#my anxiety so bad my doctor literally has me on a pill to lower my heart rate

[fangthroat]

⛓️ grrrrr bark 💢

[ask-hannah-blog]

Hey are these normal pills safe if you take too many of them? I have friend who contracted Clown flu and she has coulrophobia (fear of clowns) so naturally she got really freaked out and started taking more than twice the amount of recommended pills per day. At first I thought it wouldn't be a huge deal but looking at her these past couple days she seems more... bland? Than usual? Like, usually she's fairly outgoing but these days she's super passive and barely ever talks unless if she absolutely has to. Not to mention her skin is getting gray. I thought it was a clown flu thing at first but no it is absolutely a dull grey not the usual white clowns have. Not only that but her outfits have only consisted of black and white work suits, and dress pants. The weirdest thing to me is that normally she would always complain to me about her desk job, she HATED it. Always talked to me about giving up her job for streaming or something once she had enough money saved up. But as of recent she's been extremely happy with it, trying to get me a position at her company too. I'm getting really concerned for her.

Yes, there is a reason I haven’t been giving the brand for what medication I’m using. It does have a slightly problematic history…

It was originally invented by a company looking to turn their employees into nondescript office drones. They had a company doctor who would offer free treatment, would always end up diagnosing their workers with “anxiety” and would prescribe them normal pills. Surprise! The employees started to become a lot less stressed during work. They stopped using their phones during work, stopped taking breaks, and started working overtime nearly everyday.

Family members of course found out, and the company was torn to pieces. L.O.A Labs ended up with the patent, and so had it on hand when Parade started going after Gimmick.

For Clown Flu we take a lower dose than what was given to those employees. But it’s a careful balance not to go too much to one side or the other.

Now even with a proper dosage normal pills do have side effects. I’ve personally bought a pumpkin spice latte every day since I’ve been on them. The other effect it so embarrassing. The last few nights I’ve been winding down by organizing and refolding the contents of my underwear and sock drawers. Literally the most boring thing a person could do. But hey, I’m willing to put up with those compulsions for the benefits.

Luckily normal pills will flush out if your system pretty quickly, all those employees recovered within a few weeks. So your friend should be okay, just tell her to stick to the dosage her doctor recommended and that’ll be enough. It’s important we don’t over correct when dealing with treatment.

Of course if you need a job might not be a bad idea to take her up on the offer. Sounds like they have a good pharmacy plan! If the work is too mind numbing you know what to do. 😉

Joking of course, honk honk

[thanakite]

Don't know why this has to be stated (though it does if only for the others out there being essentially gaslit by doctors) but the things done in a doctor's office are not always a clear indicator of how it effects you outside that office, and doctors will deny that is the case till they are blue if the face if needed, rather than actually acknowledge and address your issue

TMI below this point

I have a stress incontinence issue, which essentially means that when I cough, sneeze, etc. pee escapes me no matter how hard I try. I have done physical therapy for it, but with my other health problems, maintaining those exercises is hard on my body as a whole. Back in September (of 2021, to be clear) I had a set of 2 procedures done on me to "hopefully tell them what was going on"

These test were terrible, incredibly invasive, painful, humiliating, and complete and utter bullshit. At one point in these tests they fill up your bladder with cold water until you feel like you are going to burst, and then have you cough to see what happens (from there it is just as terrible since you then have to empty out that water in front of the person doing the test), but here is the thing though, this test makes no sense

You see, it is clearly obvious to literally anyone that has experienced an actual cough and a fake/forced (which really should be everyone, but if you've never forced out a cough because someone told you to, do it now, and compare it to the times you coughed for real) that an actual cough has much, much greater effect on your body than a fake cough does. There is a lot more force and pressure exerted when someone is coughing because of something in their lungs and throat or there is a tickle or anything else and when you fake/force a cough, most of those pressures aren't there, because your body isn't actually trying to expell anything or deal with any kind of problem

So this test, that was "supposed to tell them what is going on," will only work on someone with stress incontinence so bad that they are probably close to just peeing all the time, and since this test didn't show anything, because it relied on fake coughs instead of real ones, they basically shrugged and said there was nothing they could do

Actually worse than that, this doctor said, "Well, just try and cough less and see me in 6months if it is still a problem"

Fuck that! I even mentioned to him at one point that there is a difference between a forced cough and a real one and how I don't even have pee escape for every single real cough I let out, but he largely just waved me off

Yes, I do have an issue in that the only thing currently helping with my chronic pain and nausea is weed and the only consumption method that works for me is smoking (edibles, tinctures, pills, etc. Can all have very negative effects on my anxiety and are difficult if not impossible for me to get down and keep down long enough to be effective, and topicals rarely work and when they do it is for a short period, and not that effective because I can't cover my entire body in it), but I do so in the best way possible for me. I dab instead of smoking joints/blunts/bowls because that would require smoking for a much more extended period of time (which is bad for pain and for my lungs), use an electric device so I can do it at a lower temperature, and utilize a filter to keep a lot of stuff out of my lungs. All of this was explained to this doctor, who attempted to suggest the options that don't work for me and was given the counter reasons I can't do that above, which he said he understood, but still only wrote in my medical report that he suggested switching my consumption method, not noting the reasons I explained why that wasn't feasible, which also pissed me off. But yes, part of why I have a cough is that I smoke weed, but honestly, at this point, that is likely a minor source of the problem

The reality is that long before I started smoking at all I had a cough that just never seemed to go away. I produce a lot of mucus for some reason and a lot of that mucus can end up in or around my lungs, which causes me to cough and regularly have to clear my throat and hack up stuff as needed. As of now we are still not exactly sure why that is, and it doesn't appear to be connected to smoking because it never lessened when I had to stop smoking to determine things for medical stuff (which was pure torture and confirmed that weed was not doing anything but helping) and generally doesn't get noticably worse when I do smoke, in fact it was only better a few months ago before I put a humidifier in my room, and that was only because it was so dry, and even then it was only slightly less

So, I've got a chronic issue, not connected to smoking, that causes me to regularly have to cough with the intent it will expell the mucus trapped in my lungs, which usually activates the stress incontinence, an issue that I explained to this doctor extensively, and yet he still decided to act as if there was nothing wrong with me, that there was no evidence of it happening (like, bro, why would I lie about that?), that it was because of weed, and on and on and on doing everything he could to convince me that this was all on me, solely because a test that is not set up to work properly didn't give him the results he wanted

That is bullshit, but doctors do it all the time, they blame you because a test they ordered showed nothing, even when the test has obvious flaws and then they act as if you are at fault. Don't listen to them!!!! You know your body better than they do, you know what you are experiencing better than they do, and just because you couldn't prove it in a test done in a doctor's office where everything is controlled in a way that doesn't reflect how life actually is, doesn't mean your problem isn't still a problem

[spaceskam]

small examples of mistakes i made and stupid things i did

for @saadiestuff ❤️️

ao3

“What’s the worst that could happen?”

“Literally, why would you say that? That’s what people say before the worst happens.”

Michael shrugged haphazardly as if none of it mattered. Which is quite on par with the way he was feeling lately. Liz’s tests were becoming more out of fun than necessity and he’d jumped right on board. He liked being the test subject to see what would happen and he was throwing caution to the wind. Two weeks prior, they’d discovered something similar to extra-strength alien speed which kept him up for over 24 hours and required a babysitter. Two weeks before that, they’d found alien sleeping meds.

“You’re getting so fucking reckless,” Liz said, not even trying to hide the giddy tone in her voice. 

Kyle stood in the corner with crossed arms and irritation on his face. They’d agreed about two months ago that they should always have another person with them when the dose was administered because they didn’t want a repeat of the time that she’d given him something that made him ridiculously angry. Bad times.

“Alright, hit me with it,” Michael urged, slapping his arm.

Liz cleaned the space with alcohol and tied a tourniquet around his arm before injecting the purplish serum. Then they waited. And waited. And waited.

“Are you even feeling anything?” Liz asked, frowning as she pressed the back of her hand to his forehead. He shook his head and she frowned a little deeper.

“Nothing.”

“That’s so weird,” she said. Kyle pushed himself off the wall and walked a little closer.

“What were you expecting it to do?” Kyle wondered. Liz traveled back to her notes and double-checked she’d given him the right thing.

“Well, it was only a tweaked version of the alien Adderal mix, so it should be closer to like an over the counter caffeine pill,” Liz said, her frown turning into a pout, “You seriously don’t feel anything?” 

“Nope,” Michael confirmed, but he wasn’t too concerned about anything. Sometimes it took a while for things to kick in. They’d just gotten too used to automatic results. “I’ll just give it some time and I’ll let you know what happens.”

“Okay,” she said. Michael pulled the tourniquet off and hopped down, feeling slightly woozy for a minute to the point that he had to grab the stool for balance. “What was that?”

“I don’t know,” he said, his eyebrows furrowing. Once he got himself stable, he didn’t feel any more effects. “I just got lightheaded for a second.”

“We should take his blood pressure,” Kyle said. Liz grimaced a little bit.

“We don’t actually know what normal would be,” she said softly. Kyle gave her that look that was typically directed at Michael and it was weird to see it given so freely to Liz. Maybe he was finally getting over her. A part of Michael was proud of him and that felt even weirder than that time he got doused with an anxiety eraser that removed all sense of inhibitions and he kissed Liz.

“Are you telling me you guys have spent almost six months doing dumb shit when you could’ve been tracking things like, I don’t know, blood pressure?” he demanded. They both smiled tightly. “I hate you both. Guerin, I’ll drive you home just in case it did lower your blood pressure and you get dizzy while driving, okay?”

“Okay,” he agreed after being hit with a wave of fatigue. He wasn’t really in the mood to disagree and that had everything to do with the impending lecture from Kyle, Max, and Alex if he got in a wreck when he knew he was dizzy. 

“Liz, I’ll make you a list of important stuff to work on after this is out of his system,” he explained. Liz pouted, but she nodded her head regardless.

They said their goodbyes and started making their way towards the car, Kyle grabbing Michael’s arm every time he stumbled. He was definitely light-headed. 

“So, what, we think it lowered my blood pressure?” Michael asked, ignoring the way his stomach started to ache in the way it did when he was hungover. Kyle pursed his lips and looked at him, pressing his hand to his forehead like Liz had.

“You’re getting colder and you’re dizzy. Are you nauseous? Tired? Struggling the breathe? Feeling dehydrated, maybe?” Kyle listed. Michael relaxed in the seat, his face involuntarily forming a frown at the sick feeling in his stomach continued.

“Tired and nauseous. What does dehydration feel like?” he asked. Kyle didn’t really answer, he just started the car.

“Yeah, I’m thinking it’s low blood pressure. Keep me updated if it gets any worse on the drive. I’ll stop and get you water and then I’ll fill Alex in so he can keep an eye on you tonight. You should be okay as long as it doesn’t get too much worse,” he explained. Michael nodded and closed his eyes, trying to think of anything else so he didn’t throw up. This was probably his least favorite lab rat experiment ever if this feeling was concerned.

The drive was agonizingly slow and his nausea seemed to only get worse. Eventually, he caved and got Kyle to pull over, which led to him just gagging with nothing to show for it until his body was done going through the motions so he could get back in the car. When they stopped to get water, Michael could only take a few sips before he started shivering and Kyle gave him a jacket from his backseat.

“I would lecture you, but I’ll save that for when you’re feeling less pathetic,” Kyle told him. Michael just groaned and huddled into the doctor’s jacket more. It was taking way too long to get to Alex.

Eventually, though, they pulled up to the cabin and Buffy leisurely made her way around from the backyard to see who pulled up. Alex followed with a smile on his face that turned to confusion when he saw it was Kyle’s car and not Michael’s truck.

“Your boyfriend finally got his comeuppance for being Liz’s lab rat,” Kyle said.

“Say that word again and I’ll puke on your shoes,” Michael grumbled, slowly sliding out of the passenger seat. Both men came to his aid. “I’m fine, I just need to sleep it off.”

“Yeah, we think he has low blood pressure, but I can’t be 100% sure because we have no reference point.”

“Liz doesn’t have a reference point? What the hell?”

“That’s what I said!” Kyle scoffed. Michael halfheartedly mocked him before puckering his lips in Alex’s direction. He rolled his eyes, but he pecked his cheek nonetheless. “But basically I just need you to keep an eye on him to make sure his symptoms don’t get worse. Right now, I’m not really sure what we can do but wait.”

“Okay, I can do that,” Alex said, helping him up the steps of the cabin which was a strange role change for them. Still, Kyle and Alex led him to the couch and covered him up with a blanket and shoved the water bottle in his face.

They spoke for a few more minutes as Michael made himself comfy, feeling like shit for an annoyingly prolonged time. Was this how humans felt? Because, if so, he suddenly had an entirely different level of empathy.

After Kyle left, Alex came over the couch and sat on the coffee table. Michael peeked an eye open just enough to see him lifting Buffy onto the couch where she happily snuggled behind his bent knees with her head on his thigh. Then Alex gave him a sweet smile.

“You feel bad, baby?” he cooed, reaching out to comb his fingers through his hair. Michael nodded slightly and Alex gave an exaggerated pout, leaning forward to press a kiss to his forehead. “I’ll make dinner and then we can go to bed early, how’s that sound?”

“Good,” Michael croaked. Alex just gave another smile and another kiss and left him.

Michael drifted in and out of sleep as Alex cooked for them. Eventually, he came to him with a bowl of soup that was clearly meant for them to share. Alex fed him like he was helpless, carefully giving him spoonfuls. He’d honestly never felt so loved in his entire life.

By the time Alex was finished with the dishes, Michael was feeling a little more steady and he was able to follow Alex to bed without much assistance. Buffy followed them with heavy footsteps and settled in her bed as Michael collapsed in his. Alex gave a low, warm chuckle as he got ready for bed while Michael slowly got out of his jeans.

“Thank you for being nice to me,” Michael said once Alex climbed into bed and turned off the lights.

“Of course I’m taking care of you, I love you,” Alex said. Michael managed a smile.

“Well, thank you for loving me.”

“No problem.”

Going to sleep was easy. Staying asleep, however, was harder than anticipated. Some time during the night, Michael became so overheated that he was sweating through his clothes and he’d kicked the blankets off of himself. He woke up at another point with his heart pounding in his chest to the point he was convinced it was a heart attack, only soothed by Alex’s half-asleep petting and shushing. He eventually passed out for the final time by stripping completely and laying on top of the blankets, heavy-breathing into the dark void of the room.

Still, he woke up the next morning before Alex. He felt better, though, if only a little worn out from his night of bullshit. He dragged himself to the bathroom and then, only then, did he notice it.

He looked in the mirror and he was bald. Fucking bald. With some extra checking, he realized it wasn’t just bald, but he was entirely hairless. No hair on his chest, arms, legs, face, nothing. He couldn’t even find any remnants of peach fuzz. 

“Oh, no,” he whispered, his panic slowly rising the more he realized that he wasn’t hallucinating. This was, in fact, reality. And wasn’t that just a bitch? 

Michael scrambled back to the room and all but vaulted over Alex to get to his phone, his hands shaking as he searched for Liz’s contact information. Alex stirred and Buffy made a low boof from the commotion which just made Alex stir more. Michael froze for a minute. Alex couldn’t see him like this. That was absolutely not even kind of an option.

