#my mental health has been abysmal lately

[foreveranevilregal]

which prompt will you do next

I’m planning to do one requested by @lilrobinbird involving Pepa and Félix and the “only one bed” trope. After that, I’m not sure. Thank you for reaching out, it’s flattering that people are still interested in reading my stuff.

[puppetlooselystrung]

it seems like the universe just refuses to let me get chunky boots

[gdbatbitch]

TL;DR Please, please. I’m at the absolute end of my rope and can use all the help I can get. Also, just putting out there for those that prefer alternates: my PayPal is dextra.hoffman@gmail.com, Venmo is @Dextra-Hoffman, and CashApp is $DextraDawn. Thanks y’all.

I wish I had the spoons to talk about how horrible I have been feeling the last few weeks in real time. Especially the last 3 weeks. You don’t realize how much one little gland will mess up your entire existence until it’s defective or gone. I’ve been without my thyroid for 10 months now. And I’m still suffering the repercussions of it. 

My biggest issue is my TSH levels. I’ve had to have dosage adjustments twice since January, and each time it results in weeks of adjustment time, and a good portion of that, I’ve been completely laid out because of being unable to function. The symptoms can vary, but generally involve massive fatigue, nausea, hot flashes and cold spells/sweats that I’m not able to control and barely able to combat, dehydration, weakness, and just having that feeling you get with a high fever and a flu where you feel half in and half out of reality and not sure if you’re actually alive or you’re a ghost. 

Also because these hormones think they’re that special, they also affect my mental health by spiking my adrenaline levels and triggering my anxiety. My anxiety alone can shut me down for days. It’s been well documented. So the physical symptoms would trigger my anxiety. I have a really high pain tolerance, but sickness not so much. And I have never felt sicker in my life than I have in the last month. So not only was I feeling like I was dying, I was terrified the entire time.

I’ve not gone into great detail about it openly because it was so scary, and I know when I’m in panic mode I can’t really trust my own mind to determine the seriousness of a situation. So I kept it quiet, at least quiet for me. 

Of course, all of this has completely destroyed my plans of getting back to work and out of this poverty rut I’ve been in for months. I had a job lined up, but the start date was right in the middle of my being incapacitated. I tried to work with the company to push back my start date, but that didn’t happen. I’m in the midst of interviewing for a job that would be absolutely perfect, but I’m still waiting for next steps on their part. Aside from those, as anyone currently seeking a job will tell you, it’s abysmal out there. I’ve applied for over a hundred jobs in the last 4 months and I’ve barely gotten any responses. 

I’ve been asked if I’m going to be doing art commissions, and if I were more capable, sure. I’d be silly not to try. But I’ve not been anything close to capable for weeks. I’ve only been back to 100% for a few days now, and even that has been sketchy. So I’m putting a pin in that for now, at least until I can knock out a sketch or two to knock the rust off. 

I was hoping to be done with fundraising, it’s so nerve-racking. But right now, my survival is in peril. I just submitted a request for what will be my last unemployment payout. It wasn’t much, but it was barely keeping me afloat. After that, I’m kinda screwed unless I can figure something out. 

I still haven’t made rent for August, my car payment is late, I’ve got bills up to my ears and I’m just worried that I’m not going to have those things very very soon if I can’t keep up. If I can at least hit the goal on the fundraiser, that can keep me going until I can get back to work (fingers crossed). 

I’ve been struggling with asking for help for a while now because I feel like I’ve been holding my hat out for far too long, but I don’t really have a choice anymore. I’ve also been struggling with a lot of internalized ableism as well because I know I’m disabled and shouldn’t push myself as hard as I do. But that’s a rant for another time.

Please, please. I’m at the absolute end of my rope and can use all the help I can get. Also, just putting out there for those that prefer alternates: my PayPal is dextra.hoffman@gmail.com, Venmo is @Dextra-Hoffman, and CashApp is $DextraDawn. Thanks y’all.

[candylani18]

Hey it's been years since I've done this, but this is a really good video from Jack and I wanted to share it here on Tumblr. I'm not tagging anybody in particular this time though.

Anyone who knows me knows that I've been a fan of Jack for years, especially for his kind attitude and positive words. And the internet needs it more than ever, the 2020s has been a downward spiral of hatred online.

