#obviously like I was in the icu and now mental ward and it’s been some of the darkest most traumatic time of my life but after talking to th | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

floragraph · 3 years ago

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Literally I have nowhere to post stuff like this elsewhere so I am going to revert to my 22 yo self and complain on tumblr. The subsequent text carries with it a huge ED and suicide TW (inc numbers) so skip this post if that is not good material for you.

I have been having a really rough time this year. Obviously, like most people. My husband and I relocated to Ottawa on what we thought would be a permanent basis, but we ended up hating the city so much that we are returning to Toronto in August. Thankfully our work hasn’t been negatively impacted by our back and forth.

My husband is a physician and worked a lot with COVID patients. He was gone 12+h a lot of the time and was very rigid about COVID protocols. He had an understandable reason to be, sure, but the upshot of his schedule and perspective meant that I was heavily isolated in a city where I knew nobody. My depression got really bad and our marriage went through a mini rough patch (better now, thankfully), and I ended up trying to commit suicide in April. I almost died - I was in the ICU for a week and my family from outside the city was told that they should probably come. But I survived physically unscathed, believe it or not.

From there, I was sent straight to a psych ward that HEAVILY resembled the ward from The One that Flew the Cuckoo’s Nest. I wish I were joking, but I’m not. There were more security officers than there were mental health workers; nurses were clearly to overworked to care; the ward offered no groups or anything, so people just wandered all day; there were no windows that you could actually see outside from; it was dirty and loud - always; there were a lot of scary men there. Four things happened there that really messed me up: (1) They just didn’t give me my medication the whole time I was there, and I went into withdrawal. I finally found out that a note in my file was missed, but I kept asking my nurse about it and they’d always shut me down. One night, my body started shivering because of the withdrawal and they just told me to colour. (2) They told me that I had to take a sleeping medication every night (fine), but they refused to tell me the name of the medication. No explanation was ever provided as to why they didn’t tell me, but I spent the whole time worried they were giving me benzos. (3) They didn’t feed me!! I am a lifelong vegetarian and I kept being brought meat options. I regularly pointed out that I can’t eat me, which was always met with a shrug. My husband tried to bring me feel so I could eat something but they told him that he wasn’t allowed. I basically survived on the sides of crackers, fruit, or whatever. (4) The men pts. A lot of them were very scary and I received a lot of negative and unwanted attention. I tried flagging this to my nurse and they never helped.

I was finally discharged from there, but I think I actually have developed PTSD from the experience. The experience (esp the involuntary food restriction) has caused my ED to relapse with a vengeance. I had basically been recovered since 2015, and now I’m back to a BMI of 16.something and not enjoying it.

Anyway, life sucks. I’m angry and upset and really would like a hug and some validation.

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your-brother-crutchie · 7 years ago

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Were You Ever Going to Tell Me?

Spot doesn’t quite realise how much he cares for Racetrack Higgins but, when he finds out something horrible about Race’s not-so-distant past, it shocks some feelings into motion.

So, this one is very heavy. I’ve been feeling pretty awful mentally lately and, when I’m feeling shitty, I do the same thing to my characters to help me to deal with it. Don’t feel obliged to read this, please, if it’s likely to hurt you.

TW: Mention of self-harm scars and a suicide attempt

(I don’t know if a family-only ward is a thing, I’m not American and I have free healthcare, I’m taking artistic license).

Brushing his hand carefully through Race’s fluffy curls, Spot couldn’t help but scold himself. How had he let himself become the kind of boyfriend to smile when their partner was sleeping?

As much as he argued it, though, he enjoyed the affection. Spot’s father had never been kind to his mother, despite only ever hitting him once, and it was certainly enough for him to decide that he wanted to be with someone who was kind and gentle and sweet. Despite all of Race’s flaws, the boy sleeping beside him was the epitome of all of those things when he needed to be.

Race had slept over at Spot’s many times, but he’d always brought pyjamas. He always changed in the bathroom. If that was what made him comfortable then Spot was perfectly fine with it; it was just a little odd.

Spot’s arm was stretched around Race’s body, holding him close and protecting him. He’d always felt as though he needed to. He didn’t know why but it had always seemed like Race was fragile. The Italian boy always got annoyed when he felt like Spot was smothering him, pushing him away and arguing that he had two feet to stand on

Rubbing careful circles into Race’s lower back, Spot made sure not to wake the boy as he slid his cold hands under the back of his shirt. He just wanted to see borrow a little bit of the hot-water-bottle qualities that his boyfriend seemed to possess. However, when Spot slowly smoothed his hand round and up to Race’s chest to feel his heartbeat, he froze.

When running over Race’s stomach, there were tens of scattered, bumpy lines littering his skin. Although Spot knew that Race had had to go into hospital for an operation towards the beginning of their relationship, he doubted that any doctor would leave that.

