#my god quotes like this make me so inexplicably angry

[chussyracing]

my guy. what competition did you have in 2023 that you don't want more in 2024.

[samuel-de-champagne-problems]

Fools in Love

Summary: He can explain how String Theory works. He can figure out Riemann Hypothesis. He can recite all the numbers of pi until he’s blue in the face. Yet somehow, Spencer Reid can’t figure out what to do for his first first anniversary. 

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female Reader 

Warnings: Spencer Reid is a self-deprecating mf, Jane Austen quotes? But there’s a happy ending 

Word Count: 3128

Fools in Love

He scratches the back of neck, a nervous habit that he’s sure makes him look weak. He wants to find the perfect recipe to make a wonderful meal for Y/N. It’s his first first anniversary so Spencer’s completely lost as to what to do. Y/N deserves the most romantic dinner, especially considering how much chaos he causes. It must be a lot to put up with him, Spencer thinks. He’s even more useless when it comes to love than when it comes to cooking. While he might not be a fan of technology, given he has the Thai place down the street from his apartment on speed dial. She doesn’t deserve some take out Thai with paper plates. But he’s a scientist, a well-known and well-educated scientist who is completely failing at planning his first anniversary.

It was useless. Completely and utterly useless, Spencer thought to himself as he ran his fingers across the various titles of cookbooks. Some featured complex dishes from Korea and others were 30 minute meals of the vaguely Midwest variety. Spencer never in his entire 33 years of living felt so out of place in a library. He’s so at home in between the stacks of books, he finds the comforting words of long dead authors and intricate mathematical theories a second home. However, it seems that Spencer Reid has found the most intimidating section of the library: cooking.

And what do academics do when they are at a crossroad? Well, they call in the experts. The love expert came in the shape of Agent Derek Morgan himself. This idea just might be the most brilliant thought Spencer’s had or the dumbest, but Y/N is worth it. 

Okay, maybe it was a mistake to come to Derek, Spencer thinks as he sits in front of his friend, a coffee in his hand and an expression of pure fear on his face. 

“You want me to, what?” Spencer asks, shocked at Derek’s suggestive advice.  

“Lie in bed naked, call Y/N on the phone and make something up. You’ll be waiting in bed and then BAM! Anniversary sex,” Derek says, his eyebrows wagging as he sips his coffee. 

“Are you messing with me, Morgan?” Spencer says, his face pale from the very thought of lounging in bed naked, waiting for Y/N to come over to his apartment.

“Why not, I’m sure it would get you laid,” Derek reasons. Get me laid? Spencer and Y/N don’t get laid, he thinks. They do have sex, but it’s not getting laid. It’s more romantic and loving than just whatever Derek suggests. 

God, he can’t tell Derek that, he’d never live it down. 

“You have slept with Y/N, right?” Derek asks, suddenly nervous that he touched a nerve with his friend. As much as he likes to tease, Spencer knows that Derek doesn’t mean any harm, hence why he’s the first person he thought to come to. 

“We prefer to call it making love,” Spencer says, pretending to be very interested in his chocolate donut and trying to fight off the blush that rises to his cheeks. Even a year into their relationship, Spencer still gets butterflies at thinking about Y/N like that. 

“So you want this to be more romantic than just fucking, because you’ve done it for a year?” Derek proposes as simply as if he’s talking about a case. Not that talking about serial victims is anymore normal or weirder than the current conversation. 

“Morgan and you please stop talking about Y/N and sex in the same sentence?” Spencer says through gritted teeth. 

“Reid, kid. I’m just busting your chops, I know who you feel about Y/N. When you two are in the same room, it’s like there’s no one else in the world. And it’s kinda hard to get your mind to focus on one thing, but Y/N does that,” 

“I know,” Spencer says. “I can’t mess this up Derek. I can’t give another person a reason to leave me,” 

“Y/N won’t leave because you can’t plan a terrible anniversary dinner,” Derek says comfortingly. 

“I checked out 7 cookbooks, Morgan. 7, and I read them on the metro home. It’s useless, I’m useless,” Spencer laments.

He looks up to try to read Derek’s expression. The last thing he’d want to see on his face is pity or worse laughter. No, Spencer. Derek is your best friend. He’s the closest thing you have to a brother. Spencer feels almost guilty for thinking that Derek would laugh at him, while he might like to tease him, especially about his lovelife, they trust each other inexplicably. What’s written on Derek’s face is not pity or ridicule, it’s a smile. A smile not for Spencer, but for the colorful woman walking towards their table. 

“You told Garcia?” Spencer groans, but scooting over so Penelope would have a spot to sit with them. 

“Of course I told Garcia, kid. You know better than anyone that we can’t keep anything secret,” Derek explains, leaning in to kiss Garcia’s hand. 

“Spencer Reid! I can’t believe you,” Garcia says, smacking Spencer’s arm lightly. 

“Garcia!” Spencer shouts, clutching his coffee and hunching down in his seat to avoid being hit by the tech goddess with her hard rings on her surprisingly strong hands. 

“Don’t Garcia me, Reid. You need me, whether or not you realize it or not. I’m irreplaceable,” she tells him, grabbing a pink notebook and a fluffy green pen from her bag. 

Spencer nods in understanding, as much as he hates it, he knows that he needs help. It’s just a hard pill to swallow when help comes in the form of Derek Morgan and Penelope Garcia, perhaps the two people on Earth who are the most in love. 

“I know I need you guys,” Spencer says, looking from Garcia to Derek, half expecting them to tell him to order some terrifying sex toy from a scretchy store on the edge of town or something equally horrifying. 

“What’s something that she likes? You know like a special thing that Y/N would never think about getting herself” Garcia asks, making notes with the fluffy when that bounces as she writes. 

“She likes to read,” Spencer suggests, thinking about the first date that they had. They talked for hours about their favorite books and ended up getting booted from the library for overstaying their welcome. Y/N found it quite endearing that The Little Prince is Spencer’s while her is anything and everything by Jane Austen. He thinks back to her eyes gleamed when talking about the book, or how passionate she got when she argued that Mr Knightley and Emma were soulmates. 

“Okay, that’s a start Spencer. Really good,” Garcia says, trying to boost her friend’s confidence. 

“What else?” Derek asks, thinking about the times when he and Y/N hang out with Spencer and Penelope. 

“Fret not, Boy Wonder,” Garcia says, softly patting Spencer’s shoulder, “I’ll take care of this,” she finishes as she reaches into her bag, that seems to have a never ending bottom, and pulls out a laptop. 

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“So Garcia and Morgan took over your anniversary plans and basically just made it how they’d want to spend their anniversary?” JJ offers, as she hands Spencer a beer from her refrigerator and sits back down at her kitchen table. 

Spencer takes a swig of his beer and shrugs his shoulders, thinking about how wrong this whole anniversary dinner has gone. 

“I just wanted this to be special, JJ. I know it’s only been a year, but Y/N is it for me. God, she was it for me on the third date,” Spencer confesses. 

“I know, Spence. I’ve never seen you this happy. Happiness looks good on you,” JJ tells him. 

“Y/N makes me happy, she puts up with me, so the least I can do is make this perfect for her,” 

“Spence, don’t sell yourself short,” JJ says, “You’re a kind man and a wonderful boyfriend, you’re both lucky to have each other,” 

“Thank you, JJ, but Y/N is the better person in this relationship. That’s why this needs to be perfect,” Spencer explains, his self doubt still littering his mind. 

“What about a baseball game? You can pay for a message to pop up on the Jumbotron. Like Happy Anniversary, Y/N,” JJ suggests, and Spencer really can’t tell if JJ is joking. She can’t possibly think that Y/N and he would have a romantic anniversary with the threat of getting pelted in the face with a baseball. 

“Sports games are not our forte, JJ. I honestly can’t tell who’d hate sitting in the sun for hours with angry sports fans,” Spencer adds. 

“Okay so no sports, I should have figured, Spence,” JJ winks knowingly. “How about this, think about somewhere that’s special to you two. Somewhere that makes you think of her,” 

“The thing is JJ, everyplace we’ve been together makes me think of her. The elevator when she first kissed me, the movie theater we always go to on Saturday nights, even the sidewalk outside my apartment building. Everything makes me think of her because she’s my everything,” Spencer says, hiding his discomfort at the conversation. 

“Spence, I think that anything you plan, will be wonderful. Have a little trust in yourself for once, Y/N is already head over heels in love with you, so I doubt that she’d really care where you go or what you do,” JJ advises, clearing up the dirty dishes from their Friday night pizza dinner with the boys. 

“I’m going to go JJ, thanks for talking me out of my head. If I took Morgan’s advice, I’d probably end up with a restraining order,” Spencer jokes, putting his jacket on and saying goodbye to his friend. 

“You think you need an Uber?” JJ asks, but immediately finds amusement from Spencer’s disgust at the idea of getting into an Uber. 

“Germs and technology sound like a nightmare, JJ. And I’m not going to remind you of the statistics regarding missing persons and those rideshare apps-” Spencer offers, but is cut off by JJ’s pretend annoyance. 

“Remind me to send Y/N combat pay, you know maybe she is a saint for putting up with you,” JJ teases. 

He walks out into the chill of the night, recounting the advice his friends gave him. Derek and Penelope’s plan was a little outlandish, a little too much for Spencer and Y/N. JJ, who Spencer knows means well, only served to remind him of how hard it must be with him. His steps are slow and languid, but his mind anything but. 

One step, you’re probably just a charity case that Y/N decided to save. 

Two steps, why on Earth would a woman like her even look at a man like you.

Three steps, you’re so pathetic that you can’t even plan a dinner for her. She’s too good for Spencer, you’ll ruin her. 

Everyone who you love leaves you or dies, anyway.

It’s that thought, not the thought of being alone, but the thought that he deserves to be alone that sends the tears down his cheeks. 

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Somehow, someway, Spencer made it back to his apartment. It never felt so dark, so unlike home. Maybe he just didn’t never realized that these walls aren’t home without Y/N. He really should try to get to sleep, but he’d rather fend off sleep with the endless supply of coffee than have to face a night alone in the cold bed. 

Just as Spencer makes his way to prepare a cup of coffee, he hears a distant jiggle of keys and the door knob rattle. And in comes Y/N, as fresh as the cup of coffee brewing and as beautiful as ever. 

“Happy Anniversary, my love,” Y/N tells him, dropping the bags on the floor. She moves over to him like a light breeze. All he wants is to welcome her embrace. He wants to scoop her up and carry her far away from the monsters that lie in wake. He feels an urge to be her protector, but how can be her protector when what he really wants is to be protected. 

“Y/N, what are you doing here, it’s so late,” Spencer says, praying that his voice doesn’t let go. He knows it’s futile, one look from Y/N, her palm to his cheek or even worse a chaste kiss on his forehead, Spencer would not be able to think. What is a genius without his mind? 

“I couldn’t wait for tomorrow, Spence, I just missed you too much,” Y/N says, her voice a prayer that spins around in Spencer’s brain, searching for refuge in his heart. 

“You really missed me?” Spencer asks, desperately wanting to believe her beyond belief. Y/N’s frown searches for an answer in Spencer’s distant expression. Even though they stand there with the kitchen light casting shadows touching as much skin as they can reach, Spencer is a million miles away.

“Of course I missed you, baby. And I just had to give you one of your gifts tonight. I just couldn’t wait to see your face,” Y/N says, practically bouncing as she bounds off to get the package for Spencer. 

“So this is only the first part, and stay with me, I know how much you hate technology, but I think you’ll make an excuse for this,” She tells him, handing him a heavy cube shaped package. It’s decorated in Y/N’s handwritten flowers and hearts, and a cute doodle of who Spencer can only assume is them. His girlfriend may not be artistic. But she’s the artist who paints the stars in Spencer’s night sky. She’s the tailor who sewed him back up when he was broken. She’s the architect who has the key and blueprint to his heart. 

Spencer opens the gift, his hands shaky and unsure. He’s terrified that Y/N can see right though him. He reveals the present. It’s a small wooden box with a red wooden heart that looks like it’s supposed to be pixelated. There’s a blank space on the top, that Spencer supposes is a screen.

“You gotta plug it in, Spence. So the messages can pop up. When you're far away from me saving the world, I can type a message from my phone and it’ll appear on your box,” she explains. Spencer looks up at her trying to search for what he did to get this lucky. 

“Thank you, this is the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me,” Spencer tells her, placing a kiss against her forehead. It’s the kind of kisses that tell you so much more. It’s the kind of kiss you give when you know there’s more where that one came from. It’s safe and warm and everything good about this world. 

“I gotta make sure you won’t forget me when you go traipsing all over the country. A hot genius like you only comes around so often. I’m sure you got loads of attractive people throwing themselves at you, Spence,” she says with a wink. 

“Hot genius?” Spencer repeats half dumbfounded and half joking. 

“Yup, I gotta make sure they know that you’re spoken for,” 

“I couldn’t forget you even if I tried, Y/N. You’re the best thing that’s happened to me. I still don’t know what I did to ever deserve you,” Spencer says, as the tears and the fears of not being good enough bubble to the surface. 

“Spencer, baby. You’re shaking. What’s the matter? Huh,” she says softly, brushing her hand over Spencer’s head in a comforting and loving gesture. 

Spencer leans into her, his head pressed into her neck. He can hear her heartbeat and he can smell her perfume. He wants to get lost in her. Get lost in the feeling of total and complete love. 

“I just wanted this to be perfect, Y/N. For you- you deserve so much more than I can give. It must be so hard dating me. I know that I’m difficult to love sometimes,” Spencer murmurs, his tears pouring down his cheeks and spilling like his darkest thoughts onto Y/N’s shirt. 

“Spencer, you make my life so much brighter. So much fuller. I know that you got a lot going on up in that mind of yours and it must be kinda scary. It must be hard always being the guy people expect answers from. But I got you, sweetheart. And I’m not letting go,” Y/N tells him the words falling from lips like a psalm and taking on a new life in Spencer’s heart. 

“Thank you, Y/N. I really wanted this to be the best anniversary. I’m sorry I’m such a mess,” Spencer apologizes as he peppers light, feathery kisses along her collarbone and up to her eyes. 

“Well you’re my mess, Spencer. Let’s be honest, I’d be completely happy to spend our anniversary anywhere with you. Except maybe sports games, that sounds like torture for both of us,” Y/N laughs and Spencer can’t get over how she practically glows in the kitchen light. It could be that his mind is foggy with love, but Spencer hopes that he never grows out of this blissful feeling. 

“Well it’s a good thing we’ll have many more to make up for this one,” Spencer says, letting himself get dragged to the large fluffy sofa. 