He ran back to the bathroom and locked the door behind him, sitting on the floor to make sure he didn’t have to look at himself in the mirror again. He didn’t want to see it. But still, he called Liz.

“Mikey?” she said sleepily when she answered, “It’s, like, 6 in the morning. What do you want?”

“What the fuck was in that serum?!” he demanded. She didn’t answer right away. “Well?”

“Michael, you helped me create it. You know what was in it,” she said, a little more awake this time, “Why? What’s going on?”

“I-I-” he said. Michael lifted himself up just a little more to catch sight of his reflection one more time before groaning and falling back to the floor. “All of my hair is gone!” 

“What?” Liz demanded. 

“I look like a hairless fucking cat,” he whined, staying laid on the floor instead of even trying to face his reflection in the mirror. What the hell was he supposed to do now? He couldn’t let anyone actually see him like this.

“Okay, um, I’ll come over, do some tests, see what went wrong. I don’t understand,” Liz said. Michael whined even louder.

“Michael, are you okay? There’s fucking hair all over the floor, did you shave your head or something?” Alex asked suddenly. Michael’s eyes widened and he put his full weight on the locked door so Alex couldn’t come it.

“Hurry and bring something to fix it,” Michael hissed, ending the call before she could speak. Alex knocked against the door.

“Michael? What’s going on? Do I need to call Kyle?” Alex asked sweetly. Michael simply groaned. Why did he have to be nice? And why did he want to call Kyle, the guy with the ridiculously good hair? He already had Liz coming over and she was basically a fucking hair goddess.

“I’m fine,” Michael told him.

“Well, open up,” he urged, “Let me make sure you’re not, like, going hysterical.”

“Trust me, I wish I was hysterical,” Michael answered, throwing his head back against the door. Except it was bare skin again the cold door with no barrier to soften the blow and he couldn’t help but make a disgusted face. When he rubbed the back of his head, the disgust only got worse. Even that time one of his foster families shaved his head didn’t feel as bad as this. 

Alex, however, was being suspiciously quiet for a suspicious amount of time. It wasn’t like him to just fold so easy and Michael put his ear to the door to see what was going on. Which is when the door clicked unlocked and started to push open. Michael pushed on it as hard as he could.

“Michael.” 

“Don’t come in!”

“You’re worrying me, tell me what’s going on.”

“I’m fine! Just-just leave me alone!” Michael told him.

Alex was quiet for a minute before he said in the softest, most ‘I’m only speaking because I’m anxious and my therapist said I need to talk about my feelings when that happens’ voice ever, “I don’t like this.”

Michael groaned, his stomach twisting with his internal battle. He was cold and hairless and gross and he wasn’t really ready for Alex to see him like that. In fact, if he never had Alex see him like that, then he would gladly avoid him. But this was stressing Alex out and that made it hard to stay.

“Promise me you won’t laugh,” he said, “Or think I’m ugly and break up with me.”

“What? Why would I ever think you’re ugly?” Alex asked, “Did you shave your head?”

“Um, not exactly,” he said, reaching with his foot to grab a towel to tie around his hips. This was actually freezing. How did people function with no hair?

Eventually, he managed to get over himself, wrapped the towel around his waist, and let Alex open the door. He closed his eyes so he didn’t have to see Alex’s initial reaction. If Alex thought he was ugly, then he probably would never be able to get that image out of his head.

“Okay, what happened?” Alex wondered softly. Michael managed to peel his eyes open. Alex stood, leaning heavily on his crutches with his features schooled as if waiting for more information before he showed any type of reaction. 

“I don’t know,” Michael whined, keeping his back to the mirror. He didn’t want to even kind of look at himself. “I just, I got really overheated last night and then I woke up like, like this.” 

“Okay, okay,” Alex said softly, stepping closer, “It’s okay.”

“I look disgusting.”

Alex rolled his eyes, finally showing some reaction. 

“You do not.” Michael glared at him. “Okay, look, it’s a little different, but it’s, not, like horrible.”

“It’s horrible.”

“No, it’s not.”

“I have no body hair. At all. I look like a pre-pubescent boy who stuck his head in Nair,” Michael shot back. Alex grimaced.

“Okay, don’t say that, that makes me feel gross for still finding you attractive.” Michael’s shoulders relaxed a little.

“You still think I’m attractive?” he asked. Alex rolled his eyes again.

“Michael, I love you for you, not for your looks. Sure, it’s an... adjustment, but you aren’t ugly or gross,” he promised, moving closer. He kept both of his crutches in clutch and leaned in to kiss his cheek. Somehow, it still didn’t make him feel any more secure. “Now, I’m gonna go call Liz.”

“I already did, she’s on her way,” Michael said. Alex nodded.

“Good. Now get out of my bathroom, get dressed, and clean up the hair,” he said. Michael nodded and left the bathroom.

Michael avoided the three mirrors that were in the bedroom like the plague as he made his way to the closet to get dressed. Typically, he liked the mirrors. He liked them a lot. Right now, though, he wanted to forget. He put on socks that covered his smooth calves, his only pair of jeans with no holes, a t-shirt, a button up, and topped it off by stealing one of Alex’s beanies that he pulled down to wear his eyebrows used to be.

Then he went to sweep up the hair which hurt him a lot more than he expected. It felt like a special kind of torture knowing that he just had to deal with it. He was mournful and achy about the entire thing. He wanted his hair back. 

Once he got it all in the dust pan and in the trash, he collapsed back in bed. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt so low. Or the last time Alex’s compliments didn’t make him feel better. This was truly his rock bottom.

“You look so sad,” Alex sighed as he came back into the room, sitting at the bench on the foot of the bed to put on his prosthetic. “Do I say I told you so now or later?”

“Never,” Michael grumbled into the pillow. If he stayed there, nothing could get worse. “Please, never.”

He heard Alex stand up and walk to the side of the bed, patting him on the ass as he kissed his hat-covered head. His hairless, hairless head. 

“I’m gonna go let Buffy out and make some coffee and then Liz should be here and we’ll figure it out, okay?” Alex said, still sounding sweet instead of condescending despite the fact that he knew he wanted to say he told him so. Because he had. They all had. It was going to bite him in the ass, they said. He just hadn’t expected it to be so bad.

“Okay,” Michael agreed, still not moving. He didn’t want to.

“You poor, poor baby.”

Michael laid in bed for awhile, trying to distract himself as best he could from the fact he felt like a newborn baby. Or a mannequin. Or both. He groaned and rolled onto Alex’s side of the bed to try and get rid of that horrible feeling in his stomach. He didn’t even let himself think about work in the morning.

Eventually, the smell of coffee came closer with the sound of two pairs of footsteps. With it came the crushing embarrassment of having not one, but two witnesses to the way he looked. And to think, he thought he was done with embarrassment after the fifth time he went to school with bruises back in Albuquerque.

“Tell him he looks fine,” Alex said. Liz snorted slightly.

“Michael, it’s really not that big of a deal. I mean, you didn’t really have eyebrows to begin with and that’s the major thing that makes someone look weird,” Liz explained. He lifted his head just enough to glare at her. She sighed and came closer. “You know, after Rosa died and I left town, I cut all my hair off and I felt really ugly too.”

“That’s not the same thing. You did that on purpose. I didn’t want this,” Michael explained. 

“Yeah, okay, but it’ll be okay. I mean, look, let me check your vitals. If it just made your hair fall out and didn’t effect your hair follicles, it’ll just looked like you shaved it in, like, a week. It’ll grow back, it’s just hair,” Liz told him. He still pouted. “It’ll grow back.”

“I feel naked.”

“Yeah, well, you like being naked,” Alex pointed out. Michael sighed. “Look, it just feels this bad because it’s new. I promise you, you’ll feel better after you get used to it. I did whenever I had to shave my head for basic.”

“You promise?” he said.

“I promise. This is as low as you’ll feel,” he said. Michael reluctantly sat up.

“I’ll hold you to it.”

He let himself be dragged into the kitchen where Alex gave him coffee and doused him in kisses. Liz took his vitals and a blood sample. The little check-up proved that he was basically back to normal, just hairless. But there was no obvious sign that it was going to affect his hair growth in the future which did make him feel a little better.

“So, as far as I can tell, your blood pressure dropped so low that that your body over-corrected by spiking your blood pressure. And, because your alien genes are insane, instead of gradual hair loss, it just all fell out at once. And I’m assuming it’s only because it got so high,” Liz explained. Michael let out a sigh and Alex pressed a kiss to his neck.

“See? I told you, you’re fine,” Alex told him.

“I think this is the most PDA I’ve ever seen you give, Alex,” Liz said with a smile. 

“He’s only doing it to make me feel better,” Michael said. Alex hummed and pressed another kiss to the side of his head.

“You know me so well,” he cooed. Michael rolled his eyes and managed a smile. 

“Right, well, I’ll let you know if anything weird happens when I look at your blood sample and just keep me updated on your hair re-growth. Maybe I can try to make a hair gr—“

“Nope. I’m gonna retire being a lab rat for a little while,” Michael said. He didn’t even have to look at Alex to know he was happy about that choice. “Maybe let’s stick to actually looking for something useful and then we’ll talk?”

“Okay, I can get behind that,” Liz agreed, holding her hand for Michael to shake. 

That night, Michael found himself back in bed and laying on Alex’s chest. It felt weird to feel his breath on his bare scalp, but he did feel a little more comfortable over all. It was slightly easy to forget how he looked as long as he didn’t have to look at it. 

“I am gonna miss playing with your hair, though,” Alex whispered, rubbing his head gently. 

“I’m gonna miss you playing with my hair,” he said. Alex responded by kissing him which was a very weird sensation. Definitely not a bad one, but a weird one. “Maybe I’ll grow back eyebrows this time.”

“I wouldn’t get your hopes up,” Alex laughed. Michael smiled and turned over, trying his best to get comfortable with his nose pressed into his collarbone. Alex, in turn, grabbed his chin and pulled him into a kiss. The kiss deepened just a little and Alex grabbed the side of his face. “Your ears are so cold.”

“Right?” Michael said, pulling out of the kiss to look at him, “Like, my entire head is fucking freezing since I took your hat off.”

“Aw, my poor baby,” Alex said, his pout slowly slipping into a laugh, “C’mere, I’ll warm you up.”

Michael laughed his way through it as Alex pulled his face into his neck and wrapped his arms around his head. It was warmer, he couldn’t lie. So, he snuggled up to him, feeding off of his body heat for once. 

“Okay, this started as a joke, but I’m actually warm and comfy,” Michael said, his voice muffled against Alex’s skin. Alex gave a soft, tired laugh.

“I’ve got you,” Alex said, “Also I like that your legs are so smooth, is that what it feels like to sleep with a girl?”

“Alex, you’ve slept in the same bed as girls multiple times.”

“I didn’t feel their legs with my foot, that’s weird.”

“You’re doing it do me.”

“You’re my boyfriend, leave me alone.”

“I refuse to leave you alone, I would quite literally glue myself to you before I leave you alone.”

“Fine, get the glue, bro.”

“Did you just call me bro while we’re literally in bed together?”

“Yeah, man, how’s it feel?” 

“You are so mean to me.”

Alex snorted and kissed his forehead softly. “I love you.”

Michael smiled and burrowed in a little closer. “I love you too.”

Truth be told, the best discovery that came with losing his hair was how comforting it was to just huddle up to Alex like a cat all times and using the excuse of being cold. He did it even when he wasn’t cold. He did it even when his hair grew back. He did it even when their new experiments gave him completely new side effects

If that ever annoyed Alex, well, he never said anything. So Michael just never stopped.

[tj-crochets]

Hey! I’m going to hopefully tag this enough that is should be blacklisted for anyone who wants it to be, but if you’re uncomfortable with talk of medical stuff (not graphic and overall a positive tone), please skip it!  Under the cut I talk about finally getting a diagnosis and how excited I am, but it does involve some talking about how long it took to get there. If there are any tags you’d like me to add, please let me know

I’ve been sick for ten years. A year ago, I got my first diagnosis that wasn’t anxiety or “that’s normal for you”. I have POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome) with a couple extra bonuses that mean my blood pressure is low and my heart rate is really high pretty much all the time, and it’s worse when I stand. Two months ago, I ended up in the hospital because despite upping my salt and water intake for years (as is required for a lot of people with POTS) I still ended up dehydrated and couldn’t keep water down long enough to re-hydrate. A month and a half ago, I asked my cardiologist about salt pills, because I can’t take beta blockers (they lower heart rate but tank my blood pressure). Salt pills helped a lot, and my reaction to them got me a referral to a new doctor.  Two days ago I finally got to see the right specialist to get a diagnosis for what’s behind the POTS for me. It’s not, like, a full diagnosis, more of a description of what’s happening than why it’s happening, but knowing I have the signs of salt wasting syndrome means I can be given the medication that helps with that.  Today was my first day on my new meds. I still need to take salt pills (it’s literally just a pill entirely made of salt) and I still need to drink extra water, but I was outside in the shade for six hours today working a yard sale and I’m not super dizzy and I didn’t have to take a nap and I was outside in a heat wave!! My previous record being outside without needing a wheelchair was about three hours at the zoo last year, after which I needed a wheelchair for the rest of the day because I could not walk any more and felt pretty bad for days afterwards.  I’m so excited. Don’t give up. Don’t stop fighting for yourself and your health. Don’t hesitate to google things and research* and suggest things (I suggested the salt pills, and not only did they help a LOT, my reaction to them pretty much got me my diagnosis). I know it sounds trite, and it can seem hopeless when you’re stuck spending money you might not have to go to doctors that dismiss you or harass you or suggest, yet again, that you might have anxiety. It took me ten years. I gave up for a while, but seeing other people talking about finally, finally getting the right diagnosis inspired me to try again. I don’t know that this will help anyone else, but if I can pay forward that inspiration or that luck I want to. If you need a sign, this is it. Don’t give up. The world is a better place with you in it, and you deserve to be in the best health you can be, whatever that might look like for you (healthy looks different for everyone!) Thank you everyone. These last few years I haven’t been able to socialize much in person, because I live where it’s hot and I will get very sick very fast if I am in the heat for long. Tumblr has been wonderful to me; all of you who interacted with me have been so kind, and my regulars who like, comment, or reblog I do recognize your usernames and it makes me happy to see your names again. I read all the tags and appreciate all the compliments. I’m not going anywhere, I just want to say thank you all for being so kind to me. 

[mcrmadness]

Feeling like some underlying anxiety needs to get out so here we go...

Hi. I have generalized anxiety disorder. Usually it’s behaving just fine and usually I get along with it. I just overly worry about things, I overthink and I can have minor anxiety attacks because of that. Sometimes I get bigger anxiety attacks but usually I’m able to get over them on my own. Sometimes I’m not. However, yesterday evening and last night were the worst in a long time.

I was triggered by something and my violent intrusive thoughts came back. In my case it means I start to worry about going insane and that I would do something terrible and later regret it. Something that I would never ever want to do! And I don’t actually think I would even be capable of anything like that which is why it makes it so terrifying because I’m literally afraid of falling into a psychosis. And I have never had a psychosis. And I don’t know if it’s just my mind shattering into pieces or my GAD just acting out, making me worried that I would go insane. (If you think of it, I’ve never been actually sane tho :D)

I was able to push these intrusive thoughts away by avoiding the thing that triggered me and I tried to do something else instead but since they are intrusive thoughts, they still keep popping up. I hate the images they create into my head.