Even back in the late 2010s when hatred was kind of the norm, it wasn't to this extreme where something you say has people either blow up at you or end up tracking you down, or worse. I learned the hard way in 2017, but this is just abysmal, there were so many communities I had to either mute or leave just because everybody was bitching at each other, and even on YouTube it's hard to avoid negative talking videos.

I had to mute various servers and communities for the sake of my own mental health, even places I enjoy. Whether it's infighting or my own negative energy, it's been hard to enjoy a lot of things online like how it used to be.

But enough of the downer talk, Jack is planning to join some organization groups for his Thankmas, and I'm glad to see there is some hopeful change, especially in regards to all the bullshit drama that happened this year on YouTube. If you can, please watch the original video to support Jack and the organizations. The internet needs more help than ever.

[iloveschiaparelli]

moments I should have known I was autistic

This one is a little different bc it indirectly resulted in my first time flagging autism as a thing I might have

Covid lock down in 2020 was really hard for several reasons, mainly not having any friends and not being able to leave the house. But once I finished the school year and made some friends online... I never before nor after have had a year that was better for my mental health and creativity. I organize my art chronologically in my computer and 2020 still remains as the single most productive year for my art ever, by file count. The majority of progress I've made in developing my fictional worlds and stories was made during lockdown, both in 2020 and 2021 throughout my senior year, which was a hybrid remote so I only had to go in 2 days a week.

I spent maybe 30 mins to an hour a day on Instagram looking at crossposts from tumblr. Seeing that I was relating to a very high concentration of queer and autism posts was what first caused me to begin questioning whether I might be autistic. I grew up in a straight, conservative household. I'm a cis female. And yet I observed and said at one point in 2020 "I relate more to the experiences of an autistic gay man than I do to the experiences of anyone in my demographic". I would joke that maybe I'm autistic, but didn't really do any research until the next couple years when I hit college. This was also when I started thinking I had ADHD, but it was 2 years until I got my diagnosis for that.

Looking back it makes so much sense. The reason why I couldn't relate to other straight neurotypical girls is because I'm NOT neurotypical, and I AM attracted to women. (I do not label myself as bisexual or date women for personal & religious reasons, but I do accept that as part of myself and I don't try to force myself to change.) I had spent 17 years trying to fit in with the normal kids and yeah, it was never going to work because I wasn't normal no matter how much I thought I was.

The reason why lockdown was so productive for me creatively and why I felt so healthy and at peace was because I didn't have to leave my house, which meant I didn't have to mask. Even on occasional trips to the grocery store, the building was so empty that it was quiet. I never had to suffer through sensory overload. My house was clean (never before nor after lockdown has my family's home ever been clean enough for me to function in) meaning I could cook in thr kitchen and hang out on the floor or in the livingroom with no sensory problems.

Even once I went to my senior year of high school, it was only 2 days a week in-person. I wore my mask and didn't talk to anyone unless I had to. The food was awful and working with clay in the ceramics class was difficult on a sensory level but as long as it was wet I was fine. They had remote work for us to do on the 3 days home, but I just did it on school days and did art and played minecraft on the off days.

My mental health was abysmal at the start of lockdown, so of course I suffered plenty mentally throughout. But I made SO MUCH progress.

Now that the world has gone back to normal, I'm back to struggling. It's hard to hold down a job because every job available to me isoverestimating. Going to the grocery store is overstimulating because there are crowds of people there. The roads are full of traffic, strangers try to talk to me or wear heavy fragrances/have body odor and stand less than 6 ft away. I can't take 5 days a week to rest, I have to work to pay my bills. If I don't work, I spend those 5 days wondering where my next source of income is going to come from. I sleep way too much, or at least at all the wrong times, because of how stressed I am at the end of every day keeps me awake late into the morning, and then I overslept because I'm exhausted. I used to live in a rural area but now I live in the city, at an apartment complex where it's never fully quiet. (My roommates and i are touring houses this week! Fingers crossed!!).

It seems like I really am disabled in the context of my environment.

I can function OK when I'm in school with no other responsibilities. I can function OK when I have a job and no other responsibilities.

I can barely function, or not at all, if I have school AND a job.

I function best when I have minimal responsibilitie's to fulfill outside of what I enjoy doing. Because I'm disabled. And the covid lockdown was an illustration of how I could function in an accommodating environment.

[the-gentleman-pirate]

Had an appointment with my doctor today. The situation has gotten worse. We'll be discussing some options on my next visit.

