#she understood why she was receiving so much hate and she didnt let it break her | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

reversecreek · 4 years ago

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ziggy strutting up to me like this gif as i hold up a crucifix n say begone begone vile beast BEGONE from my vicinity i will NOT buy u a happy meal wretched little boy...... some live action rp to start this off..... and SCENE. takes my bow. his pinterest is here n his playlist is here.

* dylan minnette, cis male + he/him | you know ziggy benson, right? they’re twenty-four, and they’ve lived in irving for, like, all of his life? well, their spotify wrapped says they listened to hand crushed by a mallet by 100 gecs like, a million times this year, which makes sense ‘cause they’ve got that whole glitching televisions impaled by remotes, nonchalantly texting the babes as a stove fire ravages your kitchen & cartoons turned up so loud it fries your eardrums thing going on. i just checked and their birthday is november 24th, so they’re a sagittarius, which is unsurprising, all things considered. ( nai, 24, gmt she/her )

HISTORY;

from the second ziggy ws born he didnt stop screaming. within the first hours of his life he gave his father an ear splitting headache tht prompted him to say “that uncooked chicken’s fucking demonic” n joke abt popping “it” in the oven to roast. when this understandably received disgusted glances frm the nursing staff he ws all like “jeez alright alright i’m kiddin i’m kiddin can’t a guy have a joke around here?” n i feel like that sets up their dynamic so nice n sweetly <3 (sarcasm) (lips pursed)

frm day one he ws just honestly a rly hyperactive child. when he laughed he’d shriek it out at the absolute top of his lungs bc he’d just get this huge giddy surge of energy all the way to the very tips of his toes n it’d hit him like a shock from a fork in a plug socket. their parenting style ws rly just lazy tbh.... they didn’t have much time for disciplining him. ziggy’s mum wld halfheartedly be like “ziggy quiet now....” n then go bk to nuking whatever vegetables she’d defrosted until they tasted like dinosaur bones..... this wld not make any difference in ziggy’s behaviour

his father rly just took the stance that it ws ziggy’s mum’s job to discipline him or raise him in general which is. 🔪 please enter the 20th century sir.... get ur noggin sorted..... needless to say he wsn’t much involved in ziggy’s life n honestly generally jst didn’t like him. ziggy was a responsibility he didn’t want (accidental prregnancy) n in his literal words once said (blatantly while ziggy ws watching cartoons on the sofa) tht ziggy just “harshes my fucking vibe a lil bit”.

he wound up leaving when ziggy was six ish.... ziggy watched thru a crack in the blinds as his mum tried to grab at his jacket to make him stay as he lugged out his suitcase..... she even tried to physically cling onto him so he cldn’t get in his ride bt the door wound up slamming n she sat on her knees watching the lights pull out the drive n even long after they were gone. ziggy didn’t rly kno what to do abt this (emotions hd never been smthn he particularly understood, his own or how to handle other people’s) so after watching her fr 5 minutes he went out n gently shook her shoulder n was like. mom come inside u look weird out here. FKGHSFHGSFHKGFHKSGSFGHK. this was him trying to show love <3

ziggy’s mum is like.... rly relationship dependent. she gets all her self worth n validation frm whtever man she’s dating.... so she went on this like.... wild rampage of jst. dating a very large string of men. they ranged frm dreadfully boring to downright awful n were always below her standards. ziggy quite literally hated. all of them. every last one. even one that tried to b nice to him by offering to help him do his math homework when he ws 13 (bc ziggy was struggling a lot w this) n in response ziggy loudly barked until the man gt scared n stumbled backwards into a dining chair on his way out of the room. KGHFHKSJHFJGSHKFG

while him n his mum hv a kind of strained situation (there’s a great deal of resentment from her end n kind of. blaming him fr “driving his father away” n it’s never spoken abt bt it’s very much Present in their relationship n honestly ziggy kind of resents her too fr bringing some of the men into their lives tht she did) there is. love there...... sometimes she’ll like. reach out to cup the back of his head n he’ll duck his head away n be like wtf are u doing checking me for lice? n she’ll jst smile like :)...... knowing that’s how he loves. KHSFGKJGHKSFGFHKGSHF. ugh we love men who know how to process their emotions yesssss king give us nothing <3

(abuse n violence tw) idk i won’t go into it too much bt even tho ziggy’s constantly like 🙄 when his mum shows him affection he wld quite literally. kill fr her n almost did one time.......... narrowly avoided getting charged w assault when one of her bfs was drunk n evil n he went into protective mode.... idk he. has gone thru a lot n seen a lot n so has his mum. they look after each other the best they kno how despite the negatives in their relationship.... it’s complex <3

literally got in trouble so. often. at school. he ws always hyperactive (undiagnosed adhd n also probably not helped by the fact he ws jst allowed to eat sm junk food w 459729457952 sugar percentage all hours of the day) bt when his dad left n like. dealing w acting out so severely at home where his mum’s bfs were concerned it rly escalated..... i jst think he ws like. literally a terror. probably got suspended so many times. maybe even was permanently expelled before he cld get his diploma honestly. set off a firework in school hallway. smthn absolutely reckless n stupid.

