#i don't know how i feel about being on an ssri again

[lovelaceisntdead]

Doctor prescribed me beta blockers and citalopram 👍

[cutebat]

Yandere Batfam x Neglected, but Defiant Reader

The Other Half

Warning(s): Yandere themes (at the end), neglect, mentions of pills (but she doesn't actually take them), a lot of swearing, stealing, mentions of cheating and bribery, attempted guilt tripping, forcing to drop out, reader is just a millennial in the 2020s

(This chapter is basically the other part of the prologue, and I fixed some things. Most of this chapter just shows reader's personal life at school.)

~~~~~

How long has it been has you stopped being Batgirl?

Days... Weeks... Months... A year?

Honestly, you don't really care. It's more like you don't feel to care anymore.

After you threw out your costume in that dumpster, you just lost all hope of whatever you'll become.

You were walking down the hallway of the Wayne manor as you think about all of this.

If nobody really cared about what you did, then why bother keep going? I mean, your family didn't really give you a lot of praise.

You let out a heavy sigh as you enter the bathroom. When you locked the door, you couldn't help but stare at yourself in the mirror.

Your eyes were still kinda empty but a little bright at the same time. Your hair feels so smooth and soft. And your skin... it just looks so perfect. This makes you think to yourself...

Since when did you become so pretty?

After staring at yourself in the mirror, you were about to leave the bathroom before you gaze lands on something.

It was an orange pill bottle.

"SSRI..."

You mutter out as you read the label.

You opened the door to peak to see if anyone was in the hallway. Coast clear.

With that, you took the pill bottle and put it in your top since you didn't have any pockets.

~~~~~

The first week when you started eighth grade came by quickly.

You were just wandering down around the hallway alone as many students walked by you to either go to class or skip to go somewhere.

As you walked down the hallway, you spotted someone approaching you.

"Uh, hey."

The voice calls out to you as the person walks towards you.

It was a guy with slightly bushy blonde hair with brown eyes. He seems to be around your age.

You only blinked before you spoke up.

"Hi."

You responded blankly.

"Um, are you new here?"

He asks as he rubs the back of his head.

"I've been going here for two years."

You said as you just stood there, staring at this boring looking guy.

"Oh, cool... I just thought that since I've never seen you around here before. Anyway, do you know where your classes are?"

He asks which makes you tilt your head to the side a bit.

"Kinda. I've seen all of the classes here around this building, so I think I'm going to be fine."

You said as you place your hand on your hip.

"Okay, that's cool. I'm Peter, by the way. What's your name?"

The guy whose name is Peter introduces himself with a small smile.

You were silent for a bit, surprised that someone actually spoke to you. You decided to... be nice, I guess.

"(name)."

You simply replied with your hand still on your hip.

"Aw, cool. It was nice meeting you (name). Hey, if you want, maybe we can hang out. You know, as friends? Maybe more...?"

Peter said as if he had high hope.

You just blinked before you replied.

"I literally just met you."

"Well... yeah, but-"

The guy tries to explain himself before you caught him off again.

"Well, I'm going to find my class now. See ya."

You said before you turned and walked away.

Was that guy really trying to hit on you?

~~~~~

You enter the classroom that seems to look like any other classroom.

"Ah, we have our first tardy student. Welcome to English 2. My name is Ms. Tucker, what is yours?"

The teacher said as she turned to you.

You stayed by the doorway for a moment, looking unfazed.

"Um... Beyoncé?"

You replied which made the students in the class laugh.

"Settle down! I have to look it up in the attendance sheet, then..."

Your teacher said with a sigh before she pointed at an empty desk, indicating that your new seat was.

As you sat down, Ms. Tucker speaks up again.

"Alright then, now I see that everyone's present, I want to start off with some first day reading. Basically, like silent reading time."

She said before a girl raised her hand.

"Can we read manga?"

She asks, which makes the teacher raise her eyebrow.

"Is that like... a comic book?"

"Does it even matter?"

"Well, I don't think they're fitting for your age."

"You literally just said to 'read a book'. Manga is technically a book."

"I'm not sure if that's school appropriate."

"I just saw a manga section in the school library earlier, how the fuck is that not school appropriate?"

"Not getting to the point here. I'm just saying to read something more like you kids would like."

"And what's that?"

"How about... The Catcher in the Rye? Written by J.D. Salinger?"

Everyone fell silent before you spoke up.

"You're such a fucking white mom, it's not even funny."

This made everyone in the class burst out laughing.

"Excuse me, young lady?"

"You heard me, bitch."

The students laughed even more.

"Go to the headmaster's office!"

Ms. Tucker yells as she points to the door.

~~~~~

"You're on thin ice on the first day, (name)."

The headmaster said with her hands on her hips.

"It's not my fault that Ms. Tucker is such a bitch and also, there was this other girl who interrupted her."

You said as you were seated in front of her.

"Don't shift this onto someone else, (name). We're talking about you right now."

"So, what am I supposed to do? Accidentally call my teacher a fucking white mom?"

"You're supposed to follow the school rules and not insult your teachers. You should've known this."

"I do."

"Then, why did you do it anyway?"

You purse your lips before you respond.

"Because it's funny."

Your response made your headmaster sigh to calm herself down.

"Well... if this doesn't work out for you, we can always transfer you in an alternative educational system instead."

She suggests using a calm, patient expression on her face.

"I swear to god if you put me in one of those schools that have nothing but those weird, delusional people who believe in 'those' kinds of inclusivity topics, I will actually bully the fuck out of all of them."

You told her with a slightly irritated expression on your face.

"I wasn't implying to those schools, (name). We have other educational systems for students who don't seem to get along."

Your headmaster said which made you raise your eyebrow.

"Really now?"

"I wouldn't try to get into them if I were you. Please believe me when I tell you that the school you're in right now is actually a good thing."

She explains to you which made you seem to be in more thought.

~~~~~

Later in lunch, you were sitting at a table alone as you stared down at the food that Alfred made for you.

"Damn, it's fucking freezing in here. Why do they always turn up the AC?"

You mutter to yourself as you slightly shiver.

"Fucking tell me about it."

A voice pipes up that makes you look up to see two girls who are wearing the same uniform as you, walking over to you.

"Oh, sorry. Were you guys sitting here? I can move if you want."

You said before one of them shook her head.

"Nah, it's fine. You seem cool."

She said as she and the other girl sits down in front of you.

"I'm Noelle, and this is Sasha."

The girl in the bob cut said as the other girl nodded.

"I'm (name)."

You said in a bored tone.

"(name)... such a cute name. I like it."

Noelle said with a small smile.

"So, where did you come from?"

"The headmaster's office."

You said as you roll your eyes.

"Damn, the headmaster's office on the first day? What did you do?"

Sasha asks as she rests her chin on the palm of her hand.

"I told Ms. Tucker that she was a fucking white mom."

You respond in an emotionless tone.

"She is, isn't she?"

"Yeah, except I don't think she's married or anything."

"You don't need to be married to be a mom."

"That's true."

"Anyway, that was really good."

"I know."

You said with a small smirk on your face, feeling a sense of pride in yourself.

As the three of you were chatting, someone walks up to your table.

"Hey, guys. Hey, Sasha..."

Looking up, you see a slightly tall guy with brown hair, towering over the three of you.

"Who the fuck are you?"

Sasha asks as she glares up at the guy.

"It's me. Ian? I was in your social studies class last year. You know, year 8? You used to copy off of the tests that we took. I'm also in your geography class right now."

He said as Sasha just blankly stared up at him.

"Okay... cool."

"So, anyway, I actually wanna ask you something."

Ian said as he glanced down at the three girls below.

"Who?"

You ask with your eyebrow lifted.

"You, actually."

"Wait, me? Why?"

"I heard about you calling Ms. Tucker names and got sent to the office for that. I want to say that's actually pretty cool."

"Thanks, I guess."

"Yeah, so, anyway... I want to know if you're free either tonight or tomorrow."

"Why do you want to know?"

"I actually want to... take you out on a date."

"A date?"

You ask out loud with your eyes wide.

"Yeah. It's not going to be too extreme... just a simple night out at my favorite spot."

Ian said with a smile.

"And where's that?"

You ask with your eyebrow raised.

"The arcade at the alleyway."

"An arcade? Out of all the places, an arcade is your go to spot?"

"Yeah. It's pretty old, but it's also kinda cool."

You just blinked as you were in thought. The guy himself seemed pretty boring, but on second thought, you don't really want to go back home after school.

"Yeah, sure."

"Wait, really?"

Ian said out of suprise.

"Yeah, I have nothing else to do. My home life is pretty shitty anyway, so I have no problem."

You tell him.

"Oh, sweet. Okay, then. I'll give you my number to send you the location. It was nice meeting you."

He said before he placed a piece of paper in front of you before he walks off.

"Holy shit..."

Noelle mutters out.

"You got asked out by a grade 9 student."

Sasha said as she stared into you.

"Yeah... Is that a problem?"

You ask.

"No, not at all. It's just that... you got asked out by someone on the first day. That's pretty impressive."

Sasha said in an amazed tone.

"Yeah. I won't be that surprised that it's a super lame dude, but an older dude is kind of just... wow."

Noelle said with her eyes wide.

"So, if I get asked out by an older guy, does that mean it's a good thing?"

You ask as you lean back to your seat.

"Well, it depends on the guy. If he's just a few years older than you, that's fine. But really old dudes, no way."

Sasha said as she stares at your food.

"Hey, are you going to eat that? My mom won't make me anything cause I told her that her new haircut looks like a really trashy lesbian would have, and the school lunch here is just not it."

"Yeah, sure, go ahead. The temperature in here made me lose my appetite."

You said as you pushed your lunch towards her.

~~~~~

After school, you went through a very long day.

You had your date with that Ian guy at the arcade. It's pretty trashy but kinda fun. He even got you this massive bunny plushie. After the date, he wanted to take you home, but you just left before he could say anything else. Then, you end up meeting a guy who seems to be around a few years older than you on your way home. He took you to an abandoned building, but he ended up falling asleep the second you two entered. So, you ended up taking his wallet for an Uber. Once the driver dropped you off, he gave you his number for some reason. It was weird, but you took it anyway cause, why not.

~~~~~

"Whew, what a day..."

You muttered to yourself as you entered the Wayne manor.

"Miss (name), where on earth have you been?"

Alfred, the family butler, asks out of shock as he comes downstairs to find you coming inside.

"At an arcade."

You reply in a blank tone.

"So, I'm supposed to believe the story of you being at an arcade after school all night?"

The old butler wonders with his eyebrow lifted.

"All night? I was there for about what... Two or three hours."

"It's two in the morning, miss (name)."

"Oh, wow. I really hung around that building for that long?"

You mutter to yourself out of surprise.

"What building are you talking about, miss (name)?"

Alfred asks as he walks up to you.

"Some abandoned building I went to after my date at that shitty arcade."

You tell the butler as he kneels down to your height.

"How far away were you? Did you walk? Your uniform is a mess!"

He asks as he took a look at you.

"Nah, I got myself an Uber. It's fine."

You tell him with your tone still blank as ever.

"Miss (name), I don't think it's a good idea to accept rides from strangers."

Alfred said with a heavy sigh as he led you upstairs.

"That's how Ubers work, Alfred. You just find someone pretty close to your location and let them drive you anywhere you want. It's like going on a taxi."

You explain to him as he takes you to your bedroom and lets you sit down on your desk chair.

"I suppose. However, you could have given Master Richard or Master Jason to pick you up. I think that'll be a safer option."

Alfred said in reply as he took out some comfortable clothes from your closet and handed them over to you.

"Why the hell should I call these fuckers? They don't give a shit about me anyway."

You snap at the butler as you snatch your clothes from him and go inside your own bathroom.

It was silent as Alfred stood in front of your bathroom door with a concerned expression and a heavy heart. Then, he speaks up again.

"I tried to talk to them again today, especially to Master Bruce. But, I got no response from all of them. I really tried. I'm really sorry, miss (name)."

His words made the old butler pursed his lips as he let out a sigh. He feels guilty that he didn't try enough for your family to at least give you a glance. He's been doing this ever since you got neglected and tried every single day with no response.

That's when you open the bathroom door with you wearing the clothes that he gave you. A yellow sweatshirt and a black skirt.

"It's fine, just forget about it. I appreciate though."

You tell him as you look up at him.

"Sorry for snapping at you a second ago..."

You added as you put some of your hair strands behind your ear.

However, the butler only smiles as he kneels down to your height once again.

"I understand, miss (name). It's not your fault. None of this is."

He reassures you as he places both of his hands on your shoulders.

"Even though they might not pay attention to you that much, I will always be by your side."

He tells you that made you smile a little.

"Thanks, Alfred."

You mutter out.

"Also, let's keep me coming back home a secret, okay? I know that they won't care if they find out, but still."

You add with a chuckle that made the butler smile.

"Alright. But, I will advise you to go to bed now. It's a school night, remember?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know."

Meanwhile, unknowingly to you, someone was beside your bedroom door, listening in the conversation.