Eventually I got super tired and decided to go to sleep and while I was in my bed, I felt it again. The anxiety attack taking over. At some point I had some sort of chronic anxiety and I was in that kind of state 24/7 but I’m pretty sure it was because I was quitting antidepressants and I was eating those with a very low dose, trying to get rid of them. And I had had something “traumatic” happen to me too (first time getting actual suicidal thoughts but in form of intrusive thoughts which meant I just felt so terrible I wanted it to stop and at the same time being terrified of doing something terrible because I still did not want to die! I have never wanted to die, I’ve more of been afraid of it. The reason for this was me just being under so much stress and not eating nor drinking enough + I had been lowering the dose of the meds so drastically at the same time that my brains could not take it all.) which probably caused the anxiety to kinda stick.

I’m actually really scared of the feeling of not feeling good and wanting everything to stop because I literally have no idea what to do with that and it causes me even more anxiety. It’s terrible. I have had these moments several times in my life and they have been really traumatizing. I am someone who cannot tolerate not feeling good, which is probably stupid because life isn’t that perfect ever? Anyway, I always start to feed it with something, basically “self-medicate”, usually literally feeding aka the first thing I start to do when I start feeling bad is to start eating. That often helps, maybe because food gives us endorphines anyway, but also because I often link it to low blood sugar which can has very similar symptoms to anxiety and I have had a hard time telling them apart too, having really bad obsession with my blood sugar levels (I don’t have diabetes, that’s why I call it “mental diabetes”) and I’m pretty sure I have even gained weight because of eating for “low blood sugar” which was just chronic anxiety or me getting anxiety from the idea of not having access to food in case of low-blood sugar aka anxiety attack. When I started to carry around these “fructose pills” and realized that I can eat whenever I want and it’s no one else’s business if I eat something in public (which is sometimes actually really hard with social anxiety, especially in quiet environments), no one even cares! So just having these with me (I literally have them everywhere, even in my bathroom if I’d need them while in the shower) helped so much that I don’t really even need them. It helps to know I have access to something that will increase my blood sugar levels if needed prevents the anxiety attacks and I don’t need to constantly eat because I’d be afraid of not being able to eat.

So since you know how I often eat when I have anxiety and it often helps too, the worst type of anxiety is what does not go away with food. Because then I’m again in this place: not feeling good but not having any idea how to feel good again! I’m afraid of this because... can you get traumas from your own old defeated depression? Anyway, I’m always afraid of the depression coming back. It was terrible time and I was feeling so terrible so often and that’s why I’m super scared of having to face those feels again. That all ended when I was 17, sitting in the kitchen, again feeling so terrible. I still can remember having low blood sugar - this time probablly FOR REAL because I barely ever ate nor slept because I was never hungry and sleeping felt like a waste of time, so I lost weight but I did not see that either. Until one day I looked at the mirror and realized I was quite skinny and I got so bad case of anxiety that I felt like eating fucking everything from the house because I had always been so determined that I, I do not have an eating disorder! And I did not understand when people said I have lost weight and my parents even were worried that I would have an eating disorder. But I was just so... I knew about eating disorders, I never felt fat and I never felt like losing weight so I was always really shocked and annoyed by people saying that because I had no problems with my self-esteem whatsoever. And so when I realized I had been losing weight, I got so scared by that and I literally wanted to gain weight in one night and I started obsessively eat that night because it was so damn scary to see myself be that skinny. I don’t really think I was underweight tho, but I sure was malnourished since I ate basically never. And I was drinking lots of coffee because it made me laugh.

But yeah, I remember that one night when I was again have one of these “low blood sugar episodes” where I would just feel sick and sit in the kitchen or toilet meanwhile feeling like vomiting and trying to eat something to feel better again. And I had one of these anxiety attacks too and I was just staring at the shadows on the rug and I remember to thinking to myself how I started to feel the old depression to come back. I could feel it approaching and the same stuff from couple of years earlier coming through. And I just thought myself that this has to stop, I can’t live like this anymore. And the next day I told my mom that I’m not feeling good anymore and I need to see a doctor and that I agree on even trying on antidepressants for this, I just need this feeling to be gone. And so did happen too, I ate them for 5 years until I quit at the age of 22.

I have that feeling still so strongly in my memory that I’m always afraid of it coming back. It’s just so terrifying feeling because I feel totally helpless and that I can no longer help myself. That is why I always start to have anxiety attacks when I don’t eat properly. I’m sure this was one of the reasons to trigger last night’s episode because I have been eating so badly cos I have had no energy nor inspiration for cooking. My sleeping schedule is again doing whatever the fuck it wants and I’m again not taking care of myself. Every time this happens that I don’t shower, at properly or start to stop care about my sleeping habits, I start to fall into that dark place. Or not really fall into there, but this kind of behaviour reminds me of it so much I start having anxiety attacks until I get my shit together, go to shower and eventually cook a real meal. I think I got my low blood sugar anxiety only so that I remember to eat. As a kid I always had trouble knowing when I need to eat because I either was never hungry or I “felt hungry” all the time but had no appetite, so I usually ate when I was offered food but I never ate because I would be hungry. A few times I ate because I started shaking and knew to tell my mom I need to eat. But usually I just ate because there was lunch or dinner or because it was a habit for me to get a snak (usually toast) when I came home from school and watch tv while eating. So the food anxiety in my head is like the adult telling me that you haven’t been eating in a while, here, take food.

I often think how good it is that I am a teetotaler. I’m very sure that if I ever drank alcohol, I would be an alcoholic. I once saw on TV how someone was talking about his alcoholism and that he drinks because it makes him numb. And I realized that it’s really good I’ve never been into alcohol because I would probably self-medicate too so strongly I’d probably never be sober because I’d just try to make myself numb. In a way this is also interesting because so many people become numb because of their depression, in my case I definitely am not numb, I just feel shit and I am aware of that and I’d rather be numb than feel that! But I guess if you feel shit for long enough, you eventually will get used to it and become numb... in a way that happened to me too but sometimes the awful feeling woke up anyway and made me feel like I want it to go away. Maybe me being highly sensitive person just makes that feel even stronger and therefore unbearable, idk... (I don’t have depression right now, but I definitely have had and I feel like I am one of those people who could fall back into depression any minute and that’s why I try to take care of myself to prevent that from happening. My depression is also a secretive type, just like the one when I was 17, I thought it went away but I was telling myself so and I had a hidden depression for 1,5 years before I figured it out. And still only after starting with the meds I realized how I was NOT fine!)

Last night I felt that again and my thought are always “no, not this shit again!!!” and I actually fell asleep but I just felt the anxiety raging all over in my body. A few hours later I woke up to go to the toilet and I was also covered in sweat and my blanket and everything were so so so wet. At that moment I actually felt a lot better tho, calmer and when I went back to sleep, I felt like I had “dreamed away” that anxiety. Anyway, I woke up again couple of hours again but the anxiety was back, maybe also low blood sugar (the real one this time) as I was shaking and feeling nauseous. I’m still feeling slightly nauseous and weird even tho I have been eating, but writing REALLY helps me with these things every time. I guess the intrusive thoughts are not that strong anymore which is great, so maybe this is just the aftermath anxiety. Sometimes it can last for a very long time. The last time I had this was when a few years ago MCR uploaded all the uncut versions of their music videos to their YT channel and I was watching those and boom, suddenly they triggered my anxiety because I was watching their dvd literally 24/7, it was on always when I was awake, because I used it as a background noise to hide away my own anxiety. So seeing those videos be on repeat triggered anxiety that lasted for like a few weeks :D But I got over it. (And I still love MCR, they helped me with so many things, I wouldn’t get triggered by the videos if they did not help me!!!)

But I need to shower now, finally. I’m meeting with the neuropsychiatric trainer in an hour so at least I can talk about this with someone. But I can already feel a lot calmer now, even tho I have some small snippets of anxiety going around the whole time but it might also be because I realized that the Apulanta gig will already be on NEXT FRIDAY.

[a-woman-apart]

On To the Next Thing

I’ve been making voice diaries for about a week now. They are used so that I can vent aloud and chronicle my mood in a more tangible way. If am simply writing or typing, I have more time to censor my emotions and think through what I’m about to write. My voice diaries are spontaneous word vomit. I think each method has its merits, but in the very least, this at least helps me to experience what I sound like to others.

Two things stand out for me so far:

1.      I have a penchant for being incredibly self-critical (go figure)

2.      My anxieties consist of a vast number of existential worries that are always bubbling underneath the surface

Long-time readers of my blogs are probably yawning in boredom right about now, but again, it is different for me to read what I’m thinking than to actual hear it with my ears. Hearing how insecure I am in audio form helps give me a deeper realization about how worry, tension, and low self-worth play a role in every action that I take. Let us not be given to hyperbole right now. I don’t think I’m “the worst person who ever lived.” I do not think I am utterly devoid of merit. I am, however, constantly chasing a feeling of contentment that I wonder if I’ll ever be able to hold on to. Sure, when I do well, I semi-congratulate myself and revel in an opportunity to rest on my laurels. That sentiment has hardly ever lasted more than a month. One minute, I can literally be playing “I’m Walking on Sunshine” and practically bouncing to my car because I have successfully completed finals, to frantically checking for information about my next classes the next.

On to the next thing / I’m searching / For something that’s missing…

I don’t know if the goal should be to make the good feels of accomplishing things last longer. I think that I already know that I should be less dependent on those temporary bursts of satisfaction to sustain my happiness. Cognitively, I know that my self-worth is not tied to my productivity. I know that working hard to be a “success” in the capitalist machine is not the thing that my value as a human being is dependent on. I can’t seem to get that knowledge from my head to my heart. Breathing in and out in the knowledge that I am enough seems impossible.

Reading an article in my physical education course about how maintaining my health is a “social responsibility” drove home the fact that our society believes that being healthy and productive is a duty, rather than a privilege. I don’t owe it to anyone—except myself—to be happy and healthy. You don’t get to tell me that being sick is a waste of your time and resources. You don’t get to preach to me about being a “burden to society.” I don’t often quote the Bible anymore, but here we go:

“We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves.” -Romans 15:1

How’s that for a Biblical support of single-payer health care? ::winkwinknudgenudge::

I won’t always need to be on disability, but for now I need it, and it’s here for me. It should be like that for everyone who needs it. I require support, but I also support other people. I believe in working towards the common good. Needing help doesn’t make me weak. We all have something to contribute. I believe that knowing that my value is intrinsic, as opposed to based on all the things I can accomplish, is the next step in me being a happy, healthy, balanced individual.

Now, we get to the worry. I found this video on Generalized Anxiety Disorder that I related to so much. I showed it to my therapist and we discussed it. Even though I do have times that I am like Sally—and have a healthy relationship with anxiety— I find that most of the time I am like Nikki. Even though there are some things I do to fight my anxiety, like accepting invitations to outings that are difficult for me to attend, the anxiety is still there. It is pervasive and all-encompassing. My therapist said,

“I can’t imagine how hard it must be to live like Nikki.”

My therapist emphasized the importance of support for someone like Nikki, i.e., someone like me. I am glad that I mostly have the support that I need. My therapist did say that in order to receive a diagnosis or a change of medicine I did have to talk to my psychiatrist. I will be seeing him this Friday, and I am nervous, because psychiatrists are like “Okay, just take X” without taking into account the fact that anxiety can make us hesitant to try new things if we are not offered an adequate explanation.

For example, when I tentatively expressed my anxiety issues to my psychiatrist, he recommended Gabapentin for if I had an episode of anxiety. I only opened the bottle once to see what the pills looked like, then never opened it again. I wanted to take it before my presentations at school, but having never taken it before, I was afraid that it might make me flat, spacey, or “out of it.” I was afraid that I would be too doped up to drive home. In other words, as my boyfriend put it, I was, “too anxious to take my anxiety medication.”

While it is true that I should’ve asked my doctor about my concerns, it was also up to him to volunteer some information and invite me to do so. My doctor is a little bit better about this, but often prescriber appointments are rushed through and the time is filled with the provider asking closed questions (as opposed to open-ended questions) and very little time is spent actively listening to the patient. This is because there are not enough prescribers for patients at clinics that are geared to lower-wage individuals like me. I don’t want the prescriber to just prescribe random medication; I want to discuss possible side effects and know what kinds of people this medication has worked for.

I am already taking two medications to deal with anxiety and depression, and I am very iffy about adding a third or increasing the dosage. A prescriber I saw when my prescriber was out did provide some unexpected, helpful feedback. She told me that since I was coming off the antipsychotic Invega and taking a low dose of the atypical antipsychotic Abilify, that I should watch out for anger, frustration, or hallucinations. She said that if I started to become angry, I should talk to someone immediately. While I haven’t been exploding with rage, my irritability has been heightened.

Truthfully, all my emotions have been heightened, and that might not necessarily be a bad thing. It feels good to be able to cry when I’m sad and laugh with genuine delight when I feel happy. I think my previous medication made me a little muted. The key may not be to turn everything back down, but rather to learn to deal with everything more constructively. Learning mindfulness and breathing exercises is really frustrating; I feel like I have to be constantly occupied so learning to slow down and try to “ground” myself feels like some hot garbage. I feel like I am constantly on edge and being told to “calm down” is beyond irritating.

I need to learn to embrace the person that I am even with all my faults. I am not going to learn to manage my anxiety by beating myself up every time that it gets the best of me. I am not going to gain self-esteem by being angry that mine is based primarily on my achievements. I am not going to learn to temper my pessimism by putting on false optimism. The world is an awful place and that is fact, damn it! (A/N: I am mostly kidding. We’re all going to die from climate change, but at least for now we have ice cream and puppies.) Changing requires patience and discipline. I’ve already started making healthier choices regarding my diet and exercise, but I couldn’t have made these changes in a vacuum. I needed the right motivation to start and now I’m on a roll.

Self-contempt is never going to propel me— or you— into a better future. I often forget that simple advice; “Treat yourself like you would a trusted friend.” I think if more of us did that, we would all be better off.

[auk-blogs]

Shitty things that happened when I last went inpatient

At the CSU, I was denied access to my fidget toys (I am autistic AND ADHD) even though I specifically picked out ones that couldn't possibly be harmful - a stuffed animal, a Tangle, a glitter tube, etc.

Every time I tried to inform the nurses at the nurse's station that I was feeling extremely anxious, IF I got their attention at all they would just tell me that "there's colouring pages and puzzles in the dayroom" like. No?? I actually wanted some kind of medication mayhaps a sedative because I was going fucking NUTS

I was denied my ADHD pill, Vyvanse, because and I quote directly, I wasn't "working or studying or anything." No. That's not how it works. I needed that pill in order to think in a coherent manner for more than 2 seconds.

Actually the denial of my Vyvanse might be why I was so goddamn anxious? YOU try not getting anxious when your thoughts are all over the place and just keep getting faster and faster.

The other patients kept playing horribly bloody, violent, and graphic movies. Like WHY do you even HAVE a DVD that has a scene where a pirate has to do abdominal surgery on himself with no anaesthetic?? That's just. That's just pure Trigger(TM) on a shiny DVD.

There was this ONE FUCKING PATIENT. Cheri. I will hate Cheri until the day I die. She managed to always get ahead of me in her wheelchair and she would sit and simper with her watery eyes and her wobbling lip and her wringing hands and this horrible look in her eyes... The nurses always paid more attention to Cheri than me even though I was fucking articulating that HEY I NEED HELP FOR (X) THING and Cheri refused to speak.

