a serious mental or physical health issue and you should see your GP or a specialist ASAP. Pain is an indicator that something is wrong. Do not ignore your body's warning light.

That sounds really dramatic and hyperbolic but realizing I was not enjoying ANY creative work was the symptom that finally got me to sit down and go "huh. All these random pains, irregular sleep cycle, frequent migraines and weird bouts of vertigo aren't normal either, I should get this looked at." And it turned out I had dangerously low blood oxygen at night from undiagnosed sleep apnea. I have a CPAP machine now and it's AMAZING.

I really hope this is regular artistic shuffle and not a serious health concern, but if you're experiencing creative stress AND a bunch of other shit, it may be serious.

[gracieheartspedro]

Your Needs, My Needs

I : Strawberry Wine

a masterlist of how you can help gaza

the prelude to this series

pairing: cowboy!joel x f!reader (no outbreak)

description: joel fixes your toilet but you can't help but yearn for more time with him. so you invite him to dinner and try to win his stomach? aka love?

word count: 3.2k words

warnings: there is no smut in this part. still MINORS DNI! no use of y/n! vague talk of reader's old life before texas, no real description of the reader, reader does have anxiety/mental illness that is not fully recognized/diagnosed, mentions of eating food, reader lives alone, reader got MONEYYYY, mentions of joel's ex wife (gasp), alcohol consumption, smoking cigarettes, kissing, flirting. all the fluffy stuff <3

author's note: hey...hey.... how y'all doing?? i'm so so so sorry this has taken so long. my life has been crazy for the last like 4 months and I'm finally getting settled into my life again. I miss y'all and I miss writing, so HERE I AM! I'm hoping everyone who wanted me to tag them months ago is still cool with me tagging them 4 months later lol. okay, lemme know what you think xoxo

Joel comes and goes for days. The first day he returns, he inspects your toilet again and tells you he has the wrong tools. You discuss a game plan and by his initial projections, your toilet should be fixed the next day. But when he fails to come by in the morning, you decide to call the phone number on the post-it note he left for you the day before. 

The phone rings and you get an answering machine of a younger girl telling you to leave her and Dad a message after the beep. When the line lets out a long ding, you breathe out the random croak in your throat. 

“Uh, hey, Joel, it’s me. Just seeing if you’re stopping by today. If not, that’s fine, I’ll be home all day today and tomorrow. Okay, uh, bye.”

Hours go by and you find yourself pacing, regretting your decision to leave him a message. What if he gets it and thinks that you’re crazy? 

Ever since you had made his acquaintance, you felt completely reliant on interacting with him. It may be due to the fact that you haven’t socialized with anyone else in months. You were very good at isolating yourself, but lately, it’s been eating you alive being so alone. Now that you had this big house, the silence felt almost too quiet. Joel’s southern drawl and straightforward responses gave a bit of light back to your life. 

Around dinner time, your landline rings. You practically fall over your couch racing to pick it up, hoping it was him. 

“Howdy neighbor,” He grunts through the phone, “Sorry I didn’t come by today, hope ya didn’t miss me too much.”

You let out a dry laugh, trying not to sound too giddy about him following up with you. You were borderline pathetic. 

“No, I just wanted to make sure you were still alive,” You manage to get out, “You are still alive right?”

“Still kickin’, just busy as all get out. ‘M fixin’ to head to your place now if you’re not busy.”

You look down at your pajamas and start to nod. It’s not like he can see you through the phone, but you are reacting to his words like he’s right in front of you. 

“Sure thing, I’ll leave the door unlocked.”

-

“So… It’s really just you here? All by your lonesome?”

He’s messing with his toolbox, searching for the one tool he needs to fix the toilet. You stir your fresh brewed tea, ensuring none of the sugar clumps up at the bottom of the mug. You had offered him some, but he politely declined, telling you that he had a big dinner.

You take a sip, testing the sweetness. “Just me. How about you? Just you and your daughter, right?”

He laughs heartedly, turning towards you from where he’s squatted. You look at him with curious eyes, unsure if you asked the wrong question. He stands up, a wrench in his hand, a smile still spread across his face. 

“Her mama left town with her new boyfriend about 5 years ago. Wanted the city life, not the life I gave her. It’s been just me and her ever since.”

So he’s single. You think to yourself. 

You realize the laugh was probably because of how absurd and new it must be for someone to ask him about his life. He grew up here and you are positive everyone here already knew all about his business. You are a breath of fresh air for him. 

Before the silence becomes awkward, you speak up. “City life ain’t worth a shit.”

“Yeah, she’s different. Won’t speak ill of her ‘cause that’s my bosses’ mama. She sees her now and again. They are just very different.” 

The conversation comes easy with Joel. While the first couple of interactions you two shared were a bit strained, after days of small talk, you realize he’s the truest Southern gentleman you’ve ever interacted with. Polite with a little bite. He never speaks ill of others, except his brother. He loves to pick on Tommy. He seems like an attentive father. He loves to pick at you, always pointing out your Northern tendencies. Your horrible driving. Your accent and your speech patterns. But he’s also very complimentary. A couple of days ago, he remarked how nice your perfume was when you were standing close to him. It made your heart skip a beat. 

And on top of all of those things, he’s very easy on the eyes. 