~~~~~

Since then, you've never felt so... free.

You became friends with those two girls from lunch, and more guys asked you out while you two timed them the same time, and some of the teachers were so easy to bribe off that you ended up skipping most of your classes. At least you were still passing.

You also stayed up at night to do stuff like going out, doing some more lame dates, and most of all, just chilled out.

As long Alfred kept quiet about all this, then none of this would have a problem. Not that you have too much to worry about.

Life is going so well for you.

For now.

~~~~~

When the first semester ended and winter break started, you had a packed schedule ahead. You're planning to go on dates for the next two weeks straight. It was going to be tough, especially hanging around with a bunch of weird guys, but hey, at least they're buying you things that you want.

As you entered your bedroom because you forgot your phone, you were suprised to see...

Bruce?

He was sitting on your bed and seemed to be deep in thought before he looked up to see you standing by in the doorway.

"What are you doing in here?"

You ask as you walk into your room.

Bruce seems to be nervous before he lets out a sigh.

"(name)... we need to have a talk."

He said as he looked straight into your eyes which made you groan.

"Oh my god... Can we talk about this later? I have a date to go to."

You ask that made him a little frustrated.

"You're not going anywhere tonight, (name)."

He said that made you a little surprised.

"Why the hell not?"

"Watch your tone, young lady."

"Since when did you address me that?"

"Not the point right now."

Bruce lets out a sigh before he looks down at you.

"Look, I... was told about your behavior for the past months and I took a look through your things to check up on what was going on. I... didn't know what you were going through. None of us did. We didn't know that this the reason why you're behaving like this at school and started hanging out with the wrong people."

He tells you as he places his hand on your shoulder.

"I'm really sorry, (name)... I really am. Even though you can't forgive me for what I did, I'll try my best to be the best father you've ever had. I told the others about this and they'll start behaving and treat you the way that you deserve."

You just stood there, as if you heard the biggest news of your life, except not in a good way. It's as if something hit you right in the gut.

"Oh, shit! Um... okay."

You mutter out as you just stare at your adopted father.

Sensing your tenses, Bruce decided to go into more detail. Which was not a good idea...

"Because of this, I decided that you should be around people who me and the others will find alright. Since I don't know who you're around, Damian will check who your friends and the people you date are. Also, the family wants you to be around them. Such as spending time with them and basically having fun. Something that you never got to experience."

Now, this. This felt like a nuclear bomb dropped into your head.

"Are you serious...? Like, are you actually fucking serious right now?"

You ask as your eye twitches a bit.

"You really thought I could just accept whatever shit that comes out of your mouth because you suddenly remember what you and those other fuckers treated me? Now, you want me to drop out of the life that I kinda enjoy? You sure are funny, are you?"

You said in a bitter tone before your lips curled into a snarl.

"I will never forget about the shit that I went through to please you and that shitty family that I was forced to be a part of."

You added as you walked to Bruce and got in his face before you spit out the next two words out of your mouth.

"Fuck you and your family."

With that, you stormed out of your bedroom as Bruce calls out for you.

~~~~~

Your mind was flooded with so much anger that you ended up forgetting about the three dates that you were supposed to go to today.

This wasn't the way you wanted to start your winter break.

You don't know why, but you stormed into the attic and sat down on the floor.

"Fuck!"

You yelled out as you panted slightly.

As you were panting, you looked down to finally notice a glittery diary in your hand. Since when did you get your hand on this?

You can't help but open the diary to find all the pages empty. It's not really a suprise then you never used it in your life. You don't even remember when you got this.

So, you looked around before your eyes landed on a random pen lying on the ground. Without thinking, you picked it up and opened the diary to the very first page.

With that, you started to write your 'entry'.

It's time to show the world of this game that you're forced to be in.

•

•

•

Taglist: @somebodyrandom-613 @delias-stuff @endism @ragdol-666 @snowy-violet @sleepydhanie @missikkj @k1ttys-w0rld @box-of-kinderjoy @thetreefairypersonalblog @thelibraryofdeez @animegoddess15 @lilyalone @seraph101 @lain3iwakura @tacodeemon @whiterabbitxxx @yuyuzi-ling @lilithquillete @amisupposedtomakesenserightnow @una1002289 @spacetravelr @luckyangelballoon @illytian @ghostdoodlen @imaginarydreams @flyingpansaurus @wrenbirde @kimzzz18 @ohnoivefallen @ferakillia @f1lover4ever @asahi20789 @livingforloves @moonieper @rosecentury @waitingforanarchicaddiction @missmannequin @mischiefmanaged124 @hanselate @doli09 @chocolatemoose26 @enjisthings @stitchtheseconde @purple-lemon-8 @milliu @blublock404

(If you want to be in the taglist, let me know!)

[python333]

residual self-image — python³

― ― ― ―

synopsis residual self-image is the mental projection of your digital self; it refers to your own physical appearance that is understood by you, that is projected unto you by yourself. you see yourself as something to be ashamed of. price sees something different.

relationships platonic!captain price & gn!reader.

characters cap. price.

word count 7.6k

warnings anxiety/panic attack [not sure exactly how to classify it; i think it's more of an anxiety attack?], reader takes SSRIs [zoloft/sertraline], suicidal thoughts and almost-suicide attempt, reader is the most unreliable narrator known to mankind, second person pov [you/your/yourself], usage of [name], usage of [c/n] for call sign/code name, bad matrix references/spoilers for the matrix and the matrix: reloaded.

note please please PLEASE let me know if this comes off as me romanticizing having anxiety or taking antidepressants so that i can fix/rewrite it /srs i don't take any form of antidepressants or anxiety medication and i also am not diagnosed with either of those!! nothing i say is final!!! i do not have firsthand experience with what reader goes through in this fic!! sorry i disappeared for a second, have some food as an apology. again, feel free to correct me on anything you think is inaccurate and i will (most likely) change it!! also sorry for like 3k words of backstory oopsies

In The Matrix, Morpheus gives Neo two options: blue pill, or red pill?

He says that if Neo takes the blue pill, “the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe”. But the second option, the red pill, if Neo takes that, he will “stay in wonderland and [he] show [Neo] how deep the rabbit hole goes”. Neo, of course, takes the red pill, and is shown the “real world”. 

Neo is thought to be “the One”. With the “O” in “One” being capitalized, so you know that it’s a pretty important title. 

In the end, Neo becomes confident in who he is and what he can do, and defeats the “Agents”. Trinity confesses her love to a “sleeping” Neo, their ship is getting attacked by whatever those weird fuckin’ creatures were called, and Neo defeats the last of the agents. The end. 

You take pills too. But yours are blue. They’re matte, powdery, baby-blue pills that are branded with the name “ZOLOFT”. It’s sertraline, to be specific, and you’ve been taking it for the past few months. You’re new to pills like these, ones meant to treat anxiety and depression and a number of other medical issues, so you didn’t know how much to take at first. You asked your doctor so many questions. You think about it often, and wonder if, even though it’s their job, that doctor had gotten annoyed at some point because of your inquiry. 

These pills do similar things to the ones in The Matrix, though. You take them, preferably at night, and wake up in your bed like you always do. You believe whatever you want to believe, and another chapter is closed at the end of every day, marking another page closer to the end of your story. 

Some days, the story feels like it’s going to end sooner than expected. 

A side effect of sertraline―or, well, Zoloft specifically―happens to be suicidal ideation. It’s not that common, not that talked about, and isn’t the most well-known. But then again, most mental disorder-treating medicines have some kind of side effect like that, and plenty of people take things like antidepressants without an issue―or so you thought―so surely you could deal with something as simple as sertraline, right?

Wrong. So, so, wrong. 

It’s probably really bad for a person who works in a military group to be dealing with such thoughts. You think about quitting sometimes, for the sake of the other people in the task force, because what could happen if the wrong straw breaks the wrong camel’s back while you’re doing an assignment? What if, caught in the crossfire between your team and your enemy, you say fuck it and decide that it’s all just too much? What are the odds of that happening? What are the odds of anything happening? What were the odds of the Earth being created, of the first animals evolving, of the first humans speaking the first languages? Statistics are so important, chance is so important, and odds determine everything. What are the odds of you deciding whether or not you have the will to live? The ability to keep going, to keep the routine you’ve always kept, to keep from taking one of those G19s from the armory and turning off the safety before pulling the trigger? To commit to such a permanent solution, one you’ve deemed as the “s-word”, because thinking about it sometimes is too much.

Or maybe it’d be a rope, your brain continues without your consent, A chain. Anything that will hold your body weight up enough for you to dangle from the fan on the ceiling―an image that makes you lean towards a chain, sickeningly enough, because of the idea of your abnormally stretched neck on display. The purple bruising that would appear, the indentations of each link, the smell of your blood and the metal of the chain unable to be told apart. Maybe your eyes would still be open, and it would look like you’re staring down at anyone who walks into your office. There’s so many possibilities. They add up, and create new odds, new chances. Every time you simply think, you are creating a new way to go about life, and that creation is sometimes stored so deeply in the back of your mind that it haunts you. It comes back around, becomes more common, the chances of it happening go up. 

Sometimes the odds feel like they aren’t in your favor at all. Sometimes you wonder how you could’ve ever thought that any part of the universe was against you. It’s not bipolar; it doesn’t come and go in extremes, it just comes and goes. The odds will lower in your favor some days, and you will deem those days “bad days”, and other days they will be so high you don’t even think about “good days” or “bad days”. But those other days are almost as bad as the “bad days”, because they go by so quickly. You take them for granted so easily, too easily, and they leak through the thin lines between your fingers, leaving you with nothing by the end of the day. 

Sometimes on “bad days”, your hands go from cupped to praying, and you will plead with yourself to just get better. You never do, on those days, and after taking your medicine you will go to sleep and believe that the next day will be better. Or, at least, convince yourself that the next day will be better. 

You would’ve understood if Neo took the blue pill. If he stayed in blissful ignorance, even after all of the weird shit that happened to him. If he continued to wake up every day in a “normal” world, to sell computer systems and hacking programs, to be anyone but “The One”. 

Because that’s what you do. You take your medicine, and go on with life as normally as possible, even with all of the things that you’ve been through. You wouldn’t want to be the one responsible for saving the world, or beating up robot-alien-things, or whatever. Just like how you don’t want to be held responsible for really just… taking care of yourself. 

Which you’re shit at, by the way, if that doesn’t make things worse. 

