#my roommate is fine but he can get overwhelming sometimes and the dorm generally is never completely silent

[bnhaficsforthesoul]

BNHA College AU - Monoma

Major: Psychology

Minor: French

Sports: Soccer

Clubs: Debate

Neito feels the need to prove himself to everyone - he wants everyone to look at him and recognize how successful he is, mainly due to a childhood of everyone around him having very low expectations for him, so he wants to prove them wrong

Because of that, he’s forced himself into doing as much as possible - he studies in all his free time so that he can go into class and act like it’s easy and stay at the top of the class, he volunteers on some weekends at a local hospital, he’s on the soccer team and so he spends a lot of time at practices or games, and he joined the debate team to top it off

So basically, he has a full time schedule, and he is very tired. Not that he would ever admit it, he hides behind concoctions of coffee and energy drinks to make it appear like he’s fine

Even though most people tend to avoid him because of his “I’m so much better than all of you” attitude, no one can deny he isn’t amazing for pulling off everything he is. So far he hasn’t broke, so despite how tired he is, it seems to be working for him

The only people who really try and help him calm down are his roommate, Shinsou, and a friend from high school, Kendo - who are both very concerned about Neito, but he brushes them off saying that he’s fine

You’d think as a psych major he’d be able to understand that he needs to chill, but nope - his ego won’t let him

Now, you meet Neito in your Abnormal Psych class, when at the beginning of the semester your professor said that your only grade for the class is a project that you’ll be paired up for - and you ended up with Neito

At first you thought you were lucky, getting paired with the smart kid, but as soon as you two sat down together to talk about the project you quickly decided you weren’t so lucky

“Let’s just get this over with, I’ll do all the work, okay? I don’t want to fail because of you.”

Even though having him, who you already admitted was smart, do all the work sounded like a nice way to pass the class without doing any work, you weren’t gonna let him bad mouth you like that. He had no right to immediately decide that you were too dumb to even help out

“Well I don’t want to fail because of you, so I’ll take my half of the work, and you’ll take yours. I’m not putting my grade completely in your hands either.”

After a few seconds of glaring at each other, he dramatically rolled his eyes and sighed, “Fine, whatever, I’m picking what parts I want to do though.”

Truthfully he was happy you said that because he does not want to do a whole project by himself nor does he have the time to do so, but he doesn’t want to fail. So he’s just gonna hope that you’re smart

Throughout most of the project, you two just did your own work by yourselves - neither of you had any interest in working with the other

So other than the few times where he made sure to check in and go “are you actually working on the project?” you didn’t talk to him again until the day before the project was due when you met up in the library 

You both needed to make sure the other actually did their part and that your work would actually work fine together, and you weren’t surprised when Neito’s parts ended up being amazing work that would for sure get a high score. He was also very happy when he saw that your work was also amazing, he had worried a bit that he would have to redo a bunch of your stuff so he was glad he wouldn’t

But poor boy was exhausted, with everything that he has to do day by day on top of a huge project that he totally didn’t end up doing most of in the past week (the hypocrite) – and you could tell. Despite not knowing him well, you knew that Monoma tended to take a lot of pride in his appearance, so seeing him show up with dark circles under his eyes and messy hair was surprising

Even though he had been kinda rude to you before, you felt lowkey bad. He had obviously worked very hard on the project, and your grade depended on that. His did too of course, but still. So, you invited him out for coffee

“Seriously?”

You thought he was gonna make fun of you for asking, almost making you say nevermind, but the look on his face showed shock rather than humor, so you nodded your head, “yeah, you look tired. I’ll buy it, don’t worry. Just to celebrate us finishing this stupid project.”

He agreed, although he still looked kinda shocked, but maybe it was just because he was tired

So, you brought him to the nearest starbucks on campus, and you ordered your drinks – he got some fancy one with a lot of instructions, and once you got them you went back to the library cause there were a lot of people in the starbucks -  it is a college campus afterall

At first you both kinda just drank your coffee and went back to going over your project since you would have to present it tomorrow, but as the caffeine started kicking in Monoma started talking more and more about other things

Like he mentioned that he has to leave in about an hour cause he has soccer practice and so you were like oh youre on the soccer team?? How cool – and ofc, he’s not gonna miss a chance to brag about himself. So yes, he did talk about all of the cool things he does around campus, and despite how easily it could come off as annoying, he seemed like he was actually happy to be talking about it

However, you had to flaunt yourself too – so whenever you could you’d interject with a hard class you took or some volunteering or internship you’d done or your job, anything to show that you’re a hard worker too

And Neito liked that – you were fun. You were letting him talk about himself without getting annoyed, you were smart, you were nice, and you also were really hardworking

He totally didn’t go back to his dorm after practice and ramble to Shinsou about how awesome his project partner is

The next day, of course the presentation went great, no matter how you are at presenting Monoma is great at it and your actual project was really good so everything went perfect

You had pretty much that’d be it of you and Monoma, but at the end of class he came up to you with a proud grin on his face and asked if you wanted to come to his game this weekend

You weren’t busy or anything so you agreed, and lowkey you thought it be fun to see him playing. Even before you met him you knew this boy was pretty, and thinking about him running around playing made you a bit more flustered than you’d like to admit

So you went, and you followed Monoma’s instructions of where to go and all that, and soon the game started.

And your brain was right – he did look extra pretty like this. You couldn’t help but cheer for him as he scored goals, making him flash you a smile every time. Part of you wondered why you were doing this, you had only really known him for a few days altogether, and you disliked him for most of that, but you couldn’t deny you were having fun

Ofc, his team won, and you cheered like crazy. He came up to you after the game, ready to brag about how good he did, but you beat him to it, “You did so good Monoma!”

“I know, I know, thank you~”

Even though you should probably be the one treating him for winning, he said that he had to pay you back for the coffee the other day, and you went to get some fast food

Not healthy, but it’s a celebration, he’ll let himself eat badly sometimes

After that, you found yourself hanging out with him a lot more often, either studying or going to his games or whatever – you even ended up together in another psych class the next semester

Basically, you two had become best friends, and that was fine for a while, despite you thinking he was very pretty and had a gorgeous voice and you had started to respect him a lot

Well, it was fine for you – Neito had found himself falling deeper a lot sooner than you did. People generally don’t show him the time of day that you have, and he knows he wasn’t exactly the nicest to you when you first met but even so you not only defended yourself but were nice anyways

So yeah, long story short he loves you, he practically worships the ground you walk on tbh but he won’t ever admit that (at least not for a while)

It takes a lot of convincing from Shinsou and Kendo to even try asking you out, them saying “they’ve stuck around for this long, there’s a good chance they might like you too. Or at least I doubt they’d think it’s weird, if they can put up with you normally I’m sure they can handle this.”

So eventually, he did. Awkwardly knocking on your dorm room door one night dressed nicely, making you feel kinda weird when you answered in your pajamas, but he asked “y/n, would you like to go out with me tonight? As a date?”

Poor boy was trying so hard to sound confident but he wasn’t doing all that well, his voice coming out kinda wobbly. You were lowkey shocked when he said it but it was a pleasant surprise, no you had never really thought about dating monoma, but you were sure as hell willing to give it a try

So you said yes, asking him to give you a minute so that you could get equally as dressed up while your roommate helped you out, and soon you were on your way to wherever he was taking you

Of course it was a very fancy date, Monoma wanted to go all out for you, so it was a kind of overwhelming first date but you found yourself enjoying it greatly. He may have tried being all romantic and flirty, but there was still the goofy Monoma that you were used to under there

By the end of the date, there was no doubt about it, you liked him, so there were no objections when he asked if he could kiss you after walking you back to your dorm.

Once again, Monoma coming back to his dorm and rambling to Shinsou about how well the date went and how he even got a kiss! But Shinsou was happy for him

The next day he texted you to come meet him at the library where he officially asked you to date him, he wanted to do it there because that’s where you first became friends – how cute

Now Neito has another person constantly telling him to calm down, you support him in everything he does of course but when he’s tired you will make him stop studying so that he can nap with you

When he has matches you get to do that cheesy thing when after he wins he can run up to you and kiss you – its amazing, his teammates think it’s gross, but who cares

And you go to his debate competitions if youre allowed to, and hoo boy can he debate he always has the best arguments and everything you’re so proud like hell yeah that’s your annoying ass man

Neito is a French minor, and of course he’s gonna use that on you. He’s very good at French, like he picked it up quickly and he’s just got it down completely, so ofc he’s using that to flirt with you

But if you know French and use it back at him he will get very flustered (if you don’t know it maybe you should learn some just for this)

You guys go on so many fancy dates, not always expensive fancy dates, but things like you show up at a park and he set up a bunch of fairy lights and brought champagne or something

If you ever hang out at his dorm, which might be fairly often cause of how much he studies and all that, Shinsou will get annoyed by you two being cute

But he’ll also tell you a bunch of embarrassing stories about Neito so you love talking to him, Neito does not like it so much for that exact reason

he’s generally not big on pda but sometimes he’ll feel the need to make some big declaration of his love while you’re in public and you’re just like neito plz shut up - he’s romantic he cant help it

okay but you two have totally faked a proposal multiple times at a fancy restaurant or gone to bakeries saying you were engaged just so that you could get free food - but he makes the fake proposals so realistic that they lowkey make you tear up... imagine what he’ll be like when he does it for real

[jlalafics]

Prompt request 2! We’re studying in the library and there are two people very obviously fucking in the stacks and we keep sharing embarrassed glances

Here you go boo-boo! Enjoy!

 ________

Friday

Groaning, Katniss Everdeen packed her laptop in her bag and threw it over her shoulder. She couldn’t believe that she had mixed up her dates in her calendar. Not only was her Anatomy Practical due on Monday, but so was her analysis on Thoreau and transcendentalism.

She was usually very good at not messing up the calendar; it kept her on track and on time for graduating the upcoming spring.

So, what if she didn’t get to participate in the usual college activities? She didn’t need sorority sisters or keg parties. She didn’t need waking up in someone else’s dorm room after a night of meaningless sex.

She was on the Dean’s List.

That was pretty cool…right?

Johanna, her roommate, stepped into their dorm room. Wrapped in a towel and carrying her shower caddy, she nodded at Katniss before going to her closet.

“There’s a party going on upstairs,” she informed her as she rummaged through her clothes. “Do you want to come?”

“I’ve got two assignments due on Monday,” Katniss replied as she zipped up her bag.

Johanna shrugged. “Your loss. Hit me up if you decide to join and I’ll send you the dorm info.”

“Sure. Have a good time.” Katniss reached for her notebook. “Just don’t bring anyone back to the dorm, okay?”

“Hey! Someone has to get laid around here!”

“I know, but I hate having to give them the let-down talk after you take off,” Katniss retorted. “They look so bummed to be waking up to me and my flannel pajamas.”

“Fine.” Johanna gave her a smile. “Have fun at your favorite place in the world.”

She grinned back. “I will.”

++++++

The Panem Library was three floors of pure bliss for her. Katniss always sat on the second floor, right next to archives because no one ever really bothered to come up there. Here, she could commandeer a whole table, spread out her notes and arrange her highlighters. There was also an outlet for her laptop so she would never have to worry about it dying.

The second floor was mostly empty, and her usual table was free so quickly set everything up, notes to her left and writing paraphernalia to her right with her laptop plopped in the middle.

Finally sitting down, Katniss looked around to examine the other occupants of the second floor. There was an older man towards the far end of the floor in a cubby as well as one girl in the corner. Her eyes moved across her area and she almost yelped at who was sitting just a table apart from her.

He hadn’t been there while she was setting up!

He must’ve felt her stare because Peeta Mellark suddenly looked up from his own laptop to meet her eyes.

Then, he smirked. “Everdeen.”

“Mellark. What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded to know.

He had been a thorn in her side since they sat next to each other in General Anatomy—whenever he bothered to show up. When he did show, Peeta either spent his time trying to look at her notes or tugging at her braid.

The worse part was that when the exam grades were listed, he was always—besides herself—one of the top scores.

“I may not be married to my assignments like you are, but I do study,” he retorted.

Katniss nodded tersely. “Fine. Just try not to bother me.”

He glared. “You looked at me first!”

She looked down, hiding her blush. “Whatever.”

“Clever,” he mocked.

They went silent and with a deep breath, Katniss began to look over her notes about transcendentalism, losing herself in her scribble.

“Oh my God…yes…yes…”

Her head shot up at the thick moan and she looked around, seeing nothing out of the ordinary.

Her eyes went to Peeta, who was also looking around, two crimson spots on his cheeks.

He turned to her. “Tell me you heard that.”

Katniss waved it off. “Maybe someone is watching something on their laptop on the main floor.”

“Well, whatever they’re watching sounds pretty fucking dirty,” Peeta replied.

She found herself chuckling at his words.

Their eyes met for a quick second and she felt a rush of warmth at Peeta’s boyishly handsome smile. His ocean eyes held hers for a moment and her chest fluttered.

Katniss quickly looked down, overwhelmed by her reaction to his penetrating gaze.

Calm the hell down! Yes, Peeta Mellark is a good-looking guy, but there’s no need to get weird over him.

She made a grab for her next set of notes and took her yellow highlighter, uncapping it—

“That’s it…you feel so good…you’re going to make me co—"

The words were followed by a series of moans and grunts.

“Okay, someone is definitely fucking.” Peeta stood up, going to her table, and holding out his hand. “Let’s go.”

She peered up at him in confusion. “What?”

“We’re not going to get any work done if they don’t get the hell out of here,” Peeta told her. “So, we have to find them and let them know that they need to either wrap it up or get out before we alert the library managers.”

“I didn’t peg you as cockblock,” Katniss remarked.

Peeta grinned. “I didn’t peg you as a voyeur of sorts.”

“I just understand that sometimes it’s hard to find places to be alone,” she stated. He looked to her curiously as she stood, taking his offered hand.

Peeta pointed to the far left. “I heard it coming through the archives—that way.”

Katniss snorted. “Oh yeah. That’s just old research on minerals. Nobody is going to be coming around there.”

He smiled wickedly at her as they headed in that direction.

“Didn’t you hear the guy—obviously somebody’s going to be coming.” She laughed at his words and he turned back to her. “You have a nice laugh.”

“It’s a pretty normal laugh.”

“Well, maybe it’s because I don’t hear it that often,” he said as they headed down the corridor.

They went silent as they traveled along the shelves of dusty papers and weathered books. As they got further in, it started to get warmer and Katniss could feel the sweat build at the nape of her neck. She pulled at his hand to stopped them and he whipped around, swift as a ninja.

“It’s fucking warm,” she hissed. Quickly, she pulled her navy sweater, revealing her grey tank top, and took her the hair tie from her wrist to pull her thick, dark hair up into a top knot. “That’s better.”

Katniss looked up to find Peeta staring at her. His jaw was taut, and his usually light eyes were thunderous, her core suddenly throbbed as he reflexively licked his lips.

“What?”

The question came tightly from her mouth.

Peeta shook his head, pulling himself out of his reverie. “Nothing. You just look…different.”

“I suppose you see me as more asexual,” she replied as they continued down their path. Peeta grunted in response. “It’s probably because I’m not blonde and my tits don’t bounce when I walk—”

She was suddenly slammed against a bookshelf, dust flying at the sudden motion, and staring straight into Peeta’s electric eyes.

“Don’t presume to know how I see you,” he whispered against her mouth. “Trust me, sweetheart. You are sexy, and I’ve fought temptation when it comes to you, Katniss.” His nose went to her neck, inhaling deeply. “And for the record, your tits definitely bounce—I had to stop myself from yanking your top down and pulling one into my mouth while you were yammering.”

Katniss was acutely aware of the fire kindling between them—their mission forgotten—she wrestled with her need to be sensible and her need to reach down to feel…him.

Carefully, her lips went to his, pillowing his bottom lip between hers, dragging it slowly before pulling away.

The little motion filled her body with an ache so harsh that she almost fell to her knees, her core pulsed, and she could feel the wetness between her thighs.

This had never happened before—this hunger—but she wanted more.

Peeta breathed shakily, his hand reaching for the nape of her neck to press his forehead to hers. “Wow.”

Her mouth melted into a smile reflecting his own.

He looked at her shyly. “Do you want to…um…study…at my place? I have my own apartment; it’s quiet and much more comfortable.”

She laughed softly. “Why do you study at the library? You have a perfectly private place.”

“Because of you,” he told her. “I overheard your roommate once saying that you usually come here on Fridays. I thought if you saw me here that you’d take me a little more seriously.”

“Why would what I think matter?” she asked, her heart racing.

“I like you.” The words came out like a treasured wish. “Katniss, you have no idea of the effect you have on me.”

They both went silent at the declaration.

“Yes…yes…oh YES!”

The tension broke and they both burst into laughter.

“Well, I guess it’ll be much quieter now so you can study,” Peeta told her, his gaze traveling down disheartened.

She smiled to herself. When the hell did Peeta Mellark become so endearing to her?

“Okay.”

Peeta’s head shot up. “What?”

“Let’s go to your place,” she told him simply, tugging him back to their tables. “I hope you have snacks.”

He was flabbergasted. “Snacks…uh yeah…I can bake, too.”

“Oh good. I get hungry after a study session,” Katniss rattled on. “And after sex, of course.”

“What?”

She turned to him, an amused smile on her face.

“We’re not going to be like those two in the stacks, especially since we have perfectly good bed, right?” Peeta nodded. “Then, let’s go.”

She turned but was suddenly yanked back and into Peeta’s arms.

“Yes?”

“I’ve been wanting to do this since the beginning of the semester.”

Then, he kissed her.

++++++

Sunday

“Where have you been?” Johanna asked as she entered her dorm. “I feel like I haven’t seen you since Friday.”

Katniss put her bag down in a daze, thoughts on the man who had spent most of Saturday between her thighs.

She also got both her assignments done—a feat when she discovered how good Peeta was going down on her.

Katniss turned to her roommate, giving her a serene smile.

“I’ve just been…studying.”

FIN.

[wincore]

easy to love | na jaemin

pairing: jaemin x reader

words: 3.1k

prompt: animejaem sent: jaemin + organizing a valentine’s party together when reader has the BIGGEST crush on him 🥰

genre: college!au, friends-to-lovers!au, a whole lotta fluff

warnings: uhhh does pining count?

a/n: i’ll be posting the requests in between my larger projects !!

You think Valentine’s Day isn’t worth the hype. Simple things like chocolates and flowers are way more expensive than on literally any other day, the only movies on TV are the ones that make you gag, you can’t go out without feeling awkward and the holiday is just generally pointless. If you’re in love, why do you need a specific day to show your love, and why does it last for only a day? How do you even convert an act of love into material commodity? It doesn’t seem to have any personal meaning, neither does it seem to make a relationship any better. To conclude you are not terribly fond of Valentine’s Day, and your plans only ever consist of binge watching and consuming a higher amount of unhealthy snacks.

But sometimes you have an exception to not going out on this day, and that exception is Na Jaemin.

You wake up groggy to a text from Jaemin asking you to help him organize the Valentine’s Day gathering you have among friends (and ‘friends’ also include friends of your friends who will inevitably barge in and ultimately, the entire student body will be there) followed by a series of smile emojis and pleading eyes emojis. You’d make up an excuse to refuse, but it’s Jaemin—Jaemin, whose smile alone makes your cheeks red, who you can’t help but stare at during classes, whose voice, even if it’s over the phone, is enough to make your heart warm and jittery.

I’ll be there in an hour, you text him as your feet touch the cold ground beside your bed. You sigh deeply, placing your face in your hands and curse yourself. If it weren’t for your overwhelming affections, you could be enjoying a few more hours of sleep. Everything still feels hazy as you rub the sleep from your eyes and weigh the pros and cons of your decision. It’s far too early to walk to Jaemin’s place but clearly he doesn’t have any sense of time. And neither do you, apparently, as you walk sluggishly towards your washroom to get ready.