Breaths coming shallowly, Spot drew his hand back before looking up at his boyfriend’s face, making sure that he was still sleeping soundly as he lifted the hem of his t-shirt just enough so that he could see his stomach. Countless red lines drew patterns across Race’s stomach, making Spot feel sick almost immediately. He wasn’t stupid, he knew what they were.

Spot knew that he should probably wake Race up, confront him about it instead of doing it without his permission but, with utmost care, he rolled up the sleeve of Race’s hoodie. He’d always had a weird thing about sleeping in it. Once again, Race’s forearms were covered in the marks, so much worse than his stomach. The things that made Spot have to bite back a choked sob, however, were the vertical lines running up and down Race’s arms.

Spot spent a lot of time volunteering with a nearby youth group, one that helped kids from abusive families. He’d seen plenty of these to know exactly what that meant.

Unable to keep quiet any longer, Spot tentatively rolled the sleeves down before snaking his arms around Race’s waist and pulling him into his body. He let his lips brush the shell of Race’s ear, being careful not to spook the sleeping boy when he woke him,“Hey, Race? Are you still awake?” The frail boy stirred uncomfortably in his arms, grumbling as he wriggled closer to Spot. It was two am, after all, Spot didn’t even know why he’d been up in the first place. He fought a smile trying to grow as he felt Race’s curls tickling under his chin, wanting to look serious as soon as Race woke up so that he knew that he wanted to talk instead of just going back to sleep.

Although Race kept his eyes closed, he sighed and let out a tired, “What?” His usual cheerful tone was completely void of any emotion and Spot started to wonder if he often sounded like that when he wasn’t putting on some kind of happy front.

“Race, we need to talk.” Pulling Race away from him a little, Spot kept his firm gaze and refused to let Race allow his eyelids to sink closed once again.

Nodding sleepily, Race obviously didn’t understand but forced his body into a sitting position as Spot did the same anyway. He blinked, reaching blindly to find his glasses on the nightstand and almost knocking them off in the process. Quickly jumping to action, Spot leaned over Race to pick them up for him, unfolding them and placing them carefully on his face. A lazy smile dripped from Race as he thanked him, rubbing at his eyes under the lenses once again before sitting and waiting for Spot to start talking.

Spot shifted, uncomfortably trying to find a way to bring it up but struggling every time, “Race, I- I know that- Sometimes- I’m wor- fuck.” Cursing under his breath, Spot looked at Race desperately, his eyes pleading for him to just understand what he was talking about without having to say it. It was a lot harder saying it out loud when it was someone that you lov-

No. Not love. As much as Spot cared for Race, they had only been together for a few weeks and he didn’t do love anyway. He cared about Race a lot, that was all. He didn’t want to see him go down the same road as some of the boys that he helped at youth group.

Race was different, though. He was strong and kind and compassionate whereas most of those boys had let their pain turn them bitter. Although Spot helped them remember what it was like to be kind, they were angry and cruel when they first came to them. From the look of the physical impacts of Race’s pain, that boy had no reason to be charming. Yet, he’d charmed his way into Spot Conlon’s heart which, many would say, was no easy feat.

“Look, Race, I saw your scars. I just- I want to make sure that you’re okay because- well, because I really care about you and I want to help you.” All of Spot’s words seemed to leap out at once, not giving Race a chance to jump in as he watched the boy’s face crumpling.

Clearing his throat, Race swung onto his knees. He sniffed a little, brushing his hands over his face and avoiding Spot’s eyes, “Right- um. Yeah, it’s nothing they’re- they’re from years ago. I’m fine now.” A wide smile stretched across Race’s cheeks in a desperate effort to prove to Spot that he was fine, only faltering in the second that his voice cracked. However, Spot had seen scars from years ago at his youth group; he’d also seen scars from weeks ago and Race’s were more like those.

Spot shook his head, gently reaching forward to skim the tips of his fingers over the back of Race’s hand, “Race, I’m not an idiot. They’re not that old.” He pressed his lips into a thin line as he watched Race’s face break.

“. . . Okay, yeah, you’re right.” Dropping his head, Race focussed on the bedsheet that he was twisting between his long fingers, “Do you- do you remember when I had to go into hospital?” He kept his eyes fixed firmly on the way the white sheet was pinching and gathering but raised his chin just the slightest bit.

Thinking back, Spot nodded, “To have your tonsils taken out just after we got together?” They’d only been on a few dates and he’d only asked Race if he could call him his boyfriend the week before but it had still been difficult. Spot had been in the phase where all he wanted to do was hold Race whilst watching old movies on his weathered sofa but Race couldn’t come over because he was in hospital.

A deep sigh resonated through Race’s body as he squeezed his eyes tightly shut, covering his pretty eyes with his long eyelashes. He took a moment before tilting his head to the side, obviously pained by the memory and struggling to say it out loud, “And I said you couldn’t visit?”

