#seriously it hits me HARD. ugly sobbing every time ive tried to revisit it. even tho other things w pieces of trauma don't do that to me

[dont-be-late-to-the-dance]

Tried to get back into my Serrennedy childhood friend AU. And if I am allowed to be very personal on main for a moment, I think my being unable to work on a fic where Leon has a shit load of trauma because of my trauma is Something

And I'm realizing there's probably a lot more to unpack than I thought. I thought the reason trying to reread any of it and working on the draft for the next chapter was simply because I wrote it while in the traumatic situation, so it reminded me of it.

I didn't ever intentionally channel what I was going through into the fic… but it slipped in. Leon's hair not being washed often enough. One of the many, MANY traumatic things that happened this year was our landlord illegally having our water shut off, which we pretty much just lived with because we didn't think it was worth fighting. So I did go an extended period of time without bathing. (We had a gym membership where we could shower, but I have sensory issues with showers so :/)

Leon having no one except Luis. That's not a more specific trauma, but I've struggled with feeling lonely for a long ass time now, and the more recent big trauma fest definitely worsened the problem, because literally no one knows the full extent of it. I can't really talk about it because some of it is stuff that's been slowly building for years and the trauma dumps would have their own trauma dumps. Even with a couple close friends, that already know the background and wouldn't need all the context, I haven't felt like I could talk about it because a lot of the most traumatic elements are almost entirely self inflicted, which makes it embarrassing to admit to. (Things would have been traumatic no matter what, but it could have been significantly less traumatic.)

The dirty hair and loneliness are currently the only connections to my personal trauma that I'm aware of, but I'm certain more of it slipped in that I'd notice if I reread all of it. After having the realization about those, I just had to close everything I had open related to it because I'm just. Not ready to unpack all of that.

I think unpacking it will be necessary and therapeutic, but it'll be messy and probably get worse before it gets better, and the one very amazing event that served as my lifeline to keep going and not just give up on life when I was in the thick of the bad situation is in less than a week, and there's absolutely no way I'm going to risk jeopardizing my enjoyment of it by falling apart before it.