#ridiculous stuff caused by mental illness made me feel even worse

[coffeeworldsasaki]

Another thing that makes kaladin so painfully relatable is how much his mental illness hides his personality, because between depressive episodes and trauma he's this sarcastic little shit that smiles a lot at his friends and then the depression gets to him and all that disappears

[grisailledreams]

Please put the beauty industry on blast for often treating chronic incurable skin conditions and even stuff like mild temporary acne as things you can just ~solve~ by buying expensive creams/treatments, “drinking more water,” or “not being fat/dirty.” 🙃

OOOOOOOHHHHH MY GOD I WILL BLAST THEM ALL DAY FOR THIS.

Also Christ, I went through so many drafts of this because I just kept rambling because there is SO MUCH to say about this, way more than what I have here. Kristin and I have talked about this kind of thing S O much. Under a cut because it is LONG.

First and foremost: There are no skin conditions that come to mind that involve being fat or dirty. N O N E. As my instructor likes to say, "Did you rub dirt on your face? Then you're not dirty." I won't even elaborate on the fat thing because that's just ridiculous and honestly boils down to the same thing (because of course "Fat People are Dirty Sweaty Grease-Soaked Slobs"). Y'all wanna know what causes most of the common disorders?

Acne - Genetics/hormones, friction, or skin sensitivities. Congrats, you're really good at producing sebum, a vital component of your skin's protective barrier!

Keratosis Pilaris - Genetics, occasionally made worse by harsh exfoliation. Congrats, you're really good at producing keratin, the building block protein that makes up skin, hair, and nails!

Rosacea - Who the Fuck Knows, but the National Rosacea Society hypothesizes that it's either down to the way your immune and neurovascular systems function, serious systemic diseases (none of which are Obesity), or a species of mite that everyone has on their skin already.

Psoriasis - Immune disorder.

Eczema - Who the Fuck Knows, probably a combo of genetics and environmental factors.

HS - Who the Fuck Knows, but probably genetics/hormones.

All of these things have flare-ups or cyclic behavior, btw. Flareups can have a hundred causes, it just depends on the individual! Stress is common across the board, but it's far from the only one. What doesn't happen? Get breakouts or flare-ups by being Dirty or Fat or Eating Poorly. Your skin just Does Stuff. So many genetic disorders come down to "My skin makes More or Less of something than is ideal for my body" or "My body is Very Protective of me." Literally, every disorder pretty much comes down to genetics, illness, or Who the Fuck Knows (because there is not enough research being done on way too many disorders). And none of this is simply "fixed" or "cured" by throwing money at the problem, regardless of what anyone tells you.

Does a skincare routine make your skin feel good? Sure! Soft skin feels nice and might give your mental health a boost because you're doing something nice for yourself most days. Also you do a lot of blood flow stimulation in the process and that might make you feel a bit more energized. But if you have a disorder and you feel like you've Tried Everything to no avail, it is not your fault, either. Skin, entire functioning organ that it is, is so much more complex than a skincare routine makes it seem.

My biggest takeaway from this education has just been Bodies Do Stuff and Everyone's Skin is Different. If you have a skin disorder, including all the hundreds of disorders I didn't mention, you are not dirty or bad or gross. Your skin just Does Stuff and the Beauty and Wellness industries are really bad at saying, accepting, and teaching this - it doesn't make money, after all.

[lumiereandcogsworth]

heyyyyyyy hey wait I forgot I follow up on this, you mentioned there was tea regarding Adam’s dad and his first wife 👁️ is that something you’re willing to share bc I am all ears

ahhhh yes yes yes. my LORE!!!!!!! i am absolutely happy to spill that tea. i did indeed mention here that adam is the product of his father’s second wife, not his first. so let me divulge all the stuff that went down before adam came around!!

so, first, some backstory on louis, adam’s father. he was his father, king antoine’s, firstborn. four years later, he has a brother named adrien. adrien dies of illness around age five, and young louis is devastated, but his father is tough and hard and tells his son to buck up! crying is for the ladies. a few years later, louis’s mother, anne michelle, also dies. louis doesn’t cope well with this at all, but he’s so scared of his abusive father that he hides his feelings once again. soon, king antoine remarries. he and his new wife have a daughter, and they name her genevieve after her mother. they entirely dote on genevieve, completely neglecting louis, leaving him to his own devices. he becomes miserable and cruel, and an entirely reckless young man.

when prince louis is 24, king antoine has a health scare that causes him concern. he fears he may not live much longer, and he sees that his son is in no place to take the throne, should he die. so, he arranges for his reckless son to marry an upstanding young lady, to ensure that louis could become king at the moment of antoine’s passing. louis is less than thrilled about his bride, but when they meet on their wedding day, there is actually a spark between them. her name is agnès claudine marie. she was chosen because their marriage would be politically advantageous, as well as look very perfect to the public eye. louis was all ready to loathe this new wife of his. but he just… didn’t.

agnès was firey and stood her ground. she challenged him constantly and louis was pretty shocked by it. (but also… turned on by it as well.) louis was still a very shitty person, like, agnès did Not make him a better man. but they sort of got along in their own twisted way. they appeared a perfect, prim and proper couple to the public eye, but behind closed doors they were very just… toxic and messy. and what made matters worse was that king antoine died shortly after they were married, so louis had to grapple with his father’s death (sprouting the classic, complicated grief that comes along with losing an abusive father), and handle being king, all while never being mentally or emotionally prepared for it, nor having anyone to lean on in the process. it’s ROUGH.

louis had such a quick temper and was insanely jealous. he got pissed at agnès for even so much as talking to another man at a party, even if he was right there by her side. after the parties would end, he’d throw things and break things and scream at her and she’d scream right back, bullying him just as much as he berated her. these arguments almost always ended in ridiculously hot sex. which is funny and i don’t know why i feel the need to mention it but. as a fake historian it’s my duty to share all fake facts. anyway.

eventually, louis and agnès had a daughter. they named her claudine. louis doesn’t feel MUCH about this, as he very much needs a son to be his heir, but he does care enough about agnès to not completely despise his daughter. he’s a pretty indifferent father at this point. although i’m sure he always made claudine feel fairly useless, just for being a girl.

about six years later, agnès became pregnant with their second child. tragedy struck, however, when she died in childbirth. she delivered a boy, but he did not live longer than a day.

THIS is really the turning point where louis goes from bad to the absolute worst. it’s all buried and complicated inside him but he’s truly devastated by agnès’s death. she was always so alive with passion he just never expected to lose her. and the fact that he loses their son, HIS SON, within a day, it just breaks him for good. he goes from awful to downright ruthless. he grows more wicked toward his daughter, seeing too much of her mother in her and blaming her for it. blaming her too, for not being his much-needed male heir. he also becomes a terror in his court, and in general just a horrible person to be around.

unfortunately at this point, the psychological damage that has been done to him just really causes him to spiral out of control. he’s blinded by unprocessed grief and unfounded rage. and the people are in an uproar! who will be their heir! where is the dauphin of france!! all this just makes him desperate to find another wife to give him a male heir. it’s all he cares about now. so, less than a year later, louis found someone. it was similar to prologue adam’s parties where the villages and towns were taxed to send all their maidens. and renée elizabeth aubert was the only daughter of five children. her parents OF COURSE wanted to give her the opportunity to marry THE KING!

and… it worked. louis saw her and found her to be beautiful. (oh, shall i mention here that he’s 30 and she’s 17?) renée wasn’t as tenacious as agnès but she was gorgeous and held her head high. she intrigued him. (and her mentioning that she had four brothers was definitely a factor for louis.) so, he courted her and married her swiftly.

renée settled into her new life as queen. louis distracted and enticed her with the finest clothes and jewelry, making her feel so very adored. she tried to get along with her step-daughter, claudine, who was around 7 years old at this point, but poor princess claudine was so traumatized from losing her mother and from louis’s abuse, so she didn’t really want to connect much with renée. so, claudine spend the vast majority of her time with her governess, who was basically raising her fully at that point.

soon, renée became pregnant, and successfully delivered a boy! huzzah!! adam is here!!

for a few years, things carry on. louis grows more twisted and disinterested in his wife and children. he hardly sees claudine, and he’s disappointed in adam thus far. (adam didn’t start speaking or walking until he was like 2-3, so louis was convinced he was just “stupid” and they all got worried he was possibly deaf. but renée knew her boy wasn’t deaf or stupid, because she actually spent time with him and could see that his mind just worked differently. and he always looked up at her when she called his name.) regardless, louis was also getting increasingly frustrated with renée, because she kept miscarrying pregnancies. (i think giving birth to adam very nearly killed her, and left damage that just made carrying any future pregnancy to full term impossible.) so, louis was now stuck with a useless daughter and a worthless son and a dysfunctional wife. and he made sure they all knew it! he continued to drink and be abusive. claudine sort of gets out of it, eventually going to live in paris for private tutoring and finishing school.

but! claudine would still come home for christmas, and other events. well, approaching one christmas, louis and renée had been away on a trip for diplomatic reasons. on the trip, renée had caught some sort of illness. when they returned, they kept adam away from her (for fear that the heir would catch it) but unfortunately, princess claudine was there, and caught the illness. renée recovered in a couple of weeks. the princess, however, died. she was 12 years old.

adam was 4, and doesn’t really have any memories of his sister claudine. especially since they didn’t really grow up under the same roof. but anyway, louis is just angered by yet ANOTHER death in this godforsaken family of his. and he, despite caring very little for claudine, IS saddened because she WAS his last piece of agnès. he decided to blame renée, since she’s the one who brought the illness home.

well. time carries on. some years later, when adam is nine and a half, he loses his mother, queen renée, to illness as well. he’s left alone with his father, and you know how the story goes…

anyway my take is that the de beaumont family is quite literally cursed by death and for generations they’re just plagued to lose people but Just Enough survive to maintain the family line. and adam, breaking his own separate curse by the enchantress, does then, in turn, break the beaumont family death curse as well. because true love conquers ALL. thank you 💙

[ineffable-endearments]

personal vent ahead, somewhat incidentally related to GO; contains mental illness talk (ocd related, specifically) if you're not up for that right now.

not to, you know, give my whole history and everything, but i have ocd, and it's a lot of the mental stuff. not that much of the observable physical behavior like hand-washing unless you rreeeaaalllyyy know what you're looking for and you're paying more attention than i'm comfortable with.

anyway, one of the major obsessive symptoms i get is "superstitions." not necessarily existing superstitions in popular culture, but ones that i just make up on the spot. like, "it's bad luck to do [completely made up thing]." or "i shouldn't do this thing i want to do because then it will lead to bad things happening." for example, "i really want to design some OCs tonight, but if i do that, [x bad thing] will happen."

it's not logical. i'm trying to explain it in logical terms because i have to use words that make sense to communicate with you. but it's really more of a bunch of feelings. i know they're ridiculous when i try to phrase them in words, but using logic to convince your emotional brain that what it's feeling isn't based on reality is not a strong position to be in.

generally speaking, if there is something i really care about, i'm going to have obsessive-compulsive symptoms about it. you probably know where i'm going with this.

i get all tied up in knots feeling like i should not be doing certain things because it will cause GO S2 to go badly. it's not always a karmic thing, like "if i act like a jerk, my tv show won't go my way later," although that happens, too (it's less of a problem because i don't want to be a jerk anyway). it's more often a feeling like "if i use the wrong phrasing in this email, The Butterfly Effect will churn out a S2 script so bad we'll all yearn for the days of That Other Adaptation Script We Don't Talk About." another favorite is "if i respond to this incredibly cool meta post, then everything in it will be proven wrong." let's be totally honest, this is why you barely ever see me commenting in the tags.

never mind that the scripts are already written, that the whole thing was plotted years ago, that it's grotesquely self-centered to think that what some woman on a couch in Connecticut does could possibly affect anything that happens with a story created by a bunch of ridiculously talented people for an audience of millions. in my brain, that's the feeling, even though merely entertaining the thoughts feels like the worst dipshit behavior.

i take medicine. i got a second round of exposure therapy for other, markedly worse issues this time last year, and i'm intensely grateful that things are a million times better this year. i frequently challenge the compulsive feelings; they aren't controlling me. i'm not "in a bad way." but. it gets tiring to fight. occasionally, you could see me do things that don't make much sense out of anxiety - for example, posting something, and then deciding The Stars Are Not Aligned and deleting it two minutes later.

it is almost certain that i'll decide to delete this because it's embarrassing. but. for at least the next five minutes or so, that's where i'm at.

[a-mended-pact]

Unsteady Keys: Chapter Four

🦇 Author's notes: Hey so I originally was probably gonna stop posting this series until I got much further but I decided to throw caution to the wind and post it anyway.

⚠️ Warning : this chapter contains smut! MINORS DNI. If their are anymore besides for basic criminal minds based stuff let me know! ⚠️

✒: Word count: 2,259

Part 5

Request are open! 💌

I was enveloped in the smell of spice and cedar with the faint scent of amber. The warmth of his jacket seeped into my skin as if it being draped over me would keep me here longer. How I missed being this young and carefree. Times were so much simpler here. I was naive to believe I could still have this innocence of what I thought my life would be like. I had plans, plans with him. If I remember correctly today was our first official date together. I couldn't help but laugh at the thought. I could feel my nervousness getting the better of me already as if I hadn’t already lived through these moments countless times before. 

I ran through the courtyard, the sound of leaves crunching beneath my feet was music to my ears. The happiness I felt at the thought of seeing him all dressed up for me again was everything. The only time I was ever this excited to see someone was when I saw my wife in her beautiful wedding gown for the first time. She looked like a goddess but he was a god that chose to grace me with his presence only when I craved for him. 