“Oh no, Mister. The next 50 anniversaries have to try to top this one,” Y/N tells him and Spencer’s heart skips and flutters at the thought of having another 49 anniversaries with Y/N by his side. 

“I doubt that 50 will be enough, Y/N” 

“As long as you’ll allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you,” Y/N says, cuddling so close to Spencer that she can’t see where her limbs start and Spencer’s end. 

“If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more,” Spencer says running his spidery fingers down Y/N’s side much to her delight. 

“Ooh are you trying out some Jane Austen foreplay? Because that’s the way to make my panties drop,” Y/N says suggestively as she rubs her hand over Spencer’s chest and rests it on his neck. 

“Maybe tomorrow, I just really want to hold you close right now, Y/N.” Spencer says, sweetly kissing along her temple exciting a bout of giggles from the two of them. 

Spencer very well might be useless when it comes to love, but he was eager to learn that he’s worthy of love from his love expert. 

[gilmores-glorious-blog]

I held you close as we both shook

(Disclaimer this is the first fic I’ve ever written and I wrote it in a rush of emotions after the new episode)

-

-

Roman manages to hold himself together until after he sinks out. But the moment he rises up into the mind palace, he breaks down. 

Virgil has been sitting on the couch for a few hours. He’s vaguely aware that the others are off talking to Thomas, but he’s too engrossed in Tumblr to care about missing out. Remus has walked by occasionally, making crude comments, but if there’s one thing Virgil’s good at, it’s blocking Remus out. All in all, Virgil’s doing pretty well. A little alone time can do wonders for anxiety. 

There’s the signature noise of a side returning to the mind palace, and Virgil’s head pops up from his phone. So much for his alone time. Upon seeing the top of Roman’s head begin to appear, Virgil bites back a smile. He would never admit it out loud, but Roman makes him inexplicably happy. Remus once told him- back when they talked to each other- that that is called “a crush! your feelings are horny! you want my brother to-” (this is where Virgil cut him off). So naturally, Virgil is a bit excited to see Roman return. 

Before the purple side can even open his mouth to say hello, however, Roman starts crying. Startled, Virgil stays quiet. He watches as Roman, usually cheerful and confident, crumples to the floor in front of the tv and let out silent sobs. Roman mutters to himself, but Virgil is unable to hear him fully. He does catch snippets of useless, pathetic, and despicable, though. Virgil is so shocked at the scene that he forgets to say anything. After a few minutes, he finds his voice again and manages a weak ���...Ro?” 

Roman’s head shoots up. He immediately starts wiping tears from his eyes, plastering on the fakest smile Virgil has ever seen.

“Oh, hey there Jack Smellington, I didn’t see you there.”

Virgil tentatively moves off the couch towards where Roman sits. “Roman, what on earth happened?”

“What are you talking about? I’m fine. You’re just anxious. Well of course you’re anxious, you’re anxiety! My point being, Hot Topic, nothing is wrong-”

“Ro, I saw you crying.” 

Roman’s face falls. “Ah. You did. Well, please don’t feel the need to help me. Or pity me. Or anything of the such. I promise I’m fine, I just…” He trails off, and Virgil sees tears glistening in his eyes, watches him bite his shaking lower lip. “I just… he just…”

“He?” Virgil still has no idea what’s happening.

Apparently this nameless ‘he’ holds a lot of emotion for the creative side right now, because Roman starts crying again.

“I-I’m sorry, this is so embarrassing.” Roman sniffles. “Feel free to hate me. Everyone else does.”

With those two sentences, Virgil can feel his heart break. 

“Ro… no one hates you.”

“Really?! Janus didn’t seem to be a big fan of me.”

Virgil’s blood runs cold. He hasn’t heard that name for years, since he stopped hanging out with the dark sides. “Janus? Deceit told you his name?”

“Yep. And everyone loves him now. He’s Thomas’ new best pal. His new hero. He doesn’t need me anymore.”

Virgil clenches his fist. “Roman, I need you to tell me what happened as well as you can. Last I checked, we all hated De-Janus. What changed?”

Roman takes a deep, shuddering breath. “Well, Patton and I were debating how much Thomas needs to be selfless, and what the right reasons are for being selfless, and if there are right reasons, and so on. Patton got super confused and just… flipped out. Went full on frog mode. And by that I mean he literally turned into a giant frog. With abs. It was quite the sight. So then Janus shows up and is… he’s helping Thomas. And he’s going on and on about how self care is important and your mental health is a priority. And everyone believes him! Even though he is literally Deceit! So I’m trying to make a point about how he’s evil, we’ve determined he’s evil, and he’s telling us to go back on everything we’ve learned, but they all sided with him. And since I’m saying we can’t trust him, he decides now is the perfect time to make a big show of revealing his name. And yeah, maybe I laughed at it. But I was angry! And it’s a stupid name, anyways.”

Virgil takes this moment to interject. “It is. He sounds like a middle-school librarian.” Roman stares at him, an emotion in his eyes that Virgil can’t decipher. He decides that he doesn’t like the intensity in Roman’s gaze so he urges him to continue speaking.

“Upon me making a lighthearted joke, Janus com… he…” Roman breaks down crying again.

“What? What did he do?” Virgil realizes he probably shouldn’t be forcing Roman to talk about things he doesn’t want to, but he’s too blinded by his rage at Janus to think clearly. Roman doesn’t answer, and Virgil gently puts a hand on his shoulder. 

“Roman? What did he do?”

The prince mutters something that Virgil can’t hear. “What was that?” 

Roman jerks his head up from his lap. “HE COMPARED ME TO HIM!” He yells, startling Virgil. “He… he compared me to my brother. He said, and I quote, ‘Oh Roman, thank god you don’t have a mustache, otherwise between you and Remus I wouldn’t know who the evil twin is’.” Roman stares at the wall straight ahead, blinking back tears.

“...oh.” Virgil breathes.

Roman lets out a sad chuckle. “Oh.”

“Ro, I’m so sorry, I-”

“Don’t.” Roman says. “I’m done pretending I’m the hero. You and Logan, my brother and Janus, even Patton and Thomas have made it abundantly clear I’m far from it. Thomas let me be in control for far too long and it’s clear I shouldn’t be. When Deceit, the literal embodiment of lies, is trusted over me, that shows just how useless I really am. And… he’s right. Remus and I… we are similar. And I hate it. God, Virgil, I hate it so much. He’s everything I don’t want to be, and yet the only difference between us is a stupid mustache. I shouldn’t be here. I don’t deserve to be here. I’ve done nothing but hurt Thomas. And hell, even if he can’t live without Creativity… he’s got another one right there waiting for him.” 

Virgil doesn’t know when he started, but now he’s crying too. It hurts so much to see Roman like this. Roman, the brave side. Roman, the side who’s always there to lighten the situation. Roman, the side who’s clever nicknames make Virgil’s heart flutter. Roman, who Virgil has never seen sad, let alone like this. Roman, who Virgil loves.

He doesn’t know what to say. But he knows from his own experience with panic attacks that maybe Roman doesn’t want him to say anything. So he wordlessly puts his arm around the other side. Roman, still sobbing, lowers his head into Virgil’s lap. If someone had told Virgil an hour ago that Roman would be sitting with his head in his lap, Virgil (well he wouldn’t have believed them) but if he did, he would have been excited. But now he wishes more than anything that this wasn’t the situation.

Roman’s cries continue, still silent, but wracking his whole body with shuddering sobs. Virgil tries and fails to hold back his own tears while he gently runs his hand through Roman’s hair. 

After a good ten minutes of them sitting like that, Roman has fallen still. He’s still crying, but he’s sort of just numb now. 

“Ro?” Virgil asks hesitantly. “Can I say something?”

“Sure.” Roman’s reply is quiet, whispered into Virgil’s lap. 

Virgil gulps, unsure where to start. “You… you are incredible. You’re passionate, you’re smart, you’re insanely talented, you’re brave, and you are so kind. And I am so sorry for anything I have ever said or done to make you think differently. I know our relationship started off bad, to say the least, but we’ve grown so much since them, and I really truly care about you. And I know everyone else does too. Patton loves you more than anything, Logan likes you the same amount Logan likes everyone, which… it’s uncertain at times what that amount is, but I promise he loves you. Thomas couldn’t live without you. I mean, just imagine what Thomas would be like if his only creative thoughts came from Remus. It would be a nightmare! And speaking of your brother… you are nothing like him. I promise. I spent twenty-something years with him and you are so vastly different. And even if you were like him, he’s not all that bad. And he cares about you too, more than he cares about any of the rest of us. He never shuts up about you. He wants to be as good as you. Because you are a hero. ” That’s about all Virgil can muster before he breaks down too.

Roman is sitting up now, staring into Virgil’s eyes. “Do you mean all that?”

“Roman, I would never lie to you.” Virgil puts his hands on Roman’s shoulders. “So believe me when I say that I wouldn’t be able to live without you.” 

Roman laughs sadly. “That’s not true.”

Virgil speaks in a voice more serious than he’s ever spoken in before. “No. It is. You keep me in check, you help me feel like I have a purpose for Thomas, and you’re…” Virgil finds himself getting lost in Roman’s green eyes. “You’re… god, Roman, you’re fucking amazing. I love you. So much.” Virgil isn’t sure if Roman is going to interpret this in a romantic way or not, but either way, he knows it’s what the other side needs to hear right now.

Roman pauses, tears still silently streaming down his cheeks. 

And then he kisses Virgil.

It’s a soft kiss, barely touching, but it’s there. As much as he wants to, Virgil doesn’t kiss back. That’s not what either of them need right now. But either way, Virgil’s heart races. 

Roman pulls back almost as quickly as he leaned in. 

“Thank you Virgil.” He smiles at him. 

Virgil has seen Roman smile before. Many times. Often they are wide smiles. Huge smiles laced with laughter, usually in response to some stupid thing someone else said. But in this moment, Virgil feels like he’s never seen Roman smile. Because none of those countless smiles he’s seen before were anything like this. This small smile, lighting up his tearstained face, barely even noticeable as a smile, is the most genuine thing Virgil has ever seen in his life. 

Roman glances down, then back up at Virgil. 

“I think I’ll stick around.”

Virgil smiles now too, tears shimmering in his purple eyes. 

“Glad to hear it.”

[stingchronicity]

hoh i think this is really more of an american (or at least western) problem than elsewhere but god i cannot explain how angry ISKCON (hare krishna) and likewise missionaries make me

the whole transcendental meditation (TM) & ISKCON thing was brought to the western world as a conversion fad, which is strictly NOT a hindu idea. ever since the 1960s, the western image of “hindus” equates to “those dirty hippies who hand out krishna pamphlets and beg for money.” btw that’s an actual quote someone has said to me upon learning i’m a hindu

it makes me so inexplicably mad because that whole hippie craze is not hinduism in the least. the communal, free love, self-denial, transcendental, and drug-oriented culture of hippies & ISKCON members is the face of hinduism in the western world but it’s nothing like true hinduism. i don’t mean this in a hindu supremacist way, and im also not saying theres anything wrong with the whole free love, transcendental meditation, etc; i mean, you guys see the musicians i love and my enthusiasm for the 60s and 70s. i’m just saying that equating “hare krishnas” to hindus is a defacement to hinduism

hinduism is an ancient, personal religion sacred to south asian culture. ISKCON is a capitalistic fad meant for white people who want to “rebel.” instead of listening to what the beatles’ pasty asses have to say about eastern religion, maybe listen to an actual south asian person.

[briarlovesclara]

Memory of a Song

(NOTE: this is an angst fic that contains spoilers for the entirety of River Song’s arc, series 4 (Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead), and series 5-8, as well as the series 9 Christmas special The Husbands of River Song. Not all material is canon that is quoted.) TW: death/regeneration, wrist mutilation (light)

The red streak startled him. Slowly, he rubbed his fingers over each other, spreading the lipstick onto his thumb, and pressed down as the wave of pain ripped through him. That color.

The plates clattered as he softly stacked them, full for the night. He looked up at her as she ate another biscuit, barely able to take her eyes off of him. With a rare smile, he reached over the table and lightly held her face with his hand. She sighed and leaned into the touch.

"Yes, sweetie?" She asked.

"Just making sure you're still here." He whispered.

"Ever after."

The towel was in his hands before he even noticed it, gently wiping at the smear on his fingers. He wondered idly if it would stain.

He held her face, his much younger now and hers much older. Slowly, he brought her cradled head to his and captured her in a soft kiss.

Even if my timeline kills me, he thinks, I will be ripped to shreds with River Song on my lips.

He rinsed off the towel, slowly wringing it out, and yet the red remained. Did it grow brighter the more he washed?

Her wrist was severely broken. Honestly, it was a wonder that she had gotten it out at all. But if anyone could, it was her.

The pain must be terrible, he thinks, and this thought above all is unbearable.

Gently, he picks up the swollen hand and concentrates deep inside himself. A warmth spreads through him, and he draws the sensation outward through his arms. Ignoring her angry protests, he calmly gives out the energy, healing her as she once healed him, as she will always heal him.

"Look into my eye." He made the Teselecta whisper. She started slightly, looking directly at him. Spinning around, he gave her a wink. His brilliant wife.

"When I was little, I was going to marry you."

"Good idea, let's get married. You stay alive and I'll marry you, deal? Deal?" He said frantically, trying to find a way to save Mels. He couldn't lose anyone, not again, not so soon after River, after the daughter of his best friends, after the strange and inexplicable woman who seemed to know everything about him.

"Shouldn't you ask my parents' permission?"

"As soon as you're well, I'll get them on the phone."

"Might as well do it now, since they're both right here." Mels said with a smirk, earning a confused look from all three of them. "Penny in the air." He watched in awe as golden light began to emanate from her. Who? How? Could she be... how... "Penny drops."

"What the hell's going on?"

"Back! Back! Back! Get back!"

Of course, he mused, that wasn't even the most interesting part of the day. The flirting, the poisoned kiss, the-- he mentally stuttered over the memory-- the voice interface, and of course, his revival. His secret. His moment of connection with her, the indescribable sensation of touching another Gallifreyan being. The towel was dry now, burning his hands as it rubbed against his skin.

The feeling of the silk shifted beneath his fingers, the thread molding to translate. He glanced down.

Oh, God. River.

"And Doctor River Song. Oh, you bad bad girl. What trouble have you got for me this time?" He teased in a low voice, shifting towards her.

The next thing he knew was a sharp pain as her hand whipped past him.

"Okay. I'm assuming that's for something I haven't done yet."

He looked down at the towel. Suddenly, all he wanted was the lipstick as far away from him as possible. He turned on the sink and sharply threw it under the tap before angrily rubbing his face, harder and harder, until he couldn't even feel it anymore.

