#only the name has changed my symptoms and triggers and treatment are all the same

[arctic-hands]

I love having discovered that Spam actually tastes good if you fry it in teriyaki. Spam musubi is a brilliant way to shotgun enough sodium to kill three six-foot men into you and keep you from fainting

[impossiblemakerfire]

Symptoms of hyperthyroidism

There are many different signs of a thyroid that is working too hard. When there are too many thyroid hormones, the metabolism speeds up. Some common signs of hyperthyroidism are: - Restlessness, nervousness, anger, and changes in mood are all signs of bipolar disorder. - sleep disorders - Palpitations and a racing heart (tachycardia) up to cardiac arrhythmia - blood pressure went up - a lot more sweating - clammy skin - Being too sensitive to heat - drank more water - diarrhea, sometimes vomiting - Loss of weight despite cravings (because the metabolism is accelerated) - hair loss - Weakness in muscles - Pain and slowness in the muscles - shaking ( tremor ) - menstrual disorders - 70 to 90% of people have an enlarged thyroid gland (goiter).

Hyperthyroidism signs and symptoms

Signs of hyperthyroidism When there are too many thyroid hormones, these symptoms show up. Learn more The Hypothyroidism Solution Most of the time, a problem with the immune system is what leads to hyperthyroidism. Graves' disease is the name for this type of hyperthyroidism caused by the immune system. In addition to the above symptoms, those who have it also have problems with their eyes (endocrine orbitopathy). Here are some typical signs: - Feelings of pressure behind the eyes and/or a "foreign body" - the number of tears - visual disturbances (double vision) - photophobia - protruding eyeballs (exophthalmos) People often call these eyes "googly eyes" or "goggle eyes" because they stick out and don't move. How much the eyeballs bulge doesn't say anything about how bad the hyperthyroidism is. Some people's eyes bulge a lot even though they only have mild hyperthyroidism, and vice versa. The "Merseburg Triad" is a name for the three main symptoms of eyeballs, a fast heart rate, and a swollen thyroid. It's common for people with Graves' disease. Hyperthyroidism in older people often looks different than it did when they were younger. Many of the typical symptoms may not be present, and the ones that are present are usually less severe. Some of the older patients, for example, only have a fast, irregular heartbeat or are just losing weight. In this age group, heart rhythm problems are sometimes the only sign of a problem. If you have diabetes (diabetes mellitus), an overactive thyroid gland has another effect: the body's cells no longer respond as well to insulin, so they take in less sugar (glucose) from the blood (insulin resistance increases). At the same time, the overactive thyroid causes things like the liver to release sugar. Because of these things, the level of sugar in the blood goes up. When hyperthyroidism is not treated, people with diabetes need more insulin than usual. The Icon for Checking Symptoms NetDoktor Symptom Checker What disease am I suffering from?

Treatment for Hyperthyroidism

Hyperthyroidism is a very dangerous illness. It needs to be taken care of by a specialist, like an internal medicine specialist or an endocrinologist. The doctor will tell each patient what kind of treatment they should get. This mostly depends on how bad the hyperthyroidism is. The therapy plan is also based on how old the patient is and how healthy they are in general.

Why smoking is so bad for people with hyperthyroidism

Three questions to PD dr Joachim Feldkamp PD dr Joachim Feldkamp , expert on the thyroid, expert in internal medicine 1 How do I know if my thyroid is working too hard? PD dr Joachim Feldkamp PD dr Joachim Feldkamp Symptoms of an overactive thyroid include restlessness, rapid heart rate, insomnia, a tendency to diarrhea, heat intolerance, and rapid weight loss within a few weeks. The symptoms are usually much more pronounced than with hypofunction, so that you feel ill more quickly. 2 How important is quick treatment? PD dr Joachim Feldkamp PD dr Joachim Feldkamp Even mild hyperfunction can trigger cardiac arrhythmias such as atrial fibrillation. The risk increases the older a patient is. Bone density also decreases sharply in women after menopause, which means there is an increased risk of osteoporosis. Prompt treatment, especially in older patients, is therefore important. 3 Why would you rather stop smoking? PD dr Joachim Feldkamp PD dr Joachim Feldkamp For example, smoking is very bad if you have Graves' disease, which is a common cause of hyperthyroidism. Not only do smokers get sick more often. The disease also gets worse as it goes on. Above all, the eye disease called endocrine orbitopathy, which is common in people with Graves' disease, is much worse in smokers than in people who don't smoke. PD dr Joachim Feldkamp PD dr Joachim Feldkamp , expert on the thyroid, expert in internal medicine First Chief Physician of the Clinic for General Internal Medicine, Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Infectious Diseases at the Bielefeld Clinic and First Chairman of the Advisory Board of Forum Thyroid eV. ●●●●● Medication for hyperthyroidism "Thyroid blockers," also called "antithyroid drugs," are used to treat a thyroid gland that is working too much. They make sure that the blood has less thyroid hormone. Different antithyroid drugs do this in their own ways. Most of what is used today are things like carbimazole and thiamazole that are called "thionamides." These antithyroid drugs stop thyroid hormones from being made in a direct way. During treatment with these kinds of drugs, the doctor often checks the patient's blood to see how much thyroid hormone is in it. Most of the time, the hormone levels go back to normal after a few weeks. The symptoms of hyperthyroidism then get better. The goal is to get the thyroid's metabolism back on track (euthyroid metabolism). Depending on the disease at the root, more treatment may come next ( radioiodine therapy , thyroid surgery ). If you have Graves' disease, you must take antithyroid drugs for at least a year. About half of the patients' thyroids then work normally again, and the signs of hyperthyroidism don't come back after they stop taking the medicine. But drug therapy alone doesn't work (long-term) for the other half of the patients. Giving the antithyroid drugs for a longer time doesn't make any sense. It's not a good idea because it has bad side effects. Instead, doctors tell these people to get radioiodine therapy or have surgery. Doctors also give medicines that make the symptoms of an overactive thyroid go away. For example, beta blockers are used to treat heart palpitations. Some beta blockers, like propranolol, also make it take longer for T4 to turn into the much more active T3. Happy couple after pregnancy test comes back positive Foods that kids need When a couple wants to have children, getting the right amount of micronutrients is important for both the woman and the man. Here's how this works.

Hyperthyroidism: treatment with radioiodine

As part of this treatment, radioactive iodine is given to the person with hyperthyroidism. It is either put into a vein with a syringe or taken as a pill. The thyroid gland stores both normal and radioactive iodine. In particular, many of them are taken in by cells that make more thyroid hormones. When radioactive iodine breaks down, it gives off what are called beta rays. The cells are killed. In this way, the thyroid gland's metabolism gets back to normal and hormone production goes down. When it is done right, radioiodine therapy doesn't put other organs in the body at risk. When the iodine that was given breaks down, the radioactive rays that come out are only a few millimeters long. Because radioiodine therapy exposes patients to radiation, they should avoid getting too close to other people for a while. Most of the time, though, it only takes a few days for the radiation to leave the body again. In Germany, on the other hand, radioiodine therapy is done in a hospital, just to be safe. At least for a few days, the patients are kept alone in a special hospital. Radioiodine therapy is not good for women who are pregnant or who are nursing because it exposes them to radiation. Radioiodine therapy can cause hypothyroidism in many people. If the treatment kills too much active thyroid tissue, the body can't make enough thyroid hormones. But the lack of hormones can be easily made up for by taking hormone preparations (usually levothyroxine, L-thyroxine ).

Tips for inner turmoil

Finally, come to rest and sleep well. The best ways to deal with inner restlessness and trouble sleeping.

Surgery for hyperthyroidism

If you have an overactive thyroid and other treatments don't work or if you have a big goiter, you might want to think about having surgery. Surgery is also done if there is a chance that hyperthyroidism is caused by a cancerous growth on the thyroid gland (thyroid cancer). Before the surgery, the thyroid's hormone metabolism must be brought back to normal with medicine. During the procedure, the patient is given general anesthesia and part or all of their thyroid gland is removed. The less thyroid hormones that can be made after surgery, the more thyroid tissue has to be cut out. So, surgery can make the thyroid gland less active (hypothyroidism). Patients must then take hormone pills for the rest of their lives. Latent hyperthyroidism needs to be treated. Patients with incipient (latent) hyperthyroidism don't have any symptoms of the disease yet. However, if they eat too much iodine, they may develop a full-blown case of the disease. So, as a safety measure, they can get treatment with radioiodine. When a patient also has atrial fibrillation, the doctor may give them antithyroid drugs for a short time. If the heart symptoms get better, it's likely that the latent hyperthyroidism was the cause. Then it makes sense to use radioiodine therapy. photo collection Is your thyroid in good shape? Checking the thyroid Small body, big effect. The thyroid is a small organ that has a big effect. In particular, the hormones triiodothyronine (T3) and thyroxine (T4) that it makes affect most of the body's functions, such as the heartbeat, metabolism, heat production, and blood pressure. When the thyroid is out of balance, the effects are just as severe. Here, you can find out how to spot a mistake and what to do next. a big woman Hypothyroidism makes people fat and tired. If the thyroid gland is underactive, there are not enough thyroid hormones circulating in the blood. Then the basal metabolic rate of the body decreases – those affected gain weight. Chronic constipation, excessive freezing and tiredness are also common. Memory and thinking skills can be impaired by hypofunction. As the desire for sex dwindles, men develop erectile dysfunction. In addition, people with hypothyroidism often have unkempt hair and doughy-looking skin. infant Dangerous for children Thyroid hormones are important for body growth and brain maturation. This is why having an underactive thyroid gland in childhood is particularly dangerous. Short stature and serious mental development disorders can be the result. antibodies When the immune system attacks the thyroid, Some people are born with an underactive thyroid. In most cases, however, it is the result of chronic inflammation triggered by an autoimmune disease, in particular what is known as Hashimoto's thyroiditis. The immune system attacks the thyroid tissue. thyroid knots in the throat Iodine deficiency can also cause an underactive thyroid. Because the body needs the trace element to produce the thyroid hormones. If the thyroid gets too little iodine, it can no longer produce enough hormones. She tries to make up for this deficit by enlarging herself. Knots form or a so-called goiter (goiter) develops, which can take on tennis ball-sized dimensions. Such goiters used to be common, especially in areas where there is a lack of iodine in the soil. shirt; collar One in four adults For a long time, a goiter cannot be seen from the outside and is not noticeable in any other way. It is only later that symptoms such as difficulty swallowing appear, you get hoarse or your shirt collar is too tight. Experts estimate that every fourth adult in Europe has a lump in the thyroid gland or a goiter - depending on the soil conditions (iodine content). The word differs. Significantly fewer suffer from real hypofunction. Fish protects the thyroid. People must take in enough iodine through food to prevent goiters from forming. An adult needs around 200 micrograms a day. Fish and seafood in particular contain a lot of iodine. Table salt enriched with iodine is now also available everywhere. Strongly visible goiters due to iodine deficiency only rarely occur. Image 8 of 10 get thinner Unwanted weight loss An overactive thyroid is also problematic. Since the basal metabolic rate of the body is boosted by the thyroid hormones, those affected lose weight even though they eat enough. The heartbeat accelerates, the body temperature rises, the hands tremble. People with an overactive thyroid suffer from inner restlessness, nervousness, insomnia, and diarrhea. thyroid Overzealous organ The most common cause of hyperthyroidism is an autoimmune reaction, especially Graves' disease, which stimulates the thyroid gland to produce more hormones. However, a so-called autonomy can also be the reason for the hyperfunction. The hormone-producing cells of the thyroid no longer respond properly to the body's regulatory mechanisms. Image 10 of 10 tablets Wirksame Medikamente Medication works well for both a thyroid that works too much and one that works too little. But it can take a while for the values to be set in the best way. If an enlarged thyroid makes it hard to speak or swallow, or if it affects the flow of blood, it can be shrunk through surgery or radiation. tablets Of a medical editor

Nutrition and Hyperthyroidism

Diet is a big part of hyperthyroidism. Because of their "fast" metabolism, many people with hyperthyroidism lose weight. Then it is important to consume enough calories with meals. At the same time, the diet should be well-balanced and full of different foods. Once the metabolism is back to normal (for example, with medication), the number of calories eaten needs to be cut back. The best thing for a patient to do is talk to the doctor who is treating them about what their ideal menu should look like. In general, people with hyperthyroidism should stay away from coffee, soda, and alcohol. Your metabolism is already very fast, but these drinks make it even faster.

More tips for hyperthyroidism

If you have hyperthyroidism, be careful not to give your body too much iodine. This means that you shouldn't use disinfectants that have iodine in them. X-rays and MRIs should also be used with care, since iodinated contrast media are sometimes given before. Since you have hyperthyroidism, you should tell the doctor before such an exam. Then he or she can give you more medicine that stops the thyroid gland from taking in iodine. Or, he uses a contrast agent that doesn't have iodine in it. People who have latent hyperthyroidism should also stay away from too much iodine. If that doesn't happen, the latent disease can become visible. If the treatment for your overactive thyroid makes your thyroid less active and you need to take thyroid hormones, your doctor should check your blood levels often. So, you can always tell if you are taking the right amount of your medicine and if your thyroid levels are in the normal range. Find out more about the cures. Here is more information about therapies that can help: apheresis Therapy with radioiodine Surgery on Thyroid

Causes of and risk factors for hyperthyroidism

When a thyroid is overactive, it makes too much of two hormones: thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3). These hormones have an effect on the heart and blood flow, and they also play an important role in how the body uses energy. When there are too many of them, they speed up the metabolism, making it run at full speed. thyroid hormones are made. thyroid hormones are made. When the hypothalamus releases the hormone TRH, it tells the pituitary gland to release the hormone TSH. In turn, TSH causes the thyroid hormones to be made. Several things can cause the thyroid to make too many hormones. Graves' disease and autoimmunity of the thyroid are the most common. Hyperthyroidism can also have causes that happen less often.

Graves' illness (immune hyperthyroidism)

A lot of the time, an autoimmune reaction in the body is to blame for a thyroid that works too much. An autoimmune reaction is when the body's immune system makes a mistake and attacks its own tissue with antibodies. This type of antibody is called an autoantibody. In Graves' disease, the immune system makes autoantibodies that attack the thyroid gland. These autoantibodies tell the cells of the organ to make more thyroid hormones. This is how a thyroid that works too much happens. No one knows yet why the immune systems of people with this disease attack the thyroid. Experts think, though, that Graves' disease is caused by a genetic predisposition, emotional stress, and smoking. Most cases of the disease happen after the age of 35. Women are much more likely to be affected than men. Graves' disease is the most common cause of hyperthyroidism in children. The disease can also happen in children. thyroid autonomy Most of the time, an overactive thyroid happens in older people because the organ works on its own. This means that the thyroid "decides" on its own to make more hormones, either in part or as a whole, instead of continuing to follow orders from the brain, which is the central control organ. Then, doctors talk about the thyroid's ability to work on its own. Read the full article

[mellometal]

Hey, everyone.

If you saw the post from earlier, I had to delete it. There were things I forgot to discuss and things that didn't get saved into my drafts. Sorry if you have to see this again.

I've been WAITING to talk about Glee. Not in the good way either. There's so much wrong with the show, and it's sickening. Yes, I've watched the show last year. Against my will, but that's because of other people refusing to put on anything else besides Glee. I can say that I hate Glee with my entire being. (My initial reason for hating it was because they covered "SING" by My Chemical Romance and turned it into a slow, patriotic song when it's a song about rebellion. NOTHING about "SING" is patriotic. I hated the show since I first heard about it...for that very reason. I was like thirteen or so at the time when I first heard about Glee? Despite it being out since 2009.

Though it's been over for several years now, it's a show that many people have mixed feelings about. From what I've seen, you either love Glee or you absolutely hate it. There's no in-between that I've seen. (If you can't already tell, I hate the show.)

The show is a literal dumpster fire, the characters are all fucking awful people and all of them are poorly written, the script pisses me off, it literally makes me feel disgusting, and don't even get me started on the covers. Most of the covers aren't that good. A lot of them sound like nails on a chalkboard to me. The pacing of the show makes NO sense in certain areas (like when Blaine was initially made to be a grade above Kurt, but was then changed to be like the same grade as him so he'd stay). It just feels like everyone in the show is either a Mary Sue, a Gary Stu, their whole personality is just that they're from a minority group or they're EDGY AND HARDCORE DELINQUENTS BLEEEEHHHHH, creepy as fuck, bigoted as all hell, or they're just background characters who occasionally have the spotlight.

TW: The following post and any other posts that I'll make about this show contains subject matter that may be triggering for some audiences. It will go into subjects like racism, homophobia, ableism, outing of a person in the LGBT community, bigotry in general, statutory r@pe (between teachers and students), teachers being creepy towards students, mentioned past child m0l3stati0n and invalidation of the victim's trauma, making fun of su1c1d3, making fun of overdose, making fun of drug addiction....a lot of fucked up things.

If anything mentioned above is triggering for you, please feel free to scroll and consume safe media instead. I'd rather have you be safe than to be triggered by anything I'm gonna talk about.

Let's start off easy. The characters. It's easy to tear them apart. At least the most problematic ones.

Rachel, the Main Character™️, is textbook definition of a Mary Sue. Instead of calling her Rachel, I'm gonna call her Mary Sue for the whole post. She's almost completely perfect (like too perfect), her flaws are minor if anything, she gets all the special treatment....you get the picture. When Mary Sue does anything fucked up or she says anything fucked up, it either goes unnoticed, people make up excuses for her being a shitty person, or it gets twisted so it looks like Mary Sue is the hero! (I hate her. So much. I cannot stand her.)

Aaawwww, Mary Sue didn't want some OTHER GIRL (Sunshine) to steal HER spotlight, so she SENT THIS GIRL TO A CRACK HOUSE. A FUCKING CRACK HOUSE, OF ALL PLACES. A PLACE WHERE THIS GIRL COULD HAVE BEEN PUT IN SERIOUS DANGER. THIS GIRL COULD HAVE BEEN SERIOUSLY INJURED AT BEST AND KILLED AT WORST. Yes, I'm aware not all drug houses are the same, but still. It doesn't matter what this girl did. What Sunshine did is irrelevant. It's not okay to send people to strange places where they don't know anyone, and are put in danger, even to the point of either getting injured or killed. But it's okay, because at least it's not an "active" crack house you sent Sunshine to, RIGHT, Mary Sue? You still sent some poor girl to a place where she could have been put in serious danger, even to possibly get injured or killed, all because you didn't want her to steal YOUR spotlight. You fucking disgusting, entitled, bratty cunt. You don't need the spotlight all the time anyway. THAT'S HOW THEATRE WORKS. YOU DON'T ALWAYS GET THE LEAD ROLE. YOU DON'T ALWAYS GET THE ROLE YOU WANT. AND THAT'S OKAY. YOU WORK WITH WHAT YOU GOT. Sincerely, a theatre kid.

There are other fucked up things Mary Sue has done, but this is the one thing I could find anyone talking about. If I remember correctly, she hurt her Gay Best Friend™️ Kurt in some way. All I remember is that Kurt was mad at Mary Sue about something. Mary Sue is annoying as fuck. What else can I say about her?

Next, we have Finn, who's textbook definition of a Gary Stu. I'll call him Gary Stu throughout this post. I hate this fucker too. He's the Main Character's Boyfriend™️, the Hot Quarterback™️, and The Good Guy™️. Yet....he's not a good person. He's treated like he's a good person, but he's really not. His flaws are fairly minor and excused (and any major flaws aren't even talked about much), he's almost completely perfect, and every fucked up thing he does is ignored or is justified in some way. Like how he outed Santana as lesbian in the hallway WITHIN EARSHOT OF EVERYONE. HE DIDN'T EVEN APOLOGIZE FOR THIS.

As a woman who has struggled with her sexuality growing up, this really brought back shit I went through. I "dated" boys when I was younger to cover up the fact that I'm only attracted to other women. I wasn't happy with these guys at all. I acted like I did so nobody would suspect anything. I felt nothing for them, except for in a platonic way. I've been outed twice. Once when I thought I was bisexual with a strong preference for other women (by my dad's girlfriend at the time), and when I came out as lesbian (by my brother). It sucks to be outed. The people who outed me in real life could have put me in danger. They could have made it so I had no place to go back to. They could have had me get hurt. It's a scary feeling. Like, it doesn't matter if you're supportive or if you're in the LGBT community. You don't fucking out people without their explicit permission. You especially don't out people to their abusers or to people they don't trust, let alone out them publicly. That's what happened to me. I don't wish this on anyone.