I finally reached him with a happy giggle. I was so excited to see him and to be close to him. What I felt was mind numbing happiness. It was ridiculous how badly I wanted to go back to this time. I hadn’t been tainted by my mother's illness getting worse nor have I seen the horrors of my job. I haven’t had the drug induced nightmares yet. I haven’t even felt what it was like to be imprisoned both physically and mentally yet. I missed this. 

His hand grabbed mine as a smile passed his lips. ‘Are you ready for our first official date Reid?’ I nodded eagerly. I knew this wasn’t real but I didn’t care. I wanted to be here forever. Perhaps I was just romanticizing all of this more than I should.  Him and I weren’t necessarily always level headed with one another. We often fought against one another in tournaments. When I went against him he would always show bitterness towards me. As if it was my fault I had an eidetic memory and he didn’t. 

We were friends though. We did get along in a lot of ways. We were always eager to learn more about anything and everything together so when one of us would find out something new we just had to tell the other immediately. We would constantly discuss our thoughts on books. I was always so eager to know how he viewed things. Even if I didn’t see the same things the way he did. 

He intrigued my mind to no end and that’s probably how I ended up here trying to see if I could see a whole different side of him than I ever have before. My lips were swollen from how long we were kissing on his bed. His hands cupping my face pulled me closer to him if that were even possible. He tasted of buttered popcorn and cheerwine from our movie date earlier. I never wanted this kiss to stop. His tongue grazed my bottom lip and I opened my mouth to allow better access. Who would have thought my first kiss with him would be a french kiss. 

His other hand ran up my stomach underneath my sweater. To think I could get so turned on by a man was odd to me. Then again I never really cared. If I liked you, I liked you. I didn’t think it mattered what was between your legs. I was attracted to your mind. The mind was always such an intoxicating thing to me. A moan passed my lips as he moved his to my neck suckuling bruises into me as if there wasn't evidence that he had me on my back underneath him aching to be touched wherever he was willing to give me. My head shot back and my back arched up as he caressed me through my tightening jeans. A chuckle escaped him as he looked down at me. His brown eyes looked nearly black with his pupils blown so wide. ‘Who would have thought I’d have you under me like this on our first date Spencer?’ I moaned as his hand cupped the side of my neck making me keep my gaze on him. The sound of my first name on his lips drove me wild. He so rarely called me Spencer. He only did when he knew it would drive me crazy.

His lips slammed against mine in haste when did my sweater end up on the floor? God. Who truly cared. My mouth was watering at the sight of him taking off his slacks. I moved off the bed quickly just so I could be on my knees as he took off the rest of his bottom garments. Something about the way I knew I caused him being this turned on made me dizzy. I wanted to taste him. I just wanted him. I didn’t really care how. I leaned forward bringing my hands up to his thighs as he looked down on me. His cheeks were flushed as a smile formed on his lips. ‘I always mistook you for an asexual Reid. I never imagined you’d be on your knees drooling over my cock.’

He was teasing me and I didn’t care because it was true. I was in fact drooling. In response to his tease I kissed the tip of him before I whirled my tongue around him. I  couldn’t help but watch him as his head fell down to gaze at me. His hand found it’s way into my hair. Fuck. If he could look at me like this forever. I’d gladly stay on my knees for him. I drew him into my mouth deeper still, swirling my tongue around on him before I gently sucked in my cheeks. 

His moaning was intoxicating every time I made the smallest amount of movement he gave me his sweetest sounds. I couldn’t help but moan around him as his fingers entangled in my hair to hold my head steady as he started thrusting softly. He was being gentle enough to not hit the back of my throat even though he could easily if he moved just the slightest bit more. I was okay with it for a while until I noticed he was holding himself back and that’s when I put my hands on the back of his thighs and pulled him in deeper forcing me to take him in as deep as I could. I had to remind myself to relax my throat and to breathe through my nose. 

 

I thought the sounds he was making before were enough to get the better of me. That was a lie. The ones he made as I let him continuously thrust into my throat were better than anything I could have ever imagined. I was so grateful I had an eidetic memory. I would forever pull this one from the back of my mind. He was so lost in me as he came down my throat. Tears were leaking down my face as I looked up at him, my nails clawing gently at his thighs as I relaxed myself back onto my heels. I opened my mouth and stuck out my tongue drool dripping down my chin as I showed him I had swallowed everything he had given me. 

He pulled me up kissing me aggressively, his tongue slipping into my awaiting mouth. As he started stripping me of my clothing, throwing me down on his bed once he was done. ‘You did such a great job for me Spencer. Time for me to make you feel what you made me feel.’ His mouth sunk down on me quickly making me hit the back of his throat immediately he wasn’t wasting any time. A whimper left me as one hand rushed to his hair and the other covering my mouth. I was always so sensitive. I didn’t know how to be quiet even when I pleasured myself to the thought of him doing exactly this to me.  ‘Fuck!’ My back arched off the bed every time he bobbed his head up and down on me, hollowing out his cheeks with each upperward movement until I eventually heard a ‘pop’ his mouth coming off of my cock. As he licked up the underside. 'Jeez Reid I don't think I've heard you cuss before. How sexy.' As soon as he finished he sucked on the tip on my cock and I swear I saw stars. How could someone be so good with their mouth? I felt a tightening in my abdomen. My back arching up. 'P--please I. Oh god. Don't.  Please. Fuck.' I couldn't form a proper sentence as he forced me deep into his throat and clawed his hands down my stomach. I started cumming moaning his name.

'Ethan. Oh fuck.' My voice was low and quiet, maybe he didn't hear me. Maybe. That was a stupid thought. I knew he was watching me. He always was when we were alone together. I could see him out of the corner of my eye. 

'I know that look Spencer, I know what you were thinking about. Even after all these years I still know you so well.' I looked up at him breathlessly.  He looked so different compared to how he looked then. 'Do you ever miss us?' He asked as he swirled the knife on the wooden table where he sat to the right of me. 

'I would be lying if I said I didn't Ethan. You know that.' It broke my heart seeing where we had both ended up. I knew him being like this wasn't his fault. It was Cat's. I just had to figure out how deep the wounds were that she caused to the man I loved so deeply.  

'If that were true then why did you marry her?' I could hear the sadness in his voice. The worst thing was seeing the tears stream down his face.  Even though I was supposed to be afraid of my capturer, all I wanted to do was comfort him. 

'You and I grew apart. We didn't talk for years. You were busy with your music career and I was busy with the bau. Then Y/N came into my life and she made me feel things the same way you used to. She challenges me, she pushes me to be a better version of myself. In a lot of ways she reminds me of you. Which is probably one of the reasons I fell for her so quickly.' Tears were in my eyes as I felt him unhook my cuffs and rub his hands against the scuff marks on my wrists. 

'It was never in my intention to kidnap you or to do any of this Spencer. ' He sounded so broken. The sound of my name coming from him made me shudder.  'I just wanted you to know I didn't kill any of them. I abducted them but I didn't actually kill them. At least I don't remember doing it.' I tilted my head to the side. I was weary of the fact that he might be playing a mind game. Something about the way he was watching me as he unhooked me made me want to trust in him as if he didn't burn me and cut me with the very blade he probably used on the female victims.

I was careful not to say anything I shouldn't but I knew I needed to be as honest with him as I possibly could. I stayed seated even though he had unhooked me completely.  'If you didn't kill or hurt the victims Ethan then why do they look like Y/N? You were at my wedding when you two first met. You were the only one out of you and Cat that knew what she looked like.'

He sighed and sat on the floor in front of me sobbing as he laid his head into my lap. 'I was told that if I didn't do what she asked she was gonna hurt you. I didn't want that. I tried to tell you. I tried many times.' He was clinging to me as my hands moved to rest in his hair. He was a victim of Cat Adam's just like I had been with the whole Mr. Scratch ordeal. 

'Ethan, what did she do to make you submit to her so easily? Threatening just me couldn't have made you agree.' My fingers twitched in his hair. I wanted to comfort him but now wasn't the time. I couldn't let my emotions for him cloud my better judgment.

He looked up at me and then looked down. 'She kept finding me. Everywhere I moved. No matter where I went there she was with another letter in my mailbox. I ignored them at first. Until she started sending me photos of you. You weren't aware of them. You looked high as hell. Completely gone. You were naked and covered in blood with a dead woman lying beside you.' 

My back stiffened. Lindsey Vaughn. It all made sense now. 

'I knew you'd never kill someone, you just don't have that type of viciousness in you. The photos were still being sent until I did what she asked.'

Taglist:

@sassymoon @rainsong01 @onlyhereforthefanfics @itsdars

[rantopolis]

How do you deal with a toxic relationship when you are morally obligated to maintain it?

Please - please be kind. I can't take anymore yelling, or people being mean, or dismissive. Just.... help.

How do you deal with a toxic relationship when you are morally obligated to maintain it? It's complicated. We start with me who has clinical Depression & Anxiety, and I am the calmest person in my house 🙃 My older sister (38) is neurodivergent (Asperger's) but is growing increasingly mentally ill (delusions, and some symptoms of Depression but in the form of angry outbursts) and refuses to get help, instead relying on me for everything.

But I am burnt out.

I can't abandon her or cut ties with her - but I also live in fear of being around her. You literally cannot breathe around her - or eat, or sleep, or take a trip to the bathroom - because it will annoy her and cause her to start yelling. She wasn't even here yesterday and I had an acute Anxiety attack while closing up a bag of chips because I was making a lot of noise and automatically braced myself in fear for being yelled at.

Everything in our lives must be dropped immediately to revolve around her will, or we suffer hearing her scream - or worse, her and Dad (who I secretly suspect is also Asperger's, but in the 1960's he was just considered a 'rambunctious boy') get into it, and everybody's screaming and yelling and crying, and I'm always the one who has to clean up everybody's emotional mess. Anytime she's angry with him, she dumps on me. I keep telling Dad if he loves me, he won't do anything to upset her, because she takes all her frustrations out on me.

Not to mention he was a beast when we were growing up. He's mellowed out a lot as he's grown older, but overall, he can still be quite a bullheaded bully - he always has to be right, he always has to have the last word. He always has to criticize EVERYTHING, even stuff I find important, so I just stopped sharing things with him because I was made to feel like nothing I cared about mattered. In his old age, we never know which Dad we're going to get from day to day. You can talk about a topic one day, and his response, even if he doesn't understand, can be calm and genial. And then you can talk about the exact same thing the very next day, and his response will be one of angry, snooty, critical ridicule. So something you think he was cool with, suddenly he's not. Unstable.

The situation with Mom is no better. Literally while writing this, something out in the kitchen happened, causing her to scream, "God damn!," triggering me and causing me to cry. While she's calmed down in her old age, it used to be that she screamed like a banshee every time she was upset, and *everything* upset her. Did my sister drive her to insanity? And did Mother drive my sister to insanity? Both, I think. Also, I stopped telling Mom important things too because her response was always pessimistic. I'd tell her something I was excited about, and her (trying to keep my feet on the ground, or shield me from disappointment) would tell me it wouldn't work out. So after a while, I stopped trying altogether 😔 Didn't matter what it was. There was no point in trying because nothing would ever work out ever.

My sister's disorder, Asperger's, prevents her from making good social connections, so she has no friends. And aside from our aging & ill parents (62&61) and my incredibly aloof younger brother (29) - whose coping mechanism his whole life has been to remove himself from these situations, if not physically then to mentally space out to a different plane - she has no one to rely on.

But I can't take it anymore. Everything I love she sh*ts on, calling it stupid or garbage or nonsense, or just saying that nobody cares, when *I* have to care about every single little thing that she's interested in no matter what. I need peace and quiet but she talks ALL THE TIME, and follows me around like she's a dog. I literally can't go to the restroom without her standing outside the door and talking to me.

I have lost so many friends because she always insists on butting in and then drives them all away. She makes sure to cut me off from others so that she can keep me all to herself, at her beck and call, always serving her, when she is capable. She can get up and get her own soda, but she makes me do it. She can throw her own trash in the trashcan, but she hands it off to me. She can carry her own bags, but I'm her pack-mule. Everything, EVERYTHING has to be done by me.

I've spent so much time caring for her (not my responsibility btw) that I haven't had time to make a life for myself. I want to move away somewhere, to the middle of the woods, but I feel trapped. It's hard finding support because I can't talk about this without feeling like *I'M* the villain for abandoning/speaking ill of a mentally handicapped person.

There's probably a lot more to be said, but this is a long post as is.

Please - please be kind. I can't take anymore yelling, or people being mean, or dismissive. Just.... help.

[spinnenpfote6]

Hey guys, I just wanted to ask if there are some of my mutuals who suffer from a phobia of germs and dirt as well.

I definitely have one though it hasn’t been properly diagnosed yet. I mean, I have developed weird cleaning rituals, thought processes and I’ve been in multiple fights with my parents because I keep using up our medical disinfectants which I know are necessary - but I can’t stop. I don’t want my mom to hug or kiss or even touch me anymore, solely for the reason that I think of every person as “unclean”, wash my hands a million times a day until they bleed and keep wiping everything clean with disinfectant-soaked baby wipes. Nobody is allowed to touch my belongings or bed or even me without my permission and everything that hasn’t been washed or disinfected is “contaminated”. I love my plushies and big action figures but I keep them in my closet in fear of getting them “dirty” so they don’t really bring me joy anymore. I don’t touch doorknobs or lightswitches without a small piece of napkin anymore. And finally, the most ridiculous thing of all: I can’t even slightly bump against a doorframe without feeling the urge to clean my shoulder afterwards. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

I’m literally like that overly clean person comedies make fun of. I know I must sound like an absolute nutcase to you while you’re reading this and reading this myself - I can’t blame you. If I saw a person acting like me on TV, I’d laugh about them.