He looked into her eyes. The impossibility. The mystery. The woman who, though he barely knew, had him wrapped around her finger. Not that he would ever admit it.

"Are you asking?"

"Yes."

"Yes."

"No, hang on. Did you think I was asking you to marry me" --he ignored the tightening in his stomach-- "or, or, or asking if you were married?"

"Yes."

"No, but was that yes, or yes?" He tried to control the nerves that flooded over him.

"Yes." The one simple word stopped him where he stood for a second as the vision hit him. Holding onto her, having some sort of claim to explain why he craved her company, having her crave him back... No! Spoilers. He reminded himself. Smiling softly, he changed the topic.

"River... who are you?"

"Octavian said you killed a man." The question had been growing inside him ever since the Father had died.

"Yes, I did." She said, suddenly averting his gaze.

"Who?"

"It's a long story, Doctor. It can't be told, it has to be lived. No sneak previews." He had expected as much. "Well, except for this one. You'll see me quite soon, when the Pandorica opens."

This complex, wild woman, he thought. He'd barely ever seen her, but as much as he hated to admit it he couldn't stop thinking about her. He doubted he ever would.

In the mirror, his face was getting red and as raw as his hands. Shouting in anger, he threw the rag at the ground, stomping on it over and over.

"It's not supposed to make that noise. You leave the brakes on."

His eyes were burning as he picked up the towel and tried to rip it apart with sheer strength. When that failed, he bit an edge until it frayed and pulled from there.

"that woman is not dragging me into anything."

A rip appeared.

"Oh Amy, Amy, Amy. This is the Doctor we're talking about. Do you really think it could be anything that simple?"

The cloth snapped bit by bit as the towel surrendered.

"The Aplans."

"The Aplans?"

"They've got two heads."

"Yes, I get that. So?"

"So why don't the statues?"

Snap, snap, snap.

"Look at you. Oh, you're young."

"I'm really not, you know."

"No, but you are. Your eyes. You're younger than I've ever seen you."

"You've seen me before, then?"

"Doctor, please tell me you know who I am."

Snap, snap, snap. Snap, snap, snap.

"What's in that book?"

"Spoilers."

Snap, snap, snap.

"Who are you?"

"Professor River Song, University of--"

"To me."

Snap, snap, snap.

"Who are you to me?"

"Again, spoilers."

Snap, snap, snap. Snap, snap, snap.

"The Doctor in the TARDIS. Next stop, everywhere."

"Spoilers. Nobody can open a TARDIS by snapping their fingers. It doesn't work like that."

"It does for the Doctor."

"I am the Doctor."

"Yeah, some day."

Snap.

"It'll burn out both your hearts and don't think you'll regenerate."

"I'll try my hardest not to die. Honestly, it's my main thing."

Snap.

"The last time I saw you, the real you, the future you, I mean, you turned up on my doorstep, with a new haircut and a suit."

Snap.

"I've had a haircut. This is my best suit."

"It's not even a suit."

The towel broke with a sharp ripping noise, sending him stumbling back. He looked down at the halves, surprised back into the present. He took a deep breath and threw it in the garbage before washing off his hands. His face was red and blotchy-- had he been crying?-- but there was no trace of his wife's last kiss on his lips. Shakily, he put on his sonic shades and the trash can erupted into flame. He turned around from the broken man in the mirror and walked to the TARDIS as the remaining bit of River Song burned.

He didn't let himself look back.

fin

[isagrimorie]

23, 24, 28, 9, 14, 19, 29, 2 (sorry if you've answered any of these before, I don't remember which questions you've done already)

from this meme

2. Top 3 companions

- Bill Potts, Donna Noble, and Liv Chenka.

Big Finish Audio companions count, right? Honorable mentions: Rose Tyler, because she’s my first Companion, series 8-9 Clara Oswald, Liz Shaw, Jo Grant, Barbara Wright - The OG.

9. NOTP?

I don’t think I have a NOTP, maybe not something I prefer? Then I think it would be Ten/Rose. I adored Nine/Rose but my god were they (authorially intended) insufferable. They were so much better apart than when they were together.

14. How long have you been a fan for?

Since 2005! I was the same age as Rose was, so I really glommed on to her, she was the reason I kept watching after the pilot. Actually, up until Eleven, I was more Companion centric than Doctor centric. Twelve changed all that for me.

19. Favourite one off monster

I think it’s a toss up between “Are you my mummy?” kid or the Entity in Midnight.

23. Least favourite companion (why?)

Adam. RTD wanted to make him unlikeable and boy did he succeed. I think I like all the companions I’ve met so far… then again I haven’t met Adric, and from what I know of Adric I know the kid would annoy the hell out of me.

24. Any era’s that you would like to know better?

I really need to get a move one my Classic Watch because I really want to know what the hype is all about with Four.

29. Thoughts on the current Doctor

I answered this here

But let me add to it! 

I really love Thirteen and how Jodie Whittaker portrays Thirteen, I love that we got to see the glimmers of sadness in Thirteen in series 11, and the glimmers of Thirteen’s love for the fight. There’s an American Gods quote I love to ascribe to Thirteen: Thirteen loves to fight for the sheer joy of it, the fucking unholy delight of it!

And the majority of series 11 most of her opponents were either not all that and bored her (Tim Shaw, Krasko) or not evil at all. The only time she could cut loose was with the Dalek but it also had the danger of killing her friends so that was tempered.

Coming into series 12, I also see there’s an undercurrent of anger running deep in Thirteen, that reminds me a lot of how one character from Justified described the seemingly mild-looking protagonist: “you do a good job hiding it and I suppose most folks don’t see it, but honestly, you’re the angriest man I’ve ever known.”

I think that’s what Thirteen is, she is still kind and trying but she is also so angry. She thought she left her past behind, she thought she could start fresh with a clean slate but the Master kicked down any notion that she could escape her past.

And then with him, he brought along the mess of Gallifrey, a home she’s always had complicated feelings for amplified by the absolute fuckery of the confession dial. They march the Doctor’s name around as a war hero and in the same breath condemn the Doctor to a billion years and change instead of just asking. 

Thirteen is trying to be careful with her companions but it only ends up distancing her from them.

Thirteen’s shown an angrier and more pragmatic side to the team than when they first met and honestly? I think it’s about time – sure the Doctor can try and play the gracious host but she claims they’re a family but they actually don’t know a lot about her as a person, about the various facets of her personality that aren’t happy and sunshine. 

And because of that, it felt like the Doctor wasn’t being true to her friends – it reminds me of the moment in Torchwood Miracle Day that I love and Selena’s read on it:

I’m really invested in the Gwen & Jack relationship. I use the ampersand advisedly, because I don’t mean in the sense that I want them to become lovers, au contraire. But they’ve grown into this ruthlessly honest friendship which I don’t think either of them had with someone else, or rather, not without the added complication of family ties or romantic love.

[snip]

“I’ll strip the skin of your skull if it means I survive” is a far cry from heart-of-the-team idealisation of Gwen, but it’s infinitely more real. As is him telling her about the most beautiful memory he has when she asks without intending to let this sway her for a minute.

Yes, I do want the team to be happy but I also want their friendship, their relationship tested because coming together would be more awesome and earned.

It’s why the Doctor’s relationship with the Master is so fascinating to me, because they know each other so well – they are inexplicably tied to each other – they’re kind of that logical conclusion to: what if two immortals were soul mates, what would happen? There would be joy and happiness but there would also be large decades and centuries where they would be sick of each other and hate each other’s guts but inevitably they get back together like magnets.

It’s also why I really liked Clara and Twelve’s relationship by the end of s8 because god they tear at each other but in the end, the fight they had with each other only brought them closer.

And I want the team to know the Doctor up to this level, to sneak past her defenses and know the real, the very flawed person underneath that charm and quirks.

Who knows, we might get all that in the finale, or it might carry over the next season.

[somethingjustsouthofbrilliance]

When Love Must Die (Aziraphale/Crowley; chapter 7)

Link to chapter 1 (masterlist)

Tagging  @armaggedidnt @oh-hamlet @foxyfoe-reblog @s3dgy @butttteeerrrrrr @swanheart69 @giulisetta  @tonystark5ever @agentlokii @tardisoftheshire

_____________________________

Chapter 7

“What is the meaning of this?” the demon growls, slapping his hands angrily against the invisible barrier that surrounds him.  

 The barrier holds, undisturbed, and Aziraphale’s lips twitch in minute triumph.  “I need information,” he begins, fighting the urge to clasp his fingers in front of him as is his wont.  He’s channeling Michael now, and Michael stands tall, confident, doesn’t fidget with her hands.  Which means, Aziraphale can’t afford to either.

 Hastur glares at him sullenly, fists pressed against the wall of power that entraps him.  “And you couldn’t just go down to Hell like you normally do?  You decided to opt for this… this… travesty instead?”

 Aziraphale thinks back to his less than pleasant stint in the bowels of Hell when he was dragged down there disguised as Crowley, digs deep for the scowl of disdain he’s seen often enough on Michael’s face.  “What makes you think I’d want to go back down to that overcrowded sewer any time soon?” He makes a show of brushing invisible dirt off the snow-white sleeve of his borrowed coat.  “No, thank you.”

 Hastur’s lip curls into a snarl.  “Didn’t seem to bother you much when you came to us looking for that poison to take care of your ‘angel problem’,” the demon throws up his hands in a mockery of air quotes.

 It takes all of his willpower for Aziraphale to keep the disguise from slipping.

 Michael, his mind spins feverishly, it was Michael.  Oh dear God…. The knowledge, the very thought that an angel, an archangel, was responsible for this!  That an archangel would stoop so low – to literally go down to Hell – just for the sake of settling an old score with him! It rattled him, hard – a violent electric shock deep through his very core.  How could she?  How could any of them?

 “So what is it now?” the demon’s voice cuts through the churn of his distressed thoughts, bringing him back to the here and now.  He needs to focus, dammit.  Crowley’s life’s at stake!  “Did the poison not work?”

 “No, no,” he manages, forcing a grimace of a smile onto thin, gold-speckled lips.  “It did wonders on that traitorous angel.  He’s no longer a problem for us.”

 “What is then?” Hastur barks out, impatient.

 “Crowley,” the angel states, fighting to keep his expression neutral. Because as desperately as he needs to know where his demon is, he can’t afford to slip up now, can’t let Hastur catch even a whiff of his desperation.  “I was hoping to use the rest of that cursed potion on the demon – two birds, one stone kinda thing – but I can’t seem to find him anywhere,” he continues, aiming for somewhere between bored indifference and mild annoyance. “I was hoping maybe you, lot, knew something of his whereabouts?”

 Hastur glares at him silently for a long moment, black eye unblinking behind the thick transparent wall, and then suddenly, inexplicably begins to laugh.

 “Care to let me in on the joke?” Aziraphale snaps, the demon’s laughter grating on his already too-too frayed nerves.

The slightly hysterical, high-pitched laughter ceases as abruptly as it starts, but the demon doesn’t speak for a long moment, observing the disguised angel before him with an unsettlingly triumphant looking snarl.

 “Some of us have been making bets Down Below if you, white-feathered freaks, knew anything about it,” he drawls out finally, the snarl growing wider, and impossibly more smug. “Guess Dagon owes me a month of sewage cleanup.”

 “You’re trying my patience, demon!” Aziraphale steps flush to the barrier, one hand raised in warning. “Explain yourself. Now.��

 The unequivocal threat works like a bucket of cold water poured over the head.  The demon stiffens, his grin fading as pitch-black eyes flash nervously to the raised appendage.  “Alright, alright,” he grumbles with feigned annoyance, “don’t get your feathers in a twist.” His mouth twists as if he had just swallowed something entirely too bitter, and he spits out a reluctant, “He’s Downstairs, the Serpent. We have him.” Promises, his face morphing into a cruel, bloodthirsty moue, “And he won’t be getting out this time either.  Not with everything his Brother has planned for him.”  

 Aziraphale huffs out a breath – relief mixed with worry.  Crowley is alive, he knows that much for certain now.  But how bad are his injuries? What exactly have the demons done to him? How will Aziraphale be able to find him in that mildew and sewage smelling maze.

 And then his mind catches up to the last bit of what Hastur has said.  

 And grinds to a halt.

 “I’m sorry…,” he blinks at the demon, too stunned to try and hide his confusion, “his… what?”

 Hastur’s grin is back, as smug as ever, if a bit tempered by the obvious unease at the angel’s closeness. “That’s right,” he murmurs, almost crowing with delight, “you, lot, don’t know.” A blackened tongue flicks out to run with perverted pleasure over the thin lips. “He ain’t a demon anymore.  Don’t know how it happened, don’t really care, but his demonic essence…,” Hastur makes a poof! gesture with his hands, “gone! He’s one of yours now. An arch-angel.  Ra-pha-el,” he adds mockingly, “according to our Master, at least.  And our Master is never wrong.”

 “A demon can’t… that’s… that’s not possible….,” the quiet gasp leaves Aziraphale’s mouth unbidden, his composure faltering.  Because… because… it’s crazy is what it is.  There’s no way that–

 “Should have been, yeah,” Hastur agrees, smiling wider now, emboldened by the angel’s obvious fluster. “Whatever did that to his essence, should have destroyed him completely, but the bastard must have been clinging to his past self harder than any of us, so that… that…,” the demon’s mouth twists with disgust, “angelic… core was still buried underneath.”  His cheek twitches, an expression of open revulsion crawling onto his face.  “Always knew that snake was a traitor!”  He spits – a gooey black glob landing at his feet.  Huffs out something close to a laugh, winking conspiratorially at Aziraphale, “But at least now we know why holy water didn’t harm the bastard, eh, Michael?  Not that it’s been any help to him now.”  

 The unconcealed glee in the demon’s voice is the last straw.  

 Aziraphale doesn’t realize he’s moved until he finds himself with a fistful of a squealing and wildly struggling demon, slightly singed for having been unceremoniously dragged through the active (and resisting) barrier.  

 “You’re lying!” he growls out, shaking the demon as if he were a sack of potatoes, his free hand manifesting the flaming sword without conscious thought.  “You’re lying, and I’m–”

 “I’m not! I’m not, I swear!” Hastur yowls in fear and pain, squirming in the angel’s grip as he tries to shy away from the holy flames that burn uncomfortably close to his face.  “Look… look in my memory!”

 Aziraphale stares at him a heartbeat longer, then shoves him down on his knees, releasing his grip on the demon’s clothes.  Lowers the flaming sword to point it at the demon’s neck.  “Don’t move!”  And presses the fingers of his left hand against Hastur’s forehead.