You take your sertraline and that’s about it. It’s not like it doesn’t work, it’s just underwhelming sometimes. Before you got on it, you would take more things to heart, think about things more, and were probably a little more prone to actually killing yourself. After starting to take it, it was admittedly pretty rough. It felt like your anxiety had increased a little, like your paranoia had only heightened, and everything felt so elevated. 

Then, maybe a few months after beginning to take it, everything dimmed out. Like one of those lightbulbs you can dim, everything gradually came back down, and even lowered to a more tolerable level. You were glad, at first, that you had endured those first few months the way that you did because you’re not sure you would’ve even been here to this day had you not. Reading several articles and Reddit posts about Zoloft definitely didn’t help, especially as someone who was taking it partially for anxiety, but still, you managed. 

And then you realized that just taking the medicine didn’t do as much as you hoped it would. 

It helps you deal with anxious and depressive thoughts, yes, but you still feel like something’s missing. That lightbulb in your mind has dimmed, but it’s only just enough light to see ahead of you. Before all of this, the light was bright enough to blind you, to make you see that dreadful stark-white that still sometimes haunts you―when it dimmed down to where it is now, it was obviously a relief, but you feel like now there’s not enough light. 

You understand the whole point of the medicine is to dim that light, to help bring down your mental state to a more “normal” one, but you think that even people who don’t have diagnosed mental disorders feel strong emotions like you used to. Maybe not as strong, but definitely something adjacent to it. You miss that, funnily enough―getting strong enough emotions. 

Right now, you’re sitting at your desk in your office, staring down at the plate of mashed potatoes in front of you. You get it almost every time it’s offered, and endure the teasing you get from your teammates, all for one purpose. 

To hide your pills in it.

Mashed potatoes are starchy, yes, but easy to swallow without chewing. They’re thick enough to help hide the feeling of the pill going down your throat, and don’t leave that weird aftertaste in your mouth that taking your medicine with water does. You tried taking the pills with water at first, like you would with any other medicine, but with this specifically you just can’t. It’s too easy to notice, they’re too big to just hide with water, and it feels like swallowing a rock every time you take them with water. 

So, mashed potatoes it is. 

The pill is already mixed into it. You had folded the small blue tablet into the mushed vegetable with a plastic fork, trying to keep it as hidden as possible, making sure no hints of blue bled through the beige-yellow of the potato.

You’re now watching the mashed potatoes, unblinking, as if it’s going to grow legs and run away from you. It’s never truly easy swallowing the medicine, even with the mashed potatoes coating it, but it’s usually easier than it is today. Then again, today was deemed a “bad day” the moment you woke up, so this was to be expected. 

You grab the white plastic fork after a brief moment of hesitation and pierce the food with it, hand trembling ever-so slightly as you do―not from anxiety, but from your lack of water intake―and pick up a clump of potato with little strength. The vegetable oddly weighs your hand down the tiniest bit more than usual, but you ignore this in favor of pushing yourself to just force the food into your mouth. You try your best not to chew, your jaw only really moving to chew the side of your cheek instead to satisfy your urges, and eventually manage to swallow the food. 

Right off the bat, you can tell the cluster you swallowed had the pill in it. Lucky me, you think almost bitterly, not sure whether you should be happy or uncomfortable, at least it’s over with. It’s not that it’s a bad thing that you got to the pill so quickly, but usually you’re able to get a few bites of medicine-less potato in before the actual medicine itself. Nonetheless, you scoop up another fork-full―fork-full?―of mashed potatoes and try to eat as much as you can to get rid of the weird feeling of having a pill going down your throat. 

Just the fleeting thought of having a pill that big going down your throat makes it feel like your esophagus is closing. You feel yourself grow closer to nausea at the feeling, setting down your fork and pushing the paper plate of your dinner aside, just to rest your elbow on the table and put your forehead in the palm of your head. It’s bad enough that you feel ashamed because of the fact you even have to take antidepressants, so it’s even worse that those same antidepressants are throwing bad side-effects at you. 

Ashamed because needing medicine to function the same way anyone else does feels so pathetic to you. Maybe it isn’t pathetic. Actually, you know it isn’t; you don’t look at other people who do the same thing and think that they should feel as ashamed as you do. But you still look at your bright orange prescription bottle, labeled with your legal name, and think that you shouldn’t need it. 

You think, for a moment, that it’s because of how much you’ve dehumanized yourself. 

Dehumanized is such an ugly word, and it leaves a strange bitterness in your mind after thinking about it, but deep down you feel that it’s true. You know that you’re human, obviously, because physically that’s what you are. You are, undeniably, a homo sapien―a person, a living being that is a bipedal primate mammal. You, in a less literal sense, have those same cords attached to you that Neo did when he first went to the “real world”. 

But you need those cords, you think, lifting your head so that your chin is resting in your palm instead of your forehead, you need to stay attached to the Matrix. 

Because you took the blue pill. You found a way to keep yourself attached to the Matrix, to keep yourself grounded to what you wish you could experience without them. And those cables weigh you down, and that pod you stay encased in limits your movement―sometimes you feel more like the pod than the person inside of it―but it all seems so worth it to you, doesn’t it? To keep believing what you want to believe, to wake up everyday and dose yourself with that fifty-milligrams worth of sertraline hidden under a pile of food, to eat that food and swallow that pill even though it makes you feel like a mutt? 

You take a shuddering breath in, your thoughts building up in volume and mass, more questions entering your mind too fast for you to process them all. You feel that familiar rush of adrenaline, the kind that triggers your ‘fight-or-flight’. It lights your nerves on fire and causes them to jump, to electrify, and you feel your fingers twitch with the feeling. It almost feels like there’s something crawling along your nerves, under your skin, and the thought almost triggers your gag reflex. Your eyelids flutter, barely shutting for just a moment before you force them open. Your gaze flits over to the still-mostly-full plate of mashed potatoes. 

You’re usually able to finish them, even on “bad days”. But today, with nausea swirling uncomfortably in your stomach, and a too-big pill going through the thin tubes inside your body, you find that it’s much harder to even think about picking that fork back up. You can almost feel your heart beating through your palm, that continuous th-thump, th-thump growing exponentially faster, and your palm getting sweatier by the second. You shift your feet and find that invisible needles are poking at the bottom of them, small pins that push and prod at your skin that leave a strange hot-cold feeling. It forces you to take the pressure off of your feet by holding them up ever-so slightly, the soles of your shoes just barely touching the ground. 

You swear your heart rate increases at all the different sensations lingering on your body. You can feel your breathing starting to pick up, and for God knows what reason, you suddenly find it difficult to keep your eyes locked onto one object. Your gaze dances around the room as a surge of chills runs up your spine. A trail of goosebumps rises after each wave of biting cold, passing over the bony projections of your dorsum. After having so many of them, you know instinctively the signs of an oncoming anxiety attack, and know how quick those symptoms escalate from simple shallow breaths to the inability to keep your breathing consistent at all. Yes, they develop slower than a panic attack does, but the gradient from fine to not-fine is hard to view as slow when there’s so many symptoms to keep track of.

At the thought of such a thing happening, your gaze instantly locks onto the prescription bottle sitting on your desk. It’s still uncapped―fortunate for you, because you’re seriously doubting your ability to uncap something with a child-proof cap on it right now―and in your eyes is practically glowing. It’s so tempting, because it’s just right there, so easily accessible, so easy to just grab and pour however many pills you need down your throat. The thought makes you realize how dry your mouth feels, how constricted your throat feels, but your mind is too filled with a flurry of incoherent thoughts to dwell on such feelings. 

With your free hand, you grab the uncapped bottle. It shakes with your hand, now more from your building anxiety than your dehydration, and makes the tablets inside rattle. You bring it to your lips, ignoring the chiding voice in the back of your mind telling you how disgusting it is to just put it on your mouth like that, and shake it just enough to get a single pill out of it. The dryness of the pill sticks to the wetness of your mouth, just below the border of your bottom lip. You set the bottle down and poke at the pill with the tip of your tongue, the weird vanilla-like taste of the medicine spreading across the muscle easily. 

Your mouth is dry, so you have to use the residual saliva sitting on your tongue to slick the pill up enough to go down somewhat-smoothly down your throat. It’s still rough, and some areas of the pill remain powdery, the feeling of it sliding down your throat enough to make you gag. For a brief moment, the action causes the pill to lodge in your throat―it’s not big enough to make you choke or anything, but it’s enough to make your heart beat faster and your hands grip onto the edge of your desk tightly. Your thumbs are tucked under the edge, the first knuckle at the tip of your finger bent and the flesh of the tips of your fingers turning lighter from the pressure. 

You cough once you feel the pill go down your esophagus entirely, and breathe raggedly afterwards. Deep down, you know that the medicine takes some time to work, and that if you gave it a little longer than a minute that you’d start feeling better. But the reeling anxiety that wraps around your throat like a chain seems to pull you impossibly farther away from that betterness, and forces your throat to tighten to a point where your breathing feels limited. You go from breathing through your nose to your mouth, where you can still taste the lingering artificial-vanilla with every inhale. 

It’s getting worse, an annoying voice tells you, one that manages to be louder than the others, the medicine’s supposed to help. You’ve only taken a hundred milligrams so far. Another and it’s a hundred and fifty. An overdose is only if it goes over two hundred.

It’s stupid logic but more tempting the more you think about it. It is, after all, only a third pill. You’d be pushing it—

Do you really care all that much that you’re pushing it? What if you want to break that limit? The limits you made, to keep yourself alive, that you still sometimes question the existence of? 

―but that doesn’t really compute well in your mind, and you soon find yourself reaching for the bottle again. Each pill shakes with your hand, and with each tremor another wave of tablets hits the sides of the bottle, like a visual representation of the thoughts that bounce off of the walls of your brain. You lift the bottle, and bring it to your lips, the area that makes contact with your mouth cooler than the rest of the bottle from earlier when you had done the same thing. You’re about to tilt it up before you hear a sudden knock at your door. 

The noise is startling and makes you drop the bottle, the pills spilling over the edge of it and onto the table. 

“Shit,” you curse quietly under your breath, quickly flattening your hand and sweeping all of the pills into a pile, and picking them up in clusters. You manage to get them all back in the bottle before another knock sounds out, and cap the bottle before opening up one of the small drawers on the side of your desk and shoving it in there. 

“Come in!” you call out in a strained voice, praying that you’ll be able to keep it steady for as long as the person at the door needs to talk to you. You close the drawer just as the door creaks open. 

Much to your horror, you look up to see your Captain. 

Your palms are still sweaty as he walks in, so you try to discreetly wipe them off on your pants, and hope to whoever can help you that he doesn’t pay too much attention to the sweat gathered on your forehead. You take a deep breath as silently as you can, attempting to gather yourself before Price can notice anything being wrong.

“It’s a quarter past two,” Price comments once he walks in, closing the door behind him, “why are you still awake?” 

You look over to the digital clock on your desk almost immediately and, oh shit, it is exactly 2:15. You look back over at Price, who is busying himself with pulling the chair that was once in front of your desk around it, presumably to sit next to you. You still feel the dreadfully fast pace of your heart, that th-thump, th-thump, th-thump that you can hear blaring in your ears. It makes itself known in your chest, in your wrist, even in the base of your throat―almost every pulse point in your body has forced you to become aware of its existence.

You swallow dryly, trying to ignore said feeling, and reply, “Why are you still awake?”

Price raises an eyebrow at you, pulling the chair up beside you and sitting down in it, “I asked first.” 

You look at him with an unimpressed look on your face. “Can’t sleep. Why are you up?”

Price hums and leans back in his seat, arms crossing over each other, “Same reason.”

It doesn’t sound like a lie, but it doesn’t sound entirely true either, in your opinion. It’s not that you don’t trust him, but he just seems like he’s up to something. What that something is, though, you aren’t sure. 