This whole problem started about 6 years ago and built up veeeery slowly. I can’t quite remember but I think it started out with me thinking about wanting stuff to be “cleaner” and only putting on freshly washed clothes. We were always a tiny bit “cleaner” of a family because of my illness, but only to a rather insignificant amount. To be honest, I can’t even for the love of me connect my old mindset to my new mindset. Why wasn’t I grossed out by this stuff back then? How was my thought process different? But honestly, it literally feels like someone pulled a switch in my brain between for and after I was about 14 years old. So I can’t put my finger on what went wrong in my head during that time. Now I’m just so insanely grossed out by so much stuff that I feel like I’m going insane if I don’t “clean” them. No one understands my “confusing procedures”, as my mother put it, but they seem perfectly calculated and reasonable to me. In contrast to other germaphobes though, I never have the urge to clean myself too long to get rid of all the germs, like washing hands for 10 minutes or something. I just need a short wash and everything is fine, but I need it.

Now, with these mental problems I have noticed certain rocky relationship days with my parents (they are surprisingly understanding but also think that it’s unhealthy behaviour and that I’m overreacting and just stop - you must know that we are very close) and that I frequently have extremly depressive episodes for a few hours which keep coming back very quickly almost every day. It’s all definitely causing me quite a lot of distress sometimes: I think of preparing “cleaning routines” quite a lot over the day. There was one day - well over a year ago - where we were running out of disinfectant where I was literally awake for hours at night, heart racing, shaking and crying while trying to think of a way to get new bottles without my parents noticing.

The worst thing is that due to everything seeming “contaminated” I don’t have such a good relationship with my pets as I wish I had. I don’t want my cats - Waylon and Ygor - to touch me at all. There was one time where I almost kicked Waylon away in a sudden fit of disgust and anger because he touched my leg. What’s even worse are those extremely aggressive thoughts I sometimes have against my pets when stuff like this happens. I literally thought about grabbing my cat and kicking harshly him or choking him or breaking his neck or something like that - just for a second. And honestly, I was horrified and ashamed by having these thoughts. It’s not the first time either, I know I have the same kind of bad thoughts after a failure of mine with mostly a fight attached and realizing this genuinely made me believe that my mental illness is turning me into a monster, despite having never laid a finger on one of my pets. I don’t think I’ve ever properly talked about this with anyone except maybe my mother but I was too ashamed of telling her the whole thing. After having done some research I now know that apparantly, my mind is using violent fantasies to cope because it doesn’t know how to handle distress and intense negative feelings overall.

Now, of course I want to get this problem treated as soon as possible. I’ve tried in the past (i.e. last year) but my therapist was - despite being nice - still very young and seemingly unprepared/unsure/insecure and paired by the fact that I didn’t want to have a group appointment discussing my feelings and behaviour with my parents immidiately, she basically told me that she couldn’t treat me because I “didn’t cooperate” and “didn’t suffer enough” from this germaphobia. Oh well. She didn’t say it in a mean way, but I was a quite disappointed for sure. Then the pandemic started and I had to stop therapy all together anyway. Since my chronic illness is causing the virus to be extremely dangerous to me, I haven’t been able to start a therapy yet, but I’ve been searching for good therapists and reading about my symptoms, hoping that the pandemic will eventually come to an end and I’ll get a good vaccine soon. I’ve tried to stop or tone my behaviour down a few times over the years but I always end up falling back after a while, despite it somehow working. To be honest, I’m very scared of a full therapy but I know that without therapy, this phobia will keep dragging me down. Even if my family thinks that it’s “not so bad” and “just a phase”.

Stuff like this is also why I hearing rumors that Adam Driver might have anxiety comforted me in a weird way. Of course I want him to be well, but thinking that this guy whom I love for his performance as Kylo Ren, a famous Hollywood actor, is a normal dude who might have seemingly “dumb” symptoms of mental health issues as well which are making his life more difficult - just like mine - is kinda comforting. Like I’m not alone with this. You know what I mean?

I’m sharing this story because I wanna know if there are people with similar feelings and/or experiences to connect with them and to spread some awareness. Maybe some of you know coping mechanisms or first steps for a sort of self-therapy? If I’m able to help just one other person with sharing this, that they are not alone or that others have weird mental health problems too, it would already be awesome enough.

Thanks for taking the time to read about my experiences!

I love y’all!

Shiny over and out

(Btw sorry for mistakes - I’m German and it’s already 3 a.m. and writing this made me cry at times since this is a very difficult topic for me. But I had to get this off my chest so badly)

[igirisuhito]

Title: Afflicted Relationship(s): Kamukura Izuru/Komaeda Nagito Hinata Hajime/Komaeda Nagito Rating: Mature Chapters: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / ? Chapter Summary: Komaeda weighs his options, Kuzuryuu begrudgingly listens to his worries Trigger Warnings: Panic attacks, mental breakdown, dismissing mental illness, IV stuff

[Ao3 Link]

┈┈┈┈․° ☣ °․┈┈┈┈

Hinata was sprawled out on the floor lying face up. His body was lifeless, save for the occasional twitches of his fingers and eyelids as neurons and muscles misfired in a feeble attempt to keep him conscious.

I knelt down, taking the boy's heated face into my hands and angling it up towards mine. He was incredibly pale, the only colour remaining on porcelain skin the flush of his fever. His breathing was slow and shallow, every little warm breath close enough to taste on my lips as I leaned in close. There was no way I couldn't begin to panic when he was in such a state.

"Hinata-kun! I understand if you're so repulsed by my actions that you've passed out, and I know it's more than I should ask of you..." The words came out of my mouth too rushed and barely intelligible, so I took a deep breath. "But please give me some sign you're okay."

My hands were beginning to shake, enough so that my hold on Hinata’s face became too loose to support the weight of his head. His face slipped from my grasp, his head lolling to the side as a soft gasp escaped my lips.

Did I kill Hinata-kun? No, that's ridiculous. You can't kill somebody by kissing them. I mean, you can, technically, but not like this. Surely not?

I wiped the remaining saliva from my lips, subtle evidence of a possible cause of death. Carefully rising to my feet, I stared down at Hinata’s weakened form. Fear was beginning to take hold, anxiety burning through my bloodstream and forcing me to move.

I can't lose him, not to such a hopeless cause. Hinata-kun didn't deserve to die such a pointless death by my hands, he deserved something grandiose, something exhilarating.

This kind of death would just be… boring. Wasteful.

"Tsumiki-san!!" I called out, my feet setting into motion as I made a dash for the room's exit. For a second, I felt a passing relief that Hinata had collapsed before Tsumiki had accidentally seen the repulsive things I was doing, but quickly scolded myself for thinking such a selfish thought. Hinata’s life was in danger and here I was glad that Tsumiki didn’t see me sucking face with him? How pathetic.

There was no doubt about it. It was my own luck that had caused Hinata to pass out. It was protecting me from being caught preying on him. That realisation caused something deep within my chest to ache with repulsion, dread, undiluted terror.

Despair.

I can only assume it was that same twisted luck that guided me into Tsumiki's arms, causing me to bump straight into her as she was coming into the room. All of the school's advice against running into halls went wasted on the likes of me. We slammed hard into one another with an "Oof."

As Tsumiki went crashing to the floor, the saline bag in her hand was squished into her chest, causing it to burst and soak her clothes with salty water. They stuck to her body damply, clinging to her skin in an erotic way. Her skirt had also flown up in the process, flashing me with an inappropriate amount of thigh along with her white underwear.

"Uwahh! K-K-K-Komaeda-san!!" She squealed, pulling her skirt down in a desperate attempt to save her dignity as her face flushed a bright red.

"A-ah, I'm so sorry you had to even accidentally touch somebody as disgusting as me!" I reached out a hand, offering to help her up. "My apologies for running, but it appears that Hinata-kun has collapsed."

"Wahh?! D-D-Don't worry about me, t-that's what you should be concerned about!" Tsumiki grabbed my hand, allowing me to help pull her up to her feet.

Without another word she scooted past me and into the room, abandoning the spilt saline bag on the floor. She practically pounced on Hinata's lifeless body, throwing herself into her brilliant talent as she pressed her ear to his chest and a hand to his forehead.

“He- he’s burning right up! Wh-why was he even out of bed? What was he doing before he collapsed?!" She began exasperated throwing a flurry of questions at me, all whilst examining Hinata's eyes for any sign of possible head trauma.

"He was…" I paused, teeth teasing unconsciously at my bottom lip. "Kissing me. We were making out."

The nurse's head snapped around in a fashion not so dissimilar to the creepy way an owl's would turn unnaturally. Her grey eyes bore right into me with an expression of rage mixed with shock. "A-are you s-s-serious?! K-Komaeda-san that's so irresponsible! You should know that you'll catch th--"

“Of course not!” I slid my hands up the sides of my arms, gripping at the sleeves of my jacket as I pulled my eyes away from Tsumiki’s. “Don't you know that kind of thing only happens in fiction? It would be repulsive for somebody like me to take advantage of an Ultimate’s illness for my own selfish desires. The very thought makes me want to vomit in my mouth!”

Tsumiki narrowed her eyes for a second, before realisation set in and they shot back open. “O-oh! I see…”

“Ha, hahahah.” Bringing my hand to my mouth, I touched my lips absentmindedly and glanced towards Hinata's body still laid out on the floor.

Was it wrong of me to say that? I can't have Tsumiki knowing of my intentions, she would stop me without hesitation. Perhaps the others would tie me up again, then I would miss the murder and the investigation... how awful. But, I can't shake this odd feeling that this is the wrong thing, that I should tell the truth. There is a possibility that not being honest about the cause of Hinata's fainting spell could lead to complications further on.

It could even be the one thing that leads to his death. After all, his condition is somewhat worse than Owari or Mioda's…

But owning up would reveal our intentions and likely ruin any chance of allowing the Ultimates to shine even brighter…

No. I shook my head free of the thoughts. The silence had dragged on long enough, Tsumiki was going to start questioning my words unless I spoke up soon.

“Well then… should we move him?”

"R-right!" With a few fervent nods, Tsumiki hopped off Hinata's body. "Yes! Please help me get him onto the bed so I can properly tend to Hinata-san's needs!"

Hinata-san's needs… huh?

Nodding in return, I brought myself back to Hinata's side and knelt down to the floor. "Well then, would you be okay getting his legs?"

"O-of course!" Scrambling to his legs, Tsumiki quickly slid her arms under the back of Hinata's knees. "I'm r-ready to lift him when-whenever you are."

I hooked my arms under his armpits, making sure not to take note of just how damp and sweaty he was with fever. There was a moment of eye contact, a quick nod, and then we both lifted him.

Thankfully the hospital rooms were so small, we didn't have to move Hinata incredibly far to return him to his bed. Tsumiki rearranged his sheets, carefully tucking Hinata back under the dull blue comforter as she examined his arms.

"I-I-I was coming to re-replace his IV… but it l-looks like he's p-pulled it out…" With a rather disdainful expression, she glanced over to the IV pole. "Again…"

Just as she had said, Hinata's line was pooled on the floor, the small tube that had presumably been in his arm now having smeared blood on the floor. The machine had stopped infusing, in fact it had been switched off entirely so as to not alert Tsumiki, and now the remaining fluid in the line had drained onto the floor.

"He's been rather uncharacteristically troublesome, hasn't he?" I couldn't help but chuckle, glancing over at the restless, almost pained look on Hinata's face. "I'm sorry, it's reprehensible that I would laugh at your struggle, but I could never see Hinata-kun kicking up such a fuss in his usual state."

There was a short moment of silence before Tsumiki giggled as well, clasping her hands together. "Y-you're right! H-Hinata-san is v-very different. But it's okay! We w-will get through this!"

"That's the spirit! Your hope is amazing Tsumiki-san! To still haven't given up on Hinata-kun like that… it's amazing! Truly nobody has a tolerance like that of the Ultimate Nurse!" As I took a rather sharp inhale, I couldn't help the big grin that spread on my face. "Seeing you in action like this has brought a worthless nobody like me hope and distracted me from all my worries!"

Ah.

My… worries.

My smile became a little more strained. Tsumiki was looking at me with a mix of disgust and fear, the enjoyment she had been feeling at receiving compliments far gone.

I didn't let my smile fall as I blinked slowly, realising it was probably time for me to leave her be. Lifting my hand, I waved to her as I began to head towards the door. "Well, I won't get in your way any longer. Goodbye."

As I left the scene, I glanced back one last time at the room. In the place where Hinata had collapsed, the spider lily he had been holding earlier was laid on the floor, likely having been abandoned when he came towards me. It seemed as though it had been crushed among the chaos, red petals scattered and bleeding onto the linoleum floor.

I turned away quickly.

Why do I… feel so distracted? Why am I so scared ?

He kissed me. He wants me to spread it. He told me to spread it. That should be my top priority.

So why do I so desperately want to turn back? To return and sit by Hinata's side, taking care of his every need instead of spreading hope?

As I stepped out into the hallway, I shut the door behind me with a shaking hand. That sensation in my chest only continued to grow as I made my way back towards the waiting room.

I should be putting a plan into place, something that would allow me to spread the disease faster. Something that would perhaps lure someone here, bring them in contact. Or perhaps I could bring the infected into the quarantined hotel? Or go back into Hinata's room to go check on him again? Tell the others that Hinata was dying and that we so desperately needed them to come do something before it became the fault of me and my filthy luck and the blood of an Ultimate coated my hands and I would be so deservedly executed.

Unconsciously, my fingers found their way into my hair, winding themselves around the coarse locks and pulling tightly. There was a familiar sound ringing in my ears, the loud buzzing of a swarm of insects. They filled my ears and mouth and eyes with their filthy touch, tainting everything in sight, destroying the world before me.

"It's your fault he's going to die." They whispered, barely audible beneath the white noise. "It's always your fault. You know this."

My mind was racing, my lungs were burning. It was if a black poison was seeping over my mind, dripping down over my eyes, obscuring my vision and thoughts. I couldn't think straight, everything was so overwhelming it was almost funny.