My mental health has also been abysmal lately. It's a fun mixture right now.

[hal-5000]

my mental health has been abysmal lately, and autistic burnout is no fuckin joke.

that said, i’m going to temple tonight for the kabbalat shabbat service and i am vv much looking forward. it is much needed and i haven’t been since at least february or march

[feminist-pussycat]

man i was talking to a woman in one of my classes about adhd, and how I had only been diagnosed in my late teens after recognizing my symptoms from a psychology class.

and she told me she learned that she had adhd from tiktok. that the all-knowing algorithm had shown her videos from people who talk about adhd and she related, went to her doctor, and in two hours got a diagnosis. it took me three months to get a diagnosis because of all the tests and tests i had to send to people who knew me as a child and report cards from before the age of 12 etc.

at this point i’m kinda sceptical. adhd symptoms are similar to the focus- and attention- disrupting effects of heavy tiktok usage. so we start discussing symptoms, the practical ones that i incur in everyday life.

and she kind of doesn’t have them? granted, she said she was diagnosed with inattentive adhd (ADHD-IN) and I have combined (ADHD-C). but she isn’t late for things, and she doesn’t have time blindness. she couldn’t relate to the roadblocks of basic tasks (sorry if you can easily send emails or pay bills and you say you have adhd i don’t trust you). she doesn’t struggle with the constant forgetfulness and abysmal short-term memory loss.

we talked more and she absolutely has a history of trauma. i don’t want to go into details but basically she doesn’t talk to her family and there were incidents of harassment and terror campaigns and abuse. but trauma and adhd have some overlapping symptoms.

for example: symptoms for both include disorganization, poor self-esteem, problems concentrating and being inattentive, irritability/ hot temper. there’s emerging scientific research about how one of the epigenetic factors that contribute to developing adhd is early childhood trauma.

so my theory is that she was recklessly diagnosed, and has now made it like a personality trait. when i talk about adhd, it is and always feels like a disorder. it’s negatively impacting my brain, primarily the PFC and the symptoms constantly interfere with my well-being and functioning as a person. but for her it was like a quirky personality trait that she was happy to talk about.

anyway this is a long-winded way of saying i’m worried about how publicized mental health conditions are, and how quickly people will assign a disorder to themselves because of the influencers on tiktok. it frustrates me so much when people cheerily say “adhd isn’t a disorder! it’s just a different way of thinking / a superpower/ only a disability under capitalism!” and it’s always people like this, who either have mild adhd that isn’t that hard to deal with or accommodate, or were misdiagnosed with something else. and it contributes to this “woob-ification” of mental illness where it’s cute and quirky, and severe symptoms are disapproved of because everyone has this sanitized version of how people with mental disorders behave.

[kalicocoa]

An Announcement on the State of Night Rule

So I’ve been struggling with how to say these things and I finally just need to get it off my chest. I think I’ll feel better after finally speaking about things, so here we go!

After today, I will not be participating in the Project SEKAI fanbase outside of finishing my fanfiction, Night Rule!

I’ve had a lot of unsavory experiences with people in this fanbase that were behind closed doors in a way. (Discord Servers, Private Messages, etc.) Making a big stink out of things will only reflect poorly on me as past experience has proven to me, so I’d rather just let sleeping dogs lie and remove myself from the equation without making an enormous post about those things.

I don’t feel very safe when interacting with people anymore and more often than not I’m hurt by unnecessary hostile behavior toward me. Hostility that ranged from disagreeing on meaningless headcanons to straight up bigotry at my expense. (I quite literally watched as some passionate readers of my fic turned on me immediately upon learning I was a person of color. I don’t feel good about this and I never will either.)

However, Night Rule will be completed. I plan to finish it, even if my motivation is practically abysmal lately. I have love for my story and the completed outline I worked so hard on, but I do not feel well writing this story for people that ultimately think little of me as the creator.

That being said, updates will be extremely scarce from this point onward. Hopefully at least once a month, but I can’t promise this due to my current mental health state. You’re getting this fanfiction for free and it’s a work that has brought a lot of aggression toward me as a person, so you can be reasonable and accept that it will update as much as it will on my terms. Hope that’s understood, because if it isn’t, that’s something you’ll have to deal with on your own I’m afraid.