“Why the food?” Price nods over to the plate of mashed potatoes, very noticeably unfinished. 

Your gaze follows his to the mashed potatoes. You can still feel the moisture on the palms of your hands, the small tremors that wrack your fingers, and Price’s presence does nothing to soothe your flaming nerves.

“Wanted dinner,” you shrug as casually as you can, forcing a neutral expression onto your face―you briefly overthink what a neutral expression looks like, and decidedly just let your face relax the best you can, “I didn’t get any when everyone else went, I was busy with something, and didn’t really want to head over to the mess with so many people over there, plus I was busy.” 

You look over at Price after your lengthy explanation, not realizing just how lengthy it was, and watch the corners of his lips quirk up into an amused-yet-worried smile. 

“You said you were busy twice,” he points out, before pausing, and pointing out again, “and it looks like you’ve taken a few bites out o’that at most.” 

You don’t bother to look at the mashed potatoes again; you know very well how they look, and know how undeniably full the plate looks. 

“Didn’t feel that hungry,” you make up a poorly thought-out excuse, that even you can understand is unbelievable. 

Price blinks at you, slowly, before sighing. 

“Are you alright?” Price asks, looking more concerned than amused now. You should’ve known from the moment that he walked in that you wouldn’t be able to hide anything from him. If not for the fact that he always seems to know what’s going on, then because of the overwhelming presence of your disquietude. 

You look at him and try to figure out what to say. What is there to say? You were panicking just two minutes ago, with your prescription bottle in one hand, the other too shaky to hold up the damn thing. You can still taste that vanilla. You can still taste the plastic. The bottle itself never once touched your tongue, but every time your tongue rests in your mouth, the tip of it pokes at the same exact place the bottle made contact with. You expect it to taste of vanilla, like its contents, but it doesn’t; it tastes like the pharmacy you got it at. It tastes like the sterile white of the counter, the fingers of the person who handed it to you, the money you spent on it, and the time it took you to get it. 

It’s nothing pleasant. The strange vanilla of the pills aren’t either, but they’re preferable to the bottle itself. 

Price notices you zoning out for a moment, and waves a hand in front of your face. Your eyes unconsciously track his hand for a moment before you blink back into reality and look at him. You knew you were fucked earlier, but when you look at his expression, at the look in his eyes as he watches you snap back to reality, you know that he knows. Maybe he doesn’t know exactly what happened, or how it happened, but he knows something. Fuck, he knows. 

Or, maybe he does know. Maybe he heard your cursing through the door, even with your low voice, maybe he heard the pills spill onto the desk, maybe he heard the opening and closing of the drawer, maybe he―

He’s staring at you.

―has security cameras set up in here, because he does in every room, every hall, everywhere but the bathrooms and the sleeping quarters―

He’s talking. It’s muffled by the sound of your own heavy breathing.

―or maybe it’s just intuition, a gut feeling he has, where he just knows that something’s wrong, that same gut feeling that everyone seems to get when something isn’t the way it’s supposed to be―

Your palms are sweaty. Your heart is pounding out of your chest. You’re starting to feel a little lightheaded.

―the same “gut feeling” that you experience every day but have to ignore because it’s not a gut feeling it’s anxiety and your real gut feelings feel the almost the exact same way anxiety does so you may never know if you ever get an actual one―

Price grabs onto your arm, though the feeling of his skin on yours can’t push past the skin-crawling sensation that coats your skin.

―but how do you really know that your gut feelings aren’t gut feelings? How do you know that anything is anything? That it’s really Price that’s sitting next to you, that it’s your own office you’re sitting in, that―

“[name]!” Price’s voice snaps you out of the trance you seem to be in, and you sharply inhale at the sound of his voice, his volume much louder than you expected it to be. 

You didn’t realize how fast and heavy your breathing had really gotten until this point. You look at Price, a little more on the panicked side now, with restless eyes that can’t stop flitting all over his face. He takes his hand off of your arm before you can even notice it was there in the first place, and leans back away from you. 

You try to take deep breaths, but each breath feels like trying to breathe underwater, and each inhale-exhale leaves you shuddering. You look down at your lap, breath hitching and stuttering, and the moment you open your mouth in the hopes of breathing easier, you are all too aware of just how dry it’s become. You’re sure you let out some kind of sound that alerts Price of your growing distress, because he hesitantly leans forward and takes a deep breath. 

“[name],” Price keeps his voice soft and quiet, quieter than he’d been just a few seconds ago, his soothing voice a gentle wave crashing against the rock of your mind, “you’re okay. Look at me, soldier.” 

Like a remote to TV static, the noisiness of your mind is partially calmed and the waves that wash over your brain provide sweet escape from the overwhelming adrenaline and cortisol thrumming in your veins.

Mindlessly, you do as he asks, his words grounding you and tugging you back down to Earth more effectively than any anchor could. When you look at him, his eyes are clouded with concern and there’s a small frown on his face that almost perfectly juxtaposes his usual quokka-smile.

You know you’re still trembling. You can feel the hairs that stick up on your legs and arms, the weird hot-cold feeling that creates pinpricks of discomfort across your body, the way your heart is trying to escape the prison cell of your ribcage—but none of it compares to the unbelievable dizziness you feel. Your head is a balloon filled with helium and it is slowly deflating, but not fast enough. You feel like you’re no longer in control of your own body—or were you ever in control? 

Your stomach is churning. There’s a sense of dread that dwells there. You might throw up. 

Cutting through your thoughts is Price once again.

“You listenin’?” your Captain asks, to which you nod after a delay of a few seconds. Price holds a hand out and gives you a questioning look, the question of ‘can I touch you?’ clear enough on his face that you nod lightly and he takes your hand gingerly.

“Do y’know where you are?” Price asks. You nod, and he softly requests, “can you tell me where?”

“My office,” you answer simply, the gravel in your voice making you wince. The warbling that escapes your mouth is nowhere near your usual voice, and for a moment you think you might be right about needing to vomit, but you manage to push it down and pray. Price ignores this and pushes on.

“And who am I?” he asks, as if he doesn’t know. 

“... The Captain.” Price purses his lips—he doesn’t really want to accept this as an answer, because he wants you to say his actual name, but he knows what you mean, and you know what he’s doing. He knows that you mean that you’re here, that you’re present, and you know that he’s trying to ground you the best he can.

“Do you know my name?” he questions, to which you nod again, though a little more moderately, seeing as the repetition of nodding your head only makes you more lightheaded, “what’s my name?”

You take a few shaky breaths, ones that are shallow and uneven, ones that hitch enough for it to be so noticeable that Price manages to pick up on it. You open your mouth to talk, but find that your tongue is too heavy to lift to create coherent sounds. The thought somehow heightens your anxiety, something that seems to be noticeable to Price, judging by how his expression shifts to something impossibly softer.

“Here, let me—” Without another word, Price cautiously brings your hand up to the middle of his chest, where his sternum is. 

He exaggerates his breathing, taking long, deep breaths in, and similarly long exhales. His chest rises and falls satisfyingly, and it’s clear that he wants you to copy him. You try your best at first, taking that same too-deep breath that he does and fail almost immediately as you choke on the air you attempt to inhale. Price brushes his thumb over the back of your hand and takes another exaggerated breath, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth. You keep your gaze more focused on the lower half of his face as you copy him, oxygen going in through your nose, and carbon dioxide going out through your mouth. 

That one successful breath is followed by an unsuccessful one, then another successful one, then another, and it’s a little rocky but you find that soon enough you’re breathing. There’s air flowing in and out of your body smoothly, with each exaggerated breath you take, almost in sync with Price, until finally he puts your hand back into your lap but continues to hold it. He squeezes it once before letting go, and clasps his hands together. 

“What’s my name, soldier?” he asks, and this time you think you can answer him. 

“John Price,” his name feels weird coming out of your mouth, especially with no honorifics, but he accepts the answer anyway. 

“Good,” Price praises, giving you a small smile, “you’re doing good.”

The approval he gives you helps to calm your nerves the tiniest bit, and you feel yourself slowly coming down from the God awful high that you’d just been on. Again, you’re not sure how he knows, but he senses that you’re calming down―is it because your breathing is steadier? You aren’t nearly as restless? You’re no longer zoning out?―so he leans back in his chair and watches as you do the same. 

“Now,” he breathes out, “can you tell me what’s going on with you?” 

You look away from him for the briefest moment, sparing a glance at the cabinet you know the bottle of your pills lays in, before looking back at him. If he noticed you pulling your gaze away from him for a split second, he doesn’t mention it nor does he make it known that he did. 

“There’s not really anything going on,” you shrug, to which Price scoffs. 

“[c/n],” he looks at you, disbelieving, “two seconds ago I had to help you breathe normally. I know that there’s something that’s going on, somethin’ that had to trigger what just happened.” 

You stay quiet and he gives you an expectant look. The pressure from his fixed glare makes you feel like you’re about to explode. 

Finally, you answer him defeatedly, though vaguely, “I was in the middle of taking my medicine when you knocked.”

Price stays silent, expecting you to elaborate. 

“And…” you try to find a way to make it sound less awkward than it does in your mind, though you suppose there’s never really a correct way to go about something like this, “I almost took more medicine than I needed to.” 

The silence continues, but now Price looks less expectant, and instead more of a mix between concern and something else you can’t identify. That something, though, is still soft, and still has a hint of pity―maybe sympathy?―to it.

“Almost?” he repeats, “was that on purpose?” 

When you think about it, it’s complicated. You didn’t necessarily intend to overdose, you just dismissed the idea of it. Or, at least, you don’t remember trying to overtly kill yourself. Then again, you knew the risks of taking more pills than prescribed to you; had you taken that third pill, you would’ve only been one more away from an overdose, and even then you’d still probably get some kind of health issue. 

Price’s face hardens when you don’t answer immediately. He must be taking your silence as a “yes”. 

“Not… really,” you answer slowly, “I don’t know what I was thinking.” 

He nods, waiting a few seconds before asking, “Have you thought about it before?”

By it, for some reason, you sense that he isn’t asking exclusively about taking one too many tablets.

It’s tempting to be dishonest about it; it’s a shameful thing to you, to use the things that are supposed to help you to harm yourself, to be so careless with your own life. You know that it isn’t necessarily all your fault, but there’s still that small part of you that can’t help but feel guilty for using something so many other people try so hard to get to almost kill yourself with. 

After a few beats of silence, you decide to answer, “Yeah.” 

Price nods again, and he looks like he expected that answer. “D’you want to tell me more about that?”

You could, hypothetically, go in-depth about all of your weird thoughts about committing. The ones you’d been having just, what, fifteen minutes ago? Thirty minutes ago? The ones about chains wrapped around your throat, stolen guns from the armory, deep purple bruising and a stretched neck. Those thoughts, the ones that try to make ending your life sound pretty, that try to make it sound appealing. It���s not to convince yourself, you don’t think, but rather to help you come to terms with the fact that you were already convinced that you were going to commit at some point. The thought still scares you, because you’re a pussy―terrible, terrible choice of words, a voice at the back of your mind insists, you’re not a pussy, you’re just like anyone else―but you felt like you just knew that you were gonna die by your own hands. That you’d already made the choice, and now you have to understand it, to realize it. 

You are in that room full of TVs, with The Architect in front of you, telling you that you have no choice. That, in fact, the problem is choice. You are surrounded by a million other yous, all protesting, all denying that you have no choice but to kill yourself, all yelling “Bullshit!” because deniability is the most predictable of all human responses. 

But, you remind yourself, The Architect was wrong. He told Neo that he couldn’t do anything to save Trinity from her “fate”, but Neo did save her. He plunged his hand into her chest and forced her heart to beat. 

That’s true. 

And, you add on, The Architect is a computer program, tasked with mimicking human emotions, despite never having felt them. He could never understand the power of human will, of the desperation so many humans have to live. 

