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88inpursuit · 4 years ago

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It’s a, been a rough year.

Today is the last full day of a two year adventure.

We woke up to the first rainy day in.... let me go look it up....

This is potentially the only rainy day this whole month.

In January of this year we were in Madrid, Spain living a wonderfully metropolitan life, and on March 1st we drove back to Bordeaux, France with Mackerel in tow. Within one or two weeks of our arrival the country was in full lockdown mode from a virus called COVID-19. It has many names but the most commonly used is COVID-19 or Corona Virus. Many globally highly aware of it’s havoc it was causing mostly in Asian countries late 2019 and early 2020. I felt even more familiar with what was going on as many of my students are from Asian countries, South Korea, Japan, China, and Taiwan. Many naive people around the world were thinking that, ‘oh no, it won’t get to us, and if it does it won’t be that bad.’ It is now July 22 and the United States is struggling. New York was hit pretty hard in April. Many lives were lost and so many infected. Hospitals were over capacity and the city was in full lockdown mode.

Back to Europe. We had escaped the massive lockdown in Madrid that happened only just a few days after our departure. I am so very thankful we got out of there before that. They weren’t allowing people to travel whatsoever. They were reportedly stopping people at the border to turn back. Our living situation was so much better in Bordeaux than it would have been in Madrid. Initially we were staying at an Airbnb for a month that had an outdoor space, despite the house itself being haphazardly put together with a multitude of problems functioning. The bed was super cozy if initially difficult to get used to. Great deck and swimming pool, even if it was too cold to get in. April came and we were able to get into our new, old apartment. The one we were initially staying in when we first moved to France.

Domaine Maucamp: Avenue de Thouars. An old building from :

DOMAINE MAUCAMP

202, avenue de Thouars Residence built at the end of the 18th century Maucamp means "bad field"

In 1846, the estate was 24 ha including 7.5 ha of amenities (English garden, fishpond, stream, entrance courtyard, etc.) and 7 ha of vines. In 1920, the estate was mainly made up of pastures. In 1969, only 1.5 ha remained.

En 1846, le domaine était de 24 ha dont 7,5 ha d’agréments (jardin anglais, vivier, ruisseau, cour d’entrée, …) et 7 ha de vignes.

En 1920, le domaine était essentiellement composé de pâturages. En 1969, il ne restait plus que 1,5 ha.

Actuellement, nous y trouvons la Résidence La Pléiade-Maucamp situé dans le parc.

The apartment has high ceilings and curved corners where the ceiling and wall meet. The apartment has been decorated eclectically by our hosts. Modern with some vintage furnishings with no particular region. Our hosts are both professionals in the film and tv industry here in France. They both share a down to earth-ness that reminds me of people who have lived an interesting life. From their experiences to the travel they’ve done. They both have had previous partnerships and share one child with their previous partners. Fany has a son who is close to our age, 25, and Stephane has a daughter who is twelve. They all have such unique personalities but are similar in that they are all quirky and kind, the best combination. Throughout our who time in both France and Spain they have been the most accommodating, kind, sincere people we’ve had the pleasure to meet. They will be friends for life. We plan on coming back next year, well I do intend to the very least. I will miss them very much and am already tearing just thinking about not seeing them in passing or just hearing their voice in the hallway that we share. I will have to do some illustrations of the apartment set up before my memory slips away.

We have been so very fortunate throughout this whole journey here, and I can’t believe that I am saying this, but I don’t want to go. The reason being is that I was the one probably pushing harder to go home. I think my anxiety from how the world is at the moment influenced my pressure of wanting comforts of home.

It is now April... in the timeline and well we found out that we were/are, I am pregnant. I still have to let that sink in when I write that out. I knew it a week after I missed my period. It was that gut intuition you get as a woman. The intuition that continues to be socialized out of us, well tries to at least. My husband didn’t believe me, granted a couple times there were false alarms. What I didn’t/haven’t told him is that I didn’t actually think I was pregnant the previous times, but was wishful thinking. This time I knew it in my bones as they say. So deeply that I was as equally excited the way you get when something significantly new happens for me. The type of blindly excited but unaware of the weighty details of the life change. The kind you have as a teenager well into your mid twenties. I would like to think of it as a fearlessness. As the days slowly progressed to the date we agreed on taking a pregnancy test if the red gates unleashed came closer, the fear set in. Fuck. We were living in a country not as familiar to us as our home, I didn’t have a steady job, he was still in school and all job prospects had been dropped when COVID hit. I wasn’t on my thyroid medication for my Hashimoto’s. I have diagnosed clinical depression since childhood. How am I going to manage. How are we going to manage. This list went on and on and on. I didn’t sleep. I would wake up in a panic early, with my mind racing. The day came, it was raining, and he to the pharmacy to get the pregnancy test and micellar water.... why I don’t know. We weren’t out. Not only did he get micellar water he got three bottles, or so he thought, and only one pregnancy test. One bottle of micellar water, two bottles of baby safe cleansing water, and one pregnancy test. I peed in a cup put the stick in on the sick counter, and immediately a thick pink line instantly appeared. I cried immediately and had him look at it to make sure that it was accurate. He said yep, and the tests were 99.9% positive and we were definitely pregnant. I sobbed and that was that.

Since, it’s been a rollercoaster. The first trimester was full of nausea, bloating, constipation, headaches, irritability, and unearthly cravings for things. Particularly gummy candies, and egg sandwiches. Trouble breathing, sleeping, and no motivation to move. Mood swings galore.

Our first prenatal doctor’s appointment was well to say the least fascinating. Not only are we in a different country with different sets of procedures but also during a time of COVID. Rory was not able to be with me the whole appointment but for the sonogram and for questions after. Despite being listed as speaking English our doctor knew as much as I do in French. Not great but passable. My expectations were to have my blood pressure taken, my height, my weight, heart rate, the usual. Nope none of that. She asked me my medical history, family medical related issues, and concerns. We calculated the due date, and had a miscommunication that this was my first visit and first child. We did however get to see the baby on through a sonogram, and saw the blob that would later grow arms legs and a penis. Yes, a penis. It’s a boy. The following appointments were similar, sonogram’s galore but no blood pressure, heart rate, or weight taking. Our last appointment was fascinating though. We got to see him clearly defined as a boy and long gangly limbs. He was not as wiggly as the previous appointment, but there was some movement. These sonogram’s have been reassuring despite not having the regular procedures you would expect at prenatal appointments in the US. For one she would tell us what his measurements were, if he was growing well, and that he was okay. The important base things. Additionally it is the only time that I feel genuinely connected to him. Everyday otherwise I feel like many other women who probably don’t talk about it, I don’t feel connected. For me he is just something, well yes a baby, growing inside of me. I feel the same way about my organs, they are in there doing their thing and I am thankful, but I’m not connected to them emotionally. They just exist. I don’t think I am a horrible person for feeling this way, I am neither ungrateful for being able to get pregnant and so quickly, it’s just that this is how I’m wired. I’ve gone over it a million times, still do as to why I feel this way, but I don’t think that I’ll ever have a real reason unless I choose one and stick to it. Some of my reasonings have included: ‘To not be emotionally connected is my way of not getting hurt or broken if something were to happen,’ this is the one I tell people who I know are disturbed by my feelings of disconnected-ness. Another is that I don’t have the mother gene, despite what others are constantly telling me. The fun more irritational one is that I am not actually having a baby and that I dreamt this all. I could go on but I will bore myself.

Motherhood is a sore subject for me. I had a very rocky childhood largely formed by circumstances that both my mother and I could not have controlled or changed. It is hard to fault her, but it is hard to know that I won’t succumb to issues my mother once and sometimes continues to be influenced by. I just hope that the cycle of disappointment and hurt felt by me, my mother, her mother and potentially her mother and so forth ends with me. I know that I will have moments where a flip will be switched and I will have to remove myself to not cause this cyclical damage. In fact I’ve had and continue to have conversations with him to help me help myself from this happening. I know my strengths and I know my weaknesses. I am afraid my weaknesses are more powerful than my strengths.

Being pregnant has largely influenced my pressuring to go home. I somewhat am regretting it. A part of me thinks I should have sucked it up and try to make it work here with him. Fought harder to make it work so that our dream of living overseas long term could take several steps forward as opposed to quite of few steps back? I keep running into this strange feeling mindset of, ‘should we do this or do that? should I pursue this or that?’ When did I get so wishy washy? I used to be so strong in my convictions. Anywho we are flying back tomorrow. An 18 hour + journey back to the crisis hole this is America at the moment.

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iamwhelmed · 7 years ago

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For Whom the Bell Tolls: Chapter 16 - Epilogue

This is the end of the first road, guys. But don’t worry! We still have a roadtrip ahead of us! We’ve got two more stories to go before this series is over!

However, school is starting up, and while I plan to continue to work hard on writing it up, I’m not quite sure when Book Two will be coming out. I do already have it planned out in its entirety, but it is longer than Book One by bullet points alone.

In the meantime-- why not join in on Maxaac Week? This ship hasn’t been getting enough love lately, and I think we need to change that! ;D It would mean the world to me to see other people making maxaac shipping stuff, so please be sure to participate, even if I’m not sure I can yet!

I also wanted to thank everyone who’s been reviewing and talking to me via asks about FWTBT. This project has been in my mind and planned out for a long while now, so it means a whole lot to me that I was able to write it and post it and see that people enjoyed it! Finding people that delight in angst and hurt/comfort the way you do is a rare, and valuable, experience, and I hope that everyone who’s been reading will enjoy Book Two just as much! <3

Also on AO3 and Fanfiction.net!

Summary: When monsters start to invade Mayview, the morality of the connection between a medium and their spirit comes into question. Is killing a spirit any different from taking the life of another human? Relationships between club members become strained, and if Max thought the club was coming apart before, it certainly is now.

It was only around a half an hour later that the other spectrals flooded in. Guerra's backup arrived in the nick of time, ramming through the front doors, trampling over what monsters remained and taking them out, one by one in a battle reminiscent of the wars in Spender's history books. The halls turned nightmares became war-zones, and there wasn't a single wing or hallway or classroom that wasn't being flipped, toppled over, destroyed as trained spectrals clashed against human-spirit hybrid monstrosities. Other spectrals, with powers less offensive and more defensive, led each saved student and teacher out the closest exits, roping them all into single-file lines. There were no casualties, and everyone was thankful for that, but every student in the school, and every teacher, would be walking away from Mayview Middle that day with a scar they'd never heal. Agent Day herself concluded that she'd be speaking to each individual survivor- after all, she was there to look for monsters, and it was clear that this was only the beginning of a war; there'd be more.

And it was his fault.

Isaac grimaced and leaned against the wall near the infirmary door, not quite comfortable standing there with all of them while Isabel was getting her shoulder patched up. They didn't want him in there, so he'd stay away like he should.

"Don't do it."

Isaac raised his head as Dimitri cracked open the infirmary door just wide enough to slip out. They made eye-contact, a rare moment when Dimitri seemed to be asking for permission. When Isaac said nothing, he shut the door behind him and came to lean against the wall by his side, ignoring the tension floating about in the heavy air.

"Do what?"

Dimitri stuck his hands in his pockets. "Quit the club."

Isaac snorted and Dimitri set one foot against the wall. "I'm serious. It was the worst decision I ever made." He shrugged, and Isaac pretended to be focusing on the door to the classroom in front of him, hoping he'd just shut up and leave. When he didn't, Isaac looked in the other direction; hearing what he didn't want to was enough. "Don't get me wrong, I love Suzy and Collin, but there's this whole side to me they don't get, you know?"

Isaac bit back how they'd probably get it now, because they knew everything; they still wouldn't understand, and he knew that. They still didn't have tools and they still weren't mediums. They could hear about their world but they'd never see it. Whatever. Dimitri would likely rejoin the club- he'd have no reason to stay away anymore, but Isaac still felt guilty for ever putting him in a position that he'd had to. Isaac looked to his feet again, but still said nothing. Dimitri sighed heavily and turned back around, opening and entering the infirmary to join the rest of the club again. Isaac watched as the smallest crack between the door and the threshold shut, then turned around and walked away.

There was something he had to do.

Max was snickering at her, and she didn't like it. "What." He only grinned more.

"Nothing. You just look so helpless sitting on that table getting your shoulder patched up."

"Oh, bite me."

Spender stepped forward, brows furrowed. He'd been worrying his lip for the better part of fifteen minutes, and the elderly nurse was yet to do anything to settle him down. "Now, now, she's fine. The wound is deep, but it isn't fatal." The whole room sighed, some of them, like Max, unaware they'd been as nervous as Spender had been until they heard the wound wasn't fatal. Dimitri chose that moment to re-enter, looking awfully downtrodden for having just been in the bathroom. "I do suggest taking her to the hospital, however. She will need stitches."

"Again?" Isabel threw her head back and groaned.

"So I have to ask," Max mumbled, and the attention of the room shifted to him from where he lounged haphazardly against the nurse's chair and desk. "Are we going to be arrested again?"

Spender shook his head. "I don't believe we will." Reaching over, he set both hands over the nurse's ears, who hardly even noticed as he proceeded to clean out Isabel's wound. "The Consortium does have agents within that sector. BL won't be pleased that she has to clean this mess up, but the odds that we'll be pursued again are slim." His eyes narrowed behind his glasses. "However, covering up Mayview will be much more difficult. I doubt the students and teachers attacked today won't be going home to tell their families. We're going to have to do a lot of housekeeping before all of this is over. Things in Mayview are going to change pretty fast."

Isabel glanced over at Ed, who'd taken to sitting on the windowsill and swinging his legs back and forth. He'd been, perhaps, as outwardly worried as Spender was, and had all but hoisted her to the nurse's office, with Dimitri's help, against her will. Anything he'd been worried about seemed to drop off the face of the earth the moment they knew she'd be okay. He was acting like himself again, like Ed again. "So," She smiled, and he looked up at her from his swinging legs. "It's probably a good idea that you stick around our dojo a little longer then, right?"

He didn't respond with surprise the way she thought he might. He only watched her face, his once relaxed face falling to a frown.

Max must have been the only one capable of reading a room, because he jumped up from his seat and clasped his hands together. "Okay!" He used one hand to tug Spender's sleeve as his other arm wrapped around Dimitri's shoulders. "I think we should find Suzy and Collin and Isaac, who are probably off being mentally scarred and moody, respectively, somewhere else!" Spender waved his free arm around, fumbling over himself as Max dragged him out of the room, while Dimitri seemed subdued, though puzzled.