Night Rule was a creation of my own personal passion for Proseka and its cast, fit with my favorite fantasy tropes and ideas I had been dying to use in a story for years. For this reason, it’s much too special to me to abandon and I plan to keep this as a thing for me before I worry about how much people love or hate it.

I recommend that if you only follow me for Project SEKAI, you should probably unfollow me now! I will not be sharing posts of it anymore and the only things related to Proseka that will be posted will be updates on this fic and reblogged fanworks of Night Rule if people continue to make those. I’ll still be playing the game on occasion, but I will not be talking about it on here casually from here on out.

Where I plan to go from here, I’m not really sure. I still have things that I enjoy, so I plan to keep writing and reblogging things that I like. Maybe I’ll move on to the next big interest. Maybe I’ll disappear someday. Who knows. We’ll figure it out when we get there.

But the point remains, this chapter of my life is coming to a close, and the end of Night Rule will be the end of my involvement in this fanbase for good.

Thank you for understanding! See you on the flip side. (❁´◡`❁)

[program-251]

gosh I can't stop thinking about a conversation between my mom and stepdad regarding my biological dad, it is just so absurd. So apparently my bio dad wanted (and most likely still wants to) take custody of me, the reason I find this absurd and kind of funny is the fact I'm a legal adult, now I'm not independent yet but like what is he going to do exactly XD if he went to court over this I could just be like "yeah nah, I'm good where I am." and the second reason is because he thinks my mother is not taking good enough care of me because my mental health has been abysmal as of late (I am doing a lot better at this point and we are figuring it out mhmm). This is funny because a majority of things I have been upset about is just trauma from when I lived with him, and he did not do a lot for my mental health when I did live with him so I am not exactly sure how he thinks he would do better.

[mewguca]

srry for bein so inactive here i just dont have much proper art to post and this app kinda messes with me mentally a lot

which is just. a me skill issue lol

proper art coming...idk my health has been abysmal lately sorry

[hydaelynsanswers]

me: fuck my mental health has been abysmal lately

me: [realizes i missed my four year clean day] oooohhhhhh. oh. right

[merrrgun]

It's time to talk about my experience and the hypothesis I've drawn as a result involving the physics department of Northern Illinois University.

I'll begin with my hypothesis: NIU's graduate physics department is interested only in keeping admittance rates high so they can entrap new students into paying exorbitant amounts of money until they are weeded out by an incredibly unfair and inaccessible program at large. Here I will present my reasoning in bullet points.

1. They pool an insane amount of money into getting applicants to accept their admittance into the program. They'll pay for all prospective students to come on an all-expense-paid-trip to NIU, complete with fancy dinner and a night out at the bar, to talk up the program. They wine and dine prospective students during this trip, all the while making promises that students will be paid a living wage if they come to NIU. Funding packages are promised to all prospective students on this trip.

2. By April 15th, per standard across the nation, students must commit to accepting admittance to a graduate program. Before this date, graduate programs are, again, by standard, supposed to have sent funding package offers to prospective students for them to accept or reject. NIU's physics graduate program did *not* contact me or several of my peers admitted alongside me about any funding packages by this date or for several weeks after this date. In my case, I had to accept my admittance (because no other offers were given to me) and then persistently send e-mail after e-mail asking about my funding package until I received a response that I would not be funded for the coming semester. Furthermore, it is important to note that, of everyone admitted in my enrollment period, only AMAB men were given funding packages. I and the two other women who were admitted were NOT.

3. Without this funding package, I was obligated to pay tuition, which is by standard waived for all graduate students. On top of this, I was obligated to pay exorbitant fees for "student health insurance" which did not actually cover me for any of my healthcare needs save for the immunizations I was required to get before starting classes. I was also left without income. I deferred for a year until I *was* offered a funding package, but my peers which were also denied funding packages toughed it out by working at Walmart on top of classes or begging around for a research grant, which is atypical of first years.

4. I and several other students were stripped of their funding suddenly, without justification (other than "we can't afford to fund everyone") for the Fall 2022 semester. However, those who retained their funding got raises. NIU's physics department can't afford to fund everyone, but can afford to give those they do fund raises?

5. The qualification exams to be accepted into research positions in the program are designed to be impossible to pass. In an investigation commenced by the forming Graduate Student Union, grading inconsistencies were found (between biological sexes, I might add), and Dr. Yasuo Ito is quoted to have said when asked for comment that the exams are designed to be difficult because NIU "accepts lower quality students." This suggests that the department has few intentions of allowing students into research positions in order to complete their degrees.