 Images flood into his mind in rapid succession: the vengeful, angry twist of Satan’s face as he holds Crowley in the air, his body twitching feebly, pierced through with a line of unnaturally long, razor-sharp claws; Crowley in a cell – beaten, stabbed, burned, the cycle repeating itself over and over like a broken record on a never-ending loop; Crowley with his skin flayed like a cut up paper garland; Crowley crying in pain as the hands Aziraphale recognizes as Hastur’s rip viciously into Crowley’s wings – white, so impossibly, so incredibly white – and twist and bend and break them beyond all recognition, Hastur’s voice mocking his pain from somewhere off-screen….

 He gasps, stumbling back a step, eyes wide with the horrors of what he had just seen.  A red haze descends upon his vision – a blinding, all-encompassing wave of righteous fury, the likes of which he has never felt before. He’s shaking, he realizes.  Trembling all over.  And he can’t breathe.  He can’t bloody breathe!

 “Well?” Hastur’s words reach him as through a thick wall of fog, and he blinks, forcing himself to focus on the leering, expectant face.  “You believe me now? You approve of how we’re handling your ‘second little problem’? Is it–”

 The hand holding the sword swings out, and the rest of Hastur’s words die out, choked off on a quiet, helpless gurgle.

------------

TBC

[solohqrry]

get to know me uncomfortably well

@eatmyshiftsticky tagged me, this was a long one mama i ain’t gonna lie but ily

What is your middle name?

selene (pronounced like seh-leh-neh).

How old are you?

18

When is your birthday?

January 31st

What is your zodiac sign?

aquarius sun :-)

What is your favourite colour?

yellow!!!! and pink

What’s your lucky number?

i don’t think i have one to be honest

Do you have any pets?

i have two cats, sesame and sage, and two dogs, thor and ginger

Where are you from?

texas yeehaw

How tall are you?

5′7″ (i’m the shortest in m family but apparently i’m tall to other people)

What shoe size are you?

US 7 1/2 or 8

How many pairs of shoes do you own?

i wanna say like 20 pairs, but i haven’t worn like half of them in ages

What was your last dream about?

i have wild, inexplicable dreams i couldn’t even begin to explain what i dream about but last night i vaguely remember there was something about the holocaust involved which is pretty dark, who dreams about that

What talents do you have?

absolutely none, i am talentless my only talent is being a whore, and i’m not even good at that sometimes 

Are you psychic in any way?

i definitely feel like i am, it’s a little mexican thing where we think we have this gut feeling that lets us know when something bad is about to happen, 8 times out of 10 the gut feeling is right

Favourite song?

ugh so many some of my all time favorites are robbers by the 1975, yes i’m changing by tame impala, sign of the times by harry styles, don’t cry by guns n roses, and kashmir by led zepplin 

Favourite movie?

Napoleon Dynamite or Moana

Who would be your ideal partner?

god, i really wouldn’t tell you without sounding like a shallow bitvh. i just want a guy that looks like he hasn’t slept in 6 years, is tall, skinny, has long hair, makes me laugh and loves to kiss and cuddle, maybe a dreamy boy that will write poems about my loving stare and soft kisses who will take me on roadtrips that go anywhere, or maybe a jerk that’s rude and rides a motorcycle and never smiles unless he’s around me, i don’t know though 

Do you want children?

god no

Do you want a church wedding?

no, i want an outdoor wedding during the fall time, in a nice forest with family and friends

Are you religious?

i was raised catholic and go to church but i don’t know if i believe in everything i have been taught. 

Have you ever been to the hospital?

yes i want to say like twice in the past four years

Have you ever got in trouble with the law?

yes :/

Have you ever met any celebrities?

no :(

Baths or showers?

showers

What color socks are you wearing?

pink

Have you ever been famous?

i wish

Would you like to be a big celebrity?

only for the money and to have a bigger platform

What type of music do you like?

indie, rock, punk, rap, spanish music pretty much anything except country, i loathe country music no one can change my mind

Have you ever been skinny dipping?

nope

How many pillows do you sleep with?

four, two under my head, one under my legs, and one to hold onto at night (i’m v lonely)

What position do you usually sleep in?

on my side with one leg hike up and the other stretched out one arm under my pillow under my head the other holding another pillow, or in fetal position

How big is your house?

one story, 3 bedroom 2 bath house, i have a huge front and back yard, i love my house

What do you typically have for breakfast?

a granola bar

Have you ever fired a gun?

never

Have you ever tried archery?

in middle school, i was pretty shit at it

Favourite clean word?

i say heck a lot

Favorite swear word?

bitch!

What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without sleep?

2 and a half days

Do you have any scars?

i have a lot i was a clumsy kid that got into places i shouldn’t have. my most gnarly scars are on my elbows, knees, and one on my hip where a shard of glass stabbed me.

Have you ever had a secret admirer?

i think maybe as a joke 

Are you a good liar?

i am a great liar, i think i could be an actress because i lie so well

Are you a good judge of character?

i am a bit naive if im being honest, it clouds my judgement

Can you do any other accents other than your own?

my british accent is top notch, i can do a super exaggerated cockney accent, and a somewhat good australian accent (don’t quote me on that @eatmyshiftsticky)

Do you have a strong accent?

i don’t think i do, i grew up in a predominantly mexican city so compared to most people here i don’t have an accent but when people from out of town meet me (white people) they say i have an accent, i hear it sometimes in some words but idk 

What is your favourite accent?

i love a french, australian, and spanish accents 

What is your personality type?

neutral chaotic edgy thot, typical aquarius, peace and love, treat people with kindness type bitch

What is your most expensive piece of clothing?

my platform doc martens which cost me a whopping $180, i am very frugal with everything basically so this was a big spend to me

Can you curl your tongue?

if you mean can i make a taco with my tongue, yes!

Are you an innie or an outie?

innie.

Left or right-handed?

right-handed

Are you scared of spiders?

yes i absolutely hate spiders, if i see a spider i am either swatting that thing or running away

Favourite food?

mexican food specifically nachos and enchiladas, and chinese food

Favourite foreign food?

i like italian food 

Are you a clean or messy person?

i’m a tidy person, like i’m messy but not to an extreme my room looks clean at first glance but then you notice little things that make it look messy

Most used phrase?

“on god?” or “no mames” or “mamadas”

Most used word?

i don’t know, i think i say sis and dude a lot.

How long does it take for you to get ready?

ugh makeup and hair and outfit is like a good hour and half, i need time or else i get crabby the rest of the day.

Do you have much of an ego?

not at all

Do you suck or bite lollipops?

suck??? if you bite into your lollipop without sucking it you’re a psychopath

Do you talk to yourself?

all the time, literally i talk more to myself than i do to my family, i’m thinking i should just start a youtube channel so i could talk to myself but with a purpose

Do you sing to yourself?

very badly but yes.

Are you a good singer?

not at all, and i was in choir for two years where did my talent go i wish i knew.

Biggest Fear?

losing my parents 

Are you a gossip?

not really unless it’s like good gossip in spanish it’s called chisme and if someone is a gossip they’re a chismosa, sometimes i’m a chismosa i like drama.

Best dramatic movie you’ve seen?

Gone Girl

Do you like long or short hair?

on boys long hair is my absolute weakness, on myself i prefer my long hair

Can you name all 50 states of America?

i think i can name a solid 30

Favourite school subject?

english or history

Extrovert or Introvert?

i’m very introverted 

Have you ever been scuba diving?

no way being in the open ocean terrifies me

What makes you nervous?

driving, talking to people, ordering my food at a restaurant, school, big crowds, literally everything because i have a generalized anxiety disorder.

Are you scared of the dark?

mmm when it’s outside yes, but not inside my house or room or whatever

Do you correct people when they make mistakes?

idk if it’s my business or affects me than yes

Are you ticklish?

YES the sides of my tummy are my tickle spot and i HATE when people tickle me there

Have you ever started a rumour?

no i would never

Have you ever been in a position of authority?

no, too much pressure is not good for me

Have you ever drank underage?

i was given tequila as a toddler by my grandpa so yes i have had my fair share  of alcohol in my 18 years

Have you ever done drugs?

i have had edibles, i have smoked weed, and i have taken molly (please don’t do that it’s only fun while you’re on it).

Who was your first real crush?

i was in love with this boy named alejandro from like 7th grade to 10th i kissed him once, he was a complete ass and broke my heart.

How many piercings do you have?

my ears, my septum and two secret ones.

Can you roll your R’s?

of course i can.

How fast can you type?

on my phone i type pretty fast on a computer i am very slow

How fast can you run?

not fast at all, i can’t run for shit i have baby lungs

What colour is your hair?

dark brown

What color is your eyes?

dark drown

What are you allergic to?

cats :( and grass :( and pollen :(

Do you keep a journal?

no, my therapist always says i should start one but i just get bored or forget about it.

What do your parents do?

my mom is an elementary teacher and my dad is disabled.

Do you like your age?

i’d say 18 is a pretty solid age

What makes you angry?

the world, america mostly.

Do you like your own name?

mmm yeah, i forget i have a name because no one really says it, is that weird? 

Have you already thought of baby names, and if so what are they?

i know i said i didn’t want kids but i know if i do have them i am going to name them after planets.

Do you want a boy a girl for a child?

a girl

What are you strengths?

i’m free-spirited and intellectual and loving

What are your weaknesses?

i can be mean, i can take out my anger on people who don’t deserve it, i want comfort but push people away

How did you get your name?

my mom named me after the movie with audrey hepburn

Were your ancestors royalty?

no lol

Do you have any scars?

battle scars dude

Colour of your bedspread?

a nice cream color

Colour of your room?

pastel yellow!

i tag @malibubarbievince @kountessbathory @guns-n-crue and whoever wants to do this, this was fun because y’all get to know more about me so thanks for the tag addy baby!!

[wahbegan]

I also really am sick to death of protagonists not killing people. Look, when it’s someone like Batman, i get it, okay that has long been established to be some neurotic hang-up he has that he just can’t get over no matter what, that’s part of who he is, for better or worse, but god DAMN it when did that shit become the default??

My mom was watching this Brazilian cop show, right? This one character is the most disgustingly evil motherfucker you’ve seen in your life. Badly needs putting down like a sick puppy. Kingpin of a criminal empire, runs a weird cult of personality thing inside the Church which he leverages his position in to rape dozens, maybe over a hundred women, including his firstborn daughter, who is now his wife (nobody knows she’s his daughter), who he horrifically abuses, and HER daughter, who he is grooming to become his next wife. Casually murders or orders the deaths of anyone and everyone, cops, anyone in his way, random-ass people, y’know

Also implied to have friends in very high places and a lot of power and it is very hard to make charges stick to this guy, and y’know at the end he’s even placed on just fucking house arrest

How do we get ot that point? Because the protagonist, who has cold-blooded killed people before, inexplicably decides that she’s bEtTeR than killing him after he does a bit of light taunting about how she’s a bad person or some shit

Rule for aspiring writers: If you plan on having your protagonist spare the villain, do not write that villain to be so contemptible that that decision will make your audience angry.

Because it just sends such a fucking tepid, lukewarm middle-of-the-road take oohhooohooo extrajudicial murder is always bad you’re not judge jury and executioner shut the fuck up sometimes it actually can be morally upright to cold-blooded murder a defenseless person with no trial and you can fucking quote me

[lotstradamus]

the best of times, the worst of times

so. we have VERY loud upstairs neighbours. or, rather, not loud -- heavy-footed. we never hear their voices, but BOY do we FEEL THEIR VIBRATIONS. Upstairs are CONSTANTLY thundering about and making our glasses rattle. we’re used to them at this point. sometimes we’ll be watching a movie and hear a particularly loud series of thumps, and our lampshade will start swaying. it’s just part of every day life here at Casa Our Flat. we’ve hypothesised about who lives above us, and we’ve narrowed it down to: several rhinos, people with bricks for shoes, parkour virtuosos, or five tiny women who get around on Spacehoppers. we thought we’d never know for sure... UNTIL TONIGHT. 

on this fated evening, upon getting in from a particularly horrendous shift at 11:30pm, my flatmate, Matt, my Mattmate, set upon me before I was all the way in the door like ‘listen! listen to this!’ me: ‘listen to wha-’ THUD. THUDTHUD. THUD. THUD. THUD. me: ‘oh my-’ THUD. THUDHUTHUDHDUDUD. 

Upstairs had, I was informed, been at it for some time. the thuds were coming thick and they were coming fast. our lampshade was going like the clappers. my Mattmate, god bless him, was losing his mind. I -- a humble receptionist who a) had a shitty day at work, and b) does not think that 11:30pm, regardless of whether or not it’s the weekend, is an acceptable time to be having carthwheel races up and down the hallway -- was immediately riled. ‘RIGHT!’ I said, tearing off my coat and flinging it in the general vicinity of my bedroom, ‘THIS IS [THUDTHUDTHUD] RIDICULOUS! I’M GOING UP THERE!!!’ 

and, dear reader: I went up there. 

I went hurtling out of the flat like a demon and took the stairs two at a time. my Mattmate, the coward, followed at a distance and lurked in the staircase while I pounded - VERITABLY POUNDED - on Upstairses’ door. 

the thudding ceased. the music -- inaudible downstairs, audible outside their door, but nothing compared to the volume of thuds -- stopped. I heard muttered voices. I pounded again. the muttered voices got louder. the door opened. 

a vision of beauty stood before me. 

a TANNED, FLOPPY-HAIRED vision of beauty. 

a SHIRTLESS, HUNKY, tanned, floppy-haired vision of beauty. 

my resolve disappeared like candyfloss in a puddle. I am a weak-willed, weak-kneed snowman, and I melted. any desire I had to read Upstairs the riot act vanished in the face of SHIRTLESS HUNKY TANNED FLOPPY-HAIRED VISION OF BEAUTY, MR UPSTAIRS. “Hi,” I said, eventually, when I had both taken in all that was before me and become hyper-aware of everything that was wrong with my own appearance in that moment, “I’m Downstairs.” 

I’m Downstairs? I’m Downstairs??? I DARE to besmirch this BREATHTAKING GRECIAN STATUE’S doorstep with my ill-fitting work suit and my I Have Literally Just Walked In The Door From The Outside, Where It Is Sleeting hair and face, and then I say HI, I’M DOWNSTAIRS? 

Mr Upstairs, Shirtless Hunk, clearly a gentle and understanding soul, then COMPOUNDED MY AGONY by opening his mouth and saying, in a beautifully accented voice, “I am so sorry! we will stop!”

