#not panic attack more crying breakdown but i hyperventilate horribly from trying to stop the sobbing because its too fucking much lmfao

[tsurugis]

my ass cant fucking sleep because i think my brain is coming to terms with the fact that i cant ignore i might have cancer back lol last thing i want is to find out for sure but here we fucking are

[fandomtookoverlife]

Spiral

Pairing: Hotch x fem!reader 

Summary: you received some life-changing news the day before, now you’re trying to keep focus and get a confession out of an unsub. Keeping focus has never been so hard, with your mind spinning and Hotch sending you further down the rabbit hole. Somehow things get even worse when the psychic unsub announces your news for all to hear. 

Note:  italics are reader thoughts 

Warning: anxiety/panic attack, break down, swearing 

Word count: 1.7k

Category: angst(?) 

A/N: this is not based on the cm with a psychic. Def channelling my own breakdowns while writing this, I hope it comes off how I intended.

I might do a second part where we learn of Hotch’s and reader’s relationship and we then jump to his reaction

Back story: in my mind the reader and Hotch like each other fucked, it became awkward and here we are

Other blog: @mac99martin

Masterlist  

---

Fuck psychics, sitting there all-knowing when everyone knows they’re full of shit, you don’t like psychics on normal days, when they’re unsubs, you hate them even more. Fuck psychics. 

Ok maybe your new found hate for psychics isn’t totally about them, (although the one in front of you definitely plays a part in it) you may have found out some very stressful, very shocking, life-altering news yesterday and you also may not be dealing with it very well. And by not dealing with it well, you mean not dealing with it at all. You've been avoiding and ignoring it, the rational part of your brain is telling you that this is not something you can ignore, but the other part of your brain is absolutely terrified and is using the case as an excuse not to deal with it. And you are using your dislike for psychics as an outlet for your emotions, is it right? No. is it healthy? No. but it’s helping and you’re freaking out so what are you going to do? 

Speaking of not helping, Hotch is with the unsub now. Not only is he not getting anywhere with her, but he is also so horribly distracting. You seriously need to focus but looking at him, all it’s doing is sending you into a spiral. All you want to do is put this unsub behind bars but your mind is fighting with itself: one part actively fighting to keep your brain far away from the topic that will remain nameless and unthought about. The other going in circles of panic and anxiety and terror. The unsub is helping the first, she’s a handy distraction. Hotch is helping the latter, you so much catch a glimpse of him and you revert into the frenzy that is your mind. Fuck, this fucking sucks, ok come on can’t focus on that, you can’t cry or stop breathing that can wait till later, now you need to focus. 

And that’s where the loop starts all over again: Focus-Hotch-Spiral-Focus-Hotch-Spiral...

-Focus You’re so lost in the war going on in your mind you completely lose all sense of reality only noticing that Hotch is not only no longer in the integration room when he calls your name. 

You try your best to snap out of it and control your breathing, but looking at Hotch, Hotch looking at you, you feel like you're shaking while your body remains perfectly still, your heart is pounding and you stop breathing. Okokok-breathe, focus, what’s going on right now. 

“Sorry, what was that?” Ok not bad that sounded pretty normal if you do say so yourself. 

“I asked what you thought.” His voice was stern and annoyed but his face looked worried. 

Snap. The. Fuck. Out. Of. It. “Oh um,” wait who’s said what, shit I really should have been paying attention. “Well clearly she wasn’t responding to you,” ok pretty good, actually now that you think about it she wasn’t responding to any of the male officers when they arrested her, “and she didn’t respond to the male officer earlier, anytime she talks to a man she becomes confident and flirtatious” Flirting: Hotch-Spiral, Focus “we should see how she reacts to a woman.” 

Ok, so you had your ups and downs but all in all that went pretty well. You avert your eyes from Hotch’s, focus focus focus focus… “Ok you’re in.” 

“Wh- me?” 

“Yes… you.” 

You know what? this can be good, small room, nothing to focus on except the case, no Hotch, ya I can do this. You give a nod, pick up your file and walk into the room. 

“Hello Ms.Shaw, I’m ssa Y/N Y/L/N.” you look down at your file making a show out of opening it while also keeping an eye on her. 

When Hotch entered earlier, doing something similar, she straightened her back and leaned forward, making a show out of her breasts, she half smirked and half-smiled when she looked up at him. 

When you introduce yourself she sat back in her seat, crossed her arms and glared at you. Unlike when she saw Hotch, she looked very displeased with you. 

You sat down across from her and gave her a smile, she narrowed her eyes and furthered her glare towards you. She eyes you up and down for a second before practically sneering at you, “what do you want” 

“I just want to talk” you put simply 

Maintaining eye contact she leaned forward “Bet you do” 

At this point, with Hotch, she had a smile on her face, enthusiastic to speak with him. Right now, she’s almost challenging you, she’s even getting defensive. 

“Probably want to talk about those murders you think I did” 

“The murders you did do” you respond all while having a sweet smile on your face. Won’t that just piss her off, and it does. 

She just hums in response, her face stone cold, staring you up and down, and then, she smiles, “I think we should talk about you.” She says it almost sweetly but you can tell that there’s mischief behind it. 

“Oh?” 

“Ya, you’ve been… busy lately…” 

you really couldn’t guess where she was going with this at this point, nowhere good so, “as have you” you retort back. 

“Hmm, but in different ways,” she smirks 

Hell ya in different ways, I’ve been working my ass off and you’ve been murdering people. 

“See I’ve been busy working, as a psychic, I use my power to help people, it’s very time-consuming-” 

Right power, helping, you don’t have and you don’t do shit 

“While you,” she looks you up and down again, “have been getting a very different sort of busy, haven’t you?” 

….wh- what is she- what is she even implying right now?

Busy like- and that’s when you’re reminded of your… state. Remembering hits you like a ton of bricks, solely because you had forgotten, the thought has your mind clouded again and your anxiety spiking. 

You’re back down a spiral, get back on topic this isn’t the time, “I’m not sure what you're getting at.” Breathe, “Oh come on, you know,” and she looks down again, if the table wasn’t in the way, you would say that she’s looking at your stomach, no no she’s not why would she- how could she- your mind is biased, it was already thinking about that and it jumped to conclusions, get back on topic. You can’t be thinking about this now. -focus. 

She leans in but doesn’t lower her voice, glancing up at the mirror, she’s very aware that people are listening in, and she doesn’t mind, “you’re pregnant” 

Wtfwtfwtfwtf no no no no, how could she possibly know that, you just found out, it’s not like your showing, she can’t know, how the fuck did she know that? 

She can see it all over your face, your mind is jumbled with thoughts again and you’re freaking out. 

She just sat back and smiled watching you break down, but she wasn’t done yet. 

The people behind the mirror couldn’t see your face to see how bad you’re freaking out, that mixed with their own shock, they weren’t helping, not that they nor you would know how they would help. 

“You looked surprised that I know that, you doubt my skills” skills- what- psychic- whatever 

“Or maybe you’re just in shock, you just found out recently right,” she clicks her tongue, “must be quite the surprise.” You feel so overwhelmed, this was supposed to get you away from all of that, your spiralling again, unable to pull yourself out of your break down that has been going on since you found out. Once again just the thought, the reminder, has you feeling like you can’t breathe, like you're going to be sick, like your head is spinning. “I can see this is a lot for you, but I think you’re forgetting one thing,” 

Spiral-spiral-spiral forgetting? Wha- wh- spiral-spiral-spiral-Hotch 

Your heart stops, you look her dead in the eye, you can see it, the mischief, she knows, she opens her mouth to say something- “SHUT UP” you stand up and yell at her. You’re panicked and desperate,

Your outburst shocks everyone behind the mirror, but it only makes her smile wider, “what you don’t want everyone to know?” 