Isabel's smile fell when Ed sighed and moved on the windowsill so that he was sitting closer to her. Something about the movement seemed cautious, like he was trying to pacify a lion. The room was quiet without the rest of the club there, and even the nurse seemed oblivious to their conversation, which was all well and good- if he hadn't, she'd might've had to convince him to mind his own business. Ed met her eyes again, lips thinning into a line, eyes narrowing. He looked different, more confident, than usual. "Isabel, this is something I have to do."

That wasn't what she wanted to hear. "Why? You have Grandpa! He's willing to teach you, right?"

"I'm not learning from Master Guerra." Something inside of her twisted to hear him being so formal. She couldn't remember the last time he'd referred to him as anything but "Old Man" in her presence, and she wasn't sure she liked his tone.

He sounded sorry.

"And I've learned a lot from Master Hashimoto."

She grimaced. It was true, she had a feeling he wouldn't have come home Wednesday night if it wasn't, but she still didn't like it, and some desperate part of her wanted him to be lying again. If he was telling her the truth, if he meant a word of what he was saying, then-!

Isabel spit it out the moment the thought occurred to her. "Then I'll follow you!"

Ed looked concerned for a moment, brows furrowing at her. "Master Guerra would never allow that."

"I don't care!"

"Isabel-"

"Why are you so bent on leaving me?" Ed stopped before he could say whatever it was he was going to say, and she was thankful for just a moment; she didn't want to hear it. She felt the stinging behind her eyes rising again, and rising, and it was hot and so hard to hold back on right then, but she wouldn't cry. "I've already lost Eightfold, and now you want to leave me, too? You're my best friend! You're supposed to be here! You're supposed to stay with me! How could you just up and decide the dojo isn't good enough for you anymore? Do you know how selfish that is?" Ed frowned and reached out to her, brushing the nurse's hands away before he pulled her into his arms. She stuck her head in his shoulder, trembling with the tears she refused to let fall, squeezing her eyes tight and fisting her hands in his jacket, tugging him closer. "How am I supposed to just let you leave? I don't- I don't know what I'm supposed to do without you! You've been there my whole life..."

Ed ran a hand down her hair, using the other to rub circles into her back as he pressed his cheek to her head. It didn't help. It wasn't enough. She wanted him to stay. He had to stay.

"Isabel." She didn't want to hear it. "I promise you I'll come back." She stiffened. Ed pulled her closer, squeezing her with so much strength, she swore he was someone else entirely, but it still, somehow, felt like Ed. He was warm, and he was familiar. "I promised myself that I'd become a man worthy of the Guerra name, and that's what I'm going to do."

Isabel stayed still for a moment, letting his words process.

He pressed a kiss to her head, and just like that, she was squeezing him alive.

"Wait, wait, wait. Let me get this straight." Spender chuckled to himself as Max gestured enthusiastically, if not overdramatically, at Dimitri, who was smirking to himself. "You were a spectral, and you were in the club?"

"Yep."

Max frowned, and waved his hands from his chest to his shoulders. "So then why did you quit?"

Dimitri sighed and shook his head. "That's a story for another time, my man."

Max groaned for an extended period of time. "That is so annoying!" Seemed he didn't quite get the irony there. He continued mumbling for a few minutes about how "everything had to be a mystery with them" among other, semi-truthful, observations.

"I have to agree with Dimitri for the moment, Max," Spender gave them a smile as they arrived at the club room door, reaching into his pocket and digging around for his key. "We've all had a long day, it's best we rest up and-" He paused upon realizing that, instead of unlocking the door, he'd locked it. "Well… that's odd. I thought for sure I locked it after school on Wednesday?" He turned it the other way and unlocked it again before pressing the door open.

Inside, the lights were on, and Spender took a moment of pause upon entering the room. Max and Dimitri stood behind, blinking with a mix of confusion and suspicion. "That's even odder. I know for a fact that I shut the lights off?" He motioned for his students to stay put and strode over to the middle of the room. He glanced around, aura gathered at his hands, before ultimately deciding there didn't appear to be a hidden threat. "Well," He straightened up and readjusted his tie, not that there was much use to appearances after their battle with the monsters. They would all have to take very long, very soapy, baths when they got home. "I suppose I was mistaken. I must have been rather absent-minded that night."

"What's that?" Dimitri pointed to a folded piece of paper sitting atop Spender's desk, away from the piles and piles of papers, looking definitively not like homework or a test.

Spender walked over and picked it up, humming. "That's a good question."

Max and Dimitri hardly had a second to exchange a look before Spender slammed it down on the desk and bolted for the door. They stepped back into the hallway and he threw his hand out, gesturing to the rest of the school. "Find Isaac, now!"

Max shook his head in bewilderment, while Dimitri appeared guarded. "What? Why?"

Dear Mister Spender, or Activity Club, or I guess whoever is reading this…

I know I messed up. I know there's no going back on that. Honestly, none of this has really been your fault. I've been so mad at you for keeping secrets but…

"Isaac!" Max's voice was hoarse, and he'd been running through the streets for what must have been an hour, but there was no time to waste. The sun was setting over the city, and he could feel daylight slipping from his fingers as each minute passed. Night would fall soon, and so would any chance of finding their stupid, oblivious storm cloud. Their mascot.

"Isaac!" Dimitri's voice echoed his panic, albeit from a distance. They'd split up somewhere down the hill, hoping to cover more ground that way. From the way things were going, they hadn't done much. "Isaac!"

"Isaac!" Max stopped for a moment to catch his breath, bending over with his hands at his knees. "Isaac! Where the heck are you?" He wasn't expecting an answer, and that was what bothered him more than anything, the thought that maybe he never would get one. His heart was pounding painfully against his chest, and he knew all too well it wasn't the running that'd done it. Panic had taken all of him over, familiar and gripping so firmly on his mind that it consumed every thought, maybe for a long time, and there was only one thing that would stifle it. He grunted and continued down the hill again. "Isaac!"

The truth is that you started keeping secrets for a reason. I hurt Dimitri, could have hurt all of you, too. I had no right to be mad at you for keeping me at an arm's length. I earned that, and I forgot that. Now all of Mayview is going to know that spectrals exist because I couldn't control my temper, just like before. You guys have every right to hate me, but that sad thing is that, even now, I don't think you do.

Spender bursted through the door of the infirmary, screams so desperate that any threat from the tone was void. Isabel and Ed were up and on their feet before he could even explain why he was so hysterical, because somewhere they'd been feeling uneasy, too. Spender all but tore the keys to his car out of his pocket as they sped down the staircase two steps at a time, grimacing and grinding his teeth because it felt like he couldn't do anything fast enough.

The phone rang, and rang, and rang, but nobody answered. Usually he wouldn't have been risking a hand off the wheel, but the call was too important not to make. Isabel and Ed were glued to the back windows of the car, hands pressed to the glass, and usually he'd worry they'd leave a smudge, but nobody was picking up and he tried and tried and tried, and nothing else was on his mind. "Hello, you've reached The O'Connor residence. We can't come to the phone right now-" He cut the call short, grinding his teeth together.

I wanted you to hate me. I thought it was the only way to get you all to see me as something other than the club mascot… but you probably still do. I can't make you guys care about me, and it was ridiculous to think I ever would. I deserve worse than that. I deserve what you've been giving me this whole time. I went back on everything I believe in for the sake of hurting you back when I was the one who started it. For that, I have to pay.

"Isaac!"

Max and Dimitri had long since abandoned the area around the school. It was obvious he was long gone- Max winced- at least from the school grounds. Dimitri reasoned that he couldn't have gone far, that he'd spoken to Isaac only minutes before they'd left the infirmary, that he wasn't that far ahead of them, but Max had the nagging feeling he was only trying to do the logical thing, the doctor thing- keep everyone calm, but Max wasn't interested in being placated like a scared animal.

They'd come together at the end of the diverging road between the neighborhood Max lived in and the rest of town, and separated again when there was another fork near the fenced off side of another hill. Dimitri went right, he went left.

What I've done is inexcusable, and I know that. I've betrayed what little trust you all had in me, and in the process, I managed to hurt Suzy and Collin, and even the rest of the school. People are in pain now, and it's all my fault. Because I couldn't take the blame like I should have, I stepped way out of line and broke my own oath. Well, now I'm ready.

Spender hit on the brakes as another car drove by the red light, nearly ramming their car at the side. He was slamming on the horn as soon as his body was done lurching forward and back. Isabel and Ed croaked and tugged at their seatbelts at the sudden jolt. The other car drove off, and Spender grimaced. "Hold on!" They were off the moment his foot snapped off the break, his other pressing down on the gas pedal. Dimitri and Max had one side of town covered, but there was so much town to cover, and only so much time before-

His hand clenched around the steering wheel.

Before I do this, I wanted to say I'm sorry.

Suzy shivered, and Collin frowned, reaching up to grab one of the coats from the Lost & Found from where they sat below the front office desk. "Are you cold?"

She frowned and reached both hands up to rub at her shoulders, uncertain if the sudden disappearance of heat had anything to do with the setting sun. She wouldn't have been surprised if one of those things had managed to knock out the whole of the heating/air conditioning system. "I must be…"

He set the coat over shoulders and pulled either part of the front together for her, for which she thanked him in the smallest of voices. He nodded.

"Hey, Collin?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think Isaac's okay?"

He glanced at her, an eyebrow raised.

I swear to you guys: I will never hurt anyone like this again. I will never do to anyone else what I've done to you. All of the pain I caused you, all of the mistakes I made…

Isabel and Ed had rolled down the windows and he hadn't even noticed. "Isaac!" It was hard to hear them over the harsh winds blowing through the car, through their hair, through them. Isabel had once hand cupped over her mouth, while Ed was busying himself painting up a megaphone. Spender scrunched his nose as the cold of the evening settled over him.

I'm going to fix them.

Max took a deep breath, hands clenching, cheeks filling to their very limit with air, and then let it out with the loudest intentions he could muster.

"Isaac!"

There was no answer, only the quiet of the city, the low hustle and bustle of everyday life going on all around him. The loss of air made him dizzy, and he all but fell back into his knees, hands pressed to his legs as he hunched over and gathered as much air as he could. In and out, to the flow of the sounds of the river running by, he swallowed clumps of air, forcing down the reflex to cough or dry heave. His legs were numb with dull pain, and his sides were burning and there was a sharp pain in his lungs- he knew he'd pushed his body too far, but he had to.

He had to.

"You overdramatic little…" he mumbled to himself when he found the breathing room, raising the back of his wrist to wipe at the sweat rolling down his chin. Isaac, what are you even thinking? With a sigh, he straightened up and readjusted his cap by the wing, intending fully to continue his search. He thought hard about calling him again, but every call Spender made earlier had gone straight to voicemail, and he had a feeling it'd happen again if he tried. Max growled, grip tightening around his cap. He didn't even know where Isaac lived! He ripped it from his head and tossed it on the ground with a cry, frustration overwhelming him the way every other emotion had that hour, burning in his cheeks, twisting in his stomach. "Where are you?"

He reached down to pick his cap back up, but paused upon observing the green grass below him…

… and the sound of running water.

His eyes widened as he shot back up, absentmindedly placing his cap back on his head as he realized where he was, images of Garcia floating idly by and Johnny hitting his head against a rock and Isaac straight-up kicking lightning at a spirit running through his mind. That meant-!

I guess this is goodbye. Thanks for keeping me around while you did.

- Isaac

"Young Master Isaac, please!" Doorman was hunched over, hands together, fingers twiddling, sweat bunching up at the top of his reflective head. "There must be some other way!"

"There's not." Isaac frowned and fumbled with the key in his hand, the one that lead to the clubroom. It'd done him good in two years, not that it would be doing him much good from the on. Even so, he planned to hold onto it. It would be a reminder, should he ever need one. He had a feeling he wouldn't, after all the guilt would follow him forever, but it'd be nice to have something… precious. It wouldn't just serve as a physical manifestation of his mission, but as a piece of his past, a piece of the home he knew he'd never see again- the home he no longer had any part of. "I thought about it."

"Are you" Doorman paused and leaned closer, expressionless face inches from Isaac's disheartened one "sure about this, Isaac?"

"I am." He sighed and stuck the clubroom's key into the pocket at his chest before reaching into the back pockets of his jeans. "I need to atone for what I've done."

Doorman pulled back, twiddling hands calming and settling at his chest. He was still worried, Isaac could hear it in his voice, but his concern didn't change what needed to be done; he had to remind himself of that. "You already have…"

Isaac shook his head, meeting Doorman eye-to-lidded-eye, fighting back the urge to run face-first into his towering body and bury his head into his chest. Doorman was trying to cheer him up, but what was done was done, if the calls he'd gotten from Spender were any indication. He'd ignored them each time, but it had, admittedly, chipped away at his resolve, much like Doorman was. "Thank you for saying that, but I… I haven't. I'm not the agent of justice like I pretended to be. I've done nothing but hurt people and make myself an agent of fraud." Doorman didn't make a sound, but he could almost see the disagreeing frown forming figuratively across his knob. "Not only have I endangered the secret of the spectral world and everyone in Mayview," he swallowed there, pressing back against the lump forming in his throat "but I've betrayed the people I…" he squeezed his eyes shut. "... the people I love, more than anything in this whole world." He took his hand from his back pocket, holding the keys from Maybury he'd borrowed from one unsuspecting, and probably confused, scientist at the base. He held them out so Doorman could see them. "Now I'm going to spend the rest of my life making up for it."

Doorman was silent, watching him contemplatively. Isaac wasn't going to say anything to interrupt his train of thought- Doorman knew there would be no stopping him, he just had to let him settle on whether or not he'd help him carry out his new oath or hinder him. They stood there, watching each other, unmoving. It was only after another moment that Doorman exhaled and hung his head.

"If this is truly what you want, Young Master Isaac."

He nodded. "It is."

Doorman reached out and set a hand on his shoulder, surprisingly calm and comforting compared to the mess he'd been when Isaac filled him in. The hold was familial, almost, and Isaac took a moment to suck it all in. After all…

This would be the last time they'd meet.