“That’s mighty fine of you not speaking ill of your ex,” You try to drag out the silly Southern saying, which causes him to chuckle again. You smack your lips before continuing, “Wish I could do the same.”

You are not sure what he’s doing to the tank of your toilet, but you watch him strain to get a piece out of the corner with the wrench he has. He clenches his teeth, turning the piece to the left to loosen it. 

“Exes are exes for a reason,” He grunts, fiddling with some more things in the tank, “I ain’t too hung up on datin’ right now. I got my girl and my horses.”

“And now you got me, your annoying neighbor who almost crashes into your horses and asks you to fix toilets.”

He breathes out loudly, “Yeah, ‘nother pain in my ass. Just what a man needs.”

-

The toilet is fixed too quickly. You had busied yourself with other small cleaning tasks that when Joel finds you in the kitchen doing dishes, he startles you. It took him about 15 minutes to finish the job and you had thought you could at least finish up the dishes you made from dinner. 

“‘M all finished up. Gotta get back home to do some rounds at the stables,” He says as he waltzes over to your paper towel holder. He grabs a sheet and begins to wipe his damp hands, “Anythin’ else for me today?”

You turn off the running water, going down a list of fixes you could ask him to do. You decide it’s probably best to just ask him to swing by another day to help you with other things. 

“No, thank you though, Joel. I am sure I’ll be by to ask for more help,” You chuckle, shaking your hands dry, “I owe you dinner or something.”

As you say it, it feels like all the air leaves your lungs. He’s staring at you and there’s a glint in his eyes. You are not that good at reading people, mostly because you are deathly afraid of being wrong. His eyebrows raise as he leans against the counter near you. He’s so close and in your space, but you try to push the thought of him coming onto you out of your mind. 

“What’do you got on the menu tomorrow?”

His voice is kind of husky which makes your brain draw a blank. You wipe your hands on your pants before crossing the kitchen to check your fridge. You glance through your ingredients, settling for the only dinner item you can conjure up that his southern palette may like. 

“Baked chicken and vegetables?”

He nods, tossing his paper towel into the bin beside you. “Yeah, I've been needing a home-cooked meal. Think I could come over at like 5? Tomorrow?”

You recollect a time when a guy showed interest in wanting to hang out with you outside of work. It had been years and he was not nearly as attractive as the man in front of you. 

You nod slowly, trying not to look too robotic due to your nerves. “Sure thing, cowboy.”

-

You did not know what to wear. You contemplated going into town to see what the local boutiques had but you ran the risk of Joel seeing you out. You didn’t even know if this was a date. 

You settle on a sundress you have owned since high school. It’s the perfect length and while your mind goes to wanting to impress Joel, you also need to be comfortable. 

You cleaned your house, adding some new decorations to your living room walls. You even clean your sheets and make sure your bedroom is vacuumed. 

When the time comes for Joel to arrive, you pace the kitchen anticipating the doorbell. You already had all the food prepped and ready to put in the oven. The vegetables have been cut and seasoned. Everything was just the way you needed it to be. 

Joel gets there 5 after your scheduled time. When you welcome him at the door, his hair is styled and you can tell he put on his “fancy jeans”. 

What you didn’t expect was the bouquet of flowers he had in his hands. 

“Afternoon, neighbor,” He begins before extending the floral arrangement towards you, “My girl said I had to bring you something nice. Somethin’ bout being a gentleman.”

You smile widely, giving flowers all your attention. Even with the fragrant bouquet, you get a whiff of his sandalwood cologne. 

“Nice to see you cleaned up for me, cowboy. Come on in, dinner is about to get put in the oven.”

-

You catch him scanning you up and down when you place the spread of chicken and vegetables on the table. He was in the midst of talking about his daughter and her band fundraiser, but he completely halted when you took notice of his staring. 

You settle into the dining room chair across from him, waiting for him to continue, but he doesn’t. 

“She needs more sponsors?” You break the silence, wanting to move away from the sudden awkwardness. 

He swallows, reaching for the serving fork, “Oh, yeah. She needs to reach a certain goal to go on her senior band trip.”

You try to avoid his wandering gaze again, focusing on organizing your plate of vegetables. “Where are they going?”

“Disney. She ain’t never been out of Texas, so she really wants to go.”

You remember all the trips your family said they’d go on to Disney, but they never did. Your father could not stand being around his own children, let alone other people’s children. You think about how he used to complain about your constant questions, all the times he completely ignored you for your brother. You start to spiral, the anxiety creeping up in the back of your throat. You push your chair out from under the table, excusing yourself for a moment. You go to the bar you have set up in the living room and grab the only sweet wine you have. Strawberry. You grab two glasses from the top of the setup and walk back to Joel. 

“Forgot wine,” you mumble, setting a glass in front of him, “You want some?”

He is already picking at his chicken, “Yeah, I’ll take some.”

You are quiet as you uncork it expertly, pouring it into each of the glasses. Joel watches you like a hawk. You can tell he’s trying to read your expression, so you try your best to remain neutral even though your hands are shaking. 

You place the bottle in the middle of the table, making sure it’s easily reachable. 

You finally sit back down, sipping the red liquid. The strawberry flavor isn’t very strong, it’s more like a hint of the berry. You had gotten the bottle from a roadside stand in Kentucky. An older lady who must have owned a vineyard nearby was selling them for $5 each. You told yourself you would only use it for a special occasion. This event seemed fitting. 