“STOP” your losing it 

“Or you don’t want him to know?” 

(ok fine, maybe she is psychic)

“SHUT UP” you scream, your voice is cracking and your breaking 

“What you don’t want everyone to know your pregnant and that one of them got you-”

“STOP!” You slam your hand on the table and your eyes are watering. 

Morgan busts through the door, taking you into his arms and steering you out of the interrogation room and into the viewing room, only giving the unsub a glance as he slams the door behind him. 

Once you are in the viewing room you turn away from your team, your eyes still glossy, you’re shaking, you can barely breathe, that panic attack-mental breakdown you’ve been putting off, it’s finally catching up to you, and your feeling every second of the overwhelming… you don’t even know, just everything, and still trying to hold it in as you hyperventilate and remember the people around you. 

You do your best to hold in your emotions for a little longer as you go to leave the room, away from people. You hear Derek’s voice, “how much of that was true?” 

One more second one more second one more second, 

In out, in out, in out, “every word” is all you get out before you lose it and you basically run away. 

“Shittt,” the event weighs heavy on the team’s mind as they make sense of what just happened, “well, it wasn’t me.” Morgan, trying to lighten the mood best he can 

The team looks around the room “Well it certainly wasn’t me” Rossi horrified at what has just played out in front of him 

Spence's face goes absolutely red when Derek looks at him; he doesn’t have to say anything because as hotch speed walks out of the room, it is very clear who the father is. 

“Shitttt” 

---

Tags: @spencers-renaissance @averyhotchner

(I’ll tag anyone in part 2 who asks for it in the comments😘😘)

[nightwingshero]

Full bingo angst answers for Wren please! 💋💕

Thank you, baby!!! Kinda hitting it where it hurts today, huh?

TW: Mentions of self-harm, alcohol abuse, and child loss...just kinda...it’s angsty. Sorry guys. 

💙 What would your OCs last words be (or if they’ve died what were their last words)? What were their final moments like? How did they die?

Probably...man, knowing Wren, she’s gonna go down fighting and defending a loved one. She...Wren will use her Wrath to draw the attention to herself, even if she knew it was a battle she wouldn’t win--sacrificing herself to give the other person a chance. Her last words...would be deep and meaningful, something that would hit hard. She would either quote something with a deep meaning or something so pure from the heart...I could also see her saying “Free...I’m finally free.” Or maybe being excited to see her mom again. 

💧 What’s the worst pain your OC has ever been in? Mental or physical? What was the cause of this?

That’s a toss up between her father blaming her for her mother’s death/being mentally and emotionally abusive or the car accident and losing the baby. Both had Wren spiraling in very different ways, both still giving her nightmares to the point of insomnia some nights. Then also losing John later in life. It hits her hard to know that her life partner died sacrificing himself for their son, and that he’s just...gone. It’s hard for her to bounce back from it. 

🔷 Has your OC ever had to leave something behind or abandon something they didn’t want to? Have they ever had this happen to them? How has this effected them over the years?

There’s a locket, a gold locket with a tree on it, that her mother used to wear before she died. It was one of the things she held onto dearly after her mom died, because it was pretty much all she had. Her father got rid of most of Lily’s things, including the piano, and so Wren clung to it through her childhood, drawing strength from it. It “mysteriously” disappeared after her father found out about it, just a few days before she left for college. In turn, she stole her mother’s ashes to scatter them, but it still haunts Wren. It had a picture of the two of them together.

🔵 Has your OC lived through any particularly traumatic events? Does this event (or events) still effect them or have they tried to bury it? Is there a reason why this event is so traumatic for them?

JFC, where to even begin? Honestly, the cards are stacked against her in the worst way, I feel for her. The biggest ones would be abusive childhood, losing her mom, unhealthy relationship with college professor, the horrible car accident, the drinking problem that followed...Wren tries her best with it, truly. It still effects her, mostly through panic attacks (triggers) and her nightmares. She will fall into depressive episodes as well. Most of the time, she will bury it though, like, she’s guarded--if you’ve been through some shit, you could probably pick up on it, you know? But with anyone else, you can’t tell. She hides it well. 

❄️ What is (one of) their biggest regrets or biggest mistake they’ve made? Is there anything they can do to fix this or is it so far gone there’s no point anymore? Is this something they dwell on a lot?

Wren...Wren is on the path of learning what she can and can’t control, and it’s...going as well as it can, because she has such a control issue. She tries to tell herself to not dwell on the things she can’t control...but the thing with Wren is that she needs to feel in control. The biggest ones would be the college professor and the path she took after the car accident. Wren hates giving parts of herself for it to be taken for granted or advantage of. She also sees the alcoholic chapter in her life was a little too close to her father than she cares to admit. But well...you can’t fix the past. 

💦 Does your OC have any self destructive habits? Addictions? Urges? What is the cause of these or the reason for them?

Wren used to have a drinking problem, mostly because of an emotional thing versus having to have alcohol. She just used it as an outlet, but most of the time, it just lowered her walls and made her more emotional in a self-destructive manner--depressive, angry, and antagonizing. She would start fights, which is why she got in trouble and got her shit together. Wren internalizes too damn much, overthinking and jumping to conclusions based on her own observations because she’s not one to trust someone else’s intentions or words. While Wren isn’t judgmental, she’s very open minded and accepting--she can be quick to judge in cases where you’ve invoked her wrath. Did some shit when you were young? Who hasn’t, I still care and accept you. You just crossed and betrayed me? I’m going to make it my personal goal to make life hell for you-- She also has a tendency to use her wrath to push people away and then close off, hurting them both in the process. 

🌊 What is your OC like at their most depressive? In the middle of a breakdown? Having a panic attack? What are they like with dealing with anxiety and stress?

Wren during a panic attack starts with her not being able to formulate actual coherent sentences because her mind is going so damn fast, and her hands shake. Her muscles will stiffen, making her super tense and she shuts down mentally. Most of the time, she will curl up on the ground (in the corner of a room, etc) with her legs hugged to her chest, forehead against her knees. Mostly to hide her face and to make herself as small as possible and to provide herself some sort of comfort (sometimes she’ll grip her hair, too). If someone catches it (if they know what to even look for), they can intercept and help kinda deter it. But Wren internalizes, closes herself even more, buys a ton of whiskey or wine, and just sits with her dark feelings. They consume her easily, which is why she usually tries not to drink when she’s down, it makes it too easy to spiral. Wren handles stress the best she can, but she internalizes that too. Anything negative has a chance of coming out in the form of wrath, so she can be a bit...yeah.

☄️ Does your OC struggle with their emotions and trauma? Do they find it easier to open up to strangers or those close to them if at all? Do they tend to hide their pain from everyone?

Wren struggles hard. Like, she has a harder time coming to terms or understanding the why behind everything, and has a constant struggle with her desire to change what happened that her emotions and traumas don’t fully get resolved. She’s so desperate to be free of it, but there are times where she’s holding her own self prisoner for it due to guilt and heartbreak. She will never open up to strangers, she doesn’t trust people easily, you have to have earned your way close to her before she’s confiding in you. She hides her pain (or tries to) from everyone, including herself. You have to actively pursue Wren and be supportive consistently for that to spill from her mouth.  