Sweater Guy turned my room's light off in the middle of the night. I was insomniac and reading. And also the only patient in my room. Sure it's not a crime or anything but it's really fucking annoying. I wasn't bothering anyone, why not just let me read my book in peace?

For a while the only time I saw the therapist was as she was speedwalking down the hallway to leave for the day every evening. She wouldn't even make eye contact with me.

It wasn't until I finally snapped and told them that I had figured out at least 3 ways to attempt aliven't on that ward that they finally realised that yes, I DID NEED SOME ACTUAL FUCKING HELP.

The CSU led me to believe that the next place I was going to was going to be a long term facility. I took that to mean at least a month if not more. I was ready to finally get some serious help that I'VE BEEN TRYING TO GET SINCE THE END OF 2016.

The CSU had a max stay of about 3 days, btw.

Well I got to Peninsula and it turns out that "long term facility" means 5 to 7 day stay. So... Not what I was led to believe.

I was strip searched, I believe is the term. Yes, I was forced to strip pretty much naked to confirm that I wasn't bringing any contraband on my person (despite me checking in voluntarily).

Like I've related before, I was "relieved of" my comfort items - my hardcover journal, some books, and my drawings. The journal and drawings in particular had content I wanted to share with the therapist(s) at Pinensula and I never got to.

When I got anxious about not having my journal/comfort item back, the staff were very apathetic to my literal BEGGING and just basically told me to suck it up and deal with it.

For some reason hardcover books were contraband?? Like what was I gon do, give someone a whack on the head? Anyway they offered me a composition book BUT IT WASN'T MYYYY JOURNAL and as any autistic knows one cannot simply replace a comfort item with a lower quality replacement.

When I, AUK, got too anxious and overwhelmed to deal anymore - Lizzie took over and threw a massive fit. We don't think we got chemically sedated, but we did get hoodwinked into going to a more "secure" ward and then when Lizzie was still pissed off, they manhandled us into a "blank room."

In the new ward, I was relieved of my clothes, my slippers, and pretty much what was left of my dignity. I was made to wear paper scrubs instead of proper clothes.

If I wanted to use the toilet or shower, a nurse would sit at the door with it propped open watching every move I made. No privacy. I eventually only used the bathroom once every morning and only showered once while I was at that ward.

The medication lady (unsure of her status - nurse? Doctor? Idk) refused to keep weaning me off my Lexapro and instead yanked me off it entirely. I'd been on Lexapro for a good while and uh. Ever hear of SSRI withdrawal? It is HORRIBLE. I still think she was totally unprofessional about that and should have fucking known better.

I am overly sensitive to sound and nobody would turn the fucking radio off. (All it played was Christmas music, too. *shudder*)

When I asked for more food, I never got it. I was so freaking hungry by the time I was released.

I'm pretty sure that the coffee was decaf because I got out into the world again and suddenly couldn't handle even half-caf. That means that the nurses were openly lying about the caffeine content - they repeatedly said it was full caffeine coffee.

There were supposed to be groups on that unit but like ...none ever happened? It was like the staff were so busy doing stuff that I couldn't see, that they didn't have time to do their jobs with the patients.

Did I mention that the manhandling left bruises? On my upper arms and also my right buttock from where the men forced me to sit down with all 200 lbs of me onto a concrete floor. Ouchies.

On my discharge notes, somebody wrote a note telling me to stop taking my birth control (which I take to regulate horribly heavy and long periods, not because I am sexually active). The discontinuation of the birth control was never verbalised to me. Never. Not once. There wasn't even an explanation in the note either.

Pinensula put me on what they said was an anti anxiety script but I looked it up and it's actually an antipsychotic. So if you go tell someone that you're anxious, you're psychotic? Like. What? (I understand medications can be used for more than one purpose. But I've been consistently prescribed meds that don't match with my self reported symptoms, and even meds that aren't MEANT to be used for the purpose they were prescribed to me for.)

I got so overstimulated while on the unit that I begged for earplugs. They didn't help at all, even when I combined them with a pillow over my head too. And then they went and turned the radio LOUDER.

(Although not relevant to me, there was this one patient who went ballistic over a hair being on her unpeeled orange ... She had been fiddling with her hair right before eating and she was the only one with that hair texture and colour on the unit... Yeah she threw a fit because she got one of her hairs on her unpeeled orange. Sigh.)

Did I mention that both the CSU and Peninsula are mostly for detoxing people? They just throw detoxing addicts and people who are having purely mental health problems in together. It is a bad system, because people like me who just need mental health support are often triggered by the detoxing addicts, and we get ignored by staff because the detoxing addicts are a higher priority I guess? They're certainly more dramatic.

My mum later told me that she was told that I was likely to be released early because I was "cooperative." Of fucking course I'm cooperative you absolute nitwits, I checked in voluntarily because I've been suicidal for like 16 years and I want some fuckin HELP

My mum tried to bring me a small stuffed dragon as a birthday present (yes, I was inpatient on my birthday). The stuffed toy was not allowed through because it was contraband. FUCKING HOW IS A LITTLE PLUSH DRAGON CONTRABAND? Mum articulated her distress as somethinf like "I just wanted to bring my autistic spawn something stimmy on their birthday" like fucking hell man, don't ever go inpatient if you are neurodivergent because they sure as hell won't allow you to have any coping mechanisms that aren't staying quiet, staring at nothing, and using dried up markers on a badly designed colouring page.

Anyway sorry this got so long. There's probably even more stuff that I forgot about.

Storal of the mory is don't go inpatient in Southeastern Tennessee, kids. You might be fucked up now but they will definitely fuck you up worse.

[astramthetaprime]

A is for Anxiety

Until recently, I spent roughly 25 years on various forms of anti-depressant or lately anti-anxiety medications.  

A problem inherent in being biologically female and Autistic is that one is almost never diagnosed correctly until much later in life.  Briefly, this is due to the vast majority of Autism research having been conducted only with data gathered from males, primarily young boys.  This led (incorrectly) to the conclusion that Only Boys Can Have Autism.  This has also led (infuriatingly) to girls with Autism being misdiagnosed sometimes multiple times over the course of their lives with depression, anxiety, Borderline Personality Disorder, etc.  Unless a little girl was overwhelmingly obviously autistic, they were never diagnosed as such.  Because Only Boys Can Have Autism.  Only recently have women begun to be recognized as Autistic.  I am part of that cohort.  

Anxiety is most definitely part of Autism, or rather a product of it.  I wouldn’t say a symptom, truly more of a product.  Try going through your life constantly befuddled by the world around you and tell me you don’t have anxiety.  Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Anyway.  So yeah, I was on anti-anxiety meds.  Until my doctor neglected to renew the prescription.  Despite 2 calls to the doctor by my pharmacist.  So suddenly I’m going cold turkey from a med I’ve been on for the last 10 years.  

But I’m no stranger to such situations, unfortunately.  In my 20s I got dumped from my state’s TennCare program without warning while I was on 80mg Paxil.  The highest single-pill dosage they make.  I had half a month’s worth left.  I started cutting them in half immediately to try to ramp down as much as I could, but after they were gone it was cold turkey.  If you’ve never been on anti-depressants, they tell you they’re not addictive.  The hell they aren’t.  They’re physically addictive.  I spent about 6 weeks with my head spinning like a top.  It got so bad that I couldn’t sit in a chair without arms because I would literally lose my balance and fall out of the chair.  But then I found the best thing -- Dramamine will stop the spinny head.  Not kidding.  Good old fashioned Dramamine.  Holy crap suddenly I could make it through work without vomiting in the parking lot.  So I stocked up on that and soldiered on.  After I put myself on St. John’s Wort -- highly recommended, at least by me -- and was all right with the world for nigh on 20 years or so, until I got on the anti-anxiety meds.  The two are not good together.  Don’t do it.  SSRIs and MAOIs do not mix, kids.  DON’T DO IT.

Anyway, again.  I’m trying to get to the point here.  So yeah, the withdrawal from the much lower dosage of anti-anxiety meds went comparatively smoothly, and I’ve been off completely for several weeks now.  I want to know what kind of baseline I’m working with nowadays.  I’ve been on meds for so long that I honestly don’t know who I am underneath it.  So I’m ... okay with it.  Being off the drugs.  I want -- I need -- to know how Autistic I am underneath it all.  Who is the unvarnished, unadulterated Aunty Proton?  I can’t know what I need to look out for with drug-biased data.  

Pursuant to this, I’ve begun keeping an Anxiety List.  When I get to bugging, I fire up my Google Keep app and write that sucker down.  How is this useful?  A common pitfall of Autism is meltdowns, where a person becomes overwhelmed by stresses or environmental conditions to the point that they just snap.  It may be due to sensory sensitivities, it may be due to an overwhelming load of demands, it may be due to social conditions -- everybody is different in their triggers.  It’s usually a situation of things building up until a final trigger just is too much.  So by keeping track of things that I sense are stressing me out, I hope to determine what kind of things in general could set me off.  I’m trying to adult here.  To be my own therapist.  Because I ain’t got the money to afford all my bills right now much less therapy.  

That’s a rant for another time though.  HOWEVER.  Thanks to a wonderful resource there is some hope in that regard.  If you’re Autistic and can handle working for a living but have trouble finding a job that you can do, well, I’m going to try Mentra at mentra.me.  The wonderful resource that made me aware of Mentra is known as neurodivergent_insights on Instagram.  Dr. Megan Neff.  SHE’S THE BEST PERSON EVER.  Please give her a follow if you haven’t, she’s honestly taught me so much about this crazy called Autism and made me suspect I may also be ADHD.  

So hoping Mentra can help me.  I haven’t signed up yet, planning on that starting today after I’m done with this post.  I will let you all know.  

Take care of yourselves, people, because once you hit 18 no one is going to take care of you but yourself.  Word.

[wannabeemoprincess]

Over the past year of a global pandemic, there seems to be two main competing narratives of recent events that we have in the West. The first narrative being that COVID is a very real issue that we need to take action to fight against, the other that COVID is either completely fake, or greatly exaggerated for some sort of political gain, and any action the government takes in the name of fighting it is actually a sinister power grab. The first narrative tends to focus on personal responsibility, insisting that if we wear our masks, wash our hands, stay 6 feet apart, refuse to hug grandma, and listen to the experts everything will be fine. the people who refuse to comply are either dumb or bad, or both. 

The second narrative claims to focus on personal liberty, insisting that government overreach is killing small businesses, that public health orders to wear masks or get vaccines is some how tyranny and a violation of their "self ownership", and liberals hate your grandparents for being old racist white people so they want them to die alone. Or something. Both these narratives have their flaws, and I would like to try and address both while presenting a more dialectical understanding of recent events.

The first narrative definitely gets the closest to the truth, but it really fumbles explaining much or providing a plan after it identifies the very real problem of COVID, and the need for a proper response to save lives. This concept that anyone who is anti-vax or anti-mask is just simply anti-facts, anti-science, and either bad or dumb or both is dangerously reductive *at best*. A lot of the time when I see people responding to anti-mask/anti-vax rhetoric it's very dismissive, telling people to just shut up and trust the experts, because you are dumb and they are smart and essentially good people who only want to help us. But like, if you bother to actually look at history you can find *tons* of examples of supposed experts either lying or covering up information for corporate profits at the cost of the well being of the people. One easy example would be when tobacco companies used to insist that doctors actually recommended smoking, promoting their deadly cancer sticks as some how healthy.

A more relevant example would be the Tuskegee experiments, an experiment in 1932 where around 600 Black men were deceived into participating in the experiment under the belief they would receive free medical care, however, instead were used without informed consent as human test subjects. The objective of the study was to observe untreated syphilis, treatment was never part of the plan. This wasn't only a massive ethical violation, but a prime example of how white supremacy can effect every aspect of society and even parts such as health care are tainted by it. The men abused for this "study" were told it would last 6 months, however it was extended to last 40 years, only cancelled after a leak caused public pressure to finally stop this barbaric "study". Unfortunately 128 of the victims had already died at this point due to syphilis or related complications.

Now, A lot of the anti-mask and anti-vax crowd tends to be white. And I'm honestly not sure how many of them are very informed on the subject of the Tuskegee experiments. However, there is a very recent example that has almost definitely affected the typically privileged middle class white demographic particularly harder than usual where medical professionals deceived the public for financial gain, experts lied in their "studies", and a lot of families are either still rebuilding from the fallout, or will never get back friends or family members they lost to the opiate epidemic.

Dangerous drugs like Oxycodone were being pushed like candy, with studies that "proved" they weren't addictive or habit forming. Doctors were basically being bribed by pharmaceutical companies to prescribe more and more pills. There was a point where it seemed like anyone could take their kid to the doctor, and complain about their inability to focus, and get an ADHD diagnosis and some pills to fix them. A lot of people felt lied to and abused by medical professionals, someone who you were raised to trust as a friendly noble profession that had your best interests in mind. Big Pharma, to be clear, is literally a faceless monster that cannot care about human lives, and only seeks to create more and more profit for owners & investors. And unfortunately, the rest of the medical industry is pretty much reliant on Big Pharma & the Medical industrial complex, as it would be pretty much impossible to open a medical practice without any medicine or equipment. So I can fully understand why an appeal to the authority of the experts can easily get brushed off as "ignorant sheep" who trust "the man", honestly.

But there's a very big material difference between the opiate epidemic, or really most medical issues, and something like COVID & vaccines in general. And that would be that vaccination *relies on as many as people being vaccinated to actually work*. If only the rich and powerful can access a vaccine, the disease will not be eradicated, evolve and mutate, and eventually the vaccine is rendered useless. This means they have a very real material interest in ignoring their profit motive, for once. 

Something to consider would be the Black Plague & the change from feudalism toward capitalism. One of the major factors that destabilized the monarchy's absolute power was the mass deaths of the working population. When there are hordes of hungry people desperate for work, they tend to have very little power to demand better conditions when they do find work, as they are easily replaceable. With a drastically lowered work force, the power balance between peasant & Lord was exposed, the peasantry was able to revolt, and over throw the Kings, and a new power relationship was established of worker & owner, which was progressive at the time, but we're now at the point where the divide between the working class and the owner class is even greater than the old divide of serf and lord. 

Those who own capital, be it rental properties, a factory, or investments, have complete power over those who only have their body and their time to sell to those who own the stores & factories, to rent the homes they can't afford anymore from landlords who hoard housing as a commodity to profit off of. We're told if we work hard enough, we could possibly own something, too. And we're just bitter and ungrateful when we complain. And we're replaceable. But how would that change if the masses of workers were dying in the streets of a plague again?

 While wealth definitely creates a lot of privilege, and their experience of living through a pandemic is immeasurably different from ours, at the end of the day they haven't yet lost sight of the reality that without masses of poors to exert their power over, their money becomes entirely useless. Which is why they’re willing to part with vaccines without completely maximizing their profits, though as vaccine patents & the West hoarding vaccines while the Global South continues to suffer show they still haven’t totally let go of their profit motive, and are definitely willing to let masses of brown people die to protect the profits of shareholders and investors at home.

I guess I can quickly address the conspiracy that vaccines are some how microchips to track you or whatever:

Smart phones.

They can already do that.