Wine always makes you flushed, but you are always a bit flushed around Joel. Even more so when he’s watching you so intently. 

After a couple of sips, you finally rest your shoulders and begin to eat your dinner. 

“I could sponsor her,” you finally say, returning to the previous conversation. For some reason, you felt obligated. Joel quickly retaliates, shaking his head as he chewed on your roasted veggies. 

“You ain’t gotta do that, doll.” 

The nickname rings in your ears. You take another sip of wine. You can tell Joel notices your reaction because he smirks with his mouth full. 

“But I want to, Joel. I’m sure she has worked hard her high school career, she deserves to have fun.”

He hums, but still shakes his head negatively, “I can’t let you just pay for-”

“You can and you will,” You enjoy another bite, smirking at your defiance towards him. He looks perplexed. “So when is this fundraiser? Is there like a dinner or something?”

He finally caves, “This Friday at the school. It’s a dinner and auction. I guess if the kids don’t find their sponsors, some local businesses are willing to sponsor them.”

“Are you going?”

“Yeah,” He cuts up his chicken, “I guess you’re gonna come along, too, if you’re givin’ my girl all that money.”

“Does a check work?”

He sits back in his chair, already finishing off his wine, “You seriously don’t have to-”

“What are neighbors for, Joel?”

He nods, “You mean friends.”

You furrow your brows, trying to let your hazy mind find a time when you called him your friend. This was a new development.

“Friends, huh?”

He pours more in his glass, “Well, I’d like to think so.”

The wine is hitting your system and you realize your arms feel lighter. You grab the stem of your glass and tip it up to down the rest of the alcohol. Joel’s eyes are trained on you, waiting for a snarky response. 

“Do friends stare at other friends like that?” You pour more wine for yourself. You realize he’s done eating so before he can respond to your flirtation, you speak up again, “You done with that?”

He looks down at his empty plate, “Yes, ma’am.”

“Yes friends look at other friends like that, or you’re done eating.”

He grins, “‘m done eating, doll.”

-

You two find your way out to the rocking chairs. They were left there by the previous owners and you could tell they were probably as old as you. 

You had another full glass of wine, sipping it as Joel lit up a cigarette. He admitted it was only a bad habit when he was drinking, which was rare. “Sarah gets onto me when I have even one beer. So this has gotta be between us two.”

You swirl the crystal, watching him carefully take a drag of the stick. “Your secret is safe with me, cowboy.”

He giggles as he lets out a huff of smoke. “I haven’t had secrets in a long time. Guess I’m lucky it’s with the town stranger.”

The statement hits you in the very pit of your settling tummy. You furrow your eyebrows, leaning forward towards him. Your chairs are not that far away from one another, so this is probably the closest you have ever been to him except for that one moment in the kitchen. 

“Luckiest man in Texas that’s for sure,” You muster, averting your eyes. You could not stare into his beautiful brown eyes for too long. “Having the privilege of getting me out of my head. No man has done that in years.”

“What? You not good at letting loose?”

You shake your head, knowing that he did not understand what you meant. You take a moment to inhale, finally glancing up at him again. “I think I may just be cursed.”

“Now, why do you say that?”

You contemplate spilling the beans. Letting your heart fall onto your sleeve after years of shielding it from anyone who looks your way. Your lips part, but no words come out. It’s just the sounds of the cicadas. 

“As soon as something is good, it gets bad somehow. I don’t even get a moment to savor it.”

You feel the statement down to your bones. The last time you felt settled in your own life, the rug got pulled out from under you. You cannot remember a time when you truly felt present in a special moment. You always felt like you were floating outside of your body, watching things happen and never really truly feeling anything. 

You don’t expect him to lean closer to you, “Whatever happened before you got here, you ain’t gotta worry about it anymore. You obviously put distance between you and what happened for a reason. Let this little side of the world be your home now.”

You push your spiraling thoughts away, letting him be right. 

“I’m workin’ on getting settled. It’s easy when you have a handsome cowboy to help along the way.”

It comes out like word vomit. Between the wine and the nerves coursing through your entire being, you can’t help but admit your little crush on the man. You slap your free hand over your forehead, admitting defeat before he can even respond. You knew he would take the comment and run with it.

“You always flirt with your friends, sweetheart?” He was toying with you, which was a good sign. If he wasn’t interested, he wouldn’t call you such a thing. 

You smile, releasing your face from your hand. His eyes are tracing every curve of your face, a subtle pass that you did not capture quickly enough. 

“Only ones that fix my toilets.”

And then, he kisses you. It happens so quickly, that you don’t fully grasp that it’s happening until you're molding your lips into his. Once your buzzed brain picks up the fact that the man you have been crushing on is kissing you, he pulls away. Your eyes are still closed, your hands still gripping onto your wine glass. 

He huffs loudly and stands up quickly. Once you place your eyes on him, he’s pacing around the back deck stairs, not too far from where you’re sitting. You instantly bite back the urge to ask him what’s wrong, because there’s always something wrong. 

“‘M sorry, sweetheart. I should’na done that.”

He instantly regretted it. The thought made your throat tighten. He continues to walk back and forth, causing a draft. 

“It’s fine, Joel. I’m n-not mad.”