"You are a good person, Isaac." When he spoke, Doorman's voice was rocky, cracking as his hold on his shoulders tightened. "I wish I had more time with you, but I can see in your heart that you no longer need my guidance. You have chosen a path of nonviolence, and though I ache deeply to see you go, know that I am proud of you for the person you will become." If he could have cried, Isaac was sure he would have. With a start, Isaac raised a hand to his cheek, finding with no small pain that he'd started to.

"It's thanks to you!" He sniffled and wiped at both eyes, teeth shining through his watery grin. "It really is. If I didn't have you, I think" he laughed and brought his hands down so that Doorman could see his face, his genuine, smiling face. "- I know things would have been worse for me. If I just had the blowhard in my ear all day, we'd probably be in a very different place, huh?" Doorman hummed, and he could hear the smile in the sound of it. Isaac wiped at his eyes again, one last time, and nodded through his tears. He'd have time to cry later- now, he needed to go. "Thank you, Doorman. Thank you for everything."

"Of course, Isaac." His hands parted from his shoulders. "If you ever need me again," he pointed to Isaac's heart- more importantly, to the key in the pocket there. "You know how to find me."

Isaac's brows furrowed, and he wanted to ask how that could work, since he could only open a portal by sticking a key directly into Doorman, but he shrugged it off. He must have just meant his heart- his memories, and he could live with that.

Doorman bent down so that he could stick the Maybury key in, and with a deep breath, Isaac did.

Doorman's face grew bright, and he leaned backwards with one hand reaching up to his shoulder. Isaac held one arm up and covered his eyes as the light grew brighter, squeezing one shut as Doorman pulled back his coat and revealed the dark portal to the other side of the barrier. Night had fallen, and he figured he shouldn't have expected anything else, but he still felt surprised at how dim the door was.

With one last smile Doorman's way, and an appreciative glance when he passed him back the keys, he took his first steps toward his future.

Then he stopped.

He was bent on his new oath, bent on atoning by spending the rest of his days doing good in a place far away, but some part of him was screaming right then, begging him, pleading with him, to turn around, just for a moment. It reached out from the skin of his back, clawing at the mansion, and the city, he was leaving behind. It was akin to the feeling of forgetting something, and being lost as to what. The feeling itched, filling him with the faintest idea that he'd know what he was missing if he just turned around.

Isaac closed his eyes, inhaled, exhaled, and stepped right through the portal.

Doorman shut the portal behind him, closing his coat and letting the once open door fill to the brim with metaphorical brick.

There was a sudden, heavy sound of steps up stairs, and then they were heavier against the creaking floor of the old abandoned mansion. Doorman glanced up to find Max at the doorway, panting. His eyes were wide, panicked, shoulders heaving with every haul of air he took. Doorman could see him staring him down, see the question he didn't dare ask. Without a word, Doorman's sorrowful gaze fell to the floor.

Max slid limply, lifelessly, down the threshold to his rear, leaning back against the doorframe with such disbelief, so much denial, Doorman knew Isaac had already made another mistake.

Stepping out into the other side, Isaac quickly came to the conclusion the borrowed keys had been house-keys. He'd stepped into the living room near the front door of someone's home, dark without so much as the TV on, enough to suggest there was either no family to speak of, that they'd taken longer than normal to get a new pair of keys molded, or that they'd all already headed off to bed for the night. Isaac glanced at his watch. 8:30. He shrugged. That wasn't too odd, he supposed. As the portal closed behind him, he turned around and grabbed the handle, reaching up to untwist the lock. When he opened the door, a quiet suburban neighborhood greeted him, as dark as the night could be aside from the occasional lit home and the streetlamps down the street. He set the borrowed keys on the coffee table to the side with the plant sitting atop, and walked out into the world, careful to shut the door behind him quietly.

"Max!"

He'd gotten home a quarter past 9:00, and he hadn't had a lot of time to settle back into the idea that he was actually home by the time his dad was launching from where'd he'd been standing near the corner store phone, their home phone. Two warm hands were all over his face the moment he stepped foot through the sliding doors, murmuring and asking questions too fast for Max to answer. He frowned and shut his eyes, leaning into the touch.

"Where have you been? I heard your school was attacked by… by these monsters and I- I assumed the worst! Is this blood on your clothes? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Dad, I'm…." He sighed.

If he was surprised by Max slowly wrapping his arms around him in a strained, almost grateful, hug, he didn't show it. Max found himself locked between his dad's arms, squeezing him close like he was a little boy again, like everything that'd happened in the last two or three weeks had all been a nightmare he could run from, run straight into the protective presence of a parent. He knew too well he'd have to explain everything when the hold was over, but for the moment, he was going to bask in the love and security he'd thought he'd never feel again.

"Dad?"

"Yeah?"

He dug his head into his chest. "I'm not ready for you to date again."

There was a sigh, but it wasn't heavy. If anything, he heard relief. "All right, then." He held Max closer, raising one hand behind his head before pressing a long, overwhelmed, exhausted, loving kiss to the side of his head.

Zoe watched silently from the staircase, one hand to her heart, eyes welling with tears she used her other hand to wipe stubbornly at, smiling and taking deep breaths for so, so very many reasons. Pj hovered beside her, grinning to himself and to Lefty as they watched over the Puckett family.

"That should get their tiny, blind minds working."

A figure, cloaked from head to toe in black, strode along a dark cave, shifting to fly just above the ground to avoid the mess he'd found upon entering what he'd since claimed as his lair. The monsters were stupid, and messy, but they'd done him well yet, and were easy enough to train.

One amber eye, pupil thin and vertical, watched over the cliff where the tides of the ocean shifted below, falling along the jagged edges of sharp rocks and the crash of each wave against the cave wall. "It's been so long… and they do say wisdom comes with age." He was grinning, teeth long and sharp, brushing against his irregular skin and its patterns. "Perhaps, they'll be willing to listen this time."

#Paranatural #Isaac O'Connor #Maxwell Puckett #Isabel Guerra #Edward Burger #Richard Spender #Suzy Paranatural #Collin Paranatural #Dimitri Danger #Doorman Paranatural #maxaac #imaax #edsabel #pnat #FWTBT #The Monster Trilogy

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gethealthy18-blog · 5 years ago

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287: How to Create and Rekindle Passion & Libido in Relationships With Susan Bratton

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287: How to Create and Rekindle Passion & Libido in Relationships With Susan Bratton

Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.

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This episode is brought to you by SteadyMD, my family’s source for concierge medicine and our primary care doctors. Once something only available to the ultra wealthy, concierge medicine is now available to all of us thanks to SteadyMD. This means my family is connected with a highly qualified MD certified in functional medicine and who knows our medical history, the supplements we take, our preferences for medical treatments and who is available anytime we need her via text, video chat, or phone call. She’s been there when I was trying to decide if I needed to take a kid in for stitches or a sore throat, she’s looked at my kids ears remotely via digital otoscope that I connect to my phone and she manages and advises based on regular labs. I’ve always said that your doctor should be your partner in managing your health and should listen and take into account your symptoms, feelings and preferences and with SteadyMD, that absolutely happens. I feel supported, heard and confident knowing that I have one of the top doctors in the country available when I need her. With her help and thanks to diet and lifestyle changes in the past few years, I’ve been able to confirm that I no longer have any of the symptoms or lab markers of Hashimotos and am completely in remission! I truly can’t speak highly enough about steadymd and hope you’ll check them out. Head to steadyMD.com/wellnessmama to learn more and to take a quick quiz to see which doctor you match with.

Katie: Hello, and welcome to “The Wellness Mama Podcast.” I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com. And today’s episode, may be one you don’t want your little ones listening to, so if you are a mom or a driving in the car with little ones, you might wanna listen to this one sometime when your kids are not in the same room, unless sex is a topic you’ve already talked to them quite a bit about. Because I am here with Susan Bratton, who is considered a champion and advocate for all who desire more passionate relationships and she’s considered a sexpert. She’s been called the Dear Abby of sex with her fresh approach and original ideas that have helped millions of people of all ages to transform sex into passion. She’s been married to her husband, Tim, since 1993. But we hear a little bit about their story today and that it wasn’t always just sunshine and rainbows.

She’s an author, an award-winning speaker, and a serial entrepreneur, whose passion is to help couples all around the world. With her husband, she is CEO and co-founder of Personal Life Media. And she’s authored 20 books, including, “Relationship Magic,” “The Passion Patch,” and “30 Romance Tricks That Work Like Magic,” as well as her international best-seller, “Sexual Soulmates.” And in this episode, we go deep on things like why intimacy seems to die at a certain point in marriage and what you can do to revive it, why women and men are so different when it comes to intimacy, and how women can learn to be more in touch with their bodies in a way that’s really sexually satisfying. So, buckle your seatbelts. This is a fun one. But, again, maybe not one for little children’s ears.

Susan, welcome. And thanks for being here.

Susan: Oh, Katie, It’s so lovely to have the opportunity to share a conversation that we have with others. You’re always a joy to me. And thank you so much for the conversation around our sexuality and how it manifests over the different life stages we have, as a woman. I know that’s a big part of what we wanna cover today. So, thank you.

Katie: Absolutely. And I’m so excited to jump into this with you because, not only are you a friend and an expert on this, I think this is a topic that doesn’t get talked about enough. We’re pretty comfortable talking about all the other health topics. But I feel like this is really an important aspect of health that doesn’t get talked about even sometimes among close friends, and one that can be so helpful if we have the conversation in a constructive way. So, if you’re willing to get a little vulnerable, at first, I know from knowing you that you have a pretty amazing story when it comes to yourself with your husband. So, if you don’t mind, can we start there?

Susan: Of course. Yeah, well, I’m a sexpert. And that is a funny thing to be. And I’ve really had to grow into it because it takes a lot of courage to be a sexpert because people are really triggered by conversations about sex. And that comes mostly from people’s shame and traumas that have happened to them, and their parents never taught them much about sex. Their parents never were very intimate together, weren’t very touchy or lovey. Many people feel like they came from what would almost be called a sex-starved environment. And then they get out in the world and things happen. You know, we get abused or we get shamed. We date and things happen. Maybe we have unplanned pregnancies or we contract an STI or, you know, it’s scary. We’re taught to be almost afraid, “Don’t get pregnant. Don’t get an STI.” But nobody ever tells us about how to make love, how to connect, how to keep, you know, your marriage bed in a really happy place. And so, we have a longing and a fear around sex. And many, many people, they feel like they’re not enough or they have body shame issues, or they don’t think they look pretty down there. There’s just so much many things that can get in the way of having that deep, connected, loving, passionate relationship with your partner.

And I think, for me, it started… Gosh, I just remembered this, I think the catalyzing moment where I…and the very beginning of what happened to turn me from a successful Silicon Valley Executive into a sexpert, was the day I was standing outside on the front step of my Silicon Valley mansion, having had incredible financial success and entrepreneurial success in business. And there I was, standing there with my little girl, and she was six years old. And she was rubbing her little blanky on her lip. She liked to take the little satin edge of her blanky and rub it on her lip when she was nervous. I could always tell when she was… It was her little, like, poker tell when she was nervous. She was rubbing it on her lip. And my husband was in his SUV, was all packed up, and he was gonna drive down the driveway, and she said, “Daddy, are you still gonna be my daddy?”

Like, oh, and I mean, I tell you that right now, and it literally, like, my whole chest gets coated in upset feeling from thinking that I was on the edge of ruining my little girl’s life and losing my husband because we had grown apart in the last 11 years. The first 11 years of our marriage, we had stopped being intimate. I didn’t really want him. I wanted to want him, but I didn’t want him. He was so mad at me because I didn’t really like to have sex with him anymore. And he was very emotionally checked out. And he was gonna drive away and go to a hotel, and we were gonna proceed with a divorce. And I thought, “What am I doing, man? How did I get here? How did I get here? This is not right. I don’t want this to happen.” I loved him, I just didn’t want him. And if I only knew what I know now, I could have really prevented it from happening. Really, my whole career, the last 15 years, have been devoted to helping couples not get to the point that I got to that day where he was about to drive down the driveway and out of my life, and I was gonna ruin my daughter’s childhood.

And we just didn’t know what we didn’t know. We said, “All right, let’s not do it. Park the car, don’t drive away. We can’t do this.” And we started to go to therapy. And then we went to sex workshops, talk about edgy. I would have a meltdown in the car on every trip to a workshop. We did these human awareness institute workshops, and ecstatic loving workshops, and orgasmic meditation workshops. And we really wanted to try to figure out how to rekindle our relationship in the bedroom because we were great friends, we were great parents, we had an incredible life together, but we were living as brother and sister. And really what had happened was I had sex with my husband for a decade, and I never had a climax during intercourse. And if you hear about this thing called… Have you ever heard of this thing called the orgasm gap? Have you heard that saying, or phrase, or concept?

Katie: I’ve heard the term, but I’m not totally familiar with the meaning.

Susan: The orgasm gap is that over 90% of the time, the masculine, if you will, the penis owner, he has a climax from intercourse, but less than half the time some women are able to have an orgasm from intercourse. So, you go for a decade having intercourse with your partner and never having experienced, you know, a climax from it. And how long do you wanna do that? Like, my limit was 11 years. I didn’t wanna do it anymore. It wasn’t good for me. It was great for him. He didn’t understand why I didn’t want to have sex. And I didn’t know what I didn’t know. So, we said, “Well, let’s figure it out. Let’s learn.” Because what I’ve realized since then is that orgasm is a learned skill. So many women are ashamed or they feel not enough because they can’t have an orgasm or they’re not sure if they’re having one, or they have one but only in a certain way, or only with their vibrator, or only once in a while. It’s elusive. And what I’ve come to learn through all of the work that I’ve done is that all you have to do is know how to do it and someone just has to teach you how.

And so, I’ve devoted the last decade of my life to teaching women and their partners, how to have, not only one kind of orgasm, but 15 different kinds. Our bodies have unlimited orgasmic potential, and so do our partners. Men leave a lot of pleasure on the table. They don’t seem to be as upset about it. They seem to be happy with their kind of go-to strategy. But us women, we have so many ways we can experience orgasmic bliss with our partner. And nobody teaches us how and you certainly won’t see it on pornography. I am a very, very, very vocal detractor of pornography. I think it’s degrading to women. It doesn’t teach the right things. It’s not emotionally connected. And so, I really like to show people, give them techniques and ideas about, “Okay. Here’s what you actually need to do to achieve that pleasure.