The cold breeze brushes your cheeks as you make your way towards Jaemin’s place, fortunately only a few minutes’ walk away. The clouds, painted with the colour of the night, follow your steps and you know that they’ll be a watery red soon, when the sun decides to peek its face into your corner of the world. The only times you notice these things are when you’re alone, or when Jaemin points them out to you. He’s more observant than people give him credit for and while you’re glad you’re the one who mostly gets to see that, you wish he’d share more with the world. In a city where summer is yet to come, you can only hope for the best as the usual thoughts plague your mind. Should you try spilling your feelings to Jaemin this Valentine’s? Maybe with some chocolates to further sweeten the bittersweet aftertaste they leave in your mouth?

Don’t ring the doorbell, Jaemin texts you when you’re standing outside his door.

You don’t have to wait long before the door swings open with more force than Jaemin probably anticipated as he cringes at the sudden ‘bang!’ and pulls you in wordlessly. He places a finger over his lips, lets out a soft ‘shh!’ and walks up the stairs, with you trailing behind him.

“I would’ve come over, but your roommates would freak out,” Jaemin whispers when you’re inside his room.

“Anyone would freak out if they spot someone knocking on their window in the middle of the night!”

“I didn’t mean to do that,” Jaemin grins, rubbing the back of his head.

The room is barely lit, but you can see his messy hair, the tip of his nose and the curved corner of his lips illuminated by the table lamp. He looks at you expectantly, as if waiting for some sort of response but you don’t know what he’s expecting. You don’t know the number of times you’ve found yourself in Jaemin’s presence when the stars are still shining bright in the night sky, but one of these nights made you realize where your emotions lie. The tempo of your heartbeat goes overboard if you look at him long enough, if you think about him long enough. That’s why you mostly resort yourself to acting as if nothing’s wrong, ignoring the unnecessary flow of thoughts and being a friend that didn’t make things awkward.

“Classes start in three hours,” you tell Jaemin, “Why couldn’t we discuss then?”

“Because there’s too many people then,” he complains, “And we barely have that many classes together.”

“So?”

Jaemin pouts. “So you don’t wanna help me?”

“Why should I, Na Jaemin?” your eyes crinkle as you lean back on his bed.

Jaemin hums, pretending to think. “Because of all the times I helped you skip class? Or because I give you my notes every time you ask?”

You sit back up, scrunching your eyebrows. Jaemin places a finger on his chin and continues his exaggerated acting.

“Also I helped you hide when you accidentally broke the window to the Dean’s office. Oh! Remember that time in high school when we first—”

“Okay, okay! I wasn’t actually asking for a descriptive essay,” you cut in.

Jaemin grins. You knew you’d listen to him from the moment you read his text, his winning smile means nothing to you.

“So what’s the plan?” you ask, tilting your head to one side.

“This year’s theme is,” Jaemin pauses to think. “Love yourself!”

You quirk an eyebrow. “Love yourself?”

“Yeah. It’s better for the kids who don’t feel loved or popular, you know?” he says. “Besides, I’m tired of couples making out wherever.”

“Okay, Mr. Class Rep. It’s all up to you,” you say, “But why do we have to plan at this ungodly hour and a day early?”

“They didn’t inform me earlier,” he frowns.

You narrow your eyes at him.

“And I had too much coffee so I couldn’t sleep, yeah.”

You smack your forehead.

“Jaemin, I warned you about your obsession so many times.”

Jaemin huffs. “We’re getting off course!”

“Jaemin—"

“There’s no time!” he presses.

“Fine. What do you want to do?”

Jaemin beams at you and you feel a soft drumming inside your chest. He starts to elaborate on his quick yet decent enough ideas for hosting the annual party ( “It can’t be worse than last year, Jaemin.” “Last year was Donghyuck’s fault. And Renjun’s.”) and while you’re planning a party which revolves around affections and love, you can’t get yours out in the open. It would be disastrous, no doubt.

You sleeping through your classes is entirely Jaemin’s fault. He promised he’ll make it up to you somehow, and you know he will because of the way he is. He’ll probably buy you ice-cream or take you to a café and while all that’s in good spirits, it makes you more frustrated, more annoyed at all the looks you get, all the assumptions that you wish were true.

“Why isn’t it in the dorms?” you ask Jaemin, following him into the student hall.

“Do you know how many people end up coming? It’ll be suffocating,” Jaemin says, his back turned to you.

“I mean, I’m not complaining,” you say, “But this hall looks creepy.”

“That’s why we have decorations!” Jaemin says, shoving a bunch of pink, golden and red streamers at you.

“Where- when did you even get these?” you ask, looking at the lively colours sprawled across your arms.

“Jeno bought them. Oh, and Renjun’s probably coming to help.”

“Okay.”

The occasion needs minimalistic decorations according to Jaemin (“Because love should be the main event!” “I’m not even going to tell you how dumb that sounds.”) and on the bright side, it reduces your physical workload. Jaemin rushes from corner to corner, your head following his movement as he gestures for you to give him the ribbons and garlands. The hall already looks a little brighter by the time you’re finished, all the little touches added by Jaemin standing out to you.

“I need those heart-shaped post-it notes,” Jaemin says, knitting his brows. His mouth is slightly parted and his eyes stare off into the distance as he looks like he’s processing all that he has to say. The sunlight that has snuck in plays on his cheeks and eyes and sometimes you wish you’d stop viewing him like that, like he’s a work of art. Sometimes you wish your miserable state of mind didn’t get any worse with each look, each word, each smile Jaemin gave you.

You end up telling Jaemin to make a shopping list and while he insists on going to the store himself, you tell him to sit there and wait for Jeno and Renjun.

You do the shopping, wanting to get out of the slow, smothering atmosphere, engulfed by your own leaking affections. You return not too long after, to see Jaemin leaning back on one of the chairs, his phone pressed to his cheek.

“What do you mean you’re not coming now?” his voice comes out in a low tone. “That’s not helping!”

Jaemin’s cheeks gradually turn pink at whatever the voice through the phone says. “No, you don’t understand. That won’t help!”

“Yes…I still get butterflies, Renjun- why are you laughing? It’s true- it’s not that cheesy!”

You think hard about Jaemin’s declaration, so much that you forget you’re holding a bag of stuff and almost trip into to the hall. Jaemin perks up at your sudden entrance and while you rub the back of your head sheepishly, Jaemin rushes to you and holds the bag.

“Turns out Renjun isn’t coming, after all,” he informs you.

“Oh, that’s okay.”

Jaemin adorns a broad smile as you try finishing up the extra details with him, and you don’t notice the soft looks he gives you every time you’re so focused, your tongue pokes out or when you try your hardest to scrutinise every corner of the hall.

“What’s this for?” you point at the stack of Valentine’s Day themed post-its in Jaemin’s hand.

“It’s for people to write what they love most about themselves. Or what they think is the best thing about them.”

“That’s nice,” you smile.

Jaemin takes out a pen to scribble something and sticks it on the wall beside you. You squint to read it (“My handwriting isn’t even that bad!”) but you only find your name written with a heart drawn beside it.

“Because you’re the best thing to ever happen to me,” Jaemin winks.

You hit your forehead against the back of your hand, and despite the cheesiness, your cheeks heat up at the look of glee Jaemin gives you.

Jaemin walks you home with the setting sun tracing your footsteps. You don’t speak all that much, like you do when you’re comfortable, but at moments like these, you wish you could hold his hand or do all the things you aren’t allowed. The shape of his lips change with each expression he makes, still rosy and looking soft despite how chapped they are, and his cheeks glow with a residual pink from running out of the hall and the honey in his eyes you get to see when faces you leave a sweet taste in your mouth. It’s difficult to not stare at Na Jaemin. Sometimes, you wonder how all his features came together to create something so incredibly lovely, something so Jaemin. When you reach, he thanks you, tells you to wear something pink, and runs back towards his own place after waving a quick goodbye.

You enter the party to find some additions by Jeno and Renjun like the fairy lights and a huge banner saying ‘Welcome!’ with a lot of unnecessary hearts. There’s also doodles which suspiciously resemble you and Jaemin which you wouldn’t have noticed unless Renjun specifically pointed them out to you. Oh, how you wish you could deck someone in the face in public.

It’s actually enjoyable being there, though. People did write the notes, you notice when you see the wall almost filled with fluttery pink notes, Jaemin’s one lost in the bunch. Most of the guests are engaged in their own little world or shoving snacks into their mouths—an accurate representation of what Valentine’s Day is like around the world. The place isn’t overwhelmingly pink, there are mostly different shades of it, sure, but they remind you of Jaemin and the effort he put in.

People have unanimously decided the dress code is pink and while you couldn’t find anything suitable in your wardrobe, you ended up with the pink beret Jaemin gave you for your birthday last year. Speaking of whom, you don’t see him anywhere for a good ten minutes after arriving, mostly following Renjun and Jeno around to help them set the chocolates at the snacks table, or eating said chocolates at the snacks table. Donghyuck makes a face at the old love songs playing as soon as he enters the hall and brings his phone to undoubtedly change it to some other weird playlist.

You find Jaemin in a pink corduroy jacket, surrounded by a bunch of people from uni, looking a little more than flustered. His hair looks soft albeit a little messy although he must have styled it before coming, and overall, his presence seems to be the core of the celebrations. He looks like an angel when he meets eyes with you, and the hearts your brain makes you see floating around him don’t help.

Jaemin excuses himself with a polite smile and jogs over to you, wreathed in smiles. You smile back and there’s an unexpected silence before either of you speak.

“You look cute,” Jaemin points to the pink beret.

“Th-thanks,” you manage to say through the sudden awkwardness.

Before Jaemin can say anything else, he’s pulled by the arm by some guy who points to a girl looking shy in the corner. You can already tell she’s going to confess her undying love for Jaemin and while you know he’s going to reject her with the sweetest no, you wish you had that kind of confidence too. If you tell him, would he laugh at you? Would he even grace you with his sweet ‘no’?

The ‘what if’s swirl around your head and you take a seat at the corner of the hall. Suddenly, all you see are people in love—people tucking flowers in their partners hair, or talking while holding each other’s hands, or showing affection in simple acts of kisses or hugs or feeding each other. They all have someone to belong to, someone to protect, to cherish, to experience things with.

“Hey.”

You look to your side to see Jaemin already sitting beside you, a curious look on his face. You push your feelings aside to shoot him a playful smile.

“Broke another heart, Jaemin?”

Jaemin’s cheeks turn as pink as the streamers and you almost instantly regret saying that.

“I felt bad,” he starts but trails off.

“I know,” you reassure him. Jaemin isn’t paying a whole lot of attention, though, and you think maybe you should tell him too. You should tell him that you’ve liked him since high school, when he found you hiding from your friends on your birthday to prevent getting caked in the face, you liked him when he offered to walk you home the first time, you liked him when he told you he’s relieved that you’re both going to the same college. You like him when he’s thinking quietly, you like him when he says something stupid to annoy you, and you feel like you’ll like him endlessly with every passing second you spend with him—every passing second that pronounces the voice of his existence.

“Jaemin.”

“Yes?”

“We’re friends, right? How would you feel about being more than friends?” you rush through your words, getting redder by the second. You’re not one subject to impulsive actions, but maybe, maybe Na Jaemin is an exception to this too. His lips are pressed into a thin line, pink with the chapstick you had bought him a long time ago.

“What?”

No. You’re not saying that again. If you have to, you’ll pretend this conversation never happened.

“You like me?” Jaemin freezes, his eyes scanning your face for a response.

“I- uh- yeah. Wow. That wasn’t how I was planning to tell you. I mean, there were chocolates in the initial plan.”

“Are you kidding me?” You flinch at the sudden rise of his tone. “We could have been going out all this time?!”

“Huh?”

“I wouldn’t have had to do all this.”

“What?”

“In my defence, this wasn’t my idea,” Jaemin makes a sour expression.

You didn’t expect planning for a party to be your friends’ grand idea to get you and Jaemin together, and you don’t know how that works either. While that was a total failure, the dawning realization that maybe you’re not spending this Valentine’s alone makes your heartbeat quicken and your face warm.

“Will you go to the café with me this Saturday?” Jaemin smiles the brightest of smiles at you.

“I’m not having your poison coffee.”

“You ruined a perfectly nice moment.”

You smile and lean forward to rest your forehead against his shoulder, both of you shaking with silent laughter.

“Let’s leave before Donghyuck shoots us another look,” Jaemin tells you, taking hold of your hand and glaring at the sudden change of music.

The skies are pretty (or are you saying that because you’re happy?) and even more so when the late afternoon paints it orange and pink.

“You’re mine? You’re really mine?” Jaemin asks when you’re outside the gates.

You nod as you try to process the words yourself, a slow red rising in your cheeks.

Jaemin smiles the warmest smile before leaning in to peck your cheek. It’s a simple gesture—couples do it often, but it leaves your cheeks burning red and hot more than ever. Calling yourself a couple doesn’t make it any better, neither does the way Jaemin looks at you, or his fingers playing with yours.

Jaemin leans in again, and right when you feel his breath on your lips, he pulls back, shaking his head. When you continue looking at him with doe eyes, he laughs.

“That’s for Saturday,” he says, “If I kiss you right now, I won’t be able to stop.”

There’s a lot to look forward to on Saturday, you think. Besides the fact that it’s a weekend, you’re going out with Jaemin, someone who you thought you’d never be able to ask out. Someone who makes your heart explode into stardust but someone who puts it at ease.

There’s a lot to look forward to on Saturday. Cheaper chocolates, your choice of coffee, Jaemin’s lips—all of them, at the top of your list of favourite things.

[sign-from-god-complex]

Understanding Pride

Summary: Logan was aware that his friends weren't exactly straight, but he didn't realise quite how out of his depth he was surrounding the topic of being gay until this exact moment.

Or, Logan learns something new about himself.

Pairing: Queerplatonic analogical, background royality

Warnings: Internalised aphobia (questionably), description of a panic attack, brief mention of dissociation.

A/N: An anon asked for queerplatonic lamp—which I will hopefully get around to writing soon cause that’s definitely the Good Shit—but hopefully this will tide you over until then! Also despite having an anxiety disorder, I’ve never had a panic attack before, so hopefully my description isn’t terrible (feel free to let me know if it is though).

AO3 Link

Logan came home to the dorm room that afternoon to complete chaos. There were poster boards lying on every single flat surface he could see, coloured card all over the floor and glitter seemed to be stuck to every bit of it all, and in the middle of this mess was his roommate and his two best friends.

Logan had been living with Roman for several months now, so he was used to coming home to find the dorm in various states of disarray—papers and props scattered across the desk or the entirety of Roman’s wardrobe taking residence on both of the beds—however, this was definitely a new one.

Patton had perked up at the sound of the door opening and had immediately started to bound his way over to Logan, almost slipping on card in the process.

"Logan! You're home!" Patton squealed, pulling Logan into a very glittery hug that he didn't return, "Great! Now you can help us!"

Pulling away from Patton's hug, Logan looked him up and down. Patton was wearing a shirt he'd likely designed himself, considering the myriad of what he felt in his bones must be puns covering it, a short, fluffy skirt and had a flag of some kind wrapped around his shoulders like a cape. Although Patton's usual attire was certainly... eccentric, this was even more so than that.

A quick glance at the room's other two occupants revealed that they were also wearing slightly unusual clothing. Roman was wearing a self-designed shirt similar to Patton's, though slightly more simple and organised, grey sweatpants and a different coloured flag wrapped around his shoulders; Virgil was wearing an oversized t-shirt with the words, "I'm too ace for this" on it, paired with a yellow beanie and a purple knee-length skirt.

Quite honestly, the fact that Virgil was wearing colour was perhaps the most alarming part of the situation.

"Help you with what?" he finally asked, having given up trying to guess what in the world they were doing.

Patton giggled. "With making stuff for Pride tomorrow, silly!"

He tugged Logan's hand until they were seated opposite the other two, a big poster board in between them with "I'm punsexual" written on it and subsequently also covered in glitter. He hated to admit it, but Logan was completely and utterly lost.

He squinted slightly. "Pride?"

The three of them stared at him in shock.

"Yeah, Logan..." Roman replied, tone indicating that Logan had missed something fairly obvious and important. He hated that tone. "Pride. You know? Happens once a year? All us gays get together and throw a big party-"

Patton cut in, "-And remember all the struggles it took us to get to this point-"

"-And spend far too much money on gay merch, cause capitalism," Virgil finished.

They all looked at him searchingly. Logan was aware that his friends weren't exactly straight—I mean, Roman and Patton were dating, so clearly they couldn't be straight—but he didn't realise quite how out of his depth he was surrounding the topic of being gay until this exact moment.

Logan had grown up in a fairly conservative town, and though he wouldn't say they were necessarily against people being gay, he certainly wouldn't have imagined anyone would feel safe enough to come out if they were. So, all in all, his upbringing was pretty straight (in more ways than one).

He cleared his throat. "Right, yes, well that does sound... vaguely familiar I suppose," he lied, "What would you want me to-"

"Logan?" Patton interrupted. He was looking at Logan with confused yet amused interest. It was a very uncharacteristic look for Patton, and it made Logan feel slightly uncomfortable. "Are you straight?"

The question caught Logan off guard and he answered before he could really think it through.

"I mean... yes?"

Patton screwed up his face slightly. "You don't sound sure."

That's ridiculous, of course he was sure. Wasn't he? Really, growing up the way he did, he never thought there was any kind of other option, and by the time he’d realised there was, he was already sure enough that he was straight that he didn't consider it. And anyway, he didn't like boys like that. He didn't really like girls like that either, but that was neither here nor there. He just hadn't found the right one yet, he was sure.

"I suppose I never really thought about it," he replied slowly, "I just kind of... assumed I was."

The other three exchanged looks. There seemed to be some sort of silent conversation going on between them that Logan couldn't quite understand. He was about to ask them to just talk to him already when Virgil turned to look at him.

"So how do you feel about boys?"

Logan blinked. "Uh, boys are... fine, I suppose."

"How do you feel about girls?"

Virgil was leaning towards him, the look on his face slightly more intense than Logan would have preferred. His brain felt like it was running 100 miles a minute and yet it wasn't going anywhere at all, stuck in a loop of quick-fire questions and feelings he didn't understand. This conversation was overwhelming at best and quite honestly, he wished they weren't having it.

"They're also fine, look-"

"Okay, but 'fine' like, 'oooh, damn, you're looking fine' or 'fine' as in the waiter just gave you Pepsi instead of Coke and you're trying to be polite?"

Logan stared at Roman, trying to comprehend the words that had just come out of his mouth.

"I- um," Logan stuttered, "The... uhh-"

Logan quite honestly felt ready to defenestrate himself to escape this conversation, and Patton clearly decided to take pity on him, as he turned to Logan and put a hand lightly on his upper arm. Though Logan wasn’t normally one to appreciate physical contact, Patton's hand was at least giving him something to focus on besides his swirling thoughts.

"Logan, you like researching stuff, right?" Patton asked, smiling softly, "Learning new things?"

Logan nodded, confident in an answer for the first time since this conversation began.

"Okay, so how about instead of bombarding you with questions—" Patton sent a semi-stern glare at the other two, who had the decency to look a little bit sheepish—"We give you a list of some terms and stuff and you can look it up yourself, yeah?"

Logan exhaled, letting out a breath he hadn't even realised he'd been holding. "I think that would be preferable, Patton, yes."