📘 Write a sad journal entry, an unsent letter or short sad drabble. + bonus, give a theme!

A piece from Wren’s journal while going through therapy:

"I wish...it starts off normal, and it’s inconceivably misleading, but it draws me in anyway. Then...then its sneaking up on me, so before I know it, I’m in the deep-end, drowning in something dark and sticky, feeling as if it will become my second skin and suffocate me in the process. That’s when I start to hyperventilate, desperate and clawing to find the surface, but I can’t. I start crying, my chest constricting in panic. I turn...I turn and I see an open door, the inside is even blacker than what’s around me and I slowly start getting pulled back into it...and he just watches--laughing and taunting. I cry more, because there’s nothing else to do. Until the hand...it grabs me and yanks me back...I wake up then, screaming and panicking before the door slams shut. I take a shower once I wake up, because I can feel the hand, I feel the darkness on my skin. I don’t sleep most nights. Not anymore.”

🔹 Does your OC have any scars? What are the stories behind them? Do they have any mental scars? Talk about the effects of their trauma in general on their day to day life.

*Nervous Laughter* Scars....alright...so, Wren growing up would often resort to self-harm to cope, unfortunately. She avoided her wrists and opted for her inner thighs, aiming to hide the marks better. Once hitting college, she moved on from it, until the car accident. She started again once she spiraled, even using it a bit as she stopped drinking. It didn’t happen too often, just in major low points. She dropped it completely after she started going to therapy, learning to try and find healthier coping mechanisms. Wren’s traumas come out daily in the form of her having to be in control of herself and situation at all time. She’s the one driving, she makes her own choices, she sits on the outside in booths at diners and whatnot, having the option to leave when she wants. Wren hates feeling trapped and is super claustrophobic because her dad would lock her in the basement or her room for hours at a time. She buys a Jeep so she has the option to remove the top and the doors, everything in on her terms. You don’t touch her unless she wants you to, you don’t come visit her space unless she wants you to. Things like that. 

[ice-cream-nekogirl]

Dusk Till Dawn (Shinsou Hitoshi X Reader) PART 1

Summary: Shinsou was just your classmate and friend from General Studies, you never thought the two of you would have to rely on each other. 

Time for another mini-series~... hehehehe… what can I say? I love Shinsou~. And I love to write for him too, I need more of him in my life~. I had some movies inspire me for this one so... I hope ya’ll enjoy and be patient when I start hitting slumps... 

Featuring: Our Purple Son!! <3 

Chapter 1: Taken

A sharp ache was stinging at the back of your head as you let out a groan, cringing at how uncomfortable you felt where you sat? Why were you sitting down? And then the frigid temperature hit you as your body instantly began shivering when the bitterness broke through your thin clothes and lack of warm clothes. What the hell? Why did it feel like you were stuck somewhere in winter? It was summer, it wasn’t supposed to be this freezing…

An unpleasant shiver ran down your back as you realized that you couldn’t see anything, and something was covering your eyes and your entire face. All you saw was blackness as you turned your head in an attempt to try and figure out where you were, and if you were alone or not.

But then you gasped sharply once the tattered bag over your face was removed, your breath hitching as panic and adrenaline settled in your bones and made you tremble as your eyes focused on the people in front of you.

Villains they seemed, but it wasn’t the League of Villains. Or at least you truly hoped they weren’t in cahoots with them.

“You’re the student with the psychic quirk aincha…?” A raspy, deep voice asked you as he approached from the shadows. He was as ugly as he was large, imposing looking dark-haired man with a firm build and a cruel smile. Just seeing him terrified you because you knew that there was no way you could fight him, even with a knife or a gun because he had his goons with him. There was no way for you to escape as you recognized the cables that had been wrapped around you as you quivered in the chair they put you in.

“ANSWER ME!” He bellowed and you winced and whimpered quietly, shakily nodding as a hideous, searing smirk sported across his lips. “Perfect…”

You had no idea what he wanted with you, but it was clear that it wasn’t anything good. 

It had just been, or it was supposed to be another normal day for you after school. You were nothing but a student from the General Studies, you didn’t expect to get caught in any spot of trouble because that was the students of Class 1-A’s thing. Sure, you were chummy with most of the students from 1-A and even friends with a few of them, especially since you knew many of them from Midoriya and Bakugou, your two friends from childhood. Midoriya you were still on great terms with, Bakugou? Not so much…

Yet, you really wanted to be. Like Midoriya, you had clung to the idea that perhaps you and Bakugou could still be close and even rebuild the friendship you once had back.

But right now it was starting to feel like that wouldn’t come to fruition because you didn’t know if these guys would kill you or turn you into some kind of weapon, or what. Just the thoughts sent tears to your eyes as you began to hyperventilate, terror running through your veins as your blood turned cold, your eyes spilling with droplets that streamed down your cheeks. Was this how Class 1-A felt everytime a villain attacked them? You didn’t like it at all, you just wanted to go home, you wanted to go back to everyone…

You were panicking, barely listening to anything they were saying as you whimpered and gasped in horror when two other large men approached you, “Let’s make sure she doesn’t escape…” One of them said, grinning a disgusting smile and sporting sharp fangs as he tried to untie the wires around you before a rush of anger hit you, and you responded by spitting directly into his face, making him cringe before he slapped you hard in the face.

A high-pitched grunt left you as the pain stung on your left cheek, two stray tears streaming down your damp cheeks as the leader made the man stop. “Don’t rough her up yet… we have to make sure these two are both in good shape…”

‘Both…?’ You thought in confusion until another one of his goons came in with another person with a bag over their face, much like they had dragged you in. “This one can control people… while that one can find them…” He said as he forced the resisting body into a chair as you heard grunts of effort as the person attempted to fight, but then the same bastard who struck you grabbed a baton and hit him in the back of his knee.

You heard him give a muffled shout through the bag as he was forced and pushed into another chair as another goon tied him up with the same cables used for you. “This one put up a fight too…” The man who brought him in chuckled as he pulled off the bag, revealing a familiar mop of purple hair and a pale face that had been stained with blood from the nose and a bruise formed on his jaw as he panted heavily. 

He looked dazed, confused as he blinked slowly to try and register where he was, but your eyes went wide as soon as you recognized him as no one other than a friend of yours.

And now he was in danger too...

“Shinsou…?”

Shinsou focused his vision on the voice that called him, his eyes widened a little bit as they met your own shocked (E/C) eyes once he realized that his old classmate was here.

“(L/N)…” But before he could ask you anything, the ringleader smacked the back of his head roughly as he gave a low grunt of pain. All he could do was glare at the man who captured him and his classmate.

“Close his mouth.” He said quickly as Shinsou quietly gasped as the men reacted fast by tying a gag around his mouth so he couldn’t speak. Shinsou would have tried to fight, but he knew he saw that these men had guns in their holsters and knives that they could easily kill him with. On top of that you were there, and he wasn’t going to risk your life.

You had been a good classmate to him, dare he say even a friend because you were kind to him in General Studies. The two of you might not have been best friends, but he respected you because you didn’t fear his quirk, nor did you treat him like a villain as he had been by some of the others.

“N-No… please no don’t hurt him… d-don’t…” You couldn’t help but plea with the villains, but you were greeted with another slap to the face by the same man you spat at. “Shut your mouth you little bitch…”

Groaning and whimpering, you inhaled sharply and exhaled deeply. You weren’t going to cry in front of these men, and not in front of Shinsou either as he glanced at you with what looked like concern, but you were both distracted when the leader began talking.

