#i either need to get a psych or have no more disorders so this situation stops sucking and feeling scary sometimes

[thedevotionaltour]

starting to hit that i have no psych and my medication feels constantly on the edge of becoming highly precarious bc we have switched insurance and my previous doctor is like no longer my doctor to prescribe it and idk how long the therapy center i went to will continue to let the psych there prescribe me stuff and if they still can with insurance changes. guys i hate it just a little

[sysmedsaresexist]

Psych Critical

This post is highly related to this post, and I hope you'll read both. This was written second.

I've sent a couple asks to anti psych blogs talking about my own situation.

My goal isn't to change their minds, but to see what options they think are available to my family. Not every attempt at communication is an attack on a stance. I have real questions.

If there are other options, I'd love to hear them. I want these options to exist. I want more than what my family is going to get.

However, no one has responded to my asks. Maybe they think it's bait and I'm trying to catch them in a trick, maybe they don't know the answer, maybe they don't care (if you're one of those blogs, you've forfeited an opinion on my life).

So I'm going to post, under my own name, and ask again.

This isn't bait. This is my life, my every day normal. This is my father's life, every single day.

Psych Critical is a stance that I don't have a choice in. The psych system is only one thing that my family will turn to for help, and if we don't approach it first, it'll approach us on less kind circumstances. And that's genuinely what we're looking for.

Help.

And I think blanket generalizations like the above are about as useful as trash. I shouldn't have to hate myself and my family for needing help and seeking it out.

My father has something called NF (Neurofibromatosis). You might know this as "elephant man disease," though these are distinct disorders that are different from each other. It's the easiest way to describe it, though. He has tumors all over his body, inside and out, in his case. Visible lumps all over his body.

Unfortunately, these tumors are also on his brain. This causes him to have seizures, strokes, hallucinate, and have bouts of violence towards anyone and everyone. Specifically concerning is the voice of God telling him to punish his (now adult) children, and threatening to harm people based on the colour of their skin and religion. These hallucinations likely stem from the fact that he was raised as an orphan in the church (yes, it's exactly what you think).

There was a time when he could have gotten treatment, but we're past that. Initially, he refused. He was scared, I'm sure he didn't think it would end up like this. Now, he's unable to consent to treatment, and it's so progressed that surgery isn't an option. Chemo never was. To make matters worse, he's an alcoholic, to the point that not drinking will cause seizures and will likely result in death. Not to mention the damage to his liver that's slowly killing him. It's not functioning well these days.

There is no POA or will, and he's not able to consent to signing either. He will not go to any doctors at this point. You can't even have a conversation about this with him. Every plan he's set up on, retirement, pension, disability-- he calls them constantly to fuck around with it, cancel it, take his children's names off it, tell them he doesn't need it. They've stopped talking to him and will only discuss with my mother, despite there being no POA in place.

He is only going to get worse. He is going to die, and he doesn't understand.

My father is already dead. The man that raised me is gone, the man that cared isn't in that head anymore. It's a cruel soul using his body like a puppet until it finally gives out.

At this point... my siblings, mother, and I have had to cut him out of our lives. He's mean. He's so goddamn mean and cruel. His words cut harder than his fists, only because there's nothing left to him. He's skin and bones.

I don't know how much longer my cousin can let him stay there. Then what?

At some point, he will need to be forcibly committed and treated, if only to make him comfortable during his final... years? Months? Days? Because of the unique circumstances, there's likely not a drug that can help curb any of the symptoms. Drugs might be able to get him off the alcohol, but he's not going to like that at all, and that's not what's causing the hallucinations. His memory only gets worse by the day. Simple daily things like using the stove are becoming more of a danger, because he keeps walking away and forgetting.

I have about as much choice in this as he does, and the sooner he's committed, the better for everyone, including him. I mean, he can continue to stay out, and pass out on the streets trying to get home from the bar after getting kicked out for starting fights or getting angry when he's cut off. I don't know if or when he's going to forget the way home, and even if I try not to care... I'm scared.

I fear the day he's picked up by the police. I want him in the legal system even less than the psych system, and I think he'll fight any police that try to approach him. This is a man that, I promise you, would rather be homeless than denied alcohol.

This is not my biological father. He came into my life when I was only 1 year old. My biological father was, surprise surprise, also an alcoholic. He was in a drunk driving accident before I was born that killed other people. He was the driver.

My step dad, the only dad I've ever known, scares me sometimes.

I don't want to be the child of two murderers.

So I ask again, what do you suggest? How is this ableist? Your focus is psychotic people, but that's not the only people in these facilities. That's not the only disease that they treat. I read a couple posts from a linked resource (it's tumblr posts, let's not lie), and one of them mentioned something akin to outpatient treatment. @trans-axolotl because I'm using your post. I actually appreciate the "I don't know" of your answer.

It's a lot better than, "you're ableist for even thinking about this."

Friendos, I don't have a choice but to think about this.

This seemed silly to me, though, because psych wards already act like that. Many of the patients leave during the day to work, shop and visit family, and return at night. Rinse and repeat for them, every day. There's a surprising amount of individualized treatment, freedoms, and steps for each patient.

But not everyone can adhere to that. If my dad got out during the day, he would be drinking, and this would exacerbate the symptoms. He's a dick when he's drunk on the best of days. It's why my mother divorced him originally, before the hallucinations started.

A dry house wouldn't work, either. The places this man has hidden alcohol... he's like a squirrel, it's just everywhere, and he comes across them like,

Inside the WALLS, my guys. Hidden in the basement, the wall goes up to uncovered beams and there's a gap, and he hides them down behind those walls.

Do you know how many spiders are in there? He can fucking drink them, he wins that battle. Touché, dad.

When they tear the house down in the far future, I'm willing to bet they'll find a full liquor store down there. And again, the first time someone says, "you can't bring that in here," he'll turn around and say, "then I'm not going in there, diddles," because his fucking language part of the brain is broken and no matter how many times you explain that "diddle" is a CSA word that you can't just use randomly like that, he forgets.

When I first got married, I had him over to my apartment to spend a few nights. The amount of alcohol that got into my house... I don't even think he brought boxers, just alcohol, and it ended in a fight, and I made him leave. After that, he refused to come visit me. He's never been to my sibling's homes. It was the final straw for me, the things he said to my husband are unforgivable. I keep watch from afar now, talking to my cousin about him.

I said a few paragraphs up that the man that cared is gone. Sometimes, I look back, and I'm reminded of all the doubts growing up that he ever really cared. But I still care, and loving him is painful. The fear of what he's going to do next is even worse.

I want to finish this off with one of my... I don't want to say favorite, but this documentary was one that helped me, a fair bit, when it came out. I'd genuinely like the opinions of anti psych people on this documentary, and the true extent of violence and self harm that some patients display. Heavy trigger warning for severe self harm and violence toward others. Obviously.

For some of these patients, do you see another option for treatment? If not psych wards, what do you suggest happens to some of the patients in the video? What role did the staff actually play in some of the events portrayed?

As a general reminder, this isn't to change minds but open dialogue.

"Psych crits are ableist," is a pretty harsh statement considering the number of people in similar positions to myself. I feel like there's a huge disregard and ignorance for the violence that real people are experiencing.

Again, I'm psych critical, I don't accept the system as it is now, I think there's many improvements to be made. I think there is a need, in a very not small number of cases, for this type of system. I understand and appreciate the intersection of race, poverty and mental health that leads to anti psych sentiments, and I agree. There is a large number of people in psych wards that shouldn't be. This needs to be addressed.

But how do you reconcile both? I can't figure it out. I don't know.

[bomberqueen17]

quick turnaround

The first chicken processing day is this coming tuesday. so we got back into town around 7pm last night, and I immediately put a load of laundry in.

This is mostly me wittering about chores and medical stuff, so, cut for boring, LOL.

it's cold and rainy here so I hung last night's laundry up on drying racks in the guest room, so mostly it is dry this morning-- delicates, so they didn't need to dry in the sun really-- and now this morning i've put in a second load and it's already on drying racks and some is on the line, it's not raining but it's cloudy so it'll dry slow, but like, trousers and t-shirts do better on the line than on racks. Yes I do own a dryer-- a gas dryer actually-- but it beats the fuck out of my clothes and I don't like to use it if I can in any way avoid it. (Mostly I use it to tumble towels and dress shirts for fifteen minutes, and then I hang them out once they're steaming and hot, and they dry without wrinkles that way. Yes I'm on the OCD spectrum, yes it mostly manifests about laundry. Hilariously, my farm BIL is also on the OCD spectrum, farther along it toward where it's actually a problem [mine is SO mild I don't claim it as a disorder at all, i just have things i Care About for Reasons], and has done tons of work on himself and tries to mask it, but once I understood that about him I understood that most of our lil workplace quarrels were our compulsions clashing, so I started making more concerted efforts to decide when to bow to his compulsions and when to advocate for mine, which in many cases are informed by superior knowledge as I've worked in food service more than him. I bow to him more on cleaning now because he does have prior janitorial experience. Unless I can prove he's wrong, LOL.)

I went off Ritalin mostly while on vacation-- I took it the morning I went fabric shopping because I thought it might help me actually make decisions, and that went well so maybe it worked. But that means I have extra pills, so I'm going to try to today take a morning and midday dose, while I have So Much To Do to prepare for the coming couple of weeks, and see if that plus the structure of this massive to-do list help me get anywhere. I just feel like if I can have this data before my next $300 3-minute psych consult I'll make more progress. Ritalin is better than Adderall (less brutal comedown, less getting "stuck")-- I *think*, but it's hard to tell. Vyvanse was also very hard to evaluate, is the problem, because that one I never did have any spare pills so I could never try an effective dose.

I do get it, i do get not giving me high doses when I'm so unsupervised, but-- for all of the medications, the first couple of days were weird and I had trouble hydrating and I was jittery and stuff, but it went away so quickly, I would have been fine with "take half dose two days, then ramp up to effective dose and see how it works" type directions, instead of "take what we know absolutely will be too little for you for two weeks and then come back and try to guess whether it helped", which has just meant I don't really have much data to on on here.

But. I've spent almost forty years needing this kind of medication and not able to access it at all, so I'm reminding myself that this is very rapid progress really.

So I figure I'll do a double dose today, a single tomorrow while I'm driving (maybe I will take that sole dose at midday, since driving is easy and boring but then I have work I need to get done all afternoon), and then I'll try either single or double dosing for the week of farm work until I can get my next appointment, depending how many pills I have. I want to be consistent but lol. It's not in my nature and it's not in my circumstances, so it can be a goal.

I also should write down what I realized about my sciatic nerve. I was joking that my knee caught a haunting in New Orleans somehow. Because it went from being a classic sciatic nerve pain situation-- starting in hip, through back of leg, ending at back of knee-- and wound up just being this horrible pinching pain right inside my knee, like not in the joint but somehow manifesting in a dimension extending from the back of my patella into Hell somehow-- and it was keeping me awake both when trying to nap during the day and also at night when trying to sleep. So I gave up on sleeping and sat on the couch to bitch about it in the complaints channel on the Discord where I'm mostly at home (it was a witcher server and over the last two or three years has mutated into just this ragtag group of us bitching about unrelated things and occasionally dumping fanworks on each other, sometimes about unrelated media)--

but here I'm gonna let you in on a secret, which is that complaining works sometimes. What? Yes. So in order to elicit maximal sympathy from my pocket friends by describing the problem really well (they're very good pocket friends, and many of them know things so describing stuff well sometimes means they have good advice, but even if not, I take satisfaction in communicating well, so I at least feel better about having done that), I really started paying attention to the pain, and I realized that what was happening was that it was sort of slowly throbbing on a cycle. I always knew where it was, but then it would get painful enough that I felt I had to move and change position, and it would stay at that level of pain for three or four seconds, and then taper off until I only just was aware of it, and then it would repeat-- and it was on a thirteen-to-fifteen-second cycle, and this is the crucial thing, it was unaffected by movement. I had been tossing and turning because what would happen was that it hurt badly enough that I felt I had to move it, and I would move and the pain would ease, and I would try to settle into a position, and then the pain would come back, and my half-asleep exhausted self thought that it was something I was doing. So it meant I was constantly moving, which meant I could not sleep. I had finally gotten out of bed and was alternating stretching and pacing, which seemed to be helping but then it was coming back, and the pacing sure as fuck wasn't helping me sleep, and I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong, until finally I stood still and timed it, and then moved and timed it, and realized it was the same.

Realizing that it was happening regardless of movement made me able to hold still while it hurt most acutely, and then sure enough it faded away. And once I knew that moving wouldn't help, I could ride out the urge to move. And once I wasn't constantly trying to find a comfortable position, I could rest. And once I was resting, I could fall asleep. Because this is the annoying thing-- the pain wasn't that bad, even. It's not the agony it has been in the past. I could move through it, easily. It was just too much to hold still through, until I realized that was what I needed to be doing.

So anyway-- traveling home it was mostly fine, it does not like standing in lines, and mostly i sat as much as possible, which isn't good for me long-term but i know over the next couple of weeks i will be doing a shitton of walking and standing so. we'll figure out tactics then.

so along with the ritalin i will be working out my ideal regimens of ibuprofen, aleve, and weed, LOL. Routine! I can make a routine. I can hinge my routine off other people's, which is what works well for me at the farm, and i can see if i can master the art of the amphetamines and maybe get some of my shit done.

Unfortunately all I want to do this week is sew, I watched all of the tourists and locals in NOLA and looked at what they were wearing and now know exactly what I want to make.

and i don't have time to do any of it. but. if i think about it and make concrete plans, i already own much of the fabric and most of the patterns i need. so i can do this. But I'll post separately about the Fashion Lewks I want to do, LOL.

I won't see my physical therapist again until like maybe early June. I counted it out and I've been doing physical therapy for about sixteen weeks at this point. My sister graduated from her physical therapy program and is out on her own now, having hugely improved. I can tell the bad hip is much improved but not healed-- sitting on the plane yesterday someone walked by and bumped my knee and it absolutely did make the cartilage flap go "pop" so that's not healed, but it hurt a lot less than that sort of thing used to. At the last appointment I had, the PT said I should just keep doing the exercises as my circumstances allow, and if they're too easy just increase reps etc., and we'd re-evaluate when I finally saw her again, because obviously I've had all these underlying cascading problems that can only be slowly solved by getting slowly stronger, so who knows.