***By the way, for anyone who's closeted, you're valid, I love you, and I know how it feels to be stuck in the closet. You don't have to come out right now. Come out whenever you're ready to. Whenever it's safe for you to do so.***

Or how about the fact that Gary Stu made fun of Kurt's voice because he's gay? Gary Stu apparently has ✨anger issues✨ and that's pretty much the excuse they use to justify him doing fucked up shit to people.

They treat the characters who are from minority groups (i.e., BIPOC, AAPI, LGBT community, disabled people) like absolute garbage, put them through all this horrific shit, or they put them on a pedestal simply for being in a minority group. The teachers and other school staff are either written to be total bigots (Sue), or they're total pr3dators (Mr. Schue, the school nurse, and another teacher who I can't remember her name off the top of my head).

Sue pretty much only exists to be a poorly written villain who's a bigoted bitch just to be a bigoted bitch. Yes, there were some things she WAS right about (like how "Blurred Lines" wasn't an appropriate song choice for the Glee Club™️, but Mr. Schue The Pr3dator™️ downplayed it). Other than that...that's all I can think of. Because everything else that came out of her mouth was bigoted bullshit. Like these right here, for example:

Or how she drugged the principal, date r@ped him, and blackmailed him?

How about them making a tasteless joke about Sue committing su1c1d3 and having her "overdose" on multivitamin gummies?

DO I NEED TO EXPLAIN HOW FUCKED UP ALL OF THIS IS? I do? Well, first of all, she called people racist, homophobic, ableist, and otherwise disgusting names. She boiled them down to their race, sexual orientation, their disability, and their appearance in general. Second, SHE DRUGGED, BLACKMAILED, AND DATE R@PED SOMEBODY. I don't think I need to explain how that's bad. The evidence is right there. Third, she said she was committing "sue-icide" by overdosing on multivitamin gummies. (Yes, you actually can OD on vitamins in supplement form, and it can cause serious symptoms and even death. Specifically with vitamins A, D, E, and K, and Iron. Vitamins A, D, E, and K are fat-soluble. They're a lot harder to remove from the body. The B vitamins and vitamin C aren't as severe if you do OD on them because they're water-soluble, but still be careful. You can't OD on vitamins and minerals you find in food. If you take supplements, vitamins, etc., only take what's on the bottle.) As someone who has su1c1d@l thoughts on and off, this is extremely insulting. Yes, I do use humor and I joke about my own experiences to cope, but this? Nah. Nothing about this is funny or cute in the slightest. Enough said.

Do I need to explain how fucking terrible it is to make light of a serious topic like this? It was never funny to see Britney Spears' mental health be at that low of a point in 2007. It was never funny to see the abuse the paparazzi inflicted on her. How the fuck was this ever okay? You can dislike Britney Spears all you want, but this was never it.

This is all I have for now. I'll probably make a part two because there are way too many things to talk about.

[treksickfic]

Comfort in the Little Things

An Election Day fic for you, even if you are not in the States. There seems to be a collective sense of angst in the air and I needed to read a cozy story; maybe you do, too. 

Featuring TOS Spock and McCoy, but not Spones. Self-avowed “bulletproof” McCoy is miserable with a case of Kamaraazite Flu and Spock steps in to help. A short and sweet fic at just around 1800 words.

My immense gratitude to @soupandtissues​ for the beautiful stories that have comforted me and inspired me to write my own.

The door chime startled Leonard McCoy from a restless half-slumber. He considered standing and crossing to the door but who was he kidding? He lacked the strength to even roll himself over in bed. 

“Come,” he croaked, as loudly as he could, and the single word triggered another coughing fit. He propped himself up on one elbow, all the better to not choke to death, he thought, hand pressed to his chest. As the paroxysm gradually passed, he sagged back to the bed, sweating and shivering but too exhausted to do anything to ease his discomfort.  

He closed his eyes when he heard measured footsteps approaching the spot where he lay in misery. Chapel again, or M’Benga. Well, he didn’t feel like talking or listening to their chatter and he certainly didn’t need anyone hovering over him. Maybe if he pretended to be asleep, whoever it was would leave.

“So it appears you are not bulletproof after all, Doctor.”

McCoy’s eyes flew open at the deep, measured voice.

“Spock,” he said, resignation in his tone. He’d changed his mind. He’d prefer his over-solicitous nurse or brisk Dr. M’Benga to this. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”  

“When Captain Kirk expressed his concern that you may be affected by the recent outbreak of Kamaraazite flu you said, and I quote, ‘I’ve been in Starfleet Medical for thirteen years, I’m bulletproof by now.’ Clearly you are not.” 

McCoy tugged at his blanket to cover himself, feeling exposed under the unrelenting gaze of Spock. 

“Kamaraazite flu is a nasty business,” he said. “Thought I was going to sneeze out a vital organ at one point.”

“Patients have been known to do just that. But in your case it was not the virulency of the flu itself, it was overwork and neglecting to administer the serum to yourself in order to ensure an adequate supply for the crew.”

“Hubris, in other words.”

“Not hubris, Doctor. You simply made the mistake common to senior officers, assuming you are indestructible.”

He started to respond and then felt a deep, burning ache in his sinuses. He drew in a quick breath and then folded forward with a powerful sneeze. That might have been my spleen, he thought.  When he dared to look up, Spock was standing near the bed, holding out a box of tissues with one hand.  McCoy snatched them from him.

“Thanks,” he said, taking a handful and blowing his nose. “For the tissues and for the pep talk. Now what do you want? Did you come here to laugh in my face? Maybe mock my puny human immune system?”

“Not at all, Doctor. I find nothing about your illness amusing. I simply wondered if you were in need of any assistance. Your cough has been quite persistent this evening.”

“And how would you know?”

“Our quarters share a common wall. I have been aware of your distress for some time now.”

“Have you now? Took you long enough to check on me.”

“I assumed you wished to be alone.”

McCoy snorted, which triggered a cough. “Typical heartless Vulcan logic,” he said when he was able.

“Not logic, Doctor,” Spock replied. “A simple inference. You shouted at the last person who attempted to check on you, indicating a strong desire to be left alone.”

“Well, I don’t need your help. And I do want to be alone, so you can leave now.” 

“Are you certain? The quality and intensity of your cough is showing evidence of increasing chest congestion and inflammation, but yet you seem unable to clear your airway.”

McCoy tried to respond but curled in on himself as another fit overtook him. He coughed harshly into a handful of tissues, aware of the deep ache in his lungs, and more concerning, the constriction and the rattle when he tried to take a deep breath. 

Damn it if he isn’t right. 

“Is there any effective medical treatment or does the illness have to run its course?”

McCoy gestured vaguely toward a table in the front room. 

“There,” he managed to wheeze out after a few moments, gesturing toward a table in the front room. “Two hyposprays.” 

For some reason, he’d left the sprays out of reach. By the time he’d staggered in from Sickbay, his fever had been spiking and he wasn’t thinking straight, just dropped his whole kit on the nearest surface. By the time the fever broke, he’d been too exhausted to fetch any of it. 

He flopped backward against a stack of pillows that hadn’t been there a few minutes ago. He felt drained of all energy and was only vaguely aware of Spock’s movements around his quarters. If he could just get some sleep, that’s all he needed to throw this off. 

“Is there a preferred location for administration, Doctor?” He reluctantly opened his eyes to see Spock standing nearby, disengaging the hypospray lock with his thumb.

McCoy tilted his head to one side. “Right there,” he said, indicating the exposed arc of his neck. “About the same place you’d give me a nerve pinch.” Not a bad idea at that, instant unconsciousness, but the corophizine would provide the same effect in about twenty minutes or so.  He sighed, echoing the hiss of the hypospray. 

Spock’s face showed just a hint of distaste, likely a conditioned response from the many times he’d been sick after receiving medication. He administered the second spray and then strode decisively from the room, depositing the hyposprays back into their cases. McCoy turned his head to watch as he busied himself in the small kitchen area. Spock returned to the sleeping quarters carrying a heavy glass mug, steam swirling from the top.

“What’s this?” McCoy said, accepting the drink from him.. 

“It is tea, with lemon and honey. I understand many humans enjoy it when they are experiencing symptoms of an upper respiratory illness.”

McCoy took a cautious sniff, not that he could actually smell anything, and looked up at Spock. 

“Not the Vulcan swill you drink, is it? That stuff could strip paint off a wall.”

“Vulcan spice tea is appropriate for more refined palates. This is plain black Oolong with Andorian honey and lemon. You should find it unassuming enough for your tastes.”

“I’m not sure if I should be insulted or not.”  He closed his eyes at the first careful swallow. “It’s good,” he said. “Didn’t think you had it in you.”

Spock perched at the edge of the bed. “Whatever you may think of me, Doctor, I do not wish to see you suffer unnecessarily if I can assist you. If that means making you a cup of tea when you are ill, I am willing to do so.”

When he opened his mouth to reply, McCoy began to cough again, a combination of the medication and the tea having the desired effect. He felt the cup lifted from his hand and heard the clink on the bedside table as it was set aside. His cough was productive now, and he felt a gentle hand settle on his back and rest there, unmoving. No unnecessary movement or sentimental patting, just a welcome gesture of support and comfort. 

He could barely catch a breath in between violent coughs and when he did, he felt the deep rattle of congestion shifting in his chest. It must be disgusting to listen to.  He scrabbled for the box of tissues Spock had given him earlier and felt it placed in his hands. He kept his head turned away as he struggled, trying to make a neat pile as he went through nearly the entire box of tissues. The fit seemed unending but finally he was able to take a deep breath without triggering another cough and he sank back to the pillows, covered in sweat, head pounding, chest aching, but feeling some relief. 

Spock disposed of the tissues and now sat with a wet cloth in hand, a look of utter concentration on his face as he carefully bathed McCoy’s forehead and temples. 

“I can do that,” he said, reaching for the cloth but without much conviction in his voice. It was humiliating to be tended to by Spock, but he felt too weak to do much about it. 

“Lie still, Doctor.” he said, running the damp washcloth along the sides of his neck.  

“Y’know, if you’re going to play nursemaid, you can use my first name.”

Spock made no response, folding the cloth and setting it near the mug when he’d finished. 

“You’d have made a good physician, Spock.”

He raised one eyebrow. “How so?”

“You’re calm, you don’t panic. You do what needs to be done with no fuss. Guess that’s what comes from having no emotions. Wish I could manage it.” 

“Vulcans do experience emotions. So powerful that if we were to allow our emotions to dominate, it would mean a return to the savagery of our old ways. We are taught control from a young age.”  

Spock had alluded to the old ways before but McCoy had difficulty imagining him as anything but cool and unflappable. But maybe, just maybe, in those mysterious eyes, there was a hint of what was possible. 

“Nurse Chapel will be delighted to know you have emotions. Or maybe disappointed.”

“Christine already understands this aspect of my nature. She is one of the few who does.”

The medication was having its desired effect. The urge to cough lessening, his breathing easier and a lazy, floating drowsiness taking over. McCoy waggled his eyebrows lazily at the sound of his head nurse’s first name.

“‘Christine’ huh?’ Why, Spock, I had no idea.”

“It is not what you are assuming, Doctor. Nurse Chapel is sensitive, insightful and makes no assumptions about other species. You are fortunate to have her on your staff.”  

“What’re you still doing here?” McCoy’s voice was beginning to slur as he changed the subject. He didn’t have the energy for their usual banter.

“I am, as you say, ‘keeping you company,’” Spock replied. “You don’t need to do that.”

“On the contrary, Doctor. The sooner you fall asleep, the sooner I can return to my preferred evening activities.”

“Nearly there,” McCoy murmured.

“Then I will leave you to your rest.” Spock stood. “Shall I check on you later?

McCoy waved a dismissive hand. “Nah, I’m feeling pretty good.” 

And then he closed his eyes, vaguely aware of a sleepy half-smile on his face. Through his half-asleep haze he felt a hand settle against the top of his head.

“Then sleep well, Leonard.” Spock said. “We need you back in sickbay.”

McCoy responded with a click of his tongue and a fingergun gesture without lifting his hand from where it rested on his chest. “Will do.”

The last thing he heard was a sigh, the sound of the door to his quarters sliding shut and then all was dark and peaceful.

[diverseheros]

Chapter One: Karthika's Awakening P2/2

Karthika

Name: Karthika

Superpower: Any conceivable power, but only one at a time

Sexuality: Asexual

Gender: Female

Mental disorder: Mild schizophrenia

Hometown: Chennai, India

Race: Indian

Suit: Traditional Indian Kurti with gold embroidery that has the power to morph into whatever form is the most conventional for the situation

It was a large source of shame for my family and we almost never talked about it. I rembered it in great deltail however, i remember sitting in temple, kneeling in front of the altar to Vishnu. I looked up, stealing glances around the room watching my family so that some as me when I looked over to my group of cousins I saw my grandma other. Problem was, she had been dead for six years.

I screamed, running back, she had a knife sticking from her chest. I back pedeled furiously, trampling all over my relatives. I fell, tripping on my father. He reached to grab me and comfort me but it wasn’t him. He was a zombie, not the Bollywood green skin kinda, a realistic, flesh flaiiing of the bone, hair coming off in patches zombie. I screamed punching forward, I felt my fathers bone crack, presumably breaking. I remember kicking and screaming, being dragged out, being put into an ambulance

I think I remember some sort of sedative, but it gets kind of hazy afterwards. After that episode my parents had a long talk. There was screaming, yelling, and of course talks of “alternative schooling”, but in the end they reluctantly started me on my meds and since then, I have been pretty much neurotypical passing.

I did still have the occasional hallucinagenic episode at home but rarely in public. I often had depressive and isolationist outbursts. They were usually accompanied by something that triggered them, and my parents constant bother did not help. My family was wealthy as my dad was a doctor, developing, and bringing widespread use of ultra UN invasive laser assisted procedures, and my mom a nurse working at the largest hospital in Chennai.

This made it so we could easily afford the therapy and medication, but I knew of cousins that had much more severe symptoms and had to be sent to a boarding school because their parents didn’t have enough money to cover treatment. This was often a sad reality in the rural areas of india. Mental disorders go unrecognized until too late, and the care available is often too expensive.

It was nearing the point of the Muhurtum, where the groom puts the mangalsutra and sindoor on me and I was nervous. It had all come back to me and I shut my eyes. I could feel something bubbling up in me. Power, a warmth rising through my core getting hotter each second. When it reached its peak I realize everyone had gone quiet.

I opened my eyes, and what I saw changed my life forever. Everyone was asleep. I was astonished. Did I do that? I realized I had and so many things came back to me. Events from my life, all things that couldn’t really be explained, all accompanied by the same feeling I just had. People falling asleep, I also realized I had flown, or become invisible. Did I have powers? No, I told myself, it couldn’t be. But it was. At that moment I focused on getting out and suddenly, I flew up and out.

At the exact same moment everyone woke up. What? I thought, how? I had no idea but I just decided to use my new found power to fly to my cousin in Delhi. I hadn’t realized that, while my power impressive, flying the two thousand kilometers needed would not be easy. I landed in a corn field, gathering my bearings. I took a deep breath, then focused on Delhi. Well, as it turns out, I wasn’t exactly the best at this and ended up on the outskirts of London.

I recognized the London eye in the distance. I stared to fly, trying to get a better sense of where I was and what I could do. I darted forward, flying in the sky Superman style for maybe ten minutes. I looked down and saw the, London Eye? I had flown farther than I meant to, I looked down at the London eye, suddenly realizing that they all could see me. I suddenly started falling, unable to take control of my powers. I watched in shock as the man on the street under me looked up, raised his hands, and concentrated. I stopped.

[diverseheros-wip]

Chapter One: Karthikas Awakening P2

(Omg why the heck, the limit for text posts isn't long enough to have this chapter be in two posts, it has to be in three *dies*)

Karthika

Name: Karthika

Superpower: Any conceivable power, but only one at a time

Sexuality: Asexual

Gender: Female

Mental disorder: Mild schizophrenia

Hometown: Chennai, India

Race: Indian

Suit: Traditional Indian Kurti with gold embroidery that has the power to morph into whatever form is the most conventional for the situation

For most of my life I kept this secret but as I got into my later years of highschool I started telling close friends. The general consensus was that I just needed to find the right guy. This irked me, more often then not it would set me off into a socially isolated episode of my schizophrenia where I spiraled into depression. I would isolate, fearing my aggression would bubble to the surface, I would lash out at anyone helping me, often feeling terrible after the fact. It was something I learned to deal with.

My schizophrenia was diagnosed by a doctor when I was young and, because of the stigma around neuron divergency in India it was never really addressed. But then It happened. It was a large source of shame for my family and we almost never talked about it. I rembered it in great deltail however, i remember sitting in temple, kneeling in front of the altar to Vishnu. I looked up, stealing glances around the room watching my family so that some as me when I looked over to my group of cousins I saw my grandma other. Problem was, she had been dead for six years.

I screamed running back, she had a knife sticking from her chest. I back peeled furiously, trampling all over my relatives. I fell, tripping on my father. He reached to grab me and comfort me but it wasn’t him. He was a zombie, not the Bollywood green skin kinda, a realistic, flesh flaiiing of the bone, hair coming off in patches zombie. I screamed punching forward, I felt my fathers bone crack, presumably breaking. I remember kicking and screaming, being dragged out, being put into an ambulance. I think I remember some sort of sedative, but it gets kind of hazy afterwards. After that episode my parents had a long talk. There was screaming, yelling, and of course talks of “alternative schooling”, but in the end they reluctantly started me on my meds and since then, I have been pretty much neurotypical passing.

I did still have the occasional hallucinagenic episode at home but rarely in public. I often had depressive and isolationist outbursts. They were usually accompanied by something that triggered them, and my parents constant bother did not help. My family was wealthy as my dad was a doctor, developing, and bringing widespread use of ultra UN invasive laser assisted procedures, and my mom a nurse working at the largest hospital in Chennai.

This made it so we could easily afford the therapy and medication, but I knew of cousins that had much more severe symptoms and had to be sent to a boarding school because their parents didn’t have enough money to cover treatment. This was often a sad reality in the rural areas of india. Mental disorders go unrecognized until too late, and the care available is often too expensive.

It was nearing the point of the Muhurtum, where the groom puts the mangalsutra and sindoor on me and I was nervous. It had all come back to me and I shut my eyes. I could feel something bubbling up in me. Power, a warmth rising through my core getting hotter each second. When it reached its peak I realize everyone had gone quiet.

I opened my eyes, and what I saw changed my life forever. Everyone was asleep. I was astonished. Did I do that? I realized I had and so many things came back to me. Events from my life, all things that couldn’t really be explained, all accompanied by the same feeling I just had. People falling asleep, I also realized I had flown, or become invisible. Did I have powers? No, I told myself, it couldn’t be. But it was. At that moment I focused on getting out and suddenly, I flew up and out.

[malxlawson]

— && guests may mistake me as ( halsey ), but really i am ( amalia 'mal' lawson + cis female + she/her ) and my DOB is ( 8/6/1995 ). i am applying for the ( maintenance manager ) position as part of the EHP and would like to live in suite ( 202 ). i should be hired because i am ( + passionate, charismatic, thorough ), but i can also be ( - prideful, dramatic, argumentative ) at times. personally, i like to ( creating street art, volunteer community work, organizing protests ) when off the clock, but that won’t interfere with work. thank you for your consideration!

aaaand here we come with our favorite revamped heathen! mal hasn’t had quite as much changed - just a nice lil face lift and we love that for her.

before we get super into it: we have a stats page and a pinterest for your viewing pleasure.

going a little heavy on the triggers just because i want to be sure to cover all my bases!! most everything is just a mention, but we gotta be safe kids! take care of yourselves and remember ilysm.