He stood up quickly, attempting to brush away the glitter that had stuck to every inch of his jeans the moment he sat down, before turning to grab his bag from by the door where he’d dropped it. He needed some space to think. As much as he appreciated his friends’ company, their emotions could certainly be… overpowering at times, and he needed a bit of distance from that.

“I’m going to the library,” he said, addressing his friends, their faces displaying their disappointment, “I have a paper I need to finish.”

That was a lie, of course. He’d finished all his coursework for the next 2 weeks and they all probably knew that, having been subjected to his insistent studying habits for the past couple of months. Roman especially—a surprisingly light sleeper, he’d been woken up several times by Logan muttering something or other about how bullshit magnetic fields were or how the reclassification of Pluto was one of the biggest mistakes of the scientific community (that one actually wasn’t class-related, Logan just had strong feelings about Pluto). To their credit though, none of them called him out on it, just nodding their heads and wishing him good luck with his study.

Just before pulling the door closed behind him, Logan turned around and said, “Text me that list. I’m sure I can make some time to check things out.”

He barely caught the wide grins of his friends before he shut the door and started his way over to the library.

//////////////////

Logan fell into a seat at his usual table, taking off his glasses for a moment before rubbing his hand over his face, sighing.

He liked the library. Libraries were one of the few places left in the world where you could truly just exist without anything being expected of you. You didn’t have to pay to stay, you weren’t forced into unwanted conversation, you could read or work or simply breathe without having to worry about being yelled at or infringing upon anybody else. Truly, it was one of the best places you could be.

Plus, it was quiet—a fact that Logan normally appreciated, but right now was proving to be more of a hindrance, as quite honestly, he was on the verge of screaming.

Self-reflection was not Logan’s style. He preferred not having to think too hard about his preferences, generally they proved to be less than important anyway and the effort that it took to try and untangle his emotions really wasn’t worth the payout. Clearly, though, this was something he’d been putting off for a long time, even if he hadn’t necessarily realised he had been. It was about time he thought about it.

Patton’s text had come through sometime on Logan’s walk over, so he grabbed out his phone to take a look.

Patton: Here’s the list, Lo! We added our own labels in there as a little coming out to you, since we realised we never did it officially!! 💖🧡💛💚💙💜

Sexuality stuff:

LGBTQIA+

Gay/Lesbian — you probably already know this one, but just in case :) (gay is also what Ro goes by! just cause it’s easier ~ Patton)

Bisexual/pansexual (this one’s mine!! I prefer pansexual over bisexual!!! ~ Patton)

Asexual (me ~ V)

(you should also look into the difference between a romantic orientation and a sexual orientation ~ V)

(oh and asexuality is a spectrum, so probably look into some of the other a-spec identities too, demisexuality, gray-asexuality, etc. ~ V)

(and probably look into sex repulsion too and all that. there’s a lot to this, sry. ~ V)

Aromantic (all the previous stuff applies to this too, aromanticism is a spectrum, romance-repulsion, all that ~ V)

Gender stuff:

Binary transgender (which I am! ~ Roman)

Cisgender

Nonbinary (which me and Virgil are!! ~ Patton) and gender neutral/nontraditional pronouns

(there are more specific nonbinary identities though ~ V)

Agender

Genderqueer

Genderfluid (Patton. she mostly uses he/him or she/her pronouns, depending on the day. me and Roman usually feel it out, or if we’re unsure, just ask. ~ V)

Bigender

Pangender

Demiboy/girl (me. usually he/him is fine. ill let you know when it’s not. ~ V)

We know this is a lot, so if you have any questions, we’re here!!!

Logan read through the list a couple of times, before pulling out his laptop and opening up google. This was going to take a while.

He started out with ‘gay/lesbian’. He was already fairly certain he knew what it meant, however, he figured going in sequential order would result in the least amount of confusion from skipping over things he should have known. He found a website fairly quickly which outlined the definitions of gay/lesbian and bisexual, even including a description of transgender and gender identity. He glared slightly at an unfamiliar word, before shooting a text over to Roman.

Logan: Roman, do you identify with the words, ‘transsexual’ or ‘transvestite’?

He continued reading through the website as he waited for a reply. It was only a couple of minutes before his phone buzzed on the table next to him.

Roman: uhh, no 😂 those terms are all pretty outdated. there might be some trans people who still use the word transsexual, but transvestite is generally seen as a,,, negative term. at least, if someone called me a transvestite I wouldn’t take it in a positive way.

Logan frowned before closing his tab. Clearly, the website wasn’t up to date.

In his search to find a description of pansexuality, Logan stumbled on another website with a list of terms, this one seeming considerably more reliable. He skimmed over the definition of pansexuality, getting a general grip on the term before he decided to text Patton.

Logan: Patton, why do you prefer the label pansexual over bisexual? I am to understand they are largely the same thing.

Patton: They are!! Really, it’s a matter of just what you /like/ to use more than anything I think! Some people say bisexuality is transphobic, cause it doesn’t clearly include nonbinary genders in its definition, but I don’t think that's fair! I have tons of bisexual, nonbinary friends! Well, okay, I have two, but still!!!

Logan nodded to himself absentmindedly. He’d heard of homophobia, so he assumed transphobia was a similar concept, but against transgender, or trans, people as opposed to gay ones. He’d yet to reach a definition of nonbinary but based on context clues he could take a guess at what it meant.

Another text came through from Patton.

Patton: Plus, there’s way more fun puns with pun-sexuality 😜

Logan put his phone away.

After finishing reading the pansexuality description, he opened up the tab of definitions and scrolled through, quickly coming upon asexuality, the next on the list.

“Asexual: A person who generally does not feel sexual attraction or desire to any group of people. Asexuality is not the same as celibacy. Click here for dedicated page.”

Logan blinked. Not… having sexual feelings towards anyone? That was an option?

He considered sending a text to Virgil, but he wasn’t really sure what he wanted to ask. Instead, he opened up the ‘dedicated page’ and began to read.

“Some asexual people are happier on their own, others are happiest with a group of close friends… free of sexual expectations we can form relationships in ways that are grounded in our individual needs and desires… Many asexual people experience attraction, but feel no need to act out that attraction sexually. Instead they feel a desire to get to know someone, to get close to them in whatever way works best for them.”

Oh.

Logan shut the lid of his laptop, trying to breathe as steadily as possible. He grabbed out his phone and texted Virgil a very uneloquent:

Logan: Asexuality is an option? That’s something you can be?

He realised that his text was quite ambiguous and likely very confusing, but luckily enough, Virgil seemed to understand what he meant.

Virgil: yeah, dude, i know. look at aromanticism next, yeah? Virgil: and, uh,,, maybe look into queerplatonic relationships? idk, that might be something that youd want to know about,,,,

Logan was about to turn back to his laptop and do exactly that when his phone buzzed again in his hand. He unlocked it to find another text from Virgil.

Virgil: oh and um, sorry abt earlier. got a lil intense there.

He smiled before sending back a reply.

Logan: It’s already forgiven.

The website Logan was on didn’t seem to have a definition of aromanticism, so after briefly reading over the other descriptions, Logan turned back to google. After scrolling through some links relating to an album of sorts, Logan opened up a website called aromantics wiki and began to read.

“An aromantic is someone who does not experience romantic attraction.”

Logan felt slightly like someone had just punched him in the stomach. He read over the definition again, and then again, his brain not quite comprehending how this one sentence held as much importance as it did.

Aromantic.

He wasn’t waiting for the right one. He wasn’t strange to not feel romantic attraction. He was aromantic.

Romance had always been pushed on him by his family. It was something he understood—he was the youngest of 3 siblings, both his older brothers having already found wives by the time they were in their late 20’s; his parents expected the same of him—but it certainly wasn’t something he had ever enjoyed.

When he was young he had a best friend called Kara, who was a girl. They’d met on the playground and had bonded over their mutual love of solitude. They both appreciated being able to spend time together without having to worry about socialising. Occasionally they’d talk about school or debate how likely it was that there was life on other planets because they were things they enjoyed discussing, but mostly they swung together or made sandcastles, movements synchronised without even trying. Their relationship had been close, but it had been simple.

And then everyone else ruined it.

When Logan came home from spending time at Kara’s house, his Dad would ask him if he had a good time with his girlfriend. Logan would frown and tell him Kara wasn’t his girlfriend. His Dad would ruffle his hair and laugh, saying, “Sure, buddy”. Logan would be confused as to why he didn’t believe him.

Logan’s brothers would seek the two of them out during lunch at school, taunting them and laughing about how “Logan has a crush! Logan has a crush!” until Kara would grab his hand to pull him away, his brothers’ oooh’s echoing in his ears. He’d hold hands with his mom too, he wouldn’t understand why it was a big deal.

Logan would lay awake at night, questioning his feelings. Did he like Kara? He liked spending time with her. He wanted to make her happy and he liked seeing her smile. He didn’t think he got butterflies around her (and really, he didn’t understand that term anyway; how would butterflies end up in your stomach?) but his parents said it was different for everyone, so maybe he just didn’t realise. He must like her, everyone said he did.

So Logan told her he liked her. And that was the last playdate they ever had together.

He hadn’t realised he was crying until he looked down to see tears splashed on his computer keys. One of the librarians, Ms Miles, had made her way over to Logan’s table and was watching him with a worried expression.

“Logan, sweetheart, are you alright?” she said, dropping the stack of books she was holding onto the other side of the table. She looked kind of shocked to see such a display of emotion from someone usually so stoic.

Logan knew the librarians, Ms Miles, Mrs Carroll and Cathy, quite well. He often volunteered to help shelve books or issue items on days where he wasn’t busy, but still wanted something to do. He’d even collaborated on some displays and events with them when they were asking for help from students, and Cathy had a running list of books she was recommending Logan every time he came in, leading to some truly excellent finds.

Logan wiped at his eyes hastily before sliding his laptop into his bag and standing up from the table.

“Yes, Ms Miles, I’m fine,” Logan lied—his entire world view had just shifted, he was far from fine—“I just remembered something upsetting, but it’s a long time past, really. I’m just going to go back to my dorm now.”

Ms Miles nodded cautiously.

“If you’re sure, Logan,” she said, sweeping up the books she’d put on the table and turning around to begin shelving.

Logan took a shaky breath before grabbing his phone out of his pocket and sending Virgil another text.

Logan: Meet me at the greenhouse. ASAP.

Logan felt his phone buzz almost immediately but didn’t check the reply, instead replacing his cell phone back in his pocket and heading off in the direction of the drama rooms.

Virgil and Logan had an unspoken agreement of sorts. The two of them understood each other very well, having similar natures—usually quiet and more in need of solitude than their two extroverted friends. Time spent with Virgil was generally peaceful and free of societal expectations. They were able to exist near each other without fear of having to socialise, and so they often sought each other out when spoons were low or when they simply needed a bit of quiet company.

Yes, often Virgil needed to be calmed due to his excessive worrying, but Logan was more than happy to do so, providing him with facts and whole truths until Virgil felt slightly more in control. Logan had never been good at comforting people—mindless platitudes and social niceties escaped his realm of understanding—but Virgil didn’t need that. He knew it was bullshit as much as Logan did.

In return, Virgil would keep an eye on Logan. It was subtle at first, but over time grew to Virgil outright ordering him to take care of himself, showing up at his room at all hours of the night, virtually forcing him into bed. Logan would complain as it was happening, but he’d wake up in the morning feeling warmer, ready to tackle whatever had kept him up so late with a more relaxed perspective. Truly, Virgil was an excellent friend.

If Logan thought too hard about it, which he tried his best not to, he reminded him of Kara.

Logan arrived at the greenhouse. It was abandoned, as it always seemed to be. The inside of the glass was coated in dirt, though not enough that you couldn’t see the knocked over plant pots and bags of dirt piled in the corners. Logan had hypothesised to Virgil that the greenhouse must have been used by the botany students once, though it had been in disuse for the entire time Logan and Virgil had known of it.

He took a seat on the ground, leaning against the warm glass. He expected it to be a couple more minutes before Virgil arrived—when comparing the distance between the library and his dorm—so Logan tried to take deep steadying breaths as he waited.

The first time Logan and Virgil had seen the greenhouse was within the first few months of knowing each other. They’d been lightly discussing the merits of social media as they wandered towards their next classes, both giving opposing arguments to what the other said, but always to prompt more discussion rather than as a result of their own beliefs. At least, they’d thought they were wandering towards their next classes. Unfortunately, however, they’d fallen prey to that trope of each of them thinking the other was leading the way, and so instead they ended up somewhere entirely different.

That somewhere different had been the greenhouse.

It had piqued Virgil’s interest almost immediately, always looking for more private places within the school grounds. Having an anxiety disorder in a place so public as a university campus could prove to be a bit difficult sometimes, Virgil had mentioned, and having somewhere he could go when he was feeling overwhelmed and needed to be alone was extremely important to him.

Upon closer inspection, Logan had concluded that the greenhouse hadn’t been used in quite some time. Not only was the area generally overgrown and unkempt—as opposed to the rest of the school, which had the grass cut regularly—but the padlock that hung on the door was rusted shut. Logan didn’t think that anyone could get in if they wanted to.

They’d scoped it out for a time, coming back every so often to check that no one was hanging around there during their breaks or anything, but it remained empty.

Weeks later Logan had witnessed Virgil have a panic attack for the first time. He’d texted Logan while he was studying at the library, telling him to come to the greenhouse. Logan hadn’t really thought anything of it—Virgil likely just wanted a bit of company—so when he arrived to one of his best friends crying and hyperventilating, he’d been a bit taken aback.

It hadn’t gone excellently for either of them. Logan had never seen anyone have a panic attack before so the first 5 or so minutes had been filled with a rather concerned Logan trying to get Virgil to tell him what he was supposed to be doing. In the end, Logan had realised he needed to get Virgil to breathe and had guided him through it a few times, Virgil eventually reaching a point where he was okay enough to explain.

Logan had learnt a lot about anxiety disorders since then. He’d gone back to the empty dorm almost immediately after Virgil had returned to class and researched into it as much as he could. He knew which breathing patterns to implement and he knew which grounding exercises to use, but that didn’t make it all that much easier to do when he, himself, was spiralling into a state of alarm.

He was going to end up living the rest of his life by himself without anyone to be there for him. All his friends were going to pair up, were going to fall in love and move away and he would remain—the leftovers nobody wanted.

He was never going to fall in love. He was never going to have that perfect life his family expected of him. He was going to end up alone forever and he didn’t want to be alone.

He wondered absently if maybe Virgil wasn’t going to come at all. Maybe Logan would die here, unable to breathe as a crushing weight sat on top of his chest.

Luckily, Virgil decided now was a good time to show up. Logan didn’t notice Virgil first arrive—his head pressed against his knees, arms braced on either side—but he did notice as Virgil took a seat next to him, his calming voice floating through Logan’s panicked haze.

“Come on, Lo, you know the breathing techniques, right?” Logan heard him say, “You just gotta breathe with me.”

Logan listened as he began to count, trying his best to breathe in time and focus on Virgil, only Virgil, nothing else. It was actually easier than he thought it would be to block everything out, just listening to Virgil’s counting and slow, steady breaths. It almost made him feel like he was floating, his body left behind as his mind latched on to Virgil’s words, wrapping itself up in them like they were a blanket on a cold winter’s day.

By the time Logan had calmed down, he was exhausted.

His body was sore; tense muscles unclenching, shoulders dropping and chest expanding as he breathed. He tried to focus on staying calm and not on the lingering panic buried in the back of his mind.

“Well, that was absolutely awful,” Logan said, voice much more hoarse than he’d expected it to be, “How do you do that all the time?”

Virgil chuckled, though Logan could tell he was worried. “Well, yeah. It’s not like I choose to.”

Logan hummed noncommittally.

Virgil carefully kept his distance, knowing Logan’s general distaste for physical contact, but right now all Logan wanted to do is crawl into Virgil’s lap and take a nap, maybe have Virgil run his hand through Logan’s hair. Fuck, he must be tired if he’s thinking like that.

Virgil must have been able to sense Logan’s wish for a hug somehow though, because he opened his arms in an offer and Logan barely hesitated before diving in and wrapping his arms around him. Virgil was warm and soft and safe. His grip was offering the perfect amount of pressure where he felt secure, but not trapped. Distantly, Logan realised he was crying again. Not sobbing, more like tears leaking out without his permission and damn, he was going to get dehydrated at this rate.

“I’m sorry,” Logan mumbled into the fabric of Virgil’s hoodie, “I don’t mean to be so emotional, I just-”

“You have nothing to apologise for,” Virgil interrupted, “Figuring things out about yourself is overwhelming. God knows I was a mess when I realised I was ace, or when I realised I was nonbinary, or, heck, even just realising I liked boys was a whole lot to deal with.”

“Overwhelming is definitely a word for it, yes.” Logan laughed wetly. “It just feels like suddenly I have so much more to worry about than I did yesterday.”

Virgil unwrapped his arms from around Logan to tilt his chin up. His expression was affectionate and kind.

“But you have a community now, yeah?” he said, voice soft, “You don’t have to do this alone.”

Logan barely gave himself a second to think before he was leaning up and pressing a kiss to Virgil’s cheek. Virgil spluttered for about a full five seconds, his face going bright red. Logan pulled away, unable to contain his laughter.

“What…” Virgil trailed off, expression completely baffled, “What was that?”

Logan, amusement dying down, pulled away to instead take position with his head on Virgil’s lap. It wasn’t nearly as comfortable as he had hoped it was going to be, but he was too tired to move now.

“It just felt like the right thing to do.”

“Acting on instinct? Who are you and what have you done with Logan?” Virgil joked, but his face was bright.

Virgil moved his legs slightly and Logan shifted with him and, yes, this was much better. They lay there for a moment, enjoying the stillness. Virgil’s hand had drifted to his hair and after some hesitance from Virgil and a small whine from Logan as he tried to pull away, he had taken to playing with it absentmindedly, his hand stroking through Logan’s dark curls. Another point to Logan for getting what he wanted without having to explicitly ask for it.

Logan had just about drifted off, warm sun beating down on him, when Virgil’s voice cut through the silence.

“Did you, uh, manage to look into queerplatonic relationships… by any chance?"

Logan opened his eyes. Virgil had gone tense underneath him and he frowned. He didn’t understand why this topic was distressing to Virgil, but he tried to assuage his fear nonetheless.

“Virgil I assure you, there’s no need to be anxious about this.” Virgil gave him a small smile, half self-deprecating and half soft and appreciative. “But as it stands, no, I did not get a chance to look into it. Would you like to tell me about it? I promise I will try my best not to fall asleep.”

Logan let his eyes fall shut again as Virgil laughed.

“Uh, yeah, sure,” he said lamely, “Basically it’s like a regular friendship, but more? Like, uh, you might do things with your queerplatonic partner that you might not with just a friend, like cuddle or uh, I don’t know, emotional intimacy stuff, talking about your hopes and dreams or whatever. And it has the same commitment level as a romantic relationship, like, you might stay together for the rest of your lives kind of thing, but it’s all platonic. You love each other but, like… platonically.”

Logan opened his eyes again to see Virgil staring off into the distance, biting his lip. Absently, Logan thought that he should get Virgil one of those chewy necklaces he’d seen online—the bat one seemed like a good choice; matched his dark aesthetic. On a more concrete level, Logan suddenly understood why Virgil had been so tense.

“Oh,” Logan blinked a few times. “Is that what this is?”

Virgil’s gaze flicked over to Logan immediately, eyes widening.

“I mean, it doesn’t have to be! We can just be friends, there’s seriously no pressure to-”

“Virgil?” Logan interrupted, watching as Virgil winced slightly.

“Yeah?”