“No!” I said. yes, I meant. “It’s fine!” it was not fine. 15 seconds previous to this conversation I had fully come to terms with committing murder. “I just wanted to make sure everything was okay!” lies. all lies.

“We were playing with the ball,” explained Shirtless Hunk, Mr Upstairs. 

“Ohhh, cool,” I, a liar who hates sports, replied. “No worries!” 

and then -- and then -- the best thing happened. the best thing, and also the worst thing. I have described it to my Mattmate thrice in the 3-or-so hours since it happened, and every time he begs me to stop. another beautifully accented voice echoed from the depths of Upstairs. the door opened wider. and there, behind the shirtless, hunky, tanned, floppy-haired vision of beauty-- 

ANOTHER SHIRTLESS, HUNKY, TANNED, FLOPPY-HAIRED VISION OF BEAUTY. MSSRS UPSTAIRS, A PAIR OF BONAFIDE FUCKING HUNKS. JUST SOME HALF-CLOTHED, MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT SPORTS BABES. MY NEIGHBOURS, A DUO OF GOLDEN GODS, LIVING THEIR LIVES 10 FEET ABOVE ME AT ALL TIMES. 

at this point, naturally, I completely lost my head. 

“Ah!!!” I said. “Hello!!!” 

Shirtless Hunk #2 was holding a football underneath his golden arm. He flicked his floppy hair off his perfectly lovely forehead and smiled. I immediately went blind. “SORRY!” he said. “WE WERE PLAYING FOOTBALL!” 

“Ahaha,” I replied, “nooooo worries!” 

“We will stop,” Shirtless Hunk The First assured me. 

“No, no,” I lied, backing towards the door to the stairs where my Mattmate still lurked, unable to hear anything except my, I quote, ‘increasingly high-pitched voice’. “It’s fine! Just wanted to make sure you weren’t killing each other! Ha ha ha!” 

“We are sorry,” reiterated the second Shirtless Hunk. 

“No prob, bob,” said I, inexplicably, hating every syllable and also myself.

“Sorry!” the beautiful shirtless hunks kept saying as I fled backwards down the hall, desperately trying to escape the forcefield of their combined hunkiness, athleticism, and classic good looks. “Sorry!!!” 

“It’s fine!” I continued to chant back, making my escape like some sort of confused crab in office wear. “No worries! Goodbye!” 

AND THAT IS THE STORY OF HOW I, AN ANGRY RED GIRL IN A VERY UGLY UNIFORM, MET MY NEIGHBOURS, TWO MALE MODEL LOOKING MOTHERFUCKERS WHO WERE PROBABLY IN THAT ABERCROMBIE & FITCH WRESTLING ADVERT IN 2012 OR WHATEVER, AND FROM WHOM WE HAVE NOT HEARD A SINGLE SUBSEQUENT THUD, THE END 

[erraticfairy]

Podcast: Explaining Depression To Happy People

Are you so happy that you can’t understand depression? Not us! While Gabe and Jackie can’t relate to that level of positivity, there are lots of people in the world who simply can’t fathom what depression feels like. Despite their best efforts, naturally happy people can have a hard time understanding depression and in Episode 2, we discuss how to explain depression to happy people, including both of our spouses who are, to be honest, annoyingly peppy. We give tips on how to approach the topic and share our own personal experiences of having this hard-to-understand conversation.

SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

About The Not Crazy Podcast Hosts

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations, available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from Gabe Howard. To learn more, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

        Jackie Zimmerman has been in the patient advocacy game for over a decade and has established herself as an authority on chronic illness, patient-centric healthcare, and patient community building.

You can find her online at JackieZimmerman.co,  Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Computer Generated Transcript for ‘Explaining Depression To Happy People’ Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer-generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Announcer: Welcome to Not Crazy. Here are your hosts, Gabe and Jackie.

Gabe: Welcome to Not Crazy. I would like to introduce Jackie Zimmerman. She may have depression, but she also rides a bike 30 miles one way and then inexplicably has to walk back.

Jackie: And I’d like to introduce you to my co-host, Gabe Howard, who lives with bipolar and also gave a speech in Tennessee this week.

Gabe: Today, we’re going to talk about how to describe depression to people who are happy.

Jackie: And also people who don’t believe us.

Gabe: And I don’t believe us. Like, they just they simply do not believe that depression is a real medical illness because they liken it to sadness.

Jackie: Right. And you can just get over sadness. You can just be happy, just do that. If you’re depressed, just do that. Just be happy.

Gabe: There’s a few things in life that you should just be able to do. You should just be able to lose weight. You should just be able to make more money and you should just be able to cheer up. Now, we’re a mental health show, so you’re gonna have to find your own solution to the other two problems. But it’s the just cheer up because wouldn’t it be great if medical illnesses work that way, that you’d just be well. You have asthma. Just breathe.

Jackie: Wouldn’t it be great if literally any illness worked that way? I mean, I would say across the board the amount of people who just say, “well, just don’t do that and just be better” is astounding. People think you can just be better. Just be better.

Gabe: I’ve lived with bipolar for a long time, it was the first illness that I was ever diagnosed with. I have. I have a ton, a ton of mental health problems. And I was young, so I hadn’t developed any physical health problems yet. So when all of this like stigma and people not believing me and people calling me a liar and people giving me this God awful advice started to happen. I believe that this was just the stigma of mental illness, that the reason people were being so dismissive, giving me advice and being so helpful. And I’m making air quotes, was because people just didn’t respect people with mental illness. And then I started meeting great advocates like you. And you described how people did the same thing about your physical illness, where they would just walk up with no medical degree whatsoever and tell you exactly how to treat your fill in “very serious physical problem” here.

Jackie: Well, because everybody knows someone who knows someone who’s had the thing, who fixed it with this other non FDA compliant thing that will work for everybody. So you should just do that thing.

Gabe: I’ve been around for so long that I now remember different versions of this is the thing that’s going to cure us all. When I first started, aroma therapy is going to fix us all. And then that morphed into essential oils. Essential oils are going to fix us all. And now it’s cannabis oil. Cannabis oil is going to fix us all. And I’m now just kind of sitting here like just a little giddy, seeing if I can predict in like three or four years.

Jackie: Have you been in-taking the cannabis oil?!

Gabe: I mean it. Listen. And here’s what’s sad, right? Cannabis oil could have some benefits. This is going to shock people. Aroma therapy has benefits as well.

Jackie: No…Yes, of course it does.

Gabe: But, yeah. But the benefits aren’t it cures fill in the blank.

Jackie: No.

Gabe: Listen, your room not smelling like shit makes you feel better. I’m sorry. That’s just I don’t mean it so crassly, but yeah, if you’re sitting alone in a stinky room all alone, you’re probably going to feel bad.

Jackie: Yes, I would agree. Yes. I mean, well, I mean, I think it’s worth stating we’re kind of talking right now about people who are naysayers or non-believers we’ll say of maybe they don’t believe you actually have depression or don’t believe depression is a real thing. But when we started talking about this show topic idea of explaining depression to happy people, we weren’t talking about necessarily the naysayers. We were talking about people who just have no idea that depression exists in the world. Gabe and I are married. I was going to say Gabe and I are married. We’re not married to each other. Gabe and I are married to happy…

Gabe: Well, you know, you jumped on that quick. You’re like, we’re not married to each other. I don’t. I don’t want anybody to accidentally get it. Are you going to say something like that “There’s nothing wrong with that?” I mean, can’t you at least give me a Seinfeld reference in there?

Jackie: No, I was going to say Gabe and I are married to happy people.

Gabe: We are.

Jackie: We have found some strangely similar qualities in our spouses. They’re both just pleasantly positive people, almost to like a barf degree where they’re just too like, so happy that I can’t relate on a level. I’ve never been, even before, depression struck me pretty rough. I have never been this happy in my life, and that’s just like the base level of where my husband lives. He’s just thrilled all the time to be alive.

Gabe: This is what disgusts me, of course, about my wife as well. I have this joke where I say that my wife is so optimistic that if our house was engulfed in flames, if it caught fire and was burning to the ground, my wife would be so happy that we get to have s’mores. This is the level of sunshine and optimism that lives within her. I don’t understand that at all. Just thinking about my house catching on fire has pissed me off for the rest of the day.

Jackie: I actually had a house fire and I can I can tell you for certain it’s the worst. So Kendall could be thrilled with the idea of s’mores at a house fire. Having lived through a house fire, I wasn’t in the house, but my house burned down.

Gabe: I think that there is good in an opposites attracting about certain things. You know, obviously if you have opposite values that can cause some problems. But in my marriage and speaking only for me, I am very pessimistic and obviously I have depression and anxiety. And so that means that that I worry a lot and then I often see things is very bleak. My wife is on the other side of that spectrum. She’s very optimistic. She tends to see things as very positive and sees the good and beauty in people. The reality is, is both of us are wrong. She needs to understand that sometimes people are out to get you. That’s how you safeguard yourself. It’s why we buy insurance. It’s why we lock our doors at night. It’s why we write contracts and sign them, etc. I’m not I’m not trying to throw my wife under the bus and say, oh, no, you need to hate everybody and constantly be on guard.

Jackie: But…

Gabe: But.

Jackie: There’s some practicality to paranoia at times, like sometimes it’s a built in safety mechanism a little bit in life to, you know, not get eaten by tigers and things.

Gabe: Right. Right, because tigers are in Michigan? You have tigers roaming your streets?

Jackie: I mean, I was talking about like prehistoric times, but you know what I mean, like the paranoia is an instinct. You know, whether or not it’s right anymore, it has derailed into fear and depression and all these terrifying things, but it has served a purpose.

Gabe: I love that your paranoia and depression, you can trace back to prehistoric times. Like that’s how ingrained it is.

Jackie: It’s deep rooted, it is in there.

Gabe: I think that part of the problem when it comes to people giving advice on depression is that they’re not mean spirited. I don’t think these people are being mean. I don’t think they’re malicious, angry assholes that are attacking us. Their life experience has taught them that when they feel sad, going for a walk, doing yoga, hanging out with friends, going to a movie, taking a deep breath or even using aromatherapy or essential oil lotion works for them because they don’t have a medical condition. They don’t understand that sadness and depression are not even remotely the same thing.

Jackie: No, and I think that they are uneducated and ignorant.

Gabe: They dumb. Just say they dumb.

Jackie: I mean, they are. I was going to say it like ignorant to a fault. Put it in a nice way. Meaning like they’re trying to help. They are trying to help. It’s not helpful. And it’s actually kind of the opposite where it can be a little bit harmful to not get people with depression, treatment and help. But I understand what they’re trying to say. You’re right. This worked for me so it can work for you. But there is a difference. Depression is not sadness. They’re not the same thing. You can be sad for a period of time. And it’s not going to turn into depression. It’s not going to…

Gabe: They certainly could.

Jackie: It could. Most of the time, though, like when you’re sad, it’s an isolated symptom of something that’s happening in your life. It doesn’t always mean that is depression.

Gabe: And this is what we really need to get people to understand. I have depression. Bipolar disorder is depression and mania and everything in between, which means that Gabe has major depression. Gabe has been depressed. But listen, I’m going to blow everybody’s mind. I can also just be sad. So if I am…

Jackie: No.

Gabe: Sad, your advice of go for a walk, watch a movie, reconnect with your wife, take a break is good advice if I am sad.

Jackie: Right. Well.

Gabe: Questionable advice if I’m depressed. In fact, it’s awful. It’s awful.

Jackie: Don’t get me wrong. Even on my worst days when I am super depressed, if I go outside, breathe the fresh air, maybe feel some sunshine on my face. It does help my mood. Does it actually help my depression? No. There are benefits to it, but it does not fix depression. A walk outside breeze in your hair, sun on your face doesn’t fix depression.

Gabe: Isn’t that kind of the thing that just makes this illness mean when you are suffering from depression and you can’t get out of bed? It is beneficial. You see benefit when somebody you love helps you get up, get dressed and walked you around the block, you see benefit. But in their mind, they’ve given it too much credit. They’re like, oh, hey, she’s fixed now. I got her out of bed. It’s sort of a little bit like seeing somebody’s house on fire and you’re like, Oh, I got them out of the house. So I’m done now. And you don’t bother to do anything else.

Jackie: I brought a bucket of water. I helped.

Gabe: Well right.

Jackie: You know.

Gabe: The example that I always use is if you need ten thousand dollars and somebody gives you a hundred dollars, you are better off. You are a hundred dollars closer to your goal. But listen, if you need ten thousand dollars. Yeah. You don’t really feel like you’ve been helped all that much. I like that analogy because obviously you would always be kind to somebody who gave you $100 toward your ten thousand dollar goal, but you would also roll your eyes at them if they walked around telling everybody that they solved all of your financial problems.

Jackie: I was talking to Adam about this topic and I said to him, what do you know about depression? You are happy. What do you know? And he said that it makes everything harder. And he went into more detail and he said, you know, it’s harder to get out of bed. It’s harder to go to work. It’s harder to cook dinner. Everything is just harder. So if you go back to the idea of somebody like helping you take a walk, right? Yeah. It is so much harder to leave the fucking house and you’re depressed. Like, I don’t want to leave the house ever even when I’m not depressed. I don’t. I like my bubble. I don’t I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to be in the world really that much. So when I’m depressed or it’s cold or it’s raining. I am not leaving the house even when I know it’ll be good for me. So when Adam said today, it makes everything harder. I said, that’s right. But I don’t think you understand the part that is, for me, the most important part is that my depression talks to me. Right. It tells me things. And it most of often it tells me that I’m a piece of shit and I’m not worthy of things and nobody likes me and everything is awful.

Gabe: And just to clarify, when you say your depression talks to you like that’s an analogy, you don’t mean that you have psychosis or you’re hallucinating, or that you have delusions.

Jackie: No. No.

Gabe: Etc.. But but yeah, that’s an I think that’s an excellent analogy, because when I am depressed, I am convinced that I am garbage and that is reinforced by my feelings, my heavy limbs, my inability to do anything. And sometimes my depression gets help from the people around me that say things to me like, well, if you would just get up and clean your house…

Jackie: Yes.

Gabe: And go to work, you’d feel so much better. Oh, great. Now I’m depressed and it’s my fault.

Jackie: Fake it till you make it. Like, no, that it takes energy to fake it. And I don’t have energy when I’m depressed, so I don’t want to do that.

Gabe: We’ll be right back after these words from our sponsor.

Announcer: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.com. Secure, convenient, and affordable online counseling. Our counselors are licensed, accredited professionals. Anything you share is confidential. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist whenever you feel it’s needed. A month of online therapy often costs less than a single traditional face to face session. Go to BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral and experience seven days of free therapy to see if online counseling is right for you. BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral.