It was funny, so I laughed. It hurt my chest and wheezed like the final pitiful exhale of a corpse, but I laughed.

And I laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed.

Until something hit me hard on the back of my head, knocking me from my daze and causing me to choke on my breath.

"Oi. Stop freaking out, it's fuckin' creepy."

I blinked a few times, my vision beginning to clear as those dark shadows were chased back into the corners of my vision. The hospital's lobby slowly came into vision, along with a very angry looking Kuzuryuu. He scowled, crossing his arms over his chest tightly and forcing himself to sit up taller.

Ah, of course. How unsightly it must be to watch someone like me being so pathetic.

All my attempts to apologise were drowned out as I coughed and spluttered, attempting to regain my breath. The world was much clearer now, my eyes readjusting to the tropical sunshine streaming through the windows. It appeared as though I was now sitting down in the waiting room, yet I had no memory of moving from the wards and into the lobby.

I unballed my fists, my fingers aching from the strain as they unfolded and released my hair. The pain pulling at my scalp faded, and slowly I brought my shaking hands down to my knees. To my frustration, they instinctively gripped tightly at the fabric, clutching tightly until the denim burned into my palms.

Opening my mouth, I attempted once again to say some kind of apology for my misgivings, but all that came out was a rasped "Ah," closely followed by a shaky "Sorry."

Kuzuryuu huffed, his nose crinkling as he prepared to spit some kind of insult, but instead of ripping into me, he paused. There were a few seconds of still silence before he sighed loudly, allowing his body to relax a little and posture fall. "He's fine, don't get so fuckin' worked up about it."

"I'm… sure you're right." A breathy laugh forced itself out, as if squeezed out from the tight feeling in my chest. "After all, you are an Ultimate."

"Wha-? You think being an Ultimate makes me right about everything?" He scoffed, not in a tone as if he were looking down and mocking me, but more one of amusement. "They're wrong about you being crazy, you're just a fucking moron like me. Or maybe I'm the crazy one for even talking to you, who knows?"

It was difficult to think of what to say in response to that. I decided not to think too long on it, instead choosing to laugh along with him. "Perhaps."

The small smile that was on Kuzuryuu's face slowly dropped. The positive feeling in the air evaporated like mist and a heavy silence settled over the room. All that could be heard in the empty waiting room was the sound of Owari sobbing as though her life depended on it echoing down the corridor from her room. Eventually, Kuzuryuu broke the silence as he sighed loudly, leaning back in the stiff plastic hospital chair as best he could.

“I think I’m… starting to get your whole crazy ‘stepping stone to hope’ shit.” He paused to scoff at himself, as if he was in shock that he would say such a thing. “Ever since Peko saved me, it feels like I owe this life to her, or to everyone else. It’s like it’s not my own anymore. Just a spare.”

"If I'm not wrong, you're referring to Pekoyama-san's sacrifice? It’s no surprise you feel that way, but there was very little you could have done to prevent her execution.”

Kuzuryuu still grumbled after I asked, sounding frustrated by the question. It was no surprise, he had reacted rather poorly when I brought it up during Owari’s fight as well, but dancing around the topic seemed pointless. What Pekoyama did for the one she loved was amazing, there was no logical reason to not acknowledge that.

“It’s that stupid fucking Monokuma’s fault! But what kind of fucking person am I to let Peko take the blow for me after all that I said? It’s messed up. The only reason I didn’t die is because she shielded me, a tool ‘til the end.” As he said the last few words, Kuzuryuu slammed his fist against his leg, growing more frustrated as he continued to think about it.

I shrugged. "Pekoyama-san was an amazing person. She died for the sake of your hope, so that you could continue to be a beacon for your family and the Kuzuryuu Clan. There's no point in being angry at her for doing the right thing…"

The right thing, huh?  

"What she did wasn't the right thing! The right thing would have been for her to stay with me!" Jumping out of his chair, Kuzuryuu glared down at me. "No death is a 'hopeful thing' you dumbass!"

Spreading hope is the right thing to do, so that's what I should do, right?

"Hey! Are you even listening to me? Jesus, you really are messed in the head." He scrunched up his nose in a snarl. "I'm trying to be more forgiving and a better fucking person and all that shit but you really piss me off, going on about how everything is great as long as it's for fucking hope !"

I don't need to worry about my feelings. I just need to spread hope, like Pekoyama-san did.

I looked up at him, locking eyes as I smiled widely at the Yakuza. "I think I get it now. Thank you, Kuzuryuu-kun, you are a truly wonderful person. I'm sure Pekoyama-san is proud of you."

"What?! What the hell are you talking about, you bastard? Don't go around saying things like that." In an attempt to hide his reddening face, Kuzuryuu turned his head to the side, looking away from me.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to upset you." I raised my hands in a defensive position, hoping to calm him.

"Whatever… just go take a break or something." Still refusing to look at me, Kuzuryuu grumbled. "I'll take care of things here, alright?"

I nodded. "Thank you, Kuzuryuu-kun, you really do make a brilliant leader."

"Just get out of here!"

Laughing softly, I carefully rose to my feet, still feeling a little dizzy from lack of oxygen. As Kuzuryuu began to head back towards the wards, I realised something.

"Wait! How did you know about what happened to Hinata-kun?"

"Huh?" He stopped, spinning around to face me. "Because you came in here cackling like a maniac. You wouldn't answer my questions so I checked in with Tsumiki about it. By the time I got back you were still out here having your breakdown, just now sitting down and babbling away to yourself creepily about how you were a murderer."

"Ah." Yeah, that sounded right. "Sorry about that."

Kuzuryuu shook his head, muttering something under his breath before pushing open the doors to the corridor and continuing on his way.

I figured it was probably time I did what he said too and took advantage of this opportunity to put my plan into action.

With a wide smile, I headed towards the entrance of the hospital, pushing open the doors before stepping out into the warm sunlight.

[cetologies]

i once again... need to vent. so i apologize. i don’t have another outlet but it is under a read more. this is my personal experience, on the off-chance someone reads this and decides to pick a fight with me. i feel like i don’t have to say that but alas, the internet.

posting this late at night so hopefully too many won’t be subjected to it. i go into detail a little bit on this stuff.

tw: ED, body dysmorphia, OCD, depression, SH, anxiety, s//cide ment

i’m sorry i tried to tag it as well as possible to cater to anything blacklisted, i will most likely delete this but otherwise if something needs to be tagged differently please tell me 

this is definitely the worst i’ve felt in a long time. years probably. and some of it is my fault, so i feel like i’m not allowed to complain. but i will anyway. all i’m asking is to get down to 115 again. i was that small when i was 16 and i want to be there again. i haven’t weighed myself with intention to see what weight i am in maybe 4-5 years. 

i make it a point when i go to doctors offices to not tell me my weight. i cover my eyes and *usually* explicitly state that. but i didn’t three years ago, though i said “i don’t want to know my weight” and put my hands over my eyes and she still told me my weight. i remember crying and being loud, the doctor (who had known me for years) had immediately asked the nurse if she told me my weight.

i’ve always had body image issues but holy shit not like this. i’ve suffered with depression and anxiety most of my life. i’ve ticked off almost every single box in terms of diagnosed mental illnesses (except schizophrenia... which even that i’m starting to check off a few). but like i said, holy shit never like this. i would like to say this is harder to deal with than the anxiety/depression i previously have dealt with, but i dont know anymore.

this definitely hurts so bad though. i am getting depressed again, and cannot see this getting better anytime soon. partially my fault once again. i’d just like to lose a little more weight before seeing a doctor. i think i weighed (at the time of that incident above) around 129?? which is... healthy for my height but so is 115. 

my problem is i can’t eat. i can’t think about eating. my default state is now just nausea. i get nauseous from not eating, i get nauseous thinking about eating, and i get nauseous from eating. since october i cant stomach anything. i started adderall in december and it made it 10x worse. i’ve since switched to adderall xr (adzenys?) and i can at least drink water now and only a get half as nauseous. but that was really scary!! i had a little swig of water, no more than a sip, and had to lay down for 4 hours because i was so nauseous. 

my main issue is now i feel guilty for eating. which is normal for eating disorders. but i can’t eat more than 100 calories without wanting to self harm. it’s ridiculous, and i know it’s ridiculous but unfortunately that’s the number i can’t let go. i cried for an hour today bc i ate those lil brownie little bites and it was the second thing i ate today (aside from celery, which i also got sick and felt bad about eating bc i googled the calories: 60) and accidently saw how many calories they were. 240. 

so i ate 300 calories today and that was enough to make me want to vomit (i can’t, i’m emetophobic) and crawl into a hole and disappear. i have never ever dealt with stuff like this before and it’s so scary. i’m afraid my health is failing because of it but i can’t stop. it’s so unrealistic to eat less than 100 calories a day. the standard recommended is 2000, yet for some reason i can’t eat more than 100 without wanting to die

i check my body measurements 3-4 times a day. i spend at LEAST two hours in front of a mirror body checking and looking at my figure from all angles. these issues have definitely stemmed from my figure along with my insecurities. my entire life the only thing i’ve been complimented on is my measurements. it’s all i have. i’m not very pretty, but people are in love with my figure. and i am too! so many people tell me my body is great the way it is but i don’t care what they think, i care what i think. and i think i need to go back down to 115. 

i’ve chalked up my self worth to my body measurements. it’s not something that’s generally achievable without surgery, so it feels almost like a trophy to me because of how fucked up my brain is. i can’t lose it because that’s the only thing that i like about myself. or at least the only thing i like about myself that i don’t want to impulsively destroy like my eyelashes

and it’s not like i’m trying to achieve a completely flat stomach or anything. i just look a little disproportionate to me, since i carry fat only in the stomach. a little pudge is natural and i understand that. like i said, 115 is still healthy for 5′3′’. it’s not like im trying to drop down below 100. i had told myself once i lost the weight, then i’ll go get help for the fact i am violently nauseous no matter what.

which leads me to my next problem: this is my only solution. i can’t lose weight through exercise (esp exercise that involves numbers) bc of my OCD. i have such bad obsessive nature with any numbers (as stated w/ my weight, my body measurements, etc) and like i did when i started looking at calories, i’ll become so obsessive with exercise that if he doesn’t reach my fantastical expectations, i’ll want to self harm.

something that’s really making me upset is i specifically never looked at calories, checked my weight, etc. because i knew this would happen. i went out of my way to avoid stuff like this bc i knew i was susceptible to this kind of thinking and it still happened anyway. my body is going to start shutting down soon if it hasn’t started already. 

it’s fucking ridiculous though! i’ve tried to kill myself (and still, suffering as i am, i still thank god i made it out alive) and it’s just crazy that that was over anxiety, depression, agoraphobia, bullying, etc. and now i want to kill myself bc i ate CELERY!!! bc it’s 60 calories!!! like its so illogical!! i’m a very naturally logical person so this is just like each side of my brain hitting the other with a bat.

it doesn’t look like i’ve lost any weight, despite purposely not eating for 4 months. my grades are bad, my gpa dropped .5 points bc of covid and i’m fucking stupid anyway. i try my best not to self harm bc of my fear of blood but i usually end up scratching myself til i bleed anyway. 

i’m suffering and trying my best to make it through this but i’m trying my best. i just want to wait to get help until i lose a little more. but i am fucking suffering. all i want is to eat again. or at least to eat and not feel guilty afterwards. my portions are so much smaller, i can only eat a few bites of any meal and it’s so fucking scary but i can’t stop myself from wanting to lose more.

like i said, i’ve always had body image issues but nothing like this. i’m so so so scared but. there’s nothing my brain will allow me to do until i lose a little more weight. im afraid im causing/on the road to causing irreversible damage but i just!! can’t stop!! not being able to eat more than 100 calories is so fucking ridiculous i’m ashamed of myself. i shouldn’t be having anxiety attacks over eating celery.

[sui-senka]

The dumbest post

I think y’all should be here to witness the dumbest post I’ll ever make, as I’m not all about getting into discourse and that, and any other self-identifying Vergil lovers please come here:

@creepyscritches, @brasspetalsx, @fandomhell97, @breezeinmonochromenight, @kaldea88, @xalmasyx, @hornyangrybean, @noir-sorrow, @catspook, @xenontrioxide, @zilla-may-cry, @boobble, @vergilshusband, @tifaroni, @littlebluewraith, @im-a-clown, @genovaempera, @neodicronus, @thelessiknowtheworse, @thriilsy, @jestermania, @bunny-girl-sweetseek, @darka3363, @witchkiid, @45, @manadebutt, @magsamaire, @spaghetti-queerghetti, @clairexredfields, @204863-yunglynn, @yuri-subtext, @miss-soso-25, @josuke-kujo, @cameguisada, @trionfi, @glitteryhumanfiretrash, @lewdbunbun, @journalofsparda, @complacentdevil, @infernokid, @emogodmatthew, @brit-o-raptor, @salsa-and-chips, @gemstone-enema

I’d like y’all to bear witness, as I take down this bitch-ass clown. As I’ve blocked the person in question that I want to call out - please tag them into this post to have at them ;) Also - to the other people that didn’t get this, tag your mutuals and get them here.

I’d also like to announce that @thephantomporg84 is now masquerading as @derelict-stranger, and I got a few messages a few days ago about how she was gonna take down her account, and how she wants me to block all of you, which is ridiculous as you are all blogs that I have known and followed way before her and also I don’t know you either. I told her that I didn’t want to be involved in her drama, but here I am. 

It’s kinda hard for me to make this post, as I genuinely thought that she was cool in the beginning - she helped to give me more DMC asks in my inbox, and she always reblogged my stuff, as I’ve been trying to make it with the big guys - like @myfairmidnightladyspade.

But I saw the stuff that she says online to you all, and I think I got some anon messages from her asking if I was a terf or not... and yeah - my heart broke. I feel like I have been deceived in some way. What I wanted to be there was someone who was cool, and funny to talk to, but turns out that person is petty, heartless, immature and straight up spiteful.

