#ill probably be able to emulate like half the games here but the more recent ones. like. shadow and up.

[huevobuevo]

nobody asked but heres the list of sonic games i need to work on in order, although i might jump ahead if i REALLY wanna test sumn out (mainly sonic heroes ...)

sonic 3

knnuckles & chaotix

sonic adventure duo

sonic advance trilogy

sonic heroes

sonic rush duo

shadow the hedgehog

sonic riders

sonic 06

sonic unleashed

sonic colors

the generations duo

frontiers

[amazinganxietyisnotonfire-blog]

trapped behind those pretty blue eyes

CHAPTER THREE

<< chapter two 

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Summary: Phil comes home and Dan tries to find the line between keeping Phil safe and driving both of them insane.

Quote: I used to argue with Phil about hope. He would say it was the most logical thing in existence and I would say it was self-delusion. I finally agree with him. I finally see how the most logical thing is finding a way to survive, and if hope is that then hope is invaluable. It's like Leah said, people survive because they have to.

Genre: heavy angst, a slight hope of fluff

Word count: 2069

Triggers: mental illness, schizophrenia, arguments, memories of suicide attempts

Hello Internet,

I'm finally actually posting these, with Phil's permission, of course. I guess you already knew that though.. he's been home for two months now, and things are maybe not perfect, but they're the most okay they've felt in half a year so that's something. I actually asked Phil if he wanted to be in this video, but he said no. He said that someday he'd be ready to tell his side of the story but that he wasn't ready just yet. Besides, he said this is my story. I'm going to try not to speculate too much about Phil's thoughts because I don't want to misrepresent him, so this is just the last two months as they have happened to me.

During the first week that Phil was home, he spent three hours in group therapy every day. I got told that I shouldn't leave him alone for any amount of time, which wasn't hard. It would have been much harder for me to leave him alone. I was so paranoid, and I guess I still am a bit. It's just so hard to let him out of my sight when the last two times he's been alone he's ended up in the back of an ambulance. I'm still learning to let him breathe on his own. He needs to be able to feel the solid ground, I suppose, but all of my instincts are telling me to try and hold him as far away from anything unsafe as possible.

I'm getting out of order. Recently time has seemed so distorted that it's hard to make sense of all my memories. But he came home from the hospital, and the first day I was so terrified to scare him but even more afraid to leave him alone so I just kind of stalked him around the apartment. I walked him to therapy and stayed in the waiting room pretending to be calm enough to play iPhone games for three hours. Then we came home and I spent any time that he was alone, even in the bathroom, panicking inside. I made him keep the door cracked and sat next to the door the entire time he was showering. I didn't really understand the importance of preserving his, I don't know, dignity yet. Safety seemed more important than dignity. Plus we used to shower together sometimes, and I couldn't understand why he would be weird about this. He didn't explain why it was so mortifying for a while.

Phil is so precious--he didn't say anything about my stalking until the third day. He told me that the lurking was creepy and that I needed to either leave him alone or just come actually spend time with him. The ever present watching and following was, understandably, creepy. After that, I tried to stop the silent watching and replaced it with just trying to act like he was normal, but anytime he seemed at all distracted I would panic and think he was hallucinating again. I would beg him to open up and explain to me what was happening, what he was seeing but he refused to. I understand why he didn't want to tell me anything, whenever he opened up at all or seemed upset I burst into tears because I didn't want him to be in pain. I know that was selfish.

But, uh we spent that first week playing a lot of mario kart. I would try to sleep with my arm on him so he would need to wake me up if he left the bed. Even with that, I would wake up in the middle of the night in a panic to check that he was still breathing. As scary as these nightly checks were, they were only interrupting the constant nightmares about Phil dying.

Phil didn't cry until the second week of being home. We were actually in the middle of a round of mario kart when he put the controller down and just... cracked. I guess it made sense, honestly, the crying made more sense than the happy front that he was putting up, and I knew what to do with crying Phil. I'd seen him cry before, so this was something that I clung to for some sense of normalcy, as terrible as that sounds. We watched movies and cuddled. Then he stopped crying.