Jackie: And we’re back talking about how to explain depression to annoyingly happy people.

Gabe: One of the things that I try to explain to people is that depression has physical symptoms.

Jackie: Yes.

Gabe: You know? Depression is a mental illness. It is a mental health issue. But just because it’s a mental health issue, just because it’s a mental illness doesn’t mean that it’s devoid of physical symptoms. Feeling tired, your limbs being heavy, having trouble breathing, feeling dizzy, not having the energy to stand up, feeling like you’re going to collapse or fail or not being able to stay awake. And then there’s the physical symptoms that are sort of adjacent. Right. Like what? I’m really, really depressed. I’m not making healthy foods.

Jackie: No.

Gabe: I’m eating garbage, food. Or I’m not eating at all. I’m not taking a shower. And depending on how bad the depression is, I’ve got myself convinced that ending my life is reasonable. Which means I’m literally, literally fighting for my life. And to think that that has no physical sensations is nonsense.

Jackie: Yeah.

Gabe: But we go all the way back to. We’re gonna pick on little old Adam for a moment. How could he possibly know that? How could he?

Jackie: When your outlook is rainbows, most of the time you can’t fathom that idea. When I explain depression to him, or even when I explain depression to a lot of people in my life, I do use that analogy, and I say “my depression” because I can speak for a lot of people, but I know mine the best and mine, it is like having a little voice and I say this for my depression and anxiety because my brain, me, Jackie, I know it’s bullshit. I know that it’s not real and I know that it’s wrong. And I know all of these things are not really threats or they’re not really terrible. But I have that little part of me that will be like my brain goes, you should call somebody right now, like get somebody to come over and hang out with you. And my depression goes, “Nah, they’re probably tired of hearing about it, hearing you complain and they don’t really like you anymore. So they’re not going to pick up.” It’s this little tiny part of you that talks to you and your brain knows it’s bullshit. My conscious brain knows it’s bullshit, but it’s still there and it still matters. And I still can’t turn it off. And when I explain that again to Adam today, he said, “so it’s always says negative stuff?” And I said, yeah. It always says negative stuff. It never says anything good. It always tells me I’m worthless. I’m stupid. Like I’m never going to achieve what I want to achieve, that I should just stay in bed. But if I do, everybody will hate me because I’m not contributing. And then I hate myself. It’s just this downward spiral, because at no point does my depression go, “Just kidding. You’re all right. Everything’s fine.”

Gabe: And then we have to juxtapose that against the idea of suicidality, we have so many problems with understanding suicide in this country, we tend to blame people who die by suicide. We tend to blame people who have attempted suicide. We tend to put a moral value on suicidal thoughts or thinking. Religious organizations have gotten involved and they’ve fractured the debate even more. Then there’s families like, well, my son, daughter, mother, child, husband would never do that to me because they know that they’re loved and they think they’re saying reasonable things. And all of this all of this comes back down to they just don’t think it’s going to happen to them because they don’t understand how serious it is. And more importantly, I don’t think many people realize how common suicide is. Suicide is more common than murder. But we’re all worried about murder, but we’re not worried about suicide. And this is something that we need to worry about.

Jackie: I think that you’re right, Gabe, because when most people think about suicide, they think it’s because people actually want to die. They don’t really understand suicide.

Gabe: Right. And they don’t want to die. They want the pain to stop. And in most cases, they didn’t end up there in a nanosecond. It got worse and worse and worse and it left untreated. The example that I love to use is pinkeye. Every parent in America, upon hearing the phrase pinkeye, immediately groans. They think I’m going to have to tell all my kids’ friends, the whole family’s going to get it. They’re just annoyed by it. The outcome of untreated pinkeye is blindness. That thing, that annoying medical condition that your child has will make them go blind. But nobody is afraid of it because it can be solved with a $4 bottle of whatever the hell is in the $4 bottle. So even though our children and ourselves are catching this really contagious illness that leads to blindness, we all just push it aside because we’re not worried about it.

Jackie: Well, and here’s the really fun part about that whole analogy is while it’s not a one to one analogy, a lot of these things could be assisted, I won’t say cured, with a bottle of pills that may or may not cost more than $4, but assist with depression and anxiety.

Gabe: Absolutely. Treatment is available, but there are many barriers to treatment and there are people ready, willing and able to seek mental health treatment that cannot get it. Either they don’t have health insurance. They’re not being supported by their friends and family member who are actively discouraging them from getting it. They live in rural America, where the nearest psychiatrist is 100 miles away and they don’t have access to a car and there is no public transportation. And on and on and on and on.

Jackie: I do think that we should probably do an episode devoted specifically to that, because that is just as much of a problem as people not identifying that this is a real thing in the first place.

Gabe: Exactly. And let’s focus right in on somebody who’s willing to get help. But the people around them are actively preventing them from doing so. I really just want to say to people that are doing that. Oh, man, you got to live with the outcome of this. I mean, don’t get me wrong. As somebody who has suffered with bipolar disorder, depression, been suicidal and all of this stuff, and that is a hard life. It is a really hard life. But I talk to my family and my mom and dad have told me numerous times that they just feel so bad and they never actively prevented me from getting help, just F.Y.I. But they feel bad because they didn’t realize I was sick. So I can only imagine how badly they would be if they were standing in between me and medical care. So if you’re one of these people that is preventing somebody through your words or lack of support from getting the care that they need, you might want to really take a deep breath and decide if this is the hill that you want to die on.

Jackie: Well, and especially if you’re that person, the person you’re saying these things to already feels like they are more alone than they’ve ever been in their entire life. So if they’re even telling you about what’s going on, it’s the smallest little attempt to outreach and you’re basically just pushing them right back by themselves. They already feel like nobody understands. Nobody’s going to help. And you’re basically confirming that to them. So like Gabe said, rethink that. Maybe look at it from another direction. Maybe it wouldn’t be something that helps you, but it’s something that they need to consider for themselves.

Gabe: The bottom line is when somebody is in the throes of depression, when they’re suffering from depression, when they think they’re worthless, if they’re contemplating suicide, if they are in so much mental, emotional and physical pain that they cannot see straight, it’s not going to be hard to convince them to do what you want. And if the thing that you want them to do is not seek help, it’s not going to be hard to convince them to do that. And I would love to tell you that through your love and your words, you could convince them to be better. But the world doesn’t work that way. It just doesn’t. And we know this. So maybe the best thing that you can do is step aside and say, “I support how you feel.” We do this with religion and politics in healthy families. We say, look, we’re going to agree to disagree. I’m not going to stand in your way.

Jackie: So if you’re somebody who’s living with depression right now, Gabe, and you have somebody in your life who is a happy person, and maybe they’re not trying to talk you out of getting treatment or talk you out of doing anything for yourself, they’re just let’s say you’re married to Kendall…

Gabe: Oh, my God. Am I married to Kendall? Yay

Jackie: Let’s just say you’re somebody with depression who knows someone like Kendall, what are your best tips for explaining depression to somebody who is willing to listen but just can’t understand?

Gabe: I believe in brutal honesty. I believe that everybody’s depression, while having similarities, is a little bit different. And everybody has their own analogies. And here’s the nice thing about our families. They get our analogies better than anybody.

Jackie: So true.

Gabe: They just do. Families have shorthands. We have that. You know, my depression is like Christmas 1985 when, you know, grandpa set the Christmas tree on fire and be be brutal. Be honest. Use real words. We talk about this on this show all the time. You know, don’t say I’m having a mental health crisis. Say I feel like I’m going crazy. Don’t say, oh, I feel sad at night. Say that you feel depressed. You feel like you’re in a deep, dark hole that you can’t escape. Use the words that are meaningful to you. And don’t flinch. And to the loved ones hearing this. Don’t flinch back. And if you do flinch, flinch for real. If it makes you want to cry, cry and hug them. You used Kendall. These are the things that helped. Kendall does not understand what it’s like to live with depression. She doesn’t. And she’s never going to. And the thing that helped me the most in my marriage is she just flat out told me that she said, I am never going to understand what it’s like to be depressed. And man, what what a sigh of relief. Now, I suppose I should put an asterix there and say that’s not how medical conditions work. She might know…

Jackie: Right.

Gabe: But I hope that she never has to suffer depression.

Jackie: Well, if, and if she does, given who she is as a person, she very well may approach it differently or it will feel differently. I think who you are before depression greatly affects how your life goes with depression.

Gabe: And to your point, how you deal with your depression is greatly dependent by how the people around you act.

Jackie: Yes.

Gabe: If Kendall was constantly telling me to cheer up and get better, I would not cheer up and get better. And I’d resent her. I would resent her. I resent her now for being happy.

Jackie: You probably wouldn’t be married to her.

Gabe: Oh, I know. I run through wives like some people run through shoes. 

Jackie: That’s a whole other thing, Gabe.

Gabe: So you don’t have to understand it to be helpful and you don’t have to have the answers to be helpful. And this is really what we see in mental health all the time, which is the people around us. They want to fix it. They want to have the answers. They want to be the hero. They want to have that piece of advice that saves our life.

Jackie: Mm-hmm.

Gabe: This is nonsense.

Jackie: Yes.

Gabe: You can’t do it unless, of course, you’re a top psychiatrist.

Jackie: Well, and to top it off, the rule is if you’re a doctor, you can’t treat your family member even when…

Gabe: Oh, yeah. It’s illegal. We should point that out too.

Jackie: Even when you have the medical knowledge to do it. So if you’re a family member of somebody who’s suffering with depression and you don’t have the medical knowledge to fix it, why on earth would you think that you have anything that can really change the course of their depression, that’s not telling them to go seek somebody who can actually change the course of their depression?

Gabe: There may not be an answer to how to explain to people who have never suffered from depression, what exactly depression feels like, and hey, maybe that’s a good thing when it comes to people knowing each other at all. We only know what we tell each other and what we share and what we’ve experienced together. Jackie, I think you’re fantastic. But at the end of the day, I’m only going to know you as well as 1) You let me and 2) as the time that I am willing to put into it. Depression and our emotions and our feelings is very much the same way. I will learn from you because I will keep an open mind to learning from you. Now, there may be disagreements along the way. There may be arguments and there absolutely, unequivocally will be hurt feelings. And you’ve got to push past all of that and learn because listen. Depression thrives on this. The one thing that I feel that every single person with depression has in common is we feel isolated, misunderstood and lonely. So talk to us, hug us, help us. And if you’re going to try to fix us, maybe really think not.

Jackie: If you’re somebody trying to help someone else with depression, sometimes it’s just your presence. For me, when I’m really depressed, I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to talk about anything. I don’t even want to, like, actually speak out loud. I just want to be like I want to wallow. That’s what I want to do. My depression makes me want to wallow. But if I can wallow with somebody else in the room, I’m already doing better than I was before. And I might not talk to you. And we may not talk about it. We might not speak at all. We might not do anything other than sit in silence. But that’s better than me sitting by myself.

Gabe: And can we all agree, just as maybe a community of people who have suffered from depression in the past or who may be suffering right now, that the happy people are annoying?

Jackie: Oh, my God, they’re so annoying, so annoying.

Gabe: They’re so annoying. But we probably shouldn’t give them advice on how not to be annoying because then we would be just like them. 

Jackie: And to be fair, you and I, we married them. Like we chose to love them forever and ever, despite how happy they are.

Gabe: Listen. I get my next divorce for free, so I don’t know about this forever and ever thing of which you speak, but you know, she’s good enough for now.

Jackie: I don’t have a punchcard like you do.

Gabe: Oh, I get so many free, I can loan you some. Hey, Jackie, you know, one of the hallmarks of this show that we’re gonna tell everybody in the first couple of episodes and then they’re gonna have to figure out for themselves is that we always put an outtake at the end of the episode. Did you know that? Did you know that our editor did that?

Jackie: I heard it at the end of one of the old episodes. I don’t know, I had a moment where I thought maybe I like hit play on something that was wrong. And then I realized it was a funny thing. So it was supposed to be there.

Gabe: Yeah, yeah. It was like you falling off your stool, landing face first and breaking your nose. It was hilarious. We laugh at physical illness here on Not Crazy. But stay tuned until after the credits. And listen to what it is. And it will be week after week after week. And don’t think you’re going to cheat and go look at the transcript. We cut it out of there on purpose.

Jackie: Thanks, everyone, for listening today to Not Crazy. And if you’re somebody living with depression and maybe you have one of these like super annoying, happy people in your life, send them this episode. Send them to Not Crazy, send them to Psych Central. Help them understand what your life is like. And until then, subscribe to our podcast, like us on social media, send us an e-mail. Send us hate mail if you want to. But maybe don’t. I don’t know. Have a great week.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to Not Crazy from Psych Central. For free mental health resources and online support groups, visit PsychCentral.com. Not Crazy’s official website is PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy. To work with Gabe, go to GabeHoward.com. To work with Jackie, go to JackieZimmerman.co. Not Crazy travels well. Have Gabe and Jackie record an episode live at your next event. E-mail show@psychcentral.com for details. 

  from World of Psychology https://ift.tt/2VjeuNO via theshiningmind.com

[get-a-new-lease-on-life]

A New Lease on Life - 3: One Life Ends, Another Begins

Trigger Warnings: Trauma, intrusive memories, graphic imagery, language, dysfunctional relationships.

Suggested Listening: Seether “Hang On,” & “Same Damn Life”

—————————————————-

3: One Life Ends, Another Begins    

—————————————————-

April O'Neil’s apartment, January 27th, 2016              

Leo had been pacing for a good twenty minutes, Donatello mused blandly. From the living room window to the hallway, up the hallway to the bedroom door, from there to the kitchen, and back to the living room, over and over. At this rate, they’d owe April new flooring. Worried hazel-green eyes fixed on the sofa, their owner silently contemplating the strange woman slumped over half buried in an enormous yellow comforter. After the shocking revelation, she’d just stared into space, never even acknowledging another temper tantrum from Casey and several more accusations of deception. By the time Casey had calmed down again and tea was served, her shaking had stopped and a startling calm swept over her.

Over on the sofa, Amber silently read herself the riot act. Everything was becoming clearer by the moment. She died with only one regret and was somehow given a second chance but that second chance came with a price: the body she awoke in once housed a troublemaker, a Purple Dragon with no sense of modesty and a long rap sheet. On top of that, Amber found herself surrounded by people she’d believed fictional characters and had already pissed off one, two, maybe even three of them.