Because The Architect was never alive. He is a sentient computer program, whose job is to create a world in which humans can “live” while they are fed on in the real world, but his problem was his inability to create anything less than perfect. We aren’t expected to be perfect, and are taught that flawlessness doesn’t exist, which is why he came to the conclusion that he needed a “lesser mind” to help him create a better Matrix. 

You aren’t supposed to succumb to the idea of having no choice. Because that, in itself, is a choice. Everything you do is a choice. Even if everything you do will only add up to the same ending, to the same fate, why should you waste time not making the choices you want to make? When you assume that you have no choice, you assume that everything you do will go to waste, but that’s not true. You aren’t the only person that exists. You aren’t the only person who makes choices. The choices you make affect other people’s choices, and those choices affect another person, and another, and another. You still have to live through the choices you make, as does everyone else, so even if everything will end the same, why should you make inherently bad decisions when you could be making good ones? Why should you go through things you don’t have to go through, just because you believe that nothing matters in the end?

“Not really,” you answer Price, snapping yourself out of your thoughts, “I don’t… want to think about it too much right now.” 

Price looks a little more worried now but he doesn’t protest your decision.

“Is there anything in here that you could use to hurt yourself?” he asks after a moment, “Or that you’ve already used?” 

You bite your tongue. Technically, the pills count, you suppose, but those are your meds. You can’t really have those confiscated.

“Other than the medicine, no,” you answer truthfully, much to Price’s relief, as is evident on his face as his hardened expression softens. 

“Good, good,” he shifts in his seat. 

He’s gearing up for something. You can tell with the way he subtly presses his clasped hands together, the way his face goes through a mix of emotions, and the way the deafening silence of the room really seems to be getting to him. 

Suddenly, he asks you, “D’you think you’re going to… ?” 

He doesn’t ask you explicitly, but you have a good idea of what he’s asking.

“I was thinking about it,” you respond softly, “before you came in.”

Price nods, having expected that answer. You’re not sure if it was obvious, or if he just assumed you were thinking about it because of you confessing to having thoughts of it before this. 

“Y’know I have to tell someone about this, right?” Price reminds you gently, as if you didn’t already know, “Someone up the chain. Might be Laswell.” 

You hum affirmatively, because you didn’t expect anything less from him, and know that it’s for the better. It doesn’t make you feel any better, obviously, but you know how to be realistic when the time calls for it, and you know that if the roles were reversed you’d do the same thing. Not because it’s mandatory, but because when you imagine Price in your situation, the thought wraps itself around your heart and twists. 

The room is silent for a beat, and you get the feeling that Price is somehow more uncomfortable with the quiet than you are. He shifts in his seat while you stay still, and he clears his throat to break the silence for a brief moment before speaking up again. 

“It’s late,” he points out the obvious, before pausing and irresolutely asking, “do you want to head back to my quarters with me for the night?” 

His words confuse you for a moment. You open your mouth to ask why, before it suddenly hits you―oh, right, you just basically confessed to being suicidal. He doesn’t want to leave you alone right now. 

“Yeah, sure,” you agree, less questioning than Price expected you to be judging by his momentary look of surprise, before he nods and begins to get up. 

He pushes his chair behind him, standing up straight, and holds a hand out for you to grab. You grab it gingerly and use it to haul yourself up, your knees cracking as you do after having been sat for so long. You wince at the sound and Price gives a light-hearted chuckle.

“I thought I was s’posed to be the old one?” he teases, making you give him an unimpressed look and let go of his hand. The room falls back into soundlessness.

You both remain silent as Price leads you out the door of your office, turning off the lights and closing the door after you, and continues to lead you down to his sleeping quarters. His are farther down the hall from yours, because of his higher rank, and therefore takes longer to walk to from your office. The long walk is quiet enough to hear a pin drop, but you both don’t mind this, as the atmosphere here is more comfortable than the one in your office. 

Eventually, you make it to his room, where he opens the door for you and signals for you to walk in first with his hand. You enter the room and hear him enter shortly after you, and go to sit on his bed before pausing. 

“I’m still in my…” you gesture to your clothes, gear-less but still not your “normal” sleeping clothes. Price raises an eyebrow at you as you wave at the state of yourself. 

“I’ve seen you sleep in worse,” he points out, “and I think you sleep in this than in your actual sleeping clothes.” 

You’re about to ask how he even knows about that, before he answers you before you can voice your question, “I’ve seen you walking back t’your quarters in these clothes and hear you snoring a second later at least ten times.”

You close your mouth and sigh through your nose, before muttering, “Didn’t know I was talkin’ to fuckin’ Sherlock Holmes.” 

Price snorts at your retort, “If I’m Sherlock, are you Watson?”

You think about it for a moment, before shaking your head negatively. 

“No?” Price toes off his boots and walks over to you, sitting on the bed, “Then who are you?” 

You sit down next to him, “I dunno. I’m like…” 

“Like Neo,” you continue, ignoring the way Price’s eyebrows immediately raise, “and you’re Morpheus. But less smart.”

“You’re not Neo,” he scoffs, “and I’m not a less-smart Morpheus.” 

“I wasn’t askin’ you,” you grumble, shaking your already-loose boots off of your feet and crawling up Price’s bed. You manage to snake under the covers and feel Price’s eyes on you as you do, staring holes into your face.

He hums in acknowledgment, not bothering to answer you verbally, and instead gets up to lift up the covers and get into bed. The bed is small enough as-is, but with two people inside of it, it obviously gets much smaller. Price doesn’t seem to mind, though, and turns so that his back is facing the door and his front is facing you. Directly in front of you is the base of his neck, but if you tilt your head up, you can see him looking down at you with tired eyes. 

You let out a soft breath through your nose and realize just how tired you are. Price seems to notice this, because his arm comes up and rests across your side, his hand splaying across the middle of your back. He gives you a comforting sweep of his hand, before settling it on your upper back, absentmindedly rubbing his thumb in soothing circles against your clothed back. 

You close your eyes, and he closes his, and it feels like you’ve woken up in the real world and removed the cables from your body.

[bomberqueen17]

how it's going

yah my second experiment with adhd meds is like. well, this time it's making it so i can't sleep and my appetite gets shitty, which is what they normally say but i didn't really have that problem last time. i do now!!!

cut for discussions of eating/weight gain/loss shit, and the Horrible Yearnings

lil PSA, because a friend said something about this-- yah SSRIs make you fat (i gained 25 permanent irrevocable pounds on Celexa in 2012 and that's that, it's never gone away no matter what I did and it never will short of some other medical crisis I think), and it's reasonable to in a kind of not-healthy but understandable way wish that the amphetamine ADHD meds would thus make you thin. Seems like it, yeah? If you have no appetite and your metabolism is higher? I'm not finding that, though, so here to nip that in the bud is my observation that if you have trouble with comfort eating, losing your appetite does not take that impulse away, it just makes it disgusting. I actually am not a big comfort eater, but I do, like many humans, tend to derive comfort from eating food I enjoy? This takes that away without removing the need to do it. I still need to eat; if I don't, I get heartburny, emotionally distraught, and more, just like always. But now instead of enjoying the food at least, I find it unappetizing, have to force myself to prepare it, and then eat it so slowly it's always cold/mushy/melted by the time I'm done, and it's not satisfying. And instead of an occasional Fun Lil Treat as a pick-me-up, I wind up roaming the house with Formless Yearning, because I know food won't make me feel better, but nothing else is making me feel better, and I'm not getting any pleasure chemicals from anything I do, any more than I ever did. Friends have reported the dreaded afternoon/evening time when their ADHD meds wear off as being always a notable time for the Yearnings, but I'm finding that I get that just Whenever, so.

It ain't fun and it ain't cute.

But I'm determined to stick this test out to the end of the week because every day has been somewhat different at least, and I'm really trying to write down what happens. Because I was given two weeks' worth of this shit, and I tried it for a week and hated it so much I stopped, but then I didn't write down what happened so I have no fucking idea what to tell the doctor. (I also collapsed into despair and stopped calling that doctor back, but like, that didn't solve anything, and being bitter that finally getting a chance to attempt to fix my ADHD didn't work on the first several tries and in fact seems to still be beyond my capabilities because it requires me to have pattern recognition skills plus medical knowledge I simply don't have... well, it isn't helping anything.)

So we shall see. I have no attention span whatsoever and a MUCH worse working memory than usual, I routinely get up and leave the room to go do something and by the time I get to the next room I have NO memory of what it was, and unlike my normal life, I don't ever get the memory back. Usually I can retrace my steps but now that entire train of thought is JUST GONE, which is way more severe than the problems I normally have. And my usual coping mechanism, where I get up the oomph to do something by daisy-chaining several tasks together, is WILDLY ineffective now because the moment I add a second task the first one falls off and vanishes and I again, cannot recollect what it was.

I normally am no great fist at to-do lists, but I was told it's the Only Way To Make Vyvanse Work, but what I'm finding is that i am also even less capable than normal of making a to-do list have any relationship to reality. Plus I forget I made them, so. They are in fact not helping me.

I have had reasonable (like... 5 hours or more) sleep two nights this week so far, all other nights have been significantly less than that, two or three hours in most cases, which is not all that unpleasant-- at least my bed is comfy-- but does mean I have even less that I am capable of doing when I am awake, since I am so fuzzy-headed from lack of sleep. Also I can't nap, which is usually what fixes me; I am a world champion napper, but this is actually an issue from about the last six months, I cannot actually fall asleep during attempted naps, so it's futile to try. Discouraging!

Last night was a reasonable night though, so I'm carefully observing my capabilities and let me tell you I am not impressed.

So, what I'm finding is that stimulant medications make me MORE ADHD than I was before, which is. I don't know what that means and neither does my doctor so far.

I was going to write about my writing process but now this seems too whiny so I will not, I'll do that separately lol.

[eggtrolls]

Congrats on being done tapering! If it's not too personal, can I ask what made you decide to rawdog life? I'm on a daily med rn, and can't really imagine being able to manage life without it, 'cause it gave me my brain back. I don't know if I will always feel like I want to take this med forever, or if I want to only take it for a while and then try my hand at life unmedicated again, but I am interested to hear about your decision making process!

I’m on day 5 of no meds and so far my head/life hasn’t exploded. I’m answering this with the strictest caveat that this is just my experience, if it doesn’t apply to your scenario, then don’t take it to heart, use critical thinking skills (old woman shakes fist at sky), etc.

N/B: I’m very lucky that my withdrawal side effects have been really minor — it’s mainly that I’m HUNGRY. This medication has some minor appetite suppressant side effects but, other than that, I can’t say that I’ve noticed any real consequences. My dose was very, very low since I’ve been tapering for a while but it’ll be a while before it’s fully out of my system so I’ll check back in maybe a month.

Background: I started taking medication (daily oral non-SSRI anti-depressant; happy to get into the details in a DM) when I was in my mid twenties and I’m now in my early thirties. My life now is completely, radically different from where it was. My external circumstances (high pressure environment, low grade abusive relationship, brand new place with no real friends or support system) are completely different. But also my internal circumstances (lack of emotional regulation, lack of self worth reinforced by abusive relationship, limited control over life and actions in general, not great relationship with family, pretty much broke) are very, very different. And changing the internal circumstances is a big part of the regular emotional maintenance grind: therapy, meds, eating the bitter greens (sometimes literally, sometimes in the form of exercise, actual self care, doing things that are otherwise hard, etc.), and so on. I haven’t been standing still while taking meds; I have been actively working on becoming a mentally healthier person.