Spot could only vaguely remember all of this but it was quickly coming back, flashes of conversations and goodbyes for unknown periods of time, depending on how well Race’s treatment went, “Because your family pays for a room on a family-only ward?” The more he thought about it, the less he believed it; especially since Race was bringing it up now.

“Yeah- well, not quite . . . My foster mum doesn’t have that kind of money. I was in the ICU because I’d- huh.” Race’s voice was shaky, it was cracked and it was broken and it was horrible to listen to, “I’d tried to kill myself.”

The way Race finally managed to look up at Spot, his gaze trembling and his eartips turning red, “Oh my god, Race. Why didn’t you tell me?” Watching Race’s face as closely as possible, Spot pulled himself even further upright so that he could get closer, brushing his thumb over the skin on the back of Race’s hand.

Shrugging, Race moved his gaze away from Spot’s eyes, directing them anywhere else, “I really liked you and we’d only just started dating.” He turned his hand, letting Spot wrap his fingers around his own even without looking at him. Race immediately clung onto Spot’s stubby fingers as if, any minute now, he would blink and Spot would be gone, “You thought I was happy. I thought you’d leave me.”

Spot gripped onto Race’s hand automatically, knitting his eyebrows together as he struggled to form the words, shock choking him instead, “Why would I leave you?” He tugged gently on Race’s hand, almost letting out a sob when Race just slumped against his body, defeated and dejected.

“Because I’m not the happy, smiley person with the supportive family that you think I am. I know that you already do a lot for kids with families like mine. I didn’t want you to feel like I was just another problem for you to fix.” Letting his hair tickle Spot’s chin, Race’s breath shuddered through his body as he buried his face into the crook of Spot’s neck.

As he ran his free hand gently through Race’s curls, Spot sighed, disappointed in everything that had ever made this boy feel like he wasn’t worth it. Spot left a soft kiss on the top of Race’s head, “Race, you’ll never be a burden to people who matter. If you ever feel that way again, you need to tell me. Okay?”

Nodding silently, Race said nothing and Spot soon learned why. Damp eyelashes brushing against his neck and immediately felt his eyes growing hot, “Wait- you told me that you were going into hospital, like, three days in advance . . . Were you- were you planning it?” He pushed Race away just enough for him to look down at his puffy eyes and blotchy face, watching the frail boy tremble.

Once again, Race started nodding. This time, however, he was careful and meticulous about it. His guise, which he had held so perfectly since Spot had met him, was splitting into countless fractals and It was heartbreaking to watch.

By the time he’d managed to gather himself, Spot’s cheeks had fat paintbrush strokes tracing his cheeks, “. . . Were you ever going to tell me?”

Race snapped upright immediately, pulling away from Spot and snatching his hand away, “Don’t ask me that.” Straight away, Spot knew why Race was angry. He knew that he hated the idea that Spot didn't fully trust him and he was probably torn about telling him himself.

“I’m sorry.” Spot reached for Race again but he backed away, cold and guarded. It made Spot’s heart clench but he knew that he probably deserved it so decided not to push Race about it.

All Spot had ever wanted was for Race to be happy. Ever since he’d met him, Spot had known that Race was different. He was one of those perfect people who were kind and soft and sweet. He always apologised after his pranks and, despite his seemingly reckless nature, Race was always immaculately pristine and careful about the possibility of hurting others, avoiding it at all times.

“Can we just- we can talk about this in the morning.” Although Race had begun the phrasing as a question, he quickly spun his statement on its head and lead where it was going instead of giving Spot a decision. In a way, it made Spot happy that Race wasn’t so subdued about the whole situation to let himself be directed somewhere that he didn’t want to go. Spot hadn’t been expecting Race to speak up again, so the fact that he was willing to talk to him, even if like that, made his chest feel a lot lighter.

Spot nodded as soon as Race was done, watching the boy sinking down until he was buried under the duvet, and pressed his lips together firmly, “Sure.” It didn’t need an answer but Spot just wanted Race to know that he was there for him; always.

Taylor Swift’s new single filtered into Race’s restless dreams, making him toss and turn. When he eventually woke up, Race kept his eyes closed, pressing his eyelids together as much as he could as he leaned across to smack the top of his alarm clock.

Race didn’t hit his alarm clock, instead, the palm of his head smacked down onto the edge of the nightstand, causing him to curse and shoot his eyes open in shock. His heart started beating quicker as he saw that Spot was gone, only just remembering their conversation the night before and worrying that he’d gone. This was exactly what Race had been scared of and, as it turned out, he was right to be.

However, Race quickly took in the red walls around him and remembered that he wasn’t in his own apartment. It wasn’t exactly likely that Spot would have left Race alone in his apartment, especially not after a fight.