I don't have concrete goals for that but I would really just. Like to be not-disabled, mostly. Every person has limits, every person is going to have to sit down sometimes, every person is going to have to think hard and make choices about what they do with their bodies-- it's just part of getting into your mid-forties, really-- so I can't just set my goal as being able to do whatever whenever. But I would like to be able to walk for longer distances, I would like to be able to wait in a line without paying for it for days, I would like to just generally be in better shape. So I guess I'll try to work toward that.

idk. and sometime in july my doctor wants me to re-test my fasting blood glucose because the only thing she cares about of my health is that i'm fat and she thinks putting me on metformin will make me not-fat. you'd think she'd have had some interest in diagnosing the pain that was making me unable to exercise but that was not on her radar i guess.

anyway. that's what i'm going to do to get me to june. it's all farm time for the rest of the month and i'm going to do physical therapy and take meth. we'll see how that goes.

[aspd-culture]

silly question but, 1) how often does aggression have to manifest/be present to be clinically significant/be considered a symptom throughout ones life 2) in a brain with ASPD + DID, is it normal for alters to have varying levels of aggressiveness? i.e. some are more pacifying/fawning/fleeing types rather than instinctually aggressive. sometimes aggression is selective too especially in situations where i'd get caught or hurt. 3) is it possible for me to be aggressive if im nonverbal + physically disabled + physically weak/frail. when i punched a wall it hurt for 3 days lol. how would you suppose this could manifest/present as (if u have any idea)

1 - The aggression symptom is so misunderstood by professionals honestly. There is a reason the phrase "physically aggressive" exists - there are other types of aggression. To answer your question in relation to what I'm guessing your asking about, because of the nature of physical aggression, I would say if it's directly combined with the "low/no remorse" symptom, the "reckless disregard for wellbeing of self" symptoms (started a fight you knew you'd likely lose), or the impulsivity and/or heightened reaction to anger symptoms (started a fight either over literally nothing or something that even you believe to have been very insignificant), etc along those lines, I don't think it has to have been extensively recurrent, if recurrent at all.

Physical aggression comes with high consequences in many cases - socially, if nothing else - and that is very inconvenient and impractical. PwASPD generally value convenience enough that we will restrain from other symptoms to protect it - redirecting aggression or at least keeping it non-physical, avoiding breaking rules/laws in ways you would easily get caught for, teaching yourself cognitive empathy, etc - because after everything we've been through that caused a severe trauma disorder, most of us honestly just want a goddamn break and will do what we can manage to get by without too much more hassle.

That means that many pwASPD entirely don't react with physical aggression or eventually learn not to, especially after reaching the age where legal punishment becomes common and/or harsher. I would honestly say it's common for that particular symptom not to manifest through someone's entire life.

2 - Oh, definitely. Firstly, because sometimes alters are specifically made for the purpose of being a symptom holder for ASPD or aggression, and they will be pushed forward when that reaction comes. Also, in systems where that isn't the case, personality (and thereby personality disorders and the symptoms thereof) is still affected by life experience - that's the case for everyone, system or singlet. In systems with more amnesia, it is possible that some alters had such limited experience with situations that would cause an aggressive response that they may entirely not have that particular symptom. And even outside of that, as the psych community currently understands systems, the alters access different parts of the brain. Brain scans tend to light up differently based on which alter is out even in the exact same situation. It definitely tracks that that would extend to aggression and other ASPD symptoms. While everyone in a system has ASPD, if any of them do, that doesn't necessarily mean they will all show the same symptoms. Some may not show any outward symptoms at all and only deal with the internal ones like issues with boredom, muted emotions, low empathy, etc.

3 - I would say so. An aggressive response limited by other factors is still an aggressive response. Just *wanting* to physically harm someone outside of extenuating circumstances where there is a genuine need to for your or someone else's safety is aggressive (and I want to stress here that pwASPD are not in any way the only ones that have aggression - every person does). The instinct and subsequent action of punching the wall were both aggression (bonus points on the ASPD scale/j /lh for the "reckless disregard for safety/wellbeing" of yourself there). Yelling, throwing things (yes, even light things), and other forms of intimidation are also usually considered aggressive. Even so much as trying to imply that you would cause harm to someone as a reaction to something is usually considered aggressive, too. Many pwASPD cope with aggression by redirecting it onto things such as violent games/movies/tv/true crime/etc. If you're doing that in response to something upsetting you with the intention of basically living vicariously through the violence or being calmed specifically by the discussion or simulation of violence, you might just be redirecting aggression without being conscious of it because of your limitations. Again with the convenience point, it's very much within the realm of possibility that your desire to not spend 3 days in pain may outweigh your willingness to give in to the aggression.

Everything you've described here definitely can fit within the realm of ASPD aggression (more accurately, clinically significant aggression not necessarily just associated with ASPD in particular), in my very much non-professional opinion.

Plain text below the cut:

1 - The aggression symptom is so misunderstood by professionals honestly. There is a reason the phrase "physically aggressive" exists - there are other types of aggression. To answer your question in relation to what I'm guessing your asking about, because of the nature of physical aggression, I would say if it's directly combined with the "low/no remorse" symptom, the "reckless disregard for wellbeing of self" symptoms (started a fight you knew you'd likely lose), or the impulsivity and/or heightened reaction to anger symptoms (started a fight either over literally nothing or something that even you believe to have been very insignificant), etc along those lines, I don't think it has to have been extensively recurrent, if recurrent at all.

Physical aggression comes with high consequences in many cases - socially, if nothing else - and that is very inconvenient and impractical. PwASPD generally value convenience enough that we will restrain from other symptoms to protect it - redirecting aggression or at least keeping it non-physical, avoiding breaking rules/laws in ways you would easily get caught for, teaching yourself cognitive empathy, etc - because after everything we've been through that caused a severe trauma disorder, most of us honestly just want a goddamn break and will do what we can manage to get by without too much more hassle.

That means that many pwASPD entirely don't react with physical aggression or eventually learn not to, especially after reaching the age where legal punishment becomes common and/or harsher. I would honestly say it's common for that particular symptom not to manifest through someone's entire life.

2 - Oh, definitely. Firstly, because sometimes alters are specifically made for the purpose of being a symptom holder for ASPD or aggression, and they will be pushed forward when that reaction comes. Also, in systems where that isn't the case, personality (and thereby personality disorders and the symptoms thereof) is still affected by life experience - that's the case for everyone, system or singlet. In systems with more amnesia, it is possible that some alters had such limited experience with situations that would cause an aggressive response that they may entirely not have that particular symptom. And even outside of that, as the psych community currently understands systems, the alters access different parts of the brain. Brain scans tend to light up differently based on which alter is out even in the exact same situation. It definitely tracks that that would extend to aggression and other ASPD symptoms. While everyone in a system has ASPD, if any of them do, that doesn't necessarily mean they will all show the same symptoms. Some may not show any outward symptoms at all and only deal with the internal ones like issues with boredom, muted emotions, low empathy, etc.

3 - I would say so. An aggressive response limited by other factors is still an aggressive response. Just *wanting* to physically harm someone outside of extenuating circumstances where there is a genuine need to for your or someone else's safety is aggressive (and I want to stress here that pwASPD are not in any way the only ones that have aggression - every person does). The instinct and subsequent action of punching the wall were both aggression (bonus points on the ASPD scale/j /lh for the "reckless disregard for safety/wellbeing" of yourself there). Yelling, throwing things (yes, even light things), and other forms of intimidation are also usually considered aggressive. Even so much as trying to imply that you would cause harm to someone as a reaction to something is usually considered aggressive, too. Many pwASPD cope with aggression by redirecting it onto things such as violent games/movies/tv/true crime/etc. If you're doing that in response to something upsetting you with the intention of basically living vicariously through the violence or being calmed specifically by the discussion or simulation of violence, you might just be redirecting aggression without being conscious of it because of your limitations. Again with the convenience point, it's very much within the realm of possibility that your desire to not spend 3 days in pain may outweigh your willingness to give in to the aggression.

Everything you've described here definitely can fit within the realm of ASPD aggression (more accurately, clinically significant aggression not necessarily just associated with ASPD in particular), in my very much non-professional opinion.

[monzterzack]

i wanted to add more to that previous post, but a lot of people nowadays dont get what being autistic is like

its like failing every single social interaction, so you learn to copy successful ones from tv or the internet

its having a fucked up understanding of social rules, fucked up in the sense that you don’t seem to understand them until you play them through in your mind over and over again and it finally sets why they make sense

like, dont get me wrong, maybe no one can relate to what im describing, maybe im the only one that relates; but i have to replay scenarios over and over inside my head and through characters and situations to be able to rationalize them outside of “it gives you a higher score in being a good person”

its also a barrier in linguistics, i make up so many words that only make sense to me, i combine words all the time, i used to fail to communicate what i meant, and i got in trouble or upsetted people all around because what i want to convey and what my mouth says are two different things

its also a huge barrier in empathy, i either feel every single emotions or im unnable to relate at all, which sometimes makes me seem like a sociopath

its having insane insomnia fits, making me unnable to sleep, having to work through most days with half my tank in energy

its having an eating disorder because eating makes me feel nice, and since i cant properly regulate my emotions by nature, i end up overeating and making myself sick

its being isolated from most of the world, because you feel like no one gets you, and that you are so fundamentally weird that no one will ever get you

its so much more than just having strong interest!! its so much more complicated!!!

but yeah, i think social media has made it into just a flanderized version of what the experience truly is that most teens cannot differentiate it

and i get the why, society nowadays punishes you brutally for being weird, UNLESS you have a “get out of jail” card

so i do understand why people fixate so much in being diagnosed, because sometimes you might think that having a reason for your weird abnormal behavior will be enough to just indulge in it, without any guilt

let me tell you, it isn’t like that

i didnt asked to be diagnosed, i got refered by my psych after multiple sessions and my meds not working as intended

having the answer as to why im the way i am didn’t fix anything, because at the end of the day you have to find a way to fit inside society or endure eternal loneliness, you cannot force others to let you into their lives just cause you have a disorder

you will always need to be a social person if you want people to socialize with you

sometimes being weird is nice and you should indulge in it as long as you dont hurt anyone else or yourself!! you dont need an excuse, you just need to be strong enough to be weird for the sake of being weird!

im not saying to not get a diagnosis, you should get one if you feel the ACOMODATIONS will benefit you more than the drawbacks of having a diagnosis

i just think we should allow people to not be shamed for just being weird, because then obviously they will hang to anything that might be a useful way to defend themselves from cruelty, be it a diagnosis or something else

anyway, those were just my two cents

[thescreamcorner]

i disagree with a lot of your views on mental health just given my own research and knowledge of mental illness and the dsm-5.

i think the inherent issue with it is the categorization. organizing things by how they present behaviorally feels very unscientific. we need to do a lot more research to lean into like a sort of biological taxonomy. one big example is that schizophrenia and bipolar disorders have a LOT of overlap in brain areas, and while they are not identical areas, treating bipolar as something closer to anxiety and depression seems like a poor way to treat it, especially if you're looking from biological and medical perspectives.

i'm not as familiar on ptsd and personality disorders, but there's a lot of overlap there, and considering my own experience "developing a cluster b personality disorder" from trauma (i say this in quotations because i do not actually like the diagnostic system and would rather remain undiagnosed), i wouldn't be surprised if there was neural overlap in like, activity, connectivity. There's probably other stuff too we haven't really looked into. I feel like there's so much more we can do to look into the neurology of mental illness than we're doing as is. Focusing on symptoms too much, and even neurology wise plasticity can be a problem. Did you know bullying can change the way your brain works?! (Reductive way of saying it, but there's a bit of research on bullying +plasticity, also i'm off track.)

i also feel as though the clinical/general applied psych community could do a lot more pulling from basic research. we only get the moolah if we work through their lens (i'm a cognitive neuroscientist), so like. i wish therapists and psychiatrists would look a little more into our readings sometimes...

i've been doing a lot more reading on dimensional models, and i kind of like what it's putting down. part of me worries that having neurological profiles of mental illnesses might end up sort of labelling neurotypical people in the same sort of essentialist way a lot of diagnostic labels do with mentally ill people (reason i would like to remain undiagnosed). But I think the idea of quote unquote "neurotypicals" with tendencies (something discussed both in literature and in clinical settings where mental illness is defined as symptoms + distress) and similar brain patterns to those with adhd, autism, ocd, depression, psychosis etc sort of forming community with those who have those disorders proper. i think we could learn a lot from one another! coping mechanisms, how to deal with big stressors, learning what sets us off in situations with better coordination and less yappy narcs than group therapy. perhaps it's idealist, but i'm a bit of a dreamer.

i hope you read this and consider my point of view, even if it did meander a bit XD

It took me awhile to be able to sit and take this in, and even still I'm having a hard time comprehending chunks of it so if my response ends up misinterpreting anything feel free to send another anon to clarify.

I do agree that we're still not at a perfect stage of "all of these things are 100% properly understood", and by no means do I feel psychiatry has managed to hit a perfect stride when it comes to diagnostics either. Things can and do still get misdiagnosed for various reasons, and there's definitely disorders that get seen as "similar" because of behavior that brain-structure wise may be worlds apart.

I also agree that in concept, having spaces that allow currently undiagnosed/traits of/self-suspected people, or those who just have a few similar symptoms that find themselves relating to, is certainly not a horrible idea. Having peer-to-peer support spaces shouldn't necessarily depend on whether or not a doctor has given you the "stamp of approval," and in some cases I've even seen well-vetted, non-specific spaces that foster this in a very positive manner.

But in the spaces dedicated for a specific disorder, the language used in them is.... not that. It isn't someone who suspects they have it asking for advice on how to see a doctor, or another saying "I relate to x symptom, what do the people here with y disorder find helpful for mitigating this?"

It's often rife with people who, whether due to comorbid disorders, malingering, or active faking, are spreading vast and wild misinformation that causes harm to both those already diagnosed (possible to adapt false behaviors and receive improper care if doctors assume misdiagnosis), and those actively seeking one (may exaggerate/lie about symptoms or use key words found online that lead a doctor to assume malingering, even during real cases).

There's so many takes that disregard the medical misinfo to fixate on validating "all" experiences, regardless of when those experiences indicate a different disorder. And if that gets called out, then you're fakeclaiming every single person there somehow. And if the space is actively pro-self dx, then they're often prone to telling people that no psychiatrist should be trusted (ESPECIALLY if they tell you your self dx is wrong) and that a diagnosis doesn't matter anyway because it's all some grand conspiracy to further oppress you.

And outside of that, even when someone has similarities, traits, or specific relatable symptoms, there's times where those of us experiencing a specific disorder want to feel a sense of community with those who have the same type of experience, and not just someone who understands "by proxy" or as an outsider.

I have plenty of people who don't have a dissociative disorder in my life who can relate to certain symptoms I have, or can understand in a sympathetic manner when I talk about my experiences and frustrations. But I don't know anyone else with DID, let alone that I know is being honest about it. I don't have a sense of community or belonging-- I feel isolated. And the internet hasn't made me feel more of a sense of community in having DID, but instead it's managed to make me feel more shut-out due to how wide-spread the horribly reductive rhetoric around it is.