Logan examined the face above him for a moment. Virgil was the person he trusted more than anyone else he knew. Virgil was the person who was always there when he needed someone to talk him down from whatever frenzy he had managed to get into. Virgil was an intelligent debate partner, an ever-calming presence and his best friend.

Really, how could there have been any question?

Logan gave a soft smile, “I’d like that.”

Virgil’s answering grin was blinding. Logan couldn’t help but smile brighter in return, his chest warm.

He felt protected here with Virgil. Protected from all the worries he’d previously had, protected from the harshness of the outside world that may not understand them, protected from his own insecurities. He knew Virgil loved him—really he thinks he always knew—and Logan loved him in return.

Virgil was there for him; he didn’t need to be alone.

So, of course, he could not let this moment last.

Logan put on a fake innocent look, channelling all the acting skills he must have gained by proxy from living with Roman.

“Does this mean I get to kiss you on the cheek more frequently?”

Virgil snorted, his face scrunching up as he pushed Logan off of his lap and onto the ground. Logan laughed as Virgil stood up, brushing the dirt off of the back of his skirt.

“I’m gonna get you back for that one day, you know that, right?” Virgil was scowling but Logan could tell he didn’t really mean anything by it.

Logan smiled up at him.

“I have full faith that you will.”

[gillianfoster]

hey @basinhounds help me out here

Sometimes Eddie felt like whoever assigned roommates in his dorm had a real fucking sense of humor - or at least they must have thought they did. Assigning him to live with Richie Tozier was practically halfway to a sitcom just by the nature of it all. Richie left his shit everywhere, and Eddie got too anxious to function if he let his clothes get that wrinkled or his things get that... Everywhere. It practically looked like there was a tape line divider down the middle of their room, just because Richie knew better than to let his mess cross into Eddie’s section of the room. They bickered like an old married couple over everything from pizza toppings to attractive actors. By all accounts, they should have hated each other.

Except it turned out they liked a lot the same music, and mostly the same movies, and that they actually liked each other, a lot, under all the arguing. Richie had ended up being Eddie’s best friend, really - which only added to how ridiculous it all was from Eddie’s perspective.

Part of this was the fact that Eddie was, frankly, too gay to function, and Richie fit Eddie’s list of ideal boyfriend characteristics pretty much to a T. He was tall and funny (not that Eddie would ever tell him that to his face), he had dark curly hair and big thick-rimmed glasses, and he was sort of an amateur musician. Every time Eddie found out something else about him, caught him painting his nails for fun or wearing some ridiculous vintage t-shirt with a shitty pun, he was overwhelmed again by how unbelievably stereotypically hard he’d fallen for his shitty college roommate. It wasn’t even like Richie was necessarily straight - Eddie was pretty sure he was bi - it was just that he was also pretty sure Richie would never even consider dating him.

The real problem was that Richie should have been an asshole, by all accounts - but he wasn’t. Eddie had seen him bend down to pet any dog that crossed his path. He saw the twitch of insecurity in Richie’s smile whenever he told a joke and waited for someone to laugh, or when he played a song on his guitar for the first time.

Richie Tozier was, in all his imperfections, practically perfect.

These were the sorts of things Eddie groaned into the phone at Stan whenever he could be alone in the room, certain that Richie was somewhere else was on campus.

“And he’s nice! And hot! That’s the worst part!”

“Why do I have to suffer through this again? Isn’t it someone else’s turn?”

“Stan, I need you to understand.”

“All I understand is that it sounds like he’d annoy the hell out of me. I’m sure if you like him, he’s great, and we’d get along, but from a distance I just kind of want to punch him.”

“How could you say that?”

Stan sighed. “Again. Why aren’t you talking to Bev about this?”

“Bev knows him! They went to high school together or something. They probably used to make out under the bleachers. And that’s not like, a comment, I’m just saying, they probably did.”

“I think you just like to torture yourself, Eddie. And you’re being ridiculous. This guy is the farthest thing from cool-”

“I never said he was cool! I have not stooped that low.”

Stan sighed again - this time really seeming to go for an Olympic medal in exasperation. “Eddie. Either request a roommate change or do something about the situation, I’m always going to give you the same advice.”

“I don’t need advice, I just want someone to listen to me. I can’t talk to Richie, Bill’s always busy with Mike and in another time zone, I can’t talk to Bev, and Ben never answers his phone in the library, so you’re what I’ve got here, Stan.”

“Are you done now, then? Can I be free?”

“...Yes, fine. For now.”

“Thank you.” Eddie’s only response was a dial tone, then, and he put his phone down and rolled over, groaning into his pillows.

The real problem with living with the boy you were in love with was the constant need to look at least presentable. It was only about five minutes of stressing out over Richie’s general existence before Eddie felt the need to go neaten up in a mirror again, making sure he didn’t look as ridiculous as he felt.

Richie wasn’t even supposed to get back until later that night - he had some kind of rehearsal for a show or the comedy club he was a part of - but Eddie felt like he could never be too careful.

Eddie had found a distraction in his homework by the time he got the text from his mother.

I need to speak to you. Call me when you can.

Texts like that, from Sonia Kaspbrak, were never good news. Literally never. Eddie was still shocked that he’d managed to escape all the way to New York for college and that his mom hadn’t come chasing after him - every time she called or tried to talk to him, he was terrified that she’d tell him she was going to stop supporting him at all (not that her pittance of an allowance for him did much more than cover some meals), or that she’d really figured out something that would make her disown him entirely. Then again, maybe either of those things would be a relief at this point.

Since Richie still wasn’t back, and Eddie knew the longer he put off the phone call, the worse things would get and the more stressed out he would feel, so he picked up the phone to call his mom back.

“Hey, mom.”

“Eddie. I have some news. You may want to sit down.”

Eddie looked at his desk, furrowed his brow. “Yes, I’m sitting down. What is it?”

“Your great aunt Joyce is getting married.”

“Oh, I’m-” Eddie was fully prepared to give his condolences because he was fully prepared for his mother to tell him his great aunt had died. Instead, he suddenly found he had to hold back laughter. He paused. “Right. I mean. Good for her?”

“She should hardly be getting married at her age! It’ll be the death of her.”

Eddie had to hold the phone away, then, just to laugh. He brought it back to his ear. “Right. Well. I can send her a present or something, right? Maybe some heart medication.”

“Edward Kaspbrak!” Eddie winced at his mother’s use of his full name. “You’ve got to come home for the wedding. And don’t talk about your great aunt that way. You’ll bring her something in person. Something nice.”

“Okay. Right. Of course. Maybe a... Blender?”

There was a long pause, and Eddie held his breath, waiting to be scolded again. “...That’ll be fine. There’s one on the registry. You’ll have to drive home next weekend. There’s been hardly any planning at all. It’s all some kind of whirlwind romance.”

Eddie had trouble imagining his great aunt getting into a whirlwind anything without breaking a bone, but apparently she’d managed. For a moment he felt a little pathetic that his 84 year old great aunt could get a boyfriend and he couldn’t, but then he pulled it together. “Right. Next weekend. Well I can do that, I don’t have class on Friday, so. I can come home for the weekend. I’ll drive down. Should I... Bring someone?”

“Would you bring a nice girl?”

Another wince. Eddie’s mother had known he was gay since before he left for college - but she never seemed to give up hope that he’d get over it. “Not really, mommy. I could bring a nice boy?”

“Try not to shock the whole family, will you? And make sure they’re clean.”

With that, apparently Eddie had ended the conversation, because his mother had hung up on him. Eddie sighed and rubbed at his forehead.

Eddie would rather stick himself with a needle than go home on his own - and he used testosterone patches for a reason. Still, his options for boys to take were limited. Stan would have had to fly up, and so would Bill or Mike. Ben went to the same college, but he probably had work that weekend, since he took as many shifts at the library as he could. Bev could be funny, just because Eddie had a feeling his mother would hate her more than any boy Eddie could have brought - well. Except maybe Richie. And that’s the thing, right, was that Richie would probably say yes. He’d be funny and keep Eddie company and they’d both have a good time. Except for that to happen, Eddie would actually have to muster up the courage to ask, which was never going to happen.

He was still dividing his time between his crisis and his homework when the door flew open and Richie finally came back.

“Eds! What a day.” He came over and kissed Eddie on the cheek, leaning over his chair, and Eddie swatted him off, smiling.

“What was so exciting about your day?”

“Mm, nothing, just long. Glad to be back again in home sweet dorm room. What about you? Did you go out and have thrilling adventures while I was gone before you came back to your homework?” Richie went over to his own bed and kicked off his Converse to lay down. He propped himself up on an elbow to keep looking at Eddie while they talked.

“Not really. I talked to Stan.” And my mom told me I had to come home for a wedding and I would pretty much do anything if you would come with me, he thought but didn’t say.

“Right. He’s the one in... Atlanta?”

Eddie smiled. “That’s the one.”

“See the effort I put in for you, Eds? And you don’t even appreciate it.”

“You’re such a loser,” Eddie muttered in response - but he couldn’t wipe the smile from his face either.

If Richie was home, it was starting to get late - and a look at Eddie’s phone told him that was true. He could finish his homework in the morning. He picked up his pajamas and went into the bathroom to change. Richie didn’t seem to have any issue changing in their room standing by the closet if he needed to, but Eddie still felt strange about it.

When he came back to their room, he kept his binder carefully tucked in with the rest of his clothes - not because he didn’t want Richie to see it, but because with Richie’s things being the way they were, they’d gotten their binders confused more than once, and found that they very much did not wear the same size.

Eddie did wonder sometimes if that was why he and Richie had been assigned to room together - out of some strange initiative or concern that they’d both be bullied - but if that was the case, he couldn’t even really stay mad about it. He was too glad to have met Richie.

After putting his clothes away, he turned off his desk lamp and laid down, then turned to Richie in the dim light of Richie’s side of the room. “You said you and Bev went to high school together, right? So how did you two like. Meet?”

Richie laughs. “Shit. It sounds a lot, like. Cooler than it was. We used to smoke together behind the bleachers. Cause, you know, everyone knows it’s fucking terrible for you now, so no one really does it as much anymore except like art students in college, but she used to steal her dad’s cigarettes, and I would bum off my mom, and we would skip classes to smoke together. We also both had pretty shitty parents, I’m sure that helped. So we’d talk and smoke and I’d try and be her wingman with all the girls she had a thing for - not that she needed my help, mostly I just made an asshole out of myself but she still likes me anyways, so.”

Eddie hums, but then blushes, because of course Stan was right, and he’s an idiot. “She seems cool.”

“Bev? She is cool. Way cooler than me, but I’m a fucking loser. She just used to get shit where we went to school because we grew up in the middle of fucking nowhere. Assholes couldn’t decide if she was a slut or a lesbian - which, neither, she dated like one boy and two girls. And not like it was any of their business either way.”

“Yeah. Me and Stan and our other friends were so in the middle of nowhere our biggest bully still had a fucking mullet in the 2010s, so.”

Richie laughed, the sound loud in the otherwise quiet room, and Eddie smiled into the darkness. “Wow. Yeah, that’s pretty incredible.”

Eddie yawned and snuggled further into his blankets. Every night living with Richie felt like a sleepover sometimes - more often than not they stayed up later than they should have, just talking. “I should probably get some sleep. You going out early tomorrow?”

“Nope. Thursday, remember? You, me, Ben and Bev can get breakfast tomorrow if you want.”

“Oh, yeah. Sounds good.”

It was surprisingly easy to fall asleep after talking to Richie as long as he turned to face the wall and didn’t think too much about Richie being able to watch him.

He woke in the morning, like he always did, a little before Richie and twenty times less awake. Neither he nor Richie were morning people, but Eddie was particularly murderous before he had coffee and food, while Richie was mostly just quieter and sort of bleary in the mornings.

While Eddie was still in the bathroom, brushing his teeth, Richie joined him at the next sink. Richie’s left elbow brushed Eddie’s right, and they glanced at each other in companionable and sleepy silence.

Richie came back to the room dressed, and they both got ready and went down to the dining hall to meet Ben and Bev after exchanging some texts.

Once in the dining hall, they both went straight for the waffle makers - fortunately there were two. Richie seemed to only ever eat desert-based foods for breakfast, because he said it was all he could do to get himself to eat breakfast. Eddie just enjoyed the opportunity to finally eat whatever he wanted for breakfast without his mom being a complete weirdo about it. When their trays were filled with food, they both paid for their food and found a table. Bev and Ben joined them only shortly after - Eddie had fortunately already finished his first coffee by then.

“Hey, guys!” Ben said, smiling at them. Bev waved at them after she set down her tray, but already had a cinnamon roll in her mouth that she’d taken a bite out of.

“Hey. How are you guys?” Eddie asked.

“Tired as ever,” Bev responded, sitting down.

“Mood,” Richie said, and Eddie snorted at him.

They mostly ate quietly, and eventually Richie excused himself to go and get some more syrup for his waffle, to add to the already ungodly amount.

“Hey, Bev,” Eddie said quietly.

“Mm?”

“Could I, um. Ask you something?”

“I guess, sure.”

“Right, well, my mom told me I have to come home for this wedding next weekend and I was kind of wondering-”

“She hates weddings, Eddie,” Ben said, and Bev gave him a look. “Well you do.”

Bev rolled her eyes. “Go ahead, Eddie.”

“Well I did think of asking you, it’s just that I would rather take a guy, right, so I was wondering if you like... thought that Richie would say yes to going with me.”

“If I’d say yes to what, Eds?”

Shit. Eddie froze, and turned to look up at Richie. He could see Bev’s grin from the corner of his eye, and Ben looked ready to laugh, too.

I hate you both, he mouthed to them, and then he turned fully to Richie, who was standing behind his chair. “Right. Well. My great aunt is getting married, and my mom is making me go home for the wedding, but she said I should bring someone, so I. Thought maybe I’d ask you to come.”

Richie grinned. “You’re really asking me to come to a wedding with you?” Eddie nodded. “Well of course I will, Eddie Spaghetti!”

Leaning down, Richie ruffled Eddie’s hair, and Eddie swatted him away. “It is way too early in the morning for any of that, asshole.”

“I can’t help myself, I’m too excited. Getting asked to a wedding! By my very own Eds. It’s more than I ever dreamed.” Richie swooned and ended up sticking his elbow in Eddie’s leftover syrup, and Ben, Bev, and Eddie all laughed at him.

Eddie still grabbed Richie’s arm and wiped the syrup off with a wet napkin. “You’re such a dumbass.”

“Only for you,” Richie said with a wink.

Eddie rolled his eyes, and ignored the looks Ben and Bev were giving him.

They got all the details settled later that night - that the wedding was not this weekend but next, that Eddie would drive, that they would both need suits.

That weekend, the week before the wedding, found them tooling around the discount rack at a men’s store, looking for something for either of them that wouldn’t leave them totally broke.

“Do I have to wear a tie? Because I’ll do it for you, Eds, but I won’t like it.”

Eddie looked over to see Richie holding up a couple of tie options. “Let’s just get ties at a thrift store. And you can get one with some ridiculous pattern to make yourself feel better and keep up your pattern of generally tragic outfits.”

“Says the man that wears rainbow short-shorts,” Richie replied with raised eyebrows.

“I know you like my shorts, you can’t shame me for them in this store, I know better than that.”

Richie laughed, but he looked down, and Eddie knew he was right.

“Anyways. We’re here for suits. We can coordinate ties and shit once we actually have the suits.”

Nodding, Richie slung an arm around Eddie and pulled him back to the discount suit rack.

They did actually manage to find suits. Eddie ended up with one that was a nice, dark, fall red. Richie’s was a nice deep blue that looked good next to Eddie’s shade of red. They could also easily get ties to match the other’s suit, and they could both wear black shoes, all of which Eddie relayed to Richie as they left the store.

Neither of their suits fit perfectly, but they fit well enough, and neither of them really had the money for alterations.

They were at the thrift store, with Richie holding up a Space Jam tie and waggling his eyebrows at Eddie, when Eddie’s mom called again.

“Mom? Hi.”

“Eddie, you’re going to dress up for the wedding, aren’t you? And make sure you bring that gift. Have you got everything settled? It’s so bad for your health to let all this go to the last minute, you know that, don’t you?”

“Mommy, I’ve already got a suit, and I know who I’m bringing, I just have to buy the gift.”

“Is that your mom?” Richie asks. “Tell her I said hi.”

Eddie shakes his head, but his mom already asks, “Oh, Eddie, who’s that?”

Here’s the thing. When Sonia let Eddie go to college, her one requirement was that Eddie not room with another boy - for several reasons. She has no idea that Eddie agreed to room with anyone, let alone Richie. They’ve only ever talked when Richie was out of the room.

“Oh, that’s my uh. Boyfriend?”

He realized what he’d done as soon as the words were out of his mouth, but it was too late, then. Richie’s eyebrows shot up, and Eddie closed his eyes to try and block out the expression.

“Oh. You are bringing a boy, then.”

“Yes, mommy.”

“...Make sure he dresses up, too. I won’t have you bringing some mess into the wedding.”

His mother hung up, and Eddie noted in passing that she never seemed to say goodbye anymore. Then he opened his eyes.

“So did I miss something?” Richie asked. He was grinning.

Eddie exhaled in one long breath, and felt like his soul also left his body. “My mom doesn’t know I live with you, and I’m bringing you to the wedding anyways, so I was thinking date? But then that just sort of came out. I’m sorry.”

“I did think you’d have taken me to dinner first, Eds,” Richie said with a wink. Then, almost like it didn’t matter at all, he picked up a tie and held it in front of Eddie’s face. “I feel like if you don’t let me get this pineapple tie, I’m actually going to die.”

“Was that supposed to rhyme?” Eddie said, managing to joke back, somehow.

“No, actually, now I feel like a dipshit. Can I get the tie anyways?”

“I mean, you can get it, but you’re not wearing it to the wedding. Here.” Eddie picked up a red paisley tie, and kept digging until he found a blue paisley one that didn’t clash horribly. “I get the blue paisley and I match you, you get the red paisley, you get a pattern and I get the peace of mind that we’re sort of coordinated. Compromise?”

“Alright, alright. I’m getting the Space Jam one, though, you can’t stop me.”

“I never thought I could, Rich.”

Eddie was grateful for the distraction Richie seemed glad to provide, and for the fact that they just seemed to have moved on.

It didn’t come up again until the night before they were supposed to leave, while they were both lying in their beds, the moonlight from the window the only light left.

“Okay so, genuine question, I’m not trying to be an asshole,” Richie began.

Eddie turned over in bed to look at him. He could only see parts of Richie’s face, his eyes shining in the slats of light that their blinds allowed. “Okay. What is it?”

“Am I actually supposed to pretend we’re boyfriends at this wedding?”

Caught off-guard, Eddie blushed a little, and was glad for the dark. “Oh. Uh. I hadn’t really thought about it. I guess my mom thinks we are now? On accident? So it depends on how you want to handle that.”

Richie shrugged. “I mean, you haven’t talked a lot about your mom.”

“...Right. Well. Yeah. Uh. She was sort of shitty, when I was a kid. Not about like. Me being trans, just about me being gay - I don’t know, maybe it’s some combination of the two? Mostly she just didn’t want me to go anywhere or be around anyone. It was like she thought I would. Get contaminated or something. My dad died when I was a kid, I guess it triggered something for her, and she was always afraid I was going to get sick - I sort of got afraid of it, too.” Eddie realized he’d started to overshare. “Uh. Just in the context of the wedding, she wanted me to bring a girl. I told her I wouldn’t. She told me to make sure that I at least brought someone like. Presentable, basically. She used the word clean. Because she always does.”

Richie laughed, then, and Eddie looked over in confusion. “You’ve got a hell of a way to pick ‘em, then, Eds. You realize your mom’s gonna hate me.”