Now, with all that said, I fully do believe that masks & vaccines are effective, and that we all should use them! But I'm still incredibly critical of the way the government has handled this crisis. For one, it's absurd to try and use tickets and fines to enforce mask mandates when the State has failed to distribute masks! Expecting it to be everyone's personal responsibility to buy their own masks during an economic crisis is incredibly ignorant of the reality of just how desperate living from paycheck to paycheck can be. Free masks should have been provided, shipped directly to the people. Considering how many cases have been coming from factories & other brutal working conditions , the emphasis on personal responsibility clearly ignores how corporations are willing to sacrifice their employees health and well being to maximize their profits. Even in a country with free medical care, you have a financial incentive to try and just "tough it out" and hope its a cold if you live paycheck to paycheck and have no paid sick leave. 

I think the left is fumbling a real opportunity to  demand better and seize meaningful power that would make us a real force of change instead of a fringe ideology people mostly only hear about on the internet. There's a lot of legitimate fear and anxiety over covid, the economy, and  even the idea of trusting experts that will never, ever be addressed as long as people just wag their finger and tell those who are scared that they're just dumb and bad and they should be good and smart like us. Which isn't to say that I don't think there aren't morally bankrupt grifters. 

I'm almost positive anyone leading any of these movements, selling their own brand of "patriot rebel" merch to the hordes of followers they amass is some kind of grifter. And I've been to the counter protests , I've seen the white power hand signs in the crowd. There's definitely fascists who see this as an opportunity to capitalize on the fear and unrest, and see these movements as a perfect breeding ground for new recruits. But I've come to the realization that by letting them keep me responding to them, I'll never actually be able to properly challenge their narrative. I'm frequently expected to defend the neoliberal hypocrisy in the covid response while I'm arguing with them, and when I try to explain my criticisms of neoliberalism they're already gishgalloping to another talking point, and it's impossible to actually present a nuanced argument that presents a more dialectical framework to understand these things. 

I realize now that we need to make our criticism and our demands loudly, and we need to be able to take the spotlight off of far right reactionaries preying on the fears and paranoia that they only see as nothing more than an opportunity for profit. There is no going back to normal when COVID is over. We have to decide now, socialism, or barbarism.

[friedmanjake]

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[coshayphinelove]

@politeyeti , it’s been like... a billion years, but i lost my original post (tumblr ate a bunch of my drafts) and then i forgot about it and then i forgot what i wrote and now i remember.  so here it is...  more trans!delphine.

the Business Professional suits she wore in season 3 made what was already a hellish emotional nightmare into a hellish emotional dysphoric nightmare.  she can’t even look at shoulder pads anymore.

she’s really bad at expressing herself about anything.  she doesn’t feel like she has a right to be upset about the horrible things that have happened because she caused some of them.  literally the only thing she ever candidly talks to cosima about is dysphoria.  through talking about it so much she gets really good at identifying a lot of her biggest triggers and gets better at avoiding/dealing with them.  but then she has to talk about her other feelings because there’s nothing left to talk about.  she can’t decide if it was a good thing or a bad thing.

loves loves loves loves baths.  hates hates hates hates that the basement lab bathroom only has a shower stall.  showering together is nice but it’s not cuddling together in a cocoon of warm water surrounded by bath bomb fragrances.

has not cut her face shaving in almost a decade.  tells anyone who will listen at every opportunity.

petey doesn’t give her hormones while she’s on the island.  so on her lil old people poop adventures she finds a drug dealer that sells hormones to trans people who would not otherwise be able to get them.  she gets pills because they are the easiest to hide in a plastic bag in her bra.  but she has to ration them, seeing as she doesn’t know when she’ll be out next.  she literally never lets the baggie out of her sight, even going as far as bathing with them.

mrs. s notices.  probably because she has to take a dose while they’re talking and the really cool and great mood swings she gets from taking them improperly.  when she gets to the lab after geneva her preferred method of hormone intake is waiting for her with a note that promises that she’ll have as many as she needs until she can get to a doctor and a new prescription.

the ptsd, the anxiety, the depression, the dysphoria, the guilt, and the new prescription really lower her sex drive.  cosima has half of the same things but it has the opposite effect.  they have to come up with a 1 to 10 rating system for how Not Okay they are with sexing/not sexing and the conversation of “you don’t have to if you don’t want to” “but i want to make you happy” etc etc ad nauseam usually just leads to cuddle/kissing half naked.

and a coshayphine au outline below the cut bc *bill wurts voice* i’m a piece of garbage.  mobile users, please pardon the length.  i just have a lot of feelings.

shay works for a company that is somehow involved in the conspiracy some way.  she doesn’t know, but shows up where delphine got shot and saves her.  once back at the home base she offers her home as the safe house bc she sees how unwilling to talk to people she is.  

delphine is treated, they give her pain meds but nothing else.  so eventually she has to come out to shay to get hormones.  shay is surprised, but is overall very supportive.  even though it’s the bare minimum of human decency to not throw someone out of your home for being trans, it touches delphine and makes her really emotional.  (there’s probably an element of somebody caring for her wellbeing as well that makes her cry real hard.)

shay urges her to call cosima.  she’s not well.  she needs someone who knows her.  or is at least someone she didn’t threaten.  but delphine is terrified.  she doesn’t know if cosima even wants to see her.  if she feels the same.  if she would even care that delphine is marooned in toronto or would do anything about it.  and she doesn’t have anybody else.

whatever place she used to pull her strength from, that place that made her stand back up after she’d been knocked down is empty or gone.  she’s got nothing left.  she can barely keep it together when she asks to borrow a book and shay brings out a whole box.  if she can’t handle someone being kind then if cosima isn’t kind to her... what kind of state would that put her in?

so shay lets it drop.  but it is a goal that they have.  eventually, even if it is years from now, delphine will call cosima and tell her what happened.

shay reads up on trans women.  all of her trans friends are trans masculine so she really has no idea what she may need, and if they’re going to be roommates she’s gotta know her shit.  she comes to delphine after a while asking, “so i read a lot of stuff about trans women in general, but i was wondering if there was anything you needed.  like i know trans men have packers and binders and i know trans women have shaping underwear.  but i don’t know if you want any.  or if... you would need that... or... you know...”  delphine just laughs at her a little.  “that was a lot of words.”  she says she doesn’t really need much, just a razor for her face and some underwear in the next size up would be nice.

after that delphine lets shay help her bathe.  she didn’t want to out herself, but now that she’s out the smell from the places she couldn’t reach without ripping her stitches out is getting to be a bigger problem than any kind of shyness.

baths and bandage changings lead to hair brushing/braiding and eventually cuddling.  shay figures out that touch grounds delphine.  if she’s off in some panic spiral, a hand on her knee can bring her back and a hug can calm her down.  they become really close friends.

after delphine finds a sweater that used to belong to cosima she has a minor breakdown.  she details what she felt with cosima, someone who was kind and understanding and who didn’t have some kind of crisis of sexuality after finding out she was trans.  she misses her so much and is afraid she’ll never find someone like that again, that she’s either going to be alone forever or have a series of bad relationships.  it hurts shay’s heart a little and vows to herself to be the best friend she can be.

delphine develops a little bit of an agoraphobia.  she’s trans and bi and injured so doing clothes and makeup isn’t really high on her list so she’s afraid of someone noticing her and making her as trans.  and there’s actual literal people out in the world who tried to and still want to kill her, delphine, for being delphine.  she goes out for therapy and for quick errands, but mostly just stays inside.

shay is fine with that.  so many cuddles.  but at some point they share a kiss.  it’s a fading laugh, leaning slowly in, eyes wide open kiss.  and that kiss leads to a long talk.  which leads to more kisses.  which leads to them calling each other girlfriends.  which leads to sex.

sex with cosima had been a little intimidating.  she had an encyclopedic knowledge of sex acts and experience with most of them.  it’s not that she didn’t try to make her feel comfortable and everything, it was just A Lot.  so since a lot of sex with shay is relatively new to the both of them and there’s a lot more giggling and slipping and falling.  several times shay forgets that she���s gotta stop her knee a couple inches lower than she’s used to and knees delphine in the balls.  which delphine is adamant didn’t really hurt that much but her voice is so strained it gives her away.

they go on like this, but then shay gets word through work that cosima has been taken or has gone to neolution island.  delphine is beside herself.  she could die there, shay!!  so shay makes sure she is returned safely to toronto.  after a long hard talk, delphine decides that she would be okay with seeing her for a talk.

cosima takes it as well as you would assume anyone would.  she thought delphine was dead but she’s been around the corner the whole time?  and then she finds out that she’s been here, in a love den with shay [SHAY???] the entire time, while cosima was scared and alone and flirting with disease ridden bots.  she says things she immediately regrets, delphine cries, and they both see the scary dangerous side of shay that they knew existed but had never experienced when she kicks her out.

since that was literally a nightmare that delphine had on a regular basis, she’s a lil messed up from that.  she’s withdrawn and goes back to sleeping on the couch.  there’s a guilt that she just can’t get rid of.  ‘i should have called her.’  ‘i should have gone straight to her.’  ‘it was selfish to take care of myself.’ etc etc.

shay can’t get through to her so she contacts cosima and is all scary saying, “i don’t care if you’re lying, but you go and you apologize and say that it was a good thing for her to prioritize herself bc i’m afraid she’s gonna hurt herself and she’s not listening to me when i say it.”

that is Not what cosima wanted so she goes back and talks to delphine.  they talk about p much everything while shay is in the room bc “i’m going to tell her everything anyway.”  it’s emotional and awkward and so cathartic.  they finally know the truth about what happened and they finally know how the other felt and why and how and everything they ever had questions about.  as cosima is leaving, delphine asks if she can see her again.

and thus buds a friendship.

but it’s killing cosima.  with her time alone she realized that there were really only two people she could see herself dating.  and they’re dating each other.  and they have a better and stronger relationship than she had ever had with either of them.

she accepts her fate.  she knows she’s never gonna be more than their maid of honor.  the best friend.  auntie cosima.  the wing man.  she knows she’s probably never gonna date seriously again.  she’s just going to have a string of hookups but nothing more.  she knows this.  she’s just.  really depressed about it.

shay finds out.  probably through a melodramatic encounter in the hallway as shay comes home from work and cosima leaves.

and then shay has this soft spot for cosima.  and delphine for sure still loves cosima.  and it’s just this little triangle of unresolved feelings.

i can’t decide who brings up polyamory.  it’s never cosima bc she would never do it.  but if delphine did suggest it, it would be bc she wants to make cosima happy.  if shay did it it would be to make them both happy. 

and then it would be just a delphine-centric polyamorous vee.  and cosima is a little afraid of, very aware of shay.  and shay is the one who suggests closing the relationship into a triad.

potential for sarcoshayphine but this is already so long and yeah.... anyways always please talk to me about trans!delphine

[makingspiritualityreal]

I don’t know if I’ve written about this here already but I might as well do it now.

I have a long history of trying to get a decent looking skin (forget perfect, normal looking is a blessing) because ever since I was 13 I’ve looked more or less hideous from the waist up, my face, back, clevage, sometimes even tits and upper part of my belly were covered in disgusting spots and scars. My skin is not the traditional oily type, it’s actually dry and sensitive under all the zits and that makes it scar a lot in a very visible, ugly way, even more because I’m so pale. It also makes it harder to find any sort of treatment. I could basically write a guide for people with similar problems by now thanks to all the experience that I have. At this degree of seriousness of the problem, no creams, ointments or any sort of external treatment can really help in any way, all you can do is be hygienic, avoid touching your skin and keep your nails short (I haven’t actually had long nails in years because of this). This basically means you have to take some sort of medication because for anything to help it has to work from the inside.

The first solution any doctor offers is antibiotics and they work wonderfully, at least while you take them. The moment you quit taking them, everything comes back twice as strong and I think the bacteria actually gains some sort of resistance in the process. Plus, you have to live with the standard antibiotic side effects - weakness, appetite loss, vulnerable immune system for months or years. I took many different types, the treatment lasted years, probably just fucked up my liver and immune system in the process. Wouldn’t recommend this to anyone. The plus of this one is that I don’t think it did any more permanent damage than that at least.

The second thing the doctors try is hormonal treatment, first they test you for any potential hormonal imbalance (I had none, just very low levels of all typically feminine hormones), then they give you appropriate treatment. This is where the fun with the side effects starts. I don’t know if it’s just my body reacting to any pill based on hormones (I wouldn’t take this form of contraception even if I needed to jfc no) but not only it does absolutely nothing to help with your skin but you suddenly get mood swings as if you’re pmsing non stop, the hardcore way. Also you bloat up and gain weight. The plus is, the moment you quit, it all stops really fast, and I don’t think this one has given me any permanent damage. I definitely learned not to take hormones ever again though.

Sadly, today’s medicine doesn’t know any other relatively safe, acceptable ways of curing acne. Every pill that you take is a derivative of some hormone or antibiotic or it’s some placebo bullshit. And that would be it for the more or less safe part at least.

The ultimate wonder pill that is offered for all possible forms of more serious acne contains a substance called isotretinoin. Now this one actually works, I admit. It has helped me, since my face is more or less smooth now, maybe occasionally something small pops up but this happens to every human on the planet and whatever I have on my cleavage or back is not even 10% of what I used to have, I could basically just burn it in the sun and be totally fine again. Moreover, the effects stay after you stop taking the pills, which is I think singular among all other forms of treatment. But I wouldn’t ever dare to call this pill safe.

It is true that the safety precautions are listed, the list of side effects is huge and you are aware of them in theory when you decide to try this treatment. But you know how the human mind works, a young person who has spent most of their life trying to look decent for once instead of being ashamed to walk in the streets, has tried everything else to help themselves to no avail, will try just about anything in order to finally feel better. These pills, however, don’t make you feel better. They make you LOOK better, but they give you a lesson that even while looking better, you might still feel like shit.

These pills are a form of a non - permanent lobotomy. I’m not kidding. They actually influence and damage your brain activity. The difference is, it is not a surgery so your body will probably regenerate in time, but while regenerating you may also get some of the skin problems back too. This is how it looked for me, my skin was absolutely perfect for ages but then gradually I felt that I started to regenerate from the side effects and some of the acne started to reappear at the same time. It took years for this to happen and it’s still not as bad as it used to be, but it was ugly enough for me to try taking the medication again to try to get rid of any possibility of getting spots for good.

I decided that I’m not trying this again because the price you pay for this treatment is too great. After one day of taking 2 pills (the strongest dosage), you get all the symptoms of side effects back and you just start to pray they wear off fast because the anxiety attack is so bad.

What happens first of all is that you get this impression of something heavy sitting on your head, somewhere in the forehead area, non stop, combined with this impression that your brain is a big ice cream pint and someone has just taken a scoop out of your forehead. It physically literally feels as if someone took a part of your brain out. You are sort of dazed and confused, have issues with memory loss an your general intellectual performance drops. Also, aside from the traditional drying of the lips, you also lose your taste and appetite really hardcore, which is the first step towards lowering your mood. You generally get dry...literally in all areas where you shouldn’t, which is uncomfortable especially for a woman. The worst shit though starts when you lay the pills off and the emotional issues kick in. When I read on the safety notice that these pills may cause depression and suicidal attempts in some “rare cases” I disregarded it and thought it was ridiculous. Sadly, it is actually true and I actually believe it is not such a rare case at all. The problem with this pill is linked to the fact, that people who resort to taking it already have usually very lowered moods because they look shit, so the change in moods and emotional reactions that may appear because of the pill only shouldn’t be noticeable. However, it is more complicated than that. Ironically, while my skin looked much worse, I had more confidence and determination. That’s because the pill paralyses the part of the brain responsible for action and decision making. Weakening this part of the brain literally makes you less assertive. 