Sniffing, Race thought he smelled bacon but knew that that wasn’t likely. Spot didn’t cook. He clambered clumsily from the bed, picking up the first hoodie he found to swap with his and tugging it over his head. Of course, it was Spot’s. A sigh left Race as he held the soft material to his face, breathing in the scent of his boyfriend, after all, he was probably about to lose him.

When he’d pulled himself together enough to face Spot’s breakup breakfast, Race padded carefully into the kitchen. His bare feet made little sound on the cold boards so when he found Spot, his back was to him as he prodded cautiously at bacon on the grill.

Race cleared his throat, blushing and regretting his decision immediately as Spot spun around to face him, “Antonio.”

There was silence for a moment as Race shuffled from foot to foot, trying to figure out what to say. He looked up occasionally, realising that Spot wasn't going to look away any time soon and wishing that the shorter boy would just do something. Anything.

"Look, I made a mistake but I am okay now and- gosh. I love you and when I picture myself happy . . . It's with you."

Spot continued just staring at him, making Race uncomfortable as he sniffed. Although it had been just part of a nervous habit, Race’s brows furrowed as he looked behind Spot to the grill where smoke was beginning to drift slowly upwards. Squeaking, Race rushed forwards and snatched the cheese knife that Spot was using from his hand and salvaging the food before it was ruined beyond belief.

When Race eventually glanced backwards, Spot’s gaze was soft, “You love me?” He smiled slightly, hopping up onto the counter beside Race and deciding to focus on the slightly less heavy part of his statement. Yes, they needed to talk about what had happened but they could do that a little later.

“Of course.” Race’s smile was small, only barely lifting the corner of one lip but he couldn’t help it. He loved Spot and he was glad to be able to tell him, even if he wouldn’t say it back.

#newsies #newsies fanfiction #fics #rowan writes #rowan writes sprace #sprace #spot conlon #racetrack higgins #tw self harm #tw suicide attempt

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allyinthekeyofx · 8 years ago

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Fading light -Part 2- 5/6

PART ONE - Chapters 1-6

PART TWO - Chapter one Chapter two Chapter three Chapter four

PART TWO

CHAPTER FIVE

I am so much later than I wanted to be and guilt prickles at me as I make my way along one of the endless corridors that leads to Scully’s room. If it weren’t for the numbers on the doors, there would be absolutely no way of differentiating one floor from the next. My hand is throbbing sickeningly beneath the piss poor attempt I have made to dress and bandage it with the one fully functioning hand I have at my disposal. First aid isn’t exactly my strong point, because after all, Scully is the doctor in this partnership and I’ve lost count of the amount of times she has had cause to patch me up over the years when I’ve fallen headlong in to one dangerous situation after another.

Mostly though, the injuries have either been caused by the actions of another or by my own occasional blindness to the risks surrounding me as I jump my size tens straight in to danger.

Self-inflicted injury is rare. Although not unheard of for me when the pressure builds inside and demands release. Oh yeah, I’ve punched a few walls in my time and in the battle between man and solid object, solid object has usually prevailed; but I’ve generally been able to hide it from Scully. Who wants to admit to their partner that they have lost control just enough to make bruising their knuckles preferable to the kind of mental castigation I had become so adept in meting out to myself? That the prospect of physical pain was far, far less damaging than its mental counterpart?

But smashing a mirror with my bare hand? That’s a new one on me and I was actually taken aback by how much it fucking hurt. And as I thrust my bleeding hand under the cold tap in Scully’s bathroom, the sight of the blood from the deep cuts mingling and swirling with the water as it circled down the drain caused me to almost lose the precarious hold my stomach had on the crappy hospital food I had shovelled down earlier in the day.

I was exhausted, emotionally and physically from the events not just of the previous day, but of the weeks and months that came before and perhaps for the first time I admitted to myself that I was precariously balancing on the edge of reason. That at any point I would come crashing down and God knows who I might bring down with me. I had already proven today that my thought process was pretty screwed, first with that cancer ridden bastard and more crucially, with Scully’s Mother. I should have at least tried to justify Scully’s need to protect her from the worst that this disease could bring. To make her understand that this is Scully's attempt in some way to preserve a memory of her that wasn’t tainted by blood and pain and the desperate fear of death.

For Scully I should have made her understand.

But instead I had just stood there and said nothing. Not one fucking word of comfort did I offer a woman who, like her child, has remained allied to me even in the face of so much heartbreak.

Bill Jr once stood before me and called me a sorry son of a bitch; and I hadn’t found any good reason before or since to disagree with him, least of all today.

But despite the dread I feel at facing Scully, who, sick or not will surely require an explanation as to why my battered knuckles are swathed in a loosely tied bandage that the blood had continued to seep slowly through to bloom like a red rose on the cloth surface, there is one small light on my horizon, a light as always that came straight from her.