“I mean, not necessarily.”

“Eddie, babe, be realistic. It sounds like she’s gonna hate me.”

“Well it’s not like she actually likes me that much either!”

There was a pause. “I just need to gauge here - do you actually want me to help you piss off your mom? Is that a goal?”

Eddie bit his lip. “I mean that’s not why I asked you. I asked you because I think you can. Make it fun. You know? I didn’t just ask you because my mom won’t like you. If that’s what you’re asking.”

“...I guess it was, a little. So I should be on the closest thing I’ve got to best behavior unless otherwise notified?”

“Yeah. We’ll go with that. And then we don’t have to play up the couple thing too much, like we don’t have to do a lot of PDA or anything, we can pretend we’re just toning it down.” Eddie turned onto his back again, trying to calm back down enough to sleep in the next week. “Sorry for dragging you into all this. You can stay here if you want.”

“And miss your 84-year-old great aunt’s wedding? Eds, it sounds like a fucking blast. Plus, I already bought that suit. No turning back now. And... You know, you’re right. We’ll have fun. Don’t worry so much.”

Eddie scoffed. “If only it were that easy.”

He heard Richie huff out a laugh, too. “Alright, fair. Try to worry as little as you can manage. I’ll do what I can to make that easy for you. Deal?”

“...Deal. Thanks, Rich.”

“Of course, Eds.”

Eventually, somehow, Eddie managed to fall asleep.

[jinnieboo-blog1]

VIXX Leo: College!AU

2/6 for the College!AU series. It was quite challenging to get Leo’s personality down, so I hope you all enjoy and like this one!

Outside, it isn’t as hot as you expected. You sit on the bleachers and don’t get sweaty despite the fact that the sun is shining brightly. Perhaps it was because of the breeze. Nonetheless, you like the spot you were staying at, so you bring out your notes from your English class. After what seemed like half an hour, you decide to take a break and lean back, stretching your arms and legs. You look ahead of you and watch the soccer team practice. 

As you watched them vigorously play a practice game, your eyes slowly land on the star player and captain who was playing intensely: Leo. He always caught your attention, not because he was handsome (though admittedly he was), but because of the curiosity you had regarding what he really was like. You heard rumors about this guy. You’ve heard rumors about how he can silence someone with just a glare. People say they are intimidated by him; they’re afraid to approach or talk to him. On the other hand, you’ve heard other people saying that he’s very smart, caring, gentle and helpful. That’s why he piqued your interest; you wanted to know more about him. However, it was quite difficult to do that because he was always either in practice or chilling alone in the school’s rooftop garden, not wanting to be bothered.

Eventually, you go back to studying your notes and fall into an alternate world of English lessons. Too absorbed in what you’re studying, you don’t hear the panicked exclaims of the soccer team players. A bit too late, you look up, only to be hit on the face by the soccer ball. Blinking and unable to react properly, you just stare at them, clueless. They all start to look at each other, sheepish, and bow repeatedly until their captain jogs up to you. “I’m sorry.” Leo politely bows.

Holding your nose, you just smile and shake your head, “No, it’s fine. Don’t worry.”

“No, really. I didn’t mean to.” he bows again.

You smile and give him a thumbs up, “Hey, really. It’s nothing serious. It’s alright.”

Leo sighs and reaches for your wrist, gently taking hold of it. He moves it away from your nose, causing him to frown. You look at your fingers, tainted with a little blood from your bleeding nose. A blush creeps up to your cheeks as you feel Leo still staring at your face. His voice tainted with guilt, he says, “Let me take you to the clinic.”

You shake your head and chuckle, “Ah, no! It’s fine. I don’t want to hassle you. Promise. I can handle this. You should go back to your practice game.”

Heaving a sigh, Leo reluctantly agrees and jogs back to his team while you hastily head to the clinic.

******

Days later, you head to your favorite coffee shop to escape the impending doom of having to do all your projects. Stressed and overwhelmed, this café served the best coffee which always made you calm down and feel relaxed. You happily push the door open and smell the aroma of coffee, causing you to smile. You whip your phone out and text your dorm roommate to tell her that you’ll be out the entire afternoon. As you walk while texting, you accidentally bump into someone. “Oh- sorry.” you look up, eyes widening as Leo stands in front of you.

“It’s alright.” he nods. You look up at him and grin, and in turn, a very faint smile forms on his lips. “How is your nose?”

“Oh!” you laugh, poking your nose, “It’s completely fine. Told you it was nothing serious.”

“That’s good.” he says.

You both stand there in silence. Leo is just looking at the ground while you look everywhere but him. Clearing your throat, you ask, “So…no practice today?”

Leo shakes his head, “No, none.”

You nod your head slowly and shrug, “I see. Take advantage of it I guess. I mean…you guys always seem to be practicing right? It’s good to take a break and relax from time to time.”

Mumbling something that sounds like “Mhmm”, Leo nods, “Exactly. I sometimes go here when I need a break. It’s my favorite coffee shop.”

“Really? That’s so cool. This is my favorite too! Oh! I’m y/n by the way.” you suddenly beam.

Leo’s deadpan face seems to have brightened up somehow, “Leo. Nice to meet you.”

He shyly asks if you want to join him for coffee. “If you don’t mind.” you chuckle.

“No, it’s fine.” he says.

After ordering your drinks, the two of you take a seat somewhere where it’s quiet and peaceful. Taking a sip of the warm beverage, you sigh a breath of relief and smile. “Never fails.”

“What?” Leo asks quietly.

You put your drink down and explain, “Everytime I feel overwhelmed or stressed, this café,” you pick up your drink again, “and this drink always manages to lift my spirits.”

Leo smiles and nods before he takes a sip of his own drink. Something about his smile tells you that he knows exactly what you mean. “Is it the same for you?” you inquire.

Leo nods and leans back, “Yes. I actually just love coffee in general. It makes me calm.” It’s your turn to smile and chuckle because you agree with him.

For the next few minutes, you and Leo just talk about coffee, school and life in general. Though at first, you do most of the talking. As you listen to the times he speaks though, you can’t help but go weak over how soft and smooth his quiet voice is.

Your little conversations are interrupted when you spot a little child out of the corner of your eye. Leo follows your gaze and sees the child as well, and you could have sworn you heard him chuckle…or even laugh, louder than usual. You both look at each other at the same time. “I’m sorry. I got distracted.” you bite your lip and bounced in your seat, much like a child. “I just really, really love babies and children. They’re so adorable and-” you don’t even finish your sentence because you’re too giddy.

Leo chuckles again and says, “I understand because I’m like that too.”

“That’s another thing we have in common.” you chuckle.

Leo smiles and nods, turning back to look at the child once more. The child’s mother is holding his hand as she makes her order at the counter. The child is busy looking around, curious at what this place could possibly be. Seconds later, the child tugs his mother’s hand and points at one of the pastries. “Cutie!!!” you squeal into your hands.

Leo just chuckles at the sight of the child and you. You manage to calm down and smile at him, and he smiles back, gazing directly at your eyes. “You’re not that scary.” you suddenly say, smiling wider. “I see the side of you that not many people see.”

Leo goes shy and sheepishly looks at his hands, but nonetheless smiles. “Thank you.”

You two then continue to have a great time, forming a friendship over coffee.

******

Overtime, you and Leo become very close friends. Sometimes, if Leo isn’t with his team members or other friends (namely Ravi and Hyuk), he would spend his free time with you. You’d either go the same coffee shop, hang out in the school’s rooftop garden or watch him play the piano in the music room. Even though he has a tendency to stay quiet, causing you to do most of the talking, being with him was nice.

One day, you sit on the bleachers, swinging your legs as you watch Leo practice with the soccer team. He continues to improve every time, and you feel yourself get warm inside; maybe your heart even skipped a beat. You shake your head and ignore it, deciding to focus on the players in front of you. An hour later, they’re dismissed. The other players grab their bags and sprint elsewhere, presumably the locker rooms so they could take a shower. Leo, however, goes straight to you and slumps down next to you. “Here.” you smile and offer him a bottle of water, and he thankfully takes it.

Leo sits there, catching his breath and drinking water every few minutes. He just looks straight ahead, as if nothing was on his mind. You look at him with admiration, and eventually smile at the fact that you actually got to know him. Then, he suddenly turns to you and catches you staring. “Y/n?”

“Nothing! Here! Let me help you!” you grab the towel from him and use it to ruffle his hair in a poor attempt to wipe off the sweat, and to get his mind off the fact that you were staring.

Suddenly, he gently takes your hands in his and stares into your eyes. “Leo?” you blink.

Before you know it, he gently plants a quick kiss on your lips. “Leo?!” red-faced, you start to get flustered.

Leo shyly looks down and smiles, so you end up smiling too. “Sly boy.” you smirk then scoot closer to kiss him back. He’s shy at first, but eventually, he pulls you closer to him as well, deepening the kiss ever so slightly and taking the lead.

You both pull away, your foreheads still against each other. Smiling, you say, “That actually surprised me.”

Leo smiles back and whispers, “Only for you.”

[psychotherapyconsultants]

Podcast: Self-Care for Your Mental Health



Self-care is important for everyone, but our hosts feel it is extra important for people managing mental illnesses and other mental health issues. It stands to reason that, if you don’t take care of yourself, then the symptoms of an illness will have an easier time making our lives miserable.

In this episode, our hosts discuss what self-care is, what self-care isn’t, and what they personally do to care for themselves. Listen now!

  SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

“Would it be self-care for me to watch a bunch of guys getting hit in the privates?’” – Gabe Howard

  Highlights From ‘Self-Care for Your Mental Health’ Episode

[2:00] What do Gabe and Michelle do for self-care?

[6:30] Why did Gabe and Michelle start a podcast?

[11:30] Why does Michelle watch “fail” videos?

[13:30] Gabe loves fidget spinners and believes they help with his self-care.

[17:00] Watching Jeopardy is an example of self-care.

[19:00] Michelle + Gabe + The Peoples’ Court = group self-care.

[22:00] Who thinks watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the BEST self-care?

[23:00] Is personal hygiene an example of self-care?

Computer Generated Transcript for ‘Mental Health Self-Care’ Show

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

Announcer: [00:00:06] For reasons that utterly escape everyone involved, you’re listening to A Bipolar, a Schizophrenic, and a Podcast. Here are your hosts, Gabe Howard and Michelle Hammer.

Gabe: [00:00:17] You’re listening to A Bipolar, a Schizophrenic, and a Podcast. My name is Gabe Howard. I live with bipolar disorder.

Michelle: [00:00:23] Hi, I’m Michelle. I’m schizophrenic.

Gabe: [00:00:27] And today we are going to discuss self care. But like low end self care, like easy self care, basic self care, the self care that nobody thinks about because everybody’s always thinking about like these grandiose self care ideas.

Michelle: [00:00:42] Well like going to a spa and getting a facial?

Gabe: [00:00:45] That would be one. Or going on vacation, or being able to stay home for a week. Quitting their jobs.

Michelle: [00:00:51] I mean yeah quitting your job. What else is As grandiose self care?

Gabe: [00:00:57] I think the biggest grandiose self care is like marrying a rich person and just eating bonbons while watching TV all day.

Michelle: [00:01:04] Wait there’s something wrong with that?

Gabe: [00:01:05] There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just the kind of self care that most of us can’t participate in.

Michelle: [00:01:10] I mean that seems kind of like a pretty good self care.

Gabe: [00:01:13] I think that is an excellent self care and we’re gonna do a companion episode called self care for the rich and famous and that will be on there.

Michelle: [00:01:20] If you’re a sugar daddy looking for a sugar baby and you’re not a total creep, email me.

Gabe: [00:01:24] Really? The creep thing, do you care? That’s kind of creepy behavior on your part. You’re literally looking for somebody to take care of you.

Michelle: [00:01:31] Okay fine I’ll change that. If you just are a really rich person and you want to give me a lot of money for no reason, hit me up.

Gabe: [00:01:36] Michelle, you and I both live with severe and persistent mental illness and we’ve managed to live successfully for a number of years. And we always talk on this show that there’s more than just medication. There’s more than just therapy. There’s more than just peer support or group therapy or having stable housing or having good friends and family and one of the things that we almost never talk about, and an alert reader pointed out, is we never talk about basic self care tips. And I’m really surprised because between us we have like so many. And I love it when we get together and our little self care ideas don’t quite mesh. A big one of mine is going to get Diet Coke and just chilling.

Michelle: [00:02:13] At seven thirty in the morning.

Gabe: [00:02:16] That’s why it doesn’t quite mesh. And one of your self care tips is going to get coffee but like closer to eleven and it’s very difficult to find a place that has Diet Coke and coffee that you find acceptable.

Michelle: [00:02:30] Like McDonalds?

Gabe: [00:02:30] I mean McDonalds. That was a good compromise on our part. But remember when you tried to take me to Starbucks?

Michelle: [00:02:37] Yeah, and you refused to go to Starbucks. You think you’re better than Starbucks.

Gabe: [00:02:41] I don’t like coffee.

Michelle: [00:02:43] Why not?

Gabe: [00:02:43] Why don’t you like Diet Coke?

Michelle: [00:02:45] I do like Diet Coke but I don’t want it. I’d rather have coffee in the morning than Diet Coke.

Gabe: [00:02:51] You see the problem and this is why you shouldn’t have mentally ill friends ladies and gentlemen. We did an episode a few weeks ago where we talked about vices and Diet Coke was brought up as a vice because I drink so much of it and we’re not walking that back. But this is the flip side of that where it relaxes me. It helps me. It is a part of my self care especially when I get very stressed out at work or when I get overwhelmed on a project. I can step out, drive someplace, sit down, sip a Diet Coke, people watch, look around, and that really allows me to calm down. This is a self care option that cost me a couple of bucks and I know that you feel the same way about coffee.

Michelle: [00:03:31] Yes, coffee is readily available walking through New York City. Oh I want some coffee? I’ll be at a coffee shop in at least three minutes.

Gabe: [00:03:38] You once described that if you wanted coffee in New York, you just have to hold out your hand and say coffee and it just magically appears.

Michelle: [00:03:44] It’s ridiculous how much coffee you can get in New York City. Maybe that’s why everybody’s so amped up all the time? People just go go go go go. Maybe that’s what it is. That’s why everybody is just so fast and everything in New York City? Is it just the readily available list of coffee everywhere?

Gabe: [00:04:01] And espresso.

Michelle: [00:04:01] And espresso, is everywhere in New York.

Gabe: [00:04:04] Do you have people that call it ex-press-so? Where they don’t pronounce the s? They call it X-presso, instead of S-presso?

Michelle: [00:04:10] I thought it was X-presso for so long.

Gabe: [00:04:12] You pronounce the X? That doesn’t exist?

Michelle: [00:04:13] I didn’t know why. I didn’t know. I had to be educated, Gabe. I needed to be educated about coffee.

Gabe: [00:04:20] As longtime listeners of the show know, I also host the Psych Central Show with Vincent M. Wales and Vince is a master coffee person. Like he has all the equipment in his home. He knows everything about coffee; he knows everything about the beans. He has so much coffee knowledge and he tries to impart this on me all the time and I just give him this glazed over look like can I go now?

Michelle: [00:04:42] You never told me this about him. So I don’t know why me and Vin are not better friends now.

Gabe: [00:04:47] Oh, Vin loves coffee.

Michelle: [00:04:50] All the sudden I like Vince so much more than I ever did.

Gabe: [00:04:53] Well there’s another thing that I should tell you about Vin. He loves New York style pizza. It’s the only pizza that he will eat.

Michelle: [00:05:00] Why did you never tell me this about Vin?

Gabe: [00:05:04] I’m telling you now.

Michelle: [00:05:04] Ack!

Gabe: [00:05:05] Don’t assume that all the people around you are like old and god awful. Maybe ask them some questions? Maybe find some common ground?

Michelle: [00:05:14] All I know is that he likes comics.

Gabe: [00:05:16] Well I mean he does like comics. That’s true.

Michelle: [00:05:18] And I have nothing in common with Vin because I don’t like comics. But now that I know I have all this stuff in common with Vin, maybe maybe Vin and me can be BFFs?

Gabe: [00:05:23] I always thought you and Vin were BFFs.

Michelle: [00:05:27] No, you didn’t.

Gabe: [00:05:28] I know. Listen everybody, Michelle and Vin don’t have a rift. They get along just fine but they have a lot in common and they don’t realize it because you know Vin is well into his 50s and Michelle acts 12. It’s a big big gap. You know Vin lives in California, Michelle is from New York. We’ve got the whole male female thing going.

Michelle: [00:05:48] It’s going to be a long distance relationship.

Gabe: [00:05:49] It’s going to be a long distance?

Michelle: [00:05:50] Yeah.

Gabe: [00:05:50] Vin is very like muted. Like he’s nothing like me. He’s just very like, Yes, thank you.

Michelle: [00:05:55] Yes, hello, yes. My name is Vincent M. Wales.

Gabe: [00:05:59] He’s a novelist. He spends a lot of time alone with his words. I spend a lot of time alone with my words but I’m not writing them.

Michelle: [00:06:05] You’re just talking them.

Gabe: [00:06:06] I’m just talking. You know how you said early on that one of your coping mechanisms, not self care but coping mechanisms, was you put earbuds in? And that way when you walk down the street, people were like, “Oh, she’s not talking to herself she’s singing along to music. Or maybe she’s on a Bluetooth? Maybe she’s on the phone, etc?” It doesn’t look weird because you have the earbuds in.

Michelle: [00:06:25] Yes right.

Gabe: [00:06:27] I became a podcaster because originally when I was sitting upstairs just talking to myself, my wife thought it was weird. Now I’m like oh podcasting. She thinks I podcast 14 hours a day.

Michelle: [00:06:37] I know. I know my friends in college thought I was on the phone. Sometimes I’d be on the phone, but often they’d be like, “Who are you talking to?” And so I was, “I wasn’t.” I would try to say I was on the phone more times than I actually was, honestly.

Gabe: [00:06:51] One of your self care techniques was to educate the people that you lived with. I don’t think you’ve ever lived alone, have you? You’ve always either lived at home, lived in the dorms, or lived with a roommate?

Michelle: [00:07:01] Yes.

Gabe: [00:07:02] So you’ve had to do that. Part of your self care regimen is educating the people that you live with so that they give you the least amount of flack or shit or trouble as possible, right?

Michelle: [00:07:14] Yeah pretty much yeah. It’s never really been a big deal with anyone I lived with like outside of college. Since moving into Queens and Astoria and living in the apartment I live in now. The only thing that bothers anyone is that I don’t clean enough.

Gabe: [00:07:25] But that’s not schizophrenia.

Michelle: [00:07:26] No, that’s not schizophrenia. But like you know, being as schizophrenic, you always learn like they’re not the cleanliness of all the people blah blah blah.

Gabe: [00:07:35] We’re gonna get letters for that. Wait, did you just say people with schizophrenia aren’t clean?

Michelle: [00:07:38] We just watched that video that was like, “Schizophrenic people might not be dressed the best.” Or whatever that stupid video said. Like, okay, sure we don’t dress great. But what kind of ridiculous freakin’ fact was that?

Gabe: [00:07:49] You know it’s messed up. I know personally two people who live with schizophrenia. I have lots of, you know, co-workers and colleagues and fellow mental health advocates but two people who live with schizophrenia that I consider like like buddies. One of them is Michelle Hammer.

Michelle: [00:08:03] Mmm-hmm.

Gabe: [00:08:03] The great Michelle Hammer.

Michelle: [00:08:04] The great.

Gabe: [00:08:07] And the other one is Rachel Star. Rachel Star is like the best dressed person we know.

Michelle: [00:08:11] I know. And she knows how to walk in heels.