I may have to justify myself in why I got messages from her - I was only trying to console her, but to do it in a neutral way as I wanted no part in her drama.

Also - i’m probably not gonna show any evidence for how much she sucks cause there’s tags and anon posts dedicated to that sort of thing

I want you on tumblr, and you on Reddit to find her, and in the /v/ section of 4chan to block her and report her for all she’s done. I want you to wipe her existence from the internet until there is nothing left.

Now - I need to change the flow of the conversation by directing it to you, @derelict-stranger.

I’d like you to kindly log off, take a breather and think, for a second about the actions that you’ve done to the people that I’ve mentioned above. 

I’d also like to tell you that your suggestion to block all those people above is complete nonsense. Why would you make me block blogs who have perfectly decent and awesome content, and to those who I have talked to longer than you? why would you make me block blogs who I don’t know? Quit trying to get me on your side. I want no part in your drama like I said before, and stop trying to manipulate me into getting me to give a shit about you.

I’d also like to tell you that your situation is entirely self-inflicted. That you trying to talk to me won’t work, the only reason that people are apparently “attacking you” - is because you, in fact, are the instigator, are the catalyst of all this hatred.

You - @derelict-stranger, lack any ability whatsoever to disagree well. From where I’m looking, all of this started because you don’t like Vergil from the Devil May Cry games and you don’t like the plot of 5, which seems extremely stupid to me, as he’s only a small-ish part of 1, one of the best boss-fights in 3 and just a mere mention in 4. The fact that you need to incessantly attack content creators who merely like him is stupid. Either keep those opinions to yourself, ignore them, or do my favourite -> stick ‘em up your big stupid ass.

It’s also stupid that when people merely like him - you have to bring in your own shitty opinions. No one asked you what you thought, and I’m pretty sure you’re actively seeking out fights with people just to feel good about yourself. It’s also super hypocritical of you ragging on about how much Vergil sucks, when you go crazy for Kylo Ren, as they share some similarities in terms of their vibes and traits. (Yeah - I see you asking for smutty Kylo Ren x Reader requests online.....) Why do you get pissy when people like villainous fictional characters - do your knickers

What I just want to know is what kind of personal gratification you get when you actively hate on a character, and what kind of gratification you get when just because someone disagrees with you - that you have to result using death threats, rape threats, pedophilia threats, racism, slurs, and ableism,  transphobia, alt-right rhetoric, neo-Nazi shit, pro-Trump, and homophobic comments to content creators just doin’ their own thing. Is it just to feel like the bigger man, is it to make yourself sound smarter than the other person (Cause you don’t) - like what actually motivates you, what actually makes you want to shit on other people’s parades, huh? Sounds to me like you need to get a life.

The fact that you always need to play the victim is sad and pathetic too:

- That you’re on the spectrum: - Okay, there are a lot of people who are on the spectrum here on tumblr. But they don’t use it as an excuse to justify shitty behaviour especially if it’s unitentional. as I’m sure they and the people they know are. I’m sure they apologise and try to get on with life like how NT people do. As you know - a lot of people of the spectrum feel like they’re being treated as sub-human being babies that do nothing but screech all the time, and they’re taking action to change those perceptions. Your behaviours are not helping their cause.

- That you use depression as an excuse - I’m kinda sympathetic to the whole mental health issues thing. I have them too. In fact, I am a hot mess. But I don’t use that to excuse me hurting other people with intention, and I’m sure many others don’t either. At least 1/4 or 1/3 will have some mental health issues in their life, and yeah, it sucks, and it’s common but it doesn’t make them exempt from them being called out on their shitty acts. the fact that so many people are and can be mentally ill doesn’t make you special, and it doesn’t give you a free pass to attack others.

- The fact that you try to bait people into making anti-semitic comments, so you can call them anti-semitic. Dude, that’s low. I’m pretty sure that’s gaslighting and manipulation as well. You don’t get the right to use your religion/race in that way as a defence when you’re feeling attacked so that you come off a better person. I’m friends with many jewish people, and they’d never have the gall to do that. I know that your peeople have had it rough, but you can’t use that in an argument just to prove that the other one is a piece of shit, when it is in fact you. I’m muslim, a WOC, and ancestrally speaking, from a country that your so-beloved president essentially banned their right to seek a better life in the states. For as long as I can remember - I’ve seen news about my kind being universally hated, I’ve been brought up in a post-9/11 world where for as long as I can remember that me and our kind are the enemy (so I can sympathise) - but you don’t see me and other muslims here using those petty tactics that you use, because unlike you, we’re not myopic and we know that won’t get us anywhere.

I mean, this behaviour sounds bratty and childish - so I was thinking, she’ll probably grow out of it. Then I find that you’re in you’re mid-twenties, and I think “you really haven’t grown up at all, have you?”, and honestly it just makes the behaviour worse as you are resulting to middle school/high school tactics -> especially making me block all those people, calling them sociopaths and evil bitches. This ain’t high school or Mean Girls, moron, this is a fandom. A place where people can create, share, like and comment on content that makes you happy. I don’t think you understand what that means - cause all I see, and everyone sees is you spewing hatred everywhere. Fandoms are supposed to make you feel included, feel happy, feel safe, be a place to make friends. I don’t think you know that, and I don’t think you are even smart enough to realise that you are the reason why our fandom isn’t happy.

And honestly, at this point, the hatred you are getting is well deserved. You deserve to feel like shit if all you are going to do is make others feel like shit.

I don’t know what else to say but:

1. Get the hell away from our fandom

2. Get rid of your internet connection.

3. Get a life.

4. We don’t want you here.

5. You’re scum.

6. Go suck a dick, or flick a bean, whatever gets you off you troglodyte.

I liked you man, I really did. Then I saw how you treat others, and now I know I made a dumb life choice in making friends with you. If only you weren’t such a piece of shit, we could have been good friends.

I don’t want you here on tumblr. They don’t want you here. No-one wants or needs a toxic parasite like you on this website.

Yours sincerely,

sui-senka, who just sucked Vergil’s dick yesterday, and liked it.

[dropintomanga]

On the Industry, Fans, and Piracy - My Feelings on Manga Today

This year has been quite an interesting one for anyone who’s involved in manga industry happenings with regards to piracy.

As most of you may know, an infamous manga app known as Mangarock was finally shut down this year after years of proliferating as a “legit” manga-reading app on the Apple and Google Play Stores. They finally got shut down when a Western comic artist found their work being distributed on the platform. While this was good news, there has been criticism about whether there were signs of subtle prejudice towards manga (since it’s a foreign medium) as it took a Western comic to bring things to attention.

There was also the news of Mangamura, a well-known Japanese raw scan site, and how the head honcho of the site got arrested in the Philippines this year and will face consequences for his actions. (Update: 12/21/2019 - Now Mangastream and Jaimini’s Box are out of the game with regards to scanlating popular titles)

While this is good news for people who love to support the manga industries in both Japan and overseas, things are still the same. The pirates will keep coming over and over again. I wonder when enough is enough or maybe I’m just tired of hearing the same old debate on legal vs. illegal manga.

I see multiple Twitter threads from pro-industry folks on why everyone should support buying manga. I also see threads on why manga publishers suck. They’re both right if you ask me.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how this industry vs scanlators fight is similar to what I’ve been reading about in the mental health field recently - psychiatry vs. anti-psychiatry.

Psychiatry advocates believe that taking medicine is the best way to solve mental health problems and mental illness. They realize that things can happen in the human brain that lead to something worse. However, they think a lot of issues warrant medication when it may not be the best solution.

Anti-psychiatry advocates believes that medicine isn’t the best way to solve mental health problems and mental illness. They dislike how the mental health care system treats people with mental health problems. Yet they believe that “mental illness” doesn’t exist.

So throwing it back to manga -

The manga industry believes that supporting the industry involves purchasing their books at any costs. You buy the books, you support the mangaka drawing them. Yet the system that drives the industry is terrible. As we all know from Bakuman and tales from manga professionals, the system to become a successful mangaka involves often-poor working conditions in the form of long hours, strict deadlines, and a good amount of isolation.

Scanlators believe they are doing the manga industry a favor in providing free exposure to titles that would go undiscovered by fans. More often than not, scanlators do what they do without any care for profit. However, they tend to go a bit extreme with regards to translating certain text. Some scanlators also become a bit too egotistical for their own good and end up causing ridiculous drama among other scanlation groups over material they are technically stealing.

Tying this back all together with all regards to comparing psychiatry vs. anti-psychiatry and industry vs scanlators, there’s a third party being affected that’s ignored in both debates.

For the 1st war (psychiatry vs. anti-psychiatry), there’s not enough focus on the seriously mentally ill. The seriously mentally ill are the community suffering the most right now and present a great deal of harm to themselves and others. A 3rd party group that addresses them would utilize certain views and rejects certain views from the psychiatry and anti-psychiatry movements to help the seriously mentally ill. They are often forgotten as a lot of money goes to those whose mental health issues aren’t as bad on both sides. 

For the 2nd war (scanlations vs. legal manga), you can argue that there’s a huge crowd of fans that are willing to pay for manga as long as you give them almost everything on one platform a la Steam/Netflix at a very low price. That platform also needs to be easily accessible with little-to-no regional restrictions. There are so many fans in certain parts of the world that can’t purchase manga due to lack of access to bookstores/libraries or availability of them. I’ll put this in caps in case people don’t get it - THE WHOLE WORLD IS NOT THE UNITED STATES OR ANY OTHER NOTABLE AND PROLIFIC COUNTRY. I sometimes think certain fans that are able to buy manga forget how lucky they are.

A side note: While a huge step forward for legit digital manga, Viz’s Shonen Jump isn’t enough because not everyone likes shonen. All the other subscription services are fine, but everything’s kind of fragmented a bit compared to how Crunchyroll has almost everything anime-related (though they are going through a big streaming war that’s causing fragmentation as well).  Though to be honest, I think the scanlation community and the manga industry have to band together on one thing I think both sides can all agree on - it’s the relative value of manga compared to other forms of media in general.

To explain, I watched a video feature on the mangaka Shinichi Sakamoto, creator of Innocent and Innocent Rouge. Sakamoto goes into a discussion about manga’s value that really got me thinking. He talks about how manga is treated as “disposable” and how he tries to make his works worth keeping and remembering.

In the end of the video, Sakamoto says: “I feel manga is something that is read, then thrown away. For example, people would read a manga during their work commute and throw it away once they finish reading it. Or they would read a manga at a restaurant during lunch break. Then they would close it once the food is served and forget about it. I thought at first, manga was something that was read then thrown away. However recently, since I started to adopt my current style, I now want to make something that stays close to readers. Something that remains. It’s what currently motivates me to draw manga.

I ask myself what to do in order to make something that stays for a long time, using themes or opinions that they stay engraved in the minds of readers without being forgotten. I keep this in mind in order to leave something behind. It is what motivates me.”

The quality of manga made in Japan isn’t the best. The paper is comparable to toilet paper. If you ever browsed through a manga magazine in person, it feels like going through a super-thick newspaper. Compare that to overseas volumes of manga and it’s a world of difference. I’ll admit that publishers like Viz Media, Kodansha Comics, and Yen Press do a great job in making their printed manga high-quality albeit at a higher cost to fans.

Yet I realized that there’s a larger number of manga fans who don’t care about quality as long as what they want is accessible and cheap. That’s a big reason why scanlations have exploded and will continue to do so. Convenience is something that a lot of outside forces now push onto everyone. I frankly love print books, but I wonder what if the price of printed manga volumes reaches a certain point that makes me go “Yeah, I don’t think I can buy printed manga anymore.”

In the end of the day, even if you make it look pretty as hell and close to a luxury product, manga is still a “throw-away” item with little relative value to a lot of fans thanks to how it’s originally conceived in Japan combined with how internet culture takes advantage of what the meaning of “free stuff” is. Not everyone will find a sense of belonging with manga the same way that fans do.

There are certain folks that support purchasing manga that say things like “Wages need to be raised because they’ve stagnated” and when it comes to fans reading manga on an illegal site, their views sound like “You should buy no matter what” and/or “Just don’t buy.” I know there are those who will point to manga sales and they still aren’t exactly affordable to some fans. 20%-33% off titles with a high price point to begin with may not feel like a significant discount to someone who may not be a hardcore manga collector. Maybe it’s better to say, “You know what? Let’s just smash capitalism for ruining everyone’s lives” or better yet, “Let’s promote wage growth so that manga fans can actually purchase manga and manga artists can survive.”  

For now, let’s all be like Sakamoto and promote how valuable manga can be because appreciating the arts makes people better human beings than learning how to make a “efficient” website/software program look good for someone whose end goal is usually profit. The arts is what keeps people from turning into robots. Yes, this sounds like I’m saying “Let’s have the manga pirates keep doing what they’re doing then.” What I’m suggesting is that everyone from the top down (government, etc.) has to take charge in promotion of anything related to the arts (which manga and comics in general are a part of), not just the regular folks, as they appear to be all on-board the "let’s mindlessly consume/produce everything with ruthless efficiency” train.

I feel sympathetic towards anyone who works with on the American side of manga publishing (or anything that’s based in Japan) because Japan’s mentality on promoting their works overseas is awful. The Japanese want a level of control in how they want to be perceived outside of their own country. Compare that to a country like Korea (where K-Pop is now featured on major American TV networks), you can see how bad Japan is promoting their own brand of pop culture to the world. If you want an example, just look up Nintendo’s history of taking down anything overseas that looks to violate their principles of promoting their games.