You just didn’t know that you were missing some of these parts of the arousal experience and you weren’t quite sure how your genitals worked.” So, what I do is I just teach people all these different ways to do what I call bridging the orgasm gap or I like to call it “Crossing the gasm.” You know, because we can have as many orgasms as our partners if we just know how to do it. But we just need to learn that there are people out there like me that can teach these things. And I give away most of this stuff for free. I love to give, give, give, give, give, give, give and do very well, just giving away lots of techniques. And so, that’s what happened for us, but there was another issue, too.

And that is that, when I was young, I was sexually abused by my stepfather. And then when the first time that I lost my virginity, not the first time, the only time, the first time I had sex and lost my virginity, I got pregnant. And it was very, very… I was 19 years old and I had an abortion. And I knew that was the right thing for me, at that time, but I had a lot of loss and sadness over that. And then I had a time when I dated a boy and he almost raped me., and I felt very afraid of men. And I had a boyfriend one time who I had sex with and he kicked me out of bed and said, “Get your clothes and go home. I’m never going to call you again. You’re no good in bed.” Oh my God, I mean, I had so many wounds that I was carrying around, that even when I married my husband and I loved him, and I loved our lovemaking, it was so repetitive. And I wasn’t really having a great experience with it, that when the new relationship energy wore off, and I had all that kind of, like, trauma I was carrying around, that between all the trauma I’d experienced and the lack of orgasmic pleasure I was having in my marriage, I just didn’t wanna have sex anymore.

So, we went to therapy and he went with me, and we unwound all the trauma, I had a great therapist, and my husband was by my side every step of the way. And I was able to come to compassion about what happened and about my perpetrator, my stepfather, and I felt forgiveness for him, and I let it go. And I moved beyond it, instead of stuffing it. And I learned skills from these workshops. And all of a sudden my sex life with my husband became alive and on fire. And I found my feminine fire. I was having incredible pleasure with my husband and I. We just thought, “Oh my gosh, why doesn’t anybody teach these things. All our friends are dropping like flies. They’re all getting divorced. And it’s not the finances, it’s the sex. It’s the lack of good sex.” He’s gonna go get another younger girlfriend and she’s gonna get just as bored with him. And he’s gonna have multiple divorces and re-marriages because they didn’t know what they were doing because there’s no place you can learn to have heart connected, passionate lovemaking.

So, that’s how I ended up here, 15 years later, as the trusted hot sex advisor to millions, married 26 years, never more in love, never had better sex, totally love my husband. And I teach people how to find that themselves, how to understand the anatomy, and arousal, and libido, and desire, and sexual health and it is the most rewarding thing. You know, your greatest wound becomes your greatest gift.

Katie: Yeah. Absolutely. And that’s interesting that you said it was about 11 years in for you guys. It seems like there is something between that 10 to 15-year mark of marriage where… I hear this story from a lot of people from a lot of friends, that there seems to be a change that happens for a lot of people, at that point. Why do you think that is? Do you think it’s just, like, for you, all those years of it not being what it could have been and getting disillusioned? Are there other factors that come into play in that time period or why does it seem like so many people may be hit that at the same time?

Susan: Well, there are a couple of stages of abject boredom and sexual dissatisfaction. It sounds horrible, doesn’t it? Yeah. The first one is about four months to four years into the relationship, the new relationship energy wears off. And then there’s that seven-year Itch, which some of us can keep going until about 10 years, but it’s really boredom. It’s just that orgasm gap thing where it feels great to him, so he wants to keep doing it. But you get bored out of your mind and you need more… As the female, you need more seduction. You need to be moved towards your pleasure. You need more arousal. You need to feel desire. You also simply get bored and you need just more excitement. You need it to be fun. It ends up being rather perfunctory, after a while, if you’re not learning new things together. Really, the interesting thing about libido is that it is your general health. And as you age, your gut microbiome gets messed up, you get more toxins in, your hormones start to decline. All those things are actually… You know, you’re not producing as much serotonin in the gut. You’re not producing as many hormones. If you’ve been on birth control pills, that’s tamped it down. You know, there’s just a lot of factors at a physical level that happens, and then desire at an emotional level.

You maybe have frustrations with your partner, or withholds, or you’re not really being honest, or they’ve maybe, you know, gotten a potbelly, or they’re not grooming themselves like they used to, or they’re dressing sloppy, or things like that, that make you less…you desire them less. So you’ve got kids and you’re tired. And your husband’s a little, like, I don’t know, rough around the edges. You know, he’s not showing up for you the way he did when you first got together. He’s not romancing you. Sure, you might have date nights, but he’s not putting the effort in on the romance side of things. You know, when was the last time he brought you flowers or, you know, things like that.

And so, that kind of pulls down your desire. And then because he doesn’t understand how to arouse a woman, because testosterone starts out already. You know, he wakes up horny, and you don’t. He’s got this morning wood and he would just be happy to have sex every morning, just intercourse. It would be great for him and he’d go on his merry way, but that’s not really what women want. We wake up in the morning, gaving to get the kids off to school, and a million things to do. And quickies, honestly, I am against the quickie. I stand for no quickies because our genitals, our female genital are urogenital structure. We have as much erectile tissue inside us, as our partners do on the outside. If you think about it, he’s an outie and we’re an innie. And he gets almost instantly aroused because the blood flows into his penis and he gets that erection, so his visual signal is, “I’m ready to go.” And that’s the thing with testosterone, it’s full speed ahead. It thinks it knows what it’s doing. It’s overly confident. It has more certainty. That’s why it never asks for directions, right? Even when it’s lost, it just thinks it knows. It’s overconfident. It’s cock shore, right? And estrogen is more eyes on everything. It sees flaws. It has more anxiety, naturally. It has trouble getting in its body. It’s in its head. And it’s bothered by things, that the room is too cold, his beard is scratchy, the sheets aren’t snug on the bed, the lighting is too bright, the music isn’t right or it’s too loud. You know, we notice everything. And so, we have a harder time settling in. It takes us longer to get aroused. Our husband doesn’t realize this because he’s full steam ahead. And he’s kind of immune to the little things in the room that take us out of our body and we notice.

And so, we get this disconnect, where over the years, you haven’t taken, or insisted upon, or known to make sure that you get enough physical stimulation, that you take a slow arousal and let your body, and let your desire come to you. We don’t start out horny. We need to be turned on. We need to give ourselves the opportunity to first relax, which is the beginning of arousal. And then to build our turn on and our engorgement, which is the blood flow to our genitals. We need to kiss and be held, and stroked, and loved first before our husband grabs our breasts or grabs our Yoni. That’s not right for us. But he doesn’t know because the first thing he wants you to do is grab his manhood. That makes him feel calm. And like, “Okay. This is good for me. I’m being touched where I wanna be touched.” If he grabs you that way, it contracts you. It’s not right for the woman. And so, most husbands don’t know these things. And so, you go on for a decade, getting manhandled by a guy, you know, who thinks he’s better than he is. Eighty-percent of men, think they’re above average in bed. Okay. That math doesn’t compute. So, if you don’t have someone showing you how to turn on slowly and giving you the chance to do that, how many times are you gonna wanna have sex? You’re gonna want to stop that after a while. And that’s what I think happens to a lot of marriages. And the fun goes away. You’re not learning new things together. And I’d love to tell you more about that, too, the way to kind of, like, rekindle it, if you will.

Katie: So, I definitely do wanna jump into how ways you can try new things and rekindle in the bedroom. But first, I just wanna drive home a point. You mentioned that, for you in that phase, you had trouble reaching climax from intercourse alone. And I think that this is probably a pretty common thing for women, but it’s not one that’s talked about very often. And I wonder if maybe women feel like alone or, like, something’s wrong with them when they’re not able to that because it’s a common theme, that they probably think that’s something normal to happen. So, I’m curious, is that common for women to have difficulty with that? And if so, are there ways to learn that or to make it still very pleasurable, even if that’s not the case?

Susan: Yes. Most women don’t orgasm from intercourse, only the lucky ones. It’s actually a learned skill. So, we are biologically wired to learn how to make babies. That’s slot A into tab B. And that works pretty well without anybody teaching us what to do. But what we’re not taught and isn’t easy to understand or doesn’t come naturally to us is having orgasms. There are 16 types of female orgasm by my count right now. And what I would call orgasms from intercourse or penetration orgasms, or PIV, is what a lot of sexperts call it, penis-in-vagina orgasms. I don’t like that one as much. That is one of the most learned types of orgasms that there are. And the best way to do it… Well, I’ll tell you that I have a series about how to do it. I explain all of the details of exactly what to do in a series of YouTube videos on my Better Lover YouTube channel. So, I can’t get into all of it on this podcast because there’s a lot of things because it’s different things for different women. But generally, the biggest issue is two things.

The first is lack of proper genital engorgement, which means, not enough time with getting your genitals massaged, and/or pleasured prior to intercourse. And then the second thing is lack of his skill in the thrusting and lovemaking side of things. He will tend to go immediately inside you. You won’t have enough engorgement. You won’t have enough blood flow. You won’t have enough turn on. You won’t have enough lubrication. And he’ll go too fast, he’ll go right in. And then he’ll go in and out, kind of like the piston in a car motor, rather than the teasing, short, shallow strokes, combined with longer, slower strokes, hip drops and pelvic fluidity instead of a stiff pelvis. He’ll do too much, too hard. He won’t give you breaks. He’s not really conscious of what his penis is doing inside your vagina. You’re kind of just holding on, if you will, unable to relax. There’s probably a lot of vaginal rigidity. There’s probably a lot of missing terms of endearment, and verbal appreciation, and encouragement. There’s probably lack of kissing and full-body touch, and things like that. The positions may not be comfortable for you. It might be that you’re rushing into it and you’re not propped up with pillows. The environment might not be right. You might not have enough application of good organic nut oil. I like coconut oil or avocado oil, organic oil added to the situation so that you’ve got a good glide. There’s just probably a lot of components missing that are preventing you as the woman from really surrendering to your pleasure and it feeling very good to you. But I can tell you that, if you lay in all of these types of things… And there’s nothing wrong with the desire for your husband, you love him, you’re not mad at him. He’s meeting you’re outside of the bedroom relationship values, that the two of you can learn how to make love in a way that is much more orgasmically satisfying for her and not just him.

Katie: That makes perfect sense. Yeah. So, what are some of the ways…? I’d love to hear both from your experience and now what you teach, just a few more ways that people can rekindle that. You gave some great suggestions on how to make sure it’s beneficial for both. But when people hit that time, where like that seven-year itch you mentioned, what are some ways to rekindle that and to make things feel alive again for couples?

Susan: The best way is to schedule erotic playdates. So, I didn’t say schedule sex because that’s one more thing to do, which is the last thing we wellness mamas need, right? The last thing we need as one more thing to do, ��Service, my husband, boring.” And not to have any lovemaking out of shame, or mercy, or feeling like you have to, or duty, or anything like that, instead, scheduling erotic playdates where you learn new things together. Because your old dog needs to learn some new tricks. But because he’s testosterone dominant, he thinks he knows everything and he’s great in bed. So, you can’t tell him he’s not, but you can tell him, “Let’s try some new things.” And new things might be, “Let’s do a little role play.” Maybe it’s, you know, “Let’s play doctor and nurse,” and I’m gonna wear some little nurse outfit that’s super cute because that can be fun for some women. They like to dress up in sexy things and that makes you feel sexier. Or, “Let’s try a new position that we’ve never tried,” or, “Let’s make love in a different place,” maybe out in the backyard or something that feels a little naughty like, “The kids are all gone, let’s try the dining room table.” That can be really fun. Or, “Let’s learn a new skill together.” So, maybe an expanded orgasm practice or something like that. There are so many different ways that you can think about learning new things together. And the couple that plays together, stays together, especially in the bedroom. So, moving from, we’re having sex to we’re having erotic playdates, really gets you back into that new relationship energy that’s gone missing. And it helps your guy learn some new techniques that will make sex better for you. So, it’s a really good kind of ninja female technique that invites new learning without any blame game.

Katie: Another great tip. And I’m curious, though, I think that there’s probably another side to this as well, which is that whether it be through childbirth or, for my own experience, when I had Hashimoto and was really in the thick of it. Those things can really kind of tank your libido. And I know that there’s… I’ve talked on this podcast before a lot about that testing that needs to be done and definitely getting thyroid checked, and things like that, the physical side of libido. But what about for women who don’t even have, maybe, that desire to really do that? They don’t feel like their libido is there at all.

Susan: Yeah. Libido, desire, and arousal, they’re the three interconnecting circles. I like to think about it as the three circles. It’s called a Venn diagram, technically, the three circles, and then in the middle is a little heart, where all of that connects. Libido is, you’re feeling your physical body and its interest in making love. And when you’re ill, your vitality is diminished, and your sexual vitality is the same as your life vitality. You can’t feel passion for your sex life if you don’t feel passion for your general life. So, anything that’s essentially crunching down your physical vitality is also dampening your sexual vitality. So, ground zero for you is your gut, getting your gut moving, making sure your microbiome is working, making sure you’re pooing really easily and well every day, making sure you’re well-hydrated, making sure that your vaginal microbiome is in good condition. You know, a lot of women suffer from everything from like, and sclerosis to yeast infections to bacterial vaginosis to cystitis and UTIs and all of those kinds of things. We’re very delicate, our vulva region, our urogenital complex is very delicate. And so, we have to be in good health to have a libido. Your heart is beating, your libido is a beating heart too. And then desire is, are you in good shape with your partner? Are there any withholds, anything you’re mad about? That needs to get fixed before you can want them again. If you’re mad at them, you don’t want them. And then the arousal pieces, what I was talking about, giving yourself enough time to get fully engorged and turned on, and use good lube and, you know, learn new things, and actually learn some techniques, and things like that, that’s like the care and feeding of your intimate life.