For my specific mental health circumstances (I don’t have ADHD/autism), I view things like therapy and medication in the same way that I do PT — something you do to respond to an injury/trauma/whatever. For me, personally, the default state is one of health. It actually corresponds quite well with my recent foot injury from taekwondo: my foot was okay; I got hurt, I needed to change how I walked and used my foot and external support to help make those changes; gradually my foot healed; I was able to remove the external support(s).

Present: I started thinking about tapering off my medication when I was at the dentist and they asked if I take any medications and I said I take a daily multivitamin and [antidepressant] but not for depression - I haven’t met the criteria for depression in years - but for what my psychiatrist calls “health maintenance”. So then it’s like….what’s the point? What am I getting from this that I couldn’t provide for myself? And tapering down from my full dose to half of that, to half of that, showed me that the current reality is, without meds, I am capable of maintaining my mental health.

What makes me feel okay about going off my medication and leaving therapy is the same as what makes me feel okay not walking around in a boot anymore: I can put the boot back on if something happens. I have my podiatrist’s number the same way I have my therapist and psychiatrist’s numbers. I also have a much, much more robust social circle of people than I did when I started on meds. I have built layer upon layer of safety nets for myself. I think you, and most people, probably can do that, too, regardless of what your menty h situation is.

Future/reflections: I will say that this medication did or at least helped save my life when I started taking it but…it’s kind of like if you’re drowning and someone throws you a life preserver from the shore — you still have to grab it, put it on, and swim to land. And where I think a lot of people get stuck is the ‘swim to land’ part. They put the life preserver on and float, rather than swim. They’re no longer drowning - this is good! But they’re still getting buffeted by currents, they might get hit by a boat, there might be sharks, and the water is cold. They have been treading water, trying not to sink, for years. They are exhausted. And therefore many people feel like they have to keep going with the external supports of medications, therapy, whatever their thing is, because they do. Saying ‘why aren’t you swimming’ is not helpful which is why I’m not doing that and why this is in no way prescriptive.

(And here’s the gag: I was that person! It took me the better part of a decade to get to this point where I’m hauling my carcass up on dry land. If someone tells me I don’t “get it” because I’m sooooooo mentally well adjusted and shouldn’t talk about experiences of XYZ symptom of depression, I will kick them very, very hard)

To continue the metaphor, I also know that the shore I’m swimming to - that I’ve finally arrived at - is not the same as the one I left, and that’s fine. My foot is not the same as it was pre-injury and that’s also fine. But unlike my foot, I don’t want to return to where I was pre-meds/therapy a) because it’s not a halcyon, golden age where nothing hurts and everything is beautiful; b) because that’s where I was when I ended up needing therapy and meds in the first place; c) because that’s not even possible, but mostly d) because I found and built something better than before.

[dangerously-human]

The thing about this week's primary doctor appointment is I did walk out with almost everything I asked for - a referral for sleep testing, an appointment for blood work to get back on my existing meds, a suggestion for a nutritionist to meet with as a first step to sorting out my recurrent weight issues (I do not trust that field and the likelihood that I'll go is pretty low, but we'll see), even a script for Strattera... but based on the doctor's reticence and tbh kind of nastiness around the Strattera, I don't know if I should actually take it. The thing is that nothing in this world scares me worse than a depression relapse. I can do minor ones, I do those all the time in fact, but the idea of that as a med side effect scares the shit out of me, because now we're putting me back in the place I was when I was on antidepressants, you feel? And I'm very very scared of the effects of going off of mental health meds - knowing that I usually can't stay on anything consistently - having done my fair share of suicidal spins in college accidentally going off SSRIs cold turkey. And then when I tried to express that and ask what I should do to keep an eye out for it, and she said I should just be able to tell if my mood gets bad and I said well listen, I know I have a history with anxiety and depression and being autistic, I don't always notice a change right away, for her to then say, you have to be in therapy again, and you should probably go back on Lexapro, and probably your symptoms are just depression and I shouldn't even be giving you Strattera in the first place, that's when I really melted down. So you can understand where I might be a tinge concerned about taking this. Even though I actually think it will make my life a lot more manageable, on multiple fronts. Even though I'm old enough that the risk of depression as a side effect isn't so high anymore, and in fact this medicine works as a low-level antidepressant anyway. Even though I've gotten much better at staying on meds where there will be an immediate impact to quitting - I haven't had any issues with propranalol, for instance, just the ones that need blood work. And I guess, even though I'm scared, I'm also really excited by the prospect of being able to focus again in a way I haven't had for 10+ years, and maybe even keeping up with life outside of work and school. If I treat the ADHD, theoretically it would become much easier for me to stay on top of all my meds anyway. My mom suggested that I make an appointment with my old therapist to ask for her advice, and she also thought I should get back on thyroid meds first to see how that helps my attention - but the executives were dysfunctioning even before I went off that, and also it'll take a couple months for the Strattera to kick in, which would be minimally helpful for grad school purposes if I don't start now. So, where does that leave me? Idk, honestly. I guess the first step is just to pick up all my pills from the pharmacy, and then I think and pray about whether and when to take them. I wish I had a doctor I trusted enough that this didn't feel like a big decision.

[evil-peanut-butter-addict-sam]

Hey I just wanna ask a question really idk I heard WSS supports mentally ill people and as your previous response was nice I need a advice you may not answer to this of you feel scared but I am asking it to people idk who will see it or not but it's from my past trauma that it haunts me and it has done a lot of things including numerous attempts but my body is strong enough not to break. Recently something devastating happened and it effected me a lot beside our law system in our society isn't good enough. I am from Asia and idk if you have heard about a doctor case it still gives shiver to my spines beside many other people being murdered and labelled as su** in colleges, next year I will go for college but still it scares me a lot. But it's not that this thing affected me a lot previous thing that happened since my childhood still affects me a lot and I am still trying to heal from it I went to many people but they misinterpreted my cry for help and some labelled me as crazy or manipulative etc but I don't really mind about what they do, but the a recent thing happened like it was for weeks until I had to delete few of my social and take a break from everything, and like the people who did this to me like including the past i either blocked or restricted them just so I feel like I can live for a bit. Currently I went to doctor again and within a week I had to change my anti depressants back to back firstly it was SNRI, it wasn't doing it's job still my depression was up and like I overdosed myself many time when I was up at night crying in my bed yet there was no one but i don't mind about that, then my med was changed and now I am under a different SSRI but it also isn't working as effective as it should and i overdosed myself again and it was hell i survived somehow due to immediate care but I am still using it as they are observing my current state. Yesterday in the public i got a panic attack and my body was trembling and I was moving either fast or slow from people, mostly running away or not looking at anyone i felt dumb, one time there was loud sound going on and I have slight autism i covered my ears I was told not to and had to face those loud sounds and while I was hearing my nerves were feeling like they were in some hell my body was feeling uncomfortable but I got out of that few days back both of ny parents got ill i was taking care of them beside my tution went to hospital currently they are ok. But the thing is I am not and if it goes on I will get killed somehow, like I stay awake till 3:00 am in the morning and even like I sleep mostly around 4 am and wake up within 9 am, it's not healthy but I can't do anything, I still cry but worse than it was before, i still sometimes wish to overdose myself but i don't as it won't work, i study very less than I used to not like the pace or workloads i used to do, lost interest in activity sometimes I do mostly lay on my bed, beside I lost weight I am trying to gain along side some medicines of calcium, multivitamins and antioxidants. I am writing a book but i feel scared something bad might happen to me, but still I am writing it but I am lacking at pace. Same goes for football i don't go to play that much, I do watch some games but not like I used to, when I watch my idols or any edits related to football or like my fav club I support i mostly cry even onetime at bed I was crying by seeing a pic of Rodri and i closed my eyes and I felt he was hugging me and listening to all my stupid things idk sorry if I am weird but tbh i am reaching out help, I went for help like the one available none of them worked including counselling I was manipulated there so that they can earn my doctor suggested me a new one that he knows and i will go very soon but I still need some advice to how to cope up I am sorry for this long para but if you feel like not answering it's ok i won't mind but if you doing I will be highly obliged to you thank you take care and sorry for wasting your time 🩵

love, I really really don't wanna come off as rude but its 3am i just woke from a bad dream to read this. But reading all this is alot of Grey area for me , you can talk in more detail in my dms if you would like so I could get give a little more than what I am now. One thing I did notice you say is your on the spectrum, I have undiagnosed Austism and I personally also struggle with loud sounds. And a part that you said at the beginning saying WSS supports mentally ill, every should its fucked they don't I'm so sorry you has to make assumptions like that, but me as a WSS I do I let anyone dm me anytime or put in an ask with vent. I personally don't have any specific ways for cope but i really hope you find some soon You didn't waste my time at all I was very grateful you came out to tell me this type of thing, I understand that topics like this comes off as very sensitive to some. One big thing though during reading this, really try to drink water and eat and sleep its so important to do such. I really hope you can grow from your past and not live in a constant fear, I have heard many things about how shitty alot of China could be. I'm sorry if this answer to your venting was shitty I'm so tired but if you want to talk to me more about anything you can to spam my dms I don't mind at all. <33

[getinthehandbasket]

Stucky Fic recs for GFFA

@gffa do I have recs for you! Disclaimer: these are *all* coming from my bookmarks, which are absolutely filled with porn and other filth. Feel free to roam there as you please. I know you (probably) won't judge me.

First, we start with individual "fix-it" or "fix-it"-like fics.

everest by mcwho Rating: Explicit 904 words Tags: Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Drabble, Dirty Talk, Steve Rogers is Not a Virgin, that last tag undersells it i need something like, Steve Rogers is Fucking Filthy, Name-Calling, Top Steve Rogers, Bottom Bucky Barnes, Multiple Orgasms Summary: Three O's in, and Bucky can’t quite remember which way is up anymore. Or, Steve gives and gives and Bucky takes it.

The Life of Bucky Barnes by stephrc79 Rating: Mature 292,199 words Tags: Fluff and Angst, Domestic Fluff, Gun Violence, Nightmares, Standard Stucky life issues, recovery bucky, post-CATWS, boys being little shits, sorta kinda NSFW, don't even mention the peen, violence against MC, Blood, past mention of mental instability, past mention of wanting death, but that last one is brief, and this is Recovery!Bucky, it's kind of expected, Spiders, mention of spiders, but only for three chapters Summary: The ongoing story behind the pictures from the Instagram The Life of Bucky Barnes. This work is a series of ficlets that tells the story of each picture. As each chapter progresses, it will encompass one or two of the images, how they appear chronologically. These are inspired works for petite-madame with her blessing.

Thank God for PR by Cimorene105 Rating: Explicit 37,886 words 14 works Tags: too many to list Summary: Steve and Bucky make some startling discoveries about each other on live TV. From there, it becomes a happy struggle to fit even more of each other into their daily lives.

Good Boy by triedunture Rating: Explicit 13,473 words Tags: Collars, Dom/sub Play, Multiple Orgasms, Exhibitionism, Body Worship, Master/Pet, Petplay, Hair-pulling, Hair Kink, Bathing/Washing, Praise Kink, Kink Negotiation Summary: Bucky is still adjusting to life with the Avengers, and Steve is willing to do whatever it takes to make him feel comfortable. Increasingly, though, what seems to make him comfortable is strangely intimate.

Surprise, Steve! You're a gentle dom and Bucky wants to be your pretty pet!

A Fucking Written Invitation by chaya, Desdemon Rating: Explicit 9,563 words Tags: Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes, Natasha Romanov, Tony Stark, Sam Wilson (Marvel), Bruce Banner, Pepper Potts, Clint Barton, UST, Dubcon Kissing Summary: "Jesus, Steve, I just had to explain to a ninety-something year old ex-killer that it was normal to have dreams and wake up with unusual physical attributes and, and listen, we have to get him a male GP, a, a man, because when I asked him why he hadn't just called her to discuss this he looked at me like I'd suggested he slap her in the face."