I don't have this in regards to having autism or adhd. Hell, I'm even less strict about my views around posts and self-recognition of those because 1. they're often found due to social irregularities that a person experiencing them may be able to pick up on, and 2. people are much more receptive to when misinformation, infantilization and ableism in regards to them is called out.

This has turned into a bit of my own meandering but basically, a lot of my frustration at the moment is stemming from the internet's treatment of DID (and dissociation in general), and there's definitely things I've said about disorders in general that I think there are exceptions to, but it can be hard for me to sit down and think about/talk about those things while I'm wrapped up in my frustrations about this thing specifically.

[wawawawawawawawawawawawawa]

I have a problem with fics end with Izaya quits being an informant. He's famous and powerful, he can choose whom he gonna work for.

Does he has to quit everything he was to be a better person?

this is literally what the first post i ever made was about but im gonna expand on it a little~

i think "being a better person" is kind of like, a loaded statement, like... being "better" is like, by whos standards do we define better? what constitutes better? does better mean, better for the individual? or better for other people around the individual? is it balance? does "better for the individual" mean what makes the individual happier, or what makes them healthier?

by that logic, if its "better means, they're healthier, and don't hurt themselves or others," then just throw izaya in a psych ward! he's healthier, he's getting help and medicine and isn't hurting people and can't hurt himself because he's watched too closely!

obviously this is a terrible idea.

i personally think that being a better person shouldn't be the main goal. i mean- it's good if it happens! and its good to hope it happens! but it shouldn't be the main goal. like.... wanting to stumble across a stray kitten while on a walk. every Cat Person wants their moment where they get to help a lost little kitty and rescue it and hand rear it and all of that. i do too! it's good if you find a lost, scared, and alone stray kitten, who probably wouldn't have survived without you! it's good to hope to get the chance to both help a creature that needs it, and to have a personal desire fulfilled! but if you go on a walk for the sole purpose of finding a cat, you're gonna be pissed and miserable every second that you don't see one, and you might end up snatching the first cat you see and stealing someone's lost pet

ya know?

i think... first and foremost, izaya needs to figure out what makes him happy. does his current job make him happy? is he fulfilled doing it? is it genuinely entertaining, fun, and interesting for him to track information down, and to see peoples' reactions to said info? if yes... he should keep it! durarara is a story about fucked up people doing fucked up things- if you think izaya's job is immoral, everyone better have a different career by the end.

inversely, is he unhappy doing it? is his constant exposure to people who have loved ones, families, stable relationships, hurting him? is he getting an unhealthy sort of enjoyment in seeing peoples' messed up relationships, to cope with his own shitty relationships? or did he simply just find something he'd rather be doing? if so, then... hit da bricks!

and ideally, the fic is about izaya's growth as a person, and him slowly becoming happier- that's what they're usually like, from what i've seen. he'll slowly become a better person, simply by lieu of just, things happening. he's received genuine care and affection, so he has a reason to improve- i kind of talked about this in this post i made while high; aspd is very challenging to recover from, and if you don't have a support system in place, it's a lose/lose situation: either do your best to conform to society's standards and remain bored and lonely, or let your disorder's urges take over but you're at least not depressed. it's kind of hard to find the drive to recover if you feel completely alone in the world.

so if izaya is growing as a person and becoming closer to other people, he'll become happier, become less likely to do insane fuck-with-people shit, because he has no real reason to besides "it's fun-" he's not running from anything anymore. and he can slowly walk back on doing it until he replaces it with something else that's fun- whether it be more "societally acceptable" versions of fun like things to do with your partner, or if he still has a twisted idea of fun but doesn't fuck with, yk, suicidal high schoolers.

he absolutely doesn't have to completely change who he is to become better- if he did that, then he wouldn't be himself anymore! and i don't think him totally changing himself would make him better- he's perfectly capable of growing and improving as a person, while still keeping traits that are less societally acceptable, like his job or his tendency to mess with people- and as for the things that are actually hurting both himself and others (messing with suidical people, his quest to become immortal and go to valhalla (which... also counts as a suicide- just, his weird attitude towards suicide in general) and fwiw, said immortal quest is why he messed with mikado and masomi and co. in the first place, that and It's Fun- see how him having people who care about him, who help him, lead to helping others around him?

he doesn't want to become immortal and kill himself, because he has something worth living for- doesn't need to ruin peoples' lives to gain that immortality- doesn't ruin peoples' lives.

he doesn't need to mess with random people For Funsies because he has someone he cares about in his life, making recovery more possible and the idea of going through the roughness of it less miserable- doesn't need to mess with random people in order to be happy- recovers enough so that he doesn't act on the urge enough to catfish random people and mock their sucidality for The Reaction- doesn't mess with random people

him keeping his info broker job at least provides some sort of service to somebody, doesn't lead to him being miserable, and isn't completely meaningless. is it societally taboo? yeah. is that taboo deserved? yeah. could you say someone, somewhere benefits, for a reason other than "yeah it's fun and i wanted to do it?" also yeah, and isn't that what durarara is all about?

tldnr:

[asuddencold]

What is it like recovering witch avpd /genq? we have avPD (along with DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) and a whole mess of other stuff) but we're curious what its like

I'm not gonna lie, it's extremely tough.

I have a bunch of other stuff as well, so, before i could even do anything about avpd, i had to be chemically stable (get the right meds without abusing any substances (unfair)), stabilise the conditions caused by other disorders i have, find a psych i trust and can work with, and start sharing with them.

For me, what has helped the most so far is going by Actions over Thoughts when a situation triggers my avoidant tendencies. For example:

Situation: My girlfriend expresses that something i do in our relationship makes her feel bad

Thoughts:

I have made a mistake

I am an imperfect partner

I am a terrible person

Because she dislikes one thing i did means the entirety of me is rotten, my mistakes are unforgivable, and she's not blind, she will see that if she doesn't already, and she will judge me for it, reject who i am, and i would rather tear my eyes out than live through that therefore

I need to leave now, i can't ever be with her again, we should break up, this was a mistake, if i try and explain myself and why i did the thing i did wrong she will either dismiss it or hate me more for it, so i should shut the fuck up, never open my mouth again, never try to have an interpersonal relationship again, i am destined to ruin everything and should actually fucking die

Actions: Don't do ANYTHING i though about doing. It doesn't help me. And it doesn't help my partner. Instead, do the opposite. If the rot inside me thinks i should burn that bridge, it means that the healthy thing is to build it up. And so

I apologise to my partner

I explain myself and open up specifically to the point where i'm slightly out of my comfort zone. Will i tell her that the thing i did to make her feel bad is probably something i thought up in order to manage to be with people for more than a second without craving the sweet embrace of death? No. But i'll tell her that i'm not great with people, that it's hard to manage these new relationships and connections that i have and thus i make mistakes.

I try to strengthen our connection. By opening up, by hearing her side of things, by being understanding and kind, by de-escalating the situation (not that it needs much de-escalating. she's an angel who couldn't be hostile of she tried. but you know how avpd is). And, after that's passed, by doing things to soothe the both of us, like watching a movie or playing a game together, or cuddling, insted of withdrawing

And i keep moving forward. Keep trying.

What i tried to explain above is obviously an "advanced level" scenario. When i first started recovering, i wouldn't dream of having a partner or friends that i would actually be able to keep instead of running away, especially while sober. But everything is a continuous process of moving one foot in front of the other and getting up when you trip and fall. Sometimes it feels like you never do anything you want. You go against your own wishes so much that it can feel awful at the moment, but the rewards are the most amazing thing you've ever felt

Anon, i hope i hope that my answer helped you even a little, and that you manage to find peace one day and work towards recovering too. If there is anything i could help you with or if you just need someone to commiserate, you can send me a message anytime. I'd be happy to answer !

[imasimpforstevengrant]

THRICE (Chapter 4)

Summary: Steven Grant was begotten from Marc's need to deal with emotional pain. Being a fraction of the same person and the living shield of a mercenary has its toll on his already frail psyche. Did Steven actually live a happy life as Marc intended him to?

Warnings: angst and comfort, lovesickness, DID, existential crisis, violence, death, fluff, sexual themes and smut (flashback), unsafe sex, breeding kink (kinda)

WC: 10.663 (I know it's too long, I hope you don't get bored!)

Note: This is basically a retelling of the series (chapters one to four). I hope you don't get bored, I wrote it as entertaining as I could.

Note²: Some of the lines and scenes (post-Moon Knight) are taken from:

• Marc Spector: Moon Knight (#27 - #31)

Note³: sorry for any typos. As you know, English is not my native language (Chilean spanish FTW)

Chapter four: Unworthiness

Life had never been easy for Marc Spector. 

After his mother's passing, his mind digs through the rubble of his shattered sanity, desperately searching for a sliver of stability. Unable to grieve the woman who made his life a living hell, Marc spawns a new self from the shreds of his soul. One who would live a simple, happy, and peaceful life, far from the problems that gnawed at his mind. One that took all the good things in his life to build a better man than Marc Spector could ever be. 

Steven Grant was what Marc Spector wanted so badly to be. He was the innocence that he no longer had, the sweetness that had already turned sour in his heart, the tenderness which he used to see in life before having become the executioner of his brother without wanting it.

Steven is sweet, meek and honest. He is plagued by insomnia when he tries to sleep, he works in a gift shop at the National Gallery of Art. Grant dreams about being a tour guide, even though Donna - that insufferable boss who was always hurtful towards him - always insisted on shattering any illusion of becoming one. He sometimes didn't quite understand why he was ignored or looked at as a freak.

He wakes up in his flat, alone as always, shielded by big pillows, blankets all over him and a restraint around the right ankle. Having sleeping disorders - if he ever managed to have a decent sleep - made him foster a self-care routine: he unties the restraint, steps head toward the door, taking off the blue adhesive and chain lock.

He then feeds his one – finned goldfish, whom he endearingly calls “Gus”, talks to his mom, tries to compensate for the lack of sleep by an even more dulling lethargy that ends up in awkward situations in public. Steven cannot understand the reasons behind the frequent mental and physical fatigue. That week had been so strange and stressful. Almost falling asleep in a bus, arriving late at work and a pretty, smiling woman who just passed by near him.

"Hello," she greets him. 

"Hellooo," Steven answers playfully, waving his hand. 

"How's the sugar trade going?"

"I don't know what this has to do with Egypt, really… they didn't have that back then, did they? No."

She stares at him.

"They liked figs and dates, and…" but she made a clear sign that something else was on the way, rushing to the end of the chat. 

"My next tour's here but just checking. We're still on for seven tomorrow?" She asked. 

Something else than perplexed, Steven mumbles:

"Seven… tomorrow?"

"Best steak in town"? Her frisky tone suggests him to stop playing as if he had forgotten it. 

"Oh, yeah… yeah, right…" Steven is unsure of the situation. She steps out of the Giftshop, but Steven follows her through the limited space behind the desk and display.

"What?" 

"Sorry… but… are you asking me out?" Steven almost whispers, as if such a thing was forbidden.  

The mysterious woman just laughs and comments how much of a funny guy he is. Donna walks by, witnessing the scene that had Steven Grant dazzled and confused. 

"Stevie, you absolute rascal. I didn't know you had taken a crack."

"I didn't know either."

"Hang on, did she say steak? What in the world's a bloody vegan gonna eat in a steakhouse?" 

"I don't know, Donna. Salad? Bread?" 

The disgust in her eyes was more insulting than any coarse comment she had darted at him that day.

"Yeah, I can see why she went for it. Real catch you are." 

Steven stuck with the good part: at least he had a date!

-----

How many times had he been the object of ridicule in his work for his fascination with ancient Egypt? Steven always found it nice to talk, given his deep loneliness, even though the weirded out looks of people killed any intention of further chatting. Despite this passive mistreatment by people, he always strove to make the environment pleasant and bearable. After spending the week in the inventory, he bids farewell to the guard, who cannot even remember his name.

"It's Steven… with a V," he gasped, a bit exasperated, accelerating the pace to get out of the place as soon as possible. 

Steven doesn't know it, but missing that day on a Friday evening would turn out to be much more than just an unfortunate loss. Once he's back in the flat, he proceeds to do the usual: sand in the floor to see if he had been up during night, blue adhesive tape to seal the door, chain lock securing the door and finally, the ankle restraint. 

Those nightmares. Those fucking nightmares that lately had been gnawing his mind. Nightmares where he was covered in someone else's blood, where his hands broke bones, smashed skulls with gushing flesh. It always ended with a dreadful Steven jumping off the bed, preventing a further run thanks to the restraint, anchoring him to reality. The initial pain of having his face smashed to the ground relieved his fears of a severe sleepwalking episode. 

This is a common theme he talks about with a living, golden statue in the square near his flat, the only company he manages to get. 

"Honestly, it's like my body wants to get up and wander about, you know, like it has to get the 10,000 steps in," He takes a bite of the vegan burrito he holds in his hand. 

"You know? I don't even know about it until I wake up. That's why I try to stay awake at night. What do you think? Nah, you're right. I mean I guess there are stranger things that people do, but… 

"No? Well, I think it's a bit…`` Suddenly, Steven turned around as if he had remembered something very important, taking a few chocolate bars for the time spent. 

"Extra pralines for the man himself." 

Steven continued the conversation - or more like a monologue -, mentioning the girl from work. 

"Anyway, if I am gonna have a girlfriend, at some point, obviously I can't have ankle restraints on my bed, can I? That's like the definition of a red flag, isn't it?"

The man knows what Steven means. Oh, yes he does. 

"I better jog on. Nice catching up. All right, laters."

-----

He repeats the routine once home. 'Staying awake' is on the phone, while solving a Rubik's cube, engulfing himself in the messy mountain of books about Egypt over his desk. Many things can be said about Steven. 

Being uncultured is not one of them.

Not being in control was something he had come to accept, though he always wondered why such a thing happened to him. His mild mannered ways crashed so much with the adrenaline of near death experiences seen in dreams. 

Searching for answers, Steven Grant spends countless hours, and even entire nights with his gaze upon books, filled with pictures illustrating dreams in vivid colors, mostly blue. Rain and hot chocolate were good company, while drifting away in long paragraphs. It all started with a nightmare. One bloody nightmare to make the lines between reality and dreams become blurred. He suddenly wakes up in a vast green field, far away from home. 

Perplexity becomes fear as he tastes the iron flavor of blood and the pain of a dislocated jaw. Disoriented and unsettled, Steven gets up to watch the beautiful yet unknown landscape before his eyes. 

"Go back to sleep, worm." 

Steven turned around, scared. 

"You're not supposed to be here," an angry otherworldly voice suddenly rang in his ears. 

"Yep. I completely agree… where are you?"

