#recovery has been really fucking tough mentally

[mxgyver]

starting to feel more and more like myself again 🫶💙

[alchemistc]

i wanna start out by saying ive been patiently waiting for a hockey AU on the bucktommy fandom and your Goon fic is everything i have ever wanted, im honestly obsessed with your characterization of tommy

i have never been that big on rpf in the hockey fandom, but i always love reading people write crosby in their hockey aus, also love how you include Hockey Lore TM in the story

so, i wanted your take on the insane 'tradition' (not really tradition, more of a common occurrence) of players playing through injuries specially in the playoffs (I remember that in the 2016 or 2017 cup run, there was more players currently injured on the penguins than not, pretty sure Letang or Daley had like, broken fingers for most of the last round) and how many times Buck had to run away from Hen so he could play, because if anyone is more likely to play through injuries, i'd say is Evan "i-had-another-surgery-instead-of-waiting-for-my-leg-crush-injury-to-heal-naturally" Buckley, or Evan "I-sued-my-job-because-they-wouldnt-let-me-do-said-job-after-said-leg-crush-injury-and-vomitting-blood" Buckley

Thank you thank you! Goon has been so much fun to craft, and I'm loving seeing the hockey fans and the 'what's a chiclet' 9-1-1 fans alike enjoy it!

Personally? I hate it. I think the whole idea of it is fucking insane and detrimental to not only their physical health but their mental health as well. (From the Avs fan perspective, regardless of what we actually know about the Nichushkin situation, the man broke his foot and played through it, likely got addicted to a painkiller in the recovery process, missed a playoff series because of [redacted], had a career fucking year and then sent himself to the Players Assistance Program, came back, had MORE career highlights, and then...failed a drug test in the run up to the playoffs and got himself suspended.

(Another reason players just play through injury and mental health crisis is the Players Assistance Program, which IS ANOTHER MAJOR FAILING OF HOCKEY CULTURE IN GENERAL)

Hell, Landy played through a not-healed-injury after he took Cale's skate to his knee and now he's had two surgeries and may never make another appearance in a game because of it.

(I can't think of the player at the moment, but I remember a cup run where a player was playing with fractured ribs and it was later revealed that if he'd taken a puck or a nasty hit or gone into the boards wrong there was a chance he'd have had a vital organ punctured and likely wouldn't have known the extent of the damage until he'd collapsed from internal bleeding. It didn't happen, but WHAT THE FUCK)

And fans have a tendency to glorify them as gods for 'fighting through the pain' in their quest for the Cup.

As far as Goon goes:

They're all gonna be playing through injury. SInce this is from Tommy's perspective, he's coming at it from two angles - he's the guy who's played through injury his whole career just to keep a spot in the lineup, he's toughed it out and dealt with the numbing agents and the wraps and the twinge that doesn't go away for weeks at a time (and the aforementioned pain killers that eventually prompted him to go to fucking therapy in the first place). He is also the guy who has spent four years unpacking why exactly he did that - how much of it is the culture, how much of it is his own shit and his dad telling him to rub some dirt in it and stop being a pussy, how much of it has just been to prove himself capable of being one of the guys in the room.

There's also Hen, who pushes harder than the other trainers, and calls out the bullshit when she sees it, so yeah, this team probably has a slightly better track record of keeping the guy out with upper body injury out of the lineup for longer than any other team would, but - Buck's not the only one who's learned how to lie about exactly how much pain he's in and how well his recovery is going. He'll strain shit and refuse to admit it, he'll push through on a 'minor' injury unless he thinks playing on it would threaten his career. (He absolutely has NO real concept of how bad an injury actually is, tbh, because like everyone else he's been lying about it for so long he doesn't have an accurate pain scale.)

The tldr of this is that I don't condone it, but the reality is it's so ingrained in kids coming up that it's a reality of the culture and I'm not necessarily gonna shy away from that. It's not a huge focus of the story, but there will be hints here and there.

[xpy-poems]

I've been feeling really overwhelmed with all the news about luigi mangione lately and especially today and have been struggling to find an outlet/someone to talk about it with... luckily tumblr exists ig. I've been ruminating on the topic all day (and being woefully unproductive) because I'm thinking, like, what would've pushed him that far? So tbth from the content I've seen today, it seems like LM was dealing with some serious back pain/surgery/recovery/lack of improvement, which can have a serious impact on your mental health.

Personally speaking, I have had chronic back pain for the past 7 years. For around 5-6 of those yrs I was having trouble getting diagnosis and treatment with little to no improvement, until I was finally able to get a doctor to essentially prescribe me an MRI, majority of which was thankfully covered by my mom's insurance from her work. I'm young enough that I can still use her insurance, and I can't even begin to imagine the costs without it. I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression ~2yrs ago, which my doctor told me can be seriously impacted by prolonged and/or constant pain without relief (the feelings of hopelessness when youve spent years seeing dr after dr, physical therapists, chiropractors, acupuncturist just to manage the pain, not even relieving it... doing countless excercises and stretches that even hurt to do... it's tough), and my pain isn't even debilitating. I can pretty much function normally (just with constant mid to low level pain) but guys it fucking sucks. Just existing is like 5x harder sometimes-- no one talks about how exhausting it is to be in pain 😭 and I don't even realize it myself sometimes until someone mentions it. (Thankfully, my dr was again able to 'prescribe' therapy for me and get it covered by insurance 🙏.)

From what I've read, LM was dealing with *debilitating* back pain and potentially recovery from a surgery that, by all accounts, would've made no difference and could've made things even worse, and being 26, he would no longer be reliably covered by a (his parent's) health insurance. Whether he had his own, I don't know, and in this economy, there's no guaranteeing it would've helped. Having chronic pain, his premiums would likely be astronomical, if anything he needed would've been covered by a different provider to begin with.

I can't really make any conclusions (not knowing him or his situation on any sort of personal level), but I can't imagine the mental health struggle that comes with all that, especially coming from what looks like a really active, able-bodied life. Not to mention how the state of the world and society impacts the mental health of anyone who thinks too long about it (hello gen z nihilism). Add that to the way our society treats men's mental health, and it looks to me a lot like hopelessness, aggression, and the sense of no other choice plus nothing left to lose.

(I've been thinking and being depressed about this all day, if you couldn't tell)

Edit: I can't tell if everything is still alleged or if anything has been confirmed, but IF (if!!) he had done anything, these would be my thoughts on it, based on what we know about him publicly.

[elegantcherryblossomsheep]

an open letter to anyone early in a restrictive ed

Dear sufferer

Note that I started this letter with sufferer. You are not succeeding. You are suffering. And I know this, because well, of course there are fantastic feelings associated with having anorexia. Theres the excitement of losing weight, of feeling your body shrink, of feeling in control. But I know that really, deep down, what you’ve started isn’t making you happy.

What do I mean by that? Well honestly, the early days of an ED are such a rush. But it doesn’t take long for the bad things to start popping up. You start to feel isolated, and not only do you feel that way, but you want to feel that way. Because if you’re alone no one can stop you. Because you don’t need friends. You have anorexia, and she’s your friend.

And things only get worse. Believe me. You start to feel intense fear. It’s not control. It’s not discipline. It starts that way, sure, but then it morphs into an uncontrollable terror, where the mere sight of food petrifies you and the thought of eating paralyses you, you shake and struggle at every meal. The control you had over food becomes control food has over you. And this suffering is made even more intense by the fact that deep down, you’re hungry. You want food, it tastes delicious, and it brings a level of mental stimulation nothing can compete with. I really do think I became addicted not only to fearing food, but to eating it while afraid.

And this decline may only take 2 weeks, or a month or two. But the process of building yourself back up again can take years. I’ve been levitating between recovery and relapse for the last 2 years, unable to pick a side, grit my teeth and get to it. That’s the other torture of it. The constant uncertainty about what you want. Because on some level you want to recover. You want to eat with freedom, to make peace with your body. But the eating disorder wants to get louder, stronger, it lures you in with promises. You’ll feel amazing.

But do you? You reach a milestone and for a moment, you’re euphoric. You’re getting thinner, you’re losing weight, you’re strong, powerful, special. Remember that special, we’ll come back to it. But think about the moment after the success. The way you’re instantly thinking of the next goal. Nothing is ever enough. I reached out for help at my goal weight, because I knew right then, I wasn’t satisfied. I could see the slippery slope. Maybe you have a plan: ‘ill eat to maintenance at my goal weight. I’ll have my dream body; I’ll want to show it off!’

Spoiler alert: you won’t. You’ll hide it even more because you’re still not fucking happy with it. And you’ll be afraid that if anyone sees how unwell you look, they’ll force you to eat more. Not only that, you’ll be too cold to wear shorts or crop tops, you’ll be cold all the time. You won’t have the energy to go out in the first place, all you’ll want to do is sleep and scroll and go for inordinately long walks. It’s not a life, the life of an active ED. It’s the most depressing, isolating thing I have ever experienced.