6. It is tangentially related but I will also touch upon mental health among the student body and how it is being addressed by the department here. So far as I know, a mental health survey has been conducted by the Union, and little has been done about the abysmal results. From my personal experience on this matter, I believe the faculty care little about the well being of their students. When I e-mailed Dr. Stephen Martin about a situation in which I was admitted to the ER for suicidal ideation (and that the homework might be late as a result), I recieved no response until a week later, with the cold question of when I would be turning in my homework. There is not much to say about that; the blatant disregard I was shown for my wellbeing speaks for itself.

In sum, I believe NIU's physics department has abhorrently low regard for its students and is interested only in recieving tuition and fees from the newly admitted by means of entrapment. There is little interest among the faculty in actually allowing their students to succeed. In my experience at NIU I have only ever once gotten the impression that the department cares about its student body, and that is when I was blatantly lied to about what would be offered to me by the establishment.

[ivyamory]

hi i’m back here for now. twitter is going under. i’m on Hive now which is neat but i want a place to find more visual content and fandom related content, and a place to blog about my thoughts and feelings too.

today i feel hopeful despite how abysmal my mental health has been lately. i feel like i can see a ray of hope maybe. it feels nice. i’m trying to revel in that feeling and talk about it.

[sobbing-space-trash]

Can I go just one day without crying? It's not even noon yet!

[imagining-in-the-margins]

Melancholia (S.R.)

Summary: Reader has been acting weird lately, so Spencer makes a much needed wellness check. A/N: The mental health problem is unidentified. Couple: Spencer Reid/GN!Reader Category: Comfort Content Warning: Depression, self-hatred, medication use (unidentified), Spencer "does" Reader's hair, but length and style is not identified Word Count: 3.3k

MASTERLIST

The clock on the wall hasn’t ticked in days, and as much as I wanted to say it was a metaphor for my current state of mind, I knew that it was only because the batteries died and I was too tired to change them.

Tired. More like lazy. Whatever word they’re using to describe the abysmal apathy that swallowed the space around me like an ever present shadow. It would only take a few minutes to remedy the problem — to drown out the ambient buzzing of the refrigerator filled with half-rotten food.

Lazy. More like ungrateful. Unwilling to recognize how lucky I am to even have a roof over my head. To have access to water and clothes just to avoid showering because my thoughts are amplified by the water.

The clock on the wall hasn’t ticked in days.

So why do I keep looking at it, expecting it to give me an answer to questions it was never designed to anticipate?

I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath in like I’ve always been told to do. But I couldn’t even do that right. I blew out the air too quickly and with quivering lips. I think I was trying to cry, but I couldn’t tell you why. No tears fell.

It was probably for the best, anyway. It was certainly a good representation of how I felt.

Empty. Empty like the apartment that I hadn’t left in time to see the sunlight in at least a week. Maybe two, but who’s counting anyway? My friends had long given up on contacting me when I get like this. They knew it was a fruitless effort. Unless they really would rather spend their little bit of free time playing babysitter and maid while I tried to get myself together.

It was best for me to be alone. Wallowing in self-pity until the options became so bleak that I had no other choice than to get up. Until something forced me from the indentation shaped like my unrecognizable body.

Something good. Something so unbelievably, impossibly wonderful that I might be able to believe that the world wasn’t all bad all the time.

Or, I don’t know, maybe just a stray cat batting at the window to say hello. Maybe that would be enough.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The sound that shook the dust of my mind was so in tune with my thoughts that I actually looked to the window first. But when there were no patting paws, I turned my attention to the much more sensible location: my front door.

When I found my way there on shaky legs, I paused. It was days like this I really wished that I had a peephole. But I didn’t, so I just stood there, weighing whether it was worth the gamble. There were only a few people who could be on the other side, and only a handful of them were people I cared about enough to pretend to be happy.

The rest were people I never wanted to see me like this.

“(Y/n)? It’s Spencer.”

Just like that, my heart leapt back to life from its hiding place somewhere in my stomach.