He shakes his head, halting his robot-like movements. He finally looks at your pitiful expression and lets out a long sigh. “I don’t think I’m much of a gentleman, kissing you on the first date.”

You watch as he places his hands on his hips, contemplating his whole life right before your eyes. You realize he is too traditional to see that nowadays, people are sleeping together on the first date. First base is nothing. You rest your glass on a decrepit table next to you and stand up. 

You slowly approach him, trying to catch a glance from him, but he continues to avert his eyes. You grow bold enough to tilt his chin towards you, letting your guard down for a moment. 

“You’re such a gentleman, it hurts,” you whisper, slowly letting a smirk grow across your face. The comment makes his shoulders lower, finally relaxing from such a heated moment. 

“Just don’t wanna mess this up with ya,” He murmurs, only letting you and the nearby fireflies hear you, “I enjoy spending time with you.”

You slowly lower your hand to your side, trying to act casually about the confession. But the truth is you want to run and wake up every cow and horse within a 10-mile radius with a squeal of delight. 

“I like spending time with you, too, Joel.”

He takes your hand as you say it, bringing your knuckles up to his lips. His breath is hot on the back of your hand before he says, “Well now, I quite like the sound of that."

taglist (some of y'all can't be tagged, I tried lol)

@midnightdragonzero @casssiopeia @anoverwhelmingdin @notsosecretspy @raindrcpsangel @art-estrange @misstokyo7love @lizzie-cakes @d1lf-loverrr @ashleyfilm 

@blckbrrybasket @cande-beggins @gloryekaterina @lilyevanstan1325 @frogtape @jamesdeerest @mellymbee @arrowsandanchor @polishedtaylor @harrieandharassed @ranahx @youwouldntdownloadapizza @jmillersgirl @wintersquirrel @stefanibear003 @joliettes @startsm00n @abbsfrommars @76bookworm76 @youotterbekiddingme @jodiswiftle

[saintsenara]

Riddle’s extremely fearful and aggressive reaction to Dumbledore when he thinks he’s a doctor (and the fact that he assumes this at all and believes he is being lied to) has some pretty dark implications (which of course no one follows up on). Do you have thoughts?

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

and yes - this has occurred to me too... which means that my thoughts come with a trigger warning for the sexual abuse of a child, and are under the cut.

the relevant scene in canon is, of course, this:

“I am Professor Dumbledore.” “Professor?” repeated Riddle. He looked wary. “Is that like doctor? What are you here for? Did she get you in to have a look at me?”  He was pointing at the door through which Mrs. Cole had just left. “No, no,” said Dumbledore, smiling.  “I don’t believe you,” said Riddle. “She wants me looked at, doesn’t she? Tell the truth!”  He spoke the last three words with a ringing force that was almost shocking. It was a command, and it sounded as though he had given it many times before. His eyes had widened and he was glaring at Dumbledore, who made no response except to continue smiling pleasantly. After a few seconds Riddle stopped glaring, though he looked, if anything, warier still. “Who are you?” “I have told you. My name is Professor Dumbledore and I work at a school called Hogwarts. I have come to offer you a place at my school - your new school, if you would like to come.”  Riddle’s reaction to this was most surprising. He leapt from the bed and backed away from Dumbledore, looking furious.  “You can’t kid me! The asylum, that’s where you’re from, isn’t it? ‘Professor,’ yes, of course - well, I’m not going, see? That old cat’s the one who should be in the asylum. I never did anything to little Amy Benson or Dennis Bishop, and you can ask them, they’ll tell you!”

the surface-level reading of this scene - which is clearly what the text wants us to go for - is that riddle thinks he's about to be institutionalised for being "mad" - and, specifically, that he thinks that what dumbledore has been told is his "madness" is actually his magic.

[he is also clearly meant to be read as panicking a little bit that he's fucked around torturing his fellow children and is now about to find out...]

that riddle accepts he's a wizard so easily - and that he is so reassured by dumbledore agreeing that he's not mad - is something the text wants us to read as sinister. him immediately describing himself as "special" is set up as a precursor to the adult voldemort's delusions of grandeur - which the entire arc of the series, ending in his death as an ordinary man, is designed to undermine.

but i've always disliked this reading. the eleven-year-old riddle - a magical child raised around non-magical people - is objectively correct to describe his powers as "special" [in that they make him identifiably different from the crowd] within the context in which he lives. the word choice is nowhere near as deep as dumbledore decides - he's clearly known since he was very young that he's a wizard, but he didn't have the precise language to describe this fundamental part of himself until dumbledore offered it; prior to that, "special" is a perfectly reasonable alternative term.

and, in always knowing that he's a wizard, he also knows that he doesn't have a mental illness - but he must also know that this is something it's near impossible for him to prove.

in the real world, if i spoke to a patient who told me:

“I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want them to do, without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to.”

then i would be correct to describe them as experiencing psychosis. and i might - depending on their other symptoms - have reasonable cause to admit them [voluntarily or not] for psychiatric treatment.

riddle is - of course - demonstrably not psychotic. but it's not unreasonable that mrs cole would assume he is - the world she lives in, as a muggle [even if she's a religious one], is one in which people do not possess the ability to move objects or control animals with their minds, and if one of her charges is convinced that he can, then she's justified in seeking medical intervention.