A call as I was engaged in trying to pack a bag for her. News that she was being moved out of the ICU and in to a general ward. Her vitals were all good. Oxygen saturation levels back within normal range. And while she still felt tired and nauseous, a few hours sleep had more or less returned her back to normal. Or at least whatever passed for normal these days.

But it was good news. The best news I could have hoped for given the circumstances and I had grabbed hold of it and held on, because it meant we were one step closer to her coming home. That this time, the darkness had been held at bay and whether we held it back for a week or a month or a year, each small victory was precious and to be quietly celebrated; small battles to be won even if we would eventually lose the war. And I would take each of those battles and store them away so we might draw strength from them the next time. Because, while I’m unsure of some things, I do know with a certainty that almost swallows me whole, that there will be a next time. That the battles will keep on coming until eventually the fight becomes too great and the battle too exhausting.

But for now, for now, we are winning.

And I will hold on to that.

I’m so deep in thought that I walk straight past Scully’s room and have to backtrack a few feet. The door is slightly ajar but I still tap lightly to alert her to my presence. I think I expected her to be sleeping, or at the very least resting atop the bed. But in fact, she is standing at the window, forehead resting against the cool glass, as she observes the hustle and bustle of the grounds beneath her. The room is bathed in weak winter sunshine and it surrounds her body like a halo, blending the lines of her body in to an aura of white light; a perfect living silhouette against the bright light behind the glass. The effect is mesmerising, almost angelic. And I am quite literally rooted to the spot.

Scully is a deeply spiritual person. She holds her faith before her like a protective force and while i don’t share her belief I can appreciate what it means to her; to be able to draw on that same faith in much the same way I have always found my own particular faith in the truth. But just for a moment, I can appreciate what having Scully’s faith might mean; that even in the midst of so much darkness, the brightness of light will always prevail.

Dana Scully

My guiding light

And then she turns, smiling as she realises it’s me. She is perhaps the only person on this earth who has ever smiled at me like that when she sees me, a smile that affirms every single time I see it that I am wanted. That I am still worthy enough for someone to be pleased I am there with them.

I dump the holdall on the bed and cross the short distance that separates us, scrutinising her face carefully even as I cup my hands either side and drop a gentle kiss on her lips. She still looks tired, frighteningly pale, the billowing hospital gown she wears serving to make her look so much more fragile than she really is. And of course she is shoe-less. The thin hospital issue socks on her feet add nothing to her height and I try to force back the realisation of just how weakened she looks. But her eyes are clear. Those beautiful blue eyes that on occasion, have almost severed my head from my body when I’ve got myself in to a stupid situation; eyes that can change from blue steel to soft velvet dependent on her moods. Scully’s eyes, the windows to her soul and like me, the only part of herself that cannot lie, which is probably why in the past we have turned away from each other so many times. To hide truths from each other not ready to be spoken.

But today, now, I see nothing within them to mar their clear beauty. Her mind is peaceful. She isn’t in pain. I don’t need anything else.

But then as my lips track upwards, lingering for a moment on her forehead before I rest my chin on the crown of her head, dropping my hands to her waist as I tighten my grip on her, drawing her against me, I feel a subtle shift in her focus.

“Mulder your hand..”

Busted.

“It’s okay. It’s nothing.”

But she won’t be deflected, stepping out of the embrace as she catches hold of my wrist, brow furrowing as she takes in the blood soaked bandage, her doctors training, her need to nurture, to protect immediately rising to the fore and not for the first time I can’t help but think what an amazing Mother she would have made. But that chance has been taken from her. Like so many other hopes and dreams have before.

I once told Scully that I had never seen her as a Mother before.

But now that she can’t have it, sometimes it’s all I see.

She guides me to the bed and pushes me gently in to a seated position, her deft fingers unwrapping the bandage that has loosened since my clumsy application. And she frowns as it becomes obvious that with each layer she removes, the more blood is apparent. Until finally the bandage is off, discarded carelessly on to the floor below and I can’t help a strangled hiss as her fingers press around the edges of the deepest wound. An inch long, deep cut that starts at the base of my index finger and curves its way in a near perfect half moon around the knuckle of my middle finger. The skin at the top of the knuckle is missing and I am suddenly struck by the way it resembles a question mark.

“Mulder this needs stitching. What did you do?”

I refuse to look at her, ashamed suddenly that in the midst of everything she is fighting; her focus is for me and me alone.

“Would you believe me if I told you your bathroom cabinet fell on to my fist?”

I try to keep my voice light but obviously my pathetic attempt doesn’t fool her for a second because her eyes are suddenly so filled with sorrow I could scream.