"Surrender the body to Marc!" the voice demanded.

Marc? Who the hell was Marc?

"Sorry, what? 'The body'? Wha—?" Steven answers puzzled, much to the presence's chagrin, "'surrender the body?' What body?" 

"Oh, the idiot is in control," there was a profound disappointment in his observation. He realizes there's something in his pocket. A golden scarab, more precisely. A quick move puts the object back safe in his jacket. He sees a castle-like edification behind his back. Two men peek out for Steven to wave his hand at… just to be greeted by a gust of bullets. 

"Don't you stand there! Run!" The voice screamed to an startled Steven, who didn't think twice before running for his life. A village was nearby, barely populated. Steven seeks refuge behind the walls of the unpainted facade and later, in a curious diaspora. 

People congregate, waiting for something or someone. His doubts are resolved when a man makes his way through the crowd, who admires him with unspoken hope in their expressions. People gather around him. Steven got the impression that he was a preacher, a spiritual guide. The man, leaning on his cane, begins to speak.

"What a beautiful day. It's like we're in Heaven. Only it's not Heaven, is it?"

The group of people grew larger as the man spoke about darkness, and how it hid in the heart sometimes. 

"We are here to make the Earth as much like Heaven as possible." Steven tries to go as unnoticed as he can, getting closer to have a better look of the curious scene.

"Who'd like to go first?"

He had a bad feeling about this, but he kept silent. A man steps forward. The leader praises his bravery to submit his soul to judgment on behalf of a dormant goddess. 

'What on earth is going on here?' he asks himself. 

The stranger and the leader place their hands above the other's.

"I judge you in Ammit's name with but a fraction of her power". The cane starts to oscillate. 

Ammit? Like… the first boogeyman? Steven was anxious to know how this situation would turn out, squinting to catch a better sight. The cane stopped balancing and the leader pronounced the verdict:

"This is the face of a good man".

The crowd rejoices silently. A few clap when the first one hugs the judged one. Steven turns around just to see the same two men who previously chased him in the hills near the gathering. He had to be out of there as soon as possible, but another willing individual got his attention again. An old lady pleads with the leader to repeat the process, just with her instead.

"Call me Arthur. Come" he offers his hand generously, "will you accept your scales, regardless of the outcome?" to which the lady gladly agrees. Steven slightly crouched down, fearing the worst when Arthur pronounced the ominous verdict.

"I've been good my entire life" the lady tries to rebuff.

"I believe you. But the scales see everything. Perhaps it's something that lies ahead".

Much to his horror, the body fell with a loud thud. Her skin turned into an unpleasant, pale gray shade that betrayed her death before their eyes. An armed man steps beside Arthur to whisper something he cannot hear clearly, due to his attention being completely drawn to the two people carrying the corpse of the lady away.

He then got up, shouting words in ancient Egyptian. The crowd immediately knelt… except for Steven, who mimicked the action way too late to go unnoticed this time. 

"Oh, bollocks," he sighed.

"You…" Arthur hissed, with an accusatory tone, "I know you."

"Me?" He gasped, inaudibly, pointing at himself and seeing no other option than to step up.

"Mercenary." Arthur spits. 

"No, no. I'm not a mercenary," Steven chuckles nervously, especially when the whole crowd turns around to see him. He futilely tries to explain his job in a Gift Shop, his name, where he lives. But nothing seems to change the hostile expression in Arthur's face. 

Chaos ensues when the cult leader demands the golden scarab to be returned. 

"You will give him nothing," The voice growls with an angry threat. 

Steven tries to obey Arthur to set himself free from this confusing situation. But it only leads to the cult chasing him to seize the object.

Then he blacks out. And everything goes downhill from there. Steven doesn't know, but once he regains conscience, all of those who tried to corner him are dead.

Horrified by the sight of blood, he drives a muffin van, escaping through the solitary highway with frantic despair. Scene gets more difficult when that voice again threatens to kill them both, displeased at his incompetence.

But how could he succeed when he was nothing more than a gift-shopist? Steven was no mercenary. Then he blacked out once again. The man he had attacked with a muffin fell through the open back doors. But he tried not to panic, especially when he was surrounded by two cars with armed men after dodging a truck. 

A third black out ended up with Steven driving in reverse and just when he thought this couldn't get any crazier, the people chasing him were crashed by falling logs from the truck he had avoided earlier. How was he alive? He doesn't know. 

Then, chuckling, wakes up in his flat. Steven falls on his back over the bed, unaware of what awaits him that day.

_____

Discovering Gus wasn't Gus anymore - the fish had its two fins - was the beginning of this spiral of insanity. When going to the pet store, the clerk explains that he had gotten another goldfish. When? He doesn't remember it. 

He then sees the clock. He had a date he couldn't miss. Though he thinks he looks like a knob, Steven Grant does his best to look acceptable for his date. He rushes to the steakhouse in a dark suit, patiently waiting for her with a box of chocolates and a bouquet of red roses. Minutes pass by and she's nowhere to be seen. Soon Steven finds out that the current day is not Friday, but Sunday. Her tone is angry and resentful when Steven tries to explain himself. 

"Come on, no. I think Friday still comes after Thursday, doesn't it?"

"It doesn't change the fact that today is Sunday, which means 'lose my number'. Cheers'. She ended the call. To ascertain this, he asked the waiter. He just confirmed what he feared. 

Bloody Sunday.  

_____

Steven leaves the steakhouse, broken hearted and ashamed. The failed date would be the least of his problems when he finds a key and a flip phone hidden in an upper corner of his flat. There are dozens of missed calls from the same person.

Layla. 

The device starts ringing, startling him. Who was Layla? Why were there so many unanswered calls? He jumps off his seat and revolves to answer the call. 

"Yeah?"

"Oh, my God, you're alive!" 

"Yeah, all right" is the only thing he can reply.

"That 's it? I've been texting you and calling you for months. You couldn't give me any sign that you were okay? I thought something happened to you. Where are you? Where have you been?" The woman asks, with certain exasperation.

Who was this lady? Why did she call him 'Marc'? 

"Steven." A male voice echoes, "Steven… you need to stop."

"Who said that?" 

"You're gonna get yourself in trouble."

"Oh, no, no, no, mate… someone's having a laugh." Steven wanders over the flat, looking for the origins of that mysterious voice. He goes to the bathroom and sees his reflection in the small, circular mirror hung on the wall. 

"Bloody hell…" he mutters but his reflection shakes his head. Terrified, Steven turns on the lights.

Nothing. 

"Steven. Stop. Looking" the same voice hisses. The electricity starts buzzing, a rumbling noise caused by his books falling prompts him to leave the place with phone in hand. He shelters in the elevator, pressing the buttons frantically so the sliding door can shield him from whatever threat may be after him. 

Only then, Steven sees an ominous presence at the end of the hallway. It was a beaked, mummified creature. He huddles against the mirrored wall, squirming like a prey being cornered by a predator. The flickering lights just made him more terrifying. It caws and keeps appearing, even on his way to work in the bus, for more shame. 

Steven didn't mind the weirded out glares, he just wanted to run away from that ghastly presence. His mind starts questioning his sanity but everything crumbles down to horror when he catches the sight of that man with long, grayish hair and cane. 

The same man who judged people in the name of Ammit in his dreams was just a few inches away from him.

What could possibly go worse now?

_____

The air feels heavy that night. The notion of persecution grows stronger. It's harder to focus but Steven tries to protect himself at any costs from this dangerous visitor.

"I'd assumed Steven Grant was an alias. Imagine my surprise to find you here." 

He steps back, telling the guard that he has been following him. But he rolls his sleeve, flaunting a tattoo of a scale.

"Praise Ammit." The guard says. 

Steven freezes. He then turns to face Arthur.

"Mate, I don't have your bloody beetle. I swear. I…" 

Arthur makes him know that the golden scarab doesn't belong to him, but to Ammit. The force that punishes the evildoers to protect the innocent, shaped by the Egyptians as a creature that merges the head of a crocodile, forequarters of a lion and hindquarters of a hippopotamus. These three animals are the ones Egyptians regarded as the largest "man eating" creatures. A beautiful way to combine fierceness and supernatural aspects, Steven thought. But even in beauty lies the horror. He tries to escape but many visitors besiege the entrance. 

How many people were part of this crazy cult?

He was convinced he was dead, until he repeated the process of judgment. Steven remembers that woman in the Alps, dead at Harrow's hands. The scales tattooed on his right arm start moving… but they don't offer a clear verdict.

"There's chaos in you" Harrow sentenced. The leader allows him to escape, but just to keep the cat and mouse game, since his uncertainty was a thrilling characteristic.

_____

The waning moon hardly enlightens the night. Almost like a prelude to the horror Steven is about to witness. Once he finishes registering the small gifts and souvenirs, he grabs his bag to lead home when he hears a distant squealing. He mistakes it for a dog, trying to lure the animal out of its hiding place. 

"Where are you, little bugger?" 

Steven walks by a mirror that reflects not one but two images of himself that just stare at him, perplexed - maybe - for his bravery to face this alone. A shadow behind a statue goes unnoticed for the mild mannered man, who keeps his unfruitful search.  

With the lights off, Steven finally sees what lurks within the shadows: a growling, menacing jackal. He hides behind a display containing a golden statue. The loudspeaker rings with a jolly marimba tune before Arthur speaks a warning like an omnipotent being:

"Steven Grant from the gift shop, give me the scarab and you won't be torn apart." 

It 's useless. Steven just throws his bag to earn time in his escape but the beast is faster: it hounds him towards the restroom, where there was no escape. 

He sees the mirror again, beholding the man whose voice he recognised from earlier:

"Steven… I can save us. But I can't have you fighting me this time." 

It was himself, with a more determined expression in his face. His attempt to find another way out was thwarted by the man who insisted on being given the control. 

"No, what? Control of what? What are you talking about?" 

"That thing's about to break through the door, we're out of time!" He exclaimed, pointing at it, "hey, listen to me…"

"Damn it, no!" Steven slaps his face to daunt the nightmare away, "you're not real!" 

"This is real. I am real" but Steven refuses, "you gotta give me control, it's the only way".

"I'm gonna die… I'm gonna die…" he repeats out of his mind. 

"You're not gonna die," Marc says firmly, "let me save us."

With the monster getting closer, Steven finally allows him to take control of the body. He feels a vertiginous depersonalization that soon flourished with his form summoning a suit. 

The hellish creature made its way into the ruined restroom, only to be greeted by the ruthless fist of Spector, dragging it back to finish it when it tried to escape his grasp. 

Even if he wasn't Steven, he was glad to finally fight back.

After his first confrontation with Harrow in London, Steven is determined to find answers to his questions. Tracking down the location through the key found with the flip phone, he heads to the cellar. 

What he discovers in that place leaves him speechless. There was a stretcher, a bag of guns stuffed with wads of cash, that damn gold beetle… and an American passport with that bloody name on it.

Marc Spector.

He appears in a reflection, finally clearing things up. The revelation of Marc Spector as a servant of Khonshu only leaves him even more confused. Steven disbelieves his situation, attributing his recent instability to having eaten a steak while he was a vegan. Convinced that his mind was playing tricks on him, Steven rushes out and does the right thing: report this the authorities and load himself with pills.

But when he flees from the place, he realizes that the existence of that deity is true. It approaches him threateningly, hissing angrily:

“Give it back, you fool.” 

But all Steven does is run away, carrying the bag with him. The heaviness of it causes him to trip on the sidewalk. A vespa almost runs over him, but then the most wonderful thing happens:

A woman with a familiar voice tilts her head, looking down at him. 

"Marc?"

Amazed, Steven Grant realizes who she is.

"Layla?"

_____

Steven is deeply deprived of touches. This harsh reality hits him like a bus when Layla appears in his life, envisioning his failures to go on simple dates, to hold small talks without being seen as a freak. Her first interaction with Steven is not precisely positive, though. She's angry and frustrated at him, complaining about his British accent and an abrupt disappearance he couldn't explain, much less understand. 

Things take another turn when she doesn't oppose nor protest when Steven wraps his arms around her waist, bringing her closer to him. Steven is so thunderstruck to speak even a word at this sudden closeness. He can have a feel of her body, battling the dichotomy of guilt and enjoyment for holding a feminine figure for the first time… as he could remember. 

"Do you see the spiral you put me through?" She asks accusingly… and heartbroken. Steven squints, without Layla noticing.

"It's not okay, yeah? I'm still your wife."

Wait. Steven's mind stopped working, overriding at the last word. He tried to get his thoughts back together as fast as he could to catch a break. 

"By the way, this would be a great time for you to say something. Anything. Just in case it's not clear."

"Sorry, sorry… Did you say wife?" Nervousness and amazement got his words correctly articulated, resulting in a disbelieving stammering.

"My… are we married?" Steven voiced, completely taken aback by a revelation that just crowned an insane week. His whole world had turned upside down in just a few days. Several seconds flew by for Steven to dimension the magnitude from being a mentally ill, recluse loner, buried in books to learning that there was a woman who took the time to know him, love him and marry him. 

Steven desperately begs her to take them to their flat, so he can explain everything that has been happening lately. It manages for her fury to ease down, though her harsh looks haunt him through the reflection.

_____

Steven cannot take his eyes off her, watching every small thing she does. Who was this mysterious, lovely woman who claimed to be nothing more than his wife? 

Layla, ignorant of the stormy thoughts dwelling in his mind, stares at the goldfish. Marc's reflection appears in the diaphanous glass of the aquarium. It doesn't take long for the mercenary to berate Steven for letting her inside the flat, demanding him to get her out. 

She wanders over the place, inspecting it. She insists on calling him for that bloody name. 

"It's Steven," yet she doesn't listen to his plea. 

"Are you living here with someone else?" Layla questions him, frowning at him after seeing the restraint. 

"No, this is my mum's flat" he rushes to answer. Layla keeps checking the place, and a book gets her attention. 

"Marceline Desbordes-Valmore?" 

"Yep" Steven nods, and not caring if he embarrasses himself he starts reciting in perfect french:

"I am sad, I want my lights put out…" but something wonderful happens, relieving the tension between them: Layla joins him, reciting the rest in perfect french and unison. 

"Summers in your absence are as dark… as a room." 

"Oui, Oui" Steven says, amazed and quickly adds, "she's my favorite poet." 

"Um… no," a puzzled Layla stutters after a few silent seconds, "she's my favorite." 

Not letting speechlessness overcome his newly found interest.

"That 's mental".

She now leads her steps to the desk, noticing the amount of books. Her anger is still there, but Steven follows her despite it.

"So, you're learning French and hieroglyphics?" 