[that psychiatric treatment in the 1930s can be described without exaggeration as inhumane is another matter...]

which is to say, i think we can easily suppose that mrs cole has - prior to dumbledore's arrival - succeeded in having riddle "looked at", and that the idea that he's mentally ill and should be committed to an asylum has been mentioned before. i think most of us would be instinctively [and angrily] wary of doctors if this happened to us, regardless of how nice the doctors in question were.

and maybe that's all there is to it.

and maybe it isn't...

in the doylist text, the eleven-year-old riddle's personality is the way it is because he's the villain of the series. where harry is preternaturally capable, even as a child, of all the things the series defines as admirable - above all, enduring difficulty without complaint - riddle is preternaturally incapable of them. he's meant to come across as unambiguously sinister - and the fact that the text repeatedly emphasises that he has control over his unpleasant traits invites us to view him as someone who is acting with full agency. that he lives in an orphanage is a trope which the text uses, like a campy horror film might, predominately to underscore how creepy he is - and the text, in keeping with its general lack of interest in states and their institutions, never really prompts us to interrogate the impact of his childhood upon the course his life takes.

[this is despite the fact that voldemort's reliving of the night he killed the potters in deathly hallows is an incredibly accurate depiction of ptsd...]

but it's also the case that the eleven-year-old riddle's behaviour and personality fits a pattern we might expect to see in a child who is being abused, sexually or otherwise:

he's aggressive, he has a hair-trigger temper, and he becomes distressed even by behaviour - such as dumbledore speaking mildly and calmly - which would not ordinarily be expected to provoke such a reaction.

his broader emotional state is fractious. his mood changes sharply, he seems to feel emotions very profoundly, he struggles to control his emotional response to things, he's extremely easily irritated, he's attention-seeking - and he particularly seeks negative attention, and he's very highly-strung. his admission in deathly hallows that he feels calm before he kills - or before he otherwise eradicates a threat or a problem - comes with the flip-side that he's someone who appears, when things aren't going well or he finds himself in a situation which he can't control, to become quite anxious. which is a trauma response.

he's extremely isolated. the text presents the fact that he has no friends as a deliberate choice - "lord voldemort has never had a friend, nor do i believe that he has ever wanted one" - and his relationship with everyone else he ever meets, including his fellow orphans, is defined by the text as exclusively involving him controlling, manipulating, and punishing them. or: he is always the more powerful person in the pairing. but this need for control can be read as self-protective just as easily as it can be read as sinister. there are hints in canon that riddle is not just some malevolent force in the orphanage preying on mild-mannered innocents. for example, billy stubbs, the owner of the rabbit he kills, is targeted by riddle as revenge: “Billy Stubbs’s rabbit... well, Tom said he didn’t do it and I don’t see how he could have done, but even so, it didn’t hang itself from the rafters, did it? [...] But I’m jiggered if I know how he got up there to do it. All I know is he and Billy had argued the day before." on the rare occasions billy turns up in fics, he's usually - i find - written very like neville - sweet and guileless and a bit pathetic. but the alternative reading - especially when we take into account that riddle attacks the rabbit rather than billy himself - is that billy is someone he would be afraid to physically confront. indeed, it's striking that voldemort - at all stages of his life - is described as being quite physically fragile. not only is he very thin, but he's always cold and his heartbeat is described several times in canon as irregular. i think this is supposed to be a comment on the physical changes he undergoes the more horcruxes he makes - although the idea that the soul would affect the heart doesn't actually align with how the series understands the soul to relate to the body - but it can also be interpreted perfectly legitimately as something he was experiencing prior to splitting his soul. i am committed to the headcanon that riddle was quite a sickly child - and that this is one of the things which drives his fear of death - and i'm also committed to the idea that his obsession with magic is because the enormity of his magical power makes up for his physical lack. he can defeat - and humiliate and frighten and remove the threat of - billy or dennis [or even an adult man?] with magic. without it, if they were to physically overpower him, then he wouldn't be able to throw them off.

he is extremely nervous about being alone in a room with dumbledore - someone he doesn't know, and who he assumes is connected to a profession [and, maybe, who knows any other doctors he's been previously made to see...] of which he is frightened.

he doesn't trust or confide in anyone - which, as a child, means particularly that he doesn't trust or confide in adults in positions of responsibility. he's clearly uneasy with the idea of finding himself in the subordinate position in an adult-child relationship when dumbledore offers to take him shopping for school supplies - potentially because he's worried that dumbledore will try and dictate or restrict what he's allowed to buy unless he behaves in a certain way... and i am always very struck that dumbledore says in half-blood prince: "He was very guarded with me; he felt, I am sure, that in the thrill of discovering his true identity he had told me a little too much. He was careful never to reveal as much again." this is presented in the text as evidence that dumbledore is the only person of whom voldemort is afraid - by which the text means that voldemort acknowledges that dumbledore knows that an ordinary man, mortal and unimpressive, lurks behind the mask of unassailable power he has created for himself; and which the text thinks is a good thing. but we can also read it as a self-protective act on riddle's part. in his excitement, he offers dumbledore information [that he is known to be a liar, that he is in trouble a lot, that mrs cole dislikes him and is disinclined to believe anything he says] which would give dumbledore - or anyone in a similar position of power and presumed respectability - cover to abuse him, safe in the knowledge that he would be unlikely to be believed if he reported it.