Alternate titles: "It's Just You". "Steve Rogers Can't Get a Goddamned Clue". "SSRIs and You". "Steve, Natasha is Going to Hit You". "Buying a Clue". "Steve's Clue-Field is Barren".

(slight tw for a non-con makeout moment.)

i was found and now i don't roam these streets by hipsterchrist Rating: Mature 15,913 words Tags: Bucky Bear, Team Dynamics, Team Bonding, Friendship, Therapy, Hospitals, Medical, Illnesses, Minor Character Death, Child Death, Teddy Bears, New York City, Canon-Typical Violence, Children, Self-Esteem Issues, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Feels, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier Summary: They’ve decided to start producing Bucky Bears again, now that he’s all shiny and redeemed and fighting for good on this big Avengers misfits team. "He has a little shiny gray arm," Bucky says, wiggling the stuffed arm in question, one of the tweaks made in the new model. It takes Steve a second to realize that Bucky’s got a small smile on his face, actually looks a little bit proud around the eyes.

Or, Bucky relearns himself and how to be on a team, the rest of the Avengers try to get answers, and everyone watches too much Criminal Minds.

Handling Wants by eclecticxdetour Rating: Explicit 5,063 words Tags: Rimming, Barebacking, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Bottom Steve Summary: As the asset, desire was nonexistant. As Bucky Barnes, he's unsure how to deal with being allowed to want.

All the First Times by Vee (Vera_DragonMuse) Rating: Mature 9,694 words Tags: Recovery, rebuilding the self, from the ground up, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier Summary: Bucky starts over and finds new ways to survive.

Next, I offer links to my bookmarks, filtered in various ways:

Bucky/Steve, no other pairings with those two. Includes dark fic, non-fix-it, AUs, etc.

Bucky/Steve, including them in other pairings or OT3s- mostly Steve/Darcy/Bucky in various configurations

All Marvel fics*

All my bookmarks - if you wanna judge me pls do it in your inside-your-head voice lol *the link errored out when I tried to exclude *all* other fandoms that aren't Marvel. If it's still erroring out, let me know and I'll re-include some other fandoms and you can just skip those.

[owlbelly]

man i can't stop thinking about that antidepressant post going around (this is really long & not happy)

the one that started out as someone comparing taking their SSRI to taking insulin or thyroid medication, & turned into other people linking all the studies showing that the serotonin deficiency / "chemical imbalance" theory of depression has been pretty well debunked & that doctors/scientists don't really understand how a lot of psych medication works, particularly SSRIs, so you can't really compare taking a medication for something your body actually physically lacks or that's correcting a chemically measurable problem to taking a psych med that isn't doing either of those things (no one is measuring your brain chemicals & there's no agreed upon baseline for something like seratonin - a re-uptake inhibitor isn't making you make any more of it either it's just prolonging its effects in your system)

like. idk. i understand that the science is demonstrably faulty & that advertising campaigns for medications are the reason the popular conception of innate "chemical imbalance" persists even among doctors! this is not new information to me & it's obviously critical to talk about it & continue to do research.

but i also feel like there has got to be a way to talk about it that doesn't implicitly shame or, idk, outright deny the experience of people for whom taking SSRIs has been life-improving or even life-saving? "this stuff doesn't work the way they tell you it does" is one thing, but it so quickly seems to turn into "this stuff doesn't do anything at all (except hurt you)" which is...literally just not true. we can question whether or not medication is the best choice for someone, we can criticize the intersection of capitalism & medicine that's resulted in poorly understood medication with serious side effects being pushed through to sales, we can talk about how structural/societal change would help most of us MUCH more, etc. etc.

but for some people nothing else works, or nothing else works without an additional boost, or nothing else is accessible (which is fucked). these are shit circumstances. idk i think the wording on that post was like "it's fine if you feel like they help you but don't spread this misinformation about depression as a chemical imbalance" & i guess "it's fine if you feel like they help you" always reads to me as "okay sweetie, you have the right to enjoy your poison placebo." clearly they fucking do help sometimes. we don't know how exactly & we should be concerned about lying corporations & shitty institutions, but like...some people are clearly getting results from them. not all of them good results! but good enough that we can function & live, otherwise we wouldn't take them.

lmao maybe i just don't know how to not feel like shit about any discussion of SSRIs, since i have taken them longer than almost anyone i know (almost 25 years) & from a young enough age that they've possibly shaped the development of my brain in ways that no one really understands & the side effects have definitely shaped my life & i have never been able to function without them! maybe i never will be able to now. was it wrong for them to be prescribed to me in the first place? idk i was pretty set on being dead at that point. maybe i would have been okay, maybe not. i've tried to taper off them multiple times, both with doctor supervision & without. it fucking sucks & i stop feeling like living. should i do it again & stick it out to the point of wanting to die because "depression isn't actually a chemical imbalance" & i am just a duped pawn of big pharma?

or am i SSRIs Georg now, who has been taking Prozac for a quarter of a century & does have a resulting "chemical imbalance" & is an outlier, should not have been counted

sorry i hate this i hate being both critical of & also dependent on psych meds, i hate the way everyone talks about it. people who are pro-meds always act like no one is ever forced to take them or stigmatized for not taking them & that the science around them is clear-cut, people who are anti-meds always talk like there's no stigma around taking psych medication (lmao! even antidepressants!) & also like they're just shit placebos for idiots.

i super hate not knowing what 25 years of SSRIs has done to my body & also being pants-shittingly terrified of trying to remove them from my life. it all fucking blows i just want to see a little more compassion for all of us trying to survive here in whatever way we can

[ihatehannibal]

Everything is so fucking shitty lately, I lied through my teeth to my psychiatrist bc I don't want him to blame it on me reducing my SSRI dose & insist I stabilize again. it's bc my friends are all so...completely ambivalent about me I guess? like ok there's my best friend, who I've been long distance with since the we met online ten years ago but who I've never FELT this distant from in all that time. it's been like this for a year, since she moved to Japan, but again it's not like she lived close to me before, she's Canadian. I don't even know who's fault it is but we don't talk like we did before. It's probably her fucking boyfriend giving her the emotional support that I used to give her. She doesn't rly need me anymore. I don't want it to end I really thought we were platonic soulmates and I thought we'd be 80 together still best friends. Maybe that's just me being naive. This is how it goes with friendships for normal women isn't it, they eventually find a partner & then suddenly you're no longer #1 for them. You can't compare

Then there's my second best friend, who IS local & who I've known for 14 years...since we were 14 and starting high school. I've known her as long as I didn't know her. and yet she has let me down more times than I can count & I'm sure I've let her down the same. Every time I try to talk to her about what's going on I just end up feeling like shit bc she tells me I'm triggering her or whatever. Ok. Like she rly said "I'm not the sort of person who can hear this stuff & go on my merry way" I'm sorry I said like four sentences about what happened with the guy w/the gun but how the fuck do you think I feel having to LIVE this shit firsthand??? Pop quiz do I fucking sound like I'm going on my merry way about it or do I sound traumatized???? I feel emotionally distant from her too & don't even know if I want to keep being friends but I'm a coward so I'll probably just let it fade rather than making a clean break.

Then there's my third & final friend, who I've known the longest but who I only recently reconnected with. She's fun to hang out with but that's only when she doesn't flake & leave me on read for a month, which she does so consistently that I'm ready to just stop trying.

It sucks seeing my sister with all these super strong bulletproof friendships, both local & abroad, that she formed in primary school & more in college (years that I entirely wasted being a depressed shut in) & are still going strong. She's always going out for drinks with them or watching movies on FaceTime & I'm here alone in my room binge eating & watching fucking greys anatomy of all things wondering if I will ever have a successful life with a friend group I can count on & knowing deep down that the answer is no.

I feel like I don't even ask for much. Like yes I want to be a famous writer ideally but I think I'd be happy just writing my stuff for a niche audience & having a bunch of fucking friends to do things & go places with. I'm not even looking forward to my Japan trip anymore bc my best friend isnt even excited to see me for the first time in 5 yrs & I probably can't save up enough anyways due to having to pay the mortgage on this fucking house the whole summer which was when I had the most work. Now I'm gonna be lucky to get two days a week & have only Saturday ON shift guaranteed. I couldn't save up anything when I had the chance so now I'm screwed

Oh and my room is a fucking stye again. A real depression den. Kratom powder & empty junk food wrappers & dirty clothes all over the floor & bed. Unreal how I keep letting it get this bad repeatedly

[veliseraptor]

Read your tags, do you mind explaining a little how you came to realise you might be bipolar?

If this is too personal then just ignore it - I'm just curious bc I feel like I might be in a same boat

Ps. Now that you have a name for things, I really hope you find something that'll help!

at this point it's not something I'm even willing to commit to, even reading this ask I went OH BUT I DON'T KNOW THAT, OBVIOUSLY I DON'T ACTUALLY KNOW, I'M JUST SAYING WORDS. but the tipping point for me making that post was basically a combination of factors:

the fact that, while attempting to address the depression that's been getting me down, a tweak in the dose of one of my antidepressants sent me rocketing into about five days of having the most violently energetic rebound I've probably ever had, and being like "well this is alarming!" this is apparently not the expected response

also while feeling that I was like "this has happened to me before, it just usually doesn't last this long and it's been a while," and I have had the question float around in my brain before but usually ended up with my brain screeching something incoherent about appropriation at me

the fact that, years ago, somebody put me on a mood stabilizer because I was complaining about mood volatility and instability and it made a huge difference. I happen to know it is, in my cocktail of psych meds, a very load-bearing one based on the accidental scientific experiments I've done running out of different ones at different times

my psychiatrist, the first one I actually like in about a decade and who actually explains things to me, looking at these two things and basically going "well ultimately we're treating the symptoms and it's not super important what diagnosable issue you technically "have" but"

anyway ultimately it's not like it necessarily matters, I'm still mentally unwell in the exact same way I always have been, but it does make me kind of go. maybe the person who prescribed me the mood stabilizer to begin with might have said something, or somebody else might have said something, such that when I was trying to fix my medication to work better someone could go (like this lady did) "perhaps this suggests we should be trying a different angle of treatment and not just switching SSRIs again"

[anotherpapercut]

Genuine question re: your last post about wearing a blondie t-shirt and coke in your nose. How can you do cocaine and not be addicted? I thought it was super addictive? Also doesn't weed and coke cancel each other out? You don't have to answer if you don't want to!

hey bud! no worries I am always happy to answer questions! so the short answer to both of these is pretty much no. but I'm also gonna give you the long answers if ur interested!

coke of course CAN be addictive, I personally am friends with a couple people who were addicted to coke at one point, but it's actually far less addictive than many other drugs prescription or not and it's of course dependant on the person. for instance, many people may find prescription anxiety medications like Xanax to be more addictive, and addiction to drugs in that class (benzodiazapine) are actually really dangerous, but many people are able to use these safely as well. it's also a pretty safe drug to take, provided it's pure, you are taking proper doses and you're not doing it all the time. I personally have only had it a few times because I barely feel anything with it due to chronic fatigue and stuff lol. and I know lots of other people who've tried it at clubs or parties and never really thought about it again!

basically, if like it's something you're interested in trying, be cautious as with any drug prescription or not. make sure it's from a reputable source, test it (for impurities) if you're not 100% sure it's been tested by someone you trust, research the proper doses and interactions with any other drugs (again prescription or not) that you are taking, and do it with a person you trust in a familiar environment. if you're prone to addictions then it might be something you want to skip, but again it's actually not quite as addictive as a lot of other drugs so if you're being safe with it it's a lot easier to step back from (this is based on experience my friends have had, I personally have never experienced any type of craving or addictive feeling with cocaine!)

second question: I have actually never heard this before lol! I'm guessing this is based on the fact that cocaine, like other amphetamines, is an "upper" while weed is a "downer". there aren't very many drugs that straight up negate each other (altho there are some! SSRIs like Zoloft will make MDMA and LSD pretty much entirely ineffective!) like that, it's more just that they change each other. so first of all the coke residue is actually from last night lol so it's not still affecting me, but when I did take it, it made me feel more awake and alert like caffeine would. while weed has a relaxing and sometimes sedating effect, the coke balanced that part out, and amplified the more stereotypical effects like laughing and talking (weed makes me talk A LOT lol) because of the added energy. generally mixing drugs with opposite effects will work like this. mixing weed and alcohol for instance is a really popular combination (often referred to as a "crossfade") because of how the weed will counteract the nausea and often like jitteriness and stuff associated with alcohol

I know this was a long as hell answer but I hope this helped to clear up your questions! feel free to ask me any other drug related questions, I'm always happy to research anything I don't already know :)

edit: was doing some research bc this question interested me and came across this like. suppressed 1995 study from the WHO kdbdksndn???????? do with this article what you will I suppose

[astralmight]

Just some aroace griping of mine under the cut bc it bothers me sometimes (nsf-w mentions under the cut, so)

Being aroace while also being the horniest person I know is such a weird feeling. Really puts the "spectrum" part into perspective as a fictosexual and aegosexual who only sorely desires fictional characters (mostly monsters yummm) but then I'm part of the weird middle ground of "not horny enough IRL to be in normal NSFW spaces without feeling weird about it, not sex repulsed enough for the rest of the crowd". Even worse because I often draw a lot of fetish stuff instead of just basic sex things.