hs hd a bunch of jobs mostly in the service industry...... usually ends up getting fired.... worked at mcdonald’s fr a while n then one day he went in rly high n ate three cheeseburgers in front of a weeping child who hd ordered one.... promptly gt fired bt he ws like yo fuck this place i’m quitting n threw off his apron n was like who’s with me??? who’s joining the union??????? to the rest of the staff n they were all mostly like >_> <_< before security approached to forcibly remove him n he grabbed a cookie n crammed it into his mouth in rebellion mid frantic n frankly possessed escape.....

in terms of wht’s going on to this day w his living situation i honestly think he still lives w his mum. i can just see this. KHGFSKGHSFGKSFGH. in like. a ramshackle bungalow in delphinus heights.... having said tht she probably isn’t. there tht often nw she’s dating her latest man (jonas, somehow always sweaty no matter the weather, wears too many gold rings n smells like shoe cleaner) who owns a car dealership n thinks he’s a kingpin for it. still home sometimes tho.

PERSONALITY:

ziggy spends his days working shifts at an ice cream parlour (one he got fired from once bc he broke in high n ate sm ice cream he was lay on the floor in the bk pants unbuttoned stomach bulging sm calling himself garfield saying he had too much lasagna. they hired him bk tho bc he has a harem of middle aged women who lust after him n it brings customers....) or like. cruising parties...... setting off fireworks.... skateboarding...... breaking into abandoned buildings.... filming stupid jackass type tricks....... playing guitar hero...... getting drunk at the arcade..... sometimes busking fr cash in a tossed dwn hat (very badly) (thinks he’s sick at it however)........ or alternatively...... fucking chicks aha...... fuck.......... not exclusive to chicks tho just had to sound despicable bt :smirk: he’s bi Baby....

i won’t lie he’s kind of an asshole................ never rly was taught properly how to empathise with ppl so like he struggles w that....... sometimes he’ll say smthn tht’s genuinely just quite mean n doesn’t need to be said but he doesn’t rly realise it’s like bad. n he’s like. what’s the deal haha why are u mad......

fuckboy. genuinely jst. rly summarises it well. insatiable. sleeps around wildly. will say he’ll call u back n then will not call u back. lies like oh babe i’m moving to france tomorrow fuckkkkkkkkk sucks so bad that we can only have one night but let’s make it special yeah? tits? n then they’ll see him casually skating past them on the street a week later n be like well clearly he’s not in france. ziggy doesn’t care.

calls himself a “genius inventor” bc he once gutted a vintage analog television n made it into a fish tank. it literally leaked water a bit. still convinced he is a literal visionary never seen before never done again. he’s like i’m on the brink of greatness. i’m the next einstein.

has a bit of a god complex where he thinks he’s the sexiest person in any given room n it’s kind of funny bc like dylan minnette’s sexy to me bt tht isn’t a widespread opinion n ur being a bit bold ziggy...... regardless has confidence thru the roof tht isn’t rly deterred by anything or anyone.....

dyes his hair 49729572459752 colours every colour under the sun. sometimes all at once jst different patches. wears lots of tie dye tshirts n basketball shorts even tho he doesn’t play basketball. rly colourful sneakers. just lots of loud colours tbh. often wears a paper clip in his ear as an earring. pierced it himself. someone probably recorded him doing it fr his insta story. probably was drunk.

drives a vespa around tht is baby blue with pastel yellow polka dots. it has lots of tin cans attached to the back by string like on those cars when u just got married. he did not just get married. u can hear him arriving frm over a street away.

almost never pays fr anything bt is always like “yo it’s my treat” n then either dine n dashes or u have to pay

his idea of romance is nuking a hot pocket as breakfast in bed n then complaining he’s hungry n eating half

WANTED CONNECTIONS:

fuckboy antics: he’s insatiable. rabid. notorious. mayb they fkd n he didn’t call........ jst completely ghosted........ mayb they were genuinely into him n he honestly built up kind of false pretences abt them having a connection n then jst dipped..... cld b good fr angst n drama <3 someone please egg his house he deserves it <3

high skl heathens: locals tht were equally chaotic in hs..... just picture him having this group of misfits tht were like so loud n always getting up to no good doing god knows what god knows where.... probably gt arrested together breaking into an old abandoned hospital one time........... rly just doing the absolute most at all times............. probably so loud........... drinking n smoking far too much.....

an attempted teenage relationship: i’m like. tentative to even put this one bc i just feel like ziggy wld be a shit bf. KJHGFSHGFHGSFHGFKGHFKSG. but. maybe it ended in drama.....i’d say this wld probably be a girl bc in hs he probably ws less open w his sexuality... maybe ziggy cheated on her or she cheated on him................ angst........ strife.... we love it we love it........ i crash my car into the bridge... i don’t care... i love it... sudden icona pop moment me stood on stage singing karaoke.... it’s just gone 7am as i write this so i apologise if this is losing any. coherency. smiles so sexy....