I realize that I’m sounding like this Japanese manga creator who criticized publishers for how they handle piracy. Well, I dislike how manga publishers or professionals involved with the manga industry will shame fans for reading scanlations/raws. Almost everyone that reads scans/raws tends to be a fan of manga in general. A lot of them may not be unaware of the nature of scans (especially fans who meet mangaka in person and tell them they read them online). And even if they were aware, have you noticed how wages have stagnated for a lot of people across the world versus inflation?

Plus, how often do shame tactics work on people? They’re just as effective as most diversity training workshops hoping to change people’s bias on visible differences (spoiler alert: not very well). They never change anyone’s minds at all due to being short-term solutions that ignore the shamer’s role in perpetuating the problem. I realize changing minds takes a long time and requires a LOT of nuance (AKA not good for making immediate money), so it’s easy to focus on quick and fast.\

I also don’t like how scanlators disrespect localization efforts at times. I don’t like seeing multiple instances of swear words when most Japanese (or people in general) don’t talk like that in real life. Yes, some localization efforts are full of cringe. Appealing to a bigger array of new readers is important to having an industry thrive. Having just loyal customers isn’t enough.

Loyalty can only go so far. So many people don’t care about brands and/or will switch whenever it’s convenient to do so. There’s always a psychological disconnect between community and profit. That’s why you try to get as many new consumers as possible so they can become great word-of-mouth spokespeople for your stuff. Given how a good number of anime/manga fans stop consuming either medium after a certain age, replenishment of fans is an absolute necessity. I wish scanlators who frown at legit translators who bust their asses off to make manga accessible to a wider audience realize this.

There’s a final thing I want to address regarding the whole debate about scans and it was something I noticed at Anime NYC this year. So this year, Artists’ Alley and the Exhibit Hall were put right near each other on the same floor. In years past, they were separated via different floors or on different sections far away from one another in the same floor. I had a troubling thought and reading one convention recap reinforced it.

It’s the fact that Artists’ Alley is almost always fan works and the close proximity this time clashes with the Exhibit Hall vendors’ sale of official merchandise. There are anime industry members who dislike an arrangement like this with good reason. Bootlegs are a problem in an industry largely associated with piracy. Yet fans LOVE Artists’ Alley. Anime cons can’t just gut them to please industry folks. Supporting the fan artists at Artists’ Alley is a win-win for fans and con organizers. 

Also, some of the artists at Artists’ Alley I spoke to all read scanlations in some way, shape or form when discussing certain series. I have no damn desire to play moral police with those artists because I know they are lovable and messy people. Just enforce the golden rule - don’t be a dick in a public setting even if you have a good reason to because you will never change anyone’s views that way. 

I know some issues have to be made public, but go through proper channels first since I don’t want to see someone being labeled a mood killer without proper context in places that are supposed to be safe for fans.

Another thing - I have friends (both ‘20s and ‘30s) who work full-time jobs that read manga in not-so-legal sites. Some of them I’m very close with. I’m not ending friendships with them over the fact they may consume media differently. The one thing I can say is that even the best of the best will have questionable beliefs/do questionable things and all you can do is figure out what’s really important to you - their actions or the consequences of their actions. Don’t expect the people you idolize will think the same way you do in every thought you have. Everyone has their own closet of behaviors and thoughts that will always irk others.

So for anyone who’s confused on whose side I’m on, I’m on neither. I know the truth is a lot more complicated than what most people will tell me. I do want manga to thrive more overseas. It’s just that outside of Japan, regardless if you pay for or pirate a manga, there’s no appreciation for lifelong reading. Reading is treated as a pain than pleasure in the Western part of the world. Many anime fans are only tempted to read a manga because of how cool an anime adaptation of a certain series is or just from buzz. 

More than anything, I feel like there should be a bigger effort in promoting a sense of lifelong reading. I sometimes get jokes from corporate folks that I like to read and it’s depressing since libraries are always threatened by budget cuts. Reading books (fiction & non-fiction) has helped me processed a lot of things for my mental health. We got to do a better job in emphasizing that reading can be for fun and not just for achievement. Still, buy whatever manga you can for the artist’s sake if you really like the works (not for the publisher’s due to how I feel about capitalism sometimes). If you still want to read or prefer scans, then that’s your thing. You know, I’m glad I’m not really a pro-industry person and a pro-fan. I live in both worlds and feel like I have a balanced understanding of how people act in certain situations versus how they behave normally. I make a joke now that if anyone who works in marketing wants to really understand what their customers are like, they should go to a DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) and see the misery there.

I guess you can say I blame Japan more than anything as I do buy what I can from the American side of things. I know the hard-working folks in the U.S. manga publishing business probably get frustrated with Japanese bureaucracy to a certain degree at times. 

Next year will be the start of a new decade after a decade of slow then fast growth in all things anime and manga. Things are going to get better and worse for anime and manga. Maybe once Luffy finally gets the One Piece treasure will manga piracy be severely hampered by then. I have some doubts because this is all reliant on what Japan will do as manga is here to stay in overseas markets. I know more Japanese manga editors have been traveling overseas to understand what’s going on outside of Japan. That’s a good start. So I just hope that the final chapter over here involves cultivating a joyful love of reading because I feel technology has to really pick up on that.

When reading really matters to everyone and takes some precedence over video in the minds of people, maybe we can see some meaningful progress in a battle where we might be fighting the wrong side(s) and/or missing a bigger part of the picture.

Regardless, it’s a fascinating and fun time to be a manga fan. I’m glad to have met many people who love and read manga regardless of how they consume it. Those experiences have provided so much value for me.

Manga may be considered “trash” in many ways, but to loosely quote a certain popular Naruto ninja, it’s at least better than giving up on the true joys of life.

Addendum (12/21/2019) - Two days after this post was made, two of the biggest manga scanlation groups on the net, Mangastream and Jaimini’s Box, decided to stop translating all Weekly Shonen Jump titles. I’m indifferent about either platform going away (or completely gone as Jaimini’s Box is still doing titles from other manga magazines). The one thing I will say is that Mangastream took advantage of the growing push for convenience in the minds of people over the last decade. I think about how much tech companies have abused “convenience” to generate unintended division and in some ways, Mangastream was like a tech company when they saw their ego being stroked by the large fanbase they were getting.

Photo Source: The Japan Times For one of my favorite takes on scanlations, read “Why Do Scanlations Persist?” from What Is Manga? There’s also this podcast from GeekNights about manga distribution in the United States which added some fuel to this post.

[szopenhauer]

What may I call you? I won’t give you my number jk you may call be by my name - Zuzanna - or any version of it besides Zuśka you might also use one of my nicknames if you know me better or create a new one if it’s not offensive :)

Over or under 18? 10 years over 

Ever believed your house was/is haunted? If yes, why; what happens? besides that one time I saw a ghost standing in my door - my brother or an angel? I believe I brought a ghost from camp (that was writing our names on the walls - someone really died there - when I said I don’t believe in it they threw a pen on me through a ventilating grate/grill or however it’s called (the exact pen that went lost when we noticed the names) it was turning stuff on/off or closing/opening things, I saw an orb once too in my hall, I also had a moment after my gf’s mom’s death when there was light coming from my night lamp basically in the middle of the day after we were talking about her with my partner and so I was scared to go to sleep after that

The building you live inside; how long ago was it built? less than 30 years

If you could go anywhere RIGHT NOW, where would it be? And why? I don’t want to go anywhere rn?

What makes you envy someone? health, no worries/problems, easy life, having money especially when they don’t try, when they do everything against and yet they’re lucky somehow

For you, is jealousy something that makes you more sad or angry-feeling? sadness and anger are very close to each other in my dictionary of emotions/feelings (alexithymia) so I can’t recognize them most of the time it’s like they’re mixed together usually

When’s the last time you smacked someone’s butt or been smacked? recently

Do you enjoy making art? If so, what’s your style like? I draw a little and been making a lot of collages/scrapbooks in the past, I write if that counts (poems, stories, books)

Were you a shy child? my mother say so but it’s not true

Ever wanna run away with the circus? not really

Reach behind you- do you feel anything? What is it? my hoodie

Is English your second language? it is

Have you ever designed and constructed your own clothing? designed and mom remade (some even made) few of them for me

Is your house an odd or even number? odd

Do you wear skin-colored clothes? I hate those, it looks like you’re naked, yuk

Do you have conversations with any animals? why not

Can you sleep on your back? (I can’t, I feel too vulnerable!) I can’t, not because of vulnerability but my health issues

What’s the last special thing you did for someone?  sigh...

Do you own striped socks?  yep

Do you know how to read palms or tarot or anything else like that? not really

Do you own any bones or other preserved organic things? only dried plants, chestnuts, stones, shells, acorns etc. no dead things but I wouldn’t mind vintage taxidermy of some sort

*I own smth like this tho (not my pic, just example)

What do you think about internet piracy? I don’t mind, I don’t support rich celebs, they want too much, also it’s not like we have a choice when it comes to old movies for example as they’re nowhere to be found 

Do you tip street performers? (YOU SHOULD.) I might but you SHOULD shut up 

Does being an addict make someone a bad person, in your opinion? kinda

Tie up, or be tied up? hmm...

Do you have a boot fetish? I don’t think so?

Have you ever done home-repair stuff? mhm

Reason you last used a knife? not sure what was the last exact reason but it was def food related 

If you could ask someone ONE thing & get 100% honesty, what would you ask? can I ask God though?

How do you feel about magicians? fine

Who was the last person to really make you feel special? @jonasz-cat​ and my father

What’s the most beautiful thing you’ve seen in the last week? I saw lots

What is beauty, in your opinion? what you enjoy looking at?

Of all the bands you hate, which do you hate the least? dunno, weird question :o

Does man have free will? it’s complicated Would you rather do evil or have evil done to you? I guess evil done to me unless it’s smth really minor Who’s better, Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera? Britney

Do you crave adventure? nah What’s the purpose of your life? no idea yet if there ever will be any Have you heard the term "Luddite?" I’ve heard it Have you ever been elected a class officer? byłam klasowym bibliotekarzem czy jak się to nazywało Tell me something interesting.

Does mental illness exist? excuse me?... Ever fallen in love online? I thought I did How many songs are on your playlist? over 500  Do you approve of math jokes? several are fun

How about "your mom” jokes? not my vibe Are you addicted to online surveys? it seems Do you consider yourself a loser? I’m a loser baby so why won’t you kill me Why do you believe children like stuffed animals? who doesn’t like them?! Would you rather die or have ten random strangers die? I’d rather die unless it’s a post apo and we fight to survive then it’s possible that I would kill to save myself/others or get killed - even by saving someone Do you believe nuclear weapons should be eliminated? absolutely Education? eliminated? XD changed  Slavery? it’s ridiculous that still exists Do you deliberately cause physical harm to yourself? ... Ever had a blood transfusion? I haven’t What’s your earliest memory? how dad’s office looked like, I was 2 years old but I have a good memory when it comes to interiors, I don’t remember anything else until I was like 6-7 O.o Are you a good writer? I try Would you rather lose an arm or a leg? leg Is it worse to be considered unfeeling or irrational? irrational is worse to me personally

How much will you accept without proof? depends Ever dumped someone? oh well...

Ever beaten someone up? noooo Do you approve of democracy? two wolves and one sheep decide what’s for dinner...

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2010s: 30 - 26

30. Nika Kocharov & Young Georgian Lolitaz - “Midnight Gold” Georgia 2016

When rating Eurovision entrants, it’s important to also take note of the journey, and Nika Kocharov had one of the best ever? Similarly to The Shin, everyone was just about:blank towards “Midnight gold”, not understanding the concept and ranking it last in unison. Like Shin & Mariko, I was mostly intrigued and willing to give it a chance. Unlike the Shin though, I thought “Midnight Gold” was a good song for its genre, just not one I was that entheused by. The revamp, which provided the setting of a mad scientist’s laboratory, was a step in the right direction, providing a hint of entropy, a dash of absurdity, a spark of insanity.  And then, at long last, the dénouement:

STAINS OF MUD

ON UR SKIN

THE NIGHT WILL COME

AND SO WILL SIN

Winning LIFE *and* everyone over with that <3 I don’t think ANYONE could have anticipated that “Midnight gold” would deliver a non-stop absynthe-minded ACID TRIP in Stockholm. 😍   The visuals were so ICONIC they are still setting the special effects bar in the present day. This is Sacha Jean-Baptiste’s best staging. Period. Not “Euphoria”. Not “Alter ego”. Not “Fuego”. "Midnight gold”. BY FAR. Would it be even considered a stretch to go as far as saying that “Midnight Gold” has the best staging of any Eurovision entrant to date? I don’t think it does, but it is definitely a contender. 

Who would have thought that THIS song would become one of the more memorable, epic entries of a great year such as 2016? Of course the flawless staging also made me retroactively appreciate “Midnight gold” as a song as well and I regularly give it play time whenever I can. 😍 STAINS OF MUD. 

ps: I don’t care about fashion much, but I want his hat.

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29. Naviband - “Story of my life” Belarus 2017

[2017 Review here]

HEY HEY! HAYAYAYA HO!

What superlatives can I still use for describe the pure, unshattering LIGHT that is “Historija majho zyccia”? It leaks mirth from every pore, infecting everyone around it with the irresistable urge to tap their feet along to the HEY HEY HA JA JA HO’s!

At the center of this wonderful hovercraftian masterpiece lie Artiom and Ksenia, two of the most adorable humans ever to exist, who are also a couple irl and it shows. The two have chemistry and charisma in spades, especially Ksenia who is the living embodiment of the “^__^” emoji. I am ALWAYS happy when I listen to this song and I am thrilled we got to hear it twice. 