Reading all this, you can see that the side effects do more than simply lower your mood temporarily. The side effects mean literally changing your personality, mostly in a negative way, significantly lower your performance and may bring out your negative tendencies and create destructive patterns that you struggle to let go of, even after your body has recovered - like depressive behaviors or passiveness, or the general issue with just gathering your thoughts.

I realise noone will ever notice this post anyway but I have had it in drafts for months and I wanted to finally be done with this rant. I also know how it feels to have skin issues so severe you won’t even care about paying this price. Also who knows, maybe someone else taking these pills felt better than I did. I’m just saying that this should be brought to the attention of anyone who attempts this treatment. This is NOT done! There is no psychiatric/psychological help, you only sign an agreement that you are aware of your own responsibility while taking these meds and you are forced to take contraception because you absolutely can’t conceive while taking these pill at the risk of giving birth to actual mutants. So basically, the doctors give away these meds probably unconscious of what they’re actually doing to patients. This experience has given me a huge dose of skepticism with any doctors, meds (which I avoid at all costs) or their efficiency. Honestly, I would advise anyone to steer clear and try to stay healthy the most natural way possible unless there is some serious scientific progress happening at some point. 

[cinderscoria]

(if i time it right) the thunder breaks

Pairings: Maxine/Paula, though it’s not the focus Warnings: Small one for depression, not nearly as prominent as my other fics tho Spoilers: Through the season 3 finale Title: (if i time it right) the thunder breaks Summary: (i wanna love you, but i don’t know how)

or, Maxine struggles to understand Five’s aversion to antidepressants and comes to realize she doesn’t really know the Runner at all.

-

Dysthymia, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder…

Maxine presses her lips into a thin line, dark eyes scanning over the personnel file in her hands. It’s been three years since Five came to Abel and about that long since she’d read through the file Mullins had sent over on their “temporary loan.” Truth be told, she’d barely glanced at the background and psychological portions, more interested in what she had to know about the Runner’s body in order to treat her properly. But years later, Five’s physical well being isn’t what’s concerning her now. It’s been three months since that awful day in London and Runner Five… hasn’t been doing well.

The doctor had to seriously dig to find this damn file, and reading through it now she’s wishing she’d paid better attention to it. The time stamp is dated almost four years ago—Five would have been fifteen when Mullins took her in. Maxine closes her eyes and tries to imagine the Runner that young and already dealing with the imbalances in her brain. She’s good at hiding it. Five can wipe her face cleaner than anyone Maxine knows—including Janine. Maybe that’s why it’s taken this long for Maxine to look up exactly what is wrong with her Runner.

She skips the background like she always does—everyone deserves some privacy, although what Five could have possibly been up to at fifteen she couldn’t imagine—and peers at the list of medications Five had been on. Trazodone, Zoloft, and Lamotrigine.

“Two out of three ain’t bad,” she murmurs to herself.

“Maxie?”

Maxine jumps but manages to hold onto the file, whirling to find Paula standing in the doorway of the lab, dark eyebrows furrowed. “What are you doing up so late? It’s past curfew.”

“I know,” Maxine admits, crossing to her so she could give her a kiss. “I was thinking.”

“About what?” Paula places a hand on Maxine’s belly and they stop a moment to grin at each other, amazed all over again they’re going to be mothers, before Maxine kisses her again, softer this time.

“I’m happy,” she says quietly, moving to put her hand on Paula’s. “I am here, with you, and our baby, and nothing is wrong.”

Paula smiles into her mouth. “I’m sensing a ‘but’ in there.”

Maxine draws back to look into her eyes, serious for a second. “Did you know that Runner Five has brought in more antidepressants than any Runner in Abel, ever?”

“No?”

“She has. I’ve been keeping track.” Maxine holds up the file. “Mullins diagnosed her with multiple mental and emotional disorders. She had been on medication before coming to Abel, but as far as I know she hasn’t taken any since.”

Paula catches on immediately. “You’re worried about her.”

“I’ve been worried since Moonchild made her hurt Sam,” Maxine tells her. The memory of it is still so raw—she’d been woken from her pod to Janine attempting to hold down a damn near hysterical Sam insisting through a half-strangled voice that they needed to find Five, Jody lying unconscious on a cot and Five missing in action, again. She hadn’t known what to think, couldn’t even get the full story out of Sam until she’d threatened to tie him down so she could treat him. Even then, his story made no sense: Five sneaking back into Abel, opening the gates, knocking out Jody and then confronting him in the comms shack where they’d hidden the ZRD; how she’d smiled as her right hand crushed his windpipe and her left raised her ax to deliver the final blow; how she’d stopped, eyes widening, spilling over with tears, and then she’d dropped her ax and sprinted from the room, leaving Sam distraught and hoarse and baffled in his shack.

“And then Simon,” Paula guesses, breaking Maxine from the memory. “He and Five were close, even after everything.”

Maxine nods. She’s seen Five on the roof of the bunkhouse, fingering the rosary beads and cross Simon had given to her before he’d put on the helmet. “Living an apocalypse is traumatic enough, but come on, Paula. The girl’s not even nineteen yet.” She draws a breath. “I wanted… to find a way to thank her. For not giving up on me, for bringing you back to me, for everything she’s done for us—for Abel, for the world, really. With all the medication she brings in on every mission we have more than enough to get her started. I want her to be happy, too.”

Paula smiles at her and runs a hand through her hair before kissing her again, one more time, lips gentle. “It’s a wonderful idea,” she tells her.

“Why thank you, darling,” Maxine teases with a laugh. “Go on back to bed. I’m going to write a formal request to Hiram Mulligan and then I’ll join you.”

“All right, love.” Paula’s hand lingers where it rests on Maxine’s stomach before she slips out the door and into the night.

Maxine grins, breathless all of a sudden, wondering how the hell she got so lucky.

-

It takes two days for the request to go through, but Maxine knows Hiram likes to be thorough. There’s a lot of danger in prescribing medication nowadays, especially for the mentally ill, because there’s only one professional psychiatrist in the entire township and the man has a lot on his plate on a good day. Monitoring closely is a thing of the past now—but trial and error could be disastrous when some of the medications could literally kill you.

Maxine has a little more faith in Five than that. She’s survived everything life has thrown at her so far, after all. Maxine just hopes she can make her a little more comfortable doing so, that’s all.

Luckily, it’s Five’s rest day when the request goes through, so Maxine sets to tracking her down.

Where does Five go when she isn’t running? Maxine grins to herself and heads straight for Sam’s shack.

Only to find their head radio operator sprawled out on his cot, dead to the world and snoring—decidedly alone. Despite herself, Maxine has to smile softly at the sight. Paula may be her soul mate but Sam Yao is undoubtedly her best friend in the entire world, and seeing him finally able to sleep makes her heart hurt a little bit.

They almost always schedule his rest days with Five’s, so the fact that she isn’t here with him is kind of puzzling, though if the Rice Krispie Treat wrappers are anything to go by she’d been in at one point. Maxine eases the door shut again and gnaws on her lower lip, deciding to check the track next.

Five’s only satisfied when she’s doing something to help the Township. If Maxine had been paying better attention, she would have caught onto her Runner’s self worth issues back when she’d seemed convinced that they would kick her out of the Township if she didn’t bring back a certain number of items out on her run. Maybe that’s Maxine’s fault, for making her swing by the hospital that first run in—the same hospital their previous Five, Alice, had been caught and killed in—before they’d granted her sanctuary. But that was before she’d gotten to know the girl, barely seventeen then, so young and so hard and angry and violent. Her brief flashes of mischievous humor, her gentleness around children and animals, how Sam made her soft, how Sara made her strong. How she’d understood that one day at the damn barn, when Maxine had to see if the message was from Paula, enough that she willingly put both herself and Five in harm’s way just to know. By all rights and purposes, Five should have been furious with her. But instead she’d nodded and gripped her arms and saved her life and eventually, finally, brought Paula home to her.

Unexpected tears spring to Maxine’s eyes thinking about it, and she brushes them away, surprised and annoyed. There’s no reason to feel guilty about it years later. Five was doing her job. She’d been there when they’d found Paula’s “last” transmission. She’d been used as a hostage to lure Maxine out after being captured that first time by Van Ark. And when that was all over, she’d dropped at Maxine’s feet out of sheer exhaustion, her body pushed to the limit, and Maxine had realized suddenly and with violent clarity that Jade Black, Runner Five, was her friend and she was terrified she was never going to see her again.

Maxine shakes herself of the memories and promptly blames all this sentimental nonsense on her rampaging pregnancy hormones.

The track is really just a carved out loop in what must have been a crop field, though it’s been paved now and the dirt has been packed to make it more even. There are bleachers—wooden and hand built. They have to improvise in an apocalypse, after all.

There Five is, jogging at a steady pace, earphones stuck in her ears as she circles the track. One of Simon’s quirks—he liked to pick up ipods, mp3 players and walkmans and hand them to the other Runners (after Jack, Eugene, Phil and Zoe had ripped them of their tracks, of course). They listen to the music as they train until the battery runs out, and then onto the next one.

Five’s the only one who still does it now. Maybe she’s trying to keep something of Simon still alive in the aftermath. Maxine’s not one to snatch away a person’s coping mechanisms.

She waves Five down on her next go around, fingering the pill bottles in her pocket, feeling oddly excited about this entire thing. There goes that sentiment again.

Five is wary as she slows and takes her headphones from her ears. She signs a quick, one handed What’s up? at her as she approaches.

“I’ve been doing some reading,” Maxine starts out, trying to shove her sudden nerves to the side so she can get this done. “Your file, actually, the one Mullins had on you? Anyway, I saw that you used to be on medication before you came to Abel and you stopped, so I dug around a bit.” She draws the bottles from her pocket and offers them to the Runner. “I only got 50 milligram tablets of Trazodone and 200 milligram tablets of Zoloft, so monitoring is going to be weird. We’re going to have to be creative to make it last, but it should be okay if we go slow, I think.”

She beams, waiting for Five to respond. The teen stares at the bottles for an uncomfortably long second before shaking her head. I don’t want it, she signs.

“What?” Maxine blinks, trying to figure out if she read her hands wrong. “Why not? It’s all right here, Five, I don’t—”

And Five cuts her off with a set jaw, signing, I’m fine. I don’t need it.

“Five—” But the Runner has already stuck her headphones back in her ears and takes off again, at a faster pace this time.

Maxine stares dumbfounded at her back as she puts distance between them.

-

“I can’t believe this!” Maxine rages, pacing the length of the comm’s shack. “Do you know how much negotiating I had to do to even snag her spot with the highest dose? Because I know that she has a high tolerance for medication, I knew that from experience! I knew she’d want to work her way up to 200 mg, I knew that about her, and she doesn’t even want to try!”

Sam, sleepy-eyed and decidedly unhappy about being awoken from his nap, says, “Maxine, I really think you might be overthinking this—”

Maxine whirls on him. He startles backwards, eyes widening, as she leans into his face and hisses, “I am not overreacting.”

“I said over thinking!” he protests, hands up. “Listen, Maxie, it’s really nice that you’re doing this for her, but you have to understand that Five isn’t the type to accept help from anyone. She thinks it implies that she’s weak.”

“I just wanted to help!” Maxine says incredulously.

“I know, I just—” Sam pinches the bridge of his nose. “You tell her that, you could probably get her to take the meds, but Maxie, it’s taken her this long to even think that we might actually want her here at Abel.”

Maxine glares and breathes hard through her nose. “What the hell does that mean?”

“She told me once,” Sam says, rubbing his eyes beneath his glasses, “that she is okay with being needed, even if she isn’t wanted. She thinks that if she has a job to do she has to do it, no exceptions, or we’ll cut her.”

“I… what?”

“Yeah.” Sam looks up at her from his cot and smiles a little, though the expression holds no mirth. “If you imply that the medication is to help her do her job, she’ll take it, but she’ll also think that she’s failing and that probably won’t help at all. So.”

Maxine, floored, drops into the chair at his desk and stares at the wall for a long moment. The anger dissipates immediately, leaving her tired and sad. “Okay then,” she utters. “How do I get her to not think that?”

Sam ponders on it. “I don’t know if you can, to be honest Maxine. She’s always been that way. It’s taken me a long time to get her to understand that she’s enough by herself for me, regardless of what she does or doesn’t do.” He grins, self deprecating. “Actually I think it took her almost killing me to get it through her head. That I’m her friend and I accept her for who she is.”

Hurt floods through her. “She doesn’t think we’re friends?”

“No, it’s not that. She holds herself to a certain expectation, who she thinks you approve of.” Sam runs a hand through his unruly black hair. “She’s good at it, I didn’t catch it for months. It’s like she conforms to whoever she thinks is best for you. Like how with me she’s gentler, with Janine she slips into an almost military persona, with Simon she would pull pranks and joke around, you know?”

“Well yeah, obviously,” Maxine says, furrowing her brow. “We all experience varying levels of comfort around the people we’re closest to, how much of ourselves we can reveal depending on who we’re talking to.”

“Yes but Maxine, you’re not hearing me.” Sam leans closer, dark eyes bright. “She does it with everyone. It’s like those flip books, yeah? The ones where you can change the outfit by flipping the pages? Except I don’t think she has a base, Maxie. Like all of these different masks make up her face. I don’t think she even knows who she is at her core.”

“You seem to know,” Maxine points out.

“Yes, but it took three years and a near death experience to get us to where we are,” he counters.

“So you’re saying I should get her to try to kill me.”

“No! Oh, you’re joking,” he realizes, before giving her a light smack on the arm. “That’s not funny, Maxie! You’re one of the mothers of my child, I need you to stay alive! Good grief,” he mutters to himself. “Anyway, listen, Five is just a really tough shell to crack, but what you’re doing for her is good. You should keep at it.”

Maxine studies him for a second before it dawns on her. “You want me to get her to want the meds,” she says.

Sam winks at her. “Got it in one.”

“How the hell am I supposed to do that?”

The radio operator shrugs and grins. “Convince her you want her instead of need her.”

“Oh, is that all?”

“You can do it, Maxine,” he says sincerely, “you’re the most stubborn person I know.” He reaches out so he can snag her hand and squeezes it once. “If anyone can convince our Runner that she’s loved, it’s you.”

Maxine sighs. “As if anyone can say no to that face. All right,” she concedes, giving him a small smile as she makes her way to the door. “I’ll try.”

“That’s my girl.”

-

Maxine stands at the edge of the track, worrying her lip and gazing at the far end of the Township. The walls they erected have spread the bigger Abel grows, so what was once a straight cement wall is now a winding ridge that curves alongside the treeline, providing some additional cover.

Five is long gone, of course, probably took off the second Maxine stormed off to find Sam. Maxine just needs a second to process all of this. All… of it.