last adolescent plot i swear: i picture when ziggy was expelled he somehow amassed a large group to protest w signs outside the school fr him to be accepted back. it didn’t work. he threw a party when he received news he hadn’t got back in anyway. maybe ur muse was involved or helped organise this or was violently opposed.

enemies: ppl who just. don’t like ziggy bc like honestly that’s so fair n valid. KJHGFKGHKSFGHSGKHSFHG..... mayb he like. exploded their mailbox one time when they were younger. mayb he skated over their toes. mayb he fucked their bitch aha fuck................. (joking btw) (don’t condone misogyny) (hashtag feminism). cld be fun to play around w

fwb: probably hs a few of these......... mayb they’re cool w things being no strings attached n lax n at ease w ziggy being the mess tht he is in general..... mayb they want more bt ziggy cannot provide...... mayb they literally don’t get on at all n this is their only mutual ground n they keep coming bk to each other.... :smirk:..... whatever u Farncy....

maybe ziggy’s mum dated ur muse’s dad at one point???? we can discuss this if u think it fits..... cld be fun to play around w............

coworkers: past or present r fun..... mayb they were like WTFFF is this guy fking ONNN at a past job (he’s had a few in the food service industry so pretty open in tht area)... mayb they work w him at the ice cream parlour now..... cn discuss the dynamic probably wld be dependent on the muse involved fr like. how he’d act n stuff.... :yum:

#irvingintro #abuse tw #violence tw #believe tht's all....

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thewritingstar · 4 years ago

Note

any colorcrack ship heehoo

Pairing: Blossutch (Blossom x Butch)

Fandom: PPG

Tag list: @shellielyzabeth @over-under-through1 and @yosuehere (for no reason winkwink)

so we just gonna pretend like i didnt know who sent this. And i'm also gonna pretend that you aren’t tempting me with Blossutch.....but...Blossutch...

Okay but evil Blossom??????

also this oneshot got outta hand but im okay with it. This is filled with flashbacks sorta and don’t ask me how the town got destroyed cause idk

Triggers: mild blood, minor character death

I hope you enjoy because i really like this :)

----

She could recall the first time she had used her powers for evil. It was a whirlwind of emotion as the bodies fell to the ground one after the other. The people she vowed to save now were at their knees begging for mercy before she turned the other cheek and walked away. The vision of perfection was no more.

It was devastating to feel that crack. Her heart slowly turned black until it became locked up against her will. There was no turning back now. She once scoffed at the saying "You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." Now it was a cruel future.

Instead of leaving the place she once called home, she stayed and lived above it all. Her powers were now her protection as death threats and missiles were sent her way each day. She ignored them of course. She took a book out of Princess and had others do her bidding, but her hands had seen blood many times.

It was too late now.

The falling of Townsville wasn’t something anyone had ever thought would happen. Not when the three supers lived within the city limits. As they grew up, the city had stayed protected no matter how many robbers, villains or monsters threatened their home, they always saved the day.

And then it happened. Something unexplained had taken over the city like a thick fog. The girls did their best to try and stop it but something had changed the minds and the hearts of the people.

When the world goes to shit, you have two choices. Save the world and fight for what is right or watch it burn slowly and take what you can. Rebuild the empire to your liking and every negative thing about humans will be revealed.

Humans are selfish, even the purest ones have corrupt thoughts. As the world is on its deathbed, true colors show. He had known it all too well and yet he was one of the dumbest people for thinking he could change it back. Restore good and evil, even though he was brought up with the lather.

Corruption and destruction were his game while being a hero was hers. It was plain and simple. He was bad and she was good. Or so that was how the story was told. Maybe the story had lost its way a long time ago. Nothing was ever that black and white.

Then the world had lost its mind and he was now bound to a chair with chains biting into his skin and the once notorious sweetheart was standing there with a blade and enough ammo to kill half the city. Sometimes he didn’t want to believe it. That she had lost the hero's glow and fell into the darkness he knew personally.

Why should he fix this mess when the world has shunned him? It was the same question she had asked herself long ago.

He sat watching her. His voice was muffled by a shitty cloth rag that he could easily spit out whenever, but he would play her game. His fingers tapping on the armrest as he twitched in his seat, he was never good at staying still for long.

The first time he had met her was back when they were kids. She was bright eyed and witty. A leader for those who needed one and had a killer punch. Although they weren’t pair counterparts, they had more in common than not. He found himself near her more often as the years passed.

Now she just had a killer punch.

He had been watching her for quite some time now. Usually people in his position would be dead but he wasn't like them. He was better. He understood her even with that mask on. He might have special powers with shield but she somehow had one he could barely break.

She was staring out of the giant windows of her private office. The sunset sat on the horizon and if the city wasn’t in complete chaos then he would have thought it was beautiful. It was a massive space overlooking the city. He knew this place quite well but it felt foreign and lost as if it was a memory he tried to remember but never had.