She shivered, dragging the blanket around herself like fluffy yellow armor. Donatello was adorable—so much more adorable than she’d expected! She knew for certain she’d never seen him depicted in coveralls and glasses when she was still alive, but deep in her heart, his appearance was familiar. After all, this was the Donnie she’d seen in her dreams for so many years. His confident smirk, his dry, tangy wit, the distinct scent of coffee and grease…even his eyes were just as she’d seen before, a unique shade of hazel that shifted with the lighting from green to gold. Those eyes of his had completely shut down all activity in her brain the first time they met hers.

What happened to Kimber, the previous owner of the body she now inhabited?

"Oh, God,” she blurted out suddenly. “I’m stuck in a dead chick’s body!” Everyone stared at her, alerting her to the fact that her brain-to-mouth filter had failed again. “Um, sorry. I must need'a get that brain-to-mouth filter cleaned or something.”

“Since you’re talking again,” Leonardo started without missing a beat. “Let’s get our facts straight.”

“Oh, boy,” Donnie mumbled, recognizing Leo’s stern tone; Amber showed no sign of discouragement, but the genius was sure his brother intended on a lecture she might not need. She seemed fragile - familiar in a way, but that fragility didn’t ring a bell.

“You keep referring to death,” Leo reminded bluntly. “Did you die, are you dead, etc…now you’re saying you’re ‘in a dead woman’s body.’” Amber could practically hear the air-quotes. “What’s with this fascination with death?” Donnie’s palm impacted his face with a loud slap and he shook his head in disbelief. Nice tact, Leo.

“You’re kidding me, right?” the stranger retorted dryly, burrowing even deeper into the comforter. “Do I look Goth? I’m not fascinated by death, I died. That damned window shattered, an'…an'….” Grey-green eyes watered and her throat clenched around the words she couldn’t yet reveal. “Aaron must be h-horrified that—that I died in a library. He always…h-hated…” Without preamble, she burst into frustrated tears. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she choked as though her reaction was cause for censure. “Just…gimme a minute…to…”

“Is this really necessary?” Donnie asked Leo bluntly; the eldest brother was practically interrogating the stranger and she was falling apart. Though he had no answers, the genius was inexplicably angered by his brother’s behavior - as though by making the strange woman cry, he hurt someone Donnie cared for - but he didn’t know this woman, how could he care about her?! “She—”

“I’m n-not a weakling,” Amber interrupted faintly, trembling even harder; unbidden, horrifying images flashed through her mind’s eye even as the familiar hazel pair focused on her.

Shattered glass. Crumpled metal. Crumbled buildings. Crows and vultures lurk in barren trees strewn with pulpy grey streamers.

“I can do this…”

Hollow window frames spiked with glassy teeth. Fallen phone lines sparking in the sodden roads. A jagged tear in the leaden sky mocks like a twisted grin.

“—I can!”

“O'course ya can, Kimbuh,” Casey accused condescendingly. “Ya’ve prob'ly rehearsed this to death a'ready.”

“For the las’ time, Casey,” Amber protested shrilly as she fought the onslaught of distressing memories. “My name’s Amber, not Kimber! I dunno what happened to Kimber, but I ain’t her!” He shot to his feet, looming menacingly over her.

“How ya gonna prove it den, huh?” he shouted. “Ya ain’t proven shit!”

“I can’t prove it!” she cried in frustration, surging to her feet. “There’s no way I can prove my innocence short'a dyne again, an’ dyne once wiz bad enough!”- Without preamble she shrugged off the blanket and stumbled to the door of April’s apartment, pausing only to yank her clunky black boots back on. All was silent as she hesitated in the doorway, fighting tears; she turned to Casey, halfway between angry and regretful. “For the record,” she muttered. “I’m sorry for any an’ all bullshite this Kimber’s pulled, an’ not jus’ 'cuz I’m gettin’ blamed for it.” Without another word, she slipped out the door.

The latch clicked like a gunshot in the still apartment, shattering the tense silence and pushing the occupants to action. “Casey, what were you thinking?” April asked, hitting him with a doghouse glare. “Now she’s all alone out there, and probably going to freeze to death, again.”

“Ape, ya dunno what dat bitch’s done,” Casey countered, itching to hit another wall. “Kimbuh’s Hun’s favorite messenger—he wants somethin’ done, he sends her. He wants someone won over, he sends her. He wants someone watched, he sends her—Anythin’ he wants done dat don’t need muscle, he sends her. She’s knee-deep in Shreddah, Sachs, an’ even da mafias’ business!” Another wall felt the wrath of his knuckles. “All she’s gotta do is flash dose tits an’ she gets'er way!”

“Funny. She seemed petrified when they were visible. –And quit hitting my walls!”

'Not one of my brighter moments,’ Amber thought to herself between violent shivers, huddling closer to the brick wall for protection from the wind. 'It was warm in there…an’ it’s freezing out here. O'Brien, if you die again, yer totally gettin’ a Darwin Award.’

“Cold?” The sudden voice at her shoulder launched her in the opposite direction with an unflattering shriek and she landed on her rump on the asphalt. Donnie seemed so smug leaning up against that dumpster, she thought with a hot blush…and he smelled amazing.

“The Hell, Dee?!” she hissed, rubbing her sore rear. “You scared the livin’ daylights out'a me!”

“What can I say?” he grinned. “Ninja. It’s what we do.” She blinked in surprise as a warm garment was draped around her shoulders—a familiar trench coat big enough to swallow her whole. She gratefully burrowed deep into the coffee-scented fabric and huddled between Donatello and the wall. “Casey thinks you’re lying, you know,” he continued off-handedly, pushing his glasses back up his nose out of habit. “April’s more frustrated than anything else. Leo’s playing peacemaker.”

“Sorry I’m so much trouble,” Amber mumbled into the coat’s popped collar. “It’s not like me to cause such a ruckus over nothing.”

“It’s not nothing, okay?” he half-scolded. “Casey’s always a hothead, but he’s taking this very personally for some reason.”

“Judging by the big fat dragon tattoo in my rack, I’m not surprised—he hates Purple Dragons and with good reason. I must'a built up some seriously bad karma to die an’ wake up in this body. If I didn’t know any better,” she added under her breath, “I’d think I spent my whole life kickin’ puppies.” Silence reigned for a while. When she looked up, she saw Donnie’s eyes fixed on hers in a serious, calculative stare. “What? I’ve never kicked a puppy, thank you very much; it’s a figure of speech.”

“There’s one thing I just can’t figure out.” A loud yell drew his eyes to April’s living room window; moments later he cringed as an even louder crash rang out followed by April shrieking at Casey. The two had an odd way of resolving conflict, he considered with a cringe, then he asked Amber, “How do you know us? April wouldn’t have told you anything without our okay, and Casey seems convinced you’re the spawn of Satan. So how’d you know?”

Now, Amber thought morbidly as she stared through his grease stained trousers, would be the time to tell him she was from another world, another reality—a reality where he, his brothers, and the rest were just fictional characters. If she were living in a fanfiction, she’d totally spill everything right here and now in this gritty, muck-slicked alley, and would happily spend the rest of her days in a flurry of coffee runs, neck rubs, and sweaty stolen moments with a certain terrapin genius. If she were living in a fanfiction, she’d be set…but she wasn’t a fanfiction character, and life was never that simple.

Aaron had hooked her on their story years ago when she was barely seventeen, but she’d seen Donnie in her dreams since she was only a child. She spent ages watching herself grow older while he and his brothers stubbornly remained teenagers in all canon sources. Every new grey hair Amber found was cursed with a thousand poxes and unfulfilled threats of shaving her head. Every birthday was spent buried up to her ears in fanfiction about people almost half her age and fan art featuring characters with size negative-fifteen waists. Every time she started to consider dating - instead of her usual habit of only seeking out temporary companionship when she couldn’t handle her body’s wants and needs - she woke drenched in sweat, clinging to steamy dreams of shifting hazel eyes, ridiculously adorable snorts, cheeky grins, and taunting reminders that she’d become hopelessly stuck on someone who didn’t even exist. Every time she relied on one-night stands to keep her libido under control, she struggled with guilt afterward - not because her family wouldn’t approve or because she was careless with protection, but because the Donnie in her Dreams didn’t approve.

She was a mess. She wasn’t some totally awesome fanfiction heroine thrown together with the turtle of her dreams simply to fulfill the bizarre notions of some mysterious author. She was a janitor, a college dropout with more gimp than grace, and even if she wasn’t frustrated as hell by years of nothing but DIY treatment, wet dreams, and impersonal booty-calls, she wasn’t aging gracefully at all. She was undeniably, irrefutably normal…and normal people got awkward sideways looks over admitting to crushing on fictional characters, especially if they somehow ran into said fictional characters. Never mind if said fictional character wasn’t fully human…

“Lucky guess?” she attempted sheepishly; the smirk in his eyes told her quite clearly that she’d been figured out. She wilted. “Fine, fine. If I told ya, I’d have to kill ya. Someone else told me, an’ whaddaya know? I died. Better?” He laughed lowly, shaking his head at her.

“You’re a nut,” he grinned, ambling toward April’s fire escape. “C'mon, I’m freezin’ my shell off out here.” No sooner had they reached the window, though, a lamp went sailing past, shattering into shrapnel against the wall. Before they could so much as duck the window flew open and Leonardo sprung from the window to the metal grating, eyes wide with fear.

“Run,” he warned as he dashed up to the roof evading another chorus of shouting. Amber cringed before the window, watching the flurry of thrown objects.

“Why do I get the feelin’ they’ve got a 'Bed of Nails’ relationship?” she mused aloud. Not a moment later, she uttered a surprised squeak when she found herself slung over Donatello’s shoulder in a fireman’s carry and staring down at the roof.

“Alice Creeper?” he clarified as they took off over the rooftop. “Hold on tight!”

“No, Alice -YAH!” A little late, she muffled her shriek in his neck. “Did I mention I really, really hate heights?” she mumbled. “Where’re we goin’?”

“Home,” Leo answered gravely. Amber screwed her eyes shut, retreating into Donnie’s warm collar, wondering just when her life became so cliché. She was killed by the one thing she spent her whole life fearing, woke up younger, thinner, and with a major dying-hangover, and now she was being carried off to the sewers like some hopeless heroine. Granted, she had a second chance with the turtle of her dreams - a second chance she never admitted wanting! - but this situation had disaster written all over it.

'Oh well,’ she thought tiredly, sure her fingernails were going to leave permanent gouges in Donatello’s canvas-draped carapace. 'I died, so who’s to say I’m NOT a hopeless heroine now? My life ended with the beginning of another; the least I can do is enjoy the ride…an’ not toss my cookies all over Donnie’s shell.’

NOTE

- Dyne once wiz bad enough! - 'Dying once was bad enough,’ wiz being a phonetic pronunciation of the Scottish pronunciation of was. Compare Dyin’ - Dyne to her odd pronunciation of O'Brien as O'Brine.

   Up next: The Truth     

     Chapter List

[ghost-chance]

A New Lease on Life - 3: One Life Ends, Another Begins

Trigger Warnings: Trauma, intrusive memories, graphic imagery, language, dysfunctional relationships.

Suggested Listening: Seether "Hang On," & "Same Damn Life”

----------------------------------------------------

3: One Life Ends, Another Begins   

----------------------------------------------------

April O'Neil's apartment, January 27th, 2016              

Leo had been pacing for a good twenty minutes, Donatello mused blandly. From the living room window to the hallway, up the hallway to the bedroom door, from there to the kitchen, and back to the living room, over and over. At this rate, they'd owe April new flooring. Worried hazel-green eyes fixed on the sofa, their owner silently contemplating the strange woman slumped over half buried in an enormous yellow comforter. After the shocking revelation, she'd just stared into space, never even acknowledging another temper tantrum from Casey and several more accusations of deception. By the time Casey had calmed down again and tea was served, her shaking had stopped and a startling calm swept over her.

Over on the sofa, Amber silently read herself the riot act. Everything was becoming clearer by the moment. She died with only one regret and was somehow given a second chance but that second chance came with a price: the body she awoke in once housed a troublemaker, a Purple Dragon with no sense of modesty and a long rap sheet. On top of that, Amber found herself surrounded by people she'd believed fictional characters and had already pissed off one, two, maybe even three of them.

She shivered, dragging the blanket around herself like fluffy yellow armor. Donatello was adorable—so much more adorable than she'd expected! She knew for certain she'd never seen him depicted in coveralls and glasses when she was still alive, but deep in her heart, his appearance was familiar. After all, this was the Donnie she'd seen in her dreams for so many years. His confident smirk, his dry, tangy wit, the distinct scent of coffee and grease…even his eyes were just as she'd seen before, a unique shade of hazel that shifted with the lighting from green to gold. Those eyes of his had completely shut down all activity in her brain the first time they met hers.

What happened to Kimber, the previous owner of the body she now inhabited?

"Oh, God," she blurted out suddenly. "I'm stuck in a dead chick's body!" Everyone stared at her, alerting her to the fact that her brain-to-mouth filter had failed again. "Um, sorry. I must need'a get that brain-to-mouth filter cleaned or something."

"Since you're talking again," Leonardo started without missing a beat. "Let's get our facts straight."

"Oh, boy," Donnie mumbled, recognizing Leo's stern tone; Amber showed no sign of discouragement, but the genius was sure his brother intended on a lecture she might not need. She seemed fragile - familiar in a way, but that fragility didn't ring a bell.

"You keep referring to death," Leo reminded bluntly. "Did you die, are you dead, etc...now you're saying you're 'in a dead woman's body.'" Amber could practically hear the air-quotes. "What's with this fascination with death?" Donnie's palm impacted his face with a loud slap and he shook his head in disbelief. Nice tact, Leo.

"You're kidding me, right?" the stranger retorted dryly, burrowing even deeper into the comforter. "Do I look Goth? I'm not fascinated by death, I died. That damned window shattered, an'…an'…." Grey-green eyes watered and her throat clenched around the words she couldn't yet reveal. "Aaron must be h-horrified that—that I died in a library. He always…h-hated…" Without preamble, she burst into frustrated tears. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she choked as though her reaction was cause for censure. "Just…gimme a minute…to…"

"Is this really necessary?" Donnie asked Leo bluntly; the eldest brother was practically interrogating the stranger and she was falling apart. Though he had no answers, the genius was inexplicably angered by his brother's behavior - as though by making the strange woman cry, he hurt someone Donnie cared for - but he didn't know this woman, how could he care about her?! "She—"

"I'm n-not a weakling," Amber interrupted faintly, trembling even harder; unbidden, horrifying images flashed through her mind's eye even as the familiar hazel pair focused on her.

Shattered glass. Crumpled metal. Crumbled buildings. Crows and vultures lurk in barren trees strewn with pulpy grey streamers.