On one hand, she’s hurt by Five rejecting the medication. She can’t help but feel resentful—her going out of her way to help her friend, all of that work for nothing, Five dismissing it with barely a glance had stung and she isn’t entirely sure why. But at the same time… she remembers being young and angry, unable to be herself around the people she cared about. Growing up gay, black, and female at the same time as being the daughter of a wealthy business tycoon did not coincide with the picture of the ideal Midwestern teenager. Maxine had to fight for every good thing in her life, and she’d had to fight everyone doing it. So she understands, sort of, where Five is coming from. That at least warrants some measure of patience.

A hand appears on her shoulder. Maxine jumps a mile and whirls to find the subject of her thoughts standing behind her, looking inappropriately abashed—be it from her earlier behavior or the fact that she’d scared Maxine just now, the doctor isn’t sure.

“Five,” she exclaims. “I didn’t hear you come up.”

The teen flashes her a grim smile, no teeth. Maxine wants to kick herself. Of course Five can’t call out a hello. Off to a fantastic start already, Maxie.

I’m sorry, Five signs to her. Thank you for the pills.

Maxine stares at her. “You’ll take them?”

Five watches her with a furrowed brow, like she’s trying to read between the lines. That’s what you want, right? she signs with a shrug. Doctor’s orders?

Maxine wants to tear her hair out. This is like trying to navigate a minefield! She inhales deep, keeping a lid on her emotions. “What do you want, Five?”

Five doesn’t have to sign this one—the startled look on her face speaks for itself. Maxine elaborates, “Do you want the meds or not? If you don’t want them I’m not going to force them down your throat. I just figured it would be nice to balanced again. I know you’re going through a hard time, especially lately—”

And at that Five snorts and throws her hands up. Everyone is going through a hard time right now. She spreads her arms wide, indicating the apocalypse as a whole probably. Everyone has something wrong with them.

Maxine holds the teen’s eyes. “I don’t care about everybody else. I care about you.”

Brief incredulity crosses Five’s face, and doesn’t that just hurt more than the barbed words the Runner is signing? Does she really not believe that she’s her friend?

Five seems to read her face, because she shakes her head and looks away. It’s not that, she signs. I know you care.

“You just don’t believe me.”

I believe you think you care, Five counters.

“You don’t think I know you well enough to know?”

I think I lie well.

It’s said so simply Maxine is startled into silence. Five is very matter of fact stating it, almost cold, but Maxine knows what she’s doing.

“You didn’t answer my question,” she prods softly.

Five sighs, caught. She has to think about it, looking anywhere but Maxine’s face. It’s not that I don’t want it, she allows finally. There are so many other people, they need it more.

“And you think you don’t need it.”

I’m alive, right? It’s signed with a sardonic grin, such a spot on reflection of Sam’s earlier self-deprecating smirk it’s eerie. Maxine suddenly understands exactly what Sam meant when talking about Five’s masks.

She shakes herself and carefully maps out how to tread going forward. “Five, you’re not a robot. Nobody expects you to keep going when you reach your limit—”

But they do, Five corrects. I do have to. Or the world ends, remember? Or people die? And her face crumples. People die anyway.

Maxine knows that’s for Simon. She pushes the pang back. “Five, death is not your limit. You know that, don’t you? You don’t exist just to keep other people happy. You do it really well, and I will forever be grateful for that, but I’d rather have you happy and failing than—”

Happy? Five’s brows shoot up, and she huffs a laugh that’s all air and no voice. “Happy” isn’t real. I cannot fix me not being happy. I cannot be happy for you. It doesn’t work like that.

She seems to be on the verge of something. Maxine studies her. Her shoulders are rigid straight, her almond shaped eyes bright and wide, her lips pursed, her fingers fists. It’s then Maxine realizes, all of a sudden, that nothing she says is going to help Five.

She doesn’t understand the girl at all.

That said, she can listen. Five needs to get this out. She doesn’t talk much, Maxine knows, outside of mission reports and whatever conversations she has with Sam. And it can’t be nearly enough to get out everything the teen feels on any given day. That’s unhealthy even without them being smack dab in the middle of an apocalypse, where they can die at any moment and lose people they care about. Maxine doesn’t know a damn thing about where Five came from and who she’s lost, and that’s hardly fair. The least she can do is provide the outlet Five sorely needs, even if she doesn’t realize it.

So she waits, and sure enough, Five’s hands come up again. Maybe before, it would be okay for me to have pills, she says, fingers trembling. Before, when I was not the majority and I was sick and I deserved special treatment. But now, everyone is sick and broken and wrong. I can’t complain about it hurting because everyone hurts. It doesn’t make me special.

Maxine has to bite back her argument. Nothing she says Five will believe, but God that’s so wrong Five is special she is important she is allowed to hurt and get help for it and to be treated like she’s precious—

But Five isn’t done. If I can do my job, I can stay. I can protect the people I care about and it will be okay. I have made it this far without pills.

“But unhappy,” Maxine points out, unable to help herself, unhappy too.

Five smiles again. It doesn’t reach her eyes. Did you read the background in my file? And when Maxine shakes her head: I was diagnosed when I was eight. I didn’t get medication until I was fifteen. I had pills for seven months before D day. I will not take away medication I don’t need from people who do. I won’t.

The admission makes Maxine’s mouth go dry. Eight. Eight years old. She can’t even imagine Five being eight years old. She tries to picture a scowling child, hardened already by life’s hardships and the glitches in DNA she can’t control, and can’t quite manage it.

Five nods once, as if confirming Maxine’s thoughts, but the doctor gives her a small smile. “Five,” she starts, gently, “I can’t even begin to understand what it’s like.” The teen remains guarded, sensing a catch—even though there isn’t one. “There was a time when I suffered through a few depression episodes myself. And I know it’s not the same, I know “once upon a time” doesn’t even come close to how you feel every day since you were eight.”

As long as I can remember, Five confirms.

Maxine takes a breath. “That said, you have to know that Dr. Mulligan and I discussed it and we can afford to part with the medication you need. We have balanced it, compared notes, determined probabilities. Between you and the other Runners, we have and will probably continue to have the resources to spare, with plenty left over, to get you started on Zoloft and Trazodone. And if we run out, then we run out, and I will let you know far ahead of time so we can either replenish supplies or wane you off it so you don’t have to cold turkey it, but the point is, I am offering you this because I can afford to, because I have the ability to and because I want to. Because you are my friend and I care about you, and even if you can’t be happy I can at least help you stabilize.”

Five’s still waiting for the but, and Maxine smiles. “So what do you say?”

You’re sure. You’re sure it won’t hurt anybody. Five holds Maxine’s gaze as the doctor nods, and her eyes suddenly fill with tears. Okay, she signs, okay, okay, okay, okay.

Maxine opens her arms, and Five—so adverse to touch—throws herself into them.

Eight years old, Maxine thinks, stroking Five’s hair as the Runner cries soundlessly into her chest. Jesus.

-

Two months later and Five shows up in the lab, rapping her knuckles to grab Maxine and Paula’s attention.

“Five!” Maxine exclaims, getting up off the bar stool. “Come on in, honey, we were just discussing names for the baby.”

The teen arches her brows. Without Sam?

“Oh no, he’s given us his input,” Paula says with a laugh, holding up the list of names the radio operator had scrawled out. “I can’t even read most of these.”

Five grins—the expression lights up her entire face, and even though Maxine’s had months to get used to it the change still surprises her. She looks so much younger smiling like that. Maybe I can help, she signs, pulling up a stool herself. I can read anything.

“I don’t know, Five.” Paula clucks her tongue and turns the paper towards her. “This chicken scratch is worse than Maxie’s when she’s rushing.”

“Unkind,” Maxine says, giving her girlfriend a smack on the shoulder. She smiles at Five. “Anyway, we still got a ways to go before we have to worry about that. How are you doing? Really?”

The teen ducks her head, a show of bashfulness that usually comes from people showing they care about her. She still hesitates, unsure of anything that appears to be free and without consequence, but around Maxine she’s relaxed exponentially. I’m good, she signs, one-handed. Very good. I think they’re working.

“Well that’s good,” Maxine says, beaming. “Dr. Mulligan told me that you seem brighter and more regulated, too, so score one for us, right?”

Five nods, somewhat jerkily, glancing up and then away in the same second. Maxine doesn’t press, and sure enough the teen continues haltingly. I wanted to say thank you. I’d forgotten what it was like to be this high. I’m sorry I fought you on it.

“Five,” Maxine starts gently, “I can’t fault you for not wanting to take away resources from people. That was really noble of you. But you know that even if we were low on medication, I still would have given it to you, right?”

That brings out a spectacular frown of disapproval from the teen, but Maxine holds up a hand so she can finish. “Because regardless of you being important to the Township, you are important to me. And I want you to be okay. Actually I want you to be happy, but, you know. Baby steps.”

“The same goes for me too, Five,” Paula adds.

Five smiles at floor. Maxine reaches out and squeezes her arm once, aware that a good chunk of her mothering towards the teen is pure hormones—but honestly, if she can get in good practice and give Five a piece of the childhood she’d never had at the same time, then she isn’t complaining.

And neither is Five, despite the awkwardness that comes with accepting gifts she doesn’t think she deserves. But they’re working on it, and that’s all that really matters.

Five reaches again for the paper and glances through it. Then she points at a name and fingerspells it for them.

“Sara,” Maxine reads, trying it out. Warmth spreads through her as she ponders the name. Paula grabs her hand, soft and sweet and real and here. Maxine smiles at Five.

“It’s perfect,” she says.

[letterstocora-blog]

My Battle with Endometriosis

“Hope Runs Deep for a World Without Endometriosis”

Besides Cora’s birth story, this is probably the most emotional blog post I’ll write, and to be honest I am not sure where to begin. I guess I will literally start at the beginning, in order to understand my battle you have to know everything. Even the years leading up to my diagnosis that doesn’t seem like it has anything to do with it, it does. All the doctor’s visits trying to write me off & hand me prescriptions for something I didn’t need. I had never heard about Endometriosis until I was 14. My older sister had had surgery to remove either lesions or cysts off of her fallopian tubes. Now that I think about it I remember having to take trips to the ER when I was younger, for my sister because her periods were so bad prior to her finding out about Endometriosis. I remember getting the information from my mom about my sister suffering from this disease, and they had not had a lot of further information about it, only that she may not be able to have children.

I remember thinking at 14, well if she can’t have kids if she ever wanted me to, I would carry for her, not knowing I would be suffering the same fate eventually.

From the time I started my period I remember it being so bad that I would miss school for days on end every month for the heaviness of my cycle, and the amount of pain I would be in, that I just assumed were the normal cramps. Among other reasons, when I was 15 I went on birth control because of the way I would bleed and the pain I would be in. I went on the pill and was on it up until the time I was 21. During the time I was on birth control I would be going back and forth to my General Practitioner for side effects I didn’t realize until after, the birth control was giving me. I can’t really explain the symptoms, but I just didn’t feel “right.” I was always feeling a little off. I would suffer from these panic attacks that would be brought on by literally NOTHING. I was having chest pains, thought I was having a heart attack, I was anxious all of the time and my attitude was on a new level. My sleeping was getting screwed up, my eating habits changed for the worse, I was losing weight. I went from 130lbs to 98 quickly. My doctors just told me I was depressed and gave me anti-depressants.

It was very hard to deal with the fact I was “depressed” because I would hear constantly, “what do you have to be depressed about?’ ‘Oh, you have such a hard life’” It literally made me feel worse than I already did. I didn’t know why I was depressed; I didn’t want to be depressed at 18. Seeing everyone going out and being social and putting themselves out there and all I wanted to do was lay in my bed and isolate myself from everyone, so that’s what I did.

During that time, in 2008, I had an unfortunate emergency surgery because my appendix was leaking toxins into my system. I remember the pain being so onset and excruciating that it woke me up from my sleep. I literally thought it was cramps since I was going to get my period later on that week. My appendix was so inflamed that it was in the middle of my abdomen and needed to come out right away. At the time, there was no evidence of the endometriosis at all. I didn’t know until years after that because I was on birth control for so long, it actually kept the endometriosis from progressing which is why during that surgery there were no signs of it, only the inflamed appendix.

After that surgery, I stopped taking the anti-depressants because I was getting side effects from them also. After stopping those, I actually felt better. I felt like myself again. I want to say it was maybe 7 months until I was back at the doctors for the same anxiety attacks, same sleeplessness, and same symptoms all over again. They tried giving me a different anti-depressant, I lasted 3 days. I refused to believe it was depression, I knew something else was wrong I just didn’t know what.

It wasn’t until I really started to do my research about the birth control pills I was on that I realized; maybe I am having a hormone imbalance because of the extra hormones the birth control had been pumping into me the past 7 years. So, I decided to take matters into my own hands and I stopped the birth control. My boyfriend at the time (husband now) wasn’t happy about me going off the birth control because we didn’t want to be expecting a baby any time soon, but he had seen firsthand the struggles I was going through because of the doctors giving me the run around, but agreed it was what was best for me.

When I got off the birth control, the first year & half I really don’t have any complaints about. My periods were definitely heavier than when I was on the birth control, but not as bad as they had been prior. My mood seemed to have been better and I felt so much happier. Slowly, I felt like I was getting my life back together. I was going to cosmetology school, I was so motivated, I felt like I could take on the world and I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt like that. Then history started to repeat itself on me…

I remember one day being at work and feeling that same excruciating pain I felt when my appendix was leaking. I had to leave work and was rushed to the ER. They did scans and all types of tests to find nothing; they just gave me some pain killers through my IV and sent me on my way, and told me to follow up with my GYN. I followed up with my GYN and he told me most likely it was a ruptured cyst because those were all of the symptoms. I explained to him my sisters’ history of endometriosis and all of the symptoms and he told me, since I have a sister that has it, there was a possibility but the only way to tell was surgery, which I wasn’t going to have for no reason.

I started getting chronic lower back pain that I never experienced before along with my periods becoming HEAVY. I was popping more than the recommended amount of any and every type of NSAIDS along with Midol’s for the pain which did absolutely nothing, not even take the edge off. The back pain started to linger even when I wasn’t on my period, started noticing it during ovulation and a week before my period. Which brings me to another point – I wasn’t on birth control & yet, I wasn’t getting pregnant.

I wasn’t trying to get pregnant, but honestly my boyfriend and I were NOT taking the precautions we should have been in order to stop me from getting pregnant. I would have sex before I ovulated, during ovulation & nothing; never even had a pregnancy scare. My periods would come on time I could almost calculate it. If I was due for my period I would be getting it the morning of right when I woke up. I know I had been on birth control for 7 years, but I was also off of it for almost 2 years and it was like I never had to worry about the possibly thought of me getting pregnant. At the time, of course who wouldn’t be thankful for something like that, but there was always that thought in the back of my head that something was definitely wrong. Around the same time, the pain with sex had started. Sometimes during sex I had to stop because of the excruciating pain I felt all of a sudden; my boyfriend had no idea what was going on and would panic that he did something which made me feel even worse. Most times it wouldn’t happen until after, that I would be in fetal position crying in pain in my pelvic region. Along with the ridiculous amount of bleeding and pain I started to get during and before my periods, I started getting a rectal pain that I could only describe as a feeling of a Charlie Horse in my rectum. I would wake up screaming in agony, I would pop pain killers and it wouldn’t help it. I just had to wait for the pain to pass. I started calling out of work because the pain wouldn’t subside in a reasonable amount of time that I would never make it there.