Eurosnob contempt for happiness is a well-documented feature in this ranking, but it reached its nadir with Naviband: You see, in addition to being ‘A Happy Song’ (a term used with contempt, imagine that O_O), Naviband are also folk singers from Belarus, who -shocker- sing in Belarusian.  However, don’t be harsh on the Eurosnobs because the area of the dopamine receptors in the brain of a Naviband hater are always attached to a person who isn’t living happily ever after. Naviband is life at its best. EMBRACE IT. Like this Lithuanian frump did:

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28. Måns Zelmerlöw - “Heroes” Sweden 2015

lol I JUST spoke about “Midnight gold” having one of the best, but not the best staging. Well, that’s because “Heroes” is, in my opinion, the most visually impressive Eurovision entry of all times. 🤗  I don’t think it’s even a stretch to call it that? “Heroes” as a song is widely regarded as pretty whatever, winning due to its act. However, while I don’t necessarily disagree this is why Måns won, I feel this take very much undersells Måns. Using it at an excuse to dismiss his goodness is ridiculous.

First of all; “Heroes” IS a really, really good song. Infectuous, upbeat, irresistably positive with highly quotable lyrics (”now go sing it like a hummingbird the greatest anthem ever heard” 😍) and an earnest anti-bullying message (<3). It may not be *as* original as some of the entries ranked around it on this list, but it definitely handles its own, with and without an act.

Another defining factor in making “Heroes” a great entry is Måns himself. Måns Zelmerlöw is arguably the most attractive human to ever set a foot on a Eurovision stage. The man is irresistable even on a platonic level. He puts every other charismatic performer to shame and does it effortlessly. 

However, even with these two trump cards, the staging is indeed the best part of “Heroes”. It bears repeating that I think this is the best Eurovision act to date. Impressive visual effects, flawless choreography and impeccable camerawork elevate “Heroes” to a much higher level. It tells it story with more clarity and efficacity than any other entry I can think of. 

Ultimately, Måns staging is a testament of his goodness, and an acceptable reason for winning Eurovision. Because of “Heroes”, many countries have upped their staging game, resulting in more visually impressive entries (specifically the Sabotage Baptiste ones in 2016, and Sergey I guess), which is a positive development. Live music isn’t so much about which song you perform, but about how you perform it, and “Heroes” is the best example of that.

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27. ZiBBZ - “Stones” Switzerland 2018

[2018 Review Here]

WILD JOKAH ON A GOLD THRONE

Here we are again, our annual appointment with everyone’s favourite sibling alliance. 😍 “Stones” is powerful kick-ass diamond of indie-rock and a serious contender for my favourite Swiss entry of all time. 

The song is a masterclass in mental health awareness and  self-empowerment, dismantling bullying and depression with perfectly timed percussion and AHUMs, truth-bombing lyrics and an insanely charismatic lead who sounds like Joss Stone on five packs a day. 😍 It’s catchier than ebola, more addictive than sugar and soars higher than a kite. 

In addition to all of that jazz, “Stones” is also responsible for some of the most iconic visuals in 2018:

God the shot of Coco with the flare still sends shivers down my spine. WHAT A CRUSADER OF THE DOWNTRODDEN. 😍 Whenever I’m feeling down, this is the song that lifts me back up again. 

Really, the only thing not good about ZiBBZ was the camerawork and that wasn’t their fault. FY Hans Pancake. 🙄 If ever there were a robbed NQ who deserves a Genovaesque return, it’s the Zibblings. BRING THEM BACK!!! 

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26. Paula Seling & Ovi - “Playing with fire” Romania 2010

Speaking of highly addictive songs, holy cow Ovi I need rehab for that beat alone because I CANNOT get it out of my head.

Anyway, who else would be the #1 for Romania if not for Paula Seling and Ovi? “Miracle” was a beautiful example of tacky taste, but “Playing with fire”, man, :takes a sip of gin:, now that is the real stuff. 

I’ll start, I guess, where I’ve begun my write-up which is the composition: “Playing with fire” has one of the best underlying beats in this decade, which gives it infinite replayability. Layered on top of that is some delightfully aggressive piano (😍), on top of THAT some amazingly playful lyrics (”BOY BOY BOY If we’re mean, i would start a fight tonight” songs about playfighting <3) and on top of THAT, Paula Seling. Paula is the STAR of this performance, stealing the show every time she’s shown with deliciously flirtatious facial expressions

and some vocal masturbation in the guise of a dolphin impersonation.

 She and Ovi and ignite the place with both insane pyrotechnics and spontaneous chemistry. So fun, SO GOOD, so dynamic especially for an act where the main singers sit down in front of a double-headed plexiglass piano (😍). Duncan Laurence DEAD in a motherfucking DITCH. 

And with this update we have eliminated FIVE countries. Check their reviews below:

GEORGIA

Georgia is such a bizarre Eurovision country, often churning out absolutely BONKERS entries that leave Europe stunned in silence. <3 It may not be reflected in their vital statistics but I always look forward for what they have on offer because even in the rare case of them being boring, they are always interesting. 

BELARUS

Belarus was one of the worst countries in the 00s, but in the 2010s they’ve evolved into a bargain bin Moldova, which makes them solidly good. It’s really astounding that a country SO GOOD at being entertaining gets dismissed so easily because of their flag (and dictatorship (and gay rights)). They’re mostly good and 100% worthy of our time, tyvm!!

SWEDEN

The worst part of Sweden’s success streak is that it made them conceited and lazy. They no longer need to be innovative, creative or entertaining in order to get a top five position and worse, they are fully aware of it. This resulted in a marked drop in quality and if they don’t curb their hubris quickly, I predict it will soon come back to bite them. (ie: another NQ)

SWITZERLAND

B A S  I C. Zibbz and Luca did a lot of the heavy lifting here, which caused Switz to mathematically outrank Sweden, and while that’s hilarious it also feels absurd and wrong. Don’t be fooled by all that green though. Switzerland are basic bitches and have no idea what to do in order to be cool. 

ROMANIA

Romania are one of the better hit-or-miss countries in Eurovision, imo even if the chart doesn’t fully reflect it. The problem I have with them is that their entries don’t have a long shelf life. Like, the Cezars and Ilincae of this world grow stale very quickly because they’re exhausting and shallow. Having said that, this is by far preferable over being consistently boring (UK) or violently oscillating between great and demonic entries (Germany, Demark). 

[alien-at-the-dinner-table]

Roll for Panic Attack

*Trigger warning: mentions of depression and suicidal thoughts*

I am afraid of a lot of things. Clowns. Death. Answering the door when i’m not expecting it. Sticking my foot out over the edge of the bed at night. You know, rational, normal stuff. But right now, I'm scared of something that feels like it shouldn’t be as scary as it feels. For the 2nd time in my (albeit young) life, am taking online classes at my local community college. My first time was 2 years ago, and it sent me reeling into a deep depression. As ridiculous as it sounds, I never want to get back to that place. Who would have thought, right??? But im getting ahead of myself, so let me explain the past so one can see where the issues in my grimy future lies.

Sophomore year of high school is where our intrepid young hero begins (read in the voice of Brennan Lee Mulligan: DM to the stars). As anyone in a fiery hellscape would do, I explored a program that gave me a glimpse of freedom: Running Start. In this wonderful program, high school students can attend college classes either online or in person, and not only earn college credit, but can be at the high school less. Great! At first, I thought it would be amazing! I love to learn, and I love not being at the highschool. Suffice it to say, I rolled really low on my perception. But my perception got steadily higher the farther I got in the process of applying. I felt like it might be too much. That I might not be able to handle this. But everyone in my life told me, “you’ll be fine! You’re a smart girl! And your so independent!” So I continued on… feeling like something was off.

Cut to a month before Junior year starts. I feel…. Nothing. I’m bored all the time, and nothing really makes me happy. I’m so scared im going to fail college and it hasnt even started yet… To my family, I am the same. After all, I am used to faking emotions thanks to all those years of thinking panic attacks were SUPER normal right! But I began to explore what was happening. Our hero rolls her dice: 18. I realized something that made me break down in tears of shame. I realized I didnt feel love for my family. I knew I loved them, but I didnt feel anything.What was wrong with me? I tried to imagine horrible fates befalling my family to see if I could muster up some feelings then. No dice. (get it? Dice? RPG’s? Shut up this is comedy GOLD) My sister found me sobbing in the garage. Grabbing my mother, they went to see what was wrong with me. I explained how I was feeling, and even voiced my fear of being depressed. My mom wrote it off as burnout. Which to be fair, I don't blame her for. I had been acting just as I always had.

Skip ahead some more. High school is in full swing, and my college classes begin. Things feel...okay. I was taking 2 classes: General Psychology, and Introduction to Art. Psych was tough, and its reading was intense. 1 page took about 10 minutes, so 6 pages: one hour. The professor thought that because we were online, we needed to make up for being lazy and not going to a classroom. We had around…. 120 pages on a good week. Wanna do the math there? Let me break it down for you: 10 pages=1 hour, 120 pages divided by 6=  hours. About. Add to that the 5 hour assignments every week, 1 hour discussion forums, and hour long tests every week. Our total for this class hours per week: 27. Now, remember, I was also taking highschool classes too, and one other class. Also remember that I was 16. With an undiagnosed anxiety disorder. All it took was a month to break me, and send me hurtling towards depression with all the force and speed of a bowling ball dropped from the top of the Empire State building.

Thanks to my natural ability to repress my emotions and fears, my body decided to send a clear message that something was afoot! I began to get full body HIVES. We went to the doctor, and she basically went, “umm wow, that's definitely an immune system reaction…. But you aren't sick…. And you haven't been sick…. So I don't know why this is happening…” Always what you want to hear from a healthcare professional! So at this point you might ask: did any of this alert you to the fact something was off? No. At this point, I was in complete denial that anything was wrong. Surely getting up in the middle of the night to count pages and double, triple, quadruple check that I had planned every single second of my week was written on my planners pages. What did catch my attention, terrorizes me to this day.

I am religious, and I do my best to pray every night. During this delightful stage of my life, I began to ask God to let me die. I asked that when I went to bed, that I wouldnt wake up. That it would all just stop. That way, I wouldnt keep on down this path, suffering. I thought if I quit, everyone would be disappointed in me. What a waste. How pathetic, right? Of course, this was myself talking. But I wanted to die. I didnt even care if I went to heaven. I thought even if I ceased to exist, it would bring peace. Inkey, dark, peace filled sleep. 

This is what scares me. Because I can never get to that place. I hated myself so much. But what was worse was how I felt about my family and friends. I began to resent them a bit. Just a little. How dare they love me! Why do they have to keep me here? I knew that if I died, it would destroy them. I had no illusions that those I loved would be better off without me. While I thought I would cause them shame and disappointment in life, I knew that in death I would kill them with me. And while I might not have felt love as I do now, I never wanted to cause them pain or suffering. Ever. So here I am now. Better, because I can tell you it can get better. Scratch that, it WILL get better.

And now to the present: a full circle of sorts. I am so scared that this course will be too much, that I wont be a college graduate. Please understand: I honestly thought for a long time that I wasn't going to go to college. Not because I couldnt. But because I didnt see the point, at least for the art fields. And honestly I still do. But I know that even with a stupid certificate that I probably could have taught myself all the same information for a 10th of the price, it will open doors for me. And to be perfectly frank, I want to make my family happy. I want them to be proud of who I am. I want to be proud of myself. To prove that no stupid mental illness will take this away from me. Not again. I know I can pass and even excel in a college environment. In fact, during my tenure at Running Start, I was invited to join the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society.But I want to be able to mentally handle this. I want to be strong enough for ME. I know that finishing this won't make me weak, or if it is too much that it means I am lesser than. But I'm going to try damnit! And if it is too much, then I will stop, or at least work with my therapist to see what would be best for me. 

And so, our hero begins her journey. Roll for Initiative.

[riverforasong]

Climbing Through the Wall

TW: Self Harm, Weight issues, and family instability, oh and nudity, I guess. It’s a non-fiction thing so if that’s not your bag, thanks for coming anyway!

It’s never really been a secret, per se, but I’ve only just now started to freely admit to people that I’m a nudist. Be it out of fear of how people would react, or embarrassment stemming from a, now that I think of it, weirdly conservative upbringing, I never talked about it. I would drop hints here and there, but never much explicit, even with super close friends it remained a non-topic, despite the fact that it was, and is, a very big part, and honestly, fundamental part of my life. Hell, I’m literally naked right now (Probably, depending on when you’re reading this and what time of day it is, I could be at the store or at work or something, but it’s like a solid 90 percent chance). When the topic does come up, especially with people just learning about it for the first time, I get a lot of questions about it, which is absolutely to be expected, and I don’t mind it one bit, mostly because I love talking about this kinda stuff. One of the questions that always trips me up a little bit though, is “Why?” Why choose to go naked all the time? Which seems like an easy answer, being naked is awesome, it’s more comfortable, it releases stress, and makes it easier to sleep, and it honestly baffles me why anyone would choose to wear clothes if they didn’t absolutely have to. For me at least, it’s the only time I’m ever really comfortable, clothes and I just never really gelled. But it wasn’t until recently, and I’m talking within the last 3 months recently that I realized how important it was to me, and the recovery of my self image. My self esteem has always been low, and a lot of that stems from how I physically look, but it goes even deeper than that. From here on out this story gets kind of intense,TW: Self Harm, Weight issues, and family instability, oh, and nudity I guess, but you should have figured that out by now,  so if you’re not into that, maybe skip to the last paragraph? Or you could bail out here, the whole gist of it is being naked makes you feel better about yourself, you and your friends should give it a try sometimes. Got it? Good, and here we go.