And you tell yourself, that’s ok. When I reach my goal weight if im not happy I’ll  just gain it back.

Like hell you won’t. Either you’ll think ‘Ok, I just have to lose a little more, and then I will be happy’. But you won’t. And eventually if you’re lucky, you’ll turn to recovery at some point. You’ll try to eat more, but you’ll panic. You’ll have nightmares of full plates of food, sitting in front of you, knowing you’ll eat them. The process of eating more, gaining weight… It’s tough. Almost impossible to do alone. So maybe you’ll find yourself in hospital. You’ll be forced to eat 6 meals a day, to face that fear. You want be allowed to exercise, you’ll be even more isolated from your friends and family. You’ll wonder why you ever fell down the slippery slope into a pit of despair that’s so hard to get out of.

Or maybe you won’t… and that’s ok, it makes you strong, you’re still sick. I remember spending the first 6 months of my anorexia feeling like I wasn’t sick enough to recover because I’d never had an admission. To be fair, after my first admission I did commit to recovery for a while, but it didn’t last. My admission didn’t make me sick enough. It didn’t  give me permission to eat. Sure, it made me less sick, but it wasn’t a badge of honour.

And still I didn’t feel sick enough. I started thinking – ‘ok. I need a medical admission and a nasogastric tube’. Here I am, in that very position. I don’t feel sick enough. The tube hurts all the time. I just want to go home

I think an element of it is that my ED, being sick, being in hospital and needing countless admissions… it all made me feel special. I felt noticed, loved and cared for. Maybe I didn’t feel that way enough growing up, so I snatched up the one way I could think of to get attention – making myself sick. However, this isn’t the way I wanted to be seen. To watch my family as they watched me get sick, to see their pain and anxiety and worry, was torture. I feel immense guilt every day for the distress I have put them through over the last 2 years, and to know I make the choice to keep putting them through that.

It's not just family and friendship that it hurts, either. I was in a relationship for 2 years. I lost her, because she couldn’t bear to deal with my ED any more. My antidepressants (for depression sparked by my restriction) killed our sex life and my anorexia made her, with her own ED, more worried and more unwell. I had to let go of someone who made me so happy because I made her so sad.

But there’s an elephant in the room I haven’t mentioned, mainly because I don’t think I’ve internalised it, don’t think I believe it. And that is that at the end of the day, you might die. When I was diagnosed, my heart was struggling. When I was purging, I was disturbing my electrolyte levels. It may all seem like a bit of fun, but at the end of the day, 15% of people with our condition will die at it’s hand. And I don’t want to be one of them. Nor do I want you to be.

I know that recovery helps. I’ve been there. With the nutrition, your brain function comes back. Your relationships get better. Your family calm down and start to trust you again. It’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do, but it’s a small price to pay to not only stay alive, but to actually live.

So, I implore you, just think about it. Make a list of everything you value in your life and realise that if you let your ed get worse, you will lose it all.

Good luck.

[little-red-fool]

Another question for you hehehe How does Jackal feel about his body? Does he care about the scars? And how was his recovery after the explosion going? (Btw, did he meet Ocelot befor or after it?)

Ehe thank you :3c

Jackal met Ocelot 10 years after the explosion, which happened during his first mission as a merc. He was far enough from the explosion to not be dealt any fatal or serious injuries, however he was still close enough to get hit by a shit ton of flying glass which caused a lot of lacerations and punctures over his body (most of these were on his front and left side of his body, as well as his right forearm, due to how he tried to turn away and shield his face from the explosion—my drawings are slightly inaccurate though because I just tend to put the scars wherever lmao)(the slice in his left ear and cheek is also from the explosion). A lot of the wounds were quite shallow so none of his vital organs were hit but there were some deeper ones especially around his upper arm, side, and thigh that required a lot of stitches so his physical recovery time was probably around a month since some of the larger and deeper wounds took longer to heal.

The mental aspect of his recovery took a bit longer—he’d served in the military for 10 years prior to becoming a merc but even then he’d gotten through it with barely a scratch, maybe a couple scars here and there but they were usually small and easy to cover. Which is quite a big difference to having your body become a mosaic of scars that are difficult to hide, and the pain was probably the worst thing he’d ever felt as well. Even after being physically recovered for some time he didn’t go on any missions for a while due to the fear of something like that happening to him again. He still has nightmares about it but it doesn’t bother him as much and he’ll talk about it a bit if asked but he doesn’t like to go into detail.

As for how he feels about his scars, when they were newer he was very insecure about them—Jackal’s always been a little vain (so as to how he feels about his body in general—👍) and gaining that many scars all over his body pretty much overnight was quite upsetting for him, so he’d try to cover them up the best he could, like always wearing long sleeves and trousers, and it’s also the reason he grew out his hair, so he could hide his ear and cheek better. But yeah the explosion damaged his self-esteem quite a bit. I think him getting shot in the mouth later on actually helped him feel differently about his scars, because that could have killed him, it shattered part of his skull and ripped out one of his teeth, but he still survived with scaring and got a metal plate in his skull with a replacement tooth that could be used as a weapon. After that he started viewing his scars more as ‘well I’m a really tough guy to fucking kill, if I can survive that I can survive anything’. It also got him to feel better about his previously derogatory nickname “jackal” which he got in the army for his cowardice and untrustworthiness, but turns out jackals are notoriously tricky and apparently known to “cheat death” so it’s something else he started to wear with pride too. I’ve mentioned previously in another post but the explosion was how he got the “Glass” part of his nickname “Glass Jackal”. Now he actually quite likes his scars as again they’re proof of how difficult he is to kill, and he’s comfortable with showing them now which is why he can wear tank tops without feeling insecure. He does get a few stares and questions because even for a soldier he’s got quite a lot of scars, and it does annoy him a little but he also thinks it adds some mystery and an intimidation factor which he’s alright with.

[multiplicity-positivity]

advice-ask/vent. I genuinely just want to know what to do from here on out, because I'm honestly lost and a little scared.

There are a few alters in the system that our gatekeeper alter keeps hidden from me. As far as I know, I'm the only alter that gets this treatment. So I tried talking to the alters by myself. I wrote notes on the fridge, created secret Discord servers, etc. I just wanted to talk to them. Almost nobody in the system ever talks to me.

It's foggy for me, but apparently it worked and I did end up communicating with one of our alters. Somehow I scared him? So much so that our protector alter came out of dormancy to help calm the system. I don't really remember any of this (I think I remember being happy to finally have someone to talk to), I just know our gatekeeper alter fucking hates me, and I messed everything up. Our little alter told me she thinks I'm our persecutor alter.

I didn't mean to do anything bad. If she had told me that talking to alters before they're ready to communicate would mess up the system, I never would have. I just wanted someone to talk to.

yipes, our response got long! so it’s under a cut :)

hey, we’re sorry to hear that you’re struggling with this tough situation. due to your use of the term “alter,” we’re assuming you are part of a system with a complex dissociative disorder. we also have a cdd, so we’ll use our knowledge of these disorders and our own system to hopefully provide some useful insight for you.

our system gatekeeper also works hard to keep certain alters and parts separate from each other. when our host was first learning about the system, he pretty much could only get in touch with me and a couple other parts, and even then our communication was sparse and easily forgotten. in our system, this was done in order to keep our host from learning too much too fast as a means of protection. even now, after 3 years of working together building connections, there are certain parts who aren’t able to access each other. without more treatment and healing progress, this is how our system functions.

our host was the only part initially who was kept isolated from the rest of the system. this is because he fronts the most, and handles most of our day-to-day life. him learning too much about how our system functions before he was ready could have caused some serious repercussions. our mental health has never been great, and our gatekeeper keeping him separated from the rest of the system initially honestly kept him from having a breakdown or spiraling out of control.

it’s to our understanding that lots of cdd systems function this way. healing, recovery, and getting to know alters and parts… these are difficult, lengthy, and often overwhelming processes. it’s quite common for one alter to keep other alters separate or isolated as a means of protection and system-preservation. dissociative barriers can also exacerbate this, or make it even more difficult for alters to be in touch.

for gatekeepers, it can probably be extremely difficult making decisions regarding which alters should interact, what information should be kept hidden, and how quickly to divulge inside information to front-facing alters. your gatekeeper might also be struggling with this, and might prefer to keep you isolated from other alters as a way to play things safe. maybe having some sincere, open conversations with your gatekeeper could help you gain some insight as to how and why they (or she? not sure if that pronoun refers to your gatekeeper or your little) manage your system in the way that they do.

honestly, more than anything, therapy could probably help you and your whole system here. a therapist can help mediate between alters and help you all come to a better understanding about each other and your history. we know that not everyone is able to access therapy, but we truly couldn’t recommend it enough. having an outside perspective and someone outside your system who you can talk freely to really could make a positive difference.

we’re sorry this got so long… and please don’t think that we’re attempting to make excuses for your alters. rather, we are trying to explain what we feel might be going on. trust, communication, and positive bonds/connections do take time, patience, and effort to obtain. and we sincerely hope that you and your alters will be able to achieve this in the future.

good luck to you and your whole system with making progress and reaching mutual understandings in the future!