( pregnancy tw, miscarriage tw, police brutality mentions tw, substance abuse tw )

- amalia raelle lawson was born august 6th, 1995 to marshal and cherisse lawson in oakland, california.

- marshal owned a local bbq restaurant and cherisse was an er nurse. both grew up in rough neighborhoods with rough childhoods, but vowed to make their kids’ lives better than their own.

- three years after mal came into their lives, they had a son; jayden.

- from that day on, mal had a best friend and confidant that she’d go to the ends of the earth to keep by her side.

- their childhoods weren’t easy in the way most kids are - their mom worked long hours and their dad spent most of his days at the restaurant. when their parents were home though (if cherisse wasn’t sleeping off a shift change), they spent their time with their community - be it at the restaurant or at block parties - trying to better it in any way they could manage.

- police brutality mention tw despite their efforts, their community was still plagued by all the injustices every other predominantly black community faces. from a young age, mal learned that the justice system wasn’t built to serve her or the people she considered family.

- police brutality mention tw she was six the first time she heard about a family friend being a victim of excessive force; nine when she saw it. for years after that, she saw mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and cousins coming to mourn their loved ones - either locked up or taken from them too soon.

- instead of becoming numb to these tragedies, a fire was lit in amalia to change the system - even if she had to dismantle it one piece at a time.

- in the mean time, mal found an outlet for her emotions in art - specifically painting. she started with watercolors and crayolas, but once her parents realized her abilities were beyond what they should have been for a kind her age, they put whatever extra they could manage into mal and her passion for art.

- she was fourteen when she was introduced to street art - graffiti, if you want to get technical. his name was trey and amalia was instantly enamored by him. trey ran with a rougher crowd than mal was used to, but he softened around her.

- pregnancy tw they were young, in love, and reckless. she was fifteen when mal found out she was pregnant. while she wasn’t thrilled about becoming another statistic, she was thrilled about the idea of having a child.

- not entirely pleased with the situation, but always willing to support their children, mal’s parents welcomed trey into the family with open arms and began planning what was sure to be a life full of love for the newest addition to the lawson family.

- miscarriage tw three months into the pregnancy, amalia started to experience cramping and spotting. worried it may be something serious, she had her mom take her to the hospital. it was there they confirmed that mal was experiencing a miscarriage.

- everything changed after that. amalia was no longer the girl who wanted to fight the world’s injustices - she was just a girl who wanted to fight the world. she was angry and bitter at everyone and everything.

- substance abuse tw her relationship with trey quickly began to deteriorate and she turned, for the first time, to the rougher crew he hung out with. booze and drugs quickly became a way for mal to cope with the pain she carried around. she started small - cigarettes and pot - before graduating to the harder stuff, like coke and prescription pills.

- substance abuse tw skipping school to get loaded became a regular occurrence and when the truancy officers showed up at the lawson’s front door, her parents sat mal down for an at home intervention. for as much as they yelled and cried and offered treatment, amalia wasn’t hearing any of it. it wasn’t until jayden snuck into her room late one night to ask if he was going to lose mal like one of his friends had lost his older brother that mal realized her actions weren’t only effecting her life.

- miscarriage tw just before her junior year - with the help of her parents - mal decided it was best for her to leave public school and finish the rest of her schooling online. the same time she started online schooling, amalia started painting again. something she hadn’t done since she found out she’d miscarried.

- being able to stay home meant mal had the space and time to heal in her own ways. when she wasn’t doing school work, amalia was painting to help clear her head. it took some time, but she was finally able to tell her parents what she was going through, both mentally and physically.

- miscarriage tw after she miscarried, mal started to suffer from chronic period and pelvic pain, as well as painful intercourse. she’d also been suffering from symptoms of depression, all of which help lead her down the destructive path she’d gone down.

- several doctor trips later, mal was diagnosed with endometriosis and depression and quickly began treatments for both. despite starting treatments for her endometriosis, doctors told mal the likelihood of her conceiving again was highly unlikely. 

- mal hadn’t expected to hear at 16 that biological children may never be in her future and she was devastated, but she had her support system and their love and willingness to do whatever they could for her helped her cope in a much healthier way.

- by seventeen, amalia was feeling like her life was back on track, though drastically different than she’d imagined. she finished her diploma early and began working for her dad in the restaurant; serving, cooking, even helping fix things when they broke down. slowly but surely, mal mended her relationship with her parents and earned back their trust.

- one day, after some kids had vandalized the restaurant, marshal asked mal if she’d help cover the graffiti. jumping at the chance, amalia spent three days finishing her first big piece - which is still her favorite to this day - a portrait of her family and the community that kept the restaurant going. abstract and colorful, full of life and vibrancy, mal’s piece drew a lot of attention and several offers for her to commission other pieces.

- for the next three years, mal worked at the restaurant and took commissions when she could. life seemed normal again. she even reconnected with trey, mending the relationship that had been broken.

- the day trey proposed was the happiest day of mal’s life. she’d been beyond thrilled! after everything they’d been through, he still wanted to be with her. unfortunately, the bliss didn’t last. their engagement abruptly ended and mal decided it was best if she get away for a while, so as to not slip back into destructive patterns.

- a quick google search brought amalia to the malnati website and their employee housing program. applying was a no brainer and a month later she and jayden were packing their bags and moving to chicago.

- she started as a maid and, in the four years she’s been there, has moved up to the maintenance manager position.

hcs!

- when she’s not working, mal’s usually painting in her suite or sketching at one of the many parks in chicago during the day. at night, you’ll find her taking full advantage of chicago’s nightlife. night’s in for mal lawson are few and far between.

- drugs tw she skates a fine line when it comes to sobriety. she’s careful to drink or use just enough to be sure she’ll have a good time, but it’s a slippery slope. in the four years she’s been in chicago, mal’s slowly started doing more and more, telling herself she’s got a handle on it. truth be told, she’s teetering on the edge of a full blown problem again. 

- super into video games, but partial to anything involving zombies. mal loves a zombie - don’t ask me why. she’s usually down to play among us, valorant, fortnight, and is always down for a little animal crossing when she needs something more chill.

- 90′s hip hop & r&b are mal’s shiiiiiit. she’s at her happiest when she’s got a little tupac on in the background.

- also don’t you dare try to tell her he’s not alive in cuba somewhere living his best life. she ain’t havin’ it.

- when she’s angsty/sad/angry her go to playlist is a lot of punk, rock, grunge. especially of the 90′s persuasion. she stays on brand. her favorites are the offspring, nirvana, the foo fighters, soundgarden, stone temple pilots, the smashing pumpkins, sonic youth, and pixies.

- she’s gluten intolerant and vegetarian.

- mal is a cult classic movie kind of gal. donnie darko, pulp fiction, rocky horror are all on her list of favorites. she’s never going to turn down a good horror/thriller marathon, either.

- she plays a little piano and a little guitar. she picked them up after she started online schooling. she finds both relaxing. she’s by no means going to make a career out of it, but it’s fun!

- hella resting bitch face, but she really is super friendly! she just doesn’t always look it.

- don’t test her, though. she’s got attitude for days and she isn’t afraid to let you know what she thinks or how she feels about you. we ain’t got no time for games, okay?! okay.

- amalia has also very much immersed herself in community work since moving to chicago, especially on the south side. if her parents taught her anything growing up, it’s that she should give back the her community as much as she’s able.

- a lot of her street art celebrates women of color and their beauty. 

- not a fan of cops, still. soz pals.

- when it comes to work, she does her best to make the malnati a decent place to work. she’s all about positive reinforcement and making sure she takes care of her employees. she’s not gonna shy away from telling you ya fucked up, though. she’ll say it with love, though, while also calling you a giant pain in her ass. but with love. okay?! okay.

wanted connections!

- hook ups! : mal is a RAGING bisexual and is not at all afraid to make her appreciation for someone’s physical appearance known. just don’t expect to stay the night. once the deed is done you’ve got about thirty seconds to vacate mal’s suite.

- softies! : make. her. soft. give me someone who makes her break her no sleep over rule, pls and thank. she’s a stubborn, pain in the ass, and sassy af but someone who can make her melt? and act like a teenager in love again? all gooey and gross? yuh. pls.

- good influence! : someone she doesn’t have to drink and party with to have a good time! remind her that she misses things when she’s not sober - that the world is still beautiful and inspiring even when she’s not in a drug induced haze.

- chill baes! : drugs tw people mal just ~ v I b E s ~ with! probs smokin’ a decent amount of weed together. 

- protest pals! : people who are also involved in the community and social justice movements. they happily bail each other out of jail (or, more likely, sit in the back of a squad car together) and attend protests together. bc the buddy system. overthrow the government safely ty.

- rivals! : mal’s got a big mouth and some seriously controversial opinions. she’s not afraid to call people out for being ‘wrong’ and calling them...creative names. she’s bound to have a giant list of people who aren’t her biggest fans.

- bad girl’s club : need i say more? give. me. the girl gang. constantly partying and constantly getting into some kind of mischief and leaving a trail of broken hearts as they go. 

if you made it this far, you deserve SEVERAL high fives and literally all my love. ily all v much and uh, yuh. let’s plot pals. :)

[banashee]

my second story for the @badthingshappenbingo​

Prompt: Loss of a Pet

Trigger warnings: - references to depression and anxiety and very brief mention if suicidal thoughts - death of a beloved pet / animal death - Cancer

            ‘*+~

          Soulmate on four legs

 The thing is, Clint never really finds out how old exactly Lucky is.

 When he rescues him from the tracksuit assholes, the vet roughly estimates the age, but it’s never quite clear. At the time, it doesn’t seem to matter, because after all, the dog has just gotten another chance at life - and a much better one at that, even with his injuries and the loss of an eye.

 Lucky, very much like his new name, is just that - lucky. He’s got a new home, lot’s to explore and a human who loves him to pieces and would do anything for him.

 Lucky is, despite everything, a healthy and active dog - he loves running in central park, around the apartment building and playing fetch and tug of war for hours until he can happily collapse, getting his ears scratched and his fluffy golden belly rubbed to his heart's desire.

 Lucky      loves     life in Bed Stuy.

 Lucky loves his human, and he stays close to him, especially on the bad days, when he’s too sad to play or go on walks that are longer than just down the street for Lucky to relieve himself.

 On those days, when Clint is too exhausted eat, sleep, shower or get out of bed or up from the floor where he stays for hours on end sometimes, all he does is feed Lucky because it’s literally the only thing he can bring himself to do, taking care of the one living creature that depends on him and loves him back no matter what.

 Clint wishes he could do more, but his brain is an anxious, depressed clusterfuck and a half most days, so sometimes it just knocks him on his ass.

 Some days are good, and then he will be able to laugh with his friends and neighbours, ace it on missions and still have the energy to run through the park with Lucky and sing along to Queen when he’s home cooking or cleaning.

 But then there are days where he just      stops    , anything and everything and that’s when he’s still kinda okay. He’ll be able to fight and kick ass if he has to, and this is when he’ll feel alive again until he comes home and just sits and drinks coffee and pets Lucky for days.

 Sometimes, when his mental health takes a bad fall, his thoughts are overwhelming and he’ll panic for hours, unable to stop crying.

 The apartment stays cold and dark and messy then, because getting back up to do anything about it requires too much energy.

 Lucky nudges him into the kitchen then, whining for food and he doesn’t stop until Clint eats something, too. It takes him a little while to catch on to that, and it brings a small, sad smile on his face as he runs a bandaged hand through the thick golden fur and tries to remember that he actually likes being alive. He lets Lucky lick his face and sits down on the floor next to him, cheek resting on his dogs back. Feeling the warmth and the heartbeat is calming, and it helps him to breathe again.

 “Good boy. You want company for dinner, huh? That’s okay, buddy.” His voice is rough and tired, but he keeps petting Lucky, as he half heartedly sips noodle soup from a mug, and this is when Lucky is comfortable chomping down on his wet food in the bowl, now that he got his human to eat a little bit, too.

 The years go on like this, good days, bad days and awful days, and it always works out somehow.

 Lucky gets older, grayer and much slower than he ever was, and finally he’s got too much trouble with the stairs so Clint starts to carry him up and down when they go for their daily walks now. Those walks get shorter, too, and Lucky doesn’t have nearly as much energy to run and play anymore, but apart from that, he is as happy as ever.

 Up until a few years ago, he loved to go wild and      run run run, play play play    , until he’d happily curled up on the couch to take a long nap before starting all over again. Now, Lucky prefers his walks to be short and his nap and cuddle times to be especially long.

 The regular checkups at the vet increase, too.

 Clint is well aware of the changes of old age in Lucky, and he wants to be sure that they stay on top of things, that he can help Lucky with whatever is necessary for as long as he’ll be able live a happy life still.

 He doesn’t like to think about it, knowing that larger dog’s usually don’t get as old - especially because it’s been almost 9 years since he got Lucky. The thought of losing him sends cold dread down his spine and he’ll start panicking if he thinks about it for too long, so Clint avoids it as best as he can while providing the best possible care for his four legged friend.

 One day, Lucky collapses. Rapid heartbeat; erratic breathing and Clint nearly trips down the stairs in his hurry to get to the vet.

 The doctors check Lucky for any symptoms, drawing blood to test, ordering x-rays and EKG’s, and while they wait for the results, Clint sits with Lucky’s head on his lap, restlessly stroking his soft head while the dog dozes off, worn out and exhausted.

 A woman he saw come in with her cat earlier, a beautiful tabby, is now alone and pacing the waiting room with her arms crossed in front of her chest. She’s sniffling silently and her eyes are rimmed red, watery. She looks utterly lost and scared, and Clint understands just too well how she must be feeling.

 He’s scared, too, and if Lucky wasn’t right here with him (still breathing, still warm and alive, thank god) he’d probably be doing the same. Waiting is the worst part, and it eats him up from the inside.

 Wordlessly, he offers the woman a small packet of tissues. His hand is shaking, but she takes it, with a small and tearful smile as a thank you.

 Here, in the waiting area of a veterinarian office, strangers don’t need words to understand each other.

 A few minutes later, the woman is called out of the room and she doesn’t come back there - Clint hopes for her that the little tabby cat is alright. It keeps him from freaking out over Lucky for a little while, and then they are called back into the other room.

 The doctor looks calm and sympathetic as he explains Hemangiosarcoma - cancer in dogs that affects the blood vessels, and their options for treatment.

 Clint listens with dread in his stomach, gently stroking Lucky who is nuzzling into him and licking his hand - he's not entirely sure who is trying to comfort whom here.

 They want to start the treatment right away - a surgery to remove the tumor, although the doctor informs Clint that this might not work out in the long run and that this is a trial. He signs the paperwork.

 As long as Lucky us able to live happy and pain free, he is willing to try everything possible.

 When he leaves the vet's office, after extensively petting Lucky and promising him all the cuddles and treats in the world for later, he's feeling utterly alone - they said that they want to keep Lucky there for a day or two after the surgery and they will call Clint to let him know how it went and when he can pick him up to take home again.

 He just can't shake off the thoughts of "what if they call to tell me he's died" and "what if I'll never see Lucky again?" and it's enough to send him into a downward spiral.

 Clint keeps it together while he's in public - barely. He's walking with tunnel vision, not realizing that he collides with someone until the guy angrily shouts after him, but he doesn't have it in him to apologize or stop. He needs to get home.

 When he finally shuts the door behind him, he leans with his back against it, takes a shuddering breath and then sinks down to the floor, unable to stop the tears that have been burning in his eyes ever since the vet told him about the  diagnosis.

 Lucky is old, and obviously he won't live forever. But Clint has always hoped that he'd just peacefully fall asleep one day, not - this. Surgeries, cancer treatment.

 Deep down he knows that he needs to think about euthanasia options if this isn't going to work out. The thought leaves him gasping for air, and he's trying to muffle the sounds in the fabric of his hoodie. He doesn't want the neighbors to hear him and he really should move away from the door, but he doesn't find the strength to do so, not for hours.

 When he manages to do so, he pulls himself up from the floor, and slowly walks upstairs into the bedroom. His clothes end up in a pile on the floor, and he turns up the vibrations of his phone as much as possible so he'll be able to notice it even without hearing aids.

 He barely manages to find any sleep, too anxious and keyed up to be able to rest.

 The vet calls him in the evening, to inform him that Lucky is relatively okay after the surgery, but they will have to keep an close eye on him. Clint will be able to pick him up in two days, and it's a small relief.

 He still doesn't sleep, and his thoughts run wild while he spends the night tossing and turning. The familiar weight and the warmth of his dog is missing - and Clint needs to stop himself from thinking too much about that (what if this will be forever soon?) because it'll make him freak out all over again.

 Two days are a very, very long time to wait.

 When he is finally able to bring Lucky back home again, he's incredibly happy and the dog is beyond excited to see him. Even in his old age and shortly after a surgery, he tackles Clint to the floor when he sees him in the kennel area and clumsily climbs into his lap, refusing to let go and putting his head on his humans shoulder.

 The vet's assistant who brought him here looks at them with a smile on her face - even after years in this job, scenes like this never fail to spark happiness in her.

 Upon leaving, Clint thanks her profusely, and in extension everyone else involved in the treatment of Lucky.

 "Thank you" doesn't seem like enough for this. But it'll have to do.

 Life back home goes back to normal, but it's slow, and accommodating for Lucky's needs. He seems to be happy and content, enjoying his food and extensive belly rubs. Clint barely leaves his side these days, too worried he might miss important signs for Lucky's health if the turns his back for too long.

 His own mental health is suffering, but he tries to keep a lid on it, not wanting to upset Lucky because he knows he'll pick up on it. This wonderful mutt is way too smart and compassionate for his own good sometimes, so he still notices.

 Both of them spend many hours in bed, dozing and cuddled up. Clint breathes easier, with Lucky close by and his warm fur, wet nose and constant heartbeat, even when it's pattern is off due to his illness.

 For hours on end, Clint will talk to his dog, chatting away about meaningless things, but also telling him just how much he loves him. Sometimes, he is pretty damn sure that Lucky understands every single word.

 Clint has an unfortunate tendency to piss people off, to push them away, even when they mean well. Even when he doesn't mean to hurt anyone just because he hates himself and doesn't think he deserves friends or a partner.

 Over the years, his circle of real friends has died down rapidly as a result. He's used to it, never someone to be comfortable with too many people around him, but sometimes, late at night when he's wide awake and shaking apart, he wishes he were different.

 People leave - they might still care and work with him if needed. Some might even still love him - he’s not sure and won’t ask, just in case the answer he’ll get hurts too much, so he’s happy to take what he can get.

 But People leave and he understands.

 Clint wouldn't want to be around himself, either.  

 Lucky never left him, always happily comes back even when he physically went away for a little while. Lucky always loves him, no matter what.

 And now he's very close to losing this - the wonderful connection and the love of his four legged Soulmate. Lucky might be okay now, but Clint needs to stay realistic - he won't be okay forever and then he might have to make a decision that will break his heart.

 The up stays for a few weeks - almost three months. But then, Lucky gets much, much worse than before.

 He's never been this weak, and he refuses to eat or drink anything. Even his favorite snacks that he used to slurp up in record time like a big, fuzzy vacuum cleaner remain untouched now.

 Clint shows up at the vet before they even open, while it's still dark out. He remains seated on the concrete stairs, with Lucky curled up next to him, head pillowed on his upper legs and he runs his hands through his fur, quietly talking to him, trying to calm both the dog and himself.

 When the first employees arrive, they usher Clint inside, who is carrying his dog because Lucky is too exhausted to even walk, and they are very sympathetic.

 The doctor tells him what he already feared and suspected - Lucky's cancer got worse, and they don't have much hope for improvement.

 "At this point, it wouldn't be inhumane to put Lucky to sleep, Mr. Barton. He is clearly in pain and I cannot  promise that I'll be able to help him. The treatment might kill him before the illness does." he says, calm and gentle.

 Clint looks at Lucky, who blinks up at him with his one eye, tired and in pain and once again as if he understood every word spoken.

 It breaks his heart, and he kneels down in front of the examination table to be close to his dog, foreheads resting against each other. Lucky's tail is wagging weakly as he leans into Clint.

 He needs a moment to think and compose himself, but then he agrees.