I allow her to draw me towards her, feel her hand cool on the back of my neck tracing circles with her thumb, and even though I am aware always of that tiny ridge of scar tissue, she doesn’t notice. And for that I am infinitely thankful.

“I’m sorry Mulder.”

Her admission is unexpected because I can’t think of a single thing she has to be sorry for. Until....

“My Mom came by. She told me what happened.”

And then I understand.

“I shouldn’t have put you in that position. I’m sorry.”

I nod, keeping my eyes closed as I rest my face against the soft pillow of her breast. I am so tired I just want to remain there forever. Safe, protected, fulfilled in the arms of the woman who makes the very universe make sense to me. She doesn’t mention my other visitor and I can only assume that Maggie had more important things to discuss with her.

Maybe I will tell her later.

Probably I won’t.

“It’s okay Scully.” I say, even though nothing is really okay right now.

I feel her lips press in to the crown of my head and she remains there for a few seconds, breathing in the scent of my recently washed hair. And I’m not surprised by her whispered entreaty.

“Lets go home Mulder. I just want to go home.”

XXXX

Despite Dr Zuckerman’s protestations to the contrary, Scully had refused to be deflected. I could have told him he was wasting his time even as he quietly laid down all the reasons why it would be better for her to remain in the hospital just for one more night. One more night to ensure she was strong enough to return home.

He obviously had no concept as to just how strong this woman really is. And while I know Scully holds him in great regard, both as her Doctor and as a human being, she had made up her mind. Eventually though, she had reached a small compromise – she would remain resting in her room for as long as it took me to be processed through the ER and to receive treatment on my injured hand. He had raised his eyebrows questioningly when faced with the jagged mess of cuts and bruises that criss- crossed my bloodied knuckles and I had almost snorted out loud when Scully explained that the damn bathroom cabinet had fallen off the wall. Sometimes, just sometimes, she is so damn adorable I could cry with laughter at some of the things she says. It was one of the reasons I fell in love with her I think. Her ability to deliver the most outrageous reasoning while maintaining a perfectly straight face.

So I had obediently made my way down to the ER and tried to patiently wait it out as I was put through the rigours of the system; triage, X-Rays, stitches and a further wait at the hospital pharmacy to collect antibiotics to stave off infection. And it was over 4 hours before we were finally able to leave.

Scully refused point blank to leave in a wheelchair. She was perfectly capable of walking she insisted and the harried nurse finally shrugged in a ‘suit yourself’ kind of way and left us to it.

As we left the main building, I glanced at our reflections in the window. Scully was dressed now in the clothes I had brought from home for her; dark blue jeans, a soft cream turtleneck sweater and her brown suede jacket. And just for a second, I could pretend she wasn’t sick at all. The holdall was slung over my shoulder, held lightly in place by my injured hand. It hurts like hell but it means my other hand is free to entwine fingers with Scully. Her hand feels warm in my palm and it’s a good feeling.

We stop briefly outside the doors, breathing in the chill air, our breaths turning to vapour, mingling together for just an instant before disappearing up in to the darkness of night and as her fingers tighten slightly I stop and look down at her.

“You okay?”

She smiles at me then, and it’s a smile that is tinged with sadness, because we both know she isn’t okay. Not really.

But then her expression clears, her eyes catching the light from the lamps that border the hospital entrance.

“You promised me cake right?”

I laugh.

“Yeah. I promised you cake. And candles. Lots of candles.”

“And ice cream?”

“Sure if you want.”

Scully nods, considering my words.

“Cake makes everything okay Mulder”

And I think that tonight at least, she might just be right.

Continued chapter 6

#Fading light my fic #cancer #msr #brace yourselves for chapter six #it's coming

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scientia-rex · 8 years ago

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I'm in this streak, lately, where I don't have anything. I don't have money, I don't have time, I don't have friends I see or talk to. My marriage is, as it has tended to be, strained.

I'm at this point where it's been more than two and a half years since I saw a doctor or a dentist. I need both. I don't see a chance to take care of that for another year and a half. I don't see more money on the horizon. I no longer have any monetary reserve--I'm just chasing bills, living hand to mouth, trying to make sure we can pay for rent and groceries even if that means letting other bills slide. I was raised to see paying the bills as a moral imperative, so this has been both humiliating and guilt-inducing for me. I haven't bought new clothes in at least a year. I'm wearing my shoes completely out. I'm living in a cheap studio with shitty loud neighbors. I can't afford to go see a movie, or go on a trip, or go to a restaurant, even a cheap one. Whenever I talk about this, someone inevitably feels the urge to lecture me about budgeting, as if budgeting could make money appear out of nowhere.