Phil has always been the type to grin and bear it. He tries desperately to be happy, in a way that I've never understood or been able to emulate. I couldn't understand why he wasn't angry. The world had just thrown this terrible thing at him and he was just... okay with it. Or at least that's how it seemed to me. I didn't get it, I was so very angry with the world and he was just taking it. It scared me, so much. He took his pills and went to therapy and only cried anymore when he thought I was asleep. I pretended to be asleep, pretended not to hear him because I didn't know what I would say. Things just passed and I held my breath around him.

The next week he got quiet again. He would stare at the kitchen floor and ask me to tell him what had happened. He said he didn't remember most of it, and that he couldn't tell what was real and what was fake. It took days and days of begging for me to actually start to explain at all. That was when he found the videos and said I should post them. The knowing was important to him, even if it was painful. He apologized incessantly and I didn't know what to say.

That seems to be a common theme; I never know what to say. But life went on anyways.

The weirdest, yet somehow most honest moment of his recovery happened soon. It had been two or so weeks He somehow managed to slip from what was quickly becoming our bed again without me noticing. I heard someone in the kitchen and ran down as quickly as I could, blinking the sleep out of my eyes. There was Phil, of all things, with his hand in my box of cereal. I laughed, relieved that he was safe.

Phil was upset by that because I wasn't angry with him. I didn't understand but he explained that I'd been treating him like he was glass and I said that I wasn't sure that I could promise that I wouldn't worry about him. He didn't see himself throwing up the poison he'd downed or watch himself bleeding out in the bathroom. He didn't try not to hyperventilate when calling hospital. He didn't spend eleven hours watching his vital signs, praying that they wouldn't falter. He didn't know the anxiety that I felt.

He said that at least I didn't have to live feeling like everyone was just waiting for me to do something terrible.

I don't remember who cried first that night.

I'm making this our to be a terrible two months. There are good things, maybe things that wouldn't have seemed special before all of this but now the little things seem to have more significance. I guess I should put a disclaimer because I think I'm messing up my words here. That's one of the flaws of leaving this unscripted. I'm not saying that there's some bullshit conclusion or metaphor that makes all of this horrible stuff worth it, that makes seeing Phil in this much pain worth it, but it happened. There's nothing I can do to make this have not happened, so if there's anything at all that I could learn from this, anything at all that can be construed as positive then I'm going to fucking cling to it.

I used to argue with Phil about hope. He would say it was the most logical thing in existence and I would say it was self-delusion. I finally agree with him. I finally see how the most logical thing is finding a way to survive, and if hope is that then hope is invaluable. It's like Leah said, people survive because they have to.

That's what we're doing, that's what we have to do. We're surviving. Sometimes Phil talks to me, he tells me about some of the horrible things his mind tells or shows him. The better he gets the more he can tell me without it feeling unsafe for him. He still asks me if things are real occasionally, but at least he's asking me, and he still gets scared of the horrible thoughts that he can't get out of his head, but he'd not on life support anymore, and the gashes he made and the place he bit his skin open are just scars. He's alive, we're surviving.

Nothing is promised, and I know Phil could slip again, that things could get bad again and I won't lie to you all and say that I'm not afraid, but the things he's doing now are going to help him keep from falling. Help him survive another fall if he has to.

Phil takes medicine, recently it's settled on seroquel, abilify, and lexapro. I'm sure when he makes a video he'll talk more about that. He also goes to therapy, that's actually where he is now. He says therapy has been really helpful. For a long time, he would get on me about seeing someone too, to help deal with all the anxiety and depression that I've been dodging nearly since primary schools, the feelings that were sent into hyperdrive by Phil's situation and I laughed him off. He's the sick one, not me. I'm nowhere near as bad as he is. And that's true, I think, but I don't want to be scared all the time. If I can't say that I want to feel okay for myself, then at least so that I can consistently talk to Phil without bursting into tears randomly. So I set up an appointment right before I filmed this, even if I feel guilty about needing help when Phil is so much more hurt. Phil drowning in deeper waters doesn't make me any closer to solid ground. The magnitude of his pain does not heal mine by comparison. I just need to remind myself of this.

I think that's all I have to say. We're surviving. Watch for AmazingPhil's side of things and please try not to be afraid to ask for help, as cliche as that sounds.

Thank you.

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That is probably the end, thank you for reading. This fic was dear to my heart as a lot of it is based on my person experiences dealing with the onset of schizophrenia. Thank you for letting me share it.