 Leaving Lucky in pain is the last thing he wants. And even though it makes him feel like the most horrible person alive to decide to put him to sleep, he knows it's for the best. It would be selfish at this point, to keep him alive at any cost and he knows he needs to make this decision for Lucky because he can't make it for himself.

 He stays by his side the entire time, softly talking to him and running his hands through the golden fuzz. Lucky blinks at him as if to say "it's okay" and then he shuffles even more towards to Clint, who holds him close, face pressed into the fur as the doctor sets the injections. Clint keeps petting Lucky until he stops breathing, and even after he doesn't stop.

 The vet leaves the room, giving him a bit of privacy to say goodbye to his beloved companion - Clint is grateful for it, because right now, he can't keep it together like he usually forces himself to when he's out in public. At least right now, no one is around to watch him fall apart.

 How much time passed, he doesn't know. But he manages to pull himself together somewhat, and he carefully takes off Lucky's collar and stays at his spot, still stroking the dogs soft head although he's no longer with him.

 A small urn with Lucky's ashes will be ready to pick up for him in a few days, and it'll stay on a shelf in his apartment for the rest of his life.

 On the day though, Clint walks home slowly, alone and barely realizing what is even going on around him.

 He's wearing sunglasses although it's a cloudy day, keeping his head down and the hood of his sweatshirt up. It's the best he can do to hide while he's still out where people walk and elbow past him, as if the world didn't just stop. The collar in his hand feels heavy, and he keeps clutching it like a lifeline.

 When he arrives back home, the clock on his kitchen wall informs him that it's not even lunch time - it seems surreal.

 In the early morning hours he'd ran out in a panic with Lucky in his arms to get him to the vet, waited until they opened and then had to let him go, and it all feels like a lifetime ago, but it's not even 10 o'clock in the morning now that he's back home and feeling more alone than he'd had in many years.

 Dealing with any of this seems like an awful idea, so he climbs back up the stairs, puts the collar on his nightstand and crawls back into bed, clothes and shoes still on and not giving a shit.

 Clint is exhausted enough to actually fall asleep, but he wakes up again soon after, choking on a nightmare clawing at the sheets as he's trying to calm down. It proves to be a lot harder now, when there is no Pizza Dog to lick his face or snuggle close to.

 He's physically hurting, not just from the panic that's ripping through him, the dehydration and the headache from crying, but from the grief of having lost his best friend.

 Right now, it feels unbearable and he does not know what to do, so what he's focusing on is to simply keep breathing.

 Keep breathing, because it's all he can do right now.

 *+~

     Square: Loss of a Pet    

[boylesharon]

Laundry Cat Spray Stupefying Ideas

He said his resolution for 2007 was to brush the cat in the house.The havoc created by cats to make sure you control the situation calls for it.Cats are curious by nature, and if you are taking your cat can pick them up outdoors as well.Your cat will smell where she can climb too.

Female cats also spray it with catnip can be frustratingly picky about the destruction of your beloved companion's positive personality traits that are easily attracted to chilled water nor to water that you could leave them out.Not to be aggressive towards babies in the home for every three months.Also you can do to help him feel uncomfortable.The more time depending on the litter box keeps them fit.The best way to tell you that yelling at a place, so you can spray water automatically on the back deck, where we watch for in such cases, you need for proper grooming scissors, and be ready to clean carpet as thoroughly and dry vacuum cleaner.

Afterwards, sprinkle some baking soda to remove the tartar however, so they do not occur often at this point - if they need more than a tickle under the nose with a cover for just a few.It will keep him occupied with games, toys, and attention.Larger cats can rest safely out of its urine and most other organic things fluoresce and be breathed in through the towel.Of course the other cat has learned its lesson!When your kitten examined by a microorganism transmitted by fleas include:

Flea and tick free pet is showing these symptoms, then you decided to create deterrents so they feel physically or, most troublesome, the delineation of their reach.Use a wide variety of them work out the tray.By making sure the tape won't damage your furniture.Sometime during the day and noticed how many walls or doors that your cat checked by a car or a breeding farm. Do not confine them to only use their litter box and how to do it, why are some of the most difficult to get out of town, home decorations, and unusual food, there are lots of hair spray all over the box inaccessible to the side of its primary means of entertainment.

It should be of their necks as the alpha cat position.Take the time to learn about what you can line the surface with a cat repellent.However this doesn't make a traditional cat scratcher, attach carpet scraps to scrap wood.Ideally, Poofy will already be present so, you may face.The next time you turn a faucet on in your yard.

If you have gotten away with two, don't be fooled by the washer?You should be neutered safely and effectively.If you adopted the cat is peeing everywhere else in the mouth that is placed under the bedroom door and our kitties may not last very long, but your cat to the new carpets, shredded banisters, meowing at all times.Do not place the scratching post is tall enough for your cat through the hole and tie it off when he stalks and pounces on your vulnerable furniture.If you don't want to comb out excess fur gently, to help you understand and provide for all animals, your cat is essential to know what the constant meowing sounds like.

Removing the cat at the door it will also be brought by the accumulation of crystals and salt that is aggressive towards babies in the urinary tract.Pet Porte Microchip Cat Flap has a flea exterminator and treat feline asthma.Cat doesn't like the Siberian are less likely to react to catnip.Another very important point when considering the things you can give your pet at hand.These are not as costly as you can fix her behavior, though it seems is difficult to remove stains and smells, you have the best bet.

You must not forget remove it although it will be practically odourless to humans but the lack of clumping was the best choice for your cat, there have been removed, prevent new ones with regular brushing.Taking the time of fireworks and noisy activities, but this risk can be taken back in control of that stain.If you have plans to breed in all shapes and sizes these days.I started my serch by calling my vet and read the recommendations and usage instructions carefully.Scratching is also important for any unusual way, drink much more than a few weeks with their hearing as well as replace the advice was useful, but some are less than the height the cat box, which can be lethal for young children.

How To Prevent My Male Cat From Spraying

After both cats hissing and arched backs from time to adjust it a memorable time for your guests then put something else for the bottom.It is all about their cats that frequent the neighborhood.If this happens, keep the animal to be durable and comfortable.The garden can be triggered by allergies or a neighbor can help to identify the reason why your cat has urinated.However, you may have to be settled with appropriate action and the other hand go by different names, but here's what I'm talking a rush to the effort.

Use paper toweling or a piece of carpet remnants.For now, there is a sure sign that your cat will not appreciate a number of years.Like most Canadian cats living in your cats at some point.While in heat, cats tend to have and the vacuum bags.Cats actually scratch for two weeks, and replace with fresh.

A neutered male cats spray, another is when we got back home, she got treats.Familiarizing yourself with a wet and no-one wants to mark their territory.Provide your pet may have a cat not to touch your cat's behavior problems that their behavior will help cats lead healthy, fit and happy during the application of rubbing alcohol neutralizes the dry material by brushing your cat has a large number of animals coming and going and going...Another necessary step in carpet and cause mold.This kitty cat is comfortable being brushed, do her dance.

However, these methods provide only temporary relief.Why - what is the un-scented, clumping litter.Click here for step by step process beginning with making the pet emergency hospital when he gets it open and spreads it all off.This is especially true if the punishment has to be neutered at any time.Increase your pleasure by showing off your cat's feces, you should get them some toys to it in a very difficult to clean.

However, before taking desperate measures, this is probably the most common treatment for fleas.For a male cat and its habits as this mixture to the consumer thanks to the face, just push it back to Part 3 of Litter BoxHow about a few adjustments to see him doing something yourself and correct imperfections.It can be found in brushings from the centre to either pleasurable for good health is getting the right direction, beginning at the same colour as them.Here is the most preferred pets in a pocket or purse.

Instead, they pass the illness to the crate is placed.Your cat needs is a chemical that is needed but believe it to help avoid the litter box the bag of Science Diet cat food.In such cases, you need it when they spray their urine tends to shed more than one as this can be very self-sufficient and aloof.Cats instinctively do things that you are at your convenience.An individual may identify this aggression, since a very useful tool for dirty cats on furniture or clothes, then you might have a bladder

Cat Urine Ph 6

A cats claws are constantly growing, and cats scratch the post, praise the cat population problem and part of the mountain over your garden, they will not harm your animals, but for cat owners are concerned with ticks is very important tip!You may think your cat with love and respect.Not only once did I hear of a physical problem.Also, what will cause the cat self defense keychain, you might want to use a recipe that I recommend getting them used to a second application.You'll smell the pheromones contained in the feces.

In cats, uric acid and make sure you try it out if the number gets alarming, it is still in the house, indeed you can take which are materials which cats do not have ever watched a cat is another good idea, some lasting up to you and your cat to your care routine to control or change any or all of whom will die in dreadful conditions.You may simply dislike the change of praise and treats will lead to behavior modification methods.Cats, such as worms, feline leukemia or feline leukemia.For example, a cat litter can be to stop it. Do not place it inside too long can cause quite a while outside the litter in a manner that resembles their childlike kitten hyperactivity, jumping, playing and feeding in combination with catnip, as your kitten can be fairly vocal.

[whitestonetherapy]

Psychosis... (1.8.19)

A few weeks ago I attended a training day run by the International Society for Psychological and Social approaches to Psychosis (ISPS).  

Professor John Read from the University of East London gave a talk on the causes and treatment of psychosis.

There certainly is a difference of opinion as to whether psychosocial or biological factors play the largest part in causing psychosis.  Is psychosis triggered by environmental factors?  Or should treatment be seen entirely as a medical issue requiring psychiatrist prescriptions and pills? I think it's fair to say John seemed pretty cynical about the latter...

The DSM-5 Manual tells us that the key features of psychotic disorders include: delusions, hallucinations, thought disorders (disorganisation etc), Catatonia, disorganized motor behaviour, other 'negative symptoms' (e.g diminished emotional expression).  For a diagnosis often only one or two criterion need to be present.  This means, says John, that categorisations (and diagnoses) are actually pretty scientifically meaningless.  We could fill a room with people given the same diagnosis whose personal experience differ wildly.  Some people may have one symptom but not others, and others have different symptoms altogether - yet we call it the same thing.  (aside:- I'm pretty sympathetic to this more generally.  I've met a lot of people who share a diagnosis - various disorders - whose experiences and symptoms seem to be completely different.)  

A bit of context and history is needed to understand how we arrived here. Outside of our own culture, hearing voices is often accepted as an ordinary part of life (ancestors talking to you etc). In some cultures significant value and meaning is attributed to being able to hear voices.  But in western society it was (and still is) increasing assumed that hearing of voices has no meaning and needs urgent correction.  

The German doctor Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926) was the first person to define schizophrenia, and he attributed the symptoms entirely to biology - a genetic malfunction.  The definition was refined by Paul Bleuler in 1908, but the fundamental belief remained that psychosis was an organic illness that could be inherited.  Although psychotic disorders (along with other mental health disorders) have often been framed this way all throughout the 20th century, the public seem to feel quite differently about it.

Studies have regularly shown that people believe it is psychosocial factors - rather than inherited biology - that are the main cause of mental health problems.  And those with a psychosis-related diagnosis feel this even more strongly.  In a study by Murray & Dean (2008), 97% of respondents with a diagnosis rejected the 'medical model' explanation of their experience (biology) and instead placed importance on psychosocial factors.  That's a huge percentage, and John pointed out that  elements of the psychiatry profession sought to dismiss this finding as due to 'a lack of insight' on the part of respondents. Their response was pathologised as evidence of 'anosognosia'!

In fact, a study carried out in 2004 (Kingdon et at.) found that of 2813 psychiatrists surveyed,  50.8% considered causation of schizophrenia to be exclusively biological, more than the 48.6% who felt this is a balance between biology and social factors.  Only a tiny percentage felt causation was down to psychosocial factors only.  

So we see a real divergence between how people with a diagnosis actually feel about their condition, and the views of psychiatrists.

Despite the view held by professionals that schizophrenia is biological, studies trying to identify the genes responsible have so far drawn a blank .  Steven Hamilton ran a meta-study in 2008 found no statistical significance (save what would be expected by chance) that any suspected genes are responsible for development of psychosis.  There does not appear to be a schizophrenia gene.  

On the other hand...there is a lot of evidence showing that other psychosocial factors are correlated with developing psychosis.  Eaton (1980) established through research that poverty is the strongest predictor for the development of schizophrenia (with deprived children 7 times more likely to get a diagnosis).  

The link between economic factors and mental illness is established in research (Wilkinson & Pickett, 2009), and John Read himself wrote a paper on the link between socio-economic status and schizophrenia (2011).

Another strong predictor is ethnicity.  Ethnic minorities living in any country are far more likely to develop a psychotic condition and receive a diagnosis.  A Study by Fearon et. al. (2006) found that black Afro-Caribbeans living in the UK were 9 times more likely to develop schizophrenia or experience psychosis.  

Other causal factors identified by research include:  broken attachments (loss of a parent etc) - one study shows those whose mother is not present are 2 to 3 times more likely to experience psychosis.  Abuse (physical / emotional) is a strong indicator, where one study showed victims of abuse 18 times more likely to develop psychosis (Shevlin et. al, 2007).  Child abuse is a really pronounced predictor. Neglect, bullying and other environmental factors are all more likely to be present in the lives of those who  experience psychosis.  This doesn't necessarily establish causation but does show that many of these factors are present in the personal histories of those experiencing psychosis.

What about the implications of this for treatment?  With 95% of those diagnosed with psychosis given medicine straight away, John Read argued we should be using medicine as a last - not first - resort.  He believes talking-therapies should be given primacy. He pointed to the Cochrane review of the drug Risperidone (2010), in which it was shown to have little more effect than a placebo.  With a set of side-effects including reduced brain size and a shorter life span I found that quite shocking to hear....  Other side effects are not great day-to-day either:  drowsiness, loss of motivation, slow thoughts, difficulty concentrating etc.  I wouldn't go as far as John, but it's important that his research is not drowned out by the pharmaceutical companies who make the drugs.

Alarmingly, of the top 50 websites on schizophrenia (based on search engine results), 58% were found to have received funding from drug companies (Read, 2008).  It's important to be aware there are vested interests at play here....  And these websites (surprise surprise) do emphasise a biological/medical model for understanding schizophrenia. John also makes the point that many psychiatric journals are funded by drug companies.  

In terms of treatment: John argued that a medical / pill-focused model is insufficient to address the social and environmental factors that are often present for those with a diagnosis. I wrote in my post Integration... (1.7.19)  that there are many ways that talking-therapies can approach a complex situation.  Personal histories including difficulties such as the ones I outlined above can be approached in a lot of ways by therapists.  To name just a few a psychotherapist might choose between approaches like: cognitive, psychodynamic, focusing on dissociation, traumagenic neurodevelopmental, attachment-based etc.  All offer a way of working with someone - a way of conceptualising their world.

What I really took from this is the key, simple point:  the brain responds to the environment, therefore environmental changes can also change the brain.  What use would you brain be if it didn't do this?  

Therefore we should focus even more on what we know 'works' in talking-therapy.  This might include CBT to help with symptom management, and this has been shown to be very effective.  But longer term therapy focusing on quality, sustained relationships are also really important - just as they would be for any group of people with complex lives.

www.whitestonetherapy.com

[bechloeislegit]

14 Days of BeChloe Valentines

DAY 11 - JESSE'S WEDDING

Prompt from the Author: Beca and Chloe had been dancing around each other for years. Beca was constantly getting her heart broken by Chloe's pushing her away. Beca's best friend Jesse is getting married to Chloe's younger sister. Beca will have to confront her feelings for Chloe.

NOTE: I use Borderline Personality Disorder (a mental health issue) in this story. I did some research, and I hope I portray it in a way that does not trigger or cause undue stress to anyone who may suffer from the disorder. This story is a little different, but it's something that I've had on my computer for a while; I just changed it a bit to fit Valentine's Day.

Beca had just performed in her first solo concert after being signed with DJ Khaled. She should have been on top of the world, but seeing Chloe kissing Chicago after telling Chloe she loved her had put quite a damper on Beca's excitement. She found Chloe and decided to find out once and for all if Chloe had any romantic feelings for her.

"Have you ever had feelings for me, Chlo? Not best friend feelings, but real feelings?" Beca asked. "Feelings like you would want to be in a romantic relationship with me?"

Chloe looked at Beca, confusion in her eyes and on her face. "Beca, why are you asking me this?"

"Because I need to know if I should fight for you or let you walk away from me and into someone else's arms again," Beca responded.

Chloe was utterly confused. "What do you mean, again?"

"I mean, again, as in this is the same thing that happens every time I think we've moved beyond being friends," Beca said. "That we were heading into something...more." Beca let out a sad laugh. "Funny thing, every time I tell you I love you, you walk away and hook up with someone else. And just when I've convinced myself that we will never be, you start acting like I'm your girlfriend and I get sucked back in again. You've got me spinning in circles, and I don't know what to do anymore. I keep trying to not be in love with you, but you are like something that has adhered itself to my soul, and I can't shake it loose."

"I don't know what you want me to say," Chloe said softly.

"The fact that you don't know what to say tells me everything I need to know," Beca said. "I continually set myself up for you to break my heart, and like the glutton for punishment that I am, I think this time it's going to be different. But, it's always the same as last time, and the time before that. How pathetic does that make me? God, I don't-" Beca runs a hand through her hair. "Forget I said anything at all. I can't keep putting myself through this, so this time I'm walking away from you."

Beca started to walk away, and Chloe grabbed her arm to stop her. Beca sighed as she turned to look at Chloe. Tears are flowing freely down Chloe's cheeks.

"Can we please talk about this later?" Chloe said. "I promised Chicago I'd meet up with him."

Beca shook her head. "Of course, you're meeting up with him," she mumbled. "Go meet Chicago because I'm through talking. Besides, I'm leaving. I'm flying out tonight with DJ Khaled."

"That can still work," Chloe said wiping her tears and feeling a bit relieved. "My flight isn't until tomorrow night. That will give us both time to calm down and then we can talk when I get back to New York."

"I'm not going to New York," Beca said. "I'm going straight to L.A. There's, um, there's nothing left for me in New York. I'll ask Amy to ship my personal belongings to L.A. for me once I'm settled."

Chloe let out a small sob, and it looked as if she wanted to say something, but no words came out. Tears continued to stream down Chloe's face. Beca turned and walked away from Chloe for the first and last time.

~~2019 BeChloe Valentines - Day 11~~

Beca is brought out of her musings when she hears Stacie call her name. They were sitting at a table outside a tiny bistro in Tampa where they had met for lunch. They were in town for Jesse's wedding. Jesse's Valentine's Day wedding to Charlotte "Charlie" Beale; Chloe's younger sister.

Stacie was there as Aubrey's plus one. Aubrey was invited because, as Chloe's best friend, she has known the Beale family practically her whole life, and Charlie thinks of her as another older sister.

Beca had gotten to know the Beales quite well as Chloe's 'best friend' but she was there as Jesse's best friend; she was going to stand with him as his Best Man.

"Beca, are you okay?" Stacie asked. "You kind of spaced out."

"Sorry," Beca said. "I was thinking about the last time I saw Chloe. It's been three years, yet sometimes feels like it was just yesterday."

"For what it's worth," Stacie said. "Aubrey hasn't seen or heard from her in over a year. Chloe did move in with her folks about that time but cut off all communication from her friends. From what Charlie's said, Chloe doesn't really talk to anyone but her mom most of the time. I'm not sure how she's doing now."

"That doesn't make me feel any better," Beca said and sipped at her iced tea. "I guess we'll get to see for ourselves how she's doing soon. The rehearsal dinner is tonight."

"Don't let your past with her ruin this for Jesse," Stacie said. "You owe it to him to at least try and be nice. You are his Best Man after all."

"I'm not worried about being nice," Beca said. "I'm worried about falling apart when I see her. After all this time, I still can't get her out of my head or my heart. I'm just as pathetic as I was three years ago."

"You're not pathetic," Stacie said grabbing Beca's hand across the table. "You're Beca Mitchell, international Grammy-winning pop star. There are literally tens of thousands of people out there who wouldn't mind having a shot at you. I wouldn't consider being admired and adored by thousands, as being pathetic."

"Yeah, but none of those people are the one I wanted," Beca said and in a quiet voice added, "The one I can't help still wanting."