“You’re both in the General Studies… well isn’t that something? Such useful quirks wasted… well… UA always has been biased… but thankfully… I’m not~.” He claimed with a false, polite smile that made you and Shinsou cringe. “See… our boss needs a tracker… and he needs someone to make people do things for us… especially for my job… it’s not easy to find people to sell ya know?” Your eyes widened in horror at the mere thought of it? This person… he was a trafficker…

No…

He was going to force you and Shinsou to help him with his disgusting, horrible plots.

“No…” You shook your head as a tear rolled down your cheek, and Shinsou was absolutely indignant as he glared hatefully at the man who just snickered and laughed. “Well ya’ll don’t have a choice…” He smugly smiled as he started to walk towards the door, “I’ll give you some time to think about it for a couple of hours… and don’t even think about tryin’ to escape… no one knows ya’ll are here…”

The man laughed before he and the other three men exited while you just shouted ‘No! No!!’ and you started to gasp and cry when you saw that they were leaving you and Shinsou alone, with little opportunity to escape as you saw almost no openings or anything that could help. There was nothing but the chairs you and Shinsou were sitting in, there was no windows, no vents, no nothing…

“S-Shinsou…” You whimpered a little bit, sniffling as you tried to not have a complete breakdown in front of your classmate. “I… I don’t know where we’re at… I don’t… w-why is this happening…?” You couldn’t help your feelings as you started to panic a little bit, because neither of you had any idea where you could have been, and it was so cold in here…

Shinsou didn’t know how to comfort people though, and he couldn’t even speak with the gag covering his mouth as he shivered from how cold it was. Even with the months of training with Aizawa, he hadn’t developed any sort of immunity to extreme temperatures, he was still only human after all. But the cold might be a problem if he tried to escape with you since they still had no idea who these villains were or if their quirks were fueled by the freezing temperature. Despite the odds, Shinsou felt this odd need to protect you now, you were his friend and the only person he could rely on in this situation.

You cried as quietly as possible, a part of you feeling somewhat reassured that you weren’t alone, and that you were with someone you knew at least, but you didn’t want anything to happen to him because Shinsou was your only ally in this. There’s no way you could get out of here on your own, even if you tried to contact someone with your psychic navigation quirk you couldn’t do it alone, nor did you want to do it alone. And if you were going to get out of this, you would have to rely on him to get out of this godforsaken place so that way you could both escape. 

You had to escape. Both of you.

[tttngcale-stuff]

literally what is the point of having a second account for this random shit and not using it smh

----

Desiko didn’t know what the fuck was happening anymore.

Only maybe twenty minutes ago, she had been nominated to find Glow and talk to her. Fifteen minutes ago, Desiko caught wind of someone being paranoid that some ‘blonde chick looked like she was considering jumping’. Ten minutes ago, Desiko had practically hunted down Glow by rumour alone, which nearly had Desiko laughing bitterly at the irony. In ten minutes, she’d managed to somehow talk to Glow without starting an argument.

And somewhere to the end of those ten minutes, Glow had suddenly collapsed into what Desiko wanted to call either a full blown fucking meltdown or an anxiety attack.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out Desiko didn’t know how to deal with high emotions. She barely understood her own outside of frustration, worry, and happiness. There was a reason Desiko left all of mushy-feely things to Neo or Glow or whoever else. Shit, even Nyx, notorious for being detached from a lot of the emotion spectrum, was better than Desiko. Though that was more up to the fact Nyx knew how to filter through the emotion to the problem and talk through it.

If it’s a problem Desiko can’t kill or argue with, then there was no hope. And Glow had been hyperventilating on the floor looking one step away from being thrown into a full on panic attack, something Desiko had, admittedly, never seen from Glow.

Which is why, imagine her fucking surprise, when Desiko impulsively pulled Glow into a hug, Glow had frozen for barely even a heartbeat before crushing Desiko into a tighter and more desperate hug. Desiko had moved to try sit more comfortably, and Glow had moved with her, sobbing heavily and clutching onto Desiko with panicked urgency.

When Glow had stopped crying, Desiko didn’t say anything. Or move. Glow’s grip on her shirt relaxed, and for a fleeting moment of uncomfortable hope Desiko hoped Glow was going to back away. Maybe apologise for using Desiko as a sob pillow and they’d stand up and Desiko could continue prying answers and a conversation out of her. Get across the memo that yeah, what you did was fucking horrible and you kinda deserved what you got, but also we don’t hate you nearly as much as you think we do and you’re a fucking idiot.

And, as Desiko had learned long ago, it was foolish to assume Desiko knew what Glow was going to do. Because suddenly Glow was slumping against her chest and practically dead weight, supported only by Desiko herself. What the fuck.

A nervous glance at Glow’s face--still tearstained, for all the annoying stab of pain in her chest noticed--told her all she needed and also didn’t want to know.

Desiko had seen Glow asleep a handful of times. Once, back in University when Neo and Ace had dragged Glow into a cuddle pile she’d ended up at the bottom of. Another was a few years ago when she’d managed to fall asleep in Nyx’s lap, and a few days later when Glow had latched onto Blossom trying to get Blossom to sit still and relax. Then two years ago when Nyx, Blossom, Ace, Neo, and Glow had ended up in a cuddle pile during one of Blossom and Neo’s obligatory movie nights.

She knew Glow only ever slept when in physical contact with someone else. Mainly only because the minute Nyx had managed to peel herself away that one time, Glow had shot up and acted like nothing happened. And when Blossom dumped Glow off her lap Glow had reacted like someone had shot a gun by her head. Then the cuddle pile, everyone had started to move away when Glow had suddenly woken up, and if Desiko hadn’t known Glow did fall asleep, she’d have thought Glow was wide awake the whole time.

Once is an incident, twice is a coincidence, three’s a pattern.

And apparently, Desiko added to herself just shy of sourly as she moved as slowly as her struggling body could take to move Glow to carry her, four is a fact.

Lifting Glow wasn’t as hard of a task as Desiko would’ve thought. What was a hard task, though, was ignoring the baffled looks when she all but kicked the door open to the room Neo was in. 

Blossom looked damn near incredulous, pinching her arm before giving Desiko an even more bewildered look. Nyx, on the other hand, had simply nodded at Desiko before sending a curious look at Glow, frowning when she must’ve noticed the tear tracks that still hadn’t lost the faint sheen of water. Lurine, still sitting at the foot of the bed with his back to the wall and knees to his chest and looking more like a frightened kid than a thousand year old Sckrai, only looked at Glow with sympathy before he was looking back at Neo. Ace and Cade were still nowhere to be seen.

“So,” Blossom drew out, eyebrow raised when no one spoke. “Story?” Desiko shot her a dirty glare. Blossom amusedly huffed. “Alright, damn, fine.”

Desiko gave Blossom a sarcastic eye roll, eyes sweeping over the room before sighing and depositing Glow against the wall, sliding down to pull Glow into a one armed hug before she had the abrupt reaction of looking like she’d gotten suddenly stabbed and jolting awake. Blossom’s confused expression only deepened, bordering dangerously on hysteric. Nyx kicked Blossom’s shin lightly before speaking, ignoring Blossom’s indignant ‘hey!’.

“I presume there’s an explanation?” She asked with a lot more worry than Desiko was used to. Desiko nodded anyway.