"Yeah, well… that's not that impressive, really" and then again, he needs that awkward need to explain what he has learned in those insomniac nights. She knows about the topic and Steven sees the perfect opportunity to ease down her fire with his poised politeness, "it's not like hieroglyphics are a whole language, it's more like a…"

"Like an alphabet," she finishes. Steven's expression beams with interest. He's so dumbfounded that it takes a couple of seconds to answer. 

"Yeah… and… well, you still have to know ancient Egyptian to read it."

"Sure," she nods, coming closer to see the book Steven tries to teach her.

"Like this one here."

"Funeral rites," she asserted. 

If Steven wasn't fascinated before, he's now. His impressed eyes stare at Layla, marveling at her intelligence and beauty. He cannot help but let a wide, happy smile enlighten his face. 

"Well, someone knows their unilaterals" his playful comment tries to get a smile off her, "you."

He manages to, and he continues.

"That's amazing." She chuckles, hiding her face and the smile on Steven's face fades away, "sorry, I don't mean that in a creepy way–"

"No, I'm sorry. I'm not buying this, Marc" she scoffs, exasperated, "use whatever accent you want." 

Layla leaves his side.

"Let's just get this over with" she reaches for her bag and takes out a form, "you sent these papers but you never signed them." 

"Did I? Uhh…" everything is so confusing. Layla hands him the papers.

"This is what you wanted. After everything, you told me that we needed to move on" He finally had a look at the papers with his reading glasses on. 

"Divo… divorce?" He says it, not believing it.

"Yeah, we're doing this or not?" Layla asks him. 

Steven eyes the documents to comment, flirting:

"I would never divorce you," Steven is dying to know more about her. He hears a frustrated, stressed out sight from Layla. 

"What are you doing?" 

Steven Grant takes off his glasses, cherishing her figure with his eyes. He looks utterly lovestruck, too stunned to speak. 

"Look…" Layla is appalled by his gaze, staring at her as if she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen in his life, "you seem absolutely lovely," his tender praise tries to soothe the evident pain Marc has put her through. He then turns to the small, circular mirror to face Spector and his abandonment. 

Once again, his words widen the abysmal gap between them. He tries to explain everything to Layla, despite his fear to be seen as an insane, desperate man. He doesn't expect her to believe him, since Steven himself cannot believe it. Marc's plea to let her out of his fall on deaf ears. Steven intends to show her what's in the bag, until the mercenary screams in his head to stop it.

"You're gonna get her killed! You hear me?!" 

The frustration in Layla grows even more when she sees the golden beetle. She spits at him, calling him out for his lies before the mild mannered man can form a reply.

"This whole one-man who is just what? So you can keep it for yourself?!" 

"No, I swear…" Steven tries to explain himself but her anger corners him like a wounded animal. 

"Just stop! I'm supposed to believe anything you say with this shoved in a gym bag?"

"Take it! Take it! You can have it, I don't want it!" Steven opens his hands, so Layla can trust his words, "I don't want it, I swear… have it! 

Layla keeps silent, not missing him out of her sight. 

"I am not Marc Spector. I'm Steven Grant. I work in a gift shop… well… I used to work in s gift shop and I think I'm in real danger… and I think maybe that you might be the only person that can help me!" Steven breaks down, scared.

She looks at the golden scarab, as if looking for rational explanation of that something he cannot understand wholly. 

"Please" he whispered, to which she asks him if he really doesn't remember the reason of why they have been looking for the small treasure. Steven shakes his head, completely flabbergasted at the thought of not only being a husband, but having a whole story with her. 

"Oh, God, I wish I could" he gasps, lost in her eyes. 

_____

Things get crazier after meeting his wife. That night he would know how fucked up the situation was. Starting with a kidnapping, Steven learns about Spector's dark past.

"We've only got ourselves a full-blown international fugitive" were enough to spark panic in him. He wished he was committed to an asylum so he would never harm anyone again. 

But it wasn't him. 

Then the corpses. Covered corpses of people tied and shot in the back of the head. Steven huddles against the seat, feeling like a deer before a hunter. Being handcuffed just worsened his anxiety. But the horror just begins when he realizes not only was taken to an unknown alley, but it was inhabited by more of Harrow's cultists. Then the fugitive mirrors in the glass of the window.  

"You don't need to fight me, Steven. Surrender control."

"N-no, no. I saw what you did to those people."

"It's not what you think–"

"I am never giving you control again. Ever. Do you hear me?" Steven hisses defiantly at the mirror. 

But another voice comes out of the radio. 

"I hear you loud and clear, Steven Grant from the gift shop."

Next, he is finally out of the car. It doesn't take long for Steven to learn that Ammit's avatar had orchestrated this. Harrow welcomes him, stating they needed a chance to better understand his situation. He mentions the scales, his chaos, voices in his head… everything feels so confusing.  

"It must be very difficult having all those voices inside one head." 

He introduces him to his creed, trying to persuade Steven to embrace it, defending the idea of what was, basically, mass genocide. It was dark and sinister. Harrow strikes back with a powerful argument, also mentioning his former servitude to Khonshu, who doesn't hesitate to manifest his wrath by throwing and pushing objects. 

'Cutting evil from the root', is what Ammit intends. Harrow compares her sense of justice to Khonshu's. A comparison Steven knows too well the latter will lose, surprised at Harrow's boldness to mock the deity right in front of him. He then persuades Steven to give the scarab, so Ammit could be free to make humanity face her judgment. With his firm refusal to tell, both wanting to protect Layla, Harrow speaks to Marc but Steven defends his denial by pointing out what could turn into an innocent bloodshed, refusing to give the scarab no matter how much the crowd and the leader himself tried to intimidate him. 

Much to his surprise, Layla showed up in the most unexpected moment, object in hand. She doesn't think twice to get him out of that place, though she insists he can fight back by summoning a suit. Layla doesn't hesitate to beat the hell out of the guys trying to prevent their escape. All Steven can do is stare at the man falling down, open-mouthed.

"That was awesome," he gasped, as Layla ran to grab his arm and drag him out of the place. But Harrow sends another hellish jackal to hound him. Steven feels his sanity slipping out, before Layla's insistence on calling him 'Marc', pushing him to fight, her voice echoing with Spector's own to surrender the body manages to break him.

But once the great, ebony door was opened, Layla saw nothing. Steven was panicked for something only he could see. 

The beast doesn't have any mercy on him, throwing Steven from the window. Khonshu speaks then, in a last desperate attempt to make Grant abandon his usual passiveness.

"Summon the suit!"

Being a few inches away from becoming a corpse, Steven finally screams. He lands lavishly, now donning a fancy white suit, which frustrates Marc enormously.

"Oy, Steven. What the hell are we wearing?" But he doesn't know Spector meant the ceremonial armor from Khonshu's temple… Though he thinks the suit makes him look pretty sharp. 

The jackal, of course, ruins his new appreciation for himself. Steven doesn't think twice to save Layla when it attacks her, even when his stubbornness cannot handle the danger. He lures the creature away from his wife, acting with a defying confidence that caught Layla unprepared. 

"Fly like a butterfly, sting like a bee, my name is Steven with a 'V'!" He exclaimed, stepping back so the jackal would follow him… just to end in the floor again, now with people mistaking him for a drunk man. Marc knows he's right, and his proud, witty remark just convinces Steven to give him the body to finally end this fight. 

_____

Steven doesn't like to be outside of his body. He can scarcely move. For his part, Spector is furious. The scarab was probably in Harrow's hands, closer now to doom mankind to Ammit's judgment. The panic can be felt in the air and the tension between the two just increases. 

"The one who controls the body has become stronger." 

Marc's futile words to appease his anxiety just cause uncertainty in Steven.

"The reflections help but most of the time, it takes all your willpower just to be a fly in the wall."

"You can't do this" Steven pants, horrified as he felt like a ghostly entity, "you have no right." Marc listens to his furious rant, pointing at him as the one to blame for all his misfortunes in his life. It doesn't seem to carve any guilt on him, limiting himself to hear everything he had to complain about. 

Marc reassures him with the promise of never being seen or heard again once his debt is repaid with his servitude, the one that leaves him covered in blood. 

"Everything you touch, you ruin. You hurt people, you abandoned your wife. You left her stranded!" 

This last remark was enough to light the fury on the mercenary, who turns around to clarify the matter.

"I am protecting her. You don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes, you did. I saw–"

"Khonshu has his eyes on her. He wants her as my replacement. I'm never gonna let that happen, you hear me?" Marc hissed, upset. 

"You're a liar. I don't believe you. I don't trust you. You hurt people!"

"I'm never letting him near her, just shut up!" but Steven's voice overlaps over his, rapping him out.

"I won't let you hurt anyone else ever again, I will never give you a moment of peace, I swear!" He promises, with avid vehemence. A bell tolls, almost as if wanting to go in tune with the mess in his head.

The noise becomes unbearable, sparking a violent reaction from Spector. His foot breaks the mirror where his reflection berates him, obtaining a few seconds of silence before Khonshu appears in the heights of the church nearby. A strong gust of wind serves as an ominous warning of his closeness. 

Marc feels trapped. It wasn't wise to awaken the lunar deity's wrath in such a crucial moment, especially knowing that the scarab would point at Ammit's ushabti. The final battle would be unleashed not there, but in the cradle where his crusade had started: under the scorching Egyptian sun, a half naked Marc drank a bottle of whiskey, resigned to another bloodbath while a fearful Steven just beholds from the mirror the mess he had done in the room. 

_____

Knowing how to get to the map that would lead to Ammit's ushabti, Marc goes against time. He fears he only has a few days left to avoid it. Harrow is restless and after an useless chase through the streets of Cairo. Marc doesn't remember the killing spree he carried on the top of a roof and near a cliff, away from the city. 

How much time happened? He didn't know. He was horrified by the three men who were alive and fighting just seconds ago. Marc cannot bring himself to believe when he is more disgusted by the noise of blood squelching… and the uneasy sight of blood. But the mission is the same: to find Harrow.

His last resource for knowledge comes from a kid who barely made it alive. Despite Khonshu's order to take him to the ledge to scare him away, the kid just ends up killing himself, saying a final praise for Ammit.

Khonshu decides to send a message to the gods. One that they will not ignore. In order to delay Harrow, the deity manipulates the sky, astonishing everyone with an unexpected solar eclipse. Marc knew this was a bad idea, but deep down he had to give him credit for how bold the move was. The vulture is smart. It manages to summon Marc to the council, located in the Giza pyramid. Steven feels like a kid in a candy shop as he is privileged to see it from the inside. Whenever the Ennead should gather the avatars, from all around the world, a portal presents everywhere. 

The last time Khonshu had spoken to the gods, it resulted in his banishment. The case against Harrow must be indisputable. Marc was unsettled, for he must respond for what Khonshu had done. The god doesn't even bother to explain how this would work, leaving him to his own devices. The attendance was concurred by Horus, Isis, Tefnut, Hathor and Osiris to hear Khonshu's account. 

The open contempt from Osiris just bittered his antipathy for his garishness, threatening him to a petrous imprisonment if he dared to manipulate the sky one more time. 

Marc then yells at him, shattering the silence.

"Spare me your self-righteous threats! I was banished for not abandoning humanity, unlike the rest of you".

Osiris responds with polite calmness that the abandonment came from humanity's side, letting the avatars carry on with their purposes unnoticed. It wouldn't do, since the whole Ennead needed the might of other gods.

"Return from the opulence of the Overvoid before you lose this realm!" Khonshu furiously demanded, outraged by their indifference that could unchain an apocalipsis.

Just as Marc had finished screaming Khonshu's wrathful words, a tear fell down his cheek. He never thought that being used as a messenger through his body and voice could hurt so much. 

"For the last time, Khonshu, the avatars that remain here are simply meant to observe. We decided long ago we did not wish to meddle in the affairs of man."

The council then asks him to speak about his purpose. Khonshu points out Harrow, mentioning his conspiracy to release Ammit. Arthur then enters the room, already suspecting the nature of the meeting. Khonshu explodes against his former avatar, tired of him playing innocent.

But he goes straight to the point.

"Do you not seek to release Ammit from her tomb?" Khonshu accuses him so violently that Spector's whole form shakes with its choleric roar.

"I was in the desert. But if visiting the sands were a crime, the line of sinners would be longer than the Nile" he then accuses Khonshu of searching said tomb in the times he was his avatar, mentioning jealousy, paranoia and—"

"HE'S A DECEIVER!!!" Marc howls until his vocal cords are torn, but Harrow doesn't let his former master to mortify him.

"Khonshu is unhinged and his servant unwell," to which Hathor asks to explain it.

Harrow calmly replies:

"This is a man who literally does not know his own name."

Marc began to panic. He gulped, trying to fight the feeling of helplessness and vulnerability. But he doesn't stop there: Harrow also mentions his marriage certificate as Marc Spector and employment records under the name "Steven Grant"

"Liar!" Khonshu roars, then Marc pleads, "stop!"

"I've seen him speak to himself…"

"Shut up!"

"...threaten himself…" and then he chuckles, trying to deal with how twisted Spector's illness was, "I have no idea how many personalities he must possess. The man is clearly insane."

That last sentence fueled his fury, ready to tackle Harrow but he's immediately reduced by a psychic onslaught coming from Osiris. Marc shuts his mouth, trying to recover the strength.

"It brings me no pleasure to tell you that this is a deeply troubled man." 

Marc cannot defend himself, feeling his vocal cords bleeding at the least effort. Even breathing makes his chest hurt, as Harrow is speaking the truth about his servitude to Khonshu. He is then allowed to speak, being asked personally by Horus.

"I am. I am unwell. I need help… but that doesn't change the fact that this man is–" but he cannot bring himself to verbalize Harrow's intentions.

"This is a safe space for you to tell us if you feel exploited by Khonshu." But then Marc bursts out:

"This is not about my feelings! I'm not the one on trial here. He is! This is about how dangerous he is if you would listen for a second". 

"He has committed no offense," Osiris sentences, "this matter is concluded." 

Marc stays there, defeated, humiliated. But once everyone is out of the hall, Hathor's avatar comes closer to him and tells him another way to get into Ammit's tomb. The location was recorded by a Medjai called Senfu, whose sarcophagus was stolen and sold in the black market. The task was done in case the gods ever changed their minds, if they decided to show mercy.

_____

This was where the real adventure began. 

Much to Spector's displeasure, Layla showed up in Egypt just in the moment when he was in the market, asking for Senfu's sarcophagus to merchants. Layla offers help, and both embark to meet Anton Mogart, an antiquities collector. Once Layla went with Marc undercover (using a fake identity), the map was recovered… but it requires an expert insight to decipher the location of the tomb.

However, Harrow has kept watching Spector. His disciples had told him the couple's plan to find the crypt, attempting to turn Mogart against them and if that wasn't bad enough, that maniac dares to reveal his involvement in the raid that killed Abdallah El-Faouly. Once out and with Mogart dead, Layla confronts Marc about Harrow's words about it. The mercenary gets nervous, and pretends he doesn't know. He tries to convince Layla that Harrow just looks to divide them. 