Sometimes I joke that I wish I wasn't as horny and that I need to be spayed and shit, but being unable to drive myself into a lust whipped frenzy over fictional characters would be nice sometimes so I don't confuse the less understanding of it! But then I remember how SSRIs and SNRIs made me feel and that was also miserable. I'd rather feel that desire than that nothingness again. The desire is rather empowering for myself.

I'm perfectly comfortable being horny just for fictional things and I don't plan on changing that after a lot of introspection and observation of my feelings towards intimacy with real people (real people in person disgust me and I want to shrivel and die from any form of physical touch from them). Just wish people would really understand the spectrum part of the aroace spectrum instead of trying to put those like me in the other boxes that aren't suitable. I can be ace, experience desire, and not want to seek real touch for that desire. Easy. Ugh.

[traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors]

no tws i think

looking for advice and comfort.

im struggling right now and its hurting my loved ones. theyve become almost numb to my struggles and its hard for them to keep repeating the same comfort theyve given me when it doesnt seem to help. what they dont understand is that it DOES help, at the time. i guess i just need it more frequently? but i understand that its draining to have such a high needs person to comfort all the time and i dont know what to do about that. i feel guilty. i feel sad that im so draining to be around.

my loved ones want me to get better and ive tried to, ive said ill get better before but i just went right back to where i was. im so tired and its so hard. i need to get better for them but im only seventeen and my meds dont seem to be working. theyre frustrated that nothing they do seems to help. i dont know what to do because i keep promising them that ill get better but then i feel bad again and all i want to do is get worse. i dont know how to get out of this pit that ive dug myself into.

Hey serenadotcom,

I'm so sorry to hear you're struggling.

I'm wondering if your parents would be understanding if you asked them to start therapy. If you don't already have a therapist, I think they could help you with what you're dealing with in a more long-term way, and they will also be a better, more experienced support.

If your meds aren't working, it's a good idea to notify your psychiatrist so they can put you on a more effective treatment plan. Please know you're not alone, I've been on over like 7 different SSRIs since 2016 (I'm assuming it's some kind of psychiatric medication you're referring to). It's just about finding your match. That being said, meds aren't a cure-all, and therapy or self-work should be happening in tandem.

I was in a situation very similar to yours several years ago, and it was definitely rough, but it may be relieving to know that you can get out of this tough spot too. You are valid.

I hope I could help. Please let us know if you need anything.

-Bun

[thepancakewitch]

man I've had this nasty ass virus for the past few days and it's been irritating me not to work

But it's also given me time to catch up with friends and speak candidly so I'm happy for that

I'm just mad that I've literally lost a partner over choosing a unit over him, like, ok bye. Al⁸so I'm sorry but fwb after 2 years ====== obviously something more than fwb but ur too chicken shit to put a label on it. I can't even be cute or laugh it off, it just irritates me to no end. I sincerely loved you but obviously it's better put elsewhere. 😒 Just... grieving I guess. I think I'll need to nail him into the ground. Like HELLO? I met your parents asshole!!!!! Like idk excuse me for being more invested than you ever were fuck you. God I'm so sick of men not caring about my emotional investment, I feel like I've thrown like 50 of them in the river of Styx and hope they suffer.

Anyways on the upside, may have two new better potential playmates so that's exciting :3 chu chu!!! 😙❤💕❤

I'm very happy though that I'm where I'm at today. I still have a few things on my todo list before my next big event, they are:

*IUD replacement

*ween off SSRIs, move into anti anxiety only

*gym

*single blue for next 6 months omfg 💀

*redye hair, I want pink or red again lol lol

*art.... what am I gonna do with it

[goo-stew-4-you]

Sugar Pill

My spell of wretched spirit in Europe was followed by a long, empty-hearted and tear-ladden week in my Worcester apartment, whihc was followed by the death of my grandfather, and a week being selfishly cared for by a mother mourning her father, I began medication once again. I had gotten off of medication less than a year prior. I had started it a year and a half before then. I cycled through four different prescriptions, seeking something that would make me feel the best I possibly could. Little did I realize at the time, what I didn't need was the nausea, anxiety, and fatigue that came with new medication, but simply an increased dose of one of them, any of them.

My longest affair was with Lexapro, a classic SSRI that both my mother and sibling have been on for longer than I've been of legal age. I loved Lexapro, it was like a tropical Eden in the middle of rocky water. Some of my best adult memories are when I was on Lexapro. Reading Trainspotting quietly, contently, in my sun-filled dorm room. A long weekend of laughing and honesty and genuineness with Brynne and Nina, back when Nina still talked to and loved Brynne. Before Nina lost her soulmate, as she would go on to tell me. That weekend we spent in Maine remains the Hallmark of my friendship with them. We still all had our quirks, sure, but it was before we could be annoyed by them, back when they were sweet and cute and interesting. I got my job at the Co-op while on Lexapro, the quaint, overpriced organic food store too far from my house with too small an hourly wage for it to make sense to work there, other than the fact that it brought me great joy. I lived for the days when I would work. I would drive the 20 minutes in my beater car (which was sent to the junkyard a week ago, I fear) to go talk with old hippies and homeless men and housewives and himbos. My boss was a tattooed-gaged-mohawk-rocking former skater from the area, whose voice matched nothing about his appearance. My coworkers were hip and young, all a different flavor of cool. My 4-hour shifts would consist of standing at the register in a cute but unseasonal outfit (the open-air coolers made the store 59 degrees in the middle of a heat wave), devouring books, and talking about recipes and organic food and local events and gossip with everyone. I felt comfortable being myself there, something that no job had given me before then. I still hold that it will be the best job that I've ever had. I also spent the summer with Lucian, for the second year. He played a smaller role in my life that summer, something I am now grateful for. A small part of me wishes that we had been more open, more vulnerable, to be able to share more of ourselves beyond our bodies. Delve into each other's minds. It's probably better that we didn't for the sake of comradery in the years forward. He's the reason I smoke cigarettes when I'm drunk.

Zoloft and Prozac, in that order, were nothing of note. I was dating James while taking these, and I've exhausted enough James stories for a lifetime. I'm sick of James. I realized that every time that I interact with him, without fail, I feel horrible about myself for at least a day and a half. For once in my life, I feel really good about myself. I am in Montana, I am doing important and sophisticated research, I feel beautiful, strong, talented, social. In the midst of this feeling, I decide it's a good idea to call him, and all those thoughts come crumbling down. I don't know what it is about him - he has a way of dismantling my confidence without even trying. I'd like to think he gets off on it - it's an ego boost for him to put down a smart, pretty, cool woman. During our entire 10-month relationship, he never made me feel as smart or pretty or cool as I am. That's maybe what upsets me most. His love was stronger than any antidepressant. I needed it to feel good about myself. It's sad to think about how much I hated myself, how strongly I needed his validation. How hard I tried to be like him so that he would validate me. Zoloft and Prozac with just background noise to all these feelings.

My stint of unmedicated living started on June 1st, 2023. In part inspired by the nagging of my friends and boyfriend in the back of my head, I figured, I'm happy enough, surely I'll be able to maintain this level of contentment. I, in fact, could not. On top of my unrealized social anxiety in an apartment with 6 people I did not know, my relationship took a turn for the worse. Being long distance made it hard for me to want to keep in touch, maybe a signal that I really only loved the affection that he gave me (and also his apparent coolness). This wasn't fair to him, I have admitted it to him. But he didn't make it easy on me. We would call and I would talk about my day and ask about his, only to get single-sentence responses, then silence. It felt like a waste of time! I told him this, that I would love for him to elaborate or ask me question, instead of me doing all the heavy lifting, and it only made him mad. We fought a lot, about stupid things, about big things. About things he didn't understand, like ambition or goals. A lot of it came to a head on July Fourth weekend. I don't remember a lot of specifics from this weekend, but I do remember being miserable. Anytime I teeter between decisions, anytime I'm flustered by someone talking to me when they don't know I don't want to be talked to, everytime I feel like my skin is too tight or the sun is too hot or the clouds are too cloudy, I realize it's because I didn't take my medication, and this is exactly how I felt that long weekend. He was honestly fine that weekend other than his complete ignoring behavior towards my friends. He drove 5 hours to see me in Potsdam. I was uncomfortable when he was in my bed, I was mad when he got out of my bed, I wanted him to be near me but also get as far away from me as possible. I cried on the streets of Burlington, VT, denying that I wanted to break up with him, that I was just unhappy. I had realized what was wrong with me - I was not happy. The rest of the summer, aside from my turbulent relationship, was sweet and satisfying. I cried a lot. But I also made a lot of friends, did goofy things, enjoyed time alone, did SO. MUCH. HIKING.

I realized when I returned home from my internship I should have a safety net. I was willing to give one more medication a chance. Wellbutrin had a reputation in my mind, somewhat planted by my therapist. It was the hot girl drug; the one that makes you lose weight without making you lose your sex drive. I had friends taking it, and I wanted to be with the in-crowd of antidepressants. My doctor prescribed it to me, no questions asked, and I started taking it. It was one of the worst experiences of my life. Never before in my life had I been so close to killing myself than when I was on Wellbutrin. I thought, "I'm a trooper, I'll stick it out, see if it gets better," but it all became too much. Around 2PM every day, I would feel absolutely horrible about myself, my future, everything. The day before classes started, I was debating going to a party or not. I wanted James to stay with me, but he couldn't understand. I told him that I was afraid I was going to hurt myself if I was alone that night. He said let's go to the party, you'll feel better. I did feel better, I think, after 5 tequila shots. The party was at the house of the girl that he lied about giving a tattoo to. Long story short, I stopped Wellbutrin soon after.

Without exhausting my time in Italy (what I remember of it), I decided to get back on medication. lexapro, 10mg prescription, 15mg dosage (prescribed by me). I feel really great. I'm doing the things I love, I can stay organized and focused, I don't hyperfixate on my flaws or my relationships in ways that just tore me down. I am content, and I can thank medication for that. I'm trying to accept that there's no shame in needing this form of chemical support, that it's genetic, that every woman in my family has severe depression and anxiety. Do I wish I could be this way without pills and potions? Of course. But until I can alter my brain chemistry naturally, I'm going to stick with the pharmaceutical approach.