“Your neighbors told me you were home. Not like, in a creepy way, or anything. I just happened to pass them and they recognized me and mentioned you were home when I… You know, never mind. It doesn’t matter, but—“

The door swung opened and stopped his thought, replacing it with my own.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m sorry to surprise you, I just I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages,” he said. He spoke so quickly that his last words were muttered without a breath, “I wanted to see you.”

The two of us just stared at each other, lost and equally nervous judging by the way he wrung his hands together. And, despite how hard I tried, I couldn’t come up with any reason to kick him out.

Even though I knew I should. Even though I’d promised myself that he would be the last one to see me like this.

“Oh… Okay,” I muttered.

I took a step back and kicked the bag of trash that sat uselessly beside my door. It wasn’t its fault; it was just waiting to be taken out. But the walk down the hall to the trash chute felt a lot longer when I could barely make myself put on socks.

Spencer didn’t seem to mind, though. He took his time, stepping carefully as he meandered through the crowded, disastrous space.

“Sorry, it’s kind of a mess in here. And I don’t even have any makeup on or anything,” I mumbled.

It succeeded in dragging his eyes away from the mess of the room and back to the mess of me. Even just the cursory glances made my skin crawl. It wasn’t his fault, though. I had just forgotten what it felt like to be seen by something kind.

“That’s okay,” he said with a smile and a shrug, “I can handle mess.”

And no matter how badly I wanted to correct him, to explain that I was not like any other mess he’d ever seen before, I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not when his smile looked so heartbreakingly genuine. So perfectly out of place for my life.

So I didn’t correct him, but I did feel obligated to explain myself, albeit with a shitty explanation.

“It’s been tough lately with work and everything. My chores just… piled up.”

With one sweep of the room, he turned back with a slightly cautious, “Can I help?”

The kind of cautious that reminded me how much of a burden it was to be friends with me. The cautious that sounded a lot like disappointment and disgust. The cautious I’d spent most of my young adult life running away from. The kind that only had one right answer.

“No, it’s fine. I can do it myself.”

“But I’m here now. I can do stuff, too.”

He tried to make it sound like a joke, but all I heard was every person who’d ever resented me. His smile was still there, but my brain was too busy interpreting it as condescension to hear anything else.

“It’s not your job to take care of me,” I shot back, laced with poison and loathing that he didn’t deserve.

Having already witnessed what would happen if he made a joke, lovable, foolish Spencer countered with another.

“Says who?”

“Says me.”

His lips twisted into an unsure pucker at the reply. I could only imagine what he was considering while he was gone in his thoughts. He was probably weighing all of the options he had. Trying to decide if my venom was enough to abandon his pursuits altogether.

Whatever it was, he made up his mind a little too quickly for my liking.

“Fine,” he said, raising two hands in defeat while he stepped closer to the exit.

I couldn’t blame him. I would leave, too, if I was on the receiving end of my harsh words. It wasn’t worth it to dirty his hands when the problem had an obvious solution. It wasn’t up to him to convince me to be better; I should’ve done it on my own already.

I was just being stubborn. Lazy. Stupid.

But right when I thought he would leave, he took a step away from the door.

A step closer to me.

My whole body tensed at the proximity while simultaneously leaning towards him and seeking out even just the briefest touch. Anything to remind me that I was, in fact, still here and capable of being touched.

Still worthy of being touched by anything, much less something as pure as him.

Then, like he could read my mind, Spencer opened his arms.

“Can I at least get a hug for the road?” he asked.

He sounded so full of love and life that I wondered how I’d ever found someone so different from myself. Because there was just no getting around the way the sun shined brighter and the wind changed direction to have more of a chance to touch him.

Someone good. Too good for me.

But how could I say no when he wouldn’t put his arms down no matter how long I stared? How could I not when the alternative was to disappoint him even more than I already had?

“Fine,” I replied with the same amount of defeat as he had shown.

Still stuck on the thought that he was making a mistake in letting me touch him. Convinced that I would taint him with dread and destruction.

When his arms wrapped around me, though, it didn’t feel like pain. It didn’t feel like anything at first. His touch was so light that I almost didn’t register it. So, I waited a few seconds more before leaning into him, trying to find his heartbeat through his sweater.

Spencer pulled me closer, then, with his hands spreading over my back like he could feel how badly every inch of me craved his recognition. He didn’t stop, drawing comforting swirls and circles up my shoulders and neck until he got to the terrible, tangled mess of my hair.