[vizthedatum]

Moments as moments

My friend (Slow Down) publicly posted

"Part of being human is that there are going to be times when we feel weaker - mentally, emotionally, etc. What we DO in these moments is key.  My therapist encourages me to recognize such moments as MOMENTS.  Our system likes to generalize - that this moment will last forever - and it’s good to say, “This is true right NOW, but this isn’t the totality.” The practice is coming to say to myself in those times of darkness and hardship, “This is gonna pass.”

What has helped you get through a difficult period before?"

And this was my response:

Understanding that a moment will pass is extremely difficult for me, even if the moment is one of joy.

I think it helps to think of it as an attachment, and for most of my life, I have felt pretty traumatized to be stuck in moments or "rudely" ripped from them.

Knowing that moments are indeed moments... is not something I was explicitly told or even learned to operate under when I was younger. I just felt like I was in a state of panic, shifting constantly and feeling entirely out of place.

--

It is getting better, though: to feel moments as just moments, knowing they will pass. I can enjoy a moment and be present AS MUCH AS I can. And that I can experience a really tough moment, be present, maybe dissociate (because I have that skill now due to PTSD, but I have more control over it than ever before), and *know* that it will pass.

One such challenging moment was when I woke up for surgery this year. This was my second surgery of this specific type. I have had different surgeries in my life that were FAR more invasive, intense, and painful.

I was in so much pain when I woke up, and *past me* would have tried to minimize it because past me didn't know that I deserved to take up space.

Besides, I have changed so much... the more I unmask, the harder it is for me to return to how bad it all felt.

I bawled and screamed so hard. Logic went out the window. It was just pain, frustration, anger, and grief - I have had such a trying history with that hospital and my chronic bladder condition. The nurses (who were really nice and trying their best) told me it would pass, and I screamed, I KNOW IT WILL, BUT IT HURTS NOW.

I demanded to see the doctor (THE DOCTOR WHO IS MY FUCKING BOSS - long story); a different doctor came and held my hand while reassuring me of what happened in the procedure. I demanded specific pain meds (but I was given narcotics, which I DIDN'T WANT). By the time I was able to speak coherently that I needed my specific urinary pain meds, I was throwing up from the narcotics and couldn't even keep water down, so I threw up the pain meds I actually needed.

It was so awful, but I'm happy I actually let myself feel horrible when I was feeling horrible. Even if it made me look unhinged.

I'm so positive that many people thought I've been unhinged the past couple of years (maybe longer). I don't care.

--

Having had chronic pain for so long, I have sometimes elongated my suffering, not because I wanted to but because I wasn't letting myself actually feel what I needed to feel. Even if I dissociate away from the pain, the emotional recovery is so hard - and then before the recovery is over, I'm in another pain flare.

--

I have been sick a lot this year, but it has felt different than in previous years. I'm still getting used to feeling things in the present. I'm making more and more discoveries about how I can be in the present. It is a worthwhile effort.

[marengogo]

Rambling in INFJese - Part 8: Me, Myself & Jikook

Soweto - by Victony, Tempoe  [Outlaw]

[Music is a very big part of my life and I’m MOSTLY INCAPABLE of writing without music, so I just thought I'd share what I am listening to while writing this]

🐺 — 🐺 — 🐺—

Ladies, Gentlemen and Distinguished Enbies; I’m finally back well sort of, as I’m writing to you on my train back home.

Although I’m indeed back physically from all the little trips I took during the festive period, between Europe and Africa, I am very thrilled to say that I am also ready to begin a healthy coming back mentally and emotionally, and now those have been pretty absent since November 2019.

Needless to say, the journey toward me being ready to regain my Mind & Emotions has been a fucking struggle. I had to start with admitting that I was not okay first and foremost, which finally happened towards the end of 2020, I must specify that non of my mental or emotional woes had anything to do with COVID the virus only heavily affected my business, which in turn affected my finance etc etc, but we made a miracle recovery in 2022, so thank the spirits for that!. 

In addition, I also had to realise that I was burnt-out through and through, hence, I didn’t have the energy to actually do anything, be it physical or not, and that that was okay. Basically I needed a way to begin my physical, mental and emotional rebirth so the festive trips were mostly planned with that mind state, because even though most of the trips turned out to be incredibly relaxing, mindless and super fun fun; one, the last and main one, wasn’t. 

The last trip I took the one where some of my friends had problems at the airport, that one was specifically related to my family and it was the one I dreaded the most, because it meant I had to face “music” I wasn’t ready to dance to, let alone listen to. This particular trip was meant to happen in 2020, but COVID etc-etc. Then, something happened in 2022 that made it impossible for me to postpone it any further and by November 2022, even though I was still scared shitless, I got to a point in which I wanted and I was ready to finally do this. 

Luckily for me other family members and friends decided to join me on this trip; we love travelling people in my circle, so ANY excuse really! We started with fun stuff first, and travelled like there was no tomorrow and then left the serious part for last (could have, I would have preferred to do the tough part first and the fun last, but that part was during a family gathering and its date was fixed).

So, attend the gathering I did, and low-and-behold, it turned out to be not as bad as I had envisioned it to be. Needless to say, all my fears and insecurities lied within me and were all also amplified by me. Mind you, they were not baseless, because there are some major issues within my family, but what I realised this time around is that for some things there is really nothing I can do about it and that at times, understanding and admitting this is a start. Furthermore, finding a way that would allow me to coexist without compromising myself in an unhealthy way, is the only/best thing I can do. 

Facing things head-on is the best way I know how to do things and for the past 2 years and some I had been scared shitless to do so. The last time I did, November 2019, left me traumatised and the chain reaction of tragic and unfortunate event that followed that didn’t help either.  But 2021 rolled around and though I was still burnt-out and not okay at least a part of me knew I wanted to be okay. Thus, I began with therapy; the best decision I made in my situation, which btw, I had been advised to go to since that fateful November 2019, but I wasn’t ready. Another thing that was important for me to own up to was that; You know yourself best, and if you are not ready, you are not ready. 

People around you that care for you will keep trying to push/guide you into getting to a better place, because in their eyes they see you suffering and are trying to help. If you do have said people in your life, make sure to listen to them, just listening won’t hurt, it is already a blessing in itself to actually have people who care about you. HOWEVER, don’t force yourself to do anything you are not ready for. Always do things on your own time and at your own pace. For example, there is another situation I wanted to resolve in 2022 and ended up not really would have been too much on my plate in addition with my family gathering thingy, but I am now ready so I’ll do it now in 2023. My Own Time, My Own Pace.

And there it is! 2023 is going to be me beginning my journey of proper self-healing 🧡💙. I can feel it in my bones that I’m ready to face all that comes at me and take charge of my life again. Oh and I know you all know I am big on Mythology, but Astrology is also another of my passions, so just in case you were curious about the colour palette and keywords for your sign this year, please find them following I’m Gemini BTW:

Now, Let’s talk Jikook shall we? 

In reality I’d like to talk BTS, but then again, I mean, when don't I want to talk BTS 😜. For example, I’d like to point out that Jin’s first month away is officially today and now there are 17 more months to go. I know it sounds like no time has passed, but if you think about it, 30/31 days have come and gone and even though I miss him like hell I check that bloody count-down everyday, I am so freaking happy just being able to say; 1 month down, 17 to go (We started at 548 days y’all!).

The passing of time is indeed made less noticeable when other things are happening doesn’t it? The rest of the members are still very active J-Hope has sort of become the BTS Awards Spokesperson as well as going around the world to perform. Joon is still working on music, Taekook are being Taekook and should be allowed to (in the sense that Tae as always keeps in contact with ARMY as often as he does and on the other hand JK doesn’t 😎; all very regular), Yoongi is Yoonging to the highest degree possible (I have a separate post planned for Min-Fabulous-Gi) and Park Jimin, well Park Jimin; TOMORROW CAN’T COME ANY SOONER:

Time is passing, Time is constant and Time is something that some Jikookers are not understanding, or taking properly into consideration. Time will bring about an unprecedented number of Montagues and will decimate a substantial number of Jikookers. Sure, we are going to get content that was filmed in 2022, documentaries, RUN episodes, we might also see them when all the other members leave for the military but supposing that BTS gets back together December 2025, let’s say 13 December 2025 for counting-sake, which would mean that if we start counting from today, Jikookers are looking at not having any Jikook interaction, possibly, for the next 1067days.

1067 DAYS.

We will all be 2 years older by then, we could have 1 year old children by then, we could be owners of great business by then, life could have changed drastically by then. A lot WILL HAVE happened by then so ...

Please let that sink in and understand what this means.

So what could/does this mean exactly? Publicly, nothing much really, because everything has been the same since July 2019. I’ve already tip-toed on the subject a couple of times but, to be more precise, everything had been the same, publicly, for Jikook, since July 14, 2019, when this selca was published. 