And so, really, those three things have to come together to feel good. There’s another interesting piece that is, vaginal restoration. For a lot of women, after having a child, if they’ve had a severe scar or an episiotomy, some women get fistulas or varosoles, or things like that. They’ve had wounding or damage from a bicycle or horseback riding, or they’re starting to have incontinence, or they feel vaginal laxity, lack of tone. All of these things affect the vast amount of us females. And there are many, what I would call, vaginal restoration technologies coming to the fore now that are available to us, that are not surgical in nature. They’re not vaginoplasty or labiaplasty. They are almost what you would call lunch break treatments. Using CO2 lasers and RF devices intravaginally, up inside the vagina, that are similar to what you would do if you were having Fraxel or BBL, or an IPL or any of those kinds of things on your face, any kind of like… You know, you talk about photobiomodulation a lot on your show. So, you know, you’re using essentially, light to stimulate new growth. So, the laser is light that does subcutaneous damage to your vaginal mucosa, which is hormesis, which creates new growth in the tissue and re-colleganate the tissue and tightens and tones the vaginal canal, and helps stimulate the musculature to rejuvenate the musculature tissue to help with incontinence. And then there’s also RF devices on the outer labia and inner labia that can be done for older women who are getting a lot of loss of tone. And then there’s, of course, the O-Shot. Have you ever heard about the O-Shot?

Katie: I have. And I actually had someone who does it on the podcast a while back, and I have actually tried it myself. But please explain what it is for anyone who hasn’t tried it.

Susan: Oh, great. Who did you have on? Robin?

Katie: No. I had someone from GAINSWave down in South Florida.

Susan: Oh, great. Yeah. From GAINSWave. Right. So, that’s what you do. You get a GAINSave for your husband and a P-Shot, and use a vacuum erection device to reverse his natural atrophy because as men age, their penises shrink, they atrophy. We’re shriveling up as we age. And so, to reverse the natural atrophy, especially, if there’s been any health issues, you use the GAINSWave to knock the plaque off and then you get the blood flow again. And then you use the penis pump to open and pull that tunica albuginea up so that the chambers can fill with more blood and the P-Shot does that restoration of the tissue. It’s the same with the female, only, when we shrink, we get bigger, more open. Our vaginas get lax, they lose tone. So, his penis shrinks as your vagina gets bigger. It’s the cruelest cut, Katie.

And so, the O-Shot is actually PRP, platelet rich plasma from your own blood, same as the P-Shot for him, spun in a centrifuge and then the white blood cells are taken off, and the red blood cells are taken off, and you’re left with this healing broth, this golden broth of platelet rich plasma that has cytokines and healing factors that get injected. It doesn’t hurt. You’re numbed, injected into your clitoral structure, your clitoral structure being erectile tissue, and your urethral structure, which is your G-spot… It’s not a spot. It’s an area. And it’s actually a tube of erectile tissue that surrounds your urethra canal, which is where the urine flows out. Those structures, you inject with this PRP, and it rejuvenates that tissue. It regrows new clitoral tissue because over time we get sensation loss. By the time you’re 50, you’ve probably had 20% or 30% sensation loss from when you were 30 years old. It’s just a natural part of aging. But now, we have these regenerative therapies that we can use to bring back full function to our genital system from injury, childbirth, trauma, and aging. And they work really, really well.

Katie: Yeah. That’s super fascinating. And I’ve noticed even just, in my own life, like you said, that whole body approach, all of those things have to be in line. I don’t think maybe, for a lot of people, especially, people my age, those things may not even be necessary yet. But I do know this, for sure, when I eat clean, and I get enough sunshine, and I get enough movement, and I get enough sleep, those things all line up better, and my libido is definitely stronger. So, I think that’s really sage advice to really focus on all of those factors and, like any aspects of health, not look at libido as a thing in isolation, but look at it as part of your overall health. And that makes perfect sense.

Susan: Yep. It is just part of our life force.

Katie: I also wanna circle back and go a little deeper on the trauma aspect because I really appreciate you sharing so openly about that and about the pain in your past. And I know that, statistically, a lot of women have some form of sexual trauma in their past. I do have sexual trauma from when I was in high school. And I this is a very common thing. I have many, many friends who have been through some type of sexual trauma. And I know that that also may be a very personalized thing. And you mentioned therapy and things that helps you. But are there some general steps if someone has that in their past and is maybe willing to face it, that are a good starting point?

Susan: Yes. First of all, know that trauma has happened to probably 60% of men and women. Men are definitely equally traumatized. And trauma comes in many forms. It can come from someone doing something to you or shaming you. Trauma can come from lack of knowledge and the fear that comes from not knowing. It can come from health procedures, and not even necessarily gynecological procedures, but just general health procedures, where people are touching your body in ways that you did not give them permission to. It can come from, obviously, the dating world and the shame of things that happen there, whether it’s STIs or unwanted pregnancies, or mean people, or aggressive people. There are so many ways that trauma can happen.

And what I can tell you is a couple of things. The first is that, your partner is your greatest healer, that most people heal their traumas together as a couple. The second thing that I can tell you is that trauma is not just rational and that it’s primarily in your body, not as much in your mind… It’s in your mind, it’s in your psyche. You can talk about it. You can talk therapy out of some of it, but most of it is actually caught in your enteric nervous system. So, we hold a lot of our sexual wounding in our pelvic area, in our sacral chakra, in our womb, in our tissue, all that tissue that we have in us, in our pelvic area. And it needs to actually be touched to be released. That’s why G-spot massage is one of the most common somatic healing technologies, that we use body healing technologies when our partner can give us a general massage and stroke that G area right inside the vagina, right on the roof of the vaginal canal, right up in the top of the cave. It likes pressure and it needs release.

For many women, their vagina is very rigid and hard because it’s been traumatized and it’s kind of locked down. Their pelvis is locked down or they’re having painful sex. And every time they think about sex, it hurts before they even are entered. And all of this is just trauma waiting to be loved and released into and let go. So, there are things that trigger us. We get triggered. We feel unsafe. And that’s why having a lot of these kind of loving touch modalities are very important.

I also have a really nice series on recovering from sexual trauma on my YouTube channel with Arielle Giarretto. Arielle runs an organization called fullembodiment.org. And she is, to me, the preeminent sexual trauma healer in the world today. I have very good connections. And we did a series about releasing trauma, being the partner of someone who’s been traumatized, supporting your partner through healing. What somatic healing is, somatic healing modalities, how to release enteric upset and shame. And so, you know, we can’t go into all of it in a less than an hour of a podcast, but that’s a resource that I would send you to. It’s at betterlover.com. And you can just search trauma on my YouTube channel. And you’ll find a beautiful series that we did together on healing trauma together as a couple.

I mean, we went to therapy, but it was my husband that healed me, as he began to massage me and release all the things that I had withheld and buried in my womb. Sometimes things would erupt out of me like… It would sound like the Wicked Witch in the scary cottage of “Hansel and Gretel,” where I would go…and make all these weird sounds that just erupted out of me as he was stroking that G-spot area. Or I would squeal like a hyena or I would roar like a train was coming through the room. I mean, and I would cry. He would hold me after that massage. And I would cry, and cry, and release, and release. But he just held me in his safe masculine container. And he just let me let all that go. And as I let all that go, then I began to feel pleasure. And that was really what allowed me to begin to have those orgasms from intercourse because now I’d lost all that armoring that I’d had, all that emotional armoring that had shut me down, and locked me down, and I released it all. And I began to release and release, and then I could connect with them. And when we made love, I didn’t dissociate. I didn’t leave my body. He’s kept me, “Look me in the eyes, baby, I’m right here. Everything’s okay, I’ve got you. Do you need me to stop? Do you need me to slow down? Let’s take a break.” And he just healed me from all of the injustices that had happened to me in my lifetime.

And that’s how I got from shut down, about to lose my marriage, to lose my wonderful husband and to ruin my daughter’s life, and my life, and to be alone, to start over, and to not have that happen, and to go on, to heal, and to go into the upward pleasure spiral where lovemaking just got better and better. And we so changed that we wanted to bring this change to other people. We wanted to make all this information available to everyone in the world who could find us. That’s the beauty of the internet. I mean, I’m not able to put these things on Facebook because Facebook, they’re just, like, nothing about sexuality. Even sexual health, no, no, no, nothing, nothing, nothing. It’s actually hard to find this information. But YouTube luckily lets me keep a channel that I can teach people things. And my sexual vitality summit is available to people for free because the healing is out there. The knowledge is around. And I just really appreciate you giving me the time to come on to “Wellness Mama” and touch the people in your world with the possibility of healing, and connection, and pleasure.

Katie: I’ll make sure we find those links as well and put them in the show notes at wellnessmama.fm. So, if you are driving or exercising, don’t worry about trying to write that down or keep it in your phone. Those will all be at wellnessmama.fm, so you can find Susan more. Before we wrap up, there’s another topic that is just timely for me right now as I’m under a month away from having a teenager myself is just the thought of how do we hopefully teach our children a healthy and positive attitude when it comes to sex? Because I think a lot of people… Like, I know I went into marriage with a lot of interesting attitudes about sex, but in including ones I had to work through about all the early childhood ones about sex being bad. That was taught, you know, when you’re young and you’re not supposed to be quite having sex yet. Like, I had to work through that at marriage, once sex was wonderful and good. But do you have any tips, especially, for the moms listening, and especially for our daughters of how we can raise them with a healthy, and realistic, and wonderful attitude towards sex and toward their bodies?

Susan: Yes. And thank you so much for asking about that. I actually have quite a bit of knowledge and experience in how to talk to our children about sex. And just to give you some kind of highlights about the approach. Yeah. We are traumatized by people scaring us about sex, “Ooh, don’t get near any semen, it’s bad for you. You’ll get pregnant,” and you know, “You’re gonna get STIs and it’s dangerous.” Our heads are filled with all these negative things. And then we don’t have names for our genitals and we’re not taught our anatomy and, you know, everything is just the negative, negative, negative. And so, we have to teach ourselves.

So, the one thing I’ll tell you is that, forgive your parents for not teaching you. They didn’t have the tools. It wasn’t the time. And when they tried to, if they tried to, you probably gave them a big eye-roll, and it was hard for you to talk to them about it. So, forgive them and move on, and know that it’s actually your responsibility, just like personal growth is your responsibility, just like continuing to always work on your health and making sure you are saving money and, you know, you’re getting your exercise and eating your vegetables. Your job is to open and expand your sexual potential yourself. It’s not your parent’s job, so let that go. Because what I find is people hold a lot of bitterness about that with their parents. And that’s unnecessary, so forgive your parents.

The second thing is, children wanna know very early on what the anatomical parts are between boys and girls. And so, it’s very nice to tell them about, “This is called your vulva. These are your labia. You have inner and outer labia. You have something called a vaginal canal. You have something called a clitoral structure. A boy has a penis. He has testicles. They’re in a sack called a scrotum. You know, he has something inside called a prostate. There are lots of interesting parts, but we all started out the same. We all started in the womb as little girls, but then about 8 to 16 weeks during gestation, half of us became boys, girls have innies and boys have outies. They fit together to make a baby.” What you do is you start with the simple things,”This is called your vulva. You have different parts. Boys is called a penis. He has different parts.” And then you layer in extra pieces, “And then here’s how babies are made. The penis goes inside the vagina and something called semen comes out that has sperm inside it, that fertilize a little egg inside the girl, that grows inside, her belly gets big, it comes out her vagina, and that’s how you get a baby.” Right.

So, you teach them those kinds of things. And then later you talk about, “Sex is a beautiful thing between adults. It’s something that you share. It can be a really sweet emotional connection. It’s like your best friend with benefits.” So, you know, you start talking about the emotional aspects. And then you start saying, “You always wanna honor that you should only do what you wanna do. You’re in charge of your own sex life. You never do anything you don’t wanna do. If someone’s pressuring you, here’s what you do, you call me or you leave immediately. No one owns your body, but you.” You do the body safety pieces. And then as they start to get a little older, you say, “There are some things you have to watch out for in sex. You wanna be careful not to get pregnant. When you’re ready, we’ll talk about contraceptives. I recommend non-hormonal contraceptives. I’ll teach you all about that when we’re ready. And we’ll also talk about safe sex and setting your boundaries, and having agreements about what you’re willing to do and what you’re not willing to do. And I want you to feel comfortable talking about sex. And then, you know, you go into more and more details about all these things. And what I find is that, over the years, if what you do is you just drip, drip, drip, you know that…

What’s that phrase about how the river always finds its way? It goes under, it goes around, it goes over, drips, drips, drips to find its way to the ocean, that’s what you’re doing with your child. You’re taking them on a journey, one drop at a time, so that… Their sexuality isn’t something where you sit down and have the talk, you’ve just always been having those conversations with them. You’re just layering knowledge. And then you also get some good books and you put those books in your family library, and you say, “I bought some books about human sexuality. There is a resource for you. Anytime that you’re curious, you can always ask me, but you can always refer to books as well. And they’re there when you’re ready.” And then the kids can go take them and look at them when they’re ready, when they have the curiosity in the knowledge. So, I think the combination of always layering in more info…

And when your kids are teenagers, when you’re driving them someplace, just drop one little thing, and then be done. Let it soak in for them and don’t expect to have a conversation about it. Just give them a little interesting fact, without them having to talk to you back about it. So, it’s not a two-way conversation unless they wanna make it that way. That’s also good advice for how you talk to teenagers who are resistant to everything you say because that’s their natural process of individuation. It has nothing to do with you. That’s how the individuate. So they have to. They’re compelled biologically to negate what whatever you say. That’s just them growing up, so you can’t take it personally. So, those are some of my little tips and techniques about that.

Katie: Those are great. And I can’t believe our time has already flown by so quickly. But a couple of quick things I love to ask at the end, the first, is there a book or books that have really impacted your life. If so, what they are and why?

Susan: I would highly recommend the “Women’s Anatomy of Arousal” by Sherry Winston. Sherry is one of my mentors. And she talks a lot about that piece that I want all women to know more, which is how we experience arousal as different than the masculine, the pussycats versus the puppy dogs. And learning about that, a “Woman’s Anatomy of Arousal” by Sherry Winston is an amazing book.

Katie: I will make sure that is linked in the show notes as well. And any parting advice you wanna leave to all the women listening today?

Susan: Yes. Demand the time that you need and the sensation that your body craves in the moment when you have connection with your partner. Stop doing what you think you’re supposed to do and listen to your body, and clue your partner in about what she needs and honor your Yoni.

Katie: Awesome. And Susan, you mentioned quite a few of your resources, but I’ll make sure those are all again linked in the show notes at wellnessmama.fm. So, anyone listening, you guys can find Susan, and continue to learn from her. But thank you so much for being here today and sharing your story so vulnerably and openly, and sharing what you’ve learned with us today.

Susan: Thanks, Katie. My pleasure.

Katie: And thanks as always to all of you for listening and for sharing your valuable asset, your time, with both of us. We’re so grateful that you did. And I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of “The Wellness Mama Podcast.”