“I have no fucking idea what the fuck happened,” Desiko started dryly, drawing a snort from Blossom, who she shot a quick glare. “She just zoned out and then suddenly had a weird as fuck breakdown. Looked like an anxiety attack, I don’t fuckin’ know.”

If Desiko sounded worried, nobody commented on it. Blossom winced in sympathy just as Nyx’s frown deepened, crossing the short gap to crouch in front of them. Nyx, surprisingly, showed restraint by not reaching out to analyse whatever she could without stirring Glow, instead scanning over her face like she was looking for something that Desiko definitely didn’t know about. Whether Nyx did or didn’t find it, Desiko didn’t actually know when Nyx leaned away, a soft sigh escaping her as she turned back, sitting in a chair against the adjacent wall. From the bed, Lurine was watching them all curiously.

“Is--” Lurine started hesitantly, flinching back when all eyes turned to him. He looked like he was floundering for a moment before he spoke again, much more hesitant. “Is... her eye okay? The right?” That earned from confused and panicked looks, scanning over Glow’s face.

Desiko blinked. She hadn’t really been paying attention to what Glow had been doing while having her sudden breakdown, moreso trying to figure out what the fuck she was supposed to do. But, thinking back, Glow had mostly covered her right eye.

“I have no fucking idea.” Is what escaped Desiko’s mouth.

Lurine considered it for a moment. “I dunno what happened,” he said quietly, “but the- the… It did, um. Something.” Lurine paused, curling in on himself as he searched for words. “It kept… It kept trying to go for her right. Sh’said something about a symbol. I think.” He winced, hiding his face in his knees. “‘M sorry. I don’t know anything else.”

Nyx offered him a tired smile. “That’s alright. You don’t have to talk about anything you’re uncomfortable with.” She gave Desiko a cautious look. “It’s something.”

Desiko couldn’t help the feeling that it wasn’t just a small, insignificant ‘something’.

[writing-half-asleep]

Anxiety

Say you’re young. A teenager. Everyone is either intended to be the kindest people in the world, the most judge-y in the world, or a painful fall down the middle of the two, holding out their love and respect for a certain kind of person. Say you’re a teenager whose brain is consistently going, always loud and static-y. Say you’re a teenager with a brain like mine who has to deal with the wishy-washy teenagers of the hallways and streets, the kindest and meanest and the most confusing people in my own world. Say you’re like me and you have no idea if anyone has ever actually truly cared about you.

My brain is at war with itself. Every action is questioned, every smile is picked apart. I’ve changed my hair so many times because I hope the change will appease the voices in my head, but it never seems to. It’s temporary happiness before everything washes over me in a tide of stale appeasement and empty smiles. That’s when the static rises.

That’s not to say I’m not happy. I’m very happy. I’m happy almost all of the time. It’s springtime, I go to a school I love, there are people I love! Maybe that makes this more difficult to deal with, but at least I’m not consistently depressed, right? But the voices in my head tear apart my friendships, my happiness, until I wonder if my happiness was just something I wanted so badly that I pretended for a while.

The voices in my head, they tell me things all the time. They tell me that my best friend hates me. Yes. Hates me, my best friend, who I know for a fact loves me just the same. Common sense has no room in my brain. The voices say that my biology teacher is done dealing with my low grades, that my family wants nothing to do with me. They tell me that I’ve deserved every horrible thing to happen to me because my toxic traits make everyone else miserable. They make every mildly inconvenient thing, a temporary heartbreak, a bad grade, seem so much bigger, something I’ll never recover from. My constant need for validation, my fear of not having my feelings (platonic or romantic or anything else) reciprocated, I’m told that these things will push everyone away. It’ll be my fault when I’m crying at 3 a.m. because my favourite person stopped talking to me. The most interesting—and perhaps the most horrible—part of all this is the fact that the voices in my head are my own voice, overlapping and varying in intensity. It’s like looking in a mirror and shouting abuse at yourself every single day. It’s like someone cloned you, and all the clones of you hate you and long to sabotage every possible relationship and friendship you could ever have. It’s like hating yourself with a strange, twisted intensity that you’ll never understand. I can’t be close to someone without doubting them once or twice. I can’t be in love or love someone in any way without my own voice saying that I’ll never be loved back. That I’m not worthy of being loved back. Nothing I ever do will ever be worth a paragraph of kind words, nothing I ever do will make my past mistakes better. When someone truly and completely loves me, I don't deserve it.

Then there are the panic attacks. Yeah. Those. The worst one I’ve encountered since the eighth grade was in December, and it happened to start in the middle of my mathematics midterm. I remember that feeling of my body hollowing out, my mind going, my breath hitching then speeding up. I remember the tears that ran coldly down my cheeks, the lack of feeling in my fingers, the shaking hands, and bouncing leg. The hyperventilating. I’d gulp down air then spit it out through my mouth, I’d swallow fear and breathe out pure and unadulterated panic. I closed my eyes and shook my head back and forth and tried to focus, but every problem seemed more and more complicated. Every face I saw when I looked up seemed terrifying, with black eyes and annoyed looks at the panicking girl with nowhere to go. When I got out, I waited for my friend in the hallway on bouncing toes. I needed someone, anyone, to hold me, to tell me it was going to be okay. I needed someone to calm me down, to help me get oxygen in. When she came out, I walked quietly. I did hand movements to stimulate my breathing, but every movement made me dizzy. I used the handrail to help me get down the staircase. I tried to explain but no words would come out beyond a tattered sentence of stammering and gasps, and I had choir practice. So I left. I almost walked straight into practice, where I could hear the synchronized voices singing a tune I barely seemed to recollect, but I barely made it to the wall of the hallway outside before my legs gave out. I sat curled up in a ball and tried to steady my breath. I must have sat out there for five minutes before I got the energy to stand up. When I got in, singing steadied me. Singing alone helped me get a breath in. And when we stopped, my brain immediately kicked up again. The dizziness and nausea and the fear came in waves. Everyone kept looking and looking at me and touching me and I had no room to shrink away, to run. Everything was so loud, everything was so terrifying.

The panic attack continued for almost the entirety of the forty minutes we had for lunch. After choir, I collapsed at the lunch table in a sobbing, hyperventilating mess. I tried to breathe, I tried to stop crying (that was more of an involuntary thing I noticed afterward), but nothing worked. My friend, a different one, grabbed my arm and took me outside. I eventually ended up laying down on the pavement and gasping in the cold air. All I could think of was the fact that I didn’t finish my math exam. My parents would be so disappointed in me, how dare I think it was okay, how dare I not finish, why couldn’t I have just tried harder?

I made it out of that situation okay. I still catch my breath when I think about it; when I think about how I just completely fell apart. I always wondered if the maths exam was what caused it or if it was just a catalyst after some built-up sadness and fear and anger all balled up into one perfectly-wrapped (with a bow) breakdown. Nothing has been as bad as that, but I can say that the hyperventilating gets more and more common these days. My most recent attack was yesterday. I collapsed in a heap in the hallway and the tears came. Everyone was looking at me and touching me and my hands were shaking so badly I couldn’t feel them. I covered my ears because I could hear people asking if I was okay, and they were all standing over me and they looked like they were going to grab me, so I shut my eyes. 

I had a momentary relief when my best friend showed up and hugged me as long as he could. He whispered quietly to me and murmured “you’re okay” until I relaxed. After he left I relapsed and ended up in the bathroom, shaking. I eventually dried my tears and was okay after that. 