This last non-work related Jikook selca was posted a couple of months after Rose Bowl and way before HickeyGate, one being an out of the blue, hella spontaneous moment, the other being a moment we didn’t witness, but was “explained/reported” to us by Yours-Truly-Jikook. 

After July 14, 2019, any SM/public interaction from Jikook has either come under the form of HBD wishes, brand sponsorship, paid content, RUN BTS or during concert. Thanks so some of which we know that, for example, Jikook still actually do take selcas and JK still does takes videos of JM; we just are most likely never gonna get to see them as of present.

Furthermore, after July 14, 2019, when/if they do hangout together privately, it is either relayed to use through other members or through people who breach privacy for a living, which fuck them indeed. All this just to say that if we properly stopped and think we REALLY HAVEN’T BEEN GIVEN ANYTHING FROM JIKOOK THEMSELVES, ABOUT SOMETHING PRIVATE RELATING TO THEM, FOR AT LEAST 3 YEARS NOW. 

Wanna think even further? After July 2019, Jikook are the only two members who seem to always gravitate towards each other whenever we’ve seen them at Awards shows, they are always in perfect harmony on RUN BTS, they are always happy with each other on Banftan Bombs, and still do shenanigans during their yearly Memories. 

JM, alongside Hobi, brought his pretty self to visit JK on his birthday and on the other hand JK’s mother decided that you know what “we will have a seaweed soup today because it is JM’s birthday, even though he is not my son”. Jikook are seemingly very close and comfortable with each other, like they’ve always been, if not even more than before. Yet they are the only ones who have never commented/liked each other’s posts or INTERACTED on IG. Capulets and Montagues will tell you that because of this lack of interaction, all the aforementioned is clearly fanservice, but you and I, let’s be for real for a second.

We all know the great non-importance of the members interaction with each other on SM, which Yours-Truly-Jin has reminded us of before leaving to serve his country, but also we know very well that, although each couple in the world is different, many famous ones, do stay clear from interacting on SM, particularly if they are not official yet. Take my dearest Zendaya and Tom for example, before they announced their relationship, Zendaya only liked Tom’s IG if it was something directly related to spiderman or if she was directly tagged, which Tom aside for spiderman promotion, Tom has ever only did for her birthday. 

Zendaya had explained that she had always been paranoid for media to find out and she wanted this part of her life to be private, so she was VERY CAREFUL and weary of public interactions as much as she could, but they are both young, human and famous, so people who breach privacy for a job, caught them in a very private moment, which they impulsively had public …

Now that they are out and about together, Zenday is virtually liking all of Tom’s pics, same for Tom with Zendaya’s. Since being official, they’ve posted incredibly sweet birthday posts for each other and Tom is doing the most to promote her projects LOL; but this has been after they became official. 

Now, not only JK and JM live in a rather complicatedly-homophobic country, but they are about to enlist, which ones again, let’s be real, does this seem like the right time to be “parading gay pride and flags”? If I were you, I’d take time to concentrate on members' projects, rewatch all BTS shows from the beginning, take up a hobby if you don’t have one, save money for the biggest concert that will have ever taken place on planet Earth for when they get back in 2025/2026. 1067 days are 1067.

I’m personally rather booked for this year and coming, it seems, mostly private life, but don’t worry, I intend to still write quite a lot, about all members, and things regarding Jikook of course, there is so much that has happened and that is worth discussing, at least it is of interest to me. And if within this 1067 days, Jikook do something, which they intentionally wanted for us to partake in something current and private related to their life, something not pre-recorded, branded etc etc, then please don’t forget that because they DO NOT OWE us any private interactions, THAT would be considered one of the HIGHEST privileges bestowed upon us, by Yours-Kindly-And-Truly-Jikook.  

Very happy to be back and, as always, very respectfully yours,

Happy New Year 2023 🫰🏾💜,

Marengo.

[rianafying]

i’m starving and i’m hungover and i’m in trouble. my sd card got corrupted and i might lose all the work i’ve done in january, which is a LOT of work. i just need to talk to my friends. the timing is bad because they’re either at work or asleep rn. i’m about to throw up.

it’s fine i reached them, after they woke up. spoke to friends, i feel better emotionally. but worse physically because it’s been so long since i’ve had some food. any food. there’s so much shit i need to buy but no money to buy them. i’m scared that one of these days i’ll have to resort to ebegging. i don’t want to do that. because im not even doing that bad but i feel terrible. and im prone to heavily catastrophizing every situation im faced with. somehow i have linked this sd card failure to the downfall of my career that i have worked so hard to build. if you dont have catastrophizing anxiety, you dont know what it feels like to imagine every single worst possible outcome and believe it to be true. but somehow throughout my life, it has been. what i feared kept coming true. but fearing it and being paralysed by it, didn’t help my case. apparently it’s in my brain chemistry to do this and also to have chronic pain. apparently there’s something wrong in my hypothalamus, pituitary gland, amygdala, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex. they’re are all fucked up and feel wayyy more pain than is ever necessitated. i feel like im spiralling out of control at a faster rate than i can reel it back in. for most of my life ive been getting wounded more than i could heal. and now im limping my way through life, and hating almost every second of it despite trying so hard not to.

i had a full breakdown today, worse than other breakdowns. i feel super defeated. people are being nice to me. somehow that is making me feel even worse. things keep going wrong. there is no escaping tragedy.

day 3 of this same journal entry. i’m officially out of money. even my coins. i have a little bit of usd in my absolute emergency fund, but i really don’t want to have to touch that. i have a week to go before i get paid a bit of money. which will still not be enough because i had to use afterpay to buy some necessary stuff at kmart, and now i have to pay it back. things rlly are tough out here. thinking i should not fix my laptop and instead spend that money like normal. like use it to get by nicely for a while. then what? at what point will i be able to get a real regular job? i found out for sure this month that i can’t make it to work on 25% of days due to my illness. so what work could i do. rlly upset about losing the images on my sd card. i haven’t permanently lost them yet, but, it’s far too expensive to recover. i was considering recovering the data when im in bangladesh but i dont think id trust the data recovery service in dhaka anyway. they’ll probably fail at the task and also ruin my card. things are so wrong rn. my microwave, my pan, my passport, my myki, my financial situation, the burnt skin on my face, my psoriasis and arthritis, my hair situation, my multiple severe nutritional deficiencies and chronic pain, my various mental illnesses, my awful dirty room, my inability to work on any, let alone every, one of these problems. i just get paralysed and bed rot for days. this is officially too much for me. it’s too many things to deal with. i’m not built for even half of this. how can i give up without like kms, like what’s another way to give up? because bed rotting isn’t cutting it. i could really use some help. when i asked for help, my uncle said to visit my friend in sydney, or to visit bangladesh, neither of which is going to actually help my situation, because ill be miserable regardless of where i am, until my problems have been resolved. and both of these things are expensive as fuck, like, what’s a girl supposed to do. i don’t wanna go on a $200 trip to sydney when my sd card requires a $400 data recovery. that’s just the tip of the iceberg that is my situation.

no amount of talking to people, or going on trips is going to solve my problems. which is painful for me to say because i’ve been dying to do something fun for once. not that i don’t have fun in melbourne i do, but that’s cause i try to enjoy work, and romanticise the life i already have. and because im not yet a local local, i can still experience melbourne like a tourist. with fresh eyes. anyway, yeah, im deleting bumble because its stupid, let’s be real im never gonna go on a date w a strangers plus i dont even respond to people because im obviously not ready to actually give this a chance. not yet at least. costar says i let my need for stability stunt relationship growth. but i’m okay with that, or at least i would be if i had any stability. right now i feel like i have the short end of every stick. no it feels like i have no stick at all. the universe or god or whatever is out there is giving me a huge middle finger and laughing at my suffering.

they say that i’m overthinking or that even if there is a problem there’s a solution. what’s the solution to not having enough money to solve my problems? by the time i might have money, these problems will have caused critical damage. what’s the solution to the weight i carry around from never feeling safe or loved my whole entire life. what’s the solution to the mother shaped void in my heart. what’s the solution to the fear of losing my sibling and friends. i cope, and i deal, but it never really goes away. even now as i’ve hit my weekly rock bottom, i’m trying to list things to be grateful for, to see the glass as half full. but i can’t lie, the glass is not half full. i’ve been running on a nearly empty tank for as long as i can remember. even if i somehow manage to get my tank full, there’s like holes in it that can never be permanently patched. i destroy everything i touch, i let down everyone i know, and i keep getting chances. i don’t need another chance. i need a break. i don’t want to prove myself, unless it is to prove that i fail.

i’m told that the broader focus of my life during this time is to clear away built-up structures that have been holding me back. excess is not always abundance. i’m supposed to decide what's worth keeping and what to pass up. apparently my sense of well-being relies on my willingness to seize new opportunities, which is a commendable move for someone who will only settle for all or nothing. “use this moment to streamline your aesthetic by getting rid of excess that no longer gives you pleasure.” this could not be more on the nose. fine i’ll pack some stuff up and head drop it in a donation bin. it will clear up some space in my room too. this might be good. give me some literal and also mental space to work with. also on the nose is “make sure you're not doing that thing where you over-intellectualize your experience, and then convince yourself that you know all the laws of the universe.” okay i get it. thank you for spelling it out for me. maybe now i will finally listen. i’m certainly being spied on. most of life is out of my control but i choose joy.

i couldn’t attend the invasion day protest today because i was on the phone talking a loved one out of killing herself. i shouldn’t feel guilty, it’s not like i had a choice in that scenario. i’m told that in most scenarios, there is no such thing as “fault”. if my goal was to shift blame, i could use all the words in the world to make myself innocent, but that’s not what i want, that’s not what i’m familiar with.

i think that maybe i would like to have a fresh start. i dont know what a fresh start would even look like. to go back in time a couple of years? how many years? at what point was it fresh? go back to when i was born? be born to different people? be a different person? a fresh start to me would be one in which so much is different from how my life is right now, that i don’t know how it would even be mine. this is who i am, all the terrible things that make up, well, me. and a fresh start wouldn’t be me, or it wouldn’t be fresh. i’m stale and im crusty, to the core of my being.

maybe i just need to go on a walk.