he doesn't appear to feel safe in the orphanage and he's frequently absent from it - by his own admission, he spends a huge amount of time wandering around london on his own, which may even involve him staying away for several days at a time. nobody appears to notice or care about this.

he's very independent - which the text again presents as evidence of his deliberate self-isolation and rejection of the bonds of love and friendship - and his independence is unusual for a child his age [i.e. that he is capable of doing all his own shopping for school].

his knowledge of violence - i.e. how he designs the trip to the cave to be maximally psychologically devastating for dennis and amy and devoid of repercussions for himself - is also more advanced and methodical than would be expected in a child of his age. again, the text uses this to emphasise how inextricable the child-voldemort is from his adult self - and also, to some extent, to underscore the intellectual brilliance [his magic is also more advanced than is normal for a child] which his narrative archetype [the exceptional villain who is defeated by the everyman hero] requires. but we can also read it as evidence of his own victimisation. a common sign that a child is being sexually abused is that they display a knowledge of sexual behaviour which is more advanced than is reasonable for a child of their age - for example, knowing in detail how a sex act is performed, or fluently using sexual slang which they have no chance of knowing either from age-appropriate settings like school-based sex education or conversations with a parent or trusted adult, or from the sort of enthusiastic hoarding of rude words and phrases all children enjoy as they grow up. riddle's precise, clinical knowledge of how to manipulate, frighten, torture, and control can be seen as something similar. if he can - at eleven or younger - methodically break down another child until they're "never quite right" again, then this is because he's learned how to from someone.

he keeps secrets. and he also goes out of his way to extract them. his grooming of ginny in chamber of secrets - he manipulates her into confiding things she wants to keep to herself, promises he won't tell anyone, and then uses the threat that he will to get her to do his bidding - is an absolutely textbook example of how abusers use the idea of secrecy to control their victims. it doesn't make his abuse of ginny any less inexcusable if we assume he learns this from being on the other side of things.

dumbledore understands his little cache of objects as trophies he's taken from victims - and the text takes the view that dumbledore is correct in this assessment. that hoarding trophies is something widely associated with serial killers means that this is yet another thing which underlines how creepy - and how like his adult self - the child-voldemort is. but it's also the case that the adult - and teenage - voldemort places a lot of emphasis on gift-giving as part of his control over other people. the two most obvious examples in canon are wormtail being given his shiny hand as a reward for helping voldemort get his body back, and slughorn being buttered up with crystallised pineapple before voldemort asks him about horcruxes. the text thinks this is sinister - and one of the reasons it does this is because gift-giving is a grooming tactic. the text also clearly thinks this isn't behaviour voldemort has learned from the other side. and yet a common sign that a child is being abused is if they have possessions it doesn't make sense for them to own [i.e. a child from a low-income background who is suddenly decked in designer clothes] and which they can't or won't explain how they came by. riddle's cache isn't luxurious - although he's so poor that a yoyo or a mouth organ probably is a luxury to him - but there's also nothing in canon which precludes the objects being presents, rather than stolen goods. if the spell dumbledore uses to make the box rattle is caused by a statement which is both relatively ambiguous and dependent on dumbledore's subjective personal morality - is there anything in this room he's acquired through nefarious means? - then the spell would still work as it does in canon if riddle was an abuse victim given the objects as "rewards". dumbledore's tendency to locate right and wrong in the individual and dumbledore's belief that good people should steadfastly endure misery means he can be written entirely canon-coherently as someone who would think a victim who appeared to collude in their own abuse - such as a victim who "offered" a sexual act because their abuser promised them something if they did - was behaving consensually, manipulatively, and nefariously. and it's worth noting that when riddle doesn't know what dumbledore has done to make the box rattle, he is "unnerved". when he realises dumbledore thinks he's stolen the objects - and that he has no interest in forcing him to admit this aloud - he is "unabashed". perhaps because he's just received proof that an experience he doesn't want to talk about is still secret...

on the other hand, the objects could indeed be stolen - because petty criminality and anti-social behaviour, especially in pre-teen children, is also a sign of abuse.

he can be extremely obsequious - when dumbledore tells him to watch how he speaks he becomes "unrecognisably polite", he ruthlessly flatters slughorn, and he is cringingly deferential to hepzibah smith. the text understands this as evidence that his apparent charm is only superficial - another trait associated in the popular imagination with serial killers [and it's striking that so much about the young voldemort - handsome, charming, seemingly quiet and polite, true evil lurking underneath the mask - is exactly like the pop-culture persona which has been created for ted bundy...]. voldemort himself agrees that his charm is performative in chamber of secrets: “If I say it myself, Harry, I’ve always been able to charm the people I needed. So Ginny poured out her soul to me, and her soul happened to be exactly what I wanted." but his obsequiousness is also a fawn response - a way of minimising a threat by attempting to please the person issuing it. he becomes "unrecognisably polite" - after all - in response to this: Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. “If, as I take it, you are accepting your place at Hogwarts - ” “Of course I am!” “Then you will address me as ‘Professor’ or ‘sir.’ ”  Riddle’s expression hardened for the most fleeting moment before he said, in an unrecognisably polite voice, “I’m sorry, sir. I meant - please, Professor, could you show me - ?”  riddle could reasonably interpret what dumbledore says here as a threat to prevent him attending hogwarts - even though dumbledore evidently doesn't mean it in this way - and he switches to being fawning because this is something he really doesn't want to happen...