He didn’t run his fingers through it, probably acutely aware of the sting that would accompany the movement, but he didn’t shy away completely. With one comforting palm, Spencer stroked the top of my head, using it as an excuse to guide my head closer until my ear was pressed against him.

From there I listened to the gentle thrum of a heart that felt tortured but strong. Tired but trying.

It sounded a lot like mine.

“That feels nice,” I mumbled, half hoping he wouldn’t hear. Afraid that an acknowledgment might make him stop.

My fears were justified, too, because that’s immediately what he did. His hands that held me so carefully pulled me away so that he could look me in the eye.

So I would see how excited he was when he asked, “Can I brush it?”

The thought alone made me wince, fully expecting him to be too harsh and too quick in his detangling. But he just looked so happy that I decided the pain would be worth it.

“If you want to,” I asked, careful to emphasize the word ‘want’.

But Spencer was already taking off towards the bathroom, expertly dodging all the obstacles in his path.

He did even better on the return trip, dragging me with him to the couch and tossing pillows on the ground for me to sit on. It was so chaotic and childlike and very unlike him that for just one second, I forgot that I was supposed to be sad.

And I laughed.

It sounded foreign and wrong and wonderful. It felt like gears turning for the first time after years of building up rust. But then it burned out, just like a candle in a vacuum using up the last of the oxygen for its own self-interest.

I didn’t talk while he worked. Instead, I stared out at all the things I needed to do. My own apartment felt so suffocating, like it was nothing but an endless list of chores that I would never accomplish. Not that it was extraordinary or unique— they were the same things everyone else had to do.

I was just lazy. Ungrateful. Stupid.

“Hey, I don’t mean to pry or anything it’s just…”

Spencer’s voice broke through the thoughts again like static on a record. It would’ve been a welcome distraction if not for the unease clear in his tone.

It seemed like he was waiting for a response, but my throat felt too tight to let any through. After a few more seconds of silence, he spoke again. Lowly, calmly, and careful.

“I saw your prescription bottle in the bathroom, and it looked… empty.”

The words spread through me like fire. My skin burned with blood that had been long settled. It was humiliating enough for him to have seen my bathroom, much less the scattered empty bottles evidencing just how horrible I was.

“Yeah, I meant to do that today, but I got busy,” I said with a laugh to disguise the lie.

Spencer didn’t mention it. He didn’t even ask any other clarifying questions.

Instead, he happily offered, “I can get it for you.”

“No, it’s fine, I can do it,” I urged just like before.

Except this time Spencer responded with an equally rigid resolve, “So can I.”

It was hard to be annoyed with him when his hands continued to work through knots with an impossible amount of tenderness considering the tangles.

In a way, I felt like his hands were a metaphor for his heart, which also worked with a precision and purity that seemed almost too good to be human.

“I don’t mind,” he whispered, sounding ashamed of the edge he’d taken before, “I need to go to the store anyway.”

“Okay…” I mumbled back, wondering if it was because I felt obligated or because I was worried any other answer would hurt him even more.

Interestingly, that thought started a dangerous precedent. Even after Spencer left, it carried me through my apartment with a renewed sense of purpose. I was burning through my to-do list, motivated only by the thought of making him proud.

And while I couldn’t tackle it all—not even close— I did push all the trash into more manageable piles. And at least one of those piles finally made it to the chute.

But still, that wasn’t the most impressive thing by far. That honor was reserved for my very first shower in at least a week. I was a little embarrassed by how excited the thought of him coming back made me.

Because really, it was pathetic, right? He shouldn’t be impressed because I finally took a few small steps to be a normal, functional human being.

It was my fault it got this bad. It wasn’t revolutionary that I got myself back up.

Just before I’d resigned myself to the misery I had just started to crawl away from, the sound of the key I’d lent him jiggling in a knob alerted me of Spencer’s return. I stood frozen in place like a deer in headlights, waiting for his reason.

“Oh! You showered!” he shouted. He scrambled to hold onto several bags while also shutting the door. Once he accomplished the latter, he continued, “That means I can do your hair again!”

I swore my heart stopped in response. It was the only logical reaction to seeing something so undeniably adorable.

“Let me just put these groceries away first!”

Then I remembered to be confused by the bags lining his arms. I rushed over to help him, but he had already made his way over to my now mostly-clear table.

“Groceries?”