[ih4teithere]

1:16 pm Life update/shitty happenings

//TW: Hospitals, illness, c4nc3r metion, mental health, ed mention//

It's been almost exactly a year since I've wrote here, some "unfortunate" happenings have taken place while I was away from this blog(?, page(?, tumblr in general(?.

First of my mum and I keep fighting about the exact same things, so I suppose there's nothing new there haha.

Second, I dropped out of the school i was before and now I'm in a new one studying something i do like al though the atmosphere is not always very positive and a bunch of my friends dropped out because of it.

Thirdly, mother's health has been steadily on a decline, she spend about a month and a half in hospital (on the exact day of my 20th birthday no less) and unfortunately got diagnosed with adenocarcinoma, the doctor that treated her told me that a bunch of her organs in her abdominal cavity had signs of tumor, so... yeah... She got better while in the hospital, and her recovery at home has been tough, more bad days than good and I don't know what the fuck I'm gonna do honestly.

Because all of this I feel like my own health is suffering, the... um... self SHIFT+DELETE thoughts and feeling came back very strong and hasn't really left me since, the feeling of wanting control also came back very strongly and these last few days I've been basically st4rv1ng myself (kinda knowingly tbh haha).

Most of the time I feel so helpless, so tired; nothing is ever enough I'm always missing something, nothings right and I'm useless, and idiot, a dumbass, the worst person ever.

Have you ever been told something negative about yourself so many times you start to believe it? if yes, I'm so sorry we're in such similar of a place. If no, I'm glad! no one deserves to be belittled in any shape or form.

But I ask you, oh, great void of the inter-webs! (any one that reads this honestly haha, feel free to answer).

What do you do when the person who is supposed to love you "unconditionally" (i.e. ones mother) is the person who hurts you the most? what am I supposed to do knowing I got nowhere else to go? What should I do now that i can't hold on anymore???

Desperate, that is the perfect way to describe how I'm feeling at the moment.

TL;DR: It's fucked, life's fucked.

(p.s. i wrote all this in class lmao i should be paying attention)

[foolishfalls]

I've been kind of just chucking my feelings out into many a void today and I guess I'll do it here. Who knows where I'm likely to get a response??

below the cut i'll be discussing repeat injuries, chronic pain, how my mental health interacts with/contributes to them, and my growing rage and exasperation with the american healthcare system.

I feel like for much of my life I have been grappling with nebulous burgeoning health problems that were rarely serious enough for me to really seek out a doctor, plus, my parents are both notoriously bad at seeing doctors and taking care of themselves too, so living with them into adulthood definitely didn't help. (It's tough as hell being a PDA autistic up against all these very harsh hierarchical systems so full of barriers and demands amirite?)

given the autism with a pretty heavy PDA slant, making and keeping appointments has been a harrowing process for me for my whole entire life, as long as I can remember. It doesn't help that I am also terrible at advocating for myself and have been consistently dismissed by doctors over stuff that I experience... I've just kind of learned to take it lying down which is not a good habit but i get easily exasperated trying to explain myself to doctors. i struggle a ton with even talking to people i see as holding authority over me (i attribute this to ten years of catholic school kind of breaking me mentally and emotionally. if you have been to a religious or catholic school perhaps you have an understanding of this kind of mistreatment)

anyway, i just feel like the pandemic and the ongoing collapse of the healthcare system has just really brought this to a head for me recently. In the last 6 years or so, i've injured both of my ankles several times, rolls and sprains. honestly, the first few times, i was being dumb and not paying attention (i went through a terrible binge drinking period during my 21st year, hadn't yet discovered that i literally cannot wear most shoes besides flat-soled sneakers) but even when I tried to be careful after one or two bad sprains that went unchecked, mostly, I would end up hurting myself. Two of the subsequent times I hurt myself while moving between apartments (I've always lived in walk-ups and have usually moved everything myself with little help aside from friends) and bc of pretty bad cracks on sidewalks (big city infrastructure is total garbage, big surprise!)

like, as my repeated injuries got worse, my capacity for physical activity has too, and I already struggled for years as a kid and teen to develop a decent exercise/activity routine. I think I also have low muscle tone and really slow recovery time due to autism or some co-morbid condition (such as EDS or something. i have weird, weak, clicky joints, but i'm not really typically hypermobile?)

anyway, every time i went in for an x-ray or to see a doctor, i basically got told just to RICE and take care of it at home, so I didn't seek further help. the one time i did was last year, and it took a lot of advocating and was quite hard for me, and then it took months of waiting to even get an appointment with an ortho. This is after 5-6 sprains on my right ankle, and 2 on my left. when i sprained my left ankle the last time, i landed quite hard on my right knee and definitely hurt that too, because it still clicks and acts up.

of course, last august, my ortho appt finally approaches, and i get fucking covid literally the day before. i was so sick and tired i just no-showed and honestly forgot about it. if I miss an appointment and dont reschedule immediately, the likelihood that I will do that is very low. once again, PDA is a bitch.

but, at least since then I haven't actually injured my ankle. However, who knows what the effects of covid were on my body, my joints, who tf knows?? we know it causes and exacerbates all kind of conditions in people. I barely have been able to get doctors to take me seriously about the stuff I'm chronically experiencing, so even bringing up long-covid has felt kind of scary and pointless, tbh.

Fast forward to april of this year. after working in office jobs and sitting for two years straight, which caused me a ton of awful burnout, i end up working part-time at a cafe. while I'm working there, i injure/strain my hip and low back while slipping on a wet floor. this pain keeps me in bed consistently for about 3 weeks and I go to see my doctor about it. he diagnoses me with sciatic pain because it seems to be running and radiating down from my leg and hip. (mind you this is my right hip, which is attached to the knee i've hurt maybe twice, and the ankle i've injured 5-6 times!)

Up until then, I had been receiving some PT at my previous job to help stabilize and strengthen my hips, which my PT determined as the main cause for my ankle injuries. my hips shake when i walk and tend to cause a lot of instability. I made some progress, but I was receiving PT at my old job, and my insurance changed when I left it, so i was uninsured for like three months in the beginning of this year while trying to get new coverage. my hip pain was bad for about a month, after seeing my doctor, i got x-rays and they came back clean but the pain wasn't fully subsiding, so he writes me referrals for PT and pain management.

Because of my shit association with PT due to my old job, and the fact that the pain finally began to subside after the x rays came back (I kind of thought, oh, maybe it was lingering mostly due to my stress, guess im good) I dont make a PT appointment right away. I look into one place i'm referred to and it turns out they dont take my insurance which is bullshit. Then, I go to my last option, the hospital system I see my PCP out of. It's basically the lowest quality medical care you can access with medicaid which is what i currently have, and due to my experience working in a high-end PT office i know what the difference will be. this mental block kind of keeps me thinking it will be pointless so i took a while to make an appointment, trying to do exercises at home for now since i had a baseline from my old job.

While all this is happening, as my hip pain is subsiding, i get a weird lump/bump where my heel meets my right ankle, my bad ankle. it has been this way since about the end of May, now, and it has been the source of some of the most disarming, weird, confusing pain I've ever experienced in my life.