If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.

Source: https://wellnessmama.com/podcast/susan-bratton/

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alicedoessurveys · 7 years ago

Text

Alphabet Tag

A – Accidents

01. Have you ever been in a car accident? Yes, two. But not bad ones and not while I’ve been driving.  02. Do you have a lot of scars? I have a couple  03. Have you ever been in a fist fight with someone? no  04. Have you ever seriously hurt anyone by mistake? not seriously hurt  05. Have you ever had stitches? Where? I guess I must have had stitches when I had my appendix out but I was too young to remember

B – Beauty

06. Do you consider yourself beautiful? no  07. Are you self conscious of how you look? yes very  08. Do you put on a lot of makeup? When I’m going out then yes I put makeup on but I wouldn’t say I put a lot on.  09. Would you ever consider getting plastic surgery? No, unless you count getting your teeth straightened then yes I would  10. What do you think makes a person beautiful? their spirit and personality.

C – Consequences

11. What was the longest amount of time you’ve been grounded for? I was never grounded  12. What would you do if you got pregnant, keep it or have an abortion? i can’t even think about that, literal nightmare  13. Do you ever think about how your actions affect other people? Yes  14. What do you think is the worst punishment someone could give you? Take my family away  15. What is one thing you wish you didn’t do, just because it wasn’t worth it in the end? Idk

D – Dealing

16. When you are mad at someone, how do you show them? Don’t speak to them  17. Name a time when you had to be strong. when Ethan left  18. Have you ever dealt with a divorce or parents fighting? Any kind of abuse at home? Parents used to fight every Sunday when I was a kid  19. When people at school don’t accept you, or have problems with you, how do you react? Thankfully I’m not in school anymore  20. Have you ever lost someone to death? Explain how you got through it. Only pets. I cried a lot

E – Experience

21. Have you ever had a job? Any volunteer jobs? Yes I’ve had two jobs  22. Do you think that you are sexually experienced, or not at all? Not at all :’)  23. Have you gone through a lot emotionally, or has life been easy thus far? totes emosh  24. Do you think you are ready to be on your own (have your own home, job, etc.)? No way. As much as I love the idea of having my own place I dont like being home alone at night  25. How old do you act? Idk, I definitely dont act as grown up as other 22 year olds but then I have times when I act like an 80 year old

F – Family

26. Is there anyone in your family you don’t talk to? Why? i don’t speak to a lot of my cousins, its not that we fell out or anything I just have soooooo many cousins and were not all close  27. If you had to choose, family or friends? Family  28. Can you tell your parents or one of your parents anything? I can tell my mom anything I just chose to keep some things to myself   29. Do you have any siblings? If so, do you ever get jealous of them? I have an older sister. I do get jealous of her because she’s always been the pretty sister and she actually has a job and suceeds at life whereas I’m a 22 year old unemployed girl with anxiety who still lives with her parents and has no idea what to do with her life   30. How often do you spend ‘quality time’ with family members? every day

G – Growing

31. How tall are you? How tall do you wish you were? 5 ft 7, I’m okay being this height  32. Do you think that you have grown more in the past year than any year before that? nope  33. As a person, do you think you are mature for your age or still act childish? Like I said earlier, it depends on the day.  34. Are you scared to think that one day you will turn 30, then 40, then 50? Yes  35. Do you believe you still have a lot to learn? Yes

H – Hope

36. Love – real or not? real  37. Are you a pessimist or an optimist? Bit of both depending on the situation, my mood, who I’m with  38. Do you believe in fate, that everything happens for a reason, or do you think that our actions lead the way? Obviously our actions have consequences but I do believe everything happens for a reason  39. Do you think that after we die our spirit is still alive? Yes  40. What gives you hope when you just feel like dying? Family

I – Issues

41. Do you suffer from depression or constant sadness/loneliness? Yes  42. Do you have any type of disease or disability? Yes, I have hashimotos thyoiditis  43. Are you currently in a hard relationship or have bad luck with the opposite sex? Not in a relationship, never have been.  44. Do you think that you are alone in this world? Nope  45. How often do you think about death, suicide or running away? Think about death more than I should but thats living with anxiety.

J – Jokes

46. Say a word or phrase that would not be funny to anyone but you & one of your friends (an inside joke) ‘Penetrating eyes’  47. Are you usually the one who makes people laugh,Or the other way around? I make people laugh, but I’m also easy to make laugh  48. Do you cry when you laugh hard? Yes  49. Write down a hilarious moment you had with someone that makes you laugh to this day! Too many memories with my sis  50. Do you ever get in trouble for laughing or talking a lot during class? I haven’t been in class for years now but I did used to get told off for laughing, I’m a giggler

K – Knowledge

51. The purpose of school: to learn, to cause trouble or to hang out with friends? To learn and to be with friends   52. Do people refer to you as smart, dumb, or average? Smart, because I’m god with technology and I can quite often answer questions on quiz shows because my brain remembers useless knowledge   53. What was the highest grade you have received (full course mark) ever? I got distinction (highest possible mark in that course) for something I did in theatrical make up class 54. What was your last average? This year would you like to maintain it or aim higher? I dont know what that means cause I’m not a student.. 55. What do you find the most interesting subject to be (to study or to talk about)? History, although I didn’t actually study it but I wish I did

L – Love

56. Are you currently in love? If not, have you been before? No & no.   57. Do people around you show you a lot of love (tell you they love you, hug you, kiss you, etc.)? Yes  58. Is love worth it? Probably 59. Do you hate it when girls in their young teenage years say they ‘love’ someone that they’ve been dating for a few months? No, its none of my business. and if thats what they believe they are feeling at that time then good for them 60. Does it take a lot for you to say you love someone, or is it just a word? I only say it to family and people I really do love. I think it gets thrown around too much these days

M – Money

61. Do you believe that money makes the world go round? Yes, annoyingly. You can’t really do anything without money   62. Is your family on the poor side, average, or above average when it comes to money? Average I think. We have a lot of debts but we still never go without or anything like that. Compared to other people I wouldn’t say we are poor   63. Are you saving up for college/university, or planning to? Nope  64. Would you rather win millions of dollars & be set for life, or find the perfect person to marry & start a family with? Not gonna lie, id rather win the money (in pounds though cause dollars are useless in UK) because I could help my family, pay for the carpark my church needs, donate some and not have to worry about bills or anything again

65. On a scale of 1-10, how important is money to you? Like 8, but only because its so important to the world. I don’t like that money is so vital because its something that is so easily lost and peoples lives have crumbled because of money trouble. Its scary.

N – Naughty

66. Are you a virgin? Yes  67. What do you think about doing sexual things with someone you’re not going out with? Its not for me, but who am I to judge anyone else who wants to do that.   68. Do you know anybody you consider a ’slut’? What makes you say that? Nope  69. If you could, would you erase some things you did in the past or make it so you did more? Yes  70. Do you consider yourself more nice or more naughty? You can’t say both! Nice

O – Openness

71. How long does it take for you to open up to someone? Not that long really, I’m too trusting of people and I get attached quickly   72. What does it take for you to fully trust someone? If I get the feeling that they trust me, and that they’re a genuine person who actually cares and isn’t just looking for gossip or using me   73. Are you generally untrusting towards people because of past experiences, or any other reason? Nope I’m quite trusting I think  74. When are you comfortable with someone sexually? Never. there was someone who I got very close to a few years ago but I still never wanted to do anything like that. We kissed and that was about it but even then I was like nope I don’t like this   75. When it comes to parents and close friends, what’s the limit of what you can tell them? i tell my mom the most but theres still stuff I wouldn’t tell her but might tell my close friends. But even then theres stuff that I just wouldn’t tell anyone ever no matter how much I trust them

P – Positive

76. Have you ever had an experience with someone that didn’t necessarily end positively? Do you remember the sad times or keep the memory of that person because of the good times? Hasn’t everyone had negative experiences with people.thats just life  77. Do you agree with the saying: better to have loved and lost than not have loved at all? I guess so   78. Are you more optimistic or pessimistic? What do you try to be? i swear we’ve already had this question!  79. Do you agree that something good can come out of everything? Yes  80. Have you ever had a time where something really bad happened, but something really good happened because of it? If so, please explain what it was: one of the worst days of my life was a couple years ago. I was in hospital for 10 hours while they did tests and X-rays and shiz because they suspected I had a blood clot in my lung because I had chest pains and I couldn’t breathe and it was just the scariest day. Turns out I didn’t and I was totally fine, it was either a muscle thing or just anxiety..but if I had never gone into hospital that day they would never had done a blood test and would never had spotted that there was something wrong with my thyroid. also turns out that with my type of throid disease, if left untreated it can cause you to go into a coma.. so yeah I guess something good came out of that horrible experience

Q – Questions

81. When faced with a problem, do you ask for help or try to figure it out yourself? Try to figure it out then ask for help if I’m really stuck  82. Do you often question the world and how we came about? What are some things you would like to know about creation? I’m a christian so I believe in God & creation but it still blows my mind.   83. Do you think the government is truthful? If you could ask the president one question, what would it be? HA no, I don’t trust the government as far as I can throw ‘em.   84. When someone does something wrong to you, do you confront them and ask them why they did it or just let it go? Depends who it is and what they’ve done  85. What is one unsolved mystery about the world that you want answers to? who is Banksy?! I wanna know who it is and what they look like :’)

R – Respect

86. How do you show respect? Be polite, have manners, smile  87. What can someone do for you to lose all respect for them? Be rude, ignorant, untrustworthy, lie  88. Do you respect your teachers, parents, and other authority figures? Parents yes. anyone else, it depends if they deserve respect, if they behave in a way that should be respected  89. When you are disrespectful to your parents, what is the punishment? Im not disrespectful to my parents. We don’t have the type of relationship where they would punish me anyway, they would just laugh it off  90. If someone is mean to you, are you mean back or do you kill them with kindness? Just cut them out my life tbh

S – School

91. If you are still in school, what grade will you be going into? N/a  92. When will you graduate high school/college? N/a  93. After high school, what did you do/are you planning to do? N/a  94. Do you like or hate school? What do you like/hate about it? N/a  95. Have you ever been suspended, expelled, or dropped out of school? no, no, yes. I dropped out of college like 3 times.

T – Temptation

96. Have you ever done something wrong, knowing it was wrong, because something inside of you said it was okay? Yes  97. Has anyone ever pressured you to smoke or drink? Did you do it? I’ve been pressures to drink but I said no.   98. Did you ever cheat on someone? Why did you do it? No  99. Did you ever want to do something sexual with someone you didn’t really know or love? What did you end up doing? Nope. 100. Do you give in to temptation easily, or are you more independent and strong willed? It depends on what it is. I’m not very good as resisting temptation if its something I really want to do

U – Unique

102. Do you do a lot of things because your friends are doing it? No  103. Do you follow trends, wear whatever you want, or wear really unique pieces? I just wear what I want, what I feel comfortable it  104. Do you give in easily to peer pressure? Do you do things such as smoke, drink, or have casual sex? Im quite stubborn so I don’t give in to peer pressure  105. What makes you different from people your age? I’ve never been to a nightclub, never got drunk, never had sex, I’m not in university, I actually like my family

V – Value

106. What’s the most expensive thing in your room? My macbook  107. What’s more valuable: your life or the lives of your loved ones? Would you sacrifice your life for other people? Loved ones for sure, my life is going nowhere  108. What is something you value not because it cost a lot, but because it means a lot to you? My teddy I’ve had since I was born.   109. If there was a fire in your house/apartment, what is the first thing you would grab? My pets, my family, my laptop maybe if I had time purely because its so freakin expensive and theres no way I could ever afford to buy another one. Id wanna take my whole bedroom with me because its taken me so damn long to get it how it is now and I’m really happy with it  110. Do you think past memories and experiences are more valuable than what could possibly happen in the future? Idk

W – Wishes

111. If you had three wishes, what would they be? My health & skinny body back, unlimited money for me and my family, for cruelty & hate to be gone from the world   112. Would you rather wish yourself to be happy, or your loved ones? Loved ones  113. Do you believe that wishes come true if you really believe in them? Nope  114. Have you ever had a wish come true? If so, what was that wish? No  115. Do you find wishing for things a waste of time because everything that’s meant to happen, will happen? Not really, I still make wishes even though I know they won’t come true its just nice to have that hope. I pray more than wish.

(I've just realised theres no ‘x’ and that questions 116-120 are missing..?)

Y – You

121. Are you more independent or social? Independant   122. What is something that makes you very mad when you see it? Animal cruelty, terrorism, hate of any kind  123. Do you think that you have potential to do great things? I hope so   124. Do you think people are born a certain way, or develop their personalities based on what they go through in life? Develop  125. Do you think people are generally good ? Everyone has the potential to be good, its about how you are bought up and how you choose to be

Z – Zest

126. Are you currently happy with your life? Why or why not? no. I’m fat, unhealthy, unemployed, single, blah blah blah   127. Do you go on FacebookCraze.com to get facebook survey’s and quizzes like this one? nope.. never heard of it..  128. When change occurs, do you get scared or are you excited for it? it depends what the change is but I tend to be scared. Change makes me anxious   129. Do you like to try new things, meet new people? Nope  130. What is the most motivational thing in the world? Idk haha

#survey #tag #long

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paleorecipecookbook · 7 years ago

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6 Ways to Balance Your Thyroid Problems

Thyroid problems are seemingly everywhere. While women suffer from them in a ratio of seven out of eight times, it can affect men, too. So while thyroid health gets written off as a women’s health issue, it’s actually a significant human health problem.

How Common Are Thyroid Problems?

Twenty million people have thyroid disease according to the American Thyroid Association, and not all of them know it. Thyroid problems can masquerade as other issues, from depression to digestive problems to chronic fatigue and rheumatoid arthritis. They can be triggered by numerous things, and can occur when you have a strong family history, or even if you don’t.

Because thyroid problems can quickly become debilitating, it’s essential for anyone suffering from thyroid issues to have a clear path back to recovery. I suffered from undiagnosed Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, or autoimmune hypothyroidism, for more than seven years. I worried I was dying of a rare disease that no one could find. I was so tired some days that I couldn’t even get out of bed to get a simple snack. I would go days without showering because it was way too exhausting to stand for 10 minutes or to raise my arms to wash my hair.