do i think that any of this is what the text was actually going for? no. and nor do i think that reading riddle as a victim of abuse excuses the violence which the adult voldemort goes on to perpetuate.

but i think it is a reading of his characterisation which is both canon-plausible and interesting - a strange, sickly child with a reputation for cruelty and dishonesty being abused by the respectable doctor who is constantly called in to treat his coughs and wheezes, who buys him little presents and charms him into telling him secrets, who then [to paraphrase the teenage voldemort] feeds him a few secrets of his own, safe in the knowledge that nobody will ever believe him if he tries to get help.

and i also think this a reading which is sincerely important.

a significant contributor to the prevalence of child abuse - no matter what exact form this abuse takes - is that we are culturally conditioned to imagine that both the abuser and the victim will look and behave in a certain way if the abuse is "real".

and this means, all too often, that we take child abuse more seriously when the victim is "sympathetic" - when they're from a stable home, and their family are respectable, and they do well in school, and they're polite and sweet, and they look innocent, and they behave perfectly appropriately for their age, and nobody would ever dare to say that they come across as older than they are, and they're white, and they don't have a history of lying, and they don't have a history of attention-seeking, and they don't have a criminal record, and they're not abusive themselves, and there's absolutely no way of suggesting that they colluded in their abuse, and the perpetrator was someone who looks like a child abuser.

someone who is creepy, low-status, ugly, unpopular. someone who everyone can tell is socially abnormal, someone who nobody would ever intentionally permit to be around their children. not someone who is charming, well-respected, attractive, rich, popular, trustworthy. not someone who has a loving family and a happy home. not someone we might be friends with.

but many perpetrators of child abuse are these second group of people. and many victims of child abuse are "unsympathetic", when their social positions and reputations are compared to their abusers' own.

they lie. they steal. they're attention-seeking. they're vindictive. they have trouble distinguishing between imagination and reality. they're violent. they're bullies. they hurt animals. they abuse other children. they take drugs. they're mentally-ill. they come from broken homes. they're in the care of the state. they're dirty. they're poor. they're odd. they're behind at school and badly-behaved in the classroom. they do things which allow their abuse to be dismissed as something they brought upon themselves - they speak or dress in certain ways, they pose provocatively in pictures and post them on the internet, they are known to be sexually active outside of the context of their abuse, they lie about being over the age of consent, they engage in sexual behaviour with an adult abuser in a way which appears [even though it isn't, and there's never a circumstance in which it will be] to be consensual or for their own personal gain, they are flattered by the attention they receive from someone who is important or attractive grooming them, they have complicated - and not always wholly negative - feelings towards their abusers.

and they are still - unequivocally - victims, and what happens to them is still - unequivocally - abuse.

tom riddle is an unsympathetic victim - not only of any potential abuse, but also of the horrors of his life which are explicit on the canon page: that he is raised in an orphanage; that he is grieving; that he knows nothing about his family; that he is thought to be mad.

the absence of any institutional response to his childhood experiences - dumbledore, by his own admission, discloses nothing about riddle to his fellow teachers - is a flaw repeated again and again in the worldbuilding of the harry potter series.

hogwarts - and the wizarding [and muggle] state more broadly - doesn't intervene in any case of neglect or abuse, from harry to snape to voldemort's own parents. the series' individualistic morality means that we aren't supposed to interrogate these collective failings. and the series' black-and-white view of good and evil - and its general belief that violence is fine if the person it happens to "deserves" it - means that it has no interest in examining the ways that poverty, isolation, and neglect are risk factors; that straightforwardly unpleasant people can still be victims; that victims can go on to become perpetrators without their victimhood ceasing to matter; and that the abuse of children usually takes place not in silence and secrecy, concealed in ways which make it fine for adults not to notice it and not to intervene, but in plain sight.

this is knowledge it never hurts to refresh. thinking about lord voldemort's childhood might be an usual way of doing so... but it is an effective one nonetheless...

[techramonic]

A Comprehensive Analysis on Eric Harris, 3.

Disclaimer: This analysis/psychoanalysis is limited only to analysis as a means to reflect and understand the people involved. It is strictly informative. Just like all of my posts, I am detached from the media I write about and solely focus on the people to understand their psychology, for others to gain insight. There is no room for me to romanticize or glorify anything I write because I am only here to explain. I understand and research, but I do not condone. Thank you.

note: This is all solely based on independent research. If I may be wrong with the medical aspects of this post, please correct me. I would appreciate it a lot.

Fluvoxamine Maleate

Just a few days before the shooting, Eric was promptly rejected from his application to serve in the marines. Despite his desirable qualities, he was rejected for the sole reason of being tested positive for consuming a prescripted drug after rejecting that he was off any medication. With a trace of Luvox in his system, theories speculate that the drug's side effects played a role on the events that have transpired. Luvox is a medication prescription drug that is used to treat mental illnesses such as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), anxiety, depression, and others. While there are positive effects, the downside are heightened sensations of dread, irritation, depression, and arising violent behaviors. It also has a chance to increase manic symptoms, especially if taken in particularly large doses.