I also didn't talk yet about how realizing I'm autistic helped me make sense of my weird pain tolerance. on one hand, i've always been notably sensitive to even the slightest pain. would sob and sob over the smallest things as a kid. i think due to the reactions of adults around me, i gradually learned to dissociate in order to bury my pain. so, i feel like i both experience pain very strongly and intensely, and at times it can be so debilitating and distracting that i can focus on little else and it almost causes me brain fog and fatigue, while at other times, it is kind of distant and i tend to dissociate from it.

with this new pain in my heel, there's definitely some nerve shit involved, i think... i get twitches/spasms sometimes, numbness, tingling, sharp pain, dull pain. and it's seemingly unpredictable. i wear compression socks or a sleeve almost every single day because it's all that helps. it's past the point of icing helping it much because it's not swollen.

basically every time i have seen a doctor about my pain leading up to now, I have brought up the possibility of some underlying cause, but i always get dismissed. told I'm digging too deep or thinking too hard and just stressing myself out, despite the fact that I've always been clumsy and injury prone and had coordination issues. I guess bc those coordination issues haven't been well documented, and i am not officially diagnosed with autism or anything that could support my claims, i just don't get taken seriously, despite my experience being quite abnormal from what i understand when talking to others!!!

idk where I'm even going with this. today i was at a PT appointment for my hip and was on the verge of tears the whole time. I have to go back to my primary doctor in order for them to even begin attending to my heel despite that being the worst pain, and despite the fact that my hip/knee/heel/sciatica are all definitely related. I'm assuming this is because of insurance bullshit, i know it's pretty basic procedure, but it's exhausting that the american healthcare system is set up this way. it's really hard when you're autistic also and struggle with making and keeping appointments. it doesn't help that i've been dismissed by so many doctors that i just get intense anxiety about even having to go back again.

i'm also looking for a new PCP anyway because i don't like that mine doesn't take me very seriously and i am also transitioning and very scared/a bit paranoid about facing any transphobia or disclosing that fact to him if we have to run any blood tests. so maybe I'll have a better experience elsewhere, but this heel stuff has gone on for so long that i just have to bite the bullet and go back to the same place if it will be quicker to do so anyway.

and like, all procedural/red tape/insurance bullshit aside, bottom of the barrel PT treatment here is like. so dismal. once again maybe it's just bc i have the point of comparison from my old job, but i feel like the treatment is really just. so lackluster, doctors are seeing multiple patients at once, you're rushed through your visit, you don't have time to ask questions. the whole time i've been there no one has so much as taken a closer look at my heel. i know i'm there for my hip and you have to say that on paper for insurance, but like, damn, not even just a quick check??

I am afraid it's because I'm habitually downplaying the pain to cope and because i'm terrified of doctors. so maybe it's my fault.

still, the system is downright hostile to people who struggle with that stuff.

i don't have much else to say. just wanted to dump this somewhere and see if anyone else can understand or empathize with my experience. i don't talk about this super openly or readily because I don't even feel like i can call it chronic pain sometimes despite this being a several month long problem and really an issue that is about five years old, despite it being inconsistent... mostly because i just don't have the affirmation of a medical diagnosis. i have considered getting a cane/mobility aid very thoroughly recently because i know it would help me (and maybe even force doctors to take me seriously) but there's a part of me that feels like i can't or shouldn't. like i'm not valid enough for that, or i can function without it, but i know that's dismissive and so not the right way to think about mobility aids

i mean, it doesn't help that my dad has been limping and had chronic pain for years and has one and still refuses to use it... the internalized ableism runs deep. it's fucked. i'm trying hard to undo it but it's hard when you're already just hard on yourself.

anyway, just sorely needed to get this off my chest. thanks for reading if you do.

EDIT: i also wanted to say,, if you have gone through anything similar, just know you're not alone! so if you want to share your experience or talk about it with me pls know my asks and dms are open.

[g-o-bs--fanfictions]

Hi! I'm new to the DoL fandom and I've fallen in love with Eden. I didn't expect them to be so gentle (after you earn their love and trust that is). Can you write a Angst, hurt/comfort where Eden find the PC cutting themselves? I'm going through a rough patch and find reading about it helps. You don't have to, but I'd really appreciate it. If you can, male Eden and gender neutral PC? Thanks in advance if you do decide to write it

{Long A/N incoming}

First, I want to thank you for your request. It's been a while since I've written anything angsty so, I suppose it was about time for me to do so again.

I do want to apologize for this taking so long. This is something I have a history with and I didn't want to make it into something self indulgent but, I'm pretty sure that I did anyway. It also took a while because I had a bit of a tough time with the 'comfort' part and I'm still not exactly happy with it. However, whether I'm happy with it or not doesn't really matter in this case so long as you can find comfort in it. I can tell you from experience that it does get better. Don't beat yourself up when you do slip up.

I can offer some solid advice that got me to my current 2.5 years clean:

1: Don't see your relapses as failures. Count the days in between each one and push for more, even if it's only one extra day.

2: Set up goals and reward yourself when you reach them. It doesn't have to be big rewards. Even something as simple as going out to get ice cream can work.

3: Take the time to write out why you want to hurt yourself in that moment. It will be hard to do this, I know. In the moment, your emotions are high and writing out your feelings may be the absolute last thing you want to do. But trust me, it does help. Read those reasons back to yourself before you do anything else. The question I always asked myself was "Is this really a good reason to reset my progress?" I found that the longer I had to think about it, the less likely I was to cut.

And 4: Remember that you are human and that humans make mistakes. Getting better doesn't happen in a day and relapsing is just part of recovery. Self harm is just one of those addictions that get over-looked but, you can still recover from it despite that. I still get urges sometimes, even after recovering, but these coping methods I've listed have helped me a whole lot more than just talking it out ever has and I hope they can help you too.

Now, with that said, I do hope that you enjoy and can find the comfort you need from this story.

[Warnings: Self harm, depression, mentions of abuse, mentions of sexual abuse, angst, and trauma]

M! Eden w/ a GN! PC who self harms

You can't quite recall what exactly made you start doing this. All you can remember is that it made you feel better. Like you had control over something for once. You had control over each blood red line carved deep into spongy flesh. Every scar and every new cut a reminder of the control only you wielded. You controlled the placement. You controlled the depth. You even controlled just how long each and every cut bled. You didn't want to die, however. You just wanted to feel something.

You'd become numb in all the ways that mattered to the sick fucks in this town. It never stopped them but, you did feel a strange bit of satisfaction in knowing that they themselves were never truly satisfied when they were done with you. However, the feeling is always short-lived when the flashbacks and nightmares came to torment you in the dead of night. Those always tended to hurt worse than any amount of pain you could inflict upon yourself.

You've stopped counting the scars by now. It's too much trouble to keep up with them. But still, it feels as if there's never enough. Never enough to match the amount of mental anguish, memories, the amount of times you've been told that you're nothing, nor the amount of times that you found yourself agreeing with them.

The only light in this incessant darkness has been Eden. And even though he's the torch that fights through most of the darkness that plagues you, not even his flame is bright enough to fight back the inky black pitch that lurks in the recesses of your psyche. It's that darkness that always drags you back, kicking and screaming, into the yawning black chasm that is your lament and despair.

You could tell that it hurt him to see you hurt. That he felt that he had failed to protect you. You hated to see him that way. But you couldn't stop. Not when it made you feel just the slightest bit better. Not when it soothed the staticky storm that seemed to constantly rage on within your head. Not when it gave you just a sliver of the peace you oh-so craved.

But, at the same time, you couldn't bear to see the light of your life dim every time his eyes gazed upon a fresh wound carved into your skin. So, you started hiding them where he wouldn't see. Yes, it was inconvenient, but it was worth it. It was worth it all to not see the sadness in his eyes.

That's why, right now, as he's looking at you with that same sadness that you worked so hard to keep away, you feel your heart plummet as feelings of guilt and shame wash over you.

"I'm sorry," you say, tears beginning to fall down your face in warm rivulets. "I just... You weren't supposed to see. You weren't supposed to know. I'm sorry. I-"

You drop the blade in your hand as sobs begin to rack your body. As you feel your legs give way, strong arms wrap around you as Eden pulls you close. He sits with you on the floor of the cabin, gently rocking you as you continue to cry. You feel his tears soaking into your hair much like yours are soaking into his jacket. After a few moments, he finally speaks. His voice is gruffer than usual, strained from crying with you.

"I love you. I don't want to see you hurt anymore. I don't want to see you hurt yourself anymore." Eden lifts your chin, forcing you to look him in the eye. The pain in his eyes is evident and you feel your heart ache knowing that you are the cause of it. "I want to help you stop. But you need to want me to help you. You need to want to stop."

He gently wipes the tears from your face.

"Will you let me help?" He asks with such sincerity that it makes your heart hurt even more.

You take a breath. You don't want your flame to flicker. You don't want to ever see him dim again. You want to give him the power to burn brighter, to be able to finally scare the darkness away from the abyss within you. You meet his gaze once more and give your answer.

"Yes."

Masterlist

[elminx]

Energy Update: New Moon 01° Sagitarrius

On Wednesday, 11/23, we will be experiencing our first non-eclipsed Sagittarius new moon since 2020. There is a lot of energy in the planets right now, so let's start with some bullet points.