Thyroid problems are no joke, but sadly, unless you know from personal experience, it can be easy to write them off. It can be easy to say that the thyroid sufferer is just lazy, needs to get out more, or needs to stop being so depressed.

The thyroid regulates metabolism but also has strong ties to mood, digestion, and overall energy levels. When your thyroid isn’t functioning as it should, you can’t just get over it or pull yourself out of the fatigue or other symptoms.

I wrote my book, The Everything Guide to Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, because I had wandered aimlessly for years and could have healed so much faster if only I would have had some concise information and guidance.

6 Ways to Balance Your Thyroid Problems

Here are my top six ways for finding thyroid balance. Unfortunately, thyroid healing is a multifaceted process and won’t be taken care of overnight. It can feel exhausting to do the work to get your thyroid the help that it needs. But when you make small steps, they build into a thyroid-friendly lifestyle that becomes a sustainable way of living for healing and for long term remission.

1. Get the proper diagnosis.

If you’ve been diagnosed with depression, arthritis, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, or general hypothyroidism, there is a chance that it goes much deeper. Most doctors only run the TSH test to evaluate thyroids, and this is a flawed approach.

TSH, or thyroid stimulating hormone, is actually a pituitary hormone that tells the thyroid when it needs to make more hormone. Sometimes this communication is part of the problem, but most often, TSH is not an accurate barometer for thyroid function.

To really see what’s happening with the thyroid, everyone exhibiting any signs of thyroid issues, who has a family history, or falls under a risk category should be evaluated using Free T3, Free T4, and thyroid antibodies. Who does this include?

Women who are pregnant or who have been pregnant in the last two years

Anyone with a family history of thyroid disorders

Anyone who has other hormonal imbalances, such as estrogen, progesterone, or testosterone.

Anyone who has adrenal issues.

Anyone struggling with depression, anxiety, insomnia, weight loss or weight gain issues, extreme cold or heat sensitivity, and heavy fatigue.

Even if your tests don’t indicate that you have a thyroid disease or disorder, it’s important to rule it out since more often than not people are underdiagnosed with thyroid problems. Even if you’ve been tested before, if you’re having any of the above issues, it’s a good idea to be reevaluated for thyroid issues every few years, especially if you’re a woman or have a family history.

2. Search for and identify root causes.

Just because you have a diagnosed thyroid problem doesn’t mean that you know how or why you got it. Genetic tendency is only one possible factor, but even in cases of genetics, something still has to trigger the cascade of malfunctions that leads to a thyroid with issues.

Gut problems are high on the list of things that can trigger immune reactions against the thyroid or an overall sluggish metabolism.

Major hormonal upheavals, like giving birth or entering menopause, can also trigger thyroid problems. All hormones exist in a fairly shaky balance and when one or more hormones get disturbed, even for natural reasons, the thyroid can over or under respond. This can be temporary, or it can become permanent in cases of autoimmunity.

Certain viral infections can also trigger thyroid problems, particularly Epstein-Barr, cytomegalovirus, or specific strains of the herpesvirus family. (2) Viral infections never truly leave the body once they’re introduced, but they’re supposed to go dormant after the primary infection and produce antibodies to prevent reinfection. In some cases, however, they stay active at lower levels and become chronic viral infections, always there under the surface, wreaking silent havoc on the immune system and sensitive organs like the thyroid.

3. Reverse leaky gut and digestive problems.

Even if your thyroid trigger is genetic, viral, or hormonal, you still need to understand how the gut and digestive system play a key role in reversing the problem. Certain foods, even without allergies, can exacerbate an immune response against the thyroid. Dairy and gluten specifically can cause issues when leaky gut is present. (3)

Leaky gut, or increased intestinal permeability, occurs when the barrier tight junctions of the small intestine become loose. Their job is to only allow nutrients and digested food particles into the bloodstream and to filter out everything else. When they become damaged from food allergies, viral infections, gut problems, hormone issues, drug side effects, and even stress, foreign particles enter the bloodstream. Digestion also becomes less efficient, so food particles that aren’t fully digested may also get through when they shouldn’t.

Dairy and gluten are especially problematic because from a cellular standpoint they’re somewhat similar to the tissue of the thyroid. The immune system becomes alerted to these “tissues” traveling throughout the bloodstream and becomes sensitized, or aware, that the thyroid is apparently trying to conquer territory it doesn’t own. The immune system mounts an attack to tell the thyroid to simmer down, but the food particles keep circulating, and the problem persists. Eventually, in cases of prolonged autoimmunity, the thyroid may cease to function entirely.

Step one in reversing this cascade of problems is to repair the barrier function of the small intestine. Thankfully it responds well to healing when it gets the right nutrients. Collagen in particular can help to repair and reverse the effects of leaky gut, and that’s why bone broth—which is rich in collagen—is one of the top gut-healing superfoods that exists. Collagen can also be taken on its own.

4. Stop eating the wrong foods.

Working to repair the small intestine and reverse leaky gut won’t get you very far if you don’t cut offending foods. As mentioned, dairy and gluten should be first to go. But if you really want to put yourself on a speedy path to thyroid wellness, you need to ditch all grains, as well as legumes (like peanuts and soy), sugar, and refined foods that are filled with empty calories.

Adding in the right foods for thyroid wellness is also essential. Eating plenty of healthy fats (avocado, salmon, coconut oil), proteins (pastured and grass-fed meats and eggs), and vegetables and fruits is going to be a major part of recovering.

5. Get more sleep.

The thyroid can totally mess with sleep. It can make you want to sleep all the time and never feel rested, or it can give you insomnia and make you feel borderline manic. Either way, establishing a healthy sleep routine is critical even before your thyroid has been rebalanced. This can be hard if you don’t feel like sleeping or if all you want to do is sleep.

In the case of too much sleep, you still need to establish healthy sleep habits. Go to bed regularly—early, if needed—and set a specific nap time. But don’t just stay in bed all day since this can lead to overall poor sleep habits and can actually reduce the likelihood that you’ll participate in other healthful habits, like regular meals, gentle exercise, and fresh air.

In the case of insomnia, it can feel maddening to go to bed when you know you’re just going to lie there awake. But sometimes establishing a healthy sleep routine can begin to rework the brain’s ability to shut down for sleep. Just because you’re feeling like you can’t sleep doesn’t mean the thyroid doesn’t desperately need your body to get rest. The thyroid can only rebalance if you’re allowing it time to heal, and this happens while we sleep.

Magnesium is often a nutrient that people are deficient in, and it can be helpful in addressing insomnia when taken before bed. Because the thyroid is sensitive, it’s important to get a professional opinion on supplements that you might try, since some that are often touted for thyroid health can actually do significant damage, such as iodine.

6. Cut the stress.

Stress impacts our bodies in ways we don’t always know, and the thyroid is no exception. If you’re battling a thyroid problem, you’ll want to take a serious look at sources of stress in your life. Even if you can’t remove them, you need to find creative and proactive ways to handle them.

Deep breathing, yoga, massage, acupuncture, long walks in the sunset—there’s no right or wrong way to address stress. What is critical is that you find joy in the process and that you can consistently make it part of your routine.

Bottom Line

The thyroid is an essential organ that has its fingers in every aspect of our wellbeing. Without a healthy thyroid, we won’t have energy, metabolism, or mood balance. Whatever form of thyroid issue you’re facing, following these six steps can lead to a faster path to recovery and wellness with less frustration and setbacks.

P.S. Need help with thyroid-friendly meal plans? We have a 14-day free trial to our Paleo meal plan service.

The post 6 Ways to Balance Your Thyroid Problems appeared first on Paleo Plan.

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#paleo #recipe #food #delicious #healthy #yum #diet

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withasmoothroundstone · 8 years ago

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I’m a mutant, I guess.

I’d always known that my tentative diagnosis of myasthenia gravis was… tentative. Meaning, because of elements of my personal and family histories, there’s always been a suspicion that I (and other living family members) might have a form of congenital myasthenia. Complicating things of course, is the fact that there have been recent discoveries of hereditary myasthenia that is autoimmune.

So… normally the way they classify myasthenia is into two basic categories:

Myasthenia gravis, which is more common, not generally hereditary, and is caused by an autoimmune disease. Autoimmune diseases happen when your immune system mistakes part of your body for a dangerous foreign invader and attacks it. For instance, in Hashimoto’s disease (which runs in my family, but I don’t have any sign of it — yet, anyway), your immune system attacks your thyroid. In multiple sclerosis, your immune system attacks the protective myelin covering around your nerve cells. And in myasthenia gravis, your immune system attacks the neuromuscular junction, which is the area where the nerve meets the muscle.

Congenital myasthenia. Congenital myasthenia is genetic and hereditary, and is not autoimmune. With congenital myasthenia, you’re born with at least some degree of the problems inherent in any kind of myasthenia. Sometimes it stays mild throughout your life, and sometimes it gets worse over time (or suddenly worsens and stays worse), and sometimes it starts out very obvious and stays very obvious. Congenital myasthenia is rare. Some forms of it are so rare that each family that has the condition has it from a totally unique genetic configuration that are not found in other families.

And recently, they have discovered that there are some forms of myasthenia that are both inherited and autoimmune. I don’t know a lot about genetic autoimmune diseases, but I assume it works a lot like Hashimoto’s in my family, where many of the biological women in one branch of the family seem to develop it at some point in their lifetimes, but at what time some event triggers it into becoming active, varies greatly. Like, one person might get a totally ordinary virus at the age of twenty, that somehow triggers their immune system along with whatever genetic predisposition they have, to attack their thyroid. But in another person, the same sort of thing happens, only in their fifties. So there’s the gene that determines a body is going to react this way to certain physiological events, but which physiological events trigger the onset of the active disease varies. Understand, I’m not a medical professional, this is just how I’ve heard it described by relatives and by other people with hereditary Hashimoto’s in their families. I don’t know if all forms of hereditary autoimmune disease work this way. And hereditary myasthenia gravis is barely being discovered right now, so there’s a lot they don’t know.

Meanwhile, there’s a lot they don’t know about congenital myasthenia because there just aren’t a lot of people who have it.

Anyway, until now, we’d been in one sort of unknown territory with my diagnosis. Now, we seem to be in a completely new sort of unknown territory. Lots of unknowns here. Nothing is certain, even my genetic testing provides as many questions as answers. (And no, I’m not going to go into details about what testing I’ve had. That information is private.)

So anyway, to clear up some confusion… myasthenia gravis refers specifically to autoimmune myasthenia. Congenital myasthenia is the term for non-autoimmune, genetic myasthenia. I don’t know WTF they’re going to call hereditary autoimmune myasthenia — congenital myasthenia gravis, hereditary myasthenia gravis, hereditary autoimmune myasthenia, WTF? As I said, no clue. Anyway, a lot of people just refer to all myasthenia as myasthenia gravis and abbreviate it to MG. This is because most people have only heard of MG and not of congenital myasthenia, even people who are diagnosed with MG. And because congenital myasthenia is rare enough that often support groups for all people with all kinds of myasthenia have MG as part of the name and people with congenital myasthenia are welcome, but people are just used to saying MG when they mean myasthenia in general.

So… I’ve gotten genetic testing. And I do have a rare mutation in a gene associated with one form of congenital myasthenia. My symptoms, now and throughout my lifetime, are well within the range of case reports I’ve read about this variety. Only thing is, so far they’ve only studied people with myasthenia who have two copies of the gene, and have not studied people with only one who have myasthenia, so they’ve assumed that two copies are required. My doctors think it would be way too unlikely a coincidence for me to have traits consistent with congenital myasthenia, other immediate family members with these traits as well, and to have a mutation in this gene, and have that all just be random coincidence with no relation to each other just because I only have one copy of the gene. So their working hypothesis is that, as with other recessive conditions, most people with one copy would not have symptoms, but some people, me probably included, have myasthenia from only one copy, but simply not as severe as it would be if we had two copies. They say this sort of thing happens with other recessive conditions, that genetics can be more complicated than a layperson’s view of them can make them out to be, and that… yeah, it would just be an ultra-weird, or more like close-to-impossible coincidence for me to have a rare mutation that’s usually connected with a disease I and several close relatives have symptoms of (and diagnostic testing and response to meds both showing we have neuromuscular junction problems) and have been diagnosed with, and then, for those things to just be two totally unrelated random things that have nothing to do with each other. So current hypothesis is that I have incompletely expressed congenital myasthenia.

This means I get to go off of the immune suppressants I was on (and it was scary being on something that’s normally a transplant rejection drug), and may never have to go on plasmapheresis. Meanwhile I will be switched to a treatment regimen more consistent with the recommendations for congenital myasthenia. Until proven otherwise, we’ll assume I have congenital myasthenia. Which, to me, suggests that the evidence for congenital myasthenia is now pretty strong, because most people with myasthenia, me previously included, are treated as if we have myasthenia gravis unless there’s a definite reason to believe otherwise. This is because myasthenia gravis is way more common therefore more likely. Even knowing it seemed to run in my family, they were using myasthenia gravis as the working hypothesis. So for them to change their minds suggests to me that, while we may never know exactly what’s going on (being realistic, the research may never catch up to people like me within my lifetime, if what we suspect is true), there’s strong evidence at this point for congenital myasthenia, strong enough to justify changing all my meds around.

So if you ever hear me saying I have myasthenia gravis, it’s probably just force of habit. Probably the most neutral term I could use is just myasthenia. But I do strongly suspect congenital myasthenia now, and so do my neurologist (who’s well-respected both by doctors and patients, and seems better at teasing out difficult diagnoses than most, because he just methodically goes through every possibility, even remote ones, rather than leaping to conclusions) and my GP (also very well-respected by both doctors and patients). It’s just not the sort of thing we’ll necessarily be able to prove. Especially since, as my neurologist pointed out, they haven’t even found all the genes for congenital myasthenia, not even close, just as they haven’t found all the antibodies involved in myasthenia gravis. Congenital myasthenia would also explain, though, why I (and family) tests positive for myasthenia on single-fiber EMGs but show no sign of the usual antibodies found with MG.

Anyway, either way, I appear to be a mutant. But having muscles that go floppy with exercise doesn’t seem like much of a superpower. Oh well.