I’ve always been the fat kid, right from the get go, in school that’s how I was pegged. Like a lot of fat kids, we learned to be the funny one in the group, because humour is a damn fine way to mask any and all insecurities you’re hiding within yourself. I’d always told myself that it doesn’t bother me, people are gonna say what they say and you can eiher take it personally, or let it roll off your back and make a joke about it, and that’s what I always did. Or at the very least, tried to do. It worked, or so I thought, but I’d be lying to you right now if I said it never got to me. Late night when no one was listening, it would replay over and over in my head, about how that’s the only thing people ever see in me. That’s always going to be their first impression. I will never be loved if I look like this. Now this is a batshit crazy way of thinking in retrospect, but that’s how m'brain works when it’s back on it’s bullshit. Later in life, what I now know to be an anxiety issue and mental illness, went unchecked for too long. In my family, I always had to be the level headed one, parenting the parents so to speak. My brother had sever Social Anxiety Disorder and would lash out in increasingly terrible ways that he can talk about in his own damn story, but my parents were not… I dunno, mature enough? No that seems silly, equipped to? Equipped to take care of this in the way it needed to be. Yelling begat more yelling, violence begat more violence, you see how things roll. I would always have to step in and make sure things don’t escalate any further than they already had. Taking pieces of myself and shoving them in the holes of the levee to make sure the whole place doesn’t flood. It would work, things would calm down and merrily we’d roll along until the next disaster hit. This worked for them. It didn’t however, work for me. Being the person who took care of these issues took a toll on me that I didn’t expect. See, I was just as sad and angry as everyone else, but I couldn’t express it in any way, because I needed to fix the issues before they became worse, but unlike everyone else, I had no one to check on me. No one to make sure that I was doing okay enough to function, which as it turned out, I was not. The anger and the sadness and the overall  negative emotion swelled inside of me and remained bottled up until it could no longer stay. I began to cut myself to release it. I couldn’t find someone to help, and I couldn’t take it out on anyone else, so I took it out on the person who mattered least in the house, myself.

Still with me? If so, here’s a puppy.

Cutting may have relieved the emotional pain and stress I was feeling, but it also left something in it’s wake. Big, obvious, ugly, red scars. Crisscrossing my arms and legs. New ones would pop up every couple of days or so. A couple people would ask about it, I’d tell them it was my cat, which if you knew my cat made sense, ‘cause that little thing’s kind of a bastard, and the situation would be left alone. This went on for a while, longer than I’d like to admit, but the important thing was I got help. Help from friends who are truly invaluable to me in ways I could not possibly convey because I don’t know that many words. I’d love to say it got better immediately, and I never even thought about doing it again, but shiiiit, you know that’s not how life works. I still struggle with it to this day. I was however, on the road to healing, both physically and mentally. The problem remained though, these scars would be with me forever. You can still see them if you look close enough at my arms, and it’s been a solid ten years or so since the first major incidents. Now, as someone who already had a pretty low vision of himself, this did not help at all. I hated going outside, I hated putting myself out there in the world. I hated what people might think, might say, might point out. It was an awful ouroboros of thoughts leading to actions leading to thoughts leading to actions. I was disgusted with who I was and what I looked like. From the fat, to the scars, to the fact that I thought my head was too big, and my feet too small. Now, as a guy, you don’t know that you get to feel this way. We don’t talk about how men can obsess over their looks and how it makes them feel as much as we really do. There’s not a lot of self help books for that kind of situation, or if there is, I sure didn’t find any. Mostly 'cause I didn’t look that hard, mostly because I was afraid to ask for help, mostly because I didn’t know I was allowed too. There’s that ouroboros again.

This is where the whole nudist thing kicks in. See, my whole life, I always kinda hated clothes, getting dressed, shopping for them, gah, I just hate it. I was always more comfortable naked than anyway else. My parents on the other hand, wanted no part of anything like that. I remember as a 4 year old getting told I was too old to walk around without being fully dressed. Socks, Pants, Underwear, Shirt, the whole 9 yards. I remember bring up the subject to my mom, who was so horrified at the concept of me being a nudist she actually started yelling despite herself. We once watched a documentary where one of the characters was raise in a nudist family, there weren’t even on screen, and my parents would rally against them, talking about how it’s sick and why have these people no shame? I always gave a half-harted  affirmation, but on the inside, it was killing me. I never drank, did drugs, had underage, unprotected sex, got into fights, that wasn’t really my thing. My rebellion was being naked. Naked inside, outside, sometimes with friends, sometimes in public, for as long as humanly possible, down to the last millisecond I could. But during the rough patch, I hated how I looked so much I stayed covered up, to a ridiculous degree. I’m talking long sleeve shirts in summertime, wearing shorts in the bathtub kind of covering. It was a mess. I figured the whole thing was a phase and it was time to outgrow it. It was time to repress some feelings and urges, and get back shoving my emotions and feelings of inadequacy back down my own throat.

I know it was a stupid idea. I’m also in the future.

This went on for a while, although I can’t remember how long. I felt miserable, and couldn’t figure out why. I kept wearing increasingly baggy clothes to hide what I though deserved to be hid. But I wasn’t getting any better internally, it just looked like it. I didn’t feel any better about the way I looked, I just stopped looking. I don’t know what changed, eventually. Something did though. Maybe I just cracked through the shell I had formed around myself. But for the life of me, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I may have hated the way I looked, but I hated clothes more, I guess.

When you’re naked for a long amount of time, a few things happen. At first, you’re highly aware and tactile about every single thing around you. You’re aware of every imperfection on your body, from love handles, to acne, to scars, to weird ingrown hairs, to what you need to shave, to how dry your knees are. Everything, Every. Damn. Thing. And then? You forget about it. You focus on something else, you watch TV, you play video games, you clean the house, you check your garden, whatever it is, and you forget about what little things bug you about you. When you do it over and over again, that first part where you obsess about everything becomes shorter, and shorter, until it eventually disappears altogether. Nudity helped me come to peace with who I am, and what I look like. I may not like a lot of the things about me. But I don’t obsess, it doesn’t ruin me, it doesn’t encapsulate all I am anymore. The biggest change was seeing it happen to other people, the first time I ever went to a nude event, it was the Portland Naked Bike Ride in 2016, and you realize how diverse we all really are. I saw fat people, skinny people, trans-gendered people, men, women, children of all shapes, sizes and colours hanging out and talking to people. I was horrified about what they would think about me when I came walking in, but no one batted an eye. We talked, we laughed, we shared stories and jokes and videos about whatever. I finally realized that the only person saying these terrible things about me and they way I looked, was me.

Whenever I finally tell people that I’m a nudist, I get one of two reactions. One is always someone showing a ton of interest, but not wanting to admit it, so they ask a lot of questions, but try to do it superstitiously, and two, people who say stuff like “That’s so cool, but I could never do it myself,” and that one always bums me out. We have taught people from the time that they’re born to the time they die, that being naked is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad thing, and is only to be reserved for taking a shower no longer than ten minutes, and having sex in the missionary position only for the purposes of procreation after marriage, and for the love of all that is holy never speak of it, or practice it outside of these two times. It’s terrible to shame someone for something so simple and natural and helpful. To tell people right out of the gate that their body is shameful and should be hidden away because “No one wants to see that.” We kick their self esteem in the chest before it even has a chance to get started

I’m getting kind of soapbox-y and that’s not the point I’m trying to make. The point is, I fully believe that nudism saved my perception of myself, and I feel like people need to give it a chance. Separate it from it’s sexual connotation and invite your friends over for a naked movie night or something like that. I even ran a naked DND session once, and it went over like gangbusters. It helps folks who t think they’ll be uncomfortable for the first time focus on something else, and realize life is just that much better. Getting people naked and watching their faces go from assuming it’s going to be awkward to genuine fun and comfort is one of my favourite feelings in the world, because we stop putting so much pressure on ourselves and what we wear and what we look like, when no one has anything to hide..

[annemariewrites]

Who Am I?

The first panic attack that I ever had was in the second grade. I remember that we had an assignment to do a book report and that the assignment was to be done online. This was 2003 when the internet was still in its early form and often didn’t work quite right. Why my elementary school entrusted eight year olds on the internet, I’ll never now. Anyway, something went wrong with the internet and I could not find the book that I needed and was then unable to do the assignment. I have this picture in my head of my eight-year-old self in the classroom, sitting on the floor with my back to the wall, and crying almost hysterically. I can remember feeling very sick like I was going to throw up. It was not a pleasant experience and it certainly troubled my teacher and the other students. I had regular panic attacks throughout third and fourth grade, to the point where I can hardly look back on those years without feeling some shame and embarrassment.

The third grade was honestly not so bad. My teacher often had to call my parents whenever I had a panic attack during class but she never made me feel like I was being disruptive or being a nuisance. The other students, whom I had known my entire life by that point, had treated me as if it were no big deal that I had this problem. Whenever I would cry and shake in class, they would bring me tissues and help me finish my work. No one made fun of me or even talked about my panic attacks, at least not that I can remember. Then in the summer of 2005, we moved away.

The new elementary school that I had to go to was awful. I knew no one at all and no one knew me, or the problems that I faced. I remember once when I had a panic attack and started crying during class, the teacher took me out into the hallway and told me to go to the bathroom and not come back until I had cleaned myself up. I know she was just trying her best but it made me feel humiliated. I remember the other students looking at me strangely and not letting me play with them on the playground or sit with them at lunch. This caused me to have major self-esteem issues, so not only was I battling an anxiety disorder, I was fighting the early stages of depression as well. All at the tender age of ten. I remember forcing myself to be “normal” and to hold all the stress inside. This worked because I don’t remember having any anxiety attacks during the fifth grade. Though there were no outward signs of my problem, I still felt panicked all the time.

I was put on medication that was supposed to help, though personally I think it made things worse. I don't remember the name but it was a little yellow pill that I had to take every morning but I was afraid to swallow it because I was irrationally afraid that it would make me choke. The doctor told my parents to open the pill and put the contents in my food. Inside the yellow pill was small white pellets that looked like sprinkles. They sure didn’t taste like sprinkles. The flavor of the white pellets was the most horrible blend of bitter and sour that it always felt like I was kissing the grim reaper. I had to take it with food and the bitter taste ruined all food that it touched. To this day, I cannot eat Honeycomb cereal without tasting the ghost of the white sprinkles on my tongue. The medication also had the bad side effect of making me not want to eat. I ate rather little during this time and I weighed around fifty pounds for a good three to four years. I don’t know if it helped with my anxiety problem or not, for I still had panic attacks for about three years straight though I can’t recall the frequency of them. It was in the fourth grade that I was finally able to swallow the pill but, ironically, it was soon after that I was taken off the medication.

In the sixth grade, I was prescribed the patch version of the medication. The patch was about five inches in length and two inches in width. It was to be put on my lower back, a rather unfortunate placement. Having the patch on my back was very embarrassing especially because we had to start dressing out for P. E. You are made fun of quite a lot when you have what appears to be a very large piece of tape stuck to your back. I began to remove the patch before I left for school in the mornings. I felt, and still feel, very guilty about this because the patches weren’t cheap and I was wasting this medication and money. The shame of this has never really gone away and it still bothers me now, all these years later.

When my mother found out that I was removing the patches, she confronted me on it. This was during the sixth grade and my grades were slipping. I remember that it was a Monday around dinnertime and she came into my room telling me that I was too smart to be acting the way that I was. She was angry with me for wasting the patches and for not making good grades. She removed the television that was in my room and grounded me. Months later, it was the last day of sixth grade when my mom picked me up from school, which was odd because I had always rode the bus. She took me to this place and at the time I didn’t know what it was but know, looking back, it was therapy. During these therapy sessions was the first time that I had ever heard the word anxiety, though I was too afraid to ask what it meant. The therapist was a woman and she was very nice but I was reluctant to tell her anything because I knew that whatever I told her, she would then tell my mom. The therapist always asked me about school but I hated talking about school. I wanted to talk about my favorite TV show and the music that I liked at the time. I don’t think that she liked me talking about that stuff because she would always steer the conversation back to school. I did not want to talk about school. School made me sad and angry. I want to talk about my favorite shows and music because those things made me happy. I hardly ever got the chance to talk about the things that made me happy because hardly anyone wanted to talk to me at all. I remember specifically one day, the therapist asked me, “On a scale from one to ten, one being the lowest and ten being the highest, how happy do you feel?” I wanted to say four or five but my mom was in the room and I didn’t want her to know how I really felt so I said that I felt like a seven.

Hiding how I really feel about things has become an art form that I excel at now. Very few people actually know that I have an anxiety disorder. I actively try to hide it because I don’t like people knowing too many things about me. It stresses me out for some reason when someone knows things about me, so I hide these things to the point where many people who I am even close to don’t know much about me. My brother sometimes describes me as “chill” and “laid back” which I would find somewhat funny if not for the fact that it is so difficult for me to relax that someone saying that I am laid back just feels like they are taunting me with a mindset that I am unable to experience. I also find it highly ironic that he would think this of me since he is the one who makes me more agitated than any other person that I know. My brother has not always been so supportive of my differences so I get irrationally afraid when he finds out even trivial things about me. I can’t tell him what music I like or what my favorite books or movies are because I am so afraid that there will be backlash. Which I know is ridiculous since we are both adults now but there is still a voice in the back of my head saying, “he will make fun of you like everyone else did all those years ago.”

I don’t know how to live without an anxiety disorder. It has been a constant problem in my life for the past ten years, which is half of my entire life. I don’t know who I am without an anxiety disorder. It has shaped my life since I was a child and has so affected me that I don’t even know who I am anymore. Whenever I do or think something in retaliation of stress, I often wonder if it is because of my personality and who I am as a person or if it is because of my mental illness. I cannot differentiate between the two. I don’t know what parts of me are my personality and what parts of me are my disorder. I often dwell on things of the past that don’t need to be revisited. I try to forget things and move on but my mind will say, “Hey, remember that stressful thing that happened seven years ago? You should think about that for no apparent reason and dwell on it for the rest of the day and let it keep you up tonight.” This is practically a daily occurrence.

I will live with this problem for the rest of my life. Sure, I could start taking medication and therapy again but I’m not sure if I would want to. Because I don’t know who I am without anxiety and depression, if I tried to fix these things, I would not be the same. I would not be me. And that scares me.