Anti-depressant usage, effects of overdose, and detoxification

When taken over the prescribed dosage, Luvox can lead to increased agression and suicidal ideation and tendencies. Eric was in anger management therapy after being on probation alongside Dylan for attempting to steal a vehicle containing thousands worth of valuable electronics and tools. After getting caught, Eric openly expressed his difficulties in managing his anxiety and explosive anger issues that his counselor said, "he frequently blew up and often cried." Revealing that this influences his homicidal and suicidal thoughts, so he was prescribed Fluvoxamine, which is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRIs). These drugs increase the capacity of the brain to receive serotonin.

According to an interview with Eric's friends, they speculate that Eric was off his medication completely for sometime. Abruptly stopping medication can lead to the development of a more violent response. For some people, drugs are able to fix their chemical imbalances, but it can also lead to withdrawal symptoms of taken for over the duration of 6 weeks. Abruptly discontinuing anti-depressants can lead ro rebound depression or relapse. Symptoms may return stronger than before. Furthermore, SSRI's such as Luvox and Prozac take about 5 days to linger in one's system before subsequently washing off.

In a period of 11 months, Eric and Dylan have been under a juvenile detention program at Jefferson County district — this was in 1998, just a year before the shooting. They were allowed to leave the program by early February 1999. After finishing, Eric wrote a letter contained in his juvenile diversion program file. He states, "I learned that thousands of suggestions are worthless if you still believe in violence."

After public demands for stricter regulations on SSRIs after the tragic shooting, Luvox was temporarily banned in 2002. By 2008, drug manufacturers had reformulated Luvox to a controlled-release version specifically designed to treat OCD, excluding indications for depression or anxiety. Subsequently, the FDA approved Luvox CR for the treatment of OCD. The label does not explicitly prohibit prescribing it to the pediatric population, it notes that the smallest dose "may not be appropriate" for children, without providing further explanation.

Eric was about 17 at the time of taking the medication, which means he is part of the pediatric population. Though it's still unclear if he was taking normal doses for a long period of time or taken more than what was prescribed, it is clear that there was negligence with prescribing a child a SSRI that has the posibility of worsening their already apparent symptoms.

Columbine was really a case that opened the public's eyes into the dysfunctional aspects of society and institutions, transcending even to the medical field.

[ghostie-luvs]

Yandere! Patient <3

tw: depression,, obsessive behavior, very slight mention of sh/attempt

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ who had been suffering from depression ever since he was young. His parents never tried to figure out why, only sending him to all these different therapists in hopes of helping him. Of course, they cared but they were also too busy, and perhaps, that was one of the leading causes: neglect.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ who never tried hurting himself or attempting but only wallowed in the emptiness of the house he grew up in, no siblings to play with, no parents to admire, only him, and a few servants.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ who during highschool, got his first ever partner. Gods, he was ecstatic! I mean, the man was touch starved, attention starved, everything starved really. He really did like the person,, so much that his love developed into a sort of unhealthy love, or so people call it.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ who would do anything for his new partner, go above and beyond for them..even if they didn’t like it. I mean, shouldn’t they be more appreciative of his efforts? No matter, he still loves them and will do whatever it takes for them to be happy.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ whose love only grows, progresses into a more..obsessive one. His partner always being treated with the affection he so wish he had when he was younger, with gifts, touches, anything they could ever want.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ who savored the feeling of their touches, begging for more each time they pulled away, whining if you could even call it that. He needed the affection, he needed their touch and only deflated whenever he did not get what he wanted, thoughts of his childhood resurfacing.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ who began to become dependent to his partner, needing them for everything. He wouldn’t be able to sleep, to eat or anything without them. He needed them, desperately. He couldn’t live without them.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ who started to panic when his partner began to get distant. He wanted to ask why, wanted to figure out the problem, what he possibly did wrong. His partner gave him no room to even ask, breaking up with him, saying he was too much, and too clingy. What? Too..clingy?

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ who after the breakup, didn’t take it very well. He fell into the old friend of his that he had when he was young, finding no use of taking care of himself.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ who was sent to a psychiatrist when his parents came back from abroad, noting his appearance and realizing what was happening again. He fought back, he told them that those damn people never helped him!

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ who, the day he arrived to his supposed assigned psychiatrist, felt absolutely horrible being there and only kept to himself. He knew how it would be already. They would prescribe him medicine that didn’t even work.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ who, when his eyes fell on you, as you called his name and greeted him with a smile, inviting him to yours and your mentors office-you were only an assistant, only two years older than him- felt his world suddenly fill with colors. What? Soulmates don’t exist. So why was this happening and why did he feel so giddy at your welcoming smile?

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ who followed you into your office, making himself comfortable as you told him to sit down and tell you about himself. Why was he nervous? Either way, he did exactly what you told him and found himself getting comfortable in your presence and your smile.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ who felt happy..happy in a long time at how much you’ve listened to him and treated him so nicely..just like his partner. He was excited for the next appointment, practically sulking when he had to leave, ignoring the fact that you probably prescribed him medicine on the way out, too busy with what would happen next time.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ who knew he wouldn’t be taking that medicine anyway. Why would he when he found that you were good enough, that you were the cure?

a/n: ahhh another character <3 please point out any mistakes or any constructive criticism is welcomed!! Reblogs are very much appreciated!!

please note that I am not a professional/ expert in the field of mental illnesses and reach out to one if you ever feel symptoms relating to depression or s! thoughts.

more of my works :)