"Every time I learn something new about you, I think that's it. There can be any secrets left between us. And then something else pops up and it's like I've not known you at all."

Marc tries to end the conversation bottling up.

"Yeah. You haven't" he looked at her in that cold way that shattered her heart, "you don't." Just as intended, Layla ceases the talk, driving in tense silence. Both leave their differences aside to put the pieces of the starry map back together to know the exact location of Ammit's tomb.

They had been like this for like an hour, and Marc is getting frustrated with the lack of results, slams his open palm violently over the bonnet. Layla pleads with Marc to let Steven front, since he might know how to handle this.

"Marc, we can't wait" she mutters sweetly, but it doesn't soften him a bit, "it's okay… just...let go."

Marc sighs and runs his hands over his hair to cope with the stress and snatches the mirror off the jeep, taking the tape and the pieces of the map. He walks a few feet away from his wife and looks at the reflection.

"All right. Go ahead, you're in." 

And in a couple of seconds, Steven is back on his body.

"Cheers, thanks a lot" and sets his hands to solve the problem. Layla sees him, walking towards him with caution. Steven jolts and smiles at her. He has that look of pure love in his eyes. How is it possible for a man she has been married to for years, a man (she thinks) she's known for so long can look so different? Steven's skills finally recompose the map… just to realize the stars drift over time, making it impossible to find the exact location in the present. 

But Khonshu doesn't stand there. As the god of the night sky, he had power over the celestial vault. He would do something way bolder than a simple eclipse in broad daylight. Steven wished to be prepared for the wonderful spectacle Khonshu conjured in order to locate the tomb. The deity doesn't take long to ask Steven for help, which causes that white, elegant suit to appear again. With the skies stirring in violent motion to catch the exact alignment of the stars, Layla finally obtains the location while Steven and Khonshu slowly begin to weaken.

He realizes the god is disintegrating, asking him to tell Marc to free him. 

But he cannot act fast, since his own energy has been drained with Khonshu disappearing. Layla tries to wake him up with tender impatience. His eyes remain closed and Layla sees no other option than to take matters in her hands. 

Or that was what Steven could deduct once he regained consciousness. She never ceases to amaze him. All those people… Layla took them down by herself. 

"We can't lose more time. Harrow must be headed back to the tomb. Look, if he is, we're gonna need Marc, yeah?" 

"Exactly. See, she gets it," Marc quips from the mirror. A few seconds of silence follow before Steven replies: 

"No."

"No?" Layla turns around to look at him. 

"No, see… the thing is… we made a deal, Marc and I" he swallows, "that when he was done with Khonshu, he would disappear for good–"

"But that deal didn't involve you getting Layla and us killed, did it? That's not gonna fly with me."

"You guys made a deal? That he would just disappear from my life?" She stared at him, with silent outrage, hot tears filling her eyes, "and you didn't think that maybe I should've been made aware of that?" 

"Oh…well, hadn't he disappeared from your life already?" 

"Yeah, I mean…" Layla shook her head, not taking her eyes off the road, "Whatever. His suit was his best feature, wasn't it? Didn't have that anymore."

The awkwardness boils Marc's patience. 

"Steven. Give me the body right now. This is a suicide mission." Layla keeps complaining about him, and his loner nature. 

"It's not happening. We're not gonna do that" she said, determinedly. Maybe expecting to piss off Marc. 

"We are not," Steven also said with determination, "it's just you and me and the open road–" but Layla stopped the car abruptly. 

"We're gonna go on foot from here."

*Yeah, all right."

It took them a long walk to arrive, but Harrow's men were already there. It was necessary to beat them to get to Ammit's tomb. Descending from the canyon, the couple find an empty camp, with cars left with open doors. Only camels were there to greet them. Both go for supplies, and Steven finds plenty of them in one. Marc insists on fronting, mentioning Steven's inexperience as a liability. He doesn't, though and takes a lantern, rummaging through documents like photos, reports and maps.  

"Without Khonshu there is no more suit, no more healing, no more power–"

"Yeah, no more you, I thought. It's what you said, innit? But I guess… believing anything that comes out of your mouth just shows what a plonker I am."

Marc sighs, understanding his discontent. 

"Look, I wish I could just disappear. I really do. But unfortunately, I'm still here. If you're gonna go through with this, you gotta be smart, for least for Layla's sake. I've in situations like this before—"

"So have I. It's the same body, innit? It's in there, somewhere. Muscle memory and that." 

"I'm not sure it works that way. Just—"

"Whatever," Steven cuts him off, with an uncharacteristic sassiness that surprises Marc.

"I'm here. You're not alone" Marc calms him down. It finally snaps Steven's patient ways with him turning around with defiance against Spector's reflection.

"I know I'm not alone! I know I'm not bloody not alone, I've got Layla! She's got my back!" Steven spits, heading to walk off the place.

Hearing him talking about Layla with such vehemence fueled a choleric jealousy from Marc, who didn't think twice to growl at his alter for his affections:

"Are you in love? You're in love with my wife?!"

Steven turns over once last time. 

"Look, I appreciate your concern, mate. I really do… but we've got it from here." He mutters, confidently despite Marc becoming more and more furious.

"You lay one finger on her… I swear to you– Steven!"

"If I need a recipe for a protein shake or something, I'll call you," Steven went out to find Layla, not caring about Marc's growing wrath. It made the situation even more hilarious. 

"I'LL THROW US OFF A CLIFF!"

_____

Steven feels the thrill of closeness as Layla puts the harness on him. Having those hands on him, treating him gently had an hypnotizing, euphoric effect. The thoughts of her doing other things while kneeling caused an impish grin tracing his lips, fighting those naughty fantasies of his.

"I have to say, I feel like I've been waiting for this my whole life…" he then looked down at her, adding with a glint of guilt, "the adventure… I mean."

Layla gets up, smiling at the flirty grin Steven gives her. She doesn't keep her hands off him, concealing her wish for a greater closeness through "accidental" nuzzles, talking in breathy whispers. Steven shrugs, not knowing how to handle this heated tension boiling inside his chest. He cannot take his eyes off her lips as she becomes dangerously close to his ear, swearing she made a soft groan, which immediately sparked Steven to ask himself what he could cause Layla to make those sounds… he wonders things. He longs for contact. 

For her contact. 

From the first moment he had seen her, where he remembers the pleasant embrace riding the Vespa back in London, dark eyes shining like tourmalines. 

Her tender expression reminisces of Marc at his warmest. 

"You smell like him," she mutters, "I mean… why wouldn't you?" Layla stares at his mouth. Steven feels his heart racing when her lips attempt to crash with his mouth in an impulsive move, desperate to feel Marc, whether it was through Steven's skin… or whoever dwelled in there. 

But his nobility is greater and before their mouth make contact, Steven rushes to say:

"Marc's trying to protect you from Khonshu" her warm expression faded, clearly upset. 

"What?" 

"That's why he's been pushing you away. He thinks Khonshu wants you for his avatar and he won't let that happen" Steven finished. As he sees it has no positive response from Layla, he rushes to explain further:

"It's all right… I just felt like you should know that." Layla grabs a glove, as Steven apologizes for being so imprudent with such delicate information. 

"Why are you telling me this now?"

"I don't know. I.just thought you deserved to know." Layla puts on the glove to distract herself. 

"It wasn't his call to make. I don't need protection", she muttered, "What I need is honesty."

"Yeah, I get that."

"That's more of a 'you' thing, isn't it?"

"What? Being honesty?" Layla laughed at his sweet clumsiness. 

"Yeah. Being honesty" she nods, instead of laughing at him. It makes the love he feels for her to reach unthinkable dimensions. 

Confidently and sure, Steven grabs her shoulders with gentleness, leaning with delicate precision to reach her lips. An astonished Layla shuts her eyes off at his daring gesture, doubtfully keeping up with the famished and impatient kiss Steven insisted to captivate her with. He's too bewitched by the full, warm lips he didn't know he had kissed in another life. 

He first caught her upper lip for a few seconds, partially breaking the kiss to catch her lips with his, wishing to devour or at least, have a better taste of them, aroused by the sound of their mouths breaking their caress, which he delayed as much as he could.

Moved by the desire for more touches, Steven refuses to give her personal space after their impulsive kiss, smiling with genuine happiness with his forehead against hers. It warms and breaks her heart how grateful Steven was with a simple gesture. How deprived of touches had (Marc) Steven been? So many questions demanded so many answers that couldn't be solved at this moment. 

Layla goes down the excavation, and doesn't get to see an absolutely enamored Steven looking at her completely in love, haunted by her kiss…

…Nor Marc punching Steven, to then throw him down the tomb, accomplishing his threat for touching his wife. 

These were the things Steven remembered most fondly, before dying at Harrow's hands with two shots in the chest. 

Until that night. 

Until that fucking night. 

_____

He never imagined that a trip to Egypt would change his life so drastically. He returned to London far from the meek, jumpy man he used to be before these incidents. But not even that prepared him for what fate had in store for him. 

Steven didn't want to be impertinent in Marc's relationship. But during that night it was impossible. Steven didn't even remember how upset he was for missing a date because of that mercenary using his body to save the world from a genocidal maniac, knowing he was married to a lovely, intelligent wife. It was as if that failed date with Dylan had never taken place.

Even when Steven had been begotten to be better than Marc Spector, not even he could escape the searing feeling of envy when Spector got to be with Layla in that way. 

Seeing her in all her nude glory, first imprisoned in Marc's arms, impaled relentlessly, and then above him, loving how Layla trusted him enough to lock her as if she was his and his only. 

He then realizes a sad truth; Layla wanted to kiss him because he had the face of Marc Spector. Layla loved Spector, not Steven. 

Steven now looks at her, elevated to a goddess, naked and sweating while her moans delight his ears. He feels like a pervert for spying on her through the aquarium reflection but he's just too marveled seeing Marc's body being ridden with raw, brutal fury. He felt as if he was witnessing a privileged mortal making love to a goddess.

Though he was happy to see them together once again, he cannot stop wondering how his name would sound if she'd screamed it with him beneath her.

As much as he struggles to keep his eyes and ears covered, curiosity overcomes his modesty and what a sight he gets. To Steven, Layla had ascended from crush to a reborn Aphrodite right in the moment he saw her getting up to place herself above him. How he wished to be Marc at that moment.

It wasn't the fact of sex itself, being naked or close to each other… It was the climax and its meaning what mesmerized Steven, the vestiges accusing their union, watching it ooze from her while she moans for more. He may not have the full satisfaction of it, but he's more than glad to see the body being loved and taken care of. 

Steven diverted his gaze, ceasing the tortuous illusions of intimacy. He tried to focus on other things but those scandalous moans of hers made it impossible. Those things she was whispering, it was like a mermaid tempting a sailor to follow her. He'd give anything to experience what it was to be buried deep inside her, with nothing except him occupying her mind to cry his name. He had never felt so undesired and miserable in his life, especially when Marc howls his lungs out when the peak hits him. The moment was followed by a dead silence.  

Suddenly a dizzy, incorporeal sensation numbed his muscles. His vision became blurred, just like when he regained… 

Hearing how her calm breathing changed to a sharp cry aroused him to the point of insanity, not just the wet, tight flesh practically latching around him so abruptly, not just having that beautiful female nude still impaled on him. It wasn't the fact that Marc had surrendered the control to him. He couldn't understand why but he couldn't process everything that happened in that moment, not having time to ask her out loud about their situation. His sobs finally got Layla to look down at him. He felt cornered.

"Steven?" She whispered, just as mesmerized as he was. Steven writhed and shook while pleasure stuns his strength, trying to break the physical bond to avoid any more problems, but Layla insists on retaining his body underneath her. How was it possible to be like this now? When not too long ago he had been admiring her from afar, yearning silently for her body.

Why did Marc feel so vulnerable being with her? 

Maybe it was the shock of seeing her, of feeling so helpless when she loved him like this. Steven tries to focus but his body speaks for him: he moans loudly as he watches several, thick threads of himself falling down their sexes, looking to adhere even more tightly to each other. 

The explicit image does things to him. It is the physical reminder of how her body stirred under his touch. Wishing to see more of it percolating between her thighs, Steven thrusts up, shaking her whole body again, observing with respectful and immense fascination a pleasure-drunk Layla, who doesn't seem to care that Marc wasn't there to finish what he started. 

Steven moans her name and smiles at the sight of her breasts and curls bouncing. They look so lovely, begging to be touched, kneaded, pampered. 

He didn't decide what to do next, though he doesn't miss the chance to squeeze them to calm down his aroused enthusiasm. Layla starts straddling his hardened length once again, until Steven has an idea: He obeys his instinct to wrap his arms around her, to then roll over the bed sheets so he was above Layla, who latched at his neck, desirous to obtain more of him, not caring if she was on control. Steven never thought this loss of individuality would be so magnificent. And then, he sees that look in her eyes. Layla stares up at him. 

Her gaze is nothing but fire.

His voice undoes itself in praises and desperate claims, melting each other's mouths in heated kisses that left their tongues tangled in a desperate dance.

Steven felt her hands running down his ribs, reaching his hips to scratch his back to then caress it. It made the mild mannered man push as deep as he could as a harsh response, breaking the kiss to moan while genuinely convinced he could feel every vein, every inch of hers melted with his.

He looks down her body by mere instinct, and finds more lustful evidence of their act between her legs, more pearly creeks gushing from their differences. It moves him to gather strength to drag himself out of her just to slam back inside, reviving the sensation of sweet captivity within her depths, feeling those pulsating walls hardly containing him, despite Layla seemingly wishing more of Steven inside of her. 

Neither of them would get to see it, but the reflection showed a delirious Steven Grant taking an euphoric Layla with him over the bed, making their bodies move in perfect unison. 

"Keep going! Fuck, Steven… just like that" he panted against her ear, groaning when he feels her thighs pressing his hips, "I want it dripping off me, Steven. Will you be good to me and give me that?"

"Yes! I will! I'll be good-- I'll be so good to you!" Steven pushes as deep as he can without thinking, making sure to comply her wish. 

Layla liked that, sliding her hands down his chest, heart hammering with war-like fury. Steven was too desperate to repeat that deep feel of wholeness both experienced a few moments ago, too immersed in the pleasure the narrow, hot embrace gave him but also too stunned too form a coherent sentence. Layla tenderly caresses his hair, and Steven gently leans his head to bathe in those kind touches. She kisses his jawline, brushing her lips against his ear. 