Gabe: [00:08:13] Yeah. She teaches it. She actually had a fashion blog for a while where she taught people how to be a girl and like how to walk in high heels, how to wear the belt, how to do the makeup. She’s like well put together and she has schizophrenia. So I’m starting to think that maybe these videos where they say things like, “people with schizophrenia don’t dress well, and they dress weird, and they act weird, and they’re they’re not clean, and they’re not organized, and they walk funny.”.

Michelle: [00:08:34] And they walk with an awkward gaunt.

Gabe: [00:08:38] Yeah I think maybe.

Michelle: [00:08:38] What is gaunt? The awkward gaunt?

Gabe: [00:08:40] I don’t know what any of that is either but this leads us into our next form of self care. Don’t watch that shit.

Michelle: [00:08:47] True.

Gabe: [00:08:51] So many people, they’re just constantly Googling stereotypes and offensive things on the Internet so that they can be mad at it.

Michelle: [00:08:58] Yeah.

Gabe: [00:08:59] Why?

Michelle: [00:08:59] It’s almost like they want to educate themselves as much as possible but then they find these online articles that really just are stereotypical and are wrong and they just start thinking bad things.

Gabe: [00:09:12] It pisses you off.

Michelle: [00:09:13] Yeah.

Gabe: [00:09:15] If you seek out things to be angry at, you’re gonna find it.

Michelle: [00:09:18] Yes.

Gabe: [00:09:20] But here’s the magical thing though. If you seek out things to provide you with joy on the Internet you will also find those.

Michelle: [00:09:26] What do you find for joy on the Internet? Porn?

Gabe: [00:09:28] Listen I’m not going to lie and tell people that I’ve never looked at pornography on the Internet today. Because that would just be a lie.

Michelle: [00:09:37] And nobody would believe you.

Gabe: [00:09:39] And nobody would believe me. But there are really cool things on the Internet that I do enjoy reading. One of the things that I’ve done and I think that this is vital to self care is I use a news curator. That eliminates a lot of news that I just don’t want to hear about, or sources that I consider to be offensive or dramatic or don’t follow journalistic standards.

Michelle: [00:10:02] Personally like just don’t.

Gabe: [00:10:03] Your personal beliefs are really irrelevant. It’s the part where you’re constantly being bombarded with you’re wrong you’re stupid you’re wrong you’re stupid you’re wrong you’re stupid. You realize once you put a slant on news it’s no longer news.

Michelle: [00:10:14] It’s just bias.

Gabe: [00:10:15] It’s just gossip.

Michelle: [00:10:15] It’s biased news.

Gabe: [00:10:17] It’s opinion.

Michelle: [00:10:18] It’s why I like E News.

Gabe: [00:10:20] Yeah I like I like to read my news. I also don’t like like live news, and by live news like I don’t turn on like the 24 hour news station on the TV because it always ends up like this. Like we’re getting word that something is happening. We have no facts or information so we’re just going to make shit up.

Michelle: [00:10:36] I personally love watching car chases.

Gabe: [00:10:38] Yeah, car chases are kind of fun.

Michelle: [00:10:39] I like when they watch the car chase and then the car goes under a bridge or something like that and then they start watching the wrong car.

Gabe: [00:10:47] They follow for a minute and then the helicopter goes back left?

Michelle: [00:10:48] Yeah. They watch the car and like oh the car seems to be pulling into a gas station. Oh the guy in the car seems to be wearing a different color shirt. They don’t seem to be really in a rush. Oh I’m sorry guys. I think you’ve been following the wrong car now.

Gabe: [00:11:01] Oh the police all left.

Michelle: [00:11:02] It seems like we’ve, uh, we’ve lost the car. Those are hilarious.

Gabe: [00:11:06] To answer your original question of what are some things that I like to read on the Internet that are fun? There’s all kinds of uplifting things. The biggest one for our community that we like to push out is The Mighty. TheMighty.com. We do ask us anything on the first and third Monday, we do it live. You can see our pretty faces. Just go to mental health on TheMighty.com.

Michelle: [00:11:25] You can see my pretty face and Gabe’s ginger face.

Gabe: [00:11:28] One of my self care things is to limit the amount of time I spend with Michelle.

Michelle: [00:11:31] No, but going on what I was saying about watching car chases. I look up on YouTube like fails.

Gabe: [00:11:37] There you go.

Michelle: [00:11:39] And it is just hilarious. But of course if anyone actually got hurt in the fails they wouldn’t be in the fails compilation but it’s just so funny to me watching these people get hurt. It’s hilarious. Rope swing fails are hilarious. Like any kind of like snowboarding fails. Those are pretty funny. Or just ridiculous like just kids doing something stupid. But I know it’s not good to watch this one but it’s hilarious. Baby fails. Baby fails are the funniest fails ever. They just fall over; they trip over things. Or like the babies cover themselves in peanut butter. Hilarious. And of course, the granddaddy of all them is when guys just get hit in the balls.

Gabe: [00:12:19] Just get hit in the balls?

Michelle: [00:12:19] Just getting hit in the balls. I cannot physically know the pain of getting hit in the balls but it looks painful and it’s hilarious to watch them. Have you ever been hit in the balls, Gabe?

Gabe: [00:12:28] Yes.

Michelle: [00:12:29] Sorry. I’m sorry.

Gabe: [00:12:31] It’s amazing to me because on one hand I’m like oh man, would it be self care for me to watch a bunch of guys getting hit in the balls because I know that suffering and that it always makes me cringe. But on the other hand I’d laugh hysterically.

Michelle: [00:12:43] Laugh hysterically. Hysterically, hysterically. Let’s take a break and hear from our sponsor.

Announcer: [00:12:49] This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.com. Secure, convenient, and affordable online counselling. All 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 counselling is right for you. BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral.

Michelle: [00:13:20] And we’re back talking about self care.

Gabe: [00:13:22] How do you feel about fidget spinners.

Michelle: [00:13:23] I like fridget spinners. Why not?

Gabe: [00:13:25] Have they helped you? They’re not new anymore. I mean they’re well over a year old and I think the fad has kind of gone as far as mainstream.

Michelle: [00:13:32] Oh they were all over Chinatown when I was popping up in near little Italy. They were everywhere. Every kid that came into the market had a fidget spinner a couple of years ago.

Gabe: [00:13:42] They were everywhere for ten dollars and then last year I went to the fair and they were a buck.

Michelle: [00:13:45] Five dollars. Chinatown five dollars. That’s how much they were.

Gabe: [00:13:47] Yeah, everywhere in Ohio ten bucks ten bucks ten bucks ten bucks and then at the fair this year a dollar.

Michelle: [00:13:51] Yeah, well whoever invented them they made a lot of money.

Gabe: [00:13:55] So the mainstream fad is over. I’ve kept mine. I still find it to be very very helpful. I keep a little, not a fidget spinner, but a little fidget toy in my pocket. And I still use what I consider like fidget spinners’ great great grandpa, like Koosh balls or squeezy balls. I find all of those things.

Michelle: [00:14:13] You how? You squeeze your balls?

Gabe: [00:14:14] No, I don’t squeeze my balls. I have a little foam ball that I can squeeze.

Michelle: [00:14:19] Oh, okay.

Gabe: [00:14:19] But it’s interesting that you’re over there thinking about my balls.

Michelle: [00:14:23] No I was just like you like squeezy balls. I mean you said squeezy balls, Gabe.

Gabe: [00:14:28] Stress balls.

Michelle: [00:14:29] You said you like squeezy balls.

Gabe: [00:14:30] Stess balls have been around for a long time.

Michelle: [00:14:31] You said you liked squeezy balls.

Gabe: [00:14:33] Do you ever think that we like bicker back and forth like siblings as part of our self care regimen? Is that like our thing? Because we laugh hysterically when we do it. So.

Michelle: [00:14:42] I guess we do.

Gabe: [00:14:43] So it’s clearly not an argument.

Michelle: [00:14:44] Talking about self care specifically, I always like to bring up the late great Whitney Houston who said learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.

Gabe: [00:14:59] But how is that a self care thing? I mean isn’t it like a high level concept? It’s kind of like telling somebody that is having financial problems to just make more money or if you’re distressed just love yourself.

Michelle: [00:15:08] Well she decided that to paraphrase I don’t know the exact words but Whitney Houston did say that she decided long ago not to wander in anyone’s shadow. You know what I’m saying?

Gabe: [00:15:19] Because that way if she succeeds it won’t be her destiny or something?

Michelle: [00:15:24] If I fail, if I succeed, at least I lived as I believe. Live as you believe, Gabe. Don’t wander in anyone’s shadow. Don’t be in anyone’s shadow. Be you. Don’t let anyone tell you what to do.

Gabe: [00:15:37] I think that that is excellent advice. You’ve also stumbled upon another thing that I think is amazing. Music.

Michelle: [00:15:42] Yes.

Gabe: [00:15:43] This music really speaks to you and I know that you have described when you’ve been depressed stressed worried or even a little manic, that you use music to like regulate your moods. You think that’s a common thing? I have that big like 12 speaker surround sound stereo in my car, bluetooth enabled and I use it to listen to our podcast. But whenever you’re here, we connect it, and we’re like doing carpool Karaoke and like screaming to music and people are staring at us.

Michelle: [00:16:08] Yeah like that time I made you play White Houses by Vanessa Carlton and I was singing my heart out.

Gabe: [00:16:14] You were and what I love is I don’t like it when people sing because it grates me. But I was able to turn up the music so loud I couldn’t hear you.

Michelle: [00:16:21] Listen, you don’t like my singing voice? I am a professional singer.

Gabe: [00:16:24] Who sang that song?

Michelle: [00:16:26] Vanessa Carlton.

Gabe: [00:16:27] Let’s keep it that way.

Michelle: [00:16:29] Yes yes yes. Everybody used to say that back in the day.

Gabe: [00:16:32] Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait. Knock knock.

Michelle: [00:16:35] Who’s there?

Gabe: [00:16:35] Interrupting cow.  MOOOOOO!

Michelle: [00:16:38] Yeah. Everybody knows that one too, Gabe.

Gabe: [00:16:39] Wait, wait, wait. Why did the chicken cross the road?

Michelle: [00:16:41] To get the other side.

Gabe: [00:16:43] Oh you’ve heard this one.

Michelle: [00:16:44] Who killed Alicia Keys?

Gabe: [00:16:46] Who?

Michelle: [00:16:46] No one no one no one.

Gabe: [00:16:52] Alicia Keys is alive, right?

Michelle: [00:16:53] Yeah.

Gabe: [00:16:54] Okay.

Michelle: [00:16:54] That’s her song.

Gabe: [00:16:55] I didn’t know that.

Michelle: [00:16:55] Oh, okay, well.

Gabe: [00:16:57] Who’s Alicia Keys?

Michelle: [00:16:57] You know, she plays piano.

Gabe: [00:17:00] I think she’s a no one. No one no one.

Michelle: [00:17:02] OK. That’s not funny.

Gabe: [00:17:04] It’s a little funny.

Michelle: [00:17:05] Fine, whatever you want.

Gabe: [00:17:06] I think we like different music. We have found music that we both like and I would say that you know that’s another self care tip. Maybe be willing to compromise with your friends. I don’t like to listen to music in the car. It’s not something that I really do. But you and I have had to take several road trips as part of our job and you were like look I talk to you for money so I’m not going to talk to you for free. So I compromised and agreed to listen to music and we had a lot of fun doing it. It really was fun. But when you’re not around I don’t do it by myself. So I think that sometimes self care is being open to new ideas and maybe finding the joy in things that maybe you wouldn’t do alone. Another example of that is Jeopardy. I don’t watch Jeopardy when you’re not around.

Michelle: [00:17:46] I love Jeopardy. I love it. I just love to see more of the competition type aspect because when I watch it maybe I get like five questions right.

Gabe: [00:17:56] I get none.

Michelle: [00:17:57] No you get some.

Gabe: [00:17:58] Never.

Michelle: [00:17:59] I mean I wish I could be on Jeopardy but those people they just they have facts that I don’t even I didn’t even know where actual things. How do they know this stuff? They’re amazing. They’re amazing people.

Gabe: [00:18:11] You find that very interesting, right?

Michelle: [00:18:11] I do. That these people are so smart and I find it so interesting that they know these facts and like where did they learn these? Like, I went to high school, I went to college. I didn’t go to an Ivy League or anything like that, but how do they know these facts? And even there’s the teachers tournament and when I ever thought of a teacher I was like yeah your teacher teaches this subject.  I was that you know they know this subject. No no no. You watch teachers tournament they know everything. Every. Thing. And then the college tournament, they know everything. But I do very well on the high school tournament. Those are those questions I do pretty good and then they had like the juniors. I was so good at the juniors. You have no idea. Those 12 year old kids, I’m on their level.

Gabe: [00:18:56] You know that show Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?

Michelle: [00:18:59] I’m bad at that.

Gabe: [00:19:00] Well, I was not. I was not smarter than a fifth grader.

Michelle: [00:19:02] I was not Smarter Than A Fifth Grader either. Yeah that’s how it is. Well, Gabe, when you’re not around I like to watch The People’s Court. So when we’re together we always watch The People’s Court.

Gabe: [00:19:12] You watch The People’s Court when I’m not around?

Michelle: [00:19:13] I try to.

Gabe: [00:19:14] I never watch Jeopardy when you’re not around. Like that’s only something that I do with you because I only get joy when you’re around. And truthfully I think the only joy that I get is watching you watch it. Listen I think that sometimes people miss the idea that self care doesn’t necessarily mean getting your way. You know so many people are like self care is doing what you want to do and it is. There’s a part of that, but self care is also about finding joy in things maybe you wouldn’t find joy in. And I think of things like, let’s take marriage for example. When you’re married you have to go to places or eat at restaurants or experience things that you wouldn’t seek on your own. I did not want to see Hamilton.

Michelle: [00:19:57] Why not? It’s supposed to be amazing. I want to see it so badly but the tickets are expensive.

Gabe: [00:20:00] But my wife wanted to see it so I went.

Michelle: [00:20:03] I’ll go . I’ll go with your wife. You buy the tickets and I’ll go with your wife.

Gabe: [00:20:07] It’s too late we already went.

Michelle: [00:20:08] Well, you didn’t invite me!

Gabe: [00:20:09] Maybe, but there’s an example. Though I did not want to go but I agreed to go. I got dressed up, we went out to a nice dinner, and I enjoyed myself. I both enjoyed the play and I enjoyed sharing it with somebody, making my wife happy. It’s also about the pageantry of putting on a suit. My wife and I don’t wear nice clothes around each other very often and it doesn’t matter if it’s Hamilton in a nice restaurant or if it’s just going to the Taco Bell in the nice section of town around the corner. Make it special. There’s all kinds of ways to take the mundane and turn them into better, and that is an example of self care.

Michelle: [00:20:45] This self care really is classified under the problem solving.

Gabe: [00:20:50] Problem solving self care?

Michelle: [00:20:51] This is problem solving.

Gabe: [00:20:52] Dun dun dun.

Michelle: [00:20:53] Yeah. All of this is really is problem solving self care. This is what we’re really discussing right now.

Gabe: [00:20:59] I agree.

Michelle: [00:21:00] Yeah.

Gabe: [00:21:00] You read an article didn’t you?

Michelle: [00:21:03] Possibly.

Gabe: [00:21:03] I’m sorry.

Michelle: [00:21:04] I did some research. Yes, what can I say? What can I say? I know.

Gabe: [00:21:08] You know, nobody has ever called you illiterate, Michelle.

Michelle: [00:21:11] Nobody. Nobody’s ever called me a illiterate since I learned how to read. I learned how to read, Gabe, one day.

Gabe: [00:21:16] You know jokes are funny. You asked earlier about things that you can seek out on the internet. Jokes. There’s jokes everywhere.

Michelle: [00:21:23] There’s jokes everywhere.

Gabe: [00:21:24] And there’s there’s inspirational writing.

Michelle: [00:21:26] Yes.

Gabe: [00:21:27] That’s always fun.

Michelle: [00:21:28] Watching TV like TV can be self care. I’m a huge fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I’ve been a huge fan since I was eight years old. And you know with the beauty of you know online streaming services and stuff like that I now can just go on to any one of those. Know the episode that I’m looking for. Watch it. And I feel that feeling of just like comfort. And it makes me feel better because I know the feeling that I get when I watch that specific episode. Like the episode where Buffy has to kill Angel and the devastation.

Gabe: [00:22:02] No.

Michelle: [00:22:02] It’s just I it’s like when I’m depressed I watch that episode and I’m like at least I didn’t have to kill my love. You know?

Gabe: [00:22:10] Wow.

Michelle: [00:22:11] She leaves town and goes to L.A.

Gabe: [00:22:13] Does Buffy kill her podcast co-host?

Michelle: [00:22:15] She doesn’t have a podcast, that didn’t exist.

Gabe: [00:22:19] OK. So I’m safe. That’s what I’m hearing.

Michelle: [00:22:21] Yeah.

Gabe: [00:22:21] But your significant other? You might have to kill someday?

Michelle: [00:22:24] Only if she tries to end the world and takes the sword out of Acathla as he’s going to swallow the world. And the only way to save the world is to kill her and send her to hell.

Gabe: [00:22:37] I know your significant other and she’s not that motivated. We’ll be fine.

Michelle: [00:22:40] Yeah.

Gabe: [00:22:42] Here’s some other like just real quick self-help tips that people don’t think of. Brush your teeth.

Michelle: [00:22:46] Yeah.

Gabe: [00:22:47] Eat something healthy. Make a meal, like make pageantry out of, you know? Don’t just grab the chips or you know the bagel bites in the microwave, actually cook a meal. There take a shower, shave, take a walk around the block, go to the gym. I mean it ramps up from here.

Michelle: [00:23:03] Exercise is great self care.

Gabe: [00:23:05] I’m not going to do that. But you’re right it is great self care.

Michelle: [00:23:10] It is and also joining a sports team. Any kind of club team is also great self care too.

Gabe: [00:23:16] People don’t think about that a lot, especially adults. You know I talked to a lot of people over the age of 50 and over the age of 40 because I’m at that age, and like I don’t know what to do for self care and I say like have you ever considered joining like a book club or a bowling league? And they’re like well but isn’t that like for young people? No, and one of the things that you turned me onto a long time ago, which is in your Jeopardy theme, is a lot of sports bars and bars like during the week will have trivia nights.

Michelle: [00:23:41] Yes.

Gabe: [00:23:41] Trivia nights are a lot of fun and you don’t have to sign up, you just have to show up so you show up and you can have fun. And listen, what’s really cool about them that I found out is that most people just suck. They just suck at trivia night but it’s a lot of fun. There’s always like a couple of teams are taking it like really serious and.

Michelle: [00:23:58] People take it ridiculously seriously.

Gabe: [00:24:01] Yeah.

Michelle: [00:24:01] Like ridiculous.

Gabe: [00:24:01] But at least half the room is just like, “Huh, trivia is hard.” But they’re still having fun.

Michelle: [00:24:07] I’ve never placed in regular trivia above second to last place.

Gabe: [00:24:11] Second to last place? So you beat somebody?

Michelle: [00:24:13] One time only. Because one of the sections was Disney.

Gabe: [00:24:17] One of the sections was Disney?

Michelle: [00:24:18] Yeah. That’s how I got 2nd to last place.

Gabe: [00:24:20] Didn’t you participate in a Buffy the Vampire Slayer trivia?

Michelle: [00:24:20] Yes I have many times and I have placed and I’ve never placed below fourth. I’ve got to go first second third and fourth.

Gabe: [00:24:29] Oh wow so you did get first when it was very specific to an amount of knowledge that you had.