I started to see a new GYN because my old GYN was impossible to get in touch with to make an appointment. During my very first visit with this doctor, I explained to him all of my symptoms and my history and my sisters history and he flat out told me, you don’t have endometriosis, don’t worry about it. Safe to say: I NEVER WENT BACK TO HIM after he dismissed me like that.

In 2013 was when my life changed. I went to a new GYN who to this day I am so thankful I found,  that it makes me emotional. He did an ultrasound on me and found a HUGE cyst the size of a grapefruit sitting on one of my ovaries. He wanted to see me back in 3 weeks to see if it was still there because they usually would go away on their own. 3 weeks later another Ultrasound was done to find the cyst had not gotten any smaller and found even more cysts on my other ovary. I explained to him how the other GYN brushed my symptoms off, brushed the fact that my sister suffered from Endo and instead of giving me a prescription to shrink the cyst (since I was very sensitive to the side effects of) told me were going to get the answers I needed and he scheduled me for surgery to remove the cyst and find out once and for all if I had Endometriosis.

April 2, 2013 I was diagnosed with Stage 2 Endometriosis. He said he was able to remove the cyst from my ovary without doing any damage to it, which we weren’t sure was possible. He also told me he burned any lesions he saw, but the Endo had completely plastered my right ovary to my back wall which is why I was suffering from the back pain. He wanted to treat me with birth control pills after the surgery, which I wound up being so back and forth about because I knew now I had Endo, I knew the infertility risks and I didn’t want anything to prevent me from getting pregnant and birth control was not so kind to me in the past. So I didn’t go on it. I don’t know if that was part of my downfall to come but I refuse to dwell on it because it was the decision my fiancé and I had agreed on.

For the next year, I could feel with every period it getting worse. The pain was now ALL of the time, it was in my lower back, in my abdomen and pelvis, in my hips radiating down to my knees, the pain with sex was unbearable where I couldn’t even bother trying anymore. I had never been so depressed in my life. I had isolated myself so much that I refused to answer texts, I refused to go out. I was in pain 99% of the time so what was the point. I quit my job because the 45min to 1hr commute was too much stress on my body. All I wanted to do was lye in bed and stare into space. I had hit rock bottom. The pain had gotten so bad I hate to admit this, but I didn’t want to live anymore. I had pushed everyone away from me and felt so alone because no one understood. I felt so bad about myself. I hated myself; I would cry to my fiancé and ask him continuously why he loved me. I was damaged goods. I would never be able to give him a family. The fight I was fighting didn’t seem worth it in the end. Was I just going to lay there and let myself waste away? I wanted to. I had gone to cosmetology school and I had nothing to show for it because the pain I was in had stopped me from pursuing what I wanted. I felt worthless, why would it matter if I was here or not. I didn’t even want to have my wedding. Once I started planning my wedding, it gave me some initiative to push through slowly.

During that time a family friend who had suffered from Stage 4 Endometriosis reached out to me and gave me her Pelvic Pain surgeons’ number and told me to go see him. I went there and he had me fill out literally a packet of papers with all of my history, including a questionnaire asking if I had any of these symptoms and if any of these daily activities brought me happiness on a scale of 1-10. When he brought me into his office I wasn’t sure what to expect, and he explained to me that he worked with a bunch of different specialist including Gastroenterology, Radiologists, and Psychiatrists etc. He said due to my responses on the paper I was depressed. Obviously I hadn’t moved or had an initiative to do anything. He made me feel very comfortable in telling me that it’s expected that I am “depressed” because how could someone be in an immense amount of pain the way Endometriosis patients experience and not feel depressed and defeated. He gave me a prescription for an anti-depressant that I again would not take; if he was going to remove the Endo in his special way wouldn’t I feel better and not depressed, so why would I take the meds? He did an ultrasound just to see if there was anything else going on, which there wasn’t. He set me up to have an MRI done of my pelvis with contrast at NYU Hospital where there was a radiologist who specialized in Endometriosis that would be able to see some type of formation of it on the MRI. (Don’t know if that is true or they just wanted the money from the MRI, but in any case – they did see things) I was set up for surgery after.

Within a year my Endometriosis had gone from Stage II to Stage IV. He removed the Endometriosis lesions by “Radical Resection of Endometriosis” which means he removed the lesions from the root so it would take them longer to return. He also would have removed my appendix if it hadn’t already been removed because the appendix is usually the first place the Endometriosis will attach itself to on your GI system. He cut some nerves that would help minimize the pain sensation when using the bathroom and cramping in general. He also used dye to shoot up into my fallopian tubes to check for any type of blockage which there was none.

At my follow up appointment we decided to put me on birth control but decided to go the Mirena route, which I cannot lie I was very skeptical about for good reason with all of the awful side effects it can hold. I wasn’t 100% on getting it but I figured it wasn’t a medication that I would take daily to get side effects of so let’s try it. I also decided to give it a shot because something I had not known before hand but birth control pills actually stop your ovulation from happening every month and there was no way with Stage IV Endo either of us were okay with stopping me from ovulating since I did want to try to have children in the future. The Mirena didn’t stop ovulation. I had the Mirena in for maybe about 2 months and HATED it. I spotted for maybe the first week which they say is normal, okay fine. After spotting I didn’t get a period at all which I wasn’t okay with, how was I still supposed to be ovulating, but didn’t have my monthly cycle? Strike 1. A Side effect I also got was this weird sharp pain right in the middle of my lower stomach near my pelvis and in my vagina just like the Endo, but sharper. Strike 2. The third Strike was when I went for a visit with my regular GYN to update him on everything and he did an ultrasound and the strings from the Mirena were knotted in my cervix so far that the Mirena was almost not in place and would have been floating around my Uterus. This probably would have cause the Mirena to perforate my uterus and causing more damage. It was in the best interest of me and my regular GYN to have it removed ASAP. Which I did, and my pelvic pain specialist wasn’t happy about it. But I didn’t care, I wasn’t happy with it and I couldn’t take the chance of more things happening with the Mirena.

Afterwards, my periods did not come back as bad as they were prior, and the pain was not as unbearable as it had been. Pain medication started to take the edge off and I didn’t have to pop as many as I once had to. There was still a lingering pain there though. It had gotten to the point that I was able to deal with the amount of pain that was left over because I had dealt with the debilitating pain for so long it didn’t seem so bad. Little did I know there were other things going on that I would soon find out about.

Less than a year after the Radical Resection of Endometriosis I was back in excruciating pain with new symptoms. The pain was still radiating down to my hips and in my back but I started getting unbearable heartburn, nausea and again not feeling “right”. I went to a NEW General Practitioner that I worked for and explained to him my past with the Endometriosis and all the new symptoms I was getting. He sent me to have a CT Scan of my abdomen and pelvis. I remember the day after going for the test, drinking a sip of beer at a party and the heartburn sensation radiated into my arms, down my legs, into my head. I knew something was wrong. The CT scan showed GALLSTONES. So many gallstones they couldn’t even count. Whether this was a part of my body the endometriosis had attached itself to and messed up, I don’t know. I will tell you my GP and GI Surgeon both told me that this did not happen overnight. These gallstones could have been present for years and it got to the point where my gallbladder was diseased and needed to be removed, which is why I got all these symptoms. Gallbladder disease also runs in my family as well as Endo.

After I had my Gallbladder removed, I seriously NEVER FELT BETTER. I had some pep back in my step and had so much more energy that I felt like a 12year old again. That was also short lived, because a month after my surgery to remove my gall bladder I found out my husband and I were expecting our first child together……..My Little Cora Noelle.

[bloodbrainblog-blog]

Living With Ulcerative Colitis: Onset, Diagnosis, and Goals

The Onset: What It Was Like Developing Ulcerative Colitis

Disclaimer: I will be talking open and honestly about my bowel movements, colon, and other not-so-fun symptoms of uclerative colitis (UC). If you think that is inappropriate or do not want the following information invading your brain, please leave this site. You have been warned.

Early this February, I turned into a stink bomb, but the prank was on me. The excessive smelly gas, which I shrugged off, only got worse. At first, the doctor thought it might be the Norovirus, but my ass was in for surprise (literally)!

After a week or so of gas, the bathroom became my linoleum hell. Without a minutes notice, a sudden heaviness and cramping in my lower abdomen sent me running to the bathroom. The feeling of urgency is of complete uncertainty and doubt. It’s like having an active volcano irrupting inside your body. You feel like you could blow at any moment. “Can I make it? Can I make it?” The question races through your mind and body like a hell-bent mantra.

Confined in the small stall, pushing my hands against the walls, I battled with the cramping and tried to breathe just so something would come out and give me relief. When the cramping was at its peak, I would bring my snapback to the bathroom with me just so I could grunt into it in a cathartic attempt to release the agony. But I had to breathe and stay calm unless I wanted to make it worse, but it was hard. The stools were loose, bloody, mucousy, and left me smelling like rotten eggs. I would often be in the bathroom for 15 minutes to a half an hour, just waiting to see if I was done. I could easily stand up and have to go again in the time it takes to wash your hands. So I sat and waited for the heaviness and cramps to recede. This happened anywhere from 10 to 20 times a day, and I would wake up 4-5 times in the middle of the night with severe symptoms.

You learn to map out the nearest restrooms quickly when you have urgency problems. You think about your proximity, the size of the bathroom, and the possibility that it’s occupied. And sometimes you can’t make it, so you carry underwear and toilet paper with you. Or sometimes you wake up with urgency so agonizing you renovate your one bedroom home into a two bathroom home by putting a trash bag inside of a bucket. Yup, I’ve had to shit into a bucket. It was embarrassing at first, but in the end, it was a life-saver. I didn’t have to worry about the agonizing sprint to the bathroom and risk it being occupied. It also probably saved me a lot of boxer-briefs.

My symptoms affected my life majorly in two domains: school and work. I missed a couple weeks of classes during my first flare up. I considered withdrawing for the semester so I could get healthy and not mess up my grades as an honors student. That said, I am still in school, learning to manage. As for work, I was fired. I failed to call in early enough on the days that I missed. I was hopeful I could make it in even though that wasn’t the case. 

At this point, I didn’t know what’s wrong with me, and I feared the worse: cancer or IBD.

The Diagnosis: What’s Up Doc?

The doctors thought it was nothing but a virus. After all, ‘tis the season. But after a week trying to tough it out, it didn’t go away. Fast forward through two blood tests and a stool test and the results came back negative. At this point, I’m losing weight and begin to feel very weak. Most of my time was spent watching Netflix and going to the bathroom. It was hard to sustain my attention on anything that required more energy. The stagnation, weight loss, and dehydration caused my body began to like it was sinking. I was tired most of the day and the joints in my ankles, wrists, and back became sore.

Myself, my doctor, and my family didn’t want to see me suffer any longer. My doc prescribed me antibiotics and hyoscyamine just in case it was an infection that the tests missed. However, a few days into the antibiotics, I felt little to no change. Thankfully she has a good relationship with our local gastroenterologist and expedited a colonoscopy, which I head within a few days of making the call. This is about three weeks deep into the onset of my symptoms.

Having colonoscopy was not an exciting prospect, but I knew it was necessary. Moaning in disgust as I drank the laxatives, I just wanted it to all be over. Soon enough it was. As the sedative ran through my body, my tingling hands and feet relaxed and my anxiety was washed away. I woke up a couple times yelling in pain. “Stop moaning and breathe or else you will make it worse,” the doctor said to me in a loud and authoritative voice. Before I knew it, I woke up in the recovery room wondering if I even had a procedure. After the haze began to lift, so the did the uncertainty.

Three days later I got a call from the doctor’s nurse. I was eager to hear what she has to say. At this point, I had been expecting Crohns, but ultimately, I was still in limbo as to what was happening. She tells me I have colitis, more specifically, ulcerative colitis. The clouds parted. The sun was shining. It’s a weird feeling to be happy after being diagnosed. But it’s because I finally got some clarity. Finally, I could start problem-solving and look at treatment options. The relief is short-lived and the realization that I have a chronic illness began to sink in.

I still have yet to meet with the doctor who performed my colonoscopy to talk about the diagnosis, but I will in a week from today. After we talk, It’s likely that I’ll post an update with more details. He did prescribe me Lialda, which I am somewhat hesitant about taking but will try.

From the colonoscopy review, it seems like my UC is not affecting my whole colon. It was a relief too that the pictures of the scope did not look nearly as bad as the ones on Google Images. Even so, I don’t how this would develop moving forward if I hadn’t addressed this problem as early as I did. I’m glad I had stellar doctors and the incredible support from my loving family. I probably wouldn’t be as happy and healthy without them. 

Want to know more about UC is, scientifically? Watch this video.

The Goal: Getting Serious About Diet, Exercise, and Mental Health and Reaching Full Remission

After regaining some energy a week after my first flare up, my bowel movements have become less severe. I have less abdominal pain, they’re not as loose, and there’s not as much blood. I go on average about five times a day, usually in the morning and early afternoon, and I no longer wake up at night with urgency issues.

I’ve gotten back my energy since the first flare up, and it has motivated me to consider what I need to do to be healthy. I have been an active person for quite some time, working out casually about three times a week: running, rock climbing, and doing kinesthetics. I also used to meditate on a daily to weekly basis for about four years, but I began to slip early this semester.

Now, more than ever, I want to challenge myself to be intentional about my health on a daily basis. I feel like being healthy is the most important thing I can do for myself and for the people I love and want to be a role model for. And most of all, I want to do as much as I can to ease the symptoms of my UC in attempt to arrive at remission.

In lieu of my condition and recovered intentions, I’ve started a health journal where I’ll be keeping track of my diet, workouts, meditations, and UC symptoms. My fitness journey will include three main dimensions (for now, as I made this myself based on my own research).:

Veganism: I’ve changed my vegetarian diet, which included a lot of greasy foods and dairy products, to a high carb vegan diet. I’m actually really excited about this. After reading testimonials on the internet about the vegan diet being able to put UC in full remission, I was sold on trying it for myself. They have been able to not rely on pills as well, which is also a point I would like to reach.

Exercise: I’m also going to hold myself to working out five days a week, keeping close track of my progress so that I can become more fit than ever before. This means climbing harder routes, running farther and faster, building kinesthetic endurance, and gaining more muscle mass.

Meditation:  I’m going to hold myself to meditating every single day before bed for at least 10 minutes. From past experience, I know how important it is to be in tune with yourself. It’s easy in our busy lives to ignore the problems we’re dealing with. The unattended mind and body can turn on you and influence you in ways you're unaware of. It’s time I get back into exercise my muscles of attention, acceptance, understanding, and love. It’s time feel whole again.

This all begins today (3/6/2017). Every week, on Monday, I plan on posting on my blog how my week went, how I’m doing on my goals, and how my UC is acting or if it’s in remission. This should hold me accountable and keep my priorities straight. If the updates start to get boring, and if nothing much is changing, I will do short updates or write about something else that relates to health, fitness, or UC.

I know there will probably be a lot of ups and downs, as UC is considered a chronic condition. I know I will have buckle in for the ride and do my best to adapt no matter what happens. I accept the fact that I currently have this condition, and it might not go away, but ultimately, I would like to reach full, or close to full, remission. I’m not sure if this is a lofty goal or not, as I might just be feeling more hope after surviving my first flare up, but it motivates me. At the very least, I think it’s important to try. I want to live as healthy and happy of a life as possible, and whether that is with UC or not, I think that’s a good goal. As for what actually happens, only time will tell.