"Don't hold back," Layla lovingly whispered, knowing their climax was close. Steven looked down and saw that again between their legs, stopping for a moment before the glorious end. Layla reminds him that he was the one who stole a kiss from her back in the desert, enjoying to see Steven Grant turned into a sex crazed mess, so far from his fancy, polite manners, fighting against the constriction that he knew, would overcome him. 

He had never been so happy to lose a battle as he did with this one, in particular. He increased the pace, making the bounce of her orbed parts even more intense. Steven weeps of pleasure when he cannot bring himself to resist it anymore, pouring all of his seed inside her, delighting in the falling strands accusing the violence of the orgasm that shuddered Layla's body. 

He keeps completely still, loving the intimacy between him and Layla. All he can think about is never letting her go. He loves her. Steven loves her more than he loves his own life. This is how it feels to be seen, cherished, loved. He wishes this precious moment to never end. And there she stays, cradling his tired body. Steven hides his face in her neck, repeating that he could never leave her, much less after what happened between them. 

Layla runs her fingers over his hair, caressing his back up and down, grateful to have her husband sleeping in her arms once again, away from danger and blood for good. She lovingly lulls him, despite Steven being asleep (or passed out, who knew?) so he could know in his slumber that she would be there to care for him… and love him.

[healingheartdogs]

CW for ideation, just ranting a bit about psych stuff

When you tell your psychiatrist that you've never been so depressed in your life and have never struggled with ideation and wanting to self harm so much and you don't know if it's just because of your current life situation (poverty and the looming threat of homelessness is so fun) or if it's because of the meds you're on now (which have a black box warning for increase in suicidal thoughts and suicide risk) and instead of addressing either of those two very realistic possibilities she just asks if I'm expecting my period soon and when my last one was instead. I have PMDD but it's never been suicidal PMDD, and I'm on BC to manage it rn that stops me from having periods so it's not relevant anyway.

When I told her my BC stops my period so I don't have them she asked me if I was still tracking them to make sure it wasn't possibly PMDD... There's nothing to track lady, I DON'T HAVE THEM. And then she moved on to asking me how else the meds were making me feel and told me I should keep trying them for longer to see if they actually work because it can take up to two months to see benefits without ever going back to address the extreme depression and ideation. Like... dude the strattera clearly does not like my brain since it is making me extremely depressed, COULD YOU LISTEN TO ME PLEASE??? It also is not actually helping with any of my ADHD symptoms besides making my head a little bit quieter instead of constant random ping-ponging thoughts.

I told the nurse before my first visit with this psych that I was worried about seeing a new psychiatrist because my last one didn't listen to me and focused on irrelevant things that I would mention in passing a lot instead of what was actually important to me to deal with, and she told me this new psych is SUCH a good listener that she even talks to her about her problems a lot so she hopes I felt the same while seeing her. I can only conclude that this nurse must be mentally healthy because this lady does not listen any better than the last one and does the exact same shit, acting like all my problems are just because I don't sleep "normally" and focusing more on managing my anxiety (which is a symptom not its own problem and is already being managed fairly well by my beta blockers) and low self worth rather than solving the issues causing my anxiety and low self worth like my extreme executive dysfunction that makes me feel like I'm trapped in my unresponsive body and a useless POS all the time.

I s2g I am so over getting lectures on sleep hygiene and needing to "fix" my sleep schedule from doctors when I am not complaining about sleep at all just because they personally don't like my sleep habits. Yes, I have a sleep disorder. Yes, my sleep schedule frequently shifts because I'm not on a 24 hour cycle. NO, I do NOT have a problem with that and I do NOT struggle with getting to sleep, staying asleep, or getting enough sleep!!! STOP FOCUSING ON MY SLEEP!!!! THE UNMANAGED ADHD IS MUCH MORE SERIOUS!!! But my sleep schedule isn't "correct" for capitalism and working normal jobs so they prioritize that "issue" instead, even though I wouldn't be able to work even if it was normal because of my EXTREME ADHD and physical disability.

I hate healthcare in this country.

[ur-moms-my-gf]

Ok I had to put this somewhere idk if this will come across anyone’s dash who has advice but I kinda need it.

So I’ve been dating my partner for nearly 5 months, both of us have multiple mental illnesses, one of theirs is Bipolar Disorder. I note this because I’m wondering if that could be part of the reason this situation occurred.

We are long distance and this past week I’ve been visiting them so for like 3 days straight of just happy, lovey serotonin, dopamine, all the good shit.

Two nights ago they started hitting a really low dip, which has happened before in a similar way, of course the difference is, it’s always been over call. They begin to say self deprecating things, like I deserve better, they’re a piece of shit, again stuff I’ve kinda navigated before so I’m doing all I can to reassure them and bring them to a more grounded way of thinking, listening to the facts verses their brains self hating dialogue.

They begin to say how things are going to end eventually and I should just leave now, etc. then they pulled away like they were going to leave, we’d been sitting on the bathroom floor this entire time.

They stood and I curled into a ball in the corner and sobbed. Right outside the bathroom is the kitchen and one of the drawers had many knives in it, they began to open the drawer and I jumped to my feet pushed them out of the way and put my body between them and the drawer, keeping it closed. They tried pulling me away but I stood planted, L

“You’ll have to kill me before I let you get in that drawer.” I said, tears continuing to fall.

Then they wrapped their hands around my neck and started squeezing. I kept my ground in front of the drawer their grip was tight, more than just kinky in the bedroom, but I knew they’d stop, they said they didn’t, but I could see it in them, like it was a primal challenge, like who was more serious, that they’d have to kill me or that I’d make them to get in that drawer. I’m not really sure either way if either of us won that challenge. I kept my hands on their arms and said, “it’s okay.” Harder to breathe but not enough to make me pass out.

They let go.

I took a deep breath and they turned walking away towards the door. I grabbed my phone I tried to run into the bathroom and lock myself in, I said I was going to tell their mom, I’m not sure if I meant it.

They pleaded, tugging on the door handle, both of us in a struggle, pushing and pulling the door between open and closed.

They began to cry, begging me not to send them back to the psyche ward, my heart cracked. They collapsed into my arms with sobs.

We talked about it, very seriously and I plan to talk to them about it again tonight to reiterate the boundary. They promised nothing like this would ever happen again, and I told them if anything ever happened like that again, if they touch me in a harmful manor {not including kinky consensual sex stuff} I will leave the relationship as well as tell their parents. I am also trying to make sure they talk to their therapist about this. Both of us know this behavior was unacceptable, and they genuinely feel remorse and guilt about it.

Am I being stupid? I know love isn’t always enough in relationships, and that my safety matters more. However I genuinely believe they are intent on making sure nothing like that happens again, I believe people can change, I believe it’s possible as long as they’re willing to. I also feel like this (not as extreme as choking obvi) this kind of stuff kind of comes with the territory of being in a relationship with someone who has severe mental illness, am I wrong? Is that too naive? I don’t want to lose them, I love them. It’s just not a black and white situation.

Any advice for a bipolar persons partner??

[moot-lover]

Things I just can’t seem to say to my own therapist bc I’m afraid of going back to the psych ward.

TW: S@, Divorce?, abuse, swearing, $h. @n@

.............................................................

A lot of ppl don’t know this abt me but I used to go to speech therapy when I was 3. That prob explains my shit English so bare with me a little :3.

Yk I guess you could say my whole life my parents fought. My own father told me the reason he sent me to speech therapy bc he didn’t wanna argue with my mother. I remember always hearing my mother and father fight every week. My job was to try to stop the fight or just protect my sister. I basically stepped up as a mother for my own sister because my own parents couldn’t because they always fought. I did struggle with psychosis at 6-8 at the same time.

I remember it going downhill all in 2019. I always saw these posts saying “I wish it was still 2019” to be honest 2019 was one of the worse years of my life. One of their fights got heated and the police where involved. When everything calmed down they told me and my sister they were gonna get divorced.

You could say their divorce was a huge blow on me. My sister too but my sister got over it quickly. She can accept reality quickly but I can’t. I remember trying so hard to try to fix my mom and dads relationship. I couldn’t accept the divorce for years. And maybe there’s still a part of me that still can’t. I’m not really sure.

I was forced to change schools. I was way happier in my old school but I’m somewhat grateful to have changed schools bc I’ve met some of the greatest ppl in my life. Which I will always appreciate so much. But yk that school had its downslides just like any other school. But ive been sexually harassed in this school too. I couldn’t feel safe. I couldn’t be happy. My friends were the only reason I actually liked going to school. I always afraid of being near the guy who SAed me. For 2 years this went on for. 2 YEARS. I didn’t get help from anybody. Not even my parents. I felt so neglected it’s crazy.

Then yk this year (new school now) I’ve been struggling with my depression and anxiety more now. I was on new medication almost every 3 months because none of them work. I’ve been sent to the hospital so many times it’s crazy. (I was sent to the hospital 4 times or something in my old school) I think I’ve been sent to the hospital 7 times by now. Tho I met an amazing friend. Or so I thought. She made me happy. I thought I was finally gonna get a good friendship. That was false. She SAed me so many times it’s crazy. She gr00med me, and by the state I live the closest thing to this is s3x trafficking. I was called a liar. No one believed me to the point only my closest friends and my mom, grandma, and my sister believed me. The worse part she knew I was SAed before. And she has a gc where she shit talks about me and tells her friends lies about the situation saying “She’s just jealous I have friends and you don’t”. I remind you that she made fun of my sh and me taking my medication for depression. It’s crazy still after all this evidence she lies and her friends still believe her.

During the same time my eating disorder rised up. I feel like I can’t eat. I feel like if I eat I’ll be fat. I’m scared of gaining weight. I’ll go crazy to lose weight. I’ll walk in circles to lose. I stay up trying to lose. I try to avoid so much meals and my parents can’t allow me to skip meals which makes me go even more crazy.

And literally 2 days ago my grandfather was diagnosed with kidney cancer. I feel horrible. I don’t feel happy.

I want help no I need help. I feel like I need someone to love me but I can’t find anyone who can. And all my exes we break up on bad terms or on neutral terms. I don’t wanna get into them because I’m over them by now but I dont feel loved. I love this girl but I know she doesn’t love me back. I can’t either feel love and when I do it’s obsession. I don’t feel healthy and I can’t keep a healthy relationship. I want someone who I can hold onto. Maybe feel like, “this is okay I’m finally home”. Which I know I won’t ever feel that way. I’ve been abused and harassed for so long I’m so desperate for someone to love me. I’m not okay. I’m so tired. I just wanna be happy.

And that’s my little vent ig.

[thenevermindsystem]

Our Diagnosis

Hello everyone! Alex and Phoenix here to talk about our diagnosis of DID.

Phoenix: it's a very very long story but we'll do our best to shorten it.

Alex: So it basically started when we were in therapy off and on, and over about 4 months multiple of us had come out to talk to our therapist.

Phoenix: this was our first time doing EMDR therapy so a few of us came out. Our therapist pointed it out and said "you're multiple, your personality has separated where people usually just have another aspect of those personality." She also had us do the "inner safe space" exercise but specified there should not be other people there. But we found that there were other people and we couldn't just will it away.

Alex: So we told the bodies parents and they freaked out, told me to either admit I was lying or they'd take me to the psych hospital.

Phoenix: so off we went to the psych hospital.

Alex: On day one we told the psychiatrist that our therapist said that we are multiple. He clarified that's DID and said he'd come back the next day with an article about it to make sure we were on the same page. And he did.

Phoenix: It was an abridged version of the DSM V entry of DID. We told him this was exactly it the next day and he told us that the nurses and mental health techs have been observed me for official diagnosis and I had to fill out a few questionaires.

Alex: so we had 5 days of constant observation and the psychiatrist looked over the observations, my self report was exactly what the staff were reporting as well. This psych unit did not specialize in DID but the staff I interacted with were very knowledgeable about it.

Phoenix: So we got our official diagnosis.

Alex: and a few weeks after that we started seeing a therapist with a PhD who did specialize in DID on and off.

Phoenix: I started telling him how I had a lot of denial about my DID and being in a system. He told me that 1, that's a very common reaction for systems bc our whole brain and body have survived by denying that happened to us. After using the proper vocabulary for a bit I started saying "I just feel like WE can't have DID and WE'RE faking."

Alex: He looked at us like "Do you even hear yourself?" Lmao

Phoenix: He reconfirmed our DID diagnosis. Then we started seeing him more consistently and we were referred to a psychiatrist who specializes in trauma and developmental disorders. She also confirmed our diagnosis after lots and lots of questions and reviewing my medical reports.

Phoenix: And finally, we saw another psychiatrist who specializes in trauma disorders and once again had our diagnosis reconfirmed again after lots of questions.

Alex: Our current psychiatrist went over the DSM and ICD requirements and once again confirmed our diagnosis, it was less thorough since we've been diagnosed for almost 5 years at this point and we're in specialized therapy for it.

So yeah! That's the story of how we got diagnosed then had it confirmed quite a few times. We are still currently in therapy specialized to DID. We were diagnosed at 17 because of our system needed to be aware to get to safety. If our other member did not make it well and apparent that we were not the only ones here we wouldn't have ever escaped. Every system and situation they're in is different and we all have our own "salvation story."

Thanks for reading and I hope this clarifies some things.

[tohellandback99]

*clears throat* 😮‍💨

After sharing previous posts here alluding to it but not going into, the real details that I was hiding. When I said about my first post of my child alter’s art that she is, “comforted by Raul’s presence on the tv.” And, “there are other things that I relate with W&W but I’m not ready.” Or whatever I said in that post I can’t remember exactly. And now recently, with my recent posts here I feel it is important to explain, just a little bit more about this. *sigh* are you ready?

So as people already know or can tell, I have been clinically diagnosed and am getting help for Dissociative Identity Disorder mainly. I have been diagnosed with other things, I also have OCD. potentially have another serious mental thing going on that I’m currently in need and in the process of finding a specialist who can look at me for. But with that; To be brief for those who may not understand, about how DID works. Essentially I experienced a series of very scary and potentially life-threatening traumatic events when I was four, that caused my sense of self to separate and develop separately without any awareness of it or what had caused most of it, and there were varying other factors in my life as well.

what’s soon to be a year ago from now, (it’ll be in the middle of February,) I had what was first pain in my upper back from pulling it or something, to my hip acting up the second week. Lastly the third week, I was in immense excruciating pain in my abdominal area and thought I was going to die. It was at night where it was the worst, and I was basically bed ridden. At that time was when my hyperfixation on Wendell and Wild was very intense. Right after I posted my very first piece of fanart for Wendell and Wild on here

Well, Raul peeled off of me. I prefer to say “peel off” as opposed to “split” because in my experience with having DID… no matter how much pain I am in or how scary the situation is, the person leaving with, inside of this body (in this case it’s a regressed state of my mind, transformed into a mental incarnation of our boy, stuck in my psyche forever now. Oops. 😰) it is very gentle in and of itself, to the point where I don’t even recognize it happening.