He knew why I was asking. I wasn’t just stating the obvious; I was probing to see any sign of pity.

But surprisingly, I found none when he replied, “I hope you don’t mind. I thought it might be fun to cook us a meal and I got carried away.”

My confusion manifested as an automatic assent of “No, it’s fine.”

… which Spencer was more than happy to capitalize on.

“Great!” he called, already busy unpacking the items and working through the dishes I’d managed to clean.

Embarrassed, I ran over to clean the rest. But Spencer wasn’t ready to let me do it by myself. That seemed to be the trend of the day.

I wasn’t going to complain this time. Especially not when a task I was certain would take an hour was over in less than ten minutes.

The rest of the time was spent listening to him talk about the detailed history and botanical origin of each ingredient. And even though I grimaced and winced through the rambling, it was really only because I loved the way my dramatics made him giggle. His lips bounced between pouts and smiles the whole time.

Eventually, mine started to follow suit. My lips weren’t as quick as him to turn up, but they did. They slowly gained their ability to stretch and curve just like they had a lifetime ago.

Then I couldn’t stop smiling. I smiled until my cheeks hurt and then some. I kept it going past the point of indulgence.

I let myself feel guilty for feeling happy and then I kept doing it, anyway, purely out of spite.

It would have to end eventually. I knew that. But I enjoyed every second I had. Spencer and I spent hours just like that, moving trash piles and clothes. It felt so substantial. Like we were moving mountains rather than garbage. Everything felt that way with him.

Easier. Better. Fun.

When we found ourselves changing the sheets on my bed, we quickly realized we’d drained our reserves. Thankfully we had just enough to finish… and throw ourselves onto clean linen.

Spencer laughed as I wiggled underneath the sheets. The sound granted me enough confidence to drag him in with me.

He didn’t fight my hands. He let them guide him to the spot next to me. From there, he felt comfortable resting his hand on my hip.

“You must be tired,” he whispered like the sound might wake me further, “I get the feeling you haven’t had a good night of sleep in a while.”

With a pathetic, nervous chuckle I answered a very sarcastic, “What gave me away?”

But there was no need to be nervous. Not with him. That sweet, impossible man was just waiting for an excuse to pull my body against his.

“Well, let’s take a nap then,” he offered with a warmth in his voice that rivaled the heat radiating from his body.

It only took a few seconds before my eyelids felt too heavy to open. Still, I couldn’t rest. My brain was buzzing with thoughts that needed to come out one way or another. Whether it was with words or gestures, I had to share them. To free myself of the weight so that my heart could beat unencumbered again.

“Hey, Spencer?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks,” I whispered. And even though I heard the words crackling, I forced them out, anyway. Even when tears started to fall, I tried to say the things he deserved to hear. “Things have just been really hard lately and I just really appreciate—"

He needed to know how important this was to me. How much it meant that he came here, surely expecting better company, and took care of me. That he took it upon himself to make sure that I felt human again.

That idea did come out in a way, but it wasn’t with words. It was through choked sobs that soaked his shirt.

Sepncer didn’t shy away from the tears, though. If anything, he pulled me closer, hushing me with soft sounds murmured against my hair.

“Shhh, I know,” he whispered, “I’m here.”

For the first time in a long time, that statement felt honest.

But I still felt obligated to apologize for everything about me.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Spencer didn’t let the words go unnoticed like I’d hoped. He held me tighter, steeling his words to fight even the strongest self-doubt.

“Don’t be. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be than with you.”

He meant it to be comforting, but the thought was so ridiculous that I had to laugh. A scratchy, unusual sound that would take some getting used to again. I didn’t mind, though. Not when it made the tears feel lighter.

“You’re so weird,“ I muttered through it all.

Spencer returned the laughter wholeheartedly, and I thought to myself that it was ridiculous how much better I felt knowing that I could make him smile.

I knew it wouldn’t last forever; that pulling yourself out of a hole takes a lot of time and hard work (and in my case, the prescription I’d been missing). The happiness I felt in that moment was fleeting, but it was enough.

Enough to make me feel like I deserved to feel okay again.

To believe that I was, and always had been, enough.

“You’ll just have to get used to it, I guess,” he joked with his hands holding me as close as they could. It was because of that simple gesture that I knew he definitely wasn’t joking anymore when he whispered, “You’re stuck with me.”

And what a wonderful thing to be.

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