"I can do this…"

Hollow window frames spiked with glassy teeth. Fallen phone lines sparking in the sodden roads. A jagged tear in the leaden sky mocks like a twisted grin.

"—I can!"

"O'course ya can, Kimbuh," Casey accused condescendingly. "Ya've prob'ly rehearsed this to death a'ready."

"For the las' time, Casey," Amber protested shrilly as she fought the onslaught of distressing memories. "My name's Amber, not Kimber! I dunno what happened to Kimber, but I ain't her!" He shot to his feet, looming menacingly over her.

"How ya gonna prove it den, huh?" he shouted. "Ya ain't proven shit!"

"I can't prove it!" she cried in frustration, surging to her feet. "There's no way I can prove my innocence short'a dyne again, an' dyne once wiz bad enough!"- Without preamble she shrugged off the blanket and stumbled to the door of April's apartment, pausing only to yank her clunky black boots back on. All was silent as she hesitated in the doorway, fighting tears; she turned to Casey, halfway between angry and regretful. "For the record," she muttered. "I'm sorry for any an' all bullshite this Kimber's pulled, an' not jus' 'cuz I'm gettin' blamed for it." Without another word, she slipped out the door.

The latch clicked like a gunshot in the still apartment, shattering the tense silence and pushing the occupants to action. "Casey, what were you thinking?" April asked, hitting him with a doghouse glare. "Now she's all alone out there, and probably going to freeze to death, again."

"Ape, ya dunno what dat bitch's done," Casey countered, itching to hit another wall. "Kimbuh's Hun's favorite messenger—he wants somethin' done, he sends her. He wants someone won over, he sends her. He wants someone watched, he sends her—Anythin' he wants done dat don't need muscle, he sends her. She's knee-deep in Shreddah, Sachs, an' even da mafias' business!" Another wall felt the wrath of his knuckles. "All she's gotta do is flash dose tits an' she gets'er way!"

"Funny. She seemed petrified when they were visible. --And quit hitting my walls!"

'Not one of my brighter moments,' Amber thought to herself between violent shivers, huddling closer to the brick wall for protection from the wind. 'It was warm in there…an' it's freezing out here. O'Brien, if you die again, yer totally gettin' a Darwin Award.'

"Cold?" The sudden voice at her shoulder launched her in the opposite direction with an unflattering shriek and she landed on her rump on the asphalt. Donnie seemed so smug leaning up against that dumpster, she thought with a hot blush...and he smelled amazing.

"The Hell, Dee?!" she hissed, rubbing her sore rear. "You scared the livin' daylights out'a me!"

"What can I say?" he grinned. "Ninja. It's what we do." She blinked in surprise as a warm garment was draped around her shoulders—a familiar trench coat big enough to swallow her whole. She gratefully burrowed deep into the coffee-scented fabric and huddled between Donatello and the wall. "Casey thinks you're lying, you know," he continued off-handedly, pushing his glasses back up his nose out of habit. "April's more frustrated than anything else. Leo's playing peacemaker."

"Sorry I'm so much trouble," Amber mumbled into the coat's popped collar. "It's not like me to cause such a ruckus over nothing."

"It's not nothing, okay?" he half-scolded. "Casey's always a hothead, but he's taking this very personally for some reason."

"Judging by the big fat dragon tattoo in my rack, I'm not surprised—he hates Purple Dragons and with good reason. I must'a built up some seriously bad karma to die an' wake up in this body. If I didn't know any better," she added under her breath, "I'd think I spent my whole life kickin' puppies." Silence reigned for a while. When she looked up, she saw Donnie's eyes fixed on hers in a serious, calculative stare. "What? I've never kicked a puppy, thank you very much; it's a figure of speech."

"There's one thing I just can't figure out." A loud yell drew his eyes to April's living room window; moments later he cringed as an even louder crash rang out followed by April shrieking at Casey. The two had an odd way of resolving conflict, he considered with a cringe, then he asked Amber, "How do you know us? April wouldn't have told you anything without our okay, and Casey seems convinced you're the spawn of Satan. So how'd you know?"

Now, Amber thought morbidly as she stared through his grease stained trousers, would be the time to tell him she was from another world, another reality—a reality where he, his brothers, and the rest were just fictional characters. If she were living in a fanfiction, she'd totally spill everything right here and now in this gritty, muck-slicked alley, and would happily spend the rest of her days in a flurry of coffee runs, neck rubs, and sweaty stolen moments with a certain terrapin genius. If she were living in a fanfiction, she'd be set…but she wasn't a fanfiction character, and life was never that simple.

Aaron had hooked her on their story years ago when she was barely seventeen, but she'd seen Donnie in her dreams since she was only a child. She spent ages watching herself grow older while he and his brothers stubbornly remained teenagers in all canon sources. Every new grey hair Amber found was cursed with a thousand poxes and unfulfilled threats of shaving her head. Every birthday was spent buried up to her ears in fanfiction about people almost half her age and fan art featuring characters with size negative-fifteen waists. Every time she started to consider dating - instead of her usual habit of only seeking out temporary companionship when she couldn't handle her body's wants and needs - she woke drenched in sweat, clinging to steamy dreams of shifting hazel eyes, ridiculously adorable snorts, cheeky grins, and taunting reminders that she'd become hopelessly stuck on someone who didn't even exist. Every time she relied on one-night stands to keep her libido under control, she struggled with guilt afterward - not because her family wouldn't approve or because she was careless with protection, but because the Donnie in her Dreams didn't approve.

She was a mess. She wasn't some totally awesome fanfiction heroine thrown together with the turtle of her dreams simply to fulfill the bizarre notions of some mysterious author. She was a janitor, a college dropout with more gimp than grace, and even if she wasn't frustrated as hell by years of nothing but DIY treatment, wet dreams, and impersonal booty-calls, she wasn't aging gracefully at all. She was undeniably, irrefutably normal…and normal people got awkward sideways looks over admitting to crushing on fictional characters, especially if they somehow ran into said fictional characters. Never mind if said fictional character wasn't fully human...

"Lucky guess?" she attempted sheepishly; the smirk in his eyes told her quite clearly that she'd been figured out. She wilted. "Fine, fine. If I told ya, I'd have to kill ya. Someone else told me, an' whaddaya know? I died. Better?" He laughed lowly, shaking his head at her.

"You're a nut," he grinned, ambling toward April's fire escape. "C'mon, I'm freezin' my shell off out here." No sooner had they reached the window, though, a lamp went sailing past, shattering into shrapnel against the wall. Before they could so much as duck the window flew open and Leonardo sprung from the window to the metal grating, eyes wide with fear.

"Run," he warned as he dashed up to the roof evading another chorus of shouting. Amber cringed before the window, watching the flurry of thrown objects.

"Why do I get the feelin' they've got a 'Bed of Nails' relationship?" she mused aloud. Not a moment later, she uttered a surprised squeak when she found herself slung over Donatello's shoulder in a fireman's carry and staring down at the roof.

"Alice Creeper?" he clarified as they took off over the rooftop. "Hold on tight!"

"No, Alice -YAH!" A little late, she muffled her shriek in his neck. "Did I mention I really, really hate heights?" she mumbled. "Where're we goin'?"

"Home," Leo answered gravely. Amber screwed her eyes shut, retreating into Donnie's warm collar, wondering just when her life became so cliché. She was killed by the one thing she spent her whole life fearing, woke up younger, thinner, and with a major dying-hangover, and now she was being carried off to the sewers like some hopeless heroine. Granted, she had a second chance with the turtle of her dreams - a second chance she never admitted wanting! - but this situation had disaster written all over it.

'Oh well,' she thought tiredly, sure her fingernails were going to leave permanent gouges in Donatello's canvas-draped carapace. 'I died, so who's to say I'm NOT a hopeless heroine now? My life ended with the beginning of another; the least I can do is enjoy the ride…an' not toss my cookies all over Donnie's shell.'

NOTE

- Dyne once wiz bad enough! - 'Dying once was bad enough,' wiz being a phonetic pronunciation of the Scottish pronunciation of was. Compare Dyin' - Dyne to her odd pronunciation of O'Brien as O'Brine.

   Up next: The Truth       

                        .

[freshlyjuicedbeetles]

OCD:IRL

COWETA, Okla. -When I was 17, I was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), clinical depression and generalized anxiety disorder; post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) would be added later. If it’s at all possible, I would say I was born with anxiety. I was always the scared child. I didn’t like being without my mom and didn’t like changes in my routine. I had the same breakfast and after school meal for twelve years. I was constantly afraid that I would be left at school one day.

Mental illness runs deep in my family. While I can only speculate about others, my maternal grandmother was diagnosed with clinical depression and was prescribed one of the first legitimate antidepressants.

I am mentally ill. I am not crazy or a menace to society. I’m a functioning member of society. I work, I vote, I have a degree. I have no desire to hurt myself or someone else. The craziest thing you’ll probably see me do is squeeze myself into a cabinet to properly clean the inside.

This is a day in the life with my diagnoses at my most stable and fully functioning. I’ve had worse periods in my life. Bear in mind, everyone’s symptoms are different.

I wake up after a night of broken sleep. This can be as early as 5: 00 A.M. or as late 4:30 P.M. in the afternoon. My sleep schedule is always different. I have been a night owl for as long as I can remember. I remember the first time I stayed up all night was in kindergarten and I’ve had circles under my eyes ever since. Even in preschool, I was up late as my parents slept away, watching TV and raiding the pantry. In school, I would go to bed at midnight, sometimes pushing it to 1:00 A.M. in high school. In college, I would sometimes go to class without sleep due to self-induced insomnia. I love my naps and they only set me up for a sleepless night. Sleep plays a big part in these illnesses. Lack of sleep can negatively affect moods which only exacerbates the symptoms.

After I eat my breakfast (or lunch or dinner, whatever meal is being served when I wake up), I take my medication. I take a serotonin reuptake inhibitor. It replaces the chemicals in my brain that it doesn’t make on its own. Medication has treated me well. It takes away a lot of my symptoms with very little side effects. It runs like a background program in my computer brain. Still, I have symptoms that I can largely ignore and use logic against.

My brain cycles through worry about my family. Is my stepdad depressed? Is he angry? Did I happen to do something wrong? Is my mom okay? I want her to be happy. Is she depressed? I need to call my grandpa. I need to go see him. I live within walking distance of him, but I fear and hate the silences in conversation. I feel like a bad granddaughter when conversation laps as though I don’t love him. What was that noise from the living room? What ungodly mess are my pets making on the brand-new carpet?

Because of my anxiety of failure and drive to be perfect, I apologize as though it will erase my mistakes from existence. I claim the mistakes of my loved ones as my own as though they were cash prizes. I’d rather be inconvenienced than someone else be.

Two comorbidities of my diagnoses are misophonia and dermatillomania. Misophonia is a hatred of sound. You know those ASMR videos that calm some people down? They make me want to punch a brick wall. Misophonia makes me inexplicably angry at noises; the sound of stepdad coughing, tongue clicking my mom makes when she’s thinking, chewing noises. I could go on.

I pick at my skin like I’m trying to create escape routes from my body. For me, dermatillomania, which is characterized by the repeated urge to pick at one's own skin, often to the extent that damage is caused, is about texture. I like the feel of broken skin. I’ve never noticed any anxiety or self-destruction correlations with this, only out of boredom, routine or desire to feel the texture. I remember when I was in middle school and I fell off my bike. I tore up my knee and it required regular cleaning. After school the day after, my grandma was changing my bandage and cleaning my wound. She left a glob of Neosporin on my calf that I noticed later. I kept myself from picking it off throughout grocery shopping with my mom so it would harden. I picked it off as she wasreturning the cart.

Texture has always been a part of my world. I refused to wear anything with tight sleeves as a child. Today, I’m nervous about trying on jeans because they might be tight. I either love or hate certain foods because of their texture.

I have been able to turn these illnesses into strengths. Through my OCD and anxiety, I have saved my own and many other gluteus maximums with my contingency plans. I was the girl with plenty of bobby pins at graduation. Through my depression, I have been able to write the most honest and powerful stories.

However, there are websites like Tumblr romanticize mental illness, especially the ones I have. It’s seen as quirky.

“Oh how cute! She eats her Fruit Loops in rainbow order!”

When in real life, people eat their Fruit Loops that way or else they think something bad will happen.

The people who want a mental illness, are people who don’t have one. It boggles my addled mind, but maybe they think they can profit off of it. They could garner sympathy or have things done for them. Remember James Frey? He profited off his supposed mental illness of drug addiction only for his readers to find out it was heavily fictionalized.

I have an incredible and supportive family who will do anything for me, but I’ve still heard well-meant but ignorant comments from them, mostly due to generational differences- say what you will about my generation, we don’t suffer in silence. Regardless of their support, anxiety based mental illnesses are manipulative S.O.Bs. Because of mine, I wonder if all my family sees me as is an annoying hypochondriac who won’t leave them alone.

Here’s a list of things that have been said to me and a few of my friends with mental illness, what you’re really saying, and what to say instead.

“It’s all in your head!”

Just like asthma is just in your lungs.

We know we’re being illogical. By saying this, you’re diminishing the severity of mental illnesses and brushing it off. These are serious health conditions.

Instead say, “I’ll try to understand.”

“Just be happy!”

Stop growing tumors.

It’s a chemical imbalance. That’s like saying to change the chemical composition of soap just by thinking about it.

Instead say, “It’s okay to feel this way.”

“You have nothing to worry about or be sad for!”

We know. You’re not helping. We may have a nice life, but the illness is still there. It’s a bit like dust in your house. It’s just there. Once again, we know we’re being illogical.

Instead, try to be sympathetic.

“Other people have it worse off than you.”

We know and you’re not helping. You may have cut yourself off from being a safe space for that person in a time of need. They may never open up to you again. It makes us feel guilty and ashamed for having an illness that we have no control over. Also, you’re furthering the stigma of mental illness.

Instead say, “I know you’re going through a tough time.”

“Have you tried…. (yoga, meditation, teas)”

No amount of homeopathy will cure a mental illness. It may help to a degree but you don’t fight illnesses of any kind with just herbs and realigning your chakra. You need to see a doctor.

Instead, ask them how their current treatment plan is going.

“You’re just being lazy!”

It’s not that we don’t want to do something (like getting out of bed), it’s that we can’t. For whatever reason, we feel like that if we do the task or go somewhere, we’ll regret it. Sometimes, we have the mental strength to push ourselves and sometimes we don’t.

Instead say, “How can I help?”

In closing, I wanted to share a quote my first therapist gave me. I feel it completely encapsulates the anxiety disorder experience in one succinct paragraph.

“The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him... a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create -- so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating.” - Pearl S. Buck