And the hits don't stop coming, because this is medical school. I spend a day talking to children so severely mentally ill they have been institutionalized for months, even years, for their safety and the safety of others. Children who have been beaten, raped, abandoned, neglected, abused, and now are living in a concrete building made to look like a parody of a real house. There are common areas with televisions, but they're glassed in with Plexiglass so nobody can break them. There are quiet rooms. When I ask why they aren't padded, I learn that padding just seemed to create more problems--nobody's ever given themselves a concussion headbanging on the walls, but kids have made themselves sick eating the padding. The youngest child we talk to is seven. She's made at least ten attempts to run. She does a decent job of holding it together while she talks to all of us, the whole group of visiting medical students, but there is a clear edge of panic by the end.

This place is a safe harbor. As safe as it gets.

Because this is med school, I get to listen to an attending say that he knows "people who thought they were bisexual, and then got married and stuck with that sexual orientation." I sit up in my chair, ready to start talking, feeling my face getting hot in the particular way it does when I'm getting ready to do something that is going to end up fucking me over. But he keeps talking, there isn't a chance to break into the disorganized stream of words, and by the time he's done talking we have to go to the next segment of the day. I swallow down the rage. Later mention it to another student. A classmate jumps in to proudly say that she has lots of bisexual and pansexual friends. I stare at her in uncomprehending rage: why the fuck are you taking this moment and making it about you? Why are you doing that? I don’t say anything to her about it. I don’t want a fight.

I get warned about moving to the side of the corridor is a patient-prisoner-patient is being transported in shackles. "Shackles are policy," says the guide, "it doesn't mean anything about what their level of risk is." I don't see anyone in shackles at the institution, but the next day, back at my own hospital downtown, I'm sitting in the hall waiting for my attending and resident, and a patient gets ushered past me: in shackles, clanking and dragging, like something right out of a medieval play.

It's not that none of our patients are dangerous. I go to stand closer to the bed of a patient who was transferred to our service from the psych ICU, and my resident puts a very firm hand on my arm. He never touches me, and it takes me completely aback. I freeze. He glances up at me from his chair, and gives me a meaningful look. He's not annoyed with me, but he isn't going to let me get within hitting distance. My attending, meanwhile, has perched next to the bed and is calmly talking to a patient who never responds. Virtually everyone who transfers from that service is labeled "assaultive."

It's not even that none of them have been dangerous to me. The head-banging patient from the first day could easily have hurt me without even meaning to. The low-IQ patient with persistent hallucinations (she reports them, at any rate; I don't know if they're real, or another part of her complex behavioral cries for attention, help, care) has made comments about wanting to hurt "the people around her" when I am very obviously the people around her.

It's that I don't feel like I'm in danger. I don't wear my scarf in to the unit because I can hear my dad's voice clear as a bell in my ear, never wear something they can choke you with. My mom used to work with psych patients, traumatized war veterans; one threatened her badly, and I think that was when she decided to quit. Any time I wore a necklace on a date--Dad was always more worried about men I dated than he was about stranger-danger. Sensible.

It's that I don't care if I'm in danger. No one will fight me. I'm supposed to be a responsible adult at this point in my life. I'm thirty-two. I'm supposed to be done wanting to get into fist-fights. I'm a medical student. I'm supposed to be done wanting to die.

And I'm less suicidal, in some ways, than I have been in a long time. I have a whole essay in my on this, percolating. The way that you realize, on an inpatient psych ward, that it doesn't matter whether staying alive meets some criteria for logic or rationality; we just do it. We do it compulsively, we do it because we can't do anything else. Actual suicide attempts are rare, and the ratio of attempts to completions is something like 30:1. The attempts are, at least the ones I've seen and read about and heard about, made in moments of severe, profound despair. If the moment can be endured, there is no suicide. This is one of the core teachings of DBT, dialectical behavior therapy, which is probably the best therapy for people with borderline personality disorder. Distress tolerance. Learning tactics to make it through that moment, the moment where the distress is so intense that death seems preferable.

I'm finally done, in some fundamental way I never was before, with the whole concept of eugenics. I was raised by parents who believed openly and strongly in the concept of eugenics. They would have been horrified at the explicit suggestion that it be used to breed out Jewishness or blackness, but if I had a nickel for every time my parents said "You ought to need a license to breed" or "Birth control should be in the water, and you should have to pass an intelligence test to get the antidote," or something else along those lines, I'd be able to afford a fucking doctor now. Being on inpatient psych, I'm not kidding: you can't think like that. There are all of these arguments about how various people could still be useful, somehow, that we need the diversity because who knows what skills can suddenly emerge, like Temple Grandin single-handedly reshaping the cattle industry.

You can't look at my low-IQ patient and think that way. She's never going to be a productive, contributing member of society. She's dangerous. She is exactly the kind of patient that would be eradicated by any kind of eugenics program. I would kill you if you tried to put her down like a dog. She's still human. She greets me in the morning, happy and smiling like a child, childishly dismayed some days when she's having GI side effects from the medications we're using to try to suppress the command auditory hallucinations that tell her to die and to kill. She is not going to be a wise elder, there is no tribal scenario where she serves a function. She doesn't have to, to deserve to live. She is a goddamned human being. I don't ever want to hear again in my life any statements about how we should keep people like her from existing.