Michelle: [00:24:33] Yeah I only placed first the one time where I was alone.

Gabe: [00:24:37] So if I want to take first in a trivia contest I should find like bullshit trivia?

Michelle: [00:24:42] Yeah.

Gabe: [00:24:42] Because I would place first.

Michelle: [00:24:44] If it was mental health trivia you would.

Gabe: [00:24:46] Oh my God. Could you imagine? You and I we would dominate it.

Michelle: [00:24:49] We would dominate mental health trivia.

Gabe: [00:24:51] Not only would we dominate but like if any of the stereotypes were the answer we’d correct it.

Michelle: [00:24:54] Oh, my God. We should have mental health trivia night somewhere. We should start that.

Gabe: [00:25:00] This is an excellent idea.

Michelle: [00:25:02] We should have a little contest or something.

Gabe: [00:25:06] A contest?

Michelle: [00:25:06] A mental health contest. Mental health, we should do something. But how do we know?

Gabe: [00:25:08] Eh, people are going to Google.

Michelle: [00:25:10] They’re gonna google.

Gabe: [00:25:12] I’ve got the first question though and they won’t be able to Google. I figured it out, Michelle. All right everybody, using show@PsychCentral.com, send us an email with the nicest thing that somebody did for you to help you cope with your own mental illness. So a nice story about a friend, a caregiver, a stranger. All stories are welcome. Please send them to show@PsychCentral.com. And if we use it on the air we’ll send you stickers because we’re chill like that.

Michelle: [00:25:39] Or a talking mental health T-shirt, Gabe.

Gabe: [00:25:42] That is so mean. Why you gotta be mocking the talking mental t-shirts?

Michelle: [00:25:45] I’m not. I’m not mocking them. I’m saying we should send them more than stickers, Gabe.

Gabe: [00:25:50] All right, I will revise it. The winner, the best story, the most moving and meaningful story, will get A Bipolar, a Schizophrenic, and a Podcast care package, including more than just stickers. But all of the other stories that we use on an upcoming show, will just get stickers. Fair?

Michelle: [00:26:07] But you have to actually write a good story.

Gabe: [00:26:12] Yeah, you got to read a good story.

Michelle: [00:26:13] You can’t just say, “My buddy gave me a Kit Kat and I was so happy about it.”

Gabe: [00:26:19] I mean you can, but you’re not going to win and we’re not going to use it on the show. And now I want to Kit Kat.

Michelle: [00:26:24] We have some downstairs.

Gabe: [00:26:24] Sweet. That’s where we’re off to. Thank you everybody for tuning into this week’s episode of A Bipolar, a Schizophrenic, and Podcast. If you are on iTunes we would love your five star review. Write a review, like use your words. Tell people why they should listen and please share us on social media. Email us to your friends, help us go world wide famous. And finally, if you work for BuzzFeed, or know anybody that works for BuzzFeed, where’s our love? Please write a story on us. We will see everybody next week on you’re supposed to yell out A Bipolar, a Schizophrenic, and a Podcast.

Michelle: [00:27:04] A Bipolar, a Schizophrenic, and a Podcast!

Gabe: [00:27:06] Thanks everybody for tuning in. And we will see you next week.

Narrator: [00:27:15] You’ve been listening to A Bipolar, a Schizophrenic, and a Podcast. If you love this episode, don’t keep it to yourself head over to iTunes or your preferred podcast app to subscribe, rate, and review. To work with Gabe go to GabeHoward.com. To work with Michelle, go to schizophrenic.NYC. For free mental health resources and online support groups, head over to PsychCentral.com. This show’s official web site is PsychCentral.com/BSP. You can e-mail us at show@PsychCentral.com. Thank you for listening, and share widely.

Meet Your Bipolar and Schizophrenic Hosts

GABE HOWARD was formally diagnosed with bipolar and anxiety disorders after being committed to a psychiatric hospital in 2003. Now in recovery, Gabe is a prominent mental health activist and host of the award-winning Psych Central Show podcast. He is also an award-winning writer and speaker, traveling nationally to share the humorous, yet educational, story of his bipolar life. To work with Gabe, visit gabehoward.com.

  MICHELLE HAMMER was officially diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 22, but incorrectly diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 18. Michelle is an award-winning mental health advocate who has been featured in press all over the world. In May 2015, Michelle founded the company Schizophrenic.NYC, a mental health clothing line, with the mission of reducing stigma by starting conversations about mental health. She is a firm believer that confidence can get you anywhere. To work with Michelle, visit Schizophrenic.NYC.

from World of Psychology https://psychcentral.com/blog/podcast-self-care-for-your-mental-health/

[erraticfairy]

Podcast: Self-Care for Your Mental Health



Self-care is important for everyone, but our hosts feel it is extra important for people managing mental illnesses and other mental health issues. It stands to reason that, if you don’t take care of yourself, then the symptoms of an illness will have an easier time making our lives miserable.

In this episode, our hosts discuss what self-care is, what self-care isn’t, and what they personally do to care for themselves. Listen now!

  SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW

“Would it be self-care for me to watch a bunch of guys getting hit in the privates?’” – Gabe Howard

  Highlights From ‘Self-Care for Your Mental Health’ Episode

[2:00] What do Gabe and Michelle do for self-care?

[6:30] Why did Gabe and Michelle start a podcast?

[11:30] Why does Michelle watch “fail” videos?

[13:30] Gabe loves fidget spinners and believes they help with his self-care.

[17:00] Watching Jeopardy is an example of self-care.

[19:00] Michelle + Gabe + The Peoples’ Court = group self-care.

[22:00] Who thinks watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the BEST self-care?

[23:00] Is personal hygiene an example of self-care?

Computer Generated Transcript for ‘Mental Health Self-Care’ Show

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

Announcer: [00:00:06] For reasons that utterly escape everyone involved, you’re listening to A Bipolar, a Schizophrenic, and a Podcast. Here are your hosts, Gabe Howard and Michelle Hammer.

Gabe: [00:00:17] You’re listening to A Bipolar, a Schizophrenic, and a Podcast. My name is Gabe Howard. I live with bipolar disorder.

Michelle: [00:00:23] Hi, I’m Michelle. I’m schizophrenic.

Gabe: [00:00:27] And today we are going to discuss self care. But like low end self care, like easy self care, basic self care, the self care that nobody thinks about because everybody’s always thinking about like these grandiose self care ideas.

Michelle: [00:00:42] Well like going to a spa and getting a facial?

Gabe: [00:00:45] That would be one. Or going on vacation, or being able to stay home for a week. Quitting their jobs.

Michelle: [00:00:51] I mean yeah quitting your job. What else is As grandiose self care?

Gabe: [00:00:57] I think the biggest grandiose self care is like marrying a rich person and just eating bonbons while watching TV all day.

Michelle: [00:01:04] Wait there’s something wrong with that?

Gabe: [00:01:05] There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just the kind of self care that most of us can’t participate in.

Michelle: [00:01:10] I mean that seems kind of like a pretty good self care.

Gabe: [00:01:13] I think that is an excellent self care and we’re gonna do a companion episode called self care for the rich and famous and that will be on there.

Michelle: [00:01:20] If you’re a sugar daddy looking for a sugar baby and you’re not a total creep, email me.

Gabe: [00:01:24] Really? The creep thing, do you care? That’s kind of creepy behavior on your part. You’re literally looking for somebody to take care of you.

Michelle: [00:01:31] Okay fine I’ll change that. If you just are a really rich person and you want to give me a lot of money for no reason, hit me up.

Gabe: [00:01:36] Michelle, you and I both live with severe and persistent mental illness and we’ve managed to live successfully for a number of years. And we always talk on this show that there’s more than just medication. There’s more than just therapy. There’s more than just peer support or group therapy or having stable housing or having good friends and family and one of the things that we almost never talk about, and an alert reader pointed out, is we never talk about basic self care tips. And I’m really surprised because between us we have like so many. And I love it when we get together and our little self care ideas don’t quite mesh. A big one of mine is going to get Diet Coke and just chilling.

Michelle: [00:02:13] At seven thirty in the morning.

Gabe: [00:02:16] That’s why it doesn’t quite mesh. And one of your self care tips is going to get coffee but like closer to eleven and it’s very difficult to find a place that has Diet Coke and coffee that you find acceptable.

Michelle: [00:02:30] Like McDonalds?

Gabe: [00:02:30] I mean McDonalds. That was a good compromise on our part. But remember when you tried to take me to Starbucks?

Michelle: [00:02:37] Yeah, and you refused to go to Starbucks. You think you’re better than Starbucks.

Gabe: [00:02:41] I don’t like coffee.

Michelle: [00:02:43] Why not?

Gabe: [00:02:43] Why don’t you like Diet Coke?

Michelle: [00:02:45] I do like Diet Coke but I don’t want it. I’d rather have coffee in the morning than Diet Coke.

Gabe: [00:02:51] You see the problem and this is why you shouldn’t have mentally ill friends ladies and gentlemen. We did an episode a few weeks ago where we talked about vices and Diet Coke was brought up as a vice because I drink so much of it and we’re not walking that back. But this is the flip side of that where it relaxes me. It helps me. It is a part of my self care especially when I get very stressed out at work or when I get overwhelmed on a project. I can step out, drive someplace, sit down, sip a Diet Coke, people watch, look around, and that really allows me to calm down. This is a self care option that cost me a couple of bucks and I know that you feel the same way about coffee.

Michelle: [00:03:31] Yes, coffee is readily available walking through New York City. Oh I want some coffee? I’ll be at a coffee shop in at least three minutes.

Gabe: [00:03:38] You once described that if you wanted coffee in New York, you just have to hold out your hand and say coffee and it just magically appears.

Michelle: [00:03:44] It’s ridiculous how much coffee you can get in New York City. Maybe that’s why everybody’s so amped up all the time? People just go go go go go. Maybe that’s what it is. That’s why everybody is just so fast and everything in New York City? Is it just the readily available list of coffee everywhere?

Gabe: [00:04:01] And espresso.

Michelle: [00:04:01] And espresso, is everywhere in New York.

Gabe: [00:04:04] Do you have people that call it ex-press-so? Where they don’t pronounce the s? They call it X-presso, instead of S-presso?

Michelle: [00:04:10] I thought it was X-presso for so long.

Gabe: [00:04:12] You pronounce the X? That doesn’t exist?

Michelle: [00:04:13] I didn’t know why. I didn’t know. I had to be educated, Gabe. I needed to be educated about coffee.

Gabe: [00:04:20] As longtime listeners of the show know, I also host the Psych Central Show with Vincent M. Wales and Vince is a master coffee person. Like he has all the equipment in his home. He knows everything about coffee; he knows everything about the beans. He has so much coffee knowledge and he tries to impart this on me all the time and I just give him this glazed over look like can I go now?

Michelle: [00:04:42] You never told me this about him. So I don’t know why me and Vin are not better friends now.

Gabe: [00:04:47] Oh, Vin loves coffee.

Michelle: [00:04:50] All the sudden I like Vince so much more than I ever did.

Gabe: [00:04:53] Well there’s another thing that I should tell you about Vin. He loves New York style pizza. It’s the only pizza that he will eat.

Michelle: [00:05:00] Why did you never tell me this about Vin?

Gabe: [00:05:04] I’m telling you now.

Michelle: [00:05:04] Ack!

Gabe: [00:05:05] Don’t assume that all the people around you are like old and god awful. Maybe ask them some questions? Maybe find some common ground?

Michelle: [00:05:14] All I know is that he likes comics.

Gabe: [00:05:16] Well I mean he does like comics. That’s true.

Michelle: [00:05:18] And I have nothing in common with Vin because I don’t like comics. But now that I know I have all this stuff in common with Vin, maybe maybe Vin and me can be BFFs?

Gabe: [00:05:23] I always thought you and Vin were BFFs.

Michelle: [00:05:27] No, you didn’t.

Gabe: [00:05:28] I know. Listen everybody, Michelle and Vin don’t have a rift. They get along just fine but they have a lot in common and they don’t realize it because you know Vin is well into his 50s and Michelle acts 12. It’s a big big gap. You know Vin lives in California, Michelle is from New York. We’ve got the whole male female thing going.

Michelle: [00:05:48] It’s going to be a long distance relationship.

Gabe: [00:05:49] It’s going to be a long distance?

Michelle: [00:05:50] Yeah.

Gabe: [00:05:50] Vin is very like muted. Like he’s nothing like me. He’s just very like, Yes, thank you.

Michelle: [00:05:55] Yes, hello, yes. My name is Vincent M. Wales.

Gabe: [00:05:59] He’s a novelist. He spends a lot of time alone with his words. I spend a lot of time alone with my words but I’m not writing them.

Michelle: [00:06:05] You’re just talking them.

Gabe: [00:06:06] I’m just talking. You know how you said early on that one of your coping mechanisms, not self care but coping mechanisms, was you put earbuds in? And that way when you walk down the street, people were like, “Oh, she’s not talking to herself she’s singing along to music. Or maybe she’s on a Bluetooth? Maybe she’s on the phone, etc?” It doesn’t look weird because you have the earbuds in.

Michelle: [00:06:25] Yes right.

Gabe: [00:06:27] I became a podcaster because originally when I was sitting upstairs just talking to myself, my wife thought it was weird. Now I’m like oh podcasting. She thinks I podcast 14 hours a day.

Michelle: [00:06:37] I know. I know my friends in college thought I was on the phone. Sometimes I’d be on the phone, but often they’d be like, “Who are you talking to?” And so I was, “I wasn’t.” I would try to say I was on the phone more times than I actually was, honestly.

Gabe: [00:06:51] One of your self care techniques was to educate the people that you lived with. I don’t think you’ve ever lived alone, have you? You’ve always either lived at home, lived in the dorms, or lived with a roommate?

Michelle: [00:07:01] Yes.

Gabe: [00:07:02] So you’ve had to do that. Part of your self care regimen is educating the people that you live with so that they give you the least amount of flack or shit or trouble as possible, right?

Michelle: [00:07:14] Yeah pretty much yeah. It’s never really been a big deal with anyone I lived with like outside of college. Since moving into Queens and Astoria and living in the apartment I live in now. The only thing that bothers anyone is that I don’t clean enough.

Gabe: [00:07:25] But that’s not schizophrenia.

Michelle: [00:07:26] No, that’s not schizophrenia. But like you know, being as schizophrenic, you always learn like they’re not the cleanliness of all the people blah blah blah.

Gabe: [00:07:35] We’re gonna get letters for that. Wait, did you just say people with schizophrenia aren’t clean?

Michelle: [00:07:38] We just watched that video that was like, “Schizophrenic people might not be dressed the best.” Or whatever that stupid video said. Like, okay, sure we don’t dress great. But what kind of ridiculous freakin’ fact was that?

Gabe: [00:07:49] You know it’s messed up. I know personally two people who live with schizophrenia. I have lots of, you know, co-workers and colleagues and fellow mental health advocates but two people who live with schizophrenia that I consider like like buddies. One of them is Michelle Hammer.

Michelle: [00:08:03] Mmm-hmm.

Gabe: [00:08:03] The great Michelle Hammer.

Michelle: [00:08:04] The great.

Gabe: [00:08:07] And the other one is Rachel Star. Rachel Star is like the best dressed person we know.

Michelle: [00:08:11] I know. And she knows how to walk in heels.

Gabe: [00:08:13] Yeah. She teaches it. She actually had a fashion blog for a while where she taught people how to be a girl and like how to walk in high heels, how to wear the belt, how to do the makeup. She’s like well put together and she has schizophrenia. So I’m starting to think that maybe these videos where they say things like, “people with schizophrenia don’t dress well, and they dress weird, and they act weird, and they’re they’re not clean, and they’re not organized, and they walk funny.”.

Michelle: [00:08:34] And they walk with an awkward gaunt.

Gabe: [00:08:38] Yeah I think maybe.

Michelle: [00:08:38] What is gaunt? The awkward gaunt?

Gabe: [00:08:40] I don’t know what any of that is either but this leads us into our next form of self care. Don’t watch that shit.

Michelle: [00:08:47] True.

Gabe: [00:08:51] So many people, they’re just constantly Googling stereotypes and offensive things on the Internet so that they can be mad at it.

Michelle: [00:08:58] Yeah.

Gabe: [00:08:59] Why?

Michelle: [00:08:59] It’s almost like they want to educate themselves as much as possible but then they find these online articles that really just are stereotypical and are wrong and they just start thinking bad things.

Gabe: [00:09:12] It pisses you off.

Michelle: [00:09:13] Yeah.

Gabe: [00:09:15] If you seek out things to be angry at, you’re gonna find it.

Michelle: [00:09:18] Yes.

Gabe: [00:09:20] But here’s the magical thing though. If you seek out things to provide you with joy on the Internet you will also find those.

Michelle: [00:09:26] What do you find for joy on the Internet? Porn?

Gabe: [00:09:28] Listen I’m not going to lie and tell people that I’ve never looked at pornography on the Internet today. Because that would just be a lie.

Michelle: [00:09:37] And nobody would believe you.

Gabe: [00:09:39] And nobody would believe me. But there are really cool things on the Internet that I do enjoy reading. One of the things that I’ve done and I think that this is vital to self care is I use a news curator. That eliminates a lot of news that I just don’t want to hear about, or sources that I consider to be offensive or dramatic or don’t follow journalistic standards.

Michelle: [00:10:02] Personally like just don’t.

Gabe: [00:10:03] Your personal beliefs are really irrelevant. It’s the part where you’re constantly being bombarded with you’re wrong you’re stupid you’re wrong you’re stupid you’re wrong you’re stupid. You realize once you put a slant on news it’s no longer news.

Michelle: [00:10:14] It’s just bias.

Gabe: [00:10:15] It’s just gossip.

Michelle: [00:10:15] It’s biased news.

Gabe: [00:10:17] It’s opinion.

Michelle: [00:10:18] It’s why I like E News.

Gabe: [00:10:20] Yeah I like I like to read my news. I also don’t like like live news, and by live news like I don’t turn on like the 24 hour news station on the TV because it always ends up like this. Like we’re getting word that something is happening. We have no facts or information so we’re just going to make shit up.

Michelle: [00:10:36] I personally love watching car chases.

Gabe: [00:10:38] Yeah, car chases are kind of fun.

Michelle: [00:10:39] I like when they watch the car chase and then the car goes under a bridge or something like that and then they start watching the wrong car.

Gabe: [00:10:47] They follow for a minute and then the helicopter goes back left?

Michelle: [00:10:48] Yeah. They watch the car and like oh the car seems to be pulling into a gas station. Oh the guy in the car seems to be wearing a different color shirt. They don’t seem to be really in a rush. Oh I’m sorry guys. I think you’ve been following the wrong car now.

Gabe: [00:11:01] Oh the police all left.

Michelle: [00:11:02] It seems like we’ve, uh, we’ve lost the car. Those are hilarious.

Gabe: [00:11:06] To answer your original question of what are some things that I like to read on the Internet that are fun? There’s all kinds of uplifting things. The biggest one for our community that we like to push out is The Mighty. TheMighty.com. We do ask us anything on the first and third Monday, we do it live. You can see our pretty faces. Just go to mental health on TheMighty.com.

Michelle: [00:11:25] You can see my pretty face and Gabe’s ginger face.

Gabe: [00:11:28] One of my self care things is to limit the amount of time I spend with Michelle.

Michelle: [00:11:31] No, but going on what I was saying about watching car chases. I look up on YouTube like fails.

Gabe: [00:11:37] There you go.