But these attacks happen almost every week now. Sometimes they’re barely anything, other times I start crying and make sure to keep my head down so one sees. Sometimes they’re academically related, other times they’re a bit closer to home. If I make a joke and it’s taken in the wrong way even playfully, I completely fall apart. I shatter into a million pieces and then I’m put back together again only to wonder if it was better when I was just silent. Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it saying anything at all. After all, when I only ever seem to say the wrong thing, why bother?

I’m human. I’m a teenage girl who’s gotten her heart broken, who’s dealt with unrequited crushes, who’s read books and watched movies about love and relationships so much that they’re all I think about sometimes. I hope by the time I get one of those, I won’t doubt every “I love you”. I hope, when I’m loved by someone, that I’ll believe them. I hope I love myself enough to love someone else without completely relying on them. To everyone I’ve ever loved, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I loved you so completely that it meant ignoring every issue of my own because I didn’t want you to notice I had them in the first place. I’m sorry I laid my love on you so intensely, I promise if I could do it again, I would try not to. For me, whatever this is always felt like a dealbreaker. If anyone ever found out about this, I’d never get the girl or guy I’ve always dreamed of. Because who would want to deal with this mess?

I was told by an adult once that they think I have anxiety, but no more than the girl down the street. I have to say, that’s incorrect—unless the girl living down the street has anxiety, then it’s a different story. All the same. This isn’t just getting stressed for a test. This isn’t just worrying a little. This is an unfortunate circumstance that I’m stuck with. Someone asked me what it was like, living with this. I’ll give it in the simplest words I can.

Living with this is like living with an old TV in your head, and it only has two channels. One is a cop show that analyses everything in your life and the only conclusion that’s ever reached is, “Nobody wants you around, the boy you are head over heels for will never feel the same way, nor will anyone else. Your family wishes you were more like your brother” and so on, so forth. The other produces a noise that increases in volume with every word you hear, every touch you feel. Living with this is living knowing that nothing will ever be silent until you go emotionally numb (which has happened to me once or twice). And if you’ve experienced this before, I hope to god that you’re getting the help you need. We all need a little bit of that.

[thehiddenlawyer]

At Last-- the Light!

(This is going to be REALLY full of split personalities and slightly manic…tones so y’know, you’ve been warned. 

And everything I say below is my own life experience, and it does not claim to be objective or the truth. Just me. It’s also frantic and disjointed so forgive me. I’ll try to be more articulate later.)

You, darling Patrick, have your lizard, your cigarettes and your drink, I have my words since I don’t keep alcohol in the house and refuse to get more cigarettes.

Oh my darling man, my darling Patrick, don’t let me down. Don’t let yourself down…just hang on a bit longer. It gets better, I swear. Just hold on tight.

A few months ago when the trailers came out, the people closest to me saw what a terrifying impact the trailers by themselves had on me. With no exaggeration I tell you that I cried 48 hours straight when the trailer was released that had the bits of Some Hope in it, where he says he wants to break out into the real world. I told my sister that I had a breakdown, I told my Johnny and my other best friend that I was reacting like this, predictably I told @sobeautifullyobsessed​ (hereafter SBO) that I wasn’t handling it well at all. SBO reassured me, as she always does in her loving way. My sister and two best friends were so concerned that they were insisting that I just walk away from Patrick Melrose altogether, basically just burn the books, burn the memory of the TV shows existence, just ignore it completely.

I know a few of you lovelies here did that and I completely understand.

But there’s always been something about me that likes looking at things that terrify me. Like I’m arachnophobic and willingly walked into the tarantula exhibit at the zoo once, just to face my own terror (I didn’t last long and ran out of there hyperventilating and literally crashing into the walls). I don’t do well with crowds and always need to see my exit (massive agoraphobia that kept me away from the Infinity War premiere in LA) so a few weeks ago when I in an overcrowded pub, I kept looking behind me to feel the helplessness of being trapped.

So I refused to not watch Patrick Melrose.

Hell, I’ve been waiting for this adaptation for lifetimes it seems, so why the actual fudge would I not watch it?

And me, being me, didn’t want to admit this was happening to my therapist. I was somehow convinced that she would certify me as a loon and tell me I’m beyond help. Like I had this actual fear that my reaction to Patrick Melrose was a sign of completely mental instability, not just mental illness. I felt like if I admitted to my therapist that I cried for 48 hours straight because of that trailer, or that I consumed every atom of information about the TV adaptation that I could even though it made me physically sick to see Patrick, she was going to call the hospital and have me locked away.

I was convinced.

But I told her, because I couldn’t hold it in any longer.

And she looked at me the way all therapists look at their patients, as if they know we’re waiting for them to tell us we’re hopeless, and she asked me to articulate why I loved this character so much. I outlined it the way I have for you guys, the way I have for Mr. C. in a hapless letter I sent along for him a bit ago, and she blew me away. She told me she saw the parallels, definitely understood why I was so taken with this character and why I was reacting so…viciously to it all.

Then she asked me the most simple question—she asked “how does his story end?”

And I very clearly remember sitting in my therapist’s cramped office and weeping when I remembered At Last, weeping because I remembered the way he picked himself up, the way he shed all that darkness and embraced this new and beautiful life with his wife and children. He rendered the venom useless, he was finally victorious.

But again, me being me, and Patrick being my Patrick, I was doing a book-by-book comparison with my life. I had this running list in my head:

Book 1- Never Mind- Patrick, aged 5. It begins, he escapes into the gecko. Me, aged 5. It began, I escaped into creating characters in my head to escape.

Book 2- Bad News- Patrick, early 20’s. Addictions galore. Ishtar, early 20’s. Addictions galore.

Book 3- Some Hope- Patrick- late 20’s. Law school. Wants to stop existing and start living, tired of hating. Ishtar- late 20’s….well, I’m late 20’s right now. Law school, want to live, tired of hating.

Book 4 and Book 5— early 40’s Patrick……..But I’m still 28.

So I saw the last two books as like a prediction to how I’ll end. Slipping and sliding through sobriety, failing at being a mother and wife, at being a daughter and sister, failing at being me because I haven’t been able to let go.

In my previous post about Mother’s Milk I talked about my inability to connect to the book but the 5th resonated with me.

Mother’s Milk Patrick, I’m starting to understand, hurt me deeply. He let me down.

He was this example for me. Like I got to Some Hope and I was like “okay. Good. Good! This is REALLY good. This means I’m going to be okay. This means I’m going to live through all these memories and nightmares and all my failures.”

In the beginning of Mother’s Milk I had the sense of “okay! He’s married! He has a family! He’s having babies! Good! That means that by the time I’m his age, since everything else has held true….then I’m going to have a family of my own too.”

And then he slipped. And he broke my heart.

Darling please don’t drink, for us.

He led me down. He led me down big time, because if Patrick slipped and fell, then that was my inventible fate…Weird thinking ain’t it?

But that’s the way it is.

Don’t give up. Hold on a little longer. It gets better.

It has too.

The last book was…weird for me in A LOT of ways.

I don’t deal with death very easily or at all. I know most people don’t but…I’ll explain in a bit.

I’ve told people that I thought I could trust and gotten a horrendous response to my confession.

I’ve been obsessed with sex, understanding sex, understanding the difference between sex and intimacy in my own life, failing, and finding myself disgusted with the simplest touches.