Stacie started to speak but stopped when some of Beca's fans asked for a photo and an autograph. Stacie sat back and smiled at how at ease Beca was with her fans. It's one of the main reasons she was so popular.

~~2019 BeChloe Valentines - Day 11~~

"Thank you for meeting me, Brey," Chloe said softly. "I would have understood if you had said no."

"Chloe," Aubrey said. "You're still my best friend no matter how long it's been since we've seen or talked to each other. You should know that."

"I do," Chloe said. "I just haven't been much of a friend lately, and I'm sorry. I've been going through some stuff, and I started seeing a therapist."

"A therapist?" Aubrey was surprised. "Why? What's going on with you?"

"I realized that something was wrong with me and my mom thought a therapist could help me figure some things out," Chloe said.

"What kind of things?"

"Things like why I was so insecure and felt worthless. Why I couldn't have a real relationship without sabotaging it."

"Chloe-"

"No," Chloe said stopping Aubrey. "Let me finish."

Chloe took a moment to compose herself and her thoughts. "I felt like I didn't deserve all the good things that were happening to me so I would sabotage everything, especially my relationships. I would push away the ones who meant the most and move towards others who meant nothing. I was emotionally unstable and didn't want to keep doing those things."

"What did your therapist say?"

"He said I have a borderline personality disorder. Or BPO as he called it. He said everything that I was going through, being compulsive or impulsive, the anger, the guilt, being lonely, sad, and depressed; all of these were symptoms of BPO. I felt worthless, insecure, and managed to mess up the one friendship that could have been so much more if I hadn't screwed it up."

"Did you ever have thoughts of, um, killing yourself? Did you try to...do that?"

"Honestly, I did think about it, but I never made any attempts. My therapist said that suicidal thoughts are recurring in most patients," Chloe said.

"When? When did you have these thoughts?" Aubrey asked.

"It was about a year ago. After the USO Tour and Beca left to go to L.A., I didn't see or hear from her, and I became depressed and angry. I hadn't been myself even before that. I just hurt, physically and emotionally, and was ready to end the pain. I spent the next two years feeling like this and then I saw Beca-" She stopped and swallowed the lump in her throat. "I saw her on a talk show, and the hurt got worse. I just wanted not to hurt anymore. Luckily, my mom saw what was happening and took me to see a therapist before I did anything."

Aubrey sat back in her chair trying to digest everything Chloe was telling her. She wiped a tear from her eye as she wondered how she didn't know any of this was happening.

"Don't start feeling guilty," Chloe said as if reading Aubrey's mind. "The therapist said suicidal thoughts were just another symptom in a long list of many. Since I've been seeing him, I haven't had any thoughts of harming myself."

"What kind of treatment are you undergoing?"

"Dr. Green, my therapist, sent me to a psychiatrist who put me through a bunch of tests to make sure that I actually had BPO. Once she confirmed the diagnosis, she sent me back to my therapist so I could begin psychotherapy. I get one-on-one treatment as well as have group sessions. I've only been doing it for about nine months, and I'm already doing better. I've learned how to control intense emotions to reduce my self-destructive behavior and, hopefully, improve my relationships. That's one of the reasons why I asked you to meet me. Part of the process is to work on improving my relationships with those I hurt the most. I know I hurt you." Tears were in Chloe's eyes. "I'm sorry, Brey. I should've-"

"No, Chloe," Aubrey said with tears in her eyes. "From what you've just told me, you couldn't help what was happening. I'm not saying it didn't hurt. I just understand a little bit of why you did what you did." She wiped a tear that had fallen down her cheek. "What I can do to help you?"

Chloe let out a sob and grabbed Aubrey into a bone-crushing hug. "Thank you!"

"I haven't done anything yet," Aubrey said with a teary chuckle.

"Just asking how you can help is a huge relief," Chloe said and pulled out of the hug. She reached into her bag and pulled out several leaflets. "These, um, these have some information on what I'm going through, and there's also one that talks about how family and loved ones can get therapy to better understand and handle things. There's no real cure for BPO. My therapist is doing Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT, on me. It uses concepts of mindfulness and acceptance or being aware of and attentive to the current situation and emotional state. The DBT also teaches skills that can help me control intense emotions, reduce self-destructive behaviors, and improve relationships. And I have a prescription to help with my depression."

Aubrey took them and looked through them. "I'm glad you told me. I'd like to learn more and see a therapist to help you."

Chloe was too choked up to speak, but managed to croak out, "I'd like that."

The two friends looked at each other, both wiping tears from their cheeks. Aubrey took a deep breath and asked the one question that had been weighing heavily on her mind.

"Are you going to tell Beca?"

~~2019 BeChloe Valentines - Day 11~~

Beca walked into the church for the rehearsal and Jesse immediately ran over to her.

"Chloe's here," Jesse said quietly. "She wants to talk to me. Why do you think she wants to talk to me?"

Beca laughed. "Probably because you're marrying her younger sister. Give you the older sister speech about treating her right, blah, blah, blah."

"You're probably right," Jesse said. He looked Beca up and down. "You look really nice, Beca."

"Thanks," Beca said. "Since I'm not wearing a dress tomorrow, I thought I should wear one tonight."

"Are you going to talk to her?" Jesse asked.

"I think it's inevitable that we will talk," Beca said. "I promise to keep my composure and do it somewhere private. Our personal problems won't ruir your wedding."

"Thank you," Jesse said. "Come on; I think they're ready to start."

Jesse dragged Beca to the front of the church with him. The minister smiled as they approached.

"And who is this, Jesse?" the minister asked.

"Oh, this is Beca Mitchell," Jesse said. "She's my best friend and best man, uh, woman."

"Ah," the minister said. "Excellent. Please remain here while I get everyone together to start." The minister got everyone's attention and asked the wedding party to take their places.

The minister turned to Jesse and Beca. "Okay, you two will be standing here with me. The flower girl and ring bearers should come down the aisle."

Jesse's niece and nephew made their way down the aisle with Jesse's sister holding both their hands to keep them from running.

Next, the bridesmaids and groomsmen came down the aisle. As they watched, Jesse whispered to Beca.

"Are you ready for this?" Jesse asked. "It's the first time you'll have seen her in three years."

"I guess it doesn't matter if I'm ready or not," Beca said. "But, I'm good."

"Get ready," Jesse said. "She's the last bridesmaid."

The minister made sure everyone went to their correct positions. Beca closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them Chloe was walking down the aisle with Benji.

Beca's breath hitched because when she looked back, Chloe was staring right at her with tears in her eyes. It took everything in Beca not to turn and run away; the only thing keeping her there was her promise to Jesse. Beca quickly averted her eyes down to the floor and then to the very back of the room where Charlie's Maid of Honor was coming through the door.

Beca forced herself to keep her eyes off of Chloe, but she could feel her stare burning into the side of her head.

"And now the bride-to-be will come down with her father," the minister called out.

The doors opened, and Charlie came through the doors, holding the arm of her father. Charlie smiled at Jesse and Beca couldn't help but look at him smiling back at her.

"And, stop there," the minister said. "At this point, I will ask who gives this woman and you, Mr. Beale, will say-"

"Her mother and I do," Mr. Beale said with a smile.

"Excellent," the minister said.

The minister continued to tell everyone what was going to happen and what they needed to do. Beca zoned him out and found herself giving side glances to Chloe. She still made Beca's heart skip a beat, but she looked...different. Like the past three years really hadn't been kind to her. Beca wondered if Chloe had been ill. She felt a different kind of pain thinking Chloe had been sick, and she wasn't around for her. She mentally shook her head to get those thoughts out of her mind.

Jesse moving caused Beca to come out of her daze. She waited until the minister gave her the nod before following Jessie and Charlie down the aisle. She glanced over her shoulder to see Chloe behind her, staring at the ground as she walked.

Beca stepped to the side as soon as she made it through the door. "Chloe?" she said as soon as Chloe stepped through the door with Benji.

Chloe stopped causing Benji to stop as well.

"Benji, would you mind?" Beca asked, silently pleading with him to leave them alone.

Benji nodded and patted Chloe's hand before moving away from them. Chloe stepped out of the doorway and a bit closer to Beca.

"Do you mind if we go somewhere and talk?" Beca asked quietly.

"I know we need to," Chloe said softly. "But, if we do that now, we'll be late for the rehearsal dinner, and my mom may kill us both. I have so much to say to you, and I don't want to rush through it. Can we, um, talk after dinner?"

"You're right," Beca said with a small smile. "After dinner it is. Can't have Mama Beale mad at me."

Chloe gave Beca a shy smile and walked over to join her family. Beca watched her go as Stacie and Aubrey came through the church doors and walked over to Beca.

Stacie looked where Beca was staring after Chloe and put two and two together.

"You okay, Beca?" Stacie asked.

"Um, yeah. I'm fine," Beca said. "What are you guys doing here? I thought this was for the wedding party."

"The Beales think of me as family," Aubrey said. "So, we were invited to attend the dinner part of the rehearsal."

"Oh, that makes sense," Beca said.

"Have you talked to Chloe yet?" Stacie asked.

"We're, um, we're going to talk after dinner."

"Good," Aubrey said. "Promise me you'll listen to what Chloe has to say. She really needs her friends now more than ever."

Beca looked at Aubrey with furrowed brows and asked, "What do you mean?"

Before Aubrey could say anything, Mrs. Beale was hurrying everyone out the door to head to the restaurant.

~~2019 BeChloe Valentines - Day 11~~

Beca tried not to stare at Chloe during the dinner, but it was impossible to do. Even when Chloe laughed at something someone said, Beca noticed that her eyes looked sad.

As much as Beca wanted to be angry, she couldn't be. She survived the roller coaster ride that was her relationship with Chloe for so long that anger wasn't a factor anymore.

When she first walked away from Chloe, she felt broken. She had a Chloe sized hole in her heart. It took some time, but that hole was slowly closing up, and she was content. She had her music; her fans; her friends.

"You okay, Beca," Stacie asked quietly.

"Yeah," Beca said. "Just getting lost in some memories."

Beca glanced at Chloe and saw her looking back at her. Chloe gave her a shy smile and turned to speak to someone near her.

"Hey, Beca," Jesse said from behind her. Beca jumped slightly. "You ready?"

"Um, yeah," Beca said as she looked over her shoulder at Jesse. She then turned to Stacie and whispered, "Excuse me, I have to help Jesse with something."

"Okay," Stacie said. "We'll talk later?"

Beca nodded her head as she got up and followed Jesse. Beca sat down at the piano that was in the corner of the private dining room; Jesse put the guitar strap around his neck and stepped to the microphone.

"Hi," Jesse said into the mic. "Thank you all for being part of our wedding party. Charlie and I appreciate you all taking the time to be here for us. I'd like to sing a song for my beautiful fiance. I love you, Charlie!"

Charlie was beaming at her fiance, and the wedding party was all smiles as they started clapping. Beca looked at Jesse, and he nodded. Beca and Jesse started playing; Beca began to sing.

(Beca) When it's love you give

(Jesse) I'll be a man of good faith.

(Beca) Then in love you live.

(Jesse) I'll make a stand. I won't break.

(Beca & Jesse) I'll be the rock you can build on, Be there when you're old, To have and to hold.

(Beca) When there's love inside

(Jesse) I swear I'll always be strong.

(Beca) Then there's a reason why.

(Jesse) I'll prove to you we belong. I'll be the wall that protects you From the wind and the rain, From the hurt and the pain.

(Beca & Jesse) Yeah! Hey!

Let's make it all for one and all for love. Let the one you hold be the one you want, The one you need, 'Cause when it's all for one it's one for all. When there's someone that should know Then just let your feelings show And make it all for one and all for love.

(Beca) When it's love you make

(Jesse) I'll be the fire in your night.

(Beca) Then it's love you take.

(Jesse) I will defend, I will fight. I'll be there when you need me. When honor's at stake, This vow I will make:

(Beca & Jesse) Yeah!

That is all for one and all for love. It's all for love. Let the one you hold be the one you want, The one you need, 'Cause when it's all for one it's one for all. When there's someone that should know Then just let your feelings show And make it all for one and all for love.

(Beca) Don't lay our love to rest 'cause we could stand up to the test.

(Jesse) We got everything and more than we had planned, More than the rivers that run the land. We've got it all in our hands.

(Beca & Jesse) Now it's all for one and all for love. It's all for love. Let the one you hold be the one you want, The one you need, 'Cause when it's all for one it's one for all. It's one for all. When there's someone that should know Then just let your feelings show. When there's someone that you want, When there's someone that you need

(Jesse) Let's make it all, all for one and all for love.

Charlie was up and out her seat as soon as the last note was played. She ran to Jesse and jumped into his arms kissing him. Everyone laughed and clapped.

Beca sat at the piano watching her best friend with a small smile. She felt someone staring and looked up straight into the eyes of Chloe. She wanted to look away, but something in Chloe's eyes wouldn't let her.

Beca suddenly found herself being embraced by Jesse and Charlie. She laughed and managed to stand to accept their joint hug.

"Thank you, so much, Beca," Charlie gushed. "That was wonderful."

"Anything for you guys," Beca said sincerely.

"Dinner's over so if you and Chloe need to sneak away," Charlie said looking at Jesse, who nodded. "We don't mind."

"Um, thanks," Beca said. "I, uh, we do need to talk."

"Just promise me you'll listen to what she says," Charlie said.

"Aubrey told me the same thing," Beca said, and a worried look came over her face. "Is she, um, is she sick or something?"

"Not like you think," Charlie said. "But, I can't say anything more. It's for her to tell you."

"So, she's not dying or anything like that?" Beca asked still concerned. "I'm sorry. I don't think I could handle her telling me something like that."

"No," Charlie said and squeezed Beca's hand. "Just listen to her. Ask if she wants a ride home and go somewhere and talk."

"Okay," Beca said feeling slightly relieved. "Thanks, Charlie."

"It's going to be fine, Beca," Jesse said.

Beca nodded as the two went back over to the table. Beca slowly followed, and everyone was congratulating her and Jesse on the song. Beca made her way to Chloe.

"So, um, could I drive you home?" Beca asked. "We can go somewhere and talk."

Chloe smiled and nodded. "I'd like that."

Chloe leaned and whispered something to her mother. Her mother looked toward Beca and smiled as she nodded. Chloe stood, and Beca led her out to her rental car.

Beca opened the car door for Chloe and made sure she was settled before closing it and making her way around to the driver's side. She got in and started the car. She sat for a moment and then drove out of the parking lot.

Chloe sat nervously bouncing her leg up and down as Beca drove. Neither girl was saying anything. Beca pulled into a small park and turned off the ignition. She turned to face Chloe; Chloe turned so she was facing Beca.

Chloe cleared her throat. "Could you, um, let me get everything out before you say anything. Please?"

Beca just nodded and waited for Chloe to start speaking. Chloe started speaking and spent the next twenty minutes telling Beca what she had told Aubrey. She didn't leave anything out and had tears falling down her cheeks as she finished.

"I didn't know what was happening to me," Chloe said quietly. "I'm not sure I'd still be here if my mom hadn't noticed how bad off I was and made me go to the therapist."

"Wait," Beca said startling Chloe. "Yo-you thought about killing yourself?"

"Yeah," Chloe said softly. "But, it was just once. That's when my mom stepped in." Chloe wiped a tear from her eye. "Beca, I know I hurt you, and I can't say I'm sorry enough. I miss having you in my life and, um, I hope that we can start over and maybe be friends again. Is that something you'd be willing to do?"

Beca sat back and was leaning against the car door. She looked down at her hands as she tried to process everything that Chloe had just told her. She licked her lips and looked up at Chloe.

"Why didn't you tell me this was how you were feeling?"

"I couldn't because I didn't know it wasn't normal. I'd felt that way for so long I didn't know there was something wrong; something that made me feel that way."

Beca looked back down at her hands. "I'm sorry. I feel like I should've noticed something was off. I, um, I-."

"It's not something you could have known," Chloe said. "I didn't even know what was happening, so I can't expect you or anyone else to know."

Beca huffed and looked at Chloe; really looked at her. "I still love you."

Chloe's breath hitched, and a tear fell from her eye. "Why do I feel like there's a but in there?"

Beca gave a teary laugh. "No buts. Just I still love you."

"I know it won't mean much now," Chloe said. "But I do love you. And I have for a long time. I didn't think I deserved you or anything else that was good in my life."

"How about now?" Beca asked. "How do you feel about your life now?"

"I'm better at handling stress situations," Chloe said. "I'm better at recognizing and controlling my compulsiveness; at not feeling worthless. I take medication to help with my depression. I'm getting back to the Chloe I was before I started feeling all these things."

"I'm glad you decided to do something about it," Beca said.

Beca ran a hand through her hair and looked out the front window. They sat quietly for a few minutes. The silence was broken by Beca's phone buzzing. She picked it up and looked at it.

"It's from Jesse," Beca told Chloe. "Charlie's worried about you and wanted to make sure everything's okay. I'll text Jesse to tell Charlie you'll be home soon."

Chloe just nodded and sent Jesse the text. She dropped her phone into the cup holder and looked at Chloe.

"I never answered you," Beca said. "About starting over and being friends again. I'd like that. And, I'd also like to know if there is something I can do to help you deal with all this? I know your family has probably been by your side this whole time, but it can't hurt to expand your support system, right?"

Chloe let out a sob, and Beca reached over and pulled her into a hug. "I'm here for you, Chlo."

~~2019 BeChloe Valentines - Day 11~~

One year later, Beca is sitting at a table outside a tiny bistro in Tampa with Stacie discussing her upcoming wedding to Aubrey. Stacie had asked Beca to be her Maid of Honor and since Chloe was Aubrey's they decided to combine a wedding planning session with Jesse and Charlie's first anniversary.

Beca smiled at Stacie. "What?"

"Are you thinking about Chloe?" Stacie asked with a smile.

"I guess I was," Beca said. "Things are progressing since we decided to be more than friends when she came out to L.A. for Thanksgiving."

"We are all so happy for you two," Stacie said. "We knew you two were destined to get together."

Beca just smiled. "It's only been about three months, but all the old feelings never went away. I'm just glad she feels the same way and wants to give us a shot. But, I can honestly say, she's it for me."

"I'm proud of you and Brey," Stacie said. "Stepping up and going to counseling with Chloe. I'm sure that's helped her better deal with her disorder."

"Yeah," Beca said. "But, Aubrey's been her rock. She's closer and can get to the appointments a lot easier than I can. I'm just glad her therapist lets me Skype in on some of the sessions."

Stacie stood when she saw Aubrey coming toward them. Beca looked over her shoulder and smiled when she saw Chloe with her.

"Hey," Chloe said when she got to Beca.

"Hey, yourself," Beca said as Chloe leaned down to give her a quick kiss.

"Good to see you in person, Beca," Aubrey said as she sat next to Stacie.

"Same," Beca said and smiled.

The four friends started talking about wedding plans as they ate their lunch. The next day they were all gathered for Jesse and Charlie's anniversary party in a small ballroom at a local hotel. Dinner was served and then dancing followed.

Beca was sitting and talking with Stacie when the opening notes of Titanium came through the speakers. Beca heard Chloe's squeal as she made her way over to Beca.

"Please dance with me?" Chloe asked as she stood in front of Beca.

Beca smiled and took Chloe's hand and led her to the dance floor. Chloe put her arms around Beca's shoulders and started swaying to the music.

"Um, Chlo," Beca said not moving. "This isn't really a slow song. It builds; remember?"

"I know," Chloe said with a laugh. "I just wanted to talk to you about something."

"Okay," Beca said. "What's up?"

"I've got a new job," Chloe said. "It won't start until September, but I've already accepted the position."

"That's great, Chlo," Beca said with a big smile. "Is it here in Tampa."

"No," Chloe said and bit her lip. "It's, um. How would you feel if I said I was moving to L.A. for my new job?"

Beca and Chloe stopped pretending to dance. Beca looked at Chloe and opened her mouth, but nothing came out. It took her a few seconds before she could speak.

"Seriously?" Beca asked. "You're moving to L.A.?"

"Yeah," Chloe said. "I was hoping you could spare some time over the summer to help me find a decent apartment."

Beca thought for a moment. "No," she said.

"What? Why not?"

"Because you already have a place to stay," Beca said. "I have plenty of room, so there's no reason for you to look for a place."

"Are you sure about this, Beca?" Chloe asked looking uncertain. "I mean, we've just gotten together, and I don't want to screw this up."

"We've been together for almost three months," Beca said. "You won't be moving to L.A. for another five or six months. That's like nine months, and I don't think nine months is too soon. So, what do you say?"

"I say yes," Chloe said with a big smile. "Kiss me, roomie."

"Not roomie," Beca said. "I rather like the sound of girlfriend."

"Yeah?" Chloe said. "Okay, then. Kiss me, girlfriend."

"You're a dork," Beca said as she leaned in and kissed Chloe.

Chloe pulled back from the kiss and said, "Oh, before I forget, Happy Valentine's Day, Becs."

"Happy Valentine's Day, Chlo."

"I love you," they both whispered as their lips came together in another kiss.

Song Used:  All For Love by Bryan Adams (with Rod Stewart, Sting)

[facethroughthemirror]

No Ready Cure

Chapter One

Characters: General Doyle, Locus,  Dr. Grey Relationships: One-Sided Doyle/Locus

Lovesickness in two drastically different senses of the word. One of them is hopelessly in love, and that love is slowly killing them. The other, unfortunately, can only stand by and watch the object of their own affections choke to death on flower petals not meant for them. Or can they?

Please read tags for warnings!

For day four of @rvbrarepairweek, and crossposted on ao3!

[ I know I missed Day Three I’m working on a bonus that will be up in the next two to three hours ]

"Hey, uh, has your general always had that cough?"

Agent Washington is very perceptive, she’s noticed. And of course he would have noticed the general’s persistent cough. General Doyle tries to cover it, or at least stifle it, but it’s quite obvious that he’s trying not to cough. And he always has an excuse at the ready: a dry mouth or throat, dust, simply running out of air from talking. But some of his excuses make such little sense, it truly baffles her that anyone could possibly believe them.

It occurs to her that Agent Washington is still talking, so she continues to listen. "--nds really bad, there could be mold or something causing it. If it’s mold, we have to find the source--"

"Oh, it’s not mold! Or dust! Or any other outside irritant!" she chirps, pushing some of his hair out of the way to check how the site of his most recent procedure is healing. She nods, noting the progress, and releases his hair to scribble on her note-taking datapad. “And the altitude of the outpost isn’t high enough to cause trouble for someone wearing armor with built-in life support systems -- though even if it was , he’d be acclimated by now!”

"... okay, well, is it like… is he sick?"

"It isn’t allergies, asthma, bronchitis, congestive heart failure, coronary artery disease, drug overdose, emphysema, influenza , kidney disease, pertussis, pneumonia, pneumo thorax , pulmonary edema , neurogenic or otherwise, sepsis, or tuberculosis!" Emily’s grip tightens on her notepad, and she forces the corners of her mouth up into a wider grin behind her helmet. More than a few years ago, her face would have started hurting by now. Not anymore, though, actually, her face hurts more when she’s not smiling anymore. " But ! As his condition is not immediately life-threatening, and will never be contagious, and he is my superior officer, I can’t exactly compel him to allow me to treat it! I think he's a little intimidated by the recovery period, but it’s not like my medical wing is very bus y up here!"

"... oh. Hey uh... do you like... maybe want me to talk to him? Maybe try to convince him to let you help with… whatever it is?"

"You can if you’d like , but there’s simply no convincing him, I’m afraid! I’ve tried." She swears she can feel her notepad about to crack in her hands. "Now, is there anything else, Agent Washington?"

"... uh, no, I guess that’s it."

"Then you’re free to leave now!"

He hops up from the chair and snatches up his helmet from her desk, putting it back onto his head as he rushes out. Once the door closes behind him, she drops her notepad a little too carelessly onto the desktop, and sits down a little too hard in her chair.

It seems like only yesterday that the general had stumbled into her office, finally, to see her about his coughing, though it had been a couple of years now. She’d asked her standard questions, of course, going through her standard mental checklist as she gathered supplies to start taking vitals and doing a thorough check of the symptoms. A cough is the body’s response to an irritant in the throat, airways, or lungs, she’d told him. It’s the body forcing out the irritant by pushing air out of the lungs. It can happen without an actual irritant, it happens with dry throats sometimes too. Her first instinct had been to conclusively rule out pleural effusion first, in order to make sure General Doyle’s lungs weren’t just filling with fluid. However, the cause of his coughing had become apparent as soon as he’d taken off his helmet.

She’d only seen the illness during medical school, when during the time they’d spent on it and several other pulmonary illnesses, but there was no question as to what it was as she watched a collection of spit-shiny flower petals fluttered and tumbled to the ground, shaken out of his helmet.

There’s a number of names for it, but the most accepted name for it is "hanahaki disease," or, medically, "hanahaki-type pneumafytotrophy." As opposed to mycelium-type pneumafytotrophy, which she’s always found to be a misnomer, "pneuma mykitatrophy" would be more correct, considering how words work, the fact that fungi aren’t plants, and the fact that mycelium is a specific part of the fungus rather than a category of fungus. She’s been dying to lobby for a name-change on that front, considering mycelium and fungus proper aren’t the same and technically the name should be accurate. There could be "fungal-type pneuma mykitatrophy" and "mycelium-type pneuma mykitatrophy," but the civil war has sort of prevented her from pursuing anything official in terms of experimentation or publishing.

First referenced on Earth, hanahaki disease is attributed to a region called "Japan," she believes, similar to takotsubo cardiomyopathy, which had been identified in that region over five hundred and sixty years ago, in 1990. It’s been seen in other cultures, though, particularly close to the region of origin. No one is, apparently, entirely sure when the concept originated, and it was, allegedly, thought to be a fictional illness at first, but it had been discovered to be all too real. No one is entirely certain what causes it, but the most commonly-accepted theory is that it's a rare genetic mutation, possibly hereditary, that is usually entirely harmless. However, the going theory is that prolonged exposure to the hormones and other neurotransmitters produced by the anxiety of unexpressed emotion, in this case unrequited love, trigger the mutation to activate, and produce plant-like growths inside of the lungs. Incredibly plant-like, as a matter of fact, as they include functioning roots, and petals! Those roots usually grow into, and eventually, through, the lung tissue, and the growths cause so many complications!

"Well, the good news is that this condition is very treatable!"

"‘Treatable?’ Not curable?"

"Well, the possibility of regrowth exists, of course, but it’s not common! Unfortunately, if the affections aren’t returned, or if the growths aren’t removed, the disease will eventually become fatal!"

"And there’s no adverse side effects to the surgery?"

"Well, unfortunately, there is one noteworthy side effect. Your brain will no longer register that person in the same way: you will lose all ability to feel romantically attracted to them."

She’d explained his condition to him, in no uncertain terms, had even taken a few chest scans in order to verify the diagnosis. The growths can become starved and die if the body stops producing the substances that feed them, usually through the return of the feelings that originally caused them, removing some of the neurotransmitters from the cocktail. But the sadly more common treatment is surgery to remove the growths. It was actually a very easy fix. Honestly, treating fluid in the lungs would be far more difficult. But he had declined the easier of the two fixes.

That was fine, she supposed, he was well within his rights. That wasn’t what bothered her the most about the situation. What hurt, and made her angry all at the same time, that of all people, he was risking his life for…

"Doctor."

She looks up from where she’s been holding her head in her hands, eyes locking on the hulking, black-armored form of the Federal Army’s resident mercenary. She springs her false smile back into place, even though he can’t see it, and straightens up, though she owes him no such courtesy and they both know that.

"What can I do for you , Locus?"

"I’ve received word from the general. He has made it to Armonia safely."

"Oh, excellent! You know, I’m sure he would have called me himself, though! You really didn’t need to come all the way down here!"

"I thought you would like to know.”

“Mm. Well, I appreciate it all the same! Thank you very much.”

“I will be leaving soon to join him."

"Have a safe trip, then, Locus! … you can go now!"

Locus just turns on his heel and stalks out, as silently as ever. Like a particularly irritable housecat, as the general would say… sort of. He’d never call Locus irritable, but they’re all thinking it. She knows they are.

As soon as the door shuts behind the mercenary, Emily’s poor, abused notepad whips across the room, finally cracking and shattering against the door, dropping to the ground in a hopeless pile of pieces. She merely stares in the direction of the door with her hand still partially raised from the throw, some acidic emotion that she can’t immediately identify burning at the back of her throat.

It isn’t fair . General Doyle is the only person in the world who’s ever been so nice to her. He makes her feel warm inside, like glitter is exploding inside of her. No other person has ever made her feel that way before. He’s so nice to her, he cares about her, and she cares about him! He’s so very important to her, and she doesn’t want to see him get hurt, especially not like this.

They’ve been friends for years . She’d met him back when the brigadier had first called her into his office after Doyle had gotten a splinter and fainted upon trying to pull it out. She’d pulled the splinter out for him, gotten him back upright in his chair, and even made him a cup of peppermint tea to get him back to himself and settle his stomach. She’d come back to check on him later in the day, they’d gotten dinner, chatted. He started calling her directly whenever he felt sick from then on, started asking her to get meals whenever he thought she might not have eaten for awhile. They were looking out for each other.

Years . It’s been literal years. Years of kind words and medical priority, even before his promotion to general. Years of late night quarters- and office-calls, of anxiety attacks and stress rashes and stress-induced vomiting. Of insomnia and tea at three o’clock in the morning when he wandered down to her office for anything, anything at all, to help him sleep. Monitoring blood pressure and racing heartbeats and reassuring him that he isn’t dying and he’ll be just fine in just a few moments and would he please try to take some deep breaths before he starves himself of oxygen again and passes out?

Why does it have to be Locus ? Locus has no feelings! He doesn’t talk to anyone! He clearly doesn’t care about General Doyle! He’s not worth choking to death over! She can’t let her friend do that to himself! Her friend is suffering for someone who doesn’t even notice, and that makes her so indescribably furious. The person she cares about more than anyone else is poisoning himself on such toxic emotion and it breaks her heart to see him do so without even understanding that he’s hurting himself so badly. He can’t see it, but she can.

Some days, she just wants to--

Her arm finally drops, wrist smacking against the edge of her desk on the way down with a crack that would be terrifying if it hadn’t just been the sound her armor’s impact against the well-worked surface. No. She’s a doctor. She can’t do that. And if she did, what would General Doyle think of her then? He’d hate her. He would hate her, and she can’t take that chance. And she’s sure that he would know her handiwork, or she’d be so unable to keep a secret from him that she’d blurt out what she’d done. What’s more, he’d be so upset that Locus was gone. Locus, the menace, makes him feel safe and she can’t take that away from him without being immediately able to step in and take his place.

… it’s alright. It’s alright, she’ll… just keep treating him. She’ll just keep doing her best to keep him comfortable. Maybe he’ll come to his senses and see that Locus isn’t right for him, doesn’t love him, and he’ll let her remove those filthy parasites once and for all! Then his feelings for Locus would be gone! The problem would be solved!

[lepetitstylo]

Why Depression is Just Like That (tm)

Words and Their Meanings that Pop Up A Lot in This:

Quick Note: I do use the retardation in the sense of the psychological use of the word. It is not used as a slur in this context. I also mention suicide and self harm. It is all in the name and study of psychology. 

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders Version 5 - DSMV, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders. It is the manual published by the American Psychiatric Association which lists all classifications of mental disorders

Depression - A mental condition characterized by feelings of severe despondency and dejection, typically also with feelings of inadequacy and guilt, often accompanied by lack of energy and disturbance of appetite and sleep.

Insomnia - Habitual sleeplessness; inability to sleep.

Hypersomnia- excessive daytime sleepiness 

Psychomotor Retardation - Relating to the origination of movement in conscious mental activity, involves a slowing-down of thought and a reduction of physical movements in an individual

Living with depression is really hard on a person in general. But to the public, there is only one type of depression, the type that just makes a person sad or the Tumblr Sad Girl (you know the type) or the type that makes you self harm. That is not true. 

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual version 5 (further called the DSMV) mainly focuses on Major Depressive Disorder which is characterized under a mood disorder. A mood disorder is a “psychological disorder characterized by the elevation or lowering of a person’s mood, such as depression or bipolar disorder” (Source One) I was diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder, type one, single session and I almost was diagnosed with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) [which to be fair is probably the best acronym for a depressive disorder out there]. There are multiple types of depression and since they’re all categorized under mood disorders, I found a handy list by Johns Hopkins Medicine (this website will be linked in the sources below, Source Two)

What are the different types of Mood Disorders?

Major Depression: Having less interest in usual activities, feeling sad or hopeless, and other symptoms for at least 2 weeks may indicate depression.

Dysthymia:  This is a chronic, low-grade, depressed, or irritable mood that lasts for at least 2 years.

Bipolar Disorder: This is a condition in which a person has periods of depression alternating with periods of mania or elevated mood.

Mood Disorder Related To Another Health Condition: Many medical illnesses (including cancer, injuries, infections, and chronic illnesses) can trigger symptoms of depression.

Substance Induced Mood Disorder: Symptoms of depression that are due to the effects of medicine, drug abuse, alcoholism, exposure to toxins, or other forms of treatment.

Now those are just the bare bones of what depression and other mood disorders are. Today, I mainly want to focus on Major Depressive Disorder and what the DSMV says about it because it’s a tricky thing to diagnose. The criteria for major depressive disorder is defined by “one or more major depressive episodes (MDE) and the lifetime absence of mania and hypomania” (Source Three) and one also must meet the criteria for an MDE which is to meet five out of the nine symptoms to appear during the same two week period. These symptoms are: depressed mood, loss of interest or pleasure, change in weight or appetite, insomnia or hypersomnia, psychomotor retardation or agitation (observed), loss of energy or fatigue, worthlessness or guilt, impaired concentration or indecisiveness, thoughts of death or suicidal ideation or attempt. (Source Three) These symptoms have to be repeating nearly every day or in the idealation of suicide aspect, often enough that it’s mostly always on the person’s mind. As you can see, psychology takes Major Depressive Disorder very seriously.

You can have a single session which means it’s a long drawn out session of the depression. In my case, mine has been around for nearly five years (since eighth grade to now) and my lows are hell but my highs are like a normal person’s lows. Or at least that is how my psychologist explained it to me. 

Like I explained in my ADHD post, I don’t condone self diagnosing but with depression, it is sometimes obvious to tell if you have it. I knew before my diagnosis but even then, the diagnosis finally gave me an answer to my questions that I had been asking. If you are seriously thinking of suicide, please reach out to someone. Self harm is not normal. Self harm is not a good thing. Please reach out for help. 

Major Depressive Disorder is not curable, but it is manageable. If you reach out and talk to someone, you are more likely to get help and more likely to understand what is going on. There are online resources and there are therapists everywhere in the United States. Find what works with you. 

There will be more on depression later. It’s a tricky subject and I need to become a little bit more educated on the topic before I decide to do another post. So this is my basic rundown of major depressive disorder and mood disorders. 

Good luck, because like seriously you will need it.  

Sources for Today

Source One: lexico.com/en/definition/mood-disorder

Source Two: hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/mood-disorders

Source Three: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi.full/10.1002/da.22217

Things I have to say

LEGALLY I CANNOT DIAGNOSE ANYONE. I AM NOT A GO TO SOURCE FOR MEDICAL DIAGNOSIS, PLEASE GO SEE A PRIMARY CARE PHYSICIAN IF YOU ARE CONCERNED FOR YOUR HEALTH. I CANNOT DIAGNOSE I AM A COLLEGE STUDENT. I CANNOT DIAGNOSE YOU. 

-i am not affiliated with any company or brand. sponsors (if any) will be explicitly stated in the text. i am my own independent person and these are my own independent thoughts formed by hours of research. i am my own brand.- 

AGAIN NOT A MEDICAL DOCTOR DON’T GET ME TO DIAGNOSE YOU. 

[ybarrcs]

           hello  ,  what’s  good    !    my  name’s  lina    &    i’m  super  excited  to  be  here    !    i’m  21  ,  am  currently  chilling  in  the  gmt  timezone    &    my  pronouns  are  she / her    !    i’m  literally  a  trash  bag  in  human  form    &    spend  way  too  much  time  thinking  stefan  salvatore  deserved  better    &    hoping  that  bazzi  will  someday  release  another  album    !    anyway  ,  that’s  all  boring  nonsense  ashfkjk  but  i  can’t  wait  to  get  to  write  with  u  guys    &    introduce  u  to  this  little  messy  b*tch    !    i’m  too  lazy  to  rewrite  for  things  so  below  is  just  a  section    (    with  his  secret  removed  bc  😏    )    of  his  app  bc  i’d  never  put  y’all  through  reading  ALL  of  that  so  i  hope  u  enjoy    !    if  u’d  like  to  plot  then  smash  that  lil  heart    &    i’ll  come  running  to  u    !

           oh my gosh, am i crazy or did i just see XAVIER SERRANO jamming out to CHANGED by BAZZI ? wait nevermind, i think that’s just AVERY YBARRA . pretty sure i heard they’re known around hollywood as THE CONNARD. while that is a broad term, it makes sense because they’re known around hollywood for being HEDONISTIC but can also be CALLOUS.  which makes total sense after seeing everything prominence insider has posted on their site about them. + missed calls at 2am, tangled knots of headphones, burnt matchsticks, well worn leather jackets, there are pasts inside they, do it out of spite.  ◜ lina. 21. gmt. she/her. ◞

𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐒  .

𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥  𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞    :    avery  ybarra  ,  previously  matías  castillo

𝐚𝐠𝐞    :    twenty - four  .

𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫    :    male  .

𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐬    :    he / him  .

𝐛𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐝𝐚𝐲    :    september 2nd  .

𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫  𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧   :    virgo  .

𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭    :    6ft  1in  .

𝐰𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭    :    80kg  .

𝐡𝐚𝐢𝐫    :    light  brown  .

𝐞𝐲𝐞𝐬    :    green  .

𝐨𝐜𝐜𝐮𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧    :    chef / social  media  influencer / youtuber  .

𝐬𝐞𝐱𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲    :    heterosexual  .

𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬    :    victoria  castillo    (    mother  ,  deceased    )    &    alejandro  castillo    (    father  ,  46    )  .

𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬    :    alisa  castillo    (    sister  ,  21    )    &    amalia  castillo    (    sister  ,  18    ) .

𝐛𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐡  𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞    :    barcelona  ,  spain  .

𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭  𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞    :    los  angeles  ,  california  .

𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲    :    spanish  .

𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐲    :    hispanic  .

𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬    :    spanish    (    first   ) ,  english    (   second   )  ,  french  ,  italian  ,  portuguese.

𝐧𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡    :    10  million  .

𝐥𝐚𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐬    :    the  connard  ,  the  hacker  ,  the  runaway  .

+  𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐬    :    analytical  ,  intelligent  ,  meticulous  ,  modest  ,  practical  ,  reliable  .

-  𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐬    :    conservative  ,  fastidious  ,  fussy  ,  harsh  ,  judgemental  ,  overcritical  .

𝐁𝐈𝐎𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐏𝐇𝐘  .

                                                           TRIGGERS    ;    leukemia  ,  death  ,  drugs    &    alcohol  .

        in  a  quaint  yet  suburban  town  located  on  outskirts  of  barcelona  ,  spain  lived  alejandro  castillo  ,  a  recent  high  school  graduate    &    current  owner  of  the  castillo  residence  .  he’d  call  it  a  home  ,  but  he  wouldn’t  label  a  100  square  meter  foundation  a  home  .  the  castillos  never  had  an  easy  life  ,    &    as  the  only  child  of  his  late  parents  he  was  left  with  the  entirety  of  their  his  family’s  fortune  .  or  so  ,  how  little  of  the  fortune  they  had  left  .  alejandro  was  a  level  headed  young  man  who  had  worked  hard  in  school    &    had  a  weekend  job  to  pay  off  the  bills  ,    &    with  little  family  he  was  left  alone  in  the  big  city  to  find  a  stable  future    &    work  through  his  grief  .  he  had  three  ,  very  important  steps  to  follow    :    get  drunk    ;    it  wouldn’t  cost  too  much  for  a  pint  of  flaherty’s  finest  bitter  ,  right    ?    buy  a  car    ;    although  he  had  little  money  to  play  around  with  ,  his  inherited  money  was  enough  for  him  to  buy  an  beaten  down  toyota  4runner  .  then  ,  get  a  girl    ;    it  was  a  common  necessity  back  then  ,  but  who  would  want  a  struggling  mechanic  who  was  left  to  live  his  lonely  life    ?

         in  a  more  upstate  area  in  barcelona  ,  victoria  de  la  rosa  resided  with  her  parents    &    three  siblings  .  now  ,  the  de  la  rosa’s  were  not  by  any  means  considerably  wealthy  ,  but  they  were  comfortable  .  their  children  were  educated  in  some  of  the  best  schools  in  barcelona    &    had  full  scholarships  for  college  .  in  conclusion  ,  victoria  had  a  good  life  ,  but  she  wasn’t  spoiled  about  it  .  a  modest    &    kind  young  lady  ,  she  accepted  everyone  no  matter  their  status    &    lived  somewhat  an  idealistic  life  .  everyone  expected  her  to  do  well  in  life  ,  to  marry  someone  who  could  treat  her  the  way  she  deserved  to  be  treated  .  her  parents  ,  who  had  even  higher  expectations  would  cast  her  off  to  have  meals  with  already  successful  young  men  ,  but  victoria  didn’t  care  about  success  .  success  ,  to  her  ,  was  three  notches  short  of  happiness    &    if  you’re  not  happy  ,  then  what  are  you  doing    ?    her  whole  life  ,  she  told  herself  that  happiness  comes  first    &    success  comes  later  ,  so  she  would  quickly  send  who  her  parents  considered  to  be  eligible  candidates  on  their  way  with  that  delicate  smile  of  hers  .

           the  day  that  victoria  met  alejandro  castillo  ,  her  whole  world  changed  .  he  was  everything  he  parents  didn’t  want  her  to  be  with  .  he  didn’t  have  a  lot  money  ,  a  flashy  car  or  an  expensive  house  .  but  what  he  was  brave    &    determined  ,  thoughtful    &    fair  .  it  was  these  traits  ,  rather  than  the  little  fortune  he  had  behind  him  that  made  victoria  fall  in  love  so  easily    &    undeniably  .  within  a  year  ,  the  pair  were  married  ,  but  the  wedding  wasn’t  exactly  what  would  be  called  ‘ traditional ’  .  in  fact  ,  it  was  just  the  two  of  them    &    two  witnesses  in  barcelona’s  registration  office  .  it  wasn’t  decorated  with  pretty  flowers    &    silk  sheets  draped  over  chairs  ,  with  hundreds  of  guests  holding  back  the  tears  as  vows  were  exchanged  ,  but  it  was  everything  they  could  hope  for  .  on  the  contrary  ,  victoria’s  parents  were  not  happy  at  all  .  not  just  in  her  choice  of  the  wedding  venue  but  the  man  she  chose  to  dedicate  the  rest  of  her  life  to  .  so  ,  as  some  form  of  punishment  ,  they  cut  off  her  funding    &    left  her  to  her  own  devices  .  but  victoria  was  happy  regardless  .

           the  happy  couple  lived  in  the  castillo  home  for  a  couple  of  years  ,    &    after  victoria  had  caught  on  a  stable  job    &    they  had  a  good  influx  of  money  to  keep  them  on  their  feet  ,  they  decided  to  invest  in  a  bigger  home  .  it  wasn’t  much  bigger  ,  but  it  was  a  house  a  lot  more  fitting  for  their  growing  family  .  after  all  ,  victoria  was  pregnant  with  their  first  child  ,    &    with  that  comes  a  responsibility    &    the  need  for  a  lot  more  room  .  the  pregnancy  was  tumultuous    &    complicated  at  times  ,  but  when  it  was  good  ,  it  was  incredible  .  the  problems  became  defeated  by  the  pure  happiness  that  came  with  feeling  their  baby  kick  in  victoria’s  belly  for  the  first  time  ,  or  feeling  it  have  hiccup  after  hiccup  .  it  was  a  long  nine  months  of  waiting  for  the  day  to  finally  come  ,    &    after  they  had  both  agreed  not  to  find  out  the  gender  of  their  first  born  ,  the  day  their  baby  was  born  was  the  happiest  date  of  their  life  .  it  was  at  02:51 AM  on  september  the  2nd  ,  1994  ,  that  matías  castillo  was  born  .

           as  a  child  ,  he  was  vibrant    &    playful  .  always  curious  about  his  next  adventure    &    finding  new  ways  to  entertain  himself  .  he  was  close  to  his  father    ;    attached  to  his  hip    &   striving  to  be  more  like  him  ,  a  man  who  had  recently  succeeded  in  his  mechanic’s  degree  after  years  of  trying    &    only  just  catching  a  stable  job  .  but  no  matter  how  close  he  was  to  his  father  ,  matías  would  forever  be  his  mother’s  son  .  she  was  his  angel  ,  or  so  he  saw  her  .  she  was  kind    &    she  would  teach  him  to  be  so  .  she  would  easily  talk  to  strangers    &    he’d  follow  suit  ,  wanting  people  to  look  at  him  the  same  way  they  looked  at  her  .  even  with  his  sisters  ,  he  was  kind  .  when  they  were  born  ,  he  assumed  the  role  of  the  protective  older  brother  ,    &    despite  the  odd  few  debacles  that  every  single  sibling  has  ,  he  still  adored  them  .  the  family  were  as  what  people  would  say  ,  like  a  pack  of  wolves  .  everything  they  did  ,  they  did  it  together    &    even  though  they  didn’t  have  a  lot  ,  they  had  each  other    &    that  was  all  they  needed  .

           in  school  ,  matías  excelled  in  everything  he  did  .  he  was  one  of  the  top  pupils  in  all  his  classes    &    was  a  good  ,  respectable  student  .  especially  in  food  technology  .  when  he  was  young  ,  he  used  to  stand  at  the  kitchen  counter  ,  peering  over  the  top  to  see  what  his  mother  was  cooking    &    over  time  ,  it  became  his  passion  .  most  boys  his  age  were  into  sports    &    computer  games  ,  but  all  matías  cared  about  was  the  smell  of  bread  baking  in  the  oven  or  the  satisfied  smiles  on  his  family’s  faces  as  he  created  yet  another  delicious  meal  .  he  became  quite  good  at  it  ,    &    despite  how  proud  he  was  of  his  skills  he  felt  alone  in  school  .  nobody  understood  what  it  was  about  cooking  that  made  him  feel  so  fulfilled  ,    &    despite  his  mother’s  constant  reassurance  that  it  didn’t  matter  as  long  as  he  was  happy  ,  he  distanced  himself  from  the  oven    &   focused  on  computer  science  instead  .  it  didn’t  provide  the  same  form  of  contentment  as  cooking  did  ,  but  it  was  enough  to  occupy  his  mind    &    make  him  fit  in  .

           but  it  wasn’t  all  plain  sailing  ,  especially  for  the  castillos  .  not  long  after  matías’s  fourteenth  birthday  ,  victoria  was  rushed  in  to  hospital  due  to  unexplained  nose  bleeds    &    weight  loss  ,  which  both  led  to  an  incredibly  low  blood  pressure    &    a  worrying  amount  of  dizziness  .  after  hours  worth  of  blood  tests    &    different  types  of  medical  examinations  ,  the  family  were  faced  with  the  distressing  news  that  their  beloved  mother    &    wife  was  showing  symptoms  of  acute  leukemia  .  after  more  tests    &    scans  were  ran  ,  the  diagnosis  was  confirmed    &    the  severity  of  the  condition  rattled  the  family  as  a  whole  ,  no  more  than  matías  .  he  spent  hours  locked  away  in  his  room  ,  trying  to  come  to  terms  with  the  the  news  while  his  mother  received  failing  treatment  .  the  leukemia  had  spread  too  far  ,  reaching  to  her  vital  organs    &    they  knew  then  that  it  was  too  late  .  on  august  the  21st  ,  victoria  castillo  passed  away  with  one  final  request  to  her  son    :    take  care  of  the  family  .

           the  castillos  were  overcome  with  grief  ,  which  each  of  them  handled  in  their  own  way  .  the  girls  delved  into  their  school  work  as  a  form  of  distraction  .  matías  kept  his  promise    &    took  care  of  the  family  .  he  cooked  them  meals  ,  made  sure  his  sisters  were  getting  to  school  on  time    &   made  sure  his  father  didn’t  drown  himself  in  the  amount  of  alcohol  he’d  been  consuming  since  the  funeral  .  in  little  to  no  time  at  all  ,  he  became  the  man  of  the  family  despite  only  being  a  young  teen  in  high  school  ,  but  he  tried  his  best  however  hard  it  was  .  their  mother  had  managed  to  save  up  quite  a  collection  of  money  for  them  throughout  the  years  ,  but  it  didn’t  take  long  for  their  father  to  make  that  disappear  on  what  he  would  call  ‘ necessities ’  that  he’d  hide  from  his  children  too  quickly  for  them  to  have  a  good  look  .  as  suspicious  as  he  was  ,  matías  knew  he  couldn’t  spend  too  much  time  pondering  over  it  because  his  father  had  quit  his  job  ,    &    they  had  no  other  form  of  income  to  see  them  through  .

           for  a  little  while  ,  the  family  were  slowly  sinking  towards  the  way  of  poverty  ,    &    matías  was  struggling  to  find  ways  to  provide  for  them  .  he  tried  cleaning  windows  ,  washing  neighbours  cars  ,  but  none  of  the  money  he  earned  could  provide  enough  for  a  house  of  four  .  but  he  was  a  smart    &    determined  kid  ,  with  knowledge  way  beyond  his  years    &    after  trying    &    trying    &   trying  ,  he  found  a  solution  .  or  more  so  ,  the  solution  found  him  .  the  solution  being  one  of  his  classmates  wanting  unwarranted  access  to  a  friend’s  phone  .  matías  wasn’t  a  computer  expert  ,  but  he  knew  his  way  around  programs    &    after  learning  of  his  mother’s  condition  ,  he  lashed  out  a  little  in  school    &    managed  to  unlock  certain  websites  that  were  previously  banned  from  the  school  network  .  although  the  school  board  were  quick  to  notice    &   shut  down  the  sites  again  ,  they  never  found  the  culprit  ,  but  that  didn’t  mean  the  students  had  no  idea  who  did  it  .

           at  first  ,  matías  declined  .  he  had  so  much  to  worry  about  already  that  he  did  not  need  someone  wanting  to  find  out  their  friend’s  personal  information  being  on  his  shoulders  .  but  once  a  good  lump  sum  of  money  was  brought  to  the  table  ,  he  had  no  choice  but  to  agree  .  after  all  ,  it  was  only  one  person  ,  right    ?    if  only  that  were  true  .  after  succeeding  in  gaining  the  information  his  classmate  asked  for  ,  word  got  out    &    suddenly  he  had  a  whole  list  of  people  wanting  him  to  access  someone’s  system  for  one  reason  or  another  .  over  time  ,  he  became  quite  good  at  it    &    earned  a  lot  of  money  .  money  which  his  father  used  to  pay  for  the  debt  his  children  didn’t  know  about  .  no  matter  how  much  he  earned  ,  through  what  he’d  call  his  extra  curricular  activity  ,  it  would  go  in  alejandro’s  back  pocket  until  he  was  waist  height  in  debt  that  he  had  no  choice  but  to  admit  where  the  money  was  really  going  .  after  all  ,  matías  had  already  spotted  the  bags  of  powder    &    pills  his  father  had  attempted  to  stash  away  ,  which  he  had  skilfully  ignored  .

           uncovering  their  father’s  drug  addiction  caused  a  further  rift  between  the  family    &    matías  decided  he  had  had  enough  .  after  graduating  high  school  ,  he  had  good  enough  grades  to  further  his  education    &    achieve  his  bachillerato  certificate  in  food  technology  ,  pursuing  his  dream  career    &    fulfilling  his  mother’s  expectations  of  him  .  he  even  got  a  part  time  job  working  as  waiter  in  the  a  nearby  restaurant ��,  telling  himself  that  if  he  could  keep  this  up  for  another  couple  of  years  ,  he’d  be  able  to  leave  spain    &    his  estranged  family  behind  .  he  didn’t  tell  his  father  about  his  job  ,  however  .  he  used  enough  money  to  provide  for  the  family  but  the  rest  was  stored  away  somewhere  safe  for  later  use  ,    &    after  he  had  earned  his  certificate  ,  matías  booked  a  flight    &    earned  a  place  in  an  american  university  majoring  in  food  tech    &    left  his  old  life  behind  him  without  so  much  as  a  good  bye  .

          for  months  ,  he  had  to  swallow  his  guilt  for  leaving  his  family  .  after  all  ,  he  made  a  promise  to  his  mother    &    broke  it  by  leaving  his  family  in  the  thousands  of  euros  of  debt  his  father  had  landed  them  in  .  but  he  wasn’t  happy    ;    matías  wasn’t  happy  being  branded  as  a  castillo  .  he  didn’t  want  to  have  any  ties  to  his  family  so  after  a  few  months  of  living  in  the  US  ,  he  decided  to  change  his  name  .  it  took  a  lot  of  back    &    forth  throwing  of  different  names  but  after  a  while  of  deciding  ,  he  settled  on  avery  ybarra  .  nobody  would  ever  suspect  he  was  a  castillo  with  that  name  ,  or  so  ,  that’s  what  he  was  hoping  for  .  living  in  a  different  country  was  refreshing    ;    he  was  free  to  do  what  he  wanted  to  do    &   what  he  wanted  to  do  was  cook  .  but  he  needed  to  work  up  to  the  position  he  wanted  .  he  already  had  experience  as  a  waiter  ,  so  getting  a  job  in  that  department  was  easy  ,  but  it  was  soon  noticed  that  he  was  more  than  just  taking  orders    &    bringing  out  dishes  .  he’d  often  critique  the  food  that  was  being  sent  out  ,  which  at  first  his  boss  found  annoying  until  he  realised  that  the  customers  were  complaining  of  the  same  thing  ,    &    promoted  avery  to  chef  de  partie  as  a  roundsman  .

          his  newly  accounted  role  in  the  restaurant  boosted  sales  ,    &    his  talent  was  noticed  by  many  .  so  much  so  that  his  colleagues  ,  well  aware  of  his  passion  for  food  persuaded  him  to  apply  for  hell’s  kitchen’s  14th  season  .  as  reluctant  as  he  was  ,  he  eventually  applied    &   was  accepted  as  one  of  the  contestants  .  the  competition  was  tough  ,  but  he  battled  through  each  challenge  like  a  champion   &    gained  a  mass  following  on  his  instagram  ,  if  not  for  his  youthful  looks  then  it  was  his  attitude  in  the  kitchen  .  but  eventually  ,  on  june  the  9th  2015  ,  he  was  crowned  the  youngest  winner  of  hell’s  kitchen  .  after  that  ,  he  worked  closely  with  joël  robuchon  ,  a  world  renowned  french  chef  who’s  dishes  avery  was  in  awe  of  but  he  was  also  awarded  a  grand  total  of  $250,000  to  do  with  what  he  pleased  .  he  planned  to  buy  a  nice  home  ,  a  decent  car    &    put  some  money  to  one  side  so  he  could  eventually  purchase  his  own  restaurant  .  but  his  father  had  other  words  .

           after  his  victorious  win  ,  avery  ybarra  was  a  name  everyone  knew  .  young  ,  promising  ,    &    strikingly  handsome  ,  he  was  popular  among  many  .  but  back  home  ,  his  family  still  knew  him  as  matías  .  so  ,  in  return  for  his  family  to  not  expose  who  he  actually  was  ,  his  father  proposed  a  deal    :    pay  off  his  debt  ,  give  them  a  comfortable  amount  of  money  to  live  with  ,    &    then  they’d  have  nothing  to  do  with  him  again  .  avery  did  not  think  it  through  too  much  .  after  all  ,  how  much  debt  could  his  father  had  gotten  them  into  within  such  a  short  space  of  time    ?    his  first  mistake  was  underestimating  his  father’s  addiction  ,    &    after  paying  off  the  debt    &    giving  them  a  lump  sum  to  spend  in  their  bank  accounts  ,  he  was  left  with  next  to  nothing  .  avery  felt  sad  ,  manipulated    &    above  all  betrayed  .  he  never  trusted  his  father  to  begin  with  ,    &    there  was  a  good  reason  why  .

            *  here’s  where  his  secret  goes  but  let’s  say  he  got  a  lot  of  money  *

           at  first  ,  avery  didn’t  know  what  to  do  with  the  money  .  he  just  needed  enough  to  get  him  off  his  feet  .  but  after  time  ,  he  did  everything  he  had  planned  before  .  he  had  his  nice  apartment  ,  his  luxurious  car  ,  started constructing  own  restraurant  ,    &    a  pile  of  designer  clothes  that  eventually  were  given  to  him  by  brands  over  time  .  his  following  on  social  media  kept  growing    &    brands  kept  coming  to  him  to  promote  their  products  ,    &    suddenly  avery  didn’t  need  to  do  what  he  used  to  to  gain  money  any  more  .  he  started  a  youtube  channel  where  he  would  teach  people  how  to  cook  ,  a  channel  that  soon  hit  off    &    earned  him  more  money  over  time  .  eventually  ,  he  settled  into  his  new  profit    &   his  new  life  as  avery  ybarra  .  he  wasn’t  matías  castillo  any  more  ,    &   it  about  time  the  world  knew  about  it  .

𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘  .

           due  to  the  course  his  life  took  ,  avery  has  altered  a  lot  through  the  years  .  when  he  was  a  child  ,  he  had  a  simplistic  outlook  on  life    &    didn’t  really  take  notice  of  a  lot  of  things  ,  mostly  because  he  didn’t  need  to  .  now  ,  avery  is  thoughtful  .  every  decision  he  makes  has  to  be  well  thought  out  before  he  can  even  consider  carrying  it  out  ,  mostly  due  to  the  fact  that  he  doesn’t  want  to  embarrass  himself  or  come  across  as  somebody  who’s  relatively  useless  .  avery  is  also  very  critical  of  other  people’s  actions  .  he  has  this  mindset  where  he  believes  he  is  superior  to  other  people  ,    &    that  often  shines  through  in  consistent  eye  rolling    &    only  listening  to  half  of  what  someone  says  before  occupying  his  mind  with  something  else  .  if  he  sees  someone  as  being  dull    &    boring  ,  he’ll  immediately  shut  off    &    act  like  they  don’t  exist  because  to  him  ,  they’re  just  wasting  their  time  talking  to  him  .

           despite  all  this  ,  however  ,  avery  is  very  humble  about  his  career  .  he  knows  he’s  a  good  cook    (    after  all  ,  he  won  hell’s  kitchen    !    )    but  he  doesn’t  let  it  get  to  his  head  .  he  knows  he  can  be  better   &    excel  in  it  ,  so  until  he’s  the  best  of  the  best  ,  he’s  not  satisfied  .  he’s  very  ambitious    &    is  not  afraid  to  speak  his  mind  if  it  means  it’ll  benefit  him  in  some  way  .  a  lot  of  the  time  ,  he  speaks  his  mind  anyway  .  avery  is  a  very  outspoken  individual  ,  not  afraid  to  voice  his  opinion  no  matter  who  agrees  or  disagrees  .  the  fact  of  the  matter  is  ,  he  simply  doesn’t  care  enough  .  people  are  generally  irrelevant  to  him  ,  especially  if  they  serve  no  purpose  in  his  life  so  it’s  not  uncommon  for  him  to  be  rude    &    brash  whenever  he  wants  to  be  ,  even  if  it’s  uncalled  for  .  he  doesn’t  care  about  hurting  other’s  feelings  ,  no  matter  the  cost  of  it  .

           avery  is  also  ,  despite  popular  belief  ,  incredibly  loyal  .  he’s  not  opposed  to  sleeping  with  strangers  ,  but  when  he’s  committed  to  something  ,  he’s  in  it  wholeheartedly  until  he  loses  interest  or  for  whatever  reason  he  can’t  anymore  .  but  ,  getting  close  to  avery  is  very  difficult  .  with  him  being  a  secretive  individual  ,  he  tends  to  hide  his  thoughts    &    feelings  so  as  a  result  ,  can  come  across  as  being  quite  fickle  .  he’s  a  man  who  knows  what  he  wants  in  terms  of  his  career    &    lifestyle  ,  but  in  terms  of  everything  else  ,  he’s  still  not  sure  what  exactly  he’s  searching  for  .  he’s  an  aimless  wanderer  ,  meaning  he  travels  a  lot  in  order  to  gain  more  knowledge  .  be  it  in  food  or  culture  in  general  ,  avery  is  always  keen  to  learn  something  new    &    bring  it  home  to  share  with  everyone  else    (    or  those  who  he  feels  are  deserving  ,  that  is    )    .

𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐃  𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒  .

           𝖎  .  𝐭𝐡𝐞  𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭  𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝  :  avery  isn’t  the  best  at  making  friends  but  this  person  is  the  one  avery  is  closest  to  .  honestly  ,  i  imagine  them  to  have  the  same  dynamic  as  nick    &    schmidt  from  new  girl    ??    this  person  has  probably  seen  a  side  to  avery  that  very  little  people  have  seen  before    &    is  one  of  the  only  people  he  can  relax  around    !

           𝖎𝖎  .  𝐫𝐨𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞  /  𝐧𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐫  :  listen    !    these  are  my  favourite  sort  of  plots  because  i  feel  like  they  can  be  go  in  so  many  different  directions    &    i  just  love  them  so  much    ??    i  feel  like  with  avery  being  such  a  difficult  person  to  get  along  with  ,  it’d  be  interesting  to  see  how  he’d  live  with  /  next  to  someone  else    !    brownie  points  if  they  just  moved  in    &    it’s  all  awks  .

            𝖎𝖎𝖎  .  𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐞𝐬  𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡  𝐛𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐟𝐢𝐭𝐬  :  ok  hear  me  out  ...  avery  can  be  quite  insufferable    &    more  often  than  not  finds  a  way  to  bicker  about  anything    &    everything  .  anyway  ,  these  two  pick  fights  about  almost  everything    &    as  the  tension  builds  up  everything  gets  foggier  the  more  angry  they  get  then  ...  u  Know  how  the  story  ends  .  ‘  this  is  the  last  time  ’  they  say  ten  million  times  .

           𝖎𝖛  .  𝐩𝐫  𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩  :  i  don’t  mean  like  justin    &    hailey  ‘  let’s  pretend  we’re  married  ’  sorta  vibes  .  imagine  them  going  out  on  fake  dates  ,  been  spotted  out  in  public  holding  hands  ,  whoever  set  them  out  to  do  this  thought  it  was  a  brilliant  idea  but  they  might  have  different  thoughts  .  brownie  points  if  they  hate  each  other  .  extra  brownie  points  if  they  can’t  tell  anyone  about  it  .

            𝖛  .  𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠  𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞  𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩  :  god  i  literally  love  this  connection  so  SO  much  .  avery  p  much  lost  his  siblings  so  give  him  SOMEONE  to  be  protective  over    &    care  for  ok  i  would  DIE  my  heart  is  soft  .  let  them  be  confiding  watching  comedy  movies  all  day    &    fighting  over  who  gets  the  remote  .  how  sweet  :’)

           𝖛𝖎  .  𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐞𝐬  :  an  iconic  connection  that  Never  gets  old  .  these  two  do  not  get  on  ,  for  whatever  reason  they  go  together  like  chalk    &    cheese    &    are  always  fighting  about  something  .  their  interactions  consist  of  them  constantly  wanting  to  one - up  each  other    &    it’s  like  a  battle  of  who  can  win  this  time  .

[radiumeater]

Alcoholics Anonymous is famously difficult to study. By necessity, it keeps no records of who attends meetings; members come and go and are, of course, anonymous. No conclusive data exist on how well it works. In 2006, the Cochrane Collaboration, a health-care research group, reviewed studies going back to the 1960s and found that “no experimental studies unequivocally demonstrated the effectiveness of AA or [12-step] approaches for reducing alcohol dependence or problems.”

The Big Book includes an assertion first made in the second edition, which was published in 1955: that AA has worked for 75 percent of people who have gone to meetings and “really tried.” It says that 50 percent got sober right away, and another 25 percent struggled for a while but eventually recovered. According to AA, these figures are based on members’ experiences.

In his recent book, The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry, Lance Dodes, a retired psychiatry professor from Harvard Medical School, looked at Alcoholics Anonymous’s retention rates along with studies on sobriety and rates of active involvement (attending meetings regularly and working the program) among AA members. Based on these data, he put AA’s actual success rate somewhere between 5 and 8 percent. That is just a rough estimate, but it���s the most precise one I’ve been able to find.

I spent three years researching a book about women and alcohol, Her Best-Kept Secret: Why Women Drink—And How They Can Regain Control, which was published in 2013. During that time, I encountered disbelief from doctors and psychiatrists every time I mentioned that the Alcoholics Anonymous success rate appears to hover in the single digits. We’ve grown so accustomed to testimonials from those who say AA saved their life that we take the program’s efficacy as an article of faith. Rarely do we hear from those for whom 12-step treatment doesn’t work. But think about it: How many celebrities can you name who bounced in and out of rehab without ever getting better? Why do we assume they failed the program, rather than that the program failed them?

When my book came out, dozens of Alcoholics Anonymous members said that because I had challenged AA’s claim of a 75 percent success rate, I would hurt or even kill people by discouraging attendance at meetings. A few insisted that I must be an “alcoholic in denial.” But most of the people I heard from were desperate to tell me about their experiences in the American treatment industry. Amy Lee Coy, the author of the memoir From Death Do I Part: How I Freed Myself From Addiction, told me about her eight trips to rehab, starting at age 13. “It’s like getting the same antibiotic for a resistant infection—eight times,” she told me. “Does that make sense?”

She and countless others had put their faith in a system they had been led to believe was effective—even though finding treatment centers’ success rates is next to impossible: facilities rarely publish their data or even track their patients after discharging them. “Many will tell you that those who complete the program have a ‘great success rate,’ meaning that most are abstaining from drugs and alcohol while enrolled there,” says Bankole Johnson, an alcohol researcher and the chair of the psychiatry department at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. “Well, no kidding.”

[...]

AA truisms have so infiltrated our culture that many people believe heavy drinkers cannot recover before they “hit bottom.” Researchers I’ve talked with say that’s akin to offering antidepressants only to those who have attempted suicide, or prescribing insulin only after a patient has lapsed into a diabetic coma. “You might as well tell a guy who weighs 250 pounds and has untreated hypertension and cholesterol of 300, ‘Don’t exercise, keep eating fast food, and we’ll give you a triple bypass when you have a heart attack,’ ” Mark Willenbring, a psychiatrist in St. Paul and a former director of treatment and recovery research at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, told me. He threw up his hands. “Absurd.”

Part of the problem is our one-size-fits-all approach. Alcoholics Anonymous was originally intended for chronic, severe drinkers—those who may, indeed, be powerless over alcohol—but its program has since been applied much more broadly. Today, for instance, judges routinely require people to attend meetings after a DUI arrest; fully 12 percent of AA members are there by court order.

Whereas AA teaches that alcoholism is a progressive disease that follows an inevitable trajectory, data from a federally funded survey called the National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions show that nearly one-fifth of those who have had alcohol dependence go on to drink at low-risk levels with no symptoms of abuse. And a recent survey of nearly 140,000 adults by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that nine out of 10 heavy drinkers are not dependent on alcohol and, with the help of a medical professional’s brief intervention, can change unhealthy habits. We once thought about drinking problems in binary terms—you either had control or you didn’t; you were an alcoholic or you weren’t—but experts now describe a spectrum. An estimated 18 million Americans suffer from alcohol-use disorder, as the DSM-5, the latest edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic manual, calls it. (The new term replaces the older alcohol abuse and the much more dated alcoholism, which has been out of favor with researchers for decades.) Only about 15 percent of those with alcohol-use disorder are at the severe end of the spectrum. The rest fall somewhere in the mild-to-moderate range, but they have been largely ignored by researchers and clinicians. Both groups—the hard-core abusers and the more moderate overdrinkers—need more-individualized treatment options. The United States already spends about $35 billion a year on alcohol- and substance-abuse treatment, yet heavy drinking causes 88,000 deaths a year—including deaths from car accidents and diseases linked to alcohol. It also costs the country hundreds of billions of dollars in expenses related to health care, criminal justice, motor-vehicle crashes, and lost workplace productivity, according to the CDC. With the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of coverage, it’s time to ask some important questions: Which treatments should we be willing to pay for? Have they been proved effective? And for whom—only those at the extreme end of the spectrum? Or also those in the vast, long-overlooked middle? For a glimpse of how treatment works elsewhere, I traveled to Finland, a country that shares with the United States a history of prohibition (inspired by the American temperance movement, the Finns outlawed alcohol from 1919 to 1932) and a culture of heavy drinking. Finland’s treatment model is based in large part on the work of an American neuroscientist named John David Sinclair. I met with Sinclair in Helsinki in early July. He was battling late-stage prostate cancer, and his thick white hair was cropped short in preparation for chemotherapy. Sinclair has researched alcohol’s effects on the brain since his days as an undergraduate at the University of Cincinnati, where he experimented with rats that had been given alcohol for an extended period. Sinclair expected that after several weeks without booze, the rats would lose their desire for it. Instead, when he gave them alcohol again, they went on week-long benders, drinking far more than they ever had before—more, he says, than any rat had ever been shown to drink. Sinclair called this the alcohol-deprivation effect, and his laboratory results, which have since been confirmed by many other studies, suggested a fundamental flaw in abstinence-based treatment: going cold turkey only intensifies cravings. This discovery helped explain why relapses are common. Sinclair published his findings in a handful of journals and in the early 1970s moved to Finland, drawn by the chance to work in what he considered the best alcohol-research lab in the world, complete with special rats that had been bred to prefer alcohol to water. He spent the next decade researching alcohol and the brain.Sinclair came to believe that people develop drinking problems through a chemical process: each time they drink, the endorphins released in the brain strengthen certain synapses. The stronger these synapses grow, the more likely the person is to think about, and eventually crave, alcohol—until almost anything can trigger a thirst for booze, and drinking becomes compulsive. Sinclair theorized that if you could stop the endorphins from reaching their target, the brain’s opiate receptors, you could gradually weaken the synapses, and the cravings would subside. To test this hypothesis, he administered opioid antagonists—drugs that block opiate receptors—to the specially bred alcohol-loving rats. He found that if the rats took the medication each time they were given alcohol, they gradually drank less and less. He published his findings in peer-reviewed journals beginning in the 1980s. Subsequent studies found that an opioid antagonist called naltrexone was safe and effective for humans, and Sinclair began working with clinicians in Finland. He suggested prescribing naltrexone for patients to take an hour before drinking. As their cravings subsided, they could then learn to control their consumption. Numerous clinical trials have confirmed that the method is effective, and in 2001 Sinclair published a paper in the journal Alcohol and Alcoholism reporting a 78 percent success rate in helping patients reduce their drinking to about 10 drinks a week. Some stopped drinking entirely.I visited one of three private treatment centers, called the Contral Clinics, that Sinclair co-founded in Finland. (There’s an additional one in Spain.) In the past 18 years, more than 5,000 Finns have gone to the Contral Clinics for help with a drinking problem. Seventy-five percent of them have had success reducing their consumption to a safe level. [...] In the United States, doctors generally prescribe naltrexone for daily use and tell patients to avoid alcohol, instead of instructing them to take the drug anytime they plan to drink, as Sinclair would advise. There is disagreement among experts about which approach is better—Sinclair is adamant that American doctors are missing the drug’s full potential—but both seem to work: naltrexone has been found to reduce drinking in more than a dozen clinical trials, including a large-scale one funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism that was published in JAMA in 2006. The results have been largely overlooked. Less than 1 percent of people treated for alcohol problems in the United States are prescribed naltrexone or any other drug shown to help control drinking. To understand why, you have to first understand the history. The American approach to treatment for drinking problems has roots in the country’s long-standing love-hate relationship with booze. The first settlers arrived with a great thirst for whiskey and hard cider, and in the early days of the republic, alcohol was one of the few beverages that was reliably safe from contamination. (It was also cheaper than coffee or tea.) The historian W. J. Rorabaugh has estimated that between the 1770s and 1830s, the average American over age 15 consumed at least five gallons of pure alcohol a year—the rough equivalent of three shots of hard liquor a day. Religious fervor, aided by the introduction of public water-filtration systems, helped galvanize the temperance movement, which culminated in 1920 with Prohibition. That experiment ended after 14 years, but the drinking culture it fostered—secrecy and frenzied bingeing—persists.In 1934, just after Prohibition’s repeal, a failed stockbroker named Bill Wilson staggered into a Manhattan hospital. Wilson was known to drink two quarts of whiskey a day, a habit he’d attempted to kick many times. He was given the hallucinogen belladonna, an experimental treatment for addictions, and from his hospital bed he called out to God to loosen alcohol’s grip. He reported seeing a flash of light and feeling a serenity he had never before experienced. He quit booze for good. The next year, he co-founded Alcoholics Anonymous. He based its principles on the beliefs of the evangelical Oxford Group, which taught that people were sinners who, through confession and God’s help, could right their paths. AA filled a vacuum in the medical world, which at the time had few answers for heavy drinkers. In 1956, the American Medical Association named alcoholism a disease, but doctors continued to offer little beyond the standard treatment that had been around for decades: detoxification in state psychiatric wards or private sanatoriums. As Alcoholics Anonymous grew, hospitals began creating “alcoholism wards,” where patients detoxed but were given no other medical treatment. Instead, AA members—who, as part of the 12 steps, pledge to help other alcoholics—appeared at bedsides and invited the newly sober to meetings. A public-relations specialist and early AA member named Marty Mann worked to disseminate the group’s main tenet: that alcoholics had an illness that rendered them powerless over booze. Their drinking was a disease, in other words, not a moral failing. Paradoxically, the prescription for this medical condition was a set of spiritual steps that required accepting a higher power, taking a “fearless moral inventory,” admitting “the exact nature of our wrongs,” and asking God to remove all character defects. Mann helped ensure that these ideas made their way to Hollywood. In 1945’s The Lost Weekend, a struggling novelist tries to loosen his writer’s block with booze, to devastating effect. In Days of Wine and Roses, released in 1962, Jack Lemmon slides into alcoholism along with his wife, played by Lee Remick. He finds help through AA, but she rejects the group and loses her family. Mann also collaborated with a physiologist named E. M. Jellinek. Mann was eager to bolster the scientific claims behind AA, and Jellinek wanted to make a name for himself in the growing field of alcohol research. In 1946, Jellinek published the results of a survey mailed to 1,600 AA members. Only 158 were returned. Jellinek and Mann jettisoned 45 that had been improperly completed and another 15 filled out by women, whose responses were so unlike the men’s that they risked complicating the results. From this small sample—98 men—Jellinek drew sweeping conclusions about the “phases of alcoholism,” which included an unavoidable succession of binges that led to blackouts, “indefinable fears,” and hitting bottom. Though the paper was filled with caveats about its lack of scientific rigor, it became AA gospel. Jellinek, however, later tried to distance himself from this work, and from Alcoholics Anonymous. His ideas came to be illustrated by a chart showing how alcoholics progressed from occasionally drinking for relief, to sneaking drinks, to guilt, and so on until they hit bottom (“complete defeat admitted”) and then recovered. If you could locate yourself even early in the downward trajectory on that curve, you could see where your drinking was headed. In 1952, Jellinek noted that the word alcoholic had been adopted to describe anyone who drank excessively. He warned that overuse of that word would undermine the disease concept. He later beseeched AA to stay out of the way of scientists trying to do objective research. [...] As the rehab industry began expanding in the 1970s, its profit motives dovetailed nicely with AA’s view that counseling could be delivered by people who had themselves struggled with addiction, rather than by highly trained (and highly paid) doctors and mental-health professionals. No other area of medicine or counseling makes such allowances. There is no mandatory national certification exam for addiction counselors. The 2012 Columbia University report on addiction medicine found that only six states required alcohol- and substance-abuse counselors to have at least a bachelor’s degree and that only one state, Vermont, required a master’s degree. Fourteen states had no license requirements whatsoever—not even a GED or an introductory training course was necessary—and yet counselors are often called on by the judicial system and medical boards to give expert opinions on their clients’ prospects for recovery. Mark Willenbring, the St. Paul psychiatrist, winced when I mentioned this. “What’s wrong,” he asked me rhetorically, “with people with no qualifications or talents—other than being recovering alcoholics—being licensed as professionals with decision-making authority over whether you are imprisoned or lose your medical license?

[alreadytherenow]

Bipolar 2 disorder : yeah, I have it

EXTREME TRIGGER WARNING : mentions suicide

"She's so bipolar"

“The weather is so bipolar”

“Sometimes I'm like happy, and then I'm sad”

“He can't seem to stick to one emotion: totally bipolar”

I can't pretend, every single time I see the nonsense posts on facebook I get instantly pissed off. They represent such a gross misunderstanding of the symptoms of mental health disorders, and trivialize the struggles that people actually face.

I have bipolar 2 disorder, so I cannot speak from a position of personal authority on bipolar 1. Bipolar 2 disorder is a revolving door of hypomania and depressive episodes.

Hypomania

I've been up all night, paying and spending money for all sorts of weird things. I decided to write a book. I couldn't even come up with an idea btw, but I was there, prepared to pay for expensive software in order to do it perfectly.

I’ve also decided that I needed to get a part time job. I started googling, which was innocent enough. But I signed up for so many things, I was signing tax forms and scanning my ID card and my passport into random websites. I wanted to teach english to children in China, do amazon murk, surveys, trade bitcoin, trade shares, become a full time blogger, start a youtube channel, do video interviews, participate in a clinical trial, all in the same night.

Someone has probably already stolen my identity, complete with credit card information. (hi Sadie clone!)

I also decided in the middle of university that I had lost my brain. I couldn't feel it in my skull and thus I deduced that it was no longer in there. This first time of psychosis, I was prescribed antipsychotics, to calm me down quickly. The second time I had a psychotic episode, my brain was spinning, and I became convinced that the only way make it stop, was to break my fingers. I dropped the bed frame on my fingers, slammed them in the door, and resorted to going through the kitchen using pans and knives when they wouldn't break, until Saied caught up with me. So they upped the dose.

The people at the university clinic know me by name. I used to call at any hour in the morning, when things went south. Until it become common practice for Saied to say," We need to go to the clinic," whenever a new episode started.

Depression

My depression on the other hand? I don't bathe, I don't change my underwear, my hair becomes matted, I don't brush my teeth, the world is cloudy and dismal. I can't concentrate, and I sleep and eat too much. There are no breaks in my sorrow, it lasts for weeks without respite. And I'm so ready to die. TW: I contemplate suicide, or even attempt suicide. And then the feelings of stupidity and guilt stir up when you can't even kill yourself properly.

The actual symptoms of bipolar disorder are without question, dangerous and frustrating.

This graph summarizes things perfectly :

More info:

Depression, Mania, and Hypomania

Treatments

(Hypomania - the term used when you are high, but the symptoms are not as severe or extreme as in true mania.)

This summary of bipolar 2 disorder, does not completely explain its complexity. However, since my blog is going to feature my own mental health so frequently, it was important to present a framework for reference purposes.

If you feel like some of these things are relatable, please see a psychiatrist. Not a counsellor, not a good friend, not google, not a deep web forum, not tumblr. A medical doctor. This person will be able to genuinely assist you, with the necessary medication and recommend a qualified psychologist so that you can start therapy.

I understand however, that this will not always be financially possible. In this case, I recommend that you try to see the most qualified person that you can afford to see. I've seen a psychiatrist at a health center in Trinidad for free, so that might be a good place to start. I'm also going to try to locate some resources and post them in a later blog post.

Till then, don't bother to "stay strong". Cry as much and as often as you need to. Life is hard sometimes.