Michelle: [00:11:39] And it is just hilarious. But of course if anyone actually got hurt in the fails they wouldn’t be in the fails compilation but it’s just so funny to me watching these people get hurt. It’s hilarious. Rope swing fails are hilarious. Like any kind of like snowboarding fails. Those are pretty funny. Or just ridiculous like just kids doing something stupid. But I know it’s not good to watch this one but it’s hilarious. Baby fails. Baby fails are the funniest fails ever. They just fall over; they trip over things. Or like the babies cover themselves in peanut butter. Hilarious. And of course, the granddaddy of all them is when guys just get hit in the balls.

Gabe: [00:12:19] Just get hit in the balls?

Michelle: [00:12:19] Just getting hit in the balls. I cannot physically know the pain of getting hit in the balls but it looks painful and it’s hilarious to watch them. Have you ever been hit in the balls, Gabe?

Gabe: [00:12:28] Yes.

Michelle: [00:12:29] Sorry. I’m sorry.

Gabe: [00:12:31] It’s amazing to me because on one hand I’m like oh man, would it be self care for me to watch a bunch of guys getting hit in the balls because I know that suffering and that it always makes me cringe. But on the other hand I’d laugh hysterically.

Michelle: [00:12:43] Laugh hysterically. Hysterically, hysterically. Let’s take a break and hear from our sponsor.

Announcer: [00:12:49] This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.com. Secure, convenient, and affordable online counselling. All 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 counselling is right for you. BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral.

Michelle: [00:13:20] And we’re back talking about self care.

Gabe: [00:13:22] How do you feel about fidget spinners.

Michelle: [00:13:23] I like fridget spinners. Why not?

Gabe: [00:13:25] Have they helped you? They’re not new anymore. I mean they’re well over a year old and I think the fad has kind of gone as far as mainstream.

Michelle: [00:13:32] Oh they were all over Chinatown when I was popping up in near little Italy. They were everywhere. Every kid that came into the market had a fidget spinner a couple of years ago.

Gabe: [00:13:42] They were everywhere for ten dollars and then last year I went to the fair and they were a buck.

Michelle: [00:13:45] Five dollars. Chinatown five dollars. That’s how much they were.

Gabe: [00:13:47] Yeah, everywhere in Ohio ten bucks ten bucks ten bucks ten bucks and then at the fair this year a dollar.

Michelle: [00:13:51] Yeah, well whoever invented them they made a lot of money.

Gabe: [00:13:55] So the mainstream fad is over. I’ve kept mine. I still find it to be very very helpful. I keep a little, not a fidget spinner, but a little fidget toy in my pocket. And I still use what I consider like fidget spinners’ great great grandpa, like Koosh balls or squeezy balls. I find all of those things.

Michelle: [00:14:13] You how? You squeeze your balls?

Gabe: [00:14:14] No, I don’t squeeze my balls. I have a little foam ball that I can squeeze.

Michelle: [00:14:19] Oh, okay.

Gabe: [00:14:19] But it’s interesting that you’re over there thinking about my balls.

Michelle: [00:14:23] No I was just like you like squeezy balls. I mean you said squeezy balls, Gabe.

Gabe: [00:14:28] Stress balls.

Michelle: [00:14:29] You said you like squeezy balls.

Gabe: [00:14:30] Stess balls have been around for a long time.

Michelle: [00:14:31] You said you liked squeezy balls.

Gabe: [00:14:33] Do you ever think that we like bicker back and forth like siblings as part of our self care regimen? Is that like our thing? Because we laugh hysterically when we do it. So.

Michelle: [00:14:42] I guess we do.

Gabe: [00:14:43] So it’s clearly not an argument.

Michelle: [00:14:44] Talking about self care specifically, I always like to bring up the late great Whitney Houston who said learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.

Gabe: [00:14:59] But how is that a self care thing? I mean isn’t it like a high level concept? It’s kind of like telling somebody that is having financial problems to just make more money or if you’re distressed just love yourself.

Michelle: [00:15:08] Well she decided that to paraphrase I don’t know the exact words but Whitney Houston did say that she decided long ago not to wander in anyone’s shadow. You know what I’m saying?

Gabe: [00:15:19] Because that way if she succeeds it won’t be her destiny or something?

Michelle: [00:15:24] If I fail, if I succeed, at least I lived as I believe. Live as you believe, Gabe. Don’t wander in anyone’s shadow. Don’t be in anyone’s shadow. Be you. Don’t let anyone tell you what to do.

Gabe: [00:15:37] I think that that is excellent advice. You’ve also stumbled upon another thing that I think is amazing. Music.

Michelle: [00:15:42] Yes.

Gabe: [00:15:43] This music really speaks to you and I know that you have described when you’ve been depressed stressed worried or even a little manic, that you use music to like regulate your moods. You think that’s a common thing? I have that big like 12 speaker surround sound stereo in my car, bluetooth enabled and I use it to listen to our podcast. But whenever you’re here, we connect it, and we’re like doing carpool Karaoke and like screaming to music and people are staring at us.

Michelle: [00:16:08] Yeah like that time I made you play White Houses by Vanessa Carlton and I was singing my heart out.

Gabe: [00:16:14] You were and what I love is I don’t like it when people sing because it grates me. But I was able to turn up the music so loud I couldn’t hear you.

Michelle: [00:16:21] Listen, you don’t like my singing voice? I am a professional singer.

Gabe: [00:16:24] Who sang that song?

Michelle: [00:16:26] Vanessa Carlton.

Gabe: [00:16:27] Let’s keep it that way.

Michelle: [00:16:29] Yes yes yes. Everybody used to say that back in the day.

Gabe: [00:16:32] Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait. Knock knock.

Michelle: [00:16:35] Who’s there?

Gabe: [00:16:35] Interrupting cow.  MOOOOOO!

Michelle: [00:16:38] Yeah. Everybody knows that one too, Gabe.

Gabe: [00:16:39] Wait, wait, wait. Why did the chicken cross the road?

Michelle: [00:16:41] To get the other side.

Gabe: [00:16:43] Oh you’ve heard this one.

Michelle: [00:16:44] Who killed Alicia Keys?

Gabe: [00:16:46] Who?

Michelle: [00:16:46] No one no one no one.

Gabe: [00:16:52] Alicia Keys is alive, right?

Michelle: [00:16:53] Yeah.

Gabe: [00:16:54] Okay.

Michelle: [00:16:54] That’s her song.

Gabe: [00:16:55] I didn’t know that.

Michelle: [00:16:55] Oh, okay, well.

Gabe: [00:16:57] Who’s Alicia Keys?

Michelle: [00:16:57] You know, she plays piano.

Gabe: [00:17:00] I think she’s a no one. No one no one.

Michelle: [00:17:02] OK. That’s not funny.

Gabe: [00:17:04] It’s a little funny.

Michelle: [00:17:05] Fine, whatever you want.

Gabe: [00:17:06] I think we like different music. We have found music that we both like and I would say that you know that’s another self care tip. Maybe be willing to compromise with your friends. I don’t like to listen to music in the car. It’s not something that I really do. But you and I have had to take several road trips as part of our job and you were like look I talk to you for money so I’m not going to talk to you for free. So I compromised and agreed to listen to music and we had a lot of fun doing it. It really was fun. But when you’re not around I don’t do it by myself. So I think that sometimes self care is being open to new ideas and maybe finding the joy in things that maybe you wouldn’t do alone. Another example of that is Jeopardy. I don’t watch Jeopardy when you’re not around.

Michelle: [00:17:46] I love Jeopardy. I love it. I just love to see more of the competition type aspect because when I watch it maybe I get like five questions right.

Gabe: [00:17:56] I get none.

Michelle: [00:17:57] No you get some.

Gabe: [00:17:58] Never.

Michelle: [00:17:59] I mean I wish I could be on Jeopardy but those people they just they have facts that I don’t even I didn’t even know where actual things. How do they know this stuff? They’re amazing. They’re amazing people.

Gabe: [00:18:11] You find that very interesting, right?

Michelle: [00:18:11] I do. That these people are so smart and I find it so interesting that they know these facts and like where did they learn these? Like, I went to high school, I went to college. I didn’t go to an Ivy League or anything like that, but how do they know these facts? And even there’s the teachers tournament and when I ever thought of a teacher I was like yeah your teacher teaches this subject.  I was that you know they know this subject. No no no. You watch teachers tournament they know everything. Every. Thing. And then the college tournament, they know everything. But I do very well on the high school tournament. Those are those questions I do pretty good and then they had like the juniors. I was so good at the juniors. You have no idea. Those 12 year old kids, I’m on their level.

Gabe: [00:18:56] You know that show Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?

Michelle: [00:18:59] I’m bad at that.

Gabe: [00:19:00] Well, I was not. I was not smarter than a fifth grader.

Michelle: [00:19:02] I was not Smarter Than A Fifth Grader either. Yeah that’s how it is. Well, Gabe, when you’re not around I like to watch The People’s Court. So when we’re together we always watch The People’s Court.

Gabe: [00:19:12] You watch The People’s Court when I’m not around?

Michelle: [00:19:13] I try to.

Gabe: [00:19:14] I never watch Jeopardy when you’re not around. Like that’s only something that I do with you because I only get joy when you’re around. And truthfully I think the only joy that I get is watching you watch it. Listen I think that sometimes people miss the idea that self care doesn’t necessarily mean getting your way. You know so many people are like self care is doing what you want to do and it is. There’s a part of that, but self care is also about finding joy in things maybe you wouldn’t find joy in. And I think of things like, let’s take marriage for example. When you’re married you have to go to places or eat at restaurants or experience things that you wouldn’t seek on your own. I did not want to see Hamilton.

Michelle: [00:19:57] Why not? It’s supposed to be amazing. I want to see it so badly but the tickets are expensive.

Gabe: [00:20:00] But my wife wanted to see it so I went.

Michelle: [00:20:03] I’ll go . I’ll go with your wife. You buy the tickets and I’ll go with your wife.

Gabe: [00:20:07] It’s too late we already went.

Michelle: [00:20:08] Well, you didn’t invite me!

Gabe: [00:20:09] Maybe, but there’s an example. Though I did not want to go but I agreed to go. I got dressed up, we went out to a nice dinner, and I enjoyed myself. I both enjoyed the play and I enjoyed sharing it with somebody, making my wife happy. It’s also about the pageantry of putting on a suit. My wife and I don’t wear nice clothes around each other very often and it doesn’t matter if it’s Hamilton in a nice restaurant or if it’s just going to the Taco Bell in the nice section of town around the corner. Make it special. There’s all kinds of ways to take the mundane and turn them into better, and that is an example of self care.

Michelle: [00:20:45] This self care really is classified under the problem solving.

Gabe: [00:20:50] Problem solving self care?

Michelle: [00:20:51] This is problem solving.

Gabe: [00:20:52] Dun dun dun.

Michelle: [00:20:53] Yeah. All of this is really is problem solving self care. This is what we’re really discussing right now.

Gabe: [00:20:59] I agree.

Michelle: [00:21:00] Yeah.

Gabe: [00:21:00] You read an article didn’t you?

Michelle: [00:21:03] Possibly.

Gabe: [00:21:03] I’m sorry.

Michelle: [00:21:04] I did some research. Yes, what can I say? What can I say? I know.

Gabe: [00:21:08] You know, nobody has ever called you illiterate, Michelle.

Michelle: [00:21:11] Nobody. Nobody’s ever called me a illiterate since I learned how to read. I learned how to read, Gabe, one day.

Gabe: [00:21:16] You know jokes are funny. You asked earlier about things that you can seek out on the internet. Jokes. There’s jokes everywhere.

Michelle: [00:21:23] There’s jokes everywhere.

Gabe: [00:21:24] And there’s there’s inspirational writing.

Michelle: [00:21:26] Yes.

Gabe: [00:21:27] That’s always fun.

Michelle: [00:21:28] Watching TV like TV can be self care. I’m a huge fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I’ve been a huge fan since I was eight years old. And you know with the beauty of you know online streaming services and stuff like that I now can just go on to any one of those. Know the episode that I’m looking for. Watch it. And I feel that feeling of just like comfort. And it makes me feel better because I know the feeling that I get when I watch that specific episode. Like the episode where Buffy has to kill Angel and the devastation.

Gabe: [00:22:02] No.

Michelle: [00:22:02] It’s just I it’s like when I’m depressed I watch that episode and I’m like at least I didn’t have to kill my love. You know?

Gabe: [00:22:10] Wow.

Michelle: [00:22:11] She leaves town and goes to L.A.

Gabe: [00:22:13] Does Buffy kill her podcast co-host?

Michelle: [00:22:15] She doesn’t have a podcast, that didn’t exist.

Gabe: [00:22:19] OK. So I’m safe. That’s what I’m hearing.

Michelle: [00:22:21] Yeah.

Gabe: [00:22:21] But your significant other? You might have to kill someday?

Michelle: [00:22:24] Only if she tries to end the world and takes the sword out of Acathla as he’s going to swallow the world. And the only way to save the world is to kill her and send her to hell.

Gabe: [00:22:37] I know your significant other and she’s not that motivated. We’ll be fine.

Michelle: [00:22:40] Yeah.

Gabe: [00:22:42] Here’s some other like just real quick self-help tips that people don’t think of. Brush your teeth.

Michelle: [00:22:46] Yeah.

Gabe: [00:22:47] Eat something healthy. Make a meal, like make pageantry out of, you know? Don’t just grab the chips or you know the bagel bites in the microwave, actually cook a meal. There take a shower, shave, take a walk around the block, go to the gym. I mean it ramps up from here.

Michelle: [00:23:03] Exercise is great self care.

Gabe: [00:23:05] I’m not going to do that. But you’re right it is great self care.

Michelle: [00:23:10] It is and also joining a sports team. Any kind of club team is also great self care too.

Gabe: [00:23:16] People don’t think about that a lot, especially adults. You know I talked to a lot of people over the age of 50 and over the age of 40 because I’m at that age, and like I don’t know what to do for self care and I say like have you ever considered joining like a book club or a bowling league? And they’re like well but isn’t that like for young people? No, and one of the things that you turned me onto a long time ago, which is in your Jeopardy theme, is a lot of sports bars and bars like during the week will have trivia nights.

Michelle: [00:23:41] Yes.

Gabe: [00:23:41] Trivia nights are a lot of fun and you don’t have to sign up, you just have to show up so you show up and you can have fun. And listen, what’s really cool about them that I found out is that most people just suck. They just suck at trivia night but it’s a lot of fun. There’s always like a couple of teams are taking it like really serious and.

Michelle: [00:23:58] People take it ridiculously seriously.

Gabe: [00:24:01] Yeah.

Michelle: [00:24:01] Like ridiculous.

Gabe: [00:24:01] But at least half the room is just like, “Huh, trivia is hard.” But they’re still having fun.

Michelle: [00:24:07] I’ve never placed in regular trivia above second to last place.

Gabe: [00:24:11] Second to last place? So you beat somebody?

Michelle: [00:24:13] One time only. Because one of the sections was Disney.

Gabe: [00:24:17] One of the sections was Disney?

Michelle: [00:24:18] Yeah. That’s how I got 2nd to last place.

Gabe: [00:24:20] Didn’t you participate in a Buffy the Vampire Slayer trivia?

Michelle: [00:24:20] Yes I have many times and I have placed and I’ve never placed below fourth. I’ve got to go first second third and fourth.

Gabe: [00:24:29] Oh wow so you did get first when it was very specific to an amount of knowledge that you had.

Michelle: [00:24:33] Yeah I only placed first the one time where I was alone.

Gabe: [00:24:37] So if I want to take first in a trivia contest I should find like bullshit trivia?

Michelle: [00:24:42] Yeah.

Gabe: [00:24:42] Because I would place first.

Michelle: [00:24:44] If it was mental health trivia you would.

Gabe: [00:24:46] Oh my God. Could you imagine? You and I we would dominate it.

Michelle: [00:24:49] We would dominate mental health trivia.

Gabe: [00:24:51] Not only would we dominate but like if any of the stereotypes were the answer we’d correct it.

Michelle: [00:24:54] Oh, my God. We should have mental health trivia night somewhere. We should start that.

Gabe: [00:25:00] This is an excellent idea.

Michelle: [00:25:02] We should have a little contest or something.

Gabe: [00:25:06] A contest?

Michelle: [00:25:06] A mental health contest. Mental health, we should do something. But how do we know?

Gabe: [00:25:08] Eh, people are going to Google.

Michelle: [00:25:10] They’re gonna google.

Gabe: [00:25:12] I’ve got the first question though and they won’t be able to Google. I figured it out, Michelle. All right everybody, using show@PsychCentral.com, send us an email with the nicest thing that somebody did for you to help you cope with your own mental illness. So a nice story about a friend, a caregiver, a stranger. All stories are welcome. Please send them to show@PsychCentral.com. And if we use it on the air we’ll send you stickers because we’re chill like that.

Michelle: [00:25:39] Or a talking mental health T-shirt, Gabe.

Gabe: [00:25:42] That is so mean. Why you gotta be mocking the talking mental t-shirts?

Michelle: [00:25:45] I’m not. I’m not mocking them. I’m saying we should send them more than stickers, Gabe.

Gabe: [00:25:50] All right, I will revise it. The winner, the best story, the most moving and meaningful story, will get A Bipolar, a Schizophrenic, and a Podcast care package, including more than just stickers. But all of the other stories that we use on an upcoming show, will just get stickers. Fair?

Michelle: [00:26:07] But you have to actually write a good story.

Gabe: [00:26:12] Yeah, you got to read a good story.

Michelle: [00:26:13] You can’t just say, “My buddy gave me a Kit Kat and I was so happy about it.”

Gabe: [00:26:19] I mean you can, but you’re not going to win and we’re not going to use it on the show. And now I want to Kit Kat.

Michelle: [00:26:24] We have some downstairs.

Gabe: [00:26:24] Sweet. That’s where we’re off to. Thank you everybody for tuning into this week’s episode of A Bipolar, a Schizophrenic, and Podcast. If you are on iTunes we would love your five star review. Write a review, like use your words. Tell people why they should listen and please share us on social media. Email us to your friends, help us go world wide famous. And finally, if you work for BuzzFeed, or know anybody that works for BuzzFeed, where’s our love? Please write a story on us. We will see everybody next week on you’re supposed to yell out A Bipolar, a Schizophrenic, and a Podcast.

Michelle: [00:27:04] A Bipolar, a Schizophrenic, and a Podcast!

Gabe: [00:27:06] Thanks everybody for tuning in. And we will see you next week.

Narrator: [00:27:15] You’ve been listening to A Bipolar, a Schizophrenic, and a Podcast. If you love this episode, don’t keep it to yourself head over to iTunes or your preferred podcast app to subscribe, rate, and review. To work with Gabe go to GabeHoward.com. To work with Michelle, go to schizophrenic.NYC. For free mental health resources and online support groups, head over to PsychCentral.com. This show’s official web site is PsychCentral.com/BSP. You can e-mail us at show@PsychCentral.com. Thank you for listening, and share widely.

Meet Your Bipolar and Schizophrenic Hosts

GABE HOWARD was formally diagnosed with bipolar and anxiety disorders after being committed to a psychiatric hospital in 2003. Now in recovery, Gabe is a prominent mental health activist and host of the award-winning Psych Central Show podcast. He is also an award-winning writer and speaker, traveling nationally to share the humorous, yet educational, story of his bipolar life. To work with Gabe, visit gabehoward.com.

  MICHELLE HAMMER was officially diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 22, but incorrectly diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 18. Michelle is an award-winning mental health advocate who has been featured in press all over the world. In May 2015, Michelle founded the company Schizophrenic.NYC, a mental health clothing line, with the mission of reducing stigma by starting conversations about mental health. She is a firm believer that confidence can get you anywhere. To work with Michelle, visit Schizophrenic.NYC.

from World of Psychology http://bit.ly/2UPepzA via theshiningmind.com