And the tv adaptation caught something that I really appreciate—the resistance to touch. I’ve never verbally talked to anyone except my therapist about my past, I’ve mentioned it in passing to my sister and friends. But even if I’m just thinking about what happened, I can’t stand the idea of being touched. I hate being touched, I really do. If you ever meet me in real life, do not be offended that I don’t like being touched. Like, even if I’m sitting on the couch with someone I adore, and their thigh is touching mine just because we’re squished together, I will contort my body so that we’re not touching.

I can’t stand it.

And I like that the TV showed it, when he’s with Mary and telling her about his rage.

Death—

I’ve emphasized this a few times but I want to again—I have a great relationship with my parents. I don’t tell them everything but I confide most things in them. I worship the ground they walk on but they are human, and like all parents, they gave me some baggage.

As an adult, as someone both paranoid and curious about why I am the way I am, I’ve come to recognize that I had massive anxiety as a child. This anxiety in children usually manifests itself in the child’s inability to let go. I get teased, to this day, about the fact that I would cry if mom had to throw away an old pair of shoes or an old, broken tie. The concept of good-bye, of being deprived of someone/something was unbearable. I remember sitting in the spider infested attic alone in Iran one time, weeping, because I knew my parents had thrown away a pair of shoes that were completely useless. We also lived with my grandparents back then, and they were in their 80’s when I was born—beautiful, inspiring souls, I adored them. But my grandma would inadvertently say things that all the old women in my culture and most Middle Eastern cultures say, asking me what if I’d weep for her when she died, if I’d be sad. She wasn’t being malicious, she was just asking her youngest and favorite granddaughter about her reaction.

Instead of understanding from my parents, I got rolled eyes from them. They’d tuck me into bed between them, usually little spoon to mom’s big spoon, with dad’s lips pressed in a sleepy, mustachioed kiss to my forehead. They’d murmur sleepily that I shouldn’t worry about it, that I should just say my prayers, that it was all going to be okay. I’d fall asleep nestled between these two human beings that I love more than anything else, so secure in their love and comfort, and just have panic attacks about losing them someday.

Those grandparents passed away, out of my visual sight, in Iran a few years ago.

My other grandma, however, is a death that cut me very deeply.

I’ve always been this weird source of strength for my family and I have no idea why. I’m both my parents’ confidant, I always have been. If something’s bugging them, I’m the first person they turn to. So when my other grandma got extremely sick and slipped into a coma, my mom turned to me, and asked me if they should sign the DNR order.

I was 22.

I carried my family through that ordeal, making funeral arrangements…all the business of death because I didn’t want mom to go through it.

But that horrible, horrible anxiety tripled and quadrupled and I stay awake nights thinking about death. About the death of my loved ones, about death of my enemies, about my own death.

With everything happening these past few weeks, I’m going to admit that I have been suicidal in the past. When Patrick in At Last talks about being on the motorway or being in a tall building and wondering if the fall would be fatal…I’ve done that and I have bad days when I do that. It’s with…shame and terror at my own thinking that I admit the first thing I thought of when I moved to San Francisco was that I’m by the ocean, I live by a cliff, there are three bridges in my vicinity, the university is six stories tall, and even my own flat is high enough.

And the only reason I haven’t taken advantage of a tall building is I can’t do that to my mom and dad.

My best friend and I have weird sense of humor- my Jonny that I always go on about. Just like Patrick and his Johnny, we joke about death all the time. But sometimes I wonder if he realizes I’m not completely kidding…

So, I live, and I kept the promise to myself and I’ve found the light.

It flickers, but it’s there.

Just hang on darling, one more night. The sun’s going to shine again tomorrow, I promise. I swear.

Don’t give up.

So imagine my reaction when Patrick ends up in the suicide ward…There was a sense of “hmm, maybe I’m ahead of schedule?” and “shit! I’m gonna end up there too!”

As far as suicide, I’m ahead of schedule, I promise.

But how the fuck do you deal with death??? 

The Confessions

One of the most…nightmarish things I read in the book was Patrick’s confession to Eleanor that he’d been raped, and her response of “me too.”

Like what the fuck.

Christ this is gonna be a long post if I have to go into it….

I can’t forgive Eleanor, as much as I can’t ever forgive David.

Eleanor was raped and abused too, but she wasn’t a helpless 5-year-old kid.

I can’t accept any excuses for her. Patrick may have forgiven her but I really can’t.

When my need for verbal vomit and endless confessions started, I had this weird mental list of people I’d tell.

Jonny, by default. And everyone else kinda started popping up randomly, and I mean these people from my real life. My sister was a last minute surprise, so was my other best friend.

My other sister…she’s being proven a disaster…As some of you know, I’m getting a Patrick Melrose tattoo in a few weeks time and I’ve been having fun trying to figure out how I’ll justify it to people—especially my parents. But this unknowing sister of mine is going to be the one that protests the most, and I don’t know what to tell her. Do I just ask her to read the books again so I can gauge her reaction? Or do I just say “never mind” and walk away?

There are two other people that I’ve told that left me….bleeding, and so disappointed.

One is a cousin that’s more like a sister and my best friend. She’s pretty close to me in age but older. We’ve told each other pretty much everything since we were kids. We’re partners in crime. If I find a way to get into trouble, she’s always along for the ride. Everyone in the family just thinks of us as being joined at the hip. So during the verbal vomit, I went to her house because she’s a BC addict too and we used to have marathons (you’ll see in a moment why I’ve retracted from this great love of mine). She was in the kitchen, and this is a week after I started therapy, and she studies psychology by the way. We were chattering and gossiping nonstop like we always do, and I felt the words, the confession bubble through me in an unstoppable force. She would be the second person I was going to tell…and I basically just blurted it out, and told her why I was so angry when I found out they’d invited all three of my rapists to her wedding. She didn’t really say anything, just raged for a bit and we dropped the subject. When the craziness with Patrick Melrose started though, I ran to her first, and I told her that I was reacting this passionately and it was scary and could she please just listen to me.

You know what she said?

“Just stop thinking about it. Bad things happen to everyone. Just stop thinking about it.”

She shut me down, and I don’t know if she’s realized that I’ve completely shut her out too.

I share my joys with her, and she still turns to me when she needs an ear to chew but I haven’t had a real conversation with her ever since that day. I can’t trust her anymore, it still stings to get shut down like that.

I like the basic principal, I would LOVE to stop thinking about it but...it’s not that easy. 

The other disappoint was another friend, a former lover who has become a friend anyway. I emailed her my story, and she responded with an email that was more about her than me. But I forced sympathy between the lines and took it for myself, even though it wasn’t there. But she did reassure me that she would be there for me, no matter what, always and forever.

And when I couldn’t help being overcome by what has been happening as I heal…I sent her a text in a manic, panicked state, begging for a kind word, for some love, for some sympathy because I was trapped, and she was the only lifeline…

I got the most generic response from her “Oh, I’m so sorry” and that was it.

I had to shut her away too.

Hold me, love me, kiss me, hug me. never let go but darling I can’t stand your touch right now. Go away but stay…make it stop.

I have friends in this community now that I can turn to, that have made me swear to text them if I needed them and they are…beautiful, amazing life savers. And I dunno what I’d do without you guys, especially SBO and @stlgeekgirl​. Like you two? Muh fuckin’ lifesavers, straight up.

I also have my bestie. I wasn’t sure how she’d react. She teases me endlessly about my love for Cumberbatch (although her nickname for him is not at all flattering or worth repeating. She replaces the A with an I…) so I felt compelled to explain to her. Now she’s the one that I run to and she’s always there, waiting with open arms.