I also appear to be weirdly panicky when I think about all this too directly. I’m not sure why. It’s not like anything’s changed. But something about this is feeling like one of those "Shit, my entire view of huge chunks of my entire life is totally different now and I'm going to be sifting through this information for a long time." And for whatever reason, that kind of thing can be mind-blowingly terrifying at times. I can't even read about congenital myasthenia right now, it's one reason I'm relying on memory for a lot of my facts, so don't 100% trust what I say about all the different kinds of myasthenia and stuff, I'm going entirely on memory. When I first got the test results back, I was able to read just enough to realize I fit more of the congenital myasthenia profile than I thought I did (there's nothing all that unusual about my personal history, for someone with congenital myasthenia), but since then I haven't been able to stand looking at the research or even summaries of the research, without freaking out.

#congenital myasthenia #myasthenia #myasthenia gravis #chronic illness #neuromuscular disorders #neuromuscular junction disorders #neuromuscular junction #genetics #hereditary myasthenia #autoimmune disease #autoimmune myasthenia #diagnosis #medical

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liibrorum · 8 years ago

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fanfiction | danganronpa | M(18+) | art credit.

as the law stated, gambling was considered completely illegal in japan. dangan ronpa talentswap au. +18 for mentions of real-world crime, sexual situations, murder, kidnapping, substance use/abuse. pairings: togami byakuya/kirigiri kyouko, komaeda nagito/nanami chiaki please review in my inbox. contents under cut & on ff.net. REBLOGS > LIKES.

story content: talentswap guide

"Are you running again?"

Silence.

"Are you running again?" "I don't need your commentary, Nanami-san."

Sitting elegantly on one of the velvet couches hidden behind the velvet curtain in the room of sin, Kyouko's eyes were locked onto the threshold of the VIP room, seeing the familiar figure of Nanami's bodyguard, Komaeda Nagito, as well as the figure of the man she had run from multiple times.

"Komaeda-kun says he saw Togami-kun. Is it him you're running from?"

She was silent as she pours herself another drink, something stronger than the ice water she had been sipping a moment ago. "What is he doing here?" She asked her yakuza friend, violets meeting magentas gently as the two friends shared a moment of silence. "What relation does he have to you?"

"He's a detective," Nanami explained, "And some of my higher-ranking subordinates have gone missing. Hashimoto was his informant before, so I'm speaking through Hashimoto to communicate with him. I want to bring the members of my family home. The history that you and he share doesn't really… matter to me."

"At least you're honest," Kirigiri sighed, watching Komaeda successfully turn Togami away in silhouette, and she slinks down lower into her chair. Looking over the cutely-dressed yakuza, the gambler queen crossed one leg over the other, letting milky-white skin be evident in the low, scarlet light. "He bought me a drink."

"Was it a nice drink?"

"Cognac," Kirigiri replied, nodding. "I had already ordered one for myself on my tab, but when I had finished mine, the bartender had presented me with another, and we shared a toast." Her neck popped as she let her head fall back, standing. "I think I am done playing for tonight."

"Then sit down, Kirigiri-san," Nanami smiled at her friend, trying to get her to sit back down, not to leave the casino just yet. "Give Togami-kun some time to leave the casino. We need to talk, anyways."

Agreeing silently with her pink-haired friend, the woman in the black dress took a seat again, sighing as she slipped out of her heels. Bare feet pressed against the plush carpet of the VIP room, and she let her ankles pop with a slight curve to her feet. "You make it sound like I'm in trouble," Kyouko chuckled, "I haven't broken the rules of the Digital Dragon, have I?"

"No, never," Nanami smiled at her friend, drumming her fingers against the table she sat at. "Instead, I wanted you to be careful…"

"Careful?" Kyouko asked for more information, plucked and filled brow arching at the yakuza boss. "I am always careful; you know this. What's prompting this? What's going on?"

"I'm scared," Nanami revealed to the other, sighing softly. "I'm going to be safe. I have Komaeda-kun. But the other members of the yakuza… my family… you. You're my family, Kirigiri-san, whether or not you like it. All this business you're doing in my casino right now… we have cashed in on so many debts. We don't have to steal so much. You're doing all of the stealing for us." A joke made at Kyouko's expense, pulling a giggle from Chiaki's lips. "Because people know you, you're going to be a target. And… you might be kidnapped, too."

"I am going to be just fine," The gambler reassured her friend, reaching over to pat her knee. "We both know that I don't die so easily."

"I know." Chiaki sighed softly at Kirigiri's sureness in her ability. "You always exude confidence… I'm impressed…"

"I exude because I have to," Kirigiri laughed at the other's comment, "You have to put on airs of confidence to be in my line of work. You simply have the manpower to intimidate others into submission. Myself? Not so much. I have to make people believe they're winning. I have to make people suffer mentally, not physically."

"Scary." Nanami chuckled, interrupted by the fluttering of the velvet curtain in front of her. Bowing politely, her white-haired bodyguard, Komaeda Nagito, entered the room with a submissive aura.

"I apologize for entering so rudely, Young Mistress," Komaeda bowed politely again, reassuring his boss that he was completely subordinate to her. Drumming her fingers against her thigh, Nanami lifted her chin to him and shifted her head to the side, as if she was curious as to what Nagito had to say.

"I followed the detective in the casino, like I was asked," Komaeda explained, pulling a reaction from Kirigiri as her head snapped around to glare at Nanami, knowing her friend better than she knew herself. Confused at the gambler's reaction, Komaeda continued on with his report, "He was meeting with Hashimoto-kun again."

"Did Hashimoto-kun deliver my message to him?"

"Yes, ma'am," Komaeda nodded, "He will be back in the casino tomorrow night to talk to you about the disappearances. He made an attempt to follow Kirigiri-san into the Velvet Room, but I intercepted him."

"Thank you, Komaeda-kun. Is there anything else I need to know?"

"No, Mistress," Komaeda nodded, pocketing his hands into his dress pants. "Is there anything that I need to do for you? My life is at your command, as you know."

"Just keep standing guard, Komaeda-kun. I want to go home soon, so I'll need an escort."

"Of course," Nodding politely to both her and Kirigiri, Komaeda excused himself from the Velvet Room, pushing past the maroon curtains and letting his silhouette be visible from the inside of the room. Sighing softly, Kirigiri sunk down lower on the couch, her gloved hand pressed against her browbone with a look of exasperation.

"Are you ready to go home, Kirigiri-san?" Nanami asked, chuckling at her friend's behavior. "You look like it."

"More than you know," Kirigiri replied, adjusting herself into a seated position. Shrouded hands smooth down the tresses of her evening gown, midriff exposed in the two-piece dress. "Have I pulled enough people into debt for you tonight?" A joke, hidden within words of truth. After all, that's why Kirigiri Kyouko came home to Japan after spending time in London with her grandfather: she had been requested by one of the most infamous yakuza families in the East. That's not an invitation you turn down, especially when the requester is an old high-school friend.

In an attempt to slow down the rate of active stealing so that they couldn't be tracked by the Japanese Police Department, Nanami had requested the help of Kirigiri to assist her in luring people into the Digital Dragon and driving them unnecessarily into debt so that Nanami simply had to cash in her debts with businessmen when she needed things taken care of or erased. Between that and the lucky instincts of her cousin, the Nanami family was absolutely unstoppable.

Standing, Nanami retrieved her jacket from the back of the seat she was sitting on. Draping it over her shoulders, Kirigiri was prompted to stand as well, her fur wrap placed properly around her arms to protect herself from the cold of Japan's rainy nights. As both girls exited, Komaeda's brows arched, as if he was ready to leave, as well. When Nanami nodded, silently prompting him to escort them both to the car, Komaeda's arms folded neatly behind his back, taking a position in front of the two to protect them from attacks from the front. His keen senses would render him with enough time to protect them from the rear as well; after all, only thirty percent of attacks came from behind.

The car parked above ground could have been easily missed by the passerby. Completely black, revealing that it was made of completely bulletproof material, tinted windows. To those that walked by it, it simply looked like an empty police car or the abandoned car of a celebrity. Opening the door, Komaeda allowed Kirigiri and Nanami to enter the back before sliding in as well, sitting in front of them with his back to the driver. Nimble fingers found the window in the panel behind him, opening it to address the chauffeur. "We need to take Kirigiri-sama home first before we take the young mistress home. She lives in Shibuya."

"Yes, sir," the driver politely acknowledged Komaeda's words as he shut the panel, crossing his arms and slinking down lower into his seat, as if he was tired.

"Thank you for taking me home," Kirigiri smiled to both Nanami and Komaeda as she leaned down, reaching at her ankles to unbuckle the strap of her heels that kept them on. Sliding out of her shoes, she sighed softly in relief, as if she was just as tired as the bodyguard, if not moreso. "I didn't want to risk someone mistaking me for a hostess."

"Any time you need a ride, just let me know. We have some drivers in Shibuya, still, right?" Looking to Komaeda for reassurance, Nanami nodded in correlation with her words as Komaeda did, confirming her suspicion.

"Thank you. Now I know that…"

"Stop worrying about him."

Having been interrupted by the yakuza head, Kirigiri arched an eyebrow at Nanami, who simply crossed one leg over the other. "I understand that you're worried. That you want to run away again. But you don't need to worry about him anymore, Kirigiri-san."

"He-" Kirigiri began to plead with her friend, trying to get her to side with her instead of keeping a neutral ground on the situation, as she was wont to do.

"I know what he did," Nanami nodded, rubbing her hands together to warm them up. "And I know what you're going to do. So listen to me as your friend: You need to stop it."

Letting her eyes examine the paneling of the car for longer than she should have, Nanami's words continued to barrage Kirigiri's ears, prompting violet brows to furrow. "You live in Shibuya. He lives in Ikebukuro. That's at least a half-hour drive from your house to his, maybe longer depending on where in Ikebukuro he lives, and traffic… and… anyways." Nanami leaned over, placing a hand on Kirigiri's arm. "Just relax. You're known for getting wound up about things like this. Stop it."

Her eyes flickered to Komaeda, who by now had begun resting his eyes and leaning his head back against the leather of the luxury seats. "You're right," She agreed with Nanami, nodding. "I'm sure that drink was simply a sign of good faith. Old friends saying hello."

"There you go," Nanami smiled, grinning at her friend. "You're going to be just fine.

Kirigiri sighed. "I hope you're right."

— IKEBUKURO, JAPAN — — 2315 HOURS —

Running warm hands through his hair, the detective exited his shower, once-tense shoulder muscles slightly relaxed now, but never completely so. After drying himself off with a towel, the blonde adorned a grey, cotton robe, finding himself comfortable in the gift from his father.

Wiping the condensation from his glasses before putting them back on, the detective picked up his cellphone, checking the messages he had received: none. Settling down into his reading chair, Togami picked up a copy of some sort of psychology study, flipping through it to find the dog-eared page to pick up where he had left off.

Barely getting through the first page, Togami was interrupted by his cellphone vibrating twice, the assigned ringtone for a text message. Dog-earing his page again, he leaned over, picking up the silver cellphone and scrolling through a complex passcode to check his message.

[ UNKNOWN | 23:16 ] Thank you for the drink.

He was expecting something like this, he wasn't going to lie. Kirigiri was known for doing things like this. Getting ahold of contact information. Scaring people in submission. In Togami's case, he inferred that she was trying to scare him into leaving her alone. His lips curled up into a smirk. Nice try.

His finger hovered over the number, hitting "save" and saving the number under her full name. Of course, he would have to do this a number of times, with a number of different numbers, but this time, he wasn't letting her go so easily.

[ TOGAMI BYAKUYA | 23:17 ] My pleasure. I hope you enjoyed it.

[ KIRIGIRI KYOUKO | 23:18 ] You could say I did. I have a soft spot for French liquor. What are you doing back in Tokyo?

[ TOGAMI BYAKUYA | 23:19 ] Ask your yakuza friend, why don't you?

[ KIRIGIRI KYOUKO | 23:20 ] You know that's not how I like to play games, Togami-kun.

The smirk on his lips was ever-present as he re-created her voice in his head. Perhaps you could say he had an obsession with her, like a husband who could not let his ex-wife go away. What did you expect from a detective whose only mistake was letting the daughter of the head of Japan's most dangerous gambling ring share his bed and go free?

Exhaling softly, Togami's thumb hovered over the send button.

[ TOGAMI BYAKUYA | 23:22 ] I'm in Tokyo working on a series of disappearances that I believe to be kidnappings. Nanami Chiaki has enlisted my help because the last three disappearances were higher-level members of her yakuza. But you already knew that, didn't you?

[ KIRIGIRI KYOUKO | 23:24 ] Curiosity killed the cat, Togami-kun.

[ TOGAMI BYAKUYA | 23:25 ] But satisfaction brought it back.

She was such a curious character, Togami mused; if she truly wanted to be left alone, why did she contact him first? Why did she know he was going to pursue her just as much as he was going to pursue the series of disappearances? Why did she know him better than he knew himself, and why did he know her better than she could ever hope to know?

Leaning back in his chair, Togami closed his eyes as the two traded words back and forth. Nimble hand ran down his sharp jawline, waiting for her response. Perhaps he had won this argument. Perhaps he had pushed her into submission. Pursing his lips, his cellphone vibrated in his hand, prompting his eyes to open and examine the text message.

[ KIRIGIRI KYOUKO | 23:30 ] You're going to the Digital Dragon again tomorrow night, correct? To meet with Nanami-san?

[ TOGAMI BYAKUYA | 23:31 ] That's correct.

[ KIRIGIRI KYOUKO | 23:32 ] Arrive early. Meet me at the bar. I'll buy you a drink.

[ TOGAMI BYAKUYA | 23:33 ] Chardonnay Brise. I expect it to be cold. We need to talk.

[ KIRIGIRI KYOUKO | 23:34 ] That we do. I'll see you then. Go ahead and delete this number, Togami-kun. I won't be contacting you from it.

[ TOGAMI BYAKUYA | 23:35 ] Thank you for saving me the trouble. Good night, Kirigiri.

[ UNKNOWN | 23:36 ] Good night.

Closing the cellphone completely, Togami rose from his chair, not even returning to his book for the night. Shedding his robe, Togami slipped into silken pajamas, navy blue, sliding into bed. Taking off his glasses, the detective reached behind himself to flip off the light, laying flat on his back. Ceruleans stuck to the ceiling, letting the events of today settle into his mind. Blinking on occasion, Togami recalled the events of today over and over in mind, praying he could find a bit of evidence that he missed initially. Something to give him the upper hand. Something to give him a lead.

"Nothing," he groans, closing his eyes.

Togami Byakuya would not get a lot of sleep tonight.

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