This time, and it was the first time, I actually had been aware and was FEELING him peeling off. Those, almost within the entire three weeks it was starting. I was in denial because of stuff I’ve heard and read online concerning alters splitting as an adult. That it was far less likely which is subjective but also true, and I’ve never seen or heard that a part of someone either that was already regressed, or could still regress (I can’t tell you which way he peeled off exactly,) develop as an individual self and peel off still. Also, I didn’t think I could develop another introject this soon after the movie, show, game, etc. comes out. Which is stupid because you really don’t need much to begin with in terms of influence when you have need to split. Also this movie is quite obscure to the general population and my brain involuntarily picked Raul for a reason, but still. *sigh* I KNOW how ridiculous this sounds. I do. But I know what I’m talking about

I am pleased to say that I had saw him in my brain and was flailing my arms around making gestures at him in a desperate attempt at getting him to stop for a minute. He was trying to get in the water (basically trying to take over the body,) to PLEASE STAY. I said, “you can have all the time that you want if I survive.” 😂

But really! Because I didn’t want what was causing Raul to split to affect him. Like it would have ten years ago, and especially 20 years ago without my awareness and memory of it. My brain is ruthless. Ultimately it did end up working. And I woke up three days later on my bed, i look back in the “under water” in my brain and he was floating and peacefully asleep. I wasn’t sure I was even alive until then. Later he said he didn’t feel anything which was a relief on top of the fact that when I woke up it wasn’t in a hospital bed. When I find out that I had a blackout it is terrifying because I don’t know until after, what an alter was intending to do. If it’s like this, they can get hurt for not understanding what’s going on (and other people noticing you’re acting weird,) or doesn’t understand where he is and getting understandably upset but on top of that. I also didn’t want his first memories to be in a very stark and cold environment. Being asked by doctors what’s happened, and risk the potential of him having to find out why, and how he formed and peeled off the way that he did without having the chance to simply be. And he does know. It’s one of the things that I really don’t like about my disorder, it was quite upsetting for him at first. And because one of my child alters latched onto him, they together had to go through having him re-remember some of the things that were, horrible. He handled it relatively well. He did.

It took three months f- no, a month before he met them, and then three months after. (I’m going by what he eventually explained to me,) And then in therapy I found out she had adopted him, as her big bro.

There are reasons for which Raul in particular was peeled off and was added to my system. And why all this happened the way that it did. Part of it has to do with the fact that I was still at the peak of my transition at the time, (edit: and in my past, being “the art kid” (even though I forgot that I enjoyed art and didn’t know why people kept making that assumption,) having a single mom at his age. Being drawn to the goths/punks although I was also the punk, and being ostracized. Especially by a kid who was almost nearly the same as Siobhan was in the movie. In every way. I can’t even…. Is similar to my experiences when I was a kid but my brain doesn’t like to make the connection to myself. But with me also finding out without any clue previously and accepting that I am more of a man than I thought I was; I think it’s partially my brain also acknowledging that that was something that was a part of my life that I erased previously from my own identity. Out of blind ignorance but also. To keep keeping myselves safe from… certain people in my childhood. Don’t want to get into it, and you can probably understand what I am talking about.) but ultimately, I simply wanted to not be by myself for what I thought could have been my last moments. And my brain takes that dire need and runs away with it literally. That When the body had been perceived as “dead” by my brain, he took over the body the morning after when I couldn’t hold on anymore and had to go to “sleep,” but I wound up switching instead and didn’t know until I “woke up” three days later. That’s what’s up for people who think this is ridiculous, which it is, lol. absolutely. but it’s the truth. Lastly, more as to why he peeled off. Basically the same thing had happened a couple times before in the same way which adds to my likelihood of having a teenage male alter, peeling off and/or guarding the body for a significant amount of time. I know very specific, very awkward. but it’s true

*sigh* it doesn’t influence him as much as some of the others, but there’s influences (yes, influences him unfortunately and also in a slightly different way. also, “doesn’t influence him as much” is currently up for debate right now. I can’t get into it and don’t wish to. But I’m keeping an eye on his and some of the other’s behavior as we explore certain aspects of the previous trauma, in therapy. And taking as best care as I can of him, promise. Absolutely)

…is less obvious and is a completely unconscious response to the trauma. That’s very personal (our personal business,) and in order to help you understand I’d (also) have to get into specific details, which I don’t want to do here because I don’t want to upset anyone and I’m not trying to trauma dump or make this anyone’s point of concern. Ultimately I’m, I much prefer having this be explained a little bit better, instead of just having what I previously posted under these tags at THIS point, now that HE found and started posting under his own tag 😂 which is actually nice because I wouldn’t know how he feels if he didn’t write anything. I am responsible for this still. So I understand and I’m sorry if people find what I have written annoying, confusing, offensive or awkward, cringy and unsettling.

Sooo… 😐 yeah, that’s what happened. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything before, to those who might have been confused. I just didn’t know how else to express this and have it also make sense. Yeah

Something to get Lady Arachne off of the top of your tag sooner perhaps:

Yes, that. That would be perfectly perfect

🤦 at myself

[sad-lime]

general tw for abuse and self harm: been thinking a lot about all the ways young me had been brainwashed by my dad and how it affected how I see myself and the world. When I first started really showing the warning signs of severe depression when I was like 10-12 his solution was to pound into me this idea that I was situationally depressed which meant I wasn’t actually depressed and I should just get over it. I think on some level deep down he must have known he was the major cause and had to gaslight me to preserve his self image. Or maybe he really completely believed it because he has the introspection, empathy and self awareness of a wood tick. Either way, me internalizing that idea that situational depression wasn’t real or valid I think is part of why I started to act out and seek medications so desperately. I needed to validate that what I was feeling was real, so started to cut, abuse substances, engage in risky behavior, disordered eating etc etc even more than I had been. It had to be real then, right? I had the scars to prove it. I think it’s part of why I sought psych medication for every little thing (my doctor DID NOT help.) because it HAD to be chemical, right? Situational depression wasn’t valid in my eyes. It had to be something deeply and inherently wrong within me. But it wasn’t! It WAS situational. That doesn’t make what I felt any less real. That doesn’t take away all the pain I went through. I don’t have a chemical imbalance. I was a severely traumatized, neurodivergent child trying to make sense of what was happening in and around me and fuck him for making me feel like what I was experienced wasn’t real and neglecting to get me the help I needed. I mourn the person I might’ve been had I gotten the help I needed sooner.

[rokhal]

Rewatched MK Ep2 after taking an edible (hightens my empathic powers/raises my capacity for empathy to near-normal levels) and I have Thoughts on Steven Grant’s grasp on his situation.

I think that Steven understands almost everything that is going on. He’s just autistic, which means he’s playing his cards close to the vest.

At the start of the episode, Steven believes that he has finally figured out what’s wrong with him: he’s got that bizarro psych disorder from the movie Split. He briefly entertains the idea that his alter might have actually, literally fought a hellhound in the bathroom of the museum (very cool), until the security cameras show, to his horror, that the hellhound was actually his own hallucination. But the other man in his head is very real.

He tracks down Marc Spector’s storage room, talks to Marc briefly, and realizes that Marc has been around for a long time, long enough to accumulate war buddies and contraband and a whole lot of money that Steven has never seen. This would raise the possibility, subconsciously if nothing else, that Marc might have been around longer than Steven. More importantly, Marc is not just a dangerous international criminal, he’s also under the delusion that his criminal activities serve the will of an obscure Egyptian god. This explains Steven’s hallucinations.

By this time, Steven has decided that he, himself, must be the sane, non-violent alter of an overall violent and delusional person, and that therefore he has both the right and the obligation to sabotage Marc and maintain his hold on the front to the best of his ability, even if he has to get himself arrested or institutionalized to do so.

Layla shows up, and the more she talks, the higher the evidence stacks that Marc’s personal history may be a lot longer, and a lot more rooted in external reality, than Steven’s. This does not change Steven’s resolve to keep Marc suppressed.

Then Steven gets arrested kidnapped by fake cops serving the same death-cult Marc accidentally dumped him in during his lost weekend. Steven is perfectly aware of how screwed he is; the fact that he gives himself away through the walkie-talkie planted in the car is...who would anticipating that? Really? The leader of a death cult you’ve seen once in your life, planting bugs to catch you talking to yourself? I think we can give Steven a break here. But then Arthur Harrow pulls Steven to his feet and starts talking about the exact same Khonshu delusion that Marc has.

Either Harrow and Marc both happen to share the exact same delusion thanks to cult indoctrination or drugs, or Khonshu is somehow objectively real and Harrow knows something about what’s happening to Steven. Harrow is a murderer, but so is Marc, and more importantly, Harrow likes to talk. The sensible thing, rather than shoving Harrow to the ground and then trying to outrun his enraged followers, is to play along and nod at everything Harrow says, hoping to catch something useful.

Harrow may be marginally less-threatening than Khonshu, but he never has a chance at making Steven think he’s his friend. Harrow calls him broken. Steven’s “I’m not broken. Just need a little help, maybe,” that’s...that’s not a non-confrontational, submissive thing to say to someone’s face when you have autism. The more colorful neurotypical demonstrations of offense or outrage are both tricky to duplicate and carry a high risk of reprisal if you’ve happened to misread the situation, and from an autistic person, “I disagree with your assessment of my competence/mental state” is maybe two steps below putting your fists up or storming out of the room. It’s always hard to anticipate those times that words alone aren’t enough to express how deep the rift between oneself and another person is.

Also. Am I the only one seeing this, or does Harrow’s compound feel like a school? You’ve got the gardening projects. The shared video-watching. Harrow as the “cool teacher” who acts as though he is entitled to both the unquestioning obedience and the friendship of everyone in the compound. The fucking cafeteria.

Being autistic in a school cafeteria is like a combination anthropology expedition and deep-cover op that you get to do at every lunchtime. If somebody invites you to sit with them, as Harrow does to Steven, you take your food and you try to act normal and you make as much eye contact as you have to and nod along with everything they say and you try to figure out if they’ve brought you along as a cruel joke or out of pity or (success!) because they genuinely thought you were one of them. Steven has not forgotten that Harrow had him kidnapped or that he murdered an old lady, or that he called him “broken” just minutes ago. He also knows that Harrow thinks he’s easily-manipulated, which is convenient because Harrow won’t bother to disguise his agenda that well.

Then Harrow starts talking about pre-crime executions and Steven is like, “Do you fuckin’ hear yourself mate?” Like, Steven knows he has no way out. He’s just a guy. He’s been kidnapped and dragged into the compound of a charismatic serial killer and he’s just a guy, desperately trying to smother another, less-charismatic serial killer, and if he gets killed here then at least he’ll take Marc down with him. So he spits in Harrow’s face and tells the entire cult exactly what he thinks of them. Only, autism can make it a bit hard to translate “seething contempt and loathing” into a form that normies will pick up on, so what Steven says is, “You’re all into that, then? Killing children and all that?” “I kind of draw the line at, well, child murder.”

Autistic opinion: If you accuse people of advocating for child murder, you shouldn’t need to raise your voice or add curse-words or glare or anything to express your disgust. Right? Because you just called them a child-murderer?

Here’s a conversation I’ve had with a client who’d been verbally abusing my front staff.

Client: “Glad I’ve got you on the phone. Thanks for not yelling at me like that desk lady.” Me, normal speaking tones, all my hair standing on end: “Sir, I am yelling at you.”

It’s not our fault normies can’t understand the basic emotional implications of clearly-stated facts.

So at this point, Steven is surrounded by cultists demanding to know the location of this supernatural stolen artifact that Marc had been keeping in his duffel bag, acceding to their demands would mean endangering Layla, and getting himself killed keeping this secret would be terrible but he really has no other plan here. Maybe if he provokes them badly enough they will kill him before they torture him, but he really would prefer to survive if that’s possible, and it’s at this point that Layla shows up to rescue him.

But then Layla demands that Marc/Steven rescue her.

Steven starts panicking, because while he desperately wants to protect Layla, he doesn’t know how well Layla actually knows Marc -- Marc tried to divorce her -- and he still doesn’t have the information he needs to know whether Marc or Harrow is the greater evil at the moment. At last, finally acknowledging that Steven is not letting go of the front, Khonshu orders him to assume the powers of his avatar, and then the much-derided dweeb-version of Mr. Knight appears.

God forbid a man act giddy about suddenly realizing he’s not about to die because he has cool superpowers. Steven immediately fist-fights a hell-hound, bobbing and dancing around and singing to himself both to pump himself up and to attract the creature’s attention away from Layla. He figures out that he can take a hit that would kill an ordinary man several times over, and that he has superstrength, almost immediately, and he puts his instinctive fear of getting flung into traffic aside because he’s now...70% sure he’s going to survive this.

Last night he was hiding and sobbing in terror trying to get away from one of these things. Now he’s punched one in the face and sent it flying through the air. “Wagwan!!!” 

Note that Steven has no memories of boot camp or combat training or actual combat or ever using these powers before. He is 100% improvising and he has no idea what is going to happen.

Steven only surrenders to Marc when he realizes that despite everything he’s figured out about how to fight this beast in the last few minutes, he still doesn’t know how to kill it, and he doesn’t have the experience or tactical knowledge to keep it from killing anyone else. He finally picks Marc as the lesser evil.

Marc is a far more focused and strategic fighter, because he’s long past the point that the Moon Knight powers are a novelty or a source of joy or curiosity to him. What makes Marc more effective than Steven is experience and perspective.

And then Marc does the protector-alter thing and is like “I am putting you in this box because I love you and want to keep you safe and out of the way, bye-bye,” and Steven is like “No no you can’t do this, you don’t have the right to do this,” and Marc, who apparently hates fronting just as much he does in the 80′s comics, flies to Egypt and tries to drink away the guilt.

When he finally drowns his frontal cortex in enough bourbon that Steven can come up for air again, Marc’s like, “O hai Stevie guess where we are. It’s your favorite country!!! Please enjoy it because I can feel nothing but guilt and aggression. You are my heart <3” And Steven’s probably like “Wot? Fuck yew. Are we Jewish then? Is my mum even real?” And Marc’s like, “Pyramids, Stevie. Look at the pyramids.”

So, what I think Steven understands now: He has that weird psychological disorder from those horror movies. He’s probably still hoping that he’s the original host identity, but I think he’s starting to suspect he might not be. Khonshu is real. Ammit is real. Marc is real, and he’s an unpredictable vigilante serving an untrustworthy god. Marc claims to want to protect Steven, but as far as Steven is concerned, Marc is fooling himself because he’s destroyed Steven’s life in ways that Steven had never previously imagined were possible.

I think Steven’s taking things as well as can be expected.