A few days ago (holy shit, yesterday—Friday), I woke up with a memory, that there is a picture out there of the day it started happening. I was convinced that the picture was real, taken at some family function, the day I was raped for the first time…and I found it. And I sent it to her, crying with my hands shaking and she lamented the fact that I looked distraught in the picture and my mom looked like she was trying to soothe me.

And she talked to me, and she talked me through it, and she made sure I was talked out before getting me to talk about the tattoo.

When Edward St. Aubyn talked about his mother’s reaction, and when it was brought to life on screen…I can’t begin to imagine what it was like for ESA to hear that from his mother. To have years of torture be so brazenly acknowledged and dismissed in a single breath. What happened to me wasn’t as horrendous as his experience, but I felt the pain, I’ve felt the dismissal. There’s a sense of betrayal. You can physically feel your heart breaking with disappointment.

Confession is not a light or easy thing.

I don’t skip around and just tell everyone I was raped by my cousins as a child. That’s not how it works.

When I want to tell someone about it, a family member or a friend, it’s a piece of trust in that person that is…beyond this world. It’s the hardest thing I can do. So to have that kind of reaction be your solace?

I can’t forgive ESA’s mother nor Eleanor.

 Sex—

For those who have read my writing it might come as a shock that I’m a bit of a prude in real life when it comes to sex. Well, sex with men…we’ll leave the other half unspoken of for now.

Being touched and getting touched…I can have the love of my life on top of me, telling me he wants me, that he loves me, and I’ll suddenly be frozen with fear and need him to back off and let me catch my breath. For me, for my brain, that’s how it happens.

Just imagine how terrible it is though—you crave someone’s touch, their body, the very air in their lungs, the beating of their heart in their chest, the heat of their bodies, the salt of his skin…you lay awake nights, your legs sawing beneath your blankets, imagining his breath in your ear

And when he’s actually there?

You need to push him away.

That’s me.

I’ll sit somewhere, I’ll chat up whoever (my love life is long and complicated so let’s not go into all of that right now) and I’ll imagine having sex with them with the same clarity and determination as Patrick. But when push comes to shove, I can’t handle being touched.

Will I ever tell the love of my life why I need him to physically stay away from me after months and months of separation?

I don’t know.

I’ve been on a murder mystery docuseries kick lately after filling my head with the Bar…I watched The Keepers on Netflix (Don’t watch unless you have a strong stomach!) and one of the women who was talking about her abuse was talking about how she was deprived, by her abuser, of her mother’s confidence and trust in her mother’s ability to keep her safe.

That struck me and I’ve been wrestling with it and trying to figure out if I have any blame that I might be parceling out to my parents, that they somehow let this happen.

But I can’t find it there, and for that, at least, I’m grateful.

Patrick Melrose has been a revelation.

I’ve always been really good with words and expressing myself bur he gave me a starting point, multiple starting points, to start conversations that needed to be had.

It’s the strangest feeling to be able to send someone a clip of the show and be like “I do that! I literally do that all the time. I feel like that, all the time! Remember that one time I nearly pushed so-so off the chair cuz they tried to touch me? Yeah! See?”

 But what At Last did for me was serve as a reminder that if I’m meant to parallel Patrick’s life forever, then I’ll find my peace eventually too.

One thing that REALLY struck me was an interview with Benedict Cumberbatch a few days ago where he says he hopes the show will remind people that “it’s gonna be alright, it’s gonna be ok” and started reciting the lyrics of the song “come on come on come on get through this”.

I don’t think BC knows how much that meant to me.

I hope he finds out some day.

SO GUESS WHAT

I WATCHED THE EPISODE

I WEPT

FOR TWO HOURS STRAIGHT

THEN I WENT OUT AND RAN

I HOPED IT WOULD RAIN TO HIDE MY TEARS

BUT THERE’S NO HIDING NOW BABY

THERE’S NO HIDING NOW

LIVE IN THE SUNSHINE

STEP OUT INTO IT

DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE PAST

DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARKNESS

I STAND HERE AS A REMINDER THAT IT’S GOING TO BE OKAY

THAT YOU’RE GOING TO BE OKAY

THERE IS LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

I GUARANTEE IT

I’VE SEEN THE LIGHT

I’VE FELT ITS WARMTH

I’VE TASTED ITS JOY

HANG ON

IT’S GOING TO BE ALRIGHT.

AND WHEN THE DARKNESS GETS TOO MUCH, I’M HERE FOR YOU.

JUST LIKE MY FRIENDS HAVE BEEN THERE FOR ME.

PATRICK MELROSE HAS GIVEN ME A TONGUE, A PLATFORM, A LANGUAGE, A STRENGTH TO KEEP TELLING MY STORY AND ENCOURAGING OTHERS TO SHARE THERES.

YOU’RE NOT ALONE.

DON’T EVER THINK YOU ARE.

I might add to this because none of this makes any goddamn sense, but you know what?

I just took a deep breath.

[23lotus-blog]

What A Panic Attack Feels Like (Living with Anxiety)

I decided to write this since I've been dealing with severe anxiety for a long while now, and people in my life don't exactly understand what it's like to deal with every day, they just tell me to stop worrying and causing myself extra anxiety.

Much easier said than done

Anxiety is unpredictable, it doesn't make sense, and it's not something you can just stop. It's something that always tends to linger in the back of my mind no matter what I'm doing. Grocery shopping, going on a walk, or even just sitting down at the table to eat dinner with my family. All very simple and seemingly safe things, yet I've gotten panic attacks during every single one of them. It's such a horrible feeling, and I'm going to describe it the best I can.

You're doing a usual activity, nothing out of the ordinary when it begins. You start by feeling a little bit weird, kinda like an out of body sensation. Your hands get a bit clammy and you feel a weird pit-like feeling in your stomach. You try to brush it off and continue on, taking a few breaths to calm your body down.

The pit-like feeling gets more intense, and your chest feels tighter than usual, causing you to breathe a bit faster to get enough oxygen. Your fingers and legs begin to tingle, and this particular sign is when I know I'm past the point of no return. I'm about to have a full-blown panic attack.

You sit down, putting your head into your hands as you try to get a deep, satisfying breath, but you can't. It gets harder to take a breath, sending your body into a bigger panic and you begin to hyperventilate. The world around you starts spinning and you feel like you're about to vomit as your vision starts to tunnel and go out.

The mental symptoms then begin intensifying, you feel such a deep pit of fear in your stomach. Towards what exactly, you don't know. But it keeps getting worse, the panic building, the breathing getting faster, you're both freezing cold and sweating at the same time. The world around you is tuned out, you can't hear anything except for your own rapid heartbeat in your ears.

You are completely terrified

You can't stop shaking, you lose muscle control, your body is completely exhausted by now, but the panic attack has just reached its peak. You can't stop yourself from crying, feeling like your body is about to completely give out and shut down on you.

You can stay like this for any amount of time, whether it's five minutes or an hour or two. Slowly, it'll begin to back off. You'll be able to take a few deep breaths as your heart rate goes back to normal, signaling it's finally ending.

At least for now, that is. You can hope and pray that it'll be a while before your next one, but you can never know exactly when it'll strike again. And that, is the real scary part in my opinion. You could have one somewhere you can't get away from, such as an airplane, and you'll have to deal with having a breakdown in front of everyone.

In front of their judgmental eyes.