Her grip on the knife tightened as she turned and walked up towards him. Her eyes raking over him as if she were examining her prey like a vulture. She was the embodiment of everything good in this world even if she was wearing all black and hadn’t smiled in years. He couldn’t blame her but he missed the way the corners of her eyes would crinkle when she laughed and the blush that tinted her cheeks. If he could go back in time for one more moment of that, he would in a heartbeat.

He gave her a raise of his eyebrows and she scoffed. It was too quiet for his liking so he shuffled the cloth out of his mouth.

“Blossom.” he spoke and she shivered as if no one had said her name in years, and maybe they didn’t.

She wasn’t the Blossom who was a golden child and adored by the world anymore. In fact her name sent fear through the bodies of those who dared to utter it. Instead of everything nice, she was just a black hole that sucked out the life of everything around her.

“Butch.” She replied and he didn’t think hearing his name come from her would hurt so much.

“Let me go.” He stated as if she would. They both knew he could break out of them. They weren’t stupid but maybe playing to the worlds cruel game was all they had left.

Most people couldn’t say they saw the hero fall. Dying a hero was something her sisters had the pleasure of receiving and yet their sister was now the queen jewel of the evil capital.

The day he held her at the funeral. She had to watch the blood pool around her sister's lifeless bodies and there was nothing she could do. She had saved the city countless times and the minute that it went up in flames, her sisters lives were target practice and those who cheered them on had now put the stake through them.

The horror of seeing her sister smile as she died in her arms haunted her. She wondered why she was the only one to survive.

“You’ll save the day, you always do.” Bubbles had said happily as if she wasn’t bleeding out of her stomach.

Next to Buttercup choked on bile as she used her last strength to smile and brush the matted hair out of her sister's face. “You’re a leader Blossom, always were. Always will be.”

Sometimes if she was alone with her thoughts for too much time she could hear her sister's laughter and the snarky comment of the other one. She could see them flying around, playing tag and just having childish fun.

But it was all gone now.

Behind her on the desk was Octi. The infamous plush of the youngest sister. Blossom wanted to blast it to shreds and never see it again but he had convinced her to keep it. He stared at it then back to her. He wondered if she ever held it close to her chest and allowed herself to grieve, probably not but it was worth the thought.

He had been captured by her countless times. It was on purpose too. He broke in, stole something and hoped that she would be there ready to add another scar and they would fight, and then he would be thrown out. He would come back again and again just to see her.

He hadn’t seen her in months now. After a while, only her goons paid him a visit and he would just drop the item and walk away. There was no point if she wasn’t there.

And now he was in the position he needed. She was right there for the taking and he desperately wanted to hold her again, just like he did before all this shit happened.

He moved in his chair, the chains rattling and getting her attention. He didn’t want to play anymore and decided to send a green spark on one of them but her hand came down on his wrist snuffing out the light.

Her face was inches from his as her cold stare pierced his soul. Her eyebrows were furrowed and her lips were set in a thin line as if she was challenging him, daring him to break away. He loved her eyes. They once glowed with a vibrant pink that he could only describe as breathtaking. They gave her away every time but now they had turned to a frozen stone and it was harder to see what she was thinking.

“So you’re finally gonna kill me then?” He asked, his voice calm and collected as she continued to glare. The blade of the knife was held at his neck and he thought about moving forward to see what she would do.

“It would be easier that way.” She stated and that stung even when it shouldn’t have.

His eye twitched and his foot moved quickly to tug at her ankle causing her to move forward and her chest touched his. She had moved the knife away quickly. Now it was held above his head and he smirked before quickly hiding it. It was nice to know she didn’t want to plunge the knife into him.

“I always liked you better pressed against me babe.” His foot not letting up as the other one trapped her in. Her other hand was now gripping his forearm and he lowered his eyes. He wanted to know that the Blossom he once cared about deeply was still there. No matter how many shields she had up, he was good at destroying things.

She was silent and he waited. Her silence was something you couldn’t mess with. Those gears in her head were turning and the smallest shift in her eyes had given her away. He knew she wouldn’t kill him. She couldn’t. Whether she liked it or not, he was the only thing she had left and even if it was a petty thing, she knew better than to throw it away.

“Let go of me.” She hissed through gritted teeth and his feet only dug deeper into her ankles.

He smirked. “I’m the one tied up babe.” She used her free hand to slap him across the face and yet he felt nothing. He had made himself numb to the cruel world, the only thorn in his side was her and even that was barely scratching the surface.

But he hated that. He desperately craved for the pain even if that's all it was. Pain. A pitiful idea. He once lived for the thrill of the chase. The waiting of a battle as he was some cheeky teen stealing things just so that some girl would notice. The truth was his heart had been through so much heartbreak that it never went away and he was just tired.

He picked his head up from the blow and she was breathing heavily. Her knife was lowered and was resting in her hand. He shot her a toothy grin which made her bristle. “Mm playing rough today?”

Her face flushed red as she pursed her lips together and bit back a snarl. “Stop talking.”

There was something about pushing his luck that he thoroughly enjoyed. “Don’t be shy.” He snickered as he tilted his head up with a cocked eyebrow. “You can’t hide.”