I'm done with the state taking on killing as a function. I'm done with government having the power to commit murder.

"How have you been coping?" asked the chief resident at the training on Friday. I didn't say out loud, I'm not. Drinking and crying don't count.

This is a hard rotation in different ways than the other rotations have been hard, but I'm a better person because of it. It's making me better. This year is fire that's been steadily burning away the weakest parts of me. This year has been about clarity.

God, I wish I could do it with more money. But this year has been a hybrid of unnecessary torture and unbelievable gift.

#med school dead school

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allyinthekeyofx · 8 years ago

Text

Fading Light 11/24

Fading Light

AllyinthekeyofX

Chapters 1-10 can be found here

PART TWO

CHAPTER FIVE

Mostly though, the injuries have either been caused by the actions of another or by my own occasional blindness to the risks surrounding me as I jump my size tens straight in to danger.

Self-inflicted injury is rare. Although not unheard of for me when the pressure builds inside me and demands release. Oh yeah, I’ve punched a few walls in my time and in the battle between man and solid object, solid object has usually prevailed; but I’ve generally been able to hide it from Scully. Who wants to admit to their partner that they have lost control just enough to make bruising their knuckles preferable to the kind of mental castigation I had become so adept in meting out to myself? That the prospect of physical pain was far, far less damaging than its mental counterpart?

I was exhausted, emotionally and physically from the events not just of the previous day, but of the weeks and months that came before and perhaps for the first time I admitted to myself that I was precariously balancing on the edge of reason. That at any point I would come crashing down and God knows who I might bring down with me. I had already proven today that my thought process was pretty screwed, first with that cancer ridden bastard and more crucially, with Scully’s Mother. I should have at least tried to justify Scully’s need to protect her from the worst that this disease could bring. To make her understand that this is Scullys attempt in some way to preserve a memory of her that wasn’t tainted by blood and pain and the desperate fear of death.

For Scully I should have made her understand.

But instead I had just stood there and said nothing. Not one fucking word of comfort did I offer a woman who, like her child, has remained allied to me even in the face of so much heartbreak.

Bill Jr once stood before me and called me a sorry son of a bitch; and I hadn’t found any good reason before or since to disagree with him, least of all today.

But despite the dread I feel at facing Scully, who, sick or not will surely require an explanation as to why my battered knuckles are swathed in a loosely tied bandage that the blood had continue to seep slowly through to bloom like a red rose on the cloth surface, there is one small light on my horizon, a light as always that came straight from her.

But for now, for now, we are winning.

And I will hold on to that.

Dana Scully

My guiding light

But today, now, I see nothing within them to mar their clear beauty. Her mind is peaceful. She isn’t in pain. I don’t need anything else.

“Mulder your hand..”

Busted.

“It’s okay. It’s nothing.”

I once told Scully that I had never seen her as a Mother before.

But now that she can’t have it, sometimes it’s all I see.

“Mulder this needs stitching. What did you do?”

I refuse to look at her, ashamed suddenly that in the midst of everything she is fighting; her focus is for me and me alone.

“Would you believe me if I told you your bathroom cabinet fell on to my fist?” I try to keep my voice light but obviously my pathetic attempt doesn’t fool her for a second because her eyes are suddenly so filled with sorrow I could scream.

“I’m sorry Mulder.”

Her admission is unexpected because I can’t think of a single thing she has to be sorry for. Until....

“My Mom came by. She told me what happened.”

And then I understand.

“I shouldn’t have put you in that position. I’m sorry.”

Maybe I will tell her later.

Probably I won’t.

“It’s okay Scully.” I say, even though nothing is really okay right now.

I feel her lips press in to the crown of my head and she remains there for a few seconds, breathing in the scent of my recently washed hair. And I’m not surprised by her whispered entreaty.

“Lets go home Mulder. I just want to go home.”

XXXX

Scully refused point blank to leave in a wheelchair. She was perfectly capable of walking she insisted and the harried nurse finally shrugged in a ‘suit yourself’ kind of way and left us to it.

“You okay?”

She smiles at me then, and it’s a smile that is tinged with sadness, because we both know she isn’t okay. Not really.

But then her expression clears, her eyes catching the light from the lamps that border the hospital entrance.

“You promised me cake right?”

I laugh.

“Yeah. I promised you cake. And candles. Lots of candles.”

“And ice cream?”

“Sure if you want.”

Scully nods, considering my words.

“Cake makes everything okay Mulder”

And I think that tonight at least, she might just be right.

Continued Chapter 12

#fading light my fic x files

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