Sagittarius is our mutable fire sign and is ruled by the planet Jupiter

The 01° new moon will be trine to Jupiter in Pisces (though off element)

Jupiter goes direct on 28° Pisces on 11/23 as well

Mercury and Venus will join the new moon for a powerful stellium

Mercury and Venus will be trine to Chiron in Aries

retrograde Mars will be trine to Saturn in Aquarius and square to Neptune in Pisces

Altogether, this energy combines to be a mixed bag. There is a lot of potential within this energy (coming from our benefic planet Jupiter) but there is still a lot of pain in the air. This makes some sense if we've been paying attention - we're coming off of an extra-intense eclipse season on the Taurus-Scorpio axis which activated our fourth and final square between Saturn in Aquarius and Uranus in Taurus. A cycle has ended but most of us are in the licking-our-wounds stage of recovery. Every time that Chiron gets activated by our personal planets (in this case both Mercury and Venus this week and the Sun next week), you can guarantee that some of the personal and collective pain points are close to the surface. This isn't a bad thing so long as you can get past the idea that "pain is bad". Not all of us can, unfortunately; rather than face the pain, we instead hide from it or take steps to mitigate it rather than address it.

If you are on a healing journey - physically, mentally, or spiritually - personal planet aspects with Chiron are the perfect time to focus on that work. If, on the other hand, you are disassociating to hide from your pain, this week is likely to be a hard one to experience.

Jupiter is the great embiggener - it expands everything that it touches. This is generally considered to be a good thing and highly positive but it is also possible to focus on and enhance the bad things in life, too. The combined energy of Jupiter + Chiron calls on us to address rather than repress; in fact, it might remove our ability to repress altogether! It is worth noting that as Jupiter stations direct on Wednesday, it will begin its forward journey towards Chiron in Aries which is only sitting 14° away at this point. We are working towards this inevitable conjunction between these two powerhouses - what comes up now is merely a preview of what we can expect to experience when they meet.

That is to say, the energy of this week - overall - is demanding that we deal with our shit. People who are avoiding this (for whatever reason, valid or not) may have a tough go of things. You may very well be forced to confront something that you have been trying very hard not to look at. With Saturn involved, through our action planet Mars, you can guarantee that it is for our "best interests" though it may not be enjoyable in the moment.

Here again, we look back to Jupiter and the sign of Sagittarius. Light-hearted Sagittarius has an important lesson to teach the world - how you approach things matters. Sometimes life is a piece of shit and when it is, it's really easy to fall into the pattern of EXPECTING life to be a piece of shit. If instead, you can say to yourself: this week, I need to shovel shit and do this work so that next week, I can play; then you are tapping into these energies well. The big flex this week is to dig into where it hurts rather than turning away from it. The big flex this week is to tell the fucking truth, even when it hurts (that's a Sagittarius specialty). The big flex this week is in understanding that the shit that you shovel now becomes the manure with which your future grows.

As we enter this new moon energy - this first uneclipsed new moon - we have a chance to start something new. There haven't been very many of these since January of 2020. We've been in a holding pattern for a really long time. Now's your chance, but it comes with a bit of a caveat: use it wisely.

Do you like my work? You can support me over on Kofi.

[coffinbutch]

Okay so before my surgery I psyched myself out SO much trying to mentally prepare, reading tumblr posts and stuff abt what to expect, ways to prepare for surgery + recovery, and I wanted to write a post directed at people in the comments of such posts who I saw saying stuff like "wow this sounds incredibly difficult and scary, even tho I want top surgery I'll probably not pursue it bc it sounds so bad." If you're one of those, this is for you:

It's really good to be prepared, and I got a lot of solid advice from people on tumblr before surgery. The only thing I wasn't prepared for, that no one told me, was how much easier it was than I was expecting.

Obviously I wouldn't want to get peoples' hopes up, everyone reacts to meds/anesthesia/surgery differently, but Jesus fucking christ I cannot believe how frightened and stressed out I was before, and how disproportionate that stress was to the actual surgery and aftermath. Maybe I'm just very tough, but the pain was moderate and short-lived, and I shocked myself with how much energy I had even a few days after surgery. My surgery was on a Friday, and then by Tuesday I was walking, going out, sight-seeing even! My drains came out on Wednesday, two days before I expected! I didn't even need narcotics for the pain after Monday! I was expecting the recovery to be difficult and harrowing, but it wasn't at all.

My wounds are healing. My pain is insignificant and temporary. My relief is immeasurable, and permanent. If you're reading this and considering top surgery, but getting scared from reading certain things, please know that it might not be like that for you. No one can predict their own experience and it's better to overprepare than underprepare, but in my own experience, all I needed to do was listen to my doctor, and let my body guide my healing. It has been an easy, relaxing recovery period so far, and I'm excited to get to live the rest of my life without pain or dysphoria. It can happen for you!

[frenchfrysword]

Little fucking rant that probably only relates to me.

But anyway. I've never felt at home in 99% of recovery spaces because most of it is

a) sanitized (no mentions of gross/stigmatized behaviors/embarrassing life long fall-out)

b) often fits the same format (before/after pictures, aesthetisized pictures of meals, inspirational cutesy quotes, "appropriate" work-out documentation, "the narrative")

And it feels silly to whine about this. But I struggle so much to find people to relate to in recovery. My recovery has always been about Never Holding Back Ever Again. And most people I've met in recovery are still trying to make themselves likeable, palatable, and safe-through-invisibility, but now in a different frame.

I'll talk about how being constipated made me so desperate, that up until today it's still in my top 3 reasons to stay recovering. How I lost all my savings to bingeing and purging. I don't really have before/after pics because I never fit stereotypical anorexia anyway, and after the first time was just too embarrassed to post pictures of my body bc I was embarrassed of falling for the same stupid shit again. I've never ID'ed as having "ana" or "ed" in my head. That's me. This disorder and how I acted is 100% on me. Me me me. And it actually was one of the most selfish things I ever did. I feel guilty about having an eating disorder because after almost 15 years it just gets silly. I have no excuse anymore for retrying the same failed experiment for the millionth time and expecting a different result. I have little compassion for people who keep their head up their ass past the first couple of bouts of ED (even though most of that is just aimed at myself).

And then online or in group I'm mostly met with silence. And I'm looking for recognition. People who get it. And to learn how they did it and stayed on top of it.

I actually found the most comfort and the most healing in the queer, punk, anarchist, and bdsm scenes where I saw over and over that people just live their lives despite being fat, despite being disabled, despite being "not attractive", despite having Bad Qualities, despite being mentally ill. That anything that is "bad" can be just what someone else is looking for. To not silly-putty myself, but to silly-putty my surroundings. That those scenes talk more about the stuff I need in my eating disorder recovery than the actual eating disorder recovery community itself.

I've basically been following the same 5-ish recovery blogs for years because I can't seem to find anyone else who I can relate to. But anyway. Anyone? I'm at a tough fucking spot and could use some community.

[the-huntress]

Little Moth - Chapter 1 - The Beginning Is The End Is The Beginning

[Hi guys, welcome to my fanfiction. This is a Resident Evil inspired fanfiction, I wanted to incorporate a number of my favourite characters, and especially our beloved Magnet Daddy. Slow burn, soft smut impending, beyond that who knows… But to be safe I will say that this is for 18+ years of age only. Let me know if you’d liked to be on a tag list for future chapters. Masterlist is pinned. Thank you to everyone that has read so far. <3]

Masterlist

Trigger Warnings: Mention of menstruation, swearing.

Y/N Protagonist, female. Reader X Karl Heisenberg [18+]

Summary:

Your lifelong friend, Leon Kennedy, has mysteriously gone missing two years after the events of Racoon City. You make a discovery that could lead to his whereabouts; dare you enter the Village?

[Photos are my own] You weren’t sure exactly what you were looking at for a moment, arching your back forwards over the desk in the dimly lit room, the glare from the laptop the only source of light. Several windows had been left open on the screen, and despite the turmoil that Leon’s apartment had been left in, this was what had really grabbed your attention.

The most notable of which was a photo, the resolution was grainy, a scan from a black and white film photo, it looked almost like a foetus, but you couldn’t be sure. Was somebody pregnant? It was almost akin to the sort of photograph that expecting parents would show at a baby shower, but this was… different. You had a feeling of impending doom just by looking at this thing.

Next, another very grainy photo of a town, it almost looked like some of the places from back home in England; a church steeple, a castle or maybe a mansion in the distance? A quaint looking village in the snow. And lastly, a very cryptic email;

                                               10/10/2000

Leon,

Know not what I have done, but what I believe must be done now.

Half of the results of good intentions are evil; half of the results of an evil intention are good.

You have the information that you need, please make haste.

A friend.

Well, that’s ambiguous as fuck. You thought to yourself, pushing the chair back and pulling the lighter from the little band on the side of your cap. You reached to your shoulder and cursed. That’s right, you’d given up, “for health reasons”. Putting the lighter back you reached instead for your camera, a notepad and a pen. You’d been tempted to just take the laptop and the scattered papers, but after several years in the police you knew it was beneficial to leave things as they were. Your eyes flitted from paper to paper, taking notes of numbers, flights, times, place names, anything that you could until you’d filled a couple of pages. One page for practical info, and one page, now that you looked at it almost sounded like a fairy tale;

A village, four kings, four lords, and a mysterious ‘Mother Miranda’. You bit the end of the pen and pondered. It was like nothing you’d ever heard of before, what had he got himself into…

Several days ago you had received a text from the man himself;

‘Y/N I am going to be out of

town for a while, something has

come up. Please don’t worry,

will explain soon. Leon. X

P.S. I’ve left Timesplitters in

your mail box, play you again

when I get back! :] ’

And now here you were. You scoffed knowing he’d have had to pay double to send that one, but he was mad to think that you wouldn’t worry, he was like a brother to you, hell, the only family that you had. After a childhood growing up in rural England you had moved to the states with your father and stepmother when you were in those vulnerable years of your teens during the early 90s, but were lucky enough to have met Leon in school. The two of you had become best friends quickly, and even graduated from the same police academy. It was Leon that saved your butt two years ago when all hell broke loose in Racoon City, him and Claire.

You shifted on the collapsible chair in front of the usually neatly tidied desk which was now strewn with various papers and articles. Your thoughts of Claire continued, and you pulled out your Nokia, opened a message and then faltered. It was late. Later than late you realised, seeing the time; 02:08 AM. What am I doing? You didn’t want to wake her, so you put the phone back into the pocket on your belt.

You swept a strand of your hair behind your ear, the outgrown bangs jumping back in the way and you blew at them irritated. You heard a grumble and moaned, looking down at your stomach. Padding across the shiny, tiled floor you left the desk and headed to the kitchen, opening the fridge where you knew there would be left-over pizza. Sure, it was from over a week ago when you were last here hanging out, but hey, it’s pizza, right?

‘Ugh dude, always with the anchovies, why?’ you mumbled, flinging a small fish into the bin and mentally backhanding the back of Leon’s head. Of course, it was his side of the pizza that was left over, probably trying to stay in shape in case he bumped into ‘Ada’ again. You weren’t keen, but then, you didn’t trust her. You looked at your phone again, left on the desk besides the laptop, Leon would be much better off with Claire, but sadly you felt perhaps that ship had set sail long ago.

You went to sit yourself back down at the desk. CRUNCH “Shit!” Your eyes darted to your right knee. “Fuck… you’re not giving me a break are you.” Letting out a sigh you closed your eyes for a moment. Since you were a child your knee had given you problems. A few dislocations, hospital visits, insteps, braces and physiotherapy. You’d had to grit your teeth hard through every physical training session during academy, but you’d made it. Fortunately for you it wasn’t something that many people would be able to notice or spot. You could run for miles with no problem; it was the recovery time in the days that followed that was tough. You knew it was getting worse, and had been reading about how much longer you might have before you’d need a full replacement, but you knew that it could jeopardise your job, you knew you’d likely not get put on the jobs that you wanted, and the thought of being put into the office answering calls made your heart sink.

And then you spotted it, the corner of another window was sticking out from under the others, exposing the corner of a third photograph. Instantly recognising the symbol you felt as though you were falling.

“What…”

Dragging the window and clicking it to full screen you could see this photograph clearly; some kind of mural, was it in stone? It looked as though there were four crests, family crests maybe. And at the centre; “Umbrella.” You breathed. You stared at it for several minutes and quickly took a photo of the screen on your camera, no point trying to get that old thing to work, you thought, looking at the printer at the other end of the desk. You couldn’t help but smirk, memories of Leon trying to print page after page of game walk throughs, whilst trying to find all the secrets in your favourite action/ adventure game, and laughing your head off at him, mouthful of noodles spilling back out into the carton as a hundred pages shot out at him, flying all over the room with cheat codes for a scantily dressed version of the playable character.

You looked at the clock again, time to go. If you were going to do this, you needed sleep and to get going as soon as you could the next day. It might drain your bank account, but it would be worth it. You didn’t have a good feeling about any of this, and more often than not, your gut instincts were right. Grabbing your R.P.D jacket at the door, you took one last glance at the room. It really did look like a whirlwind had hit it, not like Leon when he was in a better mental state at all. You knew that when he wasn’t his best he’d reach a for a drink and then some, but you could see that nothing was broken, and it was mostly clothes scattered, some bits of equipment and where he’d clearly got the luggage bag down from on top of the wardrobe. Nothing to worry about in regard to kidnap or a break in at least; as if that was enough to stop you from worrying about whatever lay ahead in this ‘Village’.

It started to rain just as you got into your apartment building, and you smiled. You’d always liked the rain. Stopping to quickly check your pigeon-hole for mail and seeing nothing you felt something press up against you calf, rubbing itself against the tops of your boots. You looked down and grinned, scooping up a slender, black cat in one hand and kissing the top of her head. “I’m going to miss you Boo, keep an eye on my mail for me while I’m gone, you know how crammed that thing gets.” You winked at her as you set her back down outside Mrs. Little’s door and fished a sandwich bag full of the leftover pizza anchovies out of your R.P.D. bag. “You didn’t think I’d forget you, did you?” Leaving Boo hastily munching into her treats you jogged up the stairs, your knee twinged, but it wasn’t too bad. It just had its moments.

Your apartment was pretty standard for this part of the city; both you and Leon had left Racoon city some time ago, though it wasn’t far from here. It had been destroyed and bordered off and that was all there was too it. You had to tell it to yourself that way to cope. Leon’s apartment was slightly swankier, but then again, he did like his gadgets and liked to keep things tidy, when his thoughts weren’t somewhere else. You on the other hand were happy to know that while everything had its place, sometimes that place would be on the floor… next to the thingy and nestled safely under a cereal box; and that was okay! You picked up the thingy, and looked at it fondly, before folding it up and putting it away with the others.

Stretching and yawning you looked around you, making a mental note of what needed to be done; pack, shower, sleep. You’d get the tickets the next day, and some money too, you’d have to stop off at the currency exchange. What currency did they even use there? Equipment, keep it simple; knives, pistol, rounds, lighter, fluid, compass, torch, camera, medi-kit. A couple of spare pairs of clothes, and you had your light armour that also fit into the case. You knew the contents would raise suspicion, but you had your badge, at the end of the day another cop had gone missing, and your team knew too.

You whipped off the remainder of your uniform and jumped in the shower, the bathroom filling up with steam and bubbles quickly and you sang along to a few songs on the radio. Wiping the mirror to see yourself more clearly you felt all your insecurities flood to you at once, as well as seeing yourself for the natural beauty that you were. You pursed your lips, staring into your own eyes and promised you’d find him safe and bring him back. He’d yell at you for going in the first place, but you knew this wasn’t right. Something wasn’t right. Traipsing out from the bathroom, you felt the cool air attack your flushed skin. You liked it, you were always a window open kind of person, no matter the weather, the fresh air just soothed you. Of course, that meant the odd moth now and again, like now as you heard the tiny body plummet time and time again against the spherical glass shade of the dim lamp besides your bed. Snuggling up into the loose blankets you smiled at the little creature and pulled the cord on the lamp, smiling again as you felt the moth settle on the side of your head.

After that you actually fell to sleep very quickly. It had been a long day after all; a 6AM start, patrol, arresting some juvies for petty crimes, followed by yet another zombie scare, (false alarm thank God), before filing up all the paper work and heading to Leon’s. Sleep fell like a veil of cool clouds, taking you in and raising you up into the inky blue skies of the night. The next thing you knew, you were butt naked in a dark green forest, dew drops shining on moss like a trillion tiny emeralds. Mist hung thick in the air, and thousands of tiny moths flew up from the ground? No. From you. You were raising your arms up to the skies, the moss covered forest floor moist under your bare feet and between your toes. Behind you the silhouette of a deer… antlers, but much, much taller. In front of you a pair of cold silver-gold eyes in the dark. You felt drawn, ever so drawn, taking one step forward, and then another, your arms coming down now, hands outstretched in caring caress, your heart swelled, your lips bloomed, taking in a short breath, and then; blood. Gushes of it, soaking into the moss, reddening Earth’s green carpet, and dripping down the trunks of the trees, the moths falling from the air around you, their wings sticking and stopping in the thick, red mess.

“Shit!” You fell back down onto your bed, several items around you also crashing down. Hand to your head, you looked wildly about. It happened again. Whatever had fallen this time had been heavy. You turned to see half the cutlery that had been lying on the kitchen tops now on the floor, and the knives and pistol that you’d placed earlier on top of the luggage bag were now in the middle of the floor. A sudden feeling of loneliness washed over you. The same dream, but longer, and this time with blood. “Shit” again, you put a hand to your pants, pulled the covers back and saw red. “Well, that’s one more thing I need to bring with me.” You mumbled, rolling your eyes, and throwing yourself back onto the bed.

Song Suggestion: ‘The Beginning Is The End Is The Beginning’ by The Smashing Pumpkins