“You really wanna be saying that shit while I'm holding this.” She waved the knife in his face and he rolled his eyes.

“Tell you what babe.” She frowned deeper. “You can kill me, go ahead. This world should have been destroyed ages ago but-”

“But what?” She rested herself in his lap.

Butch let out a deep laugh as he smiled. “You have to kiss me.”

Her face turned towards the window and he saw that she still wore the earrings he gave her years ago. He bucked his knee up grabbing her attention back.

“Just one peck and then bam, you’re done.” He said smoothly as he eyed the knife.

“Why?”

“You were the smart one for a reason, figure it out toots.”

Blossom watched him closely and she knew what he was doing. No. It wasn’t fair and she wouldn’t give herself that kind of relief. Years ago maybe, but not anymore. She didn’t deserve happiness.

She pushed off of him with a great force, breaking free from his feet before ripping the chains off of him with a powerful blast and stomping towards the windows. Her blood red heels echoing on the marble floor as her hips swayed.

“Leave.” She spat and he rubbed his wrists where the chains had been. “Just leave.” Her voice gave out at the end as her head hung low.

His eyes went to the door. He should have turned around and left. He should have just ran and went back to drinking and drugs and drowning back into the darkness, it would have been easier that way. But his mind ignored all that. He had waited too damn long to be in her presence again and he was a selfish asshole.

He saw her fall off the deep end as the world turned its back on the shining light. They snuffed her goodness and took whatever innocence she had remaining and left her high and dry. She had pushed him away and lifted up the walls, she said it was to protect him. It never was. It was a cruel lie to justify how she felt. He understood completely because that's what he had been doing since he was a child.

The pain of losing the closest people to you was something they shared. His brothers fell to the same fate as her sisters and instead of suffering together, they had distanced.

Her back was towards him and he took the time to look her over. He found it adorable how she still wore her bow in her hair, maybe it was to keep her sanity and pretend like it didn’t mean anything. She stood tall and proud back in the days and she was right now but it was different, she was different and he knew that.

Her hair was long and pulled back into the tight ponytail she always wore. He knew deep down she wanted to run to him. Forget back the past and go back to the days where they could be themselves. Even with the unforgiving circumstances, he thought she looked as radiant as ever.

He stood behind her before reaching for her hand. It had been almost a year or two since he had touched her skin. She could easily turn around and slice him with the knife, end him right then and there. The voices in his head had silenced as the tips of his fingers touched the slight curl of her palm and he felt the spark that he longed for. It was small but he had felt it, he prayed she did too.

He closed his eyes as he took another step forward and when she didn’t pull back and retreat, he held her hand. The once warm skin was ice cold and he didn’t know if he wanted to cry from how much she was suffering and he was once too blind to see it. It was crystal clear now.

He waited until his eyes watered as he felt her fingers curl around his. The breath he was holding was let out and he blinked rapidly to make the tears fade away. He felt how her hand tighten around his and her body shook slightly as if the wall she had put up now had a raging storm pounding against it like a dam on the verge of breaking.

He pulled her until she was flushed with him. He raised her other hand and placed the knife against his neck.

“It’s okay.” He whispered. “If it will bring you peace-” His words were silenced as the knife fell with a harsh clank and tumbled around until the ringing stopped.

She looked at her hands with a fear she had only felt a few times before. Her shoulders went slack as he wrapped his arms around her and held her close.

“They hated us.” She cried into his chest. “W-we saved them and yet-” She could bring herself to say it. He wasn’t sure if she ever said that they had died. It would mean that it was true, despite it being years. “H-how...how could they do that to us?”

He didn’t say anything but only clutched her harder. “They destroyed me.” Her head picked up as she looked at him.

Eyes wide and puffy as she looked at him as her lips quivered in disbelief. She reached for his cheek where the indent of a healed scar was. She had been the cause of it but it faded over time and she traced her finger over it, whispering to herself.

“And I destroyed you.” The heartbreak in her voice was unbreakable as he let the tears fall. He shook his head.

“No, you-”

She nodded and pushed away the excuses. “I did.” Her eyes were searching around his face wondering how much damage she had caused him. “You were my light and I did the same thing to you as they did to me.”

Her breath caught in her throat as his lips pressed against her cheek carefully. It was soft in such a way that if she were a porcelain doll on the verge of shattering.

“What they did to you is unforgivable but I don’t blame you, Blossom. I could never blame you.” He was honest. She might have pushed him away and even fought him but she was still the one who had held him when he cried and kissed his pain away. “Please baby-I. Please.”

There was a heavy silence weighing over them. His eyes were glued to her and he would be a fool to turn and leave now. Not again. They say the end of the world brings out the worst and two broken people who had seen their loved ones suffer and end tragically only meant for a catastrophe. Instead of a violent fight of shouting and guns a blazing, their weapons were tossed aside and the dam had broken as she stared at him.

The golden sunset was ready to fade into a new inky night as he told her he wasn’t leaving again as his lips brushed against hers. Never touching fully.

“I don’t deserve to have you, not anymore.”

“You don’t have a choice.” He stated and held her as she tried to pull away. “But.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the gun with the bullet that could penetrate through their superhuman forms. “You can tell me to leave and I won’t come back again.”

She was once a little girl who called for her to save the day. A teen that people worship and even a woman that they feared. She had done it all. Phases come and go but the only thing that didn’t change was her heart towards him. She would be lying if she said she had forgotten all the times they shared. Forgotten about how they would sneak away during school and have their way with each other as she giggled endlessly. Forgotten when he told her he loved her the first time on the rooftop.

She was a fool for thinking she would throw it all away. The world had made a mockery of her when she turned towards the darkness for revenge and yet the thing that she could have done, could have, was right in front of her for the taking.

“Or. You can have me for the rest of time and the world can go to hell.”

The gun was held out to her. An offering that would either would vaporize any hope she had left, or could leave her feeling something more than just a hollow shell of a person.

She took the gun from him and for an instant she thought about holding it against herself. In that moment, the pain could end. She could easily forget about it all and fade away into the abyss. Her mind traveled to that dark place until the memory of her sister’s bright smile came into view.

“Blossom you deserve happiness and I think he’s the one for you.”

“I can second that.”

Her eyes looked into his and she saw a gleam of hope. The moment after she had lost her sisters was spent with her heart suffering and yet he wanted to be by her side through it all. He could have cast away those feelings and left time and time again but he was here.

The metal burned her skin as she held it, fingertip on the trigger but all her attention belonged to him. Her fingers twitched and shook as she asked him the question that weighed on her mind.

“Could you ever learn to love me again?” Her voice meek with a slight whimper.

Butch brought his lips to hers, touching them soft as a feather. “I never forgot.” And kissed her as if it was the last thing he would ever do.

Those flashbacks of them together before the decay of what they had known came back in a rush and she wondered how she ever let them go. His hand wrapped around her waist and he felt the upward curl of her lips against his as her arms came around his neck. Her body molded to his as she held him tight, afraid that when he pulled away, he would be gone again.

When the world goes to shit, you have two choices. Burn down with it or rise above and see the new horizon.

And when he looked back at her with a smile that felt rusted and worn, her eyes had held a spark that became reignited. Like a flower blooming after a harsh winter, the life from deep within herself began to resurface.

“I have always loved you, even in the darkness.” He spoke and he was blinded by the small smile on her lips.

“And I love you.”

Those tears on her face held years of misery but it was leaving her mind as she stared at him. The vibrant pink against an electric green. She felt those chains around her heart break off as the warmth came in.

“So what do you say?” He asked as he kissed her cheek.

“Let the world go to hell.” She whispered before crashing her lips against him and as if she was desperate to quiche her thirst.

She smiled against his lips as he let out a growl. Blossom pointed the gun towards the window and fired. The glass raining down over the city as the light from the horizon seeped in.

The idea of good and evil was long on when the city’s morals became corrupted. All that was left were two people who knew better than to become incinerated.

---

i hope you liked it!

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oleanderblume · 5 years ago

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Okay more spinel

Because her character is cool and I like her.

So let's get on with this.

I know a shut ton of people heavily relate to spinel because she has an ostensibly relatable backstory, but also because she represents BPD to a rather miraculous extent. And I am in the mood to explain WHY.

So, when a lot and I mean majority neurotypical folks hear of BPD they think "this person is abusive and dangerous" obviously that's not always the case, the ironic contrast I have been seeing is that despite spinel's character typing, people are falling head over heals for her while at the same time; if faced with someone who actually does have BPD they would probably feel threatened by them. More on that later.

Anyways, how does BPD work? Why is spinel a decent example for someone with bpd?

Bpd or borderline personality disorder is a trauma based disorder characterized by extreme paranoia, fear of abandonment, social withdrawal or lashing out, excessive emotional eruption (feeling everything very loudly and all at once, but only short periods of time), general lack of identity and purpose, and spiraling among other things.

Because borderline personality stems from trauma and abuse, usually neglect of some sort, the person who has it has an innate urge to please others, a desire to be seen and heard and cared for heavily contradicted by their unstable fear and paranoia surround the people they most care for, that contradiction is what causes emotional outbursts and spiraling.

So, let's apply this to spinel in a way that's understandable aside from just pointing out the similarities in the disorder and her characterization.

Spinel has a history of prolonged abuse, despite gems living for thousands upon thousands of years, spinel is relatively young in comparison to her primary abuser, pink diamond. (Because spinel was made for pink and thus existed after pink)

Pink diamond is also her primary source of companionship. To put it into time relevance, pink is like a twelve year old, and spinel is like a 6 year old.

Spinel's only goal is to entertain and be a friend to pink, but she relies heavily on pink to be consistent in her approval of what spinel does as entertainment (truthful) and she relies on pinks companionship for the relationship to function as it's supposed to. She gives entertainment and companionship in return for approval and companionship.

The balance became off kilter due to pink wanting other than that companionship, a colony, and lack of proper communication leading to her manipulating spinel into playing a game she could not win.

Pink didnt communicate her disapproval of spinel's behavior, which in turn exasperated her own enjoyment with spinel, leading to that manipulation.

This lack of communication spurs the desire for approval in spinel's character, she wants to be good and a friend, was lead to believe she was, when in reality she wasn't, in her eyes. The realization of this began to dawn on her after pink left, but likely before Steven's message ie:

"Is this how it goes, am I doing it right?"

Spinel spent 6000 years in the garden waiting for pink to come back, under the impression that if she continued to play the game, correctly, that she would eventually return. Hence, her desire to be seen as a good friend who obeys and entertains above all else.

This is why she displays a deep desire to be a good gem be good at her job, and why she feels that she inherently isn't.

After she receives Steven's message, she is forced into the realization that the game didnt matter, pink wasnt ever going to come back, from her perspective, pink didnt care for her or want to be her friend, which causes spinel to feel like she is a bad gem, that she doesnt do her job, that she isnt good enough.

Spinel has received only the information from the broadcast (I am including the book reading in this because it sets up the broadcast scene and white diamond speaks to the screen directly after) she knows very little about the rebellion, or the war, only that pink made new friends, had a son and didnt come back for her withing the numerous perceived opportunities she could have. This aspect is important, as if the broadcast told the whole truth, spinel likely would have understood a bit more of the gravity of the events that had taken place.

After spinel learns of pinks new friends and Steven's existence, this is when her severe neglect and abandonment as well as a loss of identity kick in, she is filled with rage, despair and self loathing.

Spinel has lost her identity, her purpose, because she feels she isnt good enough for what she was made to do, despite being a perfect cut, she is nothing, all she will ever be is nothing, nothing to pink, nothing to anyone, nothing to herself.

After having no companionship and no means of safe emotional outlet, spinel is effectively blindsided by the sudden and impactful amount of pain and hate she is feeling. She has no way of confronting this emotion, and she doesnt know how to confront it so she does the next best thing, vent it out on people who were closest to pink, her best friends.

Essentially spinel cant focus her rage on pink diamond because she is gone, so instead she will focus it on the people who, to her, took pink away from her.

Now, given spinel's self deprecating nature, she likely had no real plan afterward, more than likely, she fully intended to be poofed, rejuvenated or shattered. After all, she is nothing to pink, and she is even less to Steven, she doesnt deserve to exist.

From observation, the speed at which she arrived on earth from after she heard the broadcast, she was likely having a severe mental breakdown and spiral, which can be incredibly hard to get out of when one has low self esteem and no proper means of emotional release.

A spiral is when a person (or in this case a character) becomes self deprecating and an increasingly more volatile rate, they are incredibly hard to get out of because the mental illness doesnt allow positive thought, the person will feel bad for their actions or feel bad about trauma or failures and will continually throw insults at themselves or those around them for trying to convince them differently.

Spinel spirals twice in the movie, the most excellent example is her paranoia of being abandoned leading to irrational thought and self depreciative spiraling and lashing out as a means of emotional protection.

I'm not really going to speak on the middle of the movie because it essentially rehashes that emotional trauma and neglect I mentioned earlier, the only difference is that is is comparable to a person with BPD who has effectively repressed those traumatic memories and is slowly reliving them, which subsequently causes a major relapse.

What I will say however, is that some other common symptoms appear in spinel like they do with folks with BPD. Spinel has an fp. A favorite person basically.

Folks with BPD often pick a companion of theirs and become extremely attached to them, they care incredibly deeply for them, and can also feel incredibly betrayed by them when they dont act in ways that the person is comfortable ie; displaying traits that can, to the person with BPD lead to abandonment.

Folks with BPD also tend to tailor their personalities for their companions in order to receive that approval they desire most.

Spinel displays this fairly effectively when she lashes out at Steven when he tells her to stay with the new crystal gems, she also displays the tailor trait when she mimics amethysts actions during the nobody else duet.

Finally, when spinel reverts back to her dark form, she displays the other symptoms of BPD, hesitance to trust, then blind trust and desire to please, her paranoia over Steven leaving her, and the subsequent spiral leading her to lash out in effort to protect herself from more emotional trauma and eventually dropping out of her spiral and then the final, trying to leave before abandonment can happen.

This is a fairly important one, as a lot of folks with BPD tend to feel that abandonment is an eventuality, and another form of protection from that is purposely distancing oneself and leaving before that abandonment can take place.

Spinel, after her second spiral is still very much traumatized, and still very much self destructive, has low self esteem, despite wanting to be better, so to spare herself the pain of facing people she has actively harmed in her worst moments, and to spare herself from what she believes is an eventual abandonment, she desires to leave and start over.

Do I think this is healthy? Mmm..no. mostly because I know that folks with BPD have an incredibly hard time breaking paranoia, low self esteem and self destructive behavior. I definitely dont think that spinel should have left with the diamonds because they have no idea what she is capable of and what she has been through, or how to deal with her self destructive behavior in a healthy way. They arent even able to completely overcome their own abusive behavior so..no, I dont think it was a good decision to have her go with them. But that doesnt really matter right now lol.

What matters is; spinel is a good example of what it is like to have BPD, she is a good example of the low self esteem and self destructive behaviour people with BPD have. She is a good example because she isn't seen as a completely lost cause by Steven and the others, despite what she herself believes. She has an acurate portrayal of the trauma that develops bpd, the symptoms of BPD in an easily digestible way and she isnt portrayed to have these issues completely resolved by the end of the film.

She very VERY quickly jumps into another relationship that can very easily be destroyed by either the diamonds or herself, and still struggles with low self esteem and the desire to be approved of by Steven, and the diamonds.

She isnt fixed by the end. But she doesnt get treated as a terrible person either.

Most people who talk about BPD who dont have it themselves very often say that they are inherently abusive, and overlook that persons trauma. That doesnt happen for spinel, Steven sympathizes with her trauma, despite largely being sidetracked and not fully indulged in helping her for her sake, rather than helping his own needs.

It's understandable and infuriating at the same time. Because the type of person spinel is, requires a different approach and a far more delicate one at that, something Steven hasn't had the same quite of experience with yet. Which is what largely caused her to spiral the second time. And it wasnt until Steven realized how selfish he had been that he was able to even make a proper and not misleading connection with spinel.

So there you have it, my analysis of spinel, why she portrayed BPD very very well, and how bod is a largely misunderstood and stigmatized disorder.

#spinel #bpd #steven universe the movie

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child-of-thedarknight · 5 years ago

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His Dirty Little Secret

I woke up and rolled out of my bed, slowly shuffling to the bathroom in my dorm as I went for my shower. I turned on the water as I got in, letting the hot water relax my muscles as I attempted to wake myself up for the day. I quickly washed, shaved and dried myself off, putting moisturiser on my legs to make them smoother. I then blow dried my hair before getting dressed. I put on my tights, skirt, shirt, tie and my school shoes that had a little bit of a heel on them. I made sure my skirt was higher than the school rules allowed, then I curled my half black, half red hair. I then grabbed my school books and bag, and went downstairs for breakfast.

I walked in and saw my brothers all sitting at our house table. I went and sat with them grabbing a green apple and pouring myself some pumpkin juice for breakfast. "Why do you always only eat green apples Emma?" My brother, Jackson asked. "Because red apples taste funny. That's why." I replied, pulling out my potions homework that was due today. Snape would kill me if I didn't have it done. As I was about three quarters of the way through, my bestfriend Ashleigh walked over and said she needed to talk to me. I got up, grabbed my book bag, and followed her out. We went back to her common rooms and sat down on her bed. "Help. Dilemma. Make up crisis. Sebastian wants to take me to Hogsmeade as we have a day off and I am useless when it comes to makeup. Please help." She pleaded. I sighed and went through her make up, thinking of what would work, trying to match it up with her outfit. I eventually decided on a smoky cut crease for the eyeshadow, winged eyeliner, a light foundation and blush, and a dark pink lipstick. I did her eyebrows, helped her change out her nose stud for a nose ring, and then she was ready to go. I also quickly put on a deep purple lipstick and did a smoky eye for me. "Thank you so much Emma. What would I do without you?" She asked. "Probably die." I replied as we laughed. I heard the bell toll, signaling my first class of the day, Herbology. I quickly hugged Ashleigh, wished her well on her date, and rushed to the greenhouses.

"Greenhouse Three today guys." We heard Professor Sprout yell out from behind us. We had Herbology with the Ravenclaws, so I paired up with my bestfriend from Ravenclaw, Amy. "Girl you are gonna get in so much trouble with Snape for your skirt today." She informed me as we sat down. "Incase you haven't noticed babes, I really don't care." I replied as we completed our task. We then parted ways as I headed off to Transfiguration and she went to Ancient Runes. I successfully turned my turtle into a teapot, and got ten points awarded to my house. As soon as the bell rang for lunch, we were up and out of there so quickly. I rushed to the Great Hall, wanting to get a seat with my brothers. As I sat down next to Freddie, I noticed a certain blond Slytherin staring at me from across the hall. "He is staring at you again little sis. Can I deal with him?" asked Freddie. "Nahh. I can handle him." I said as we ate our lunch and talked about Quidditch and the team trials that were coming up. I finally agreed to try out for the team beater and then headed off early to my last class of the day, Potions.

As I was waiting outside for Professor Snape, Malfoy and his gang came and stood next to me. He clicked his fingers and they all went and did something else. "Sit next to me in Potions today. We need to talk about certain things." He demanded and walked off before I could reply. I sighed and went in as Snape walked in. I took my seat at the back of the classroom and Draco came and sat next to me. We received odd looks from others, but between his cold stare and my resting bitch face, they all looked away. "Today, we will be doing theory work with who you are sitting with. By the end of the lesson, you will be able to tell me the uses of Wolfsbane, Draught of Living Death, and Veritaserum. Understood?" Snape drawled in his monotone voice. We all nodded and got to work. "Want to explain to me what the hell you are doing wearing your skirt that short?" Draco hissed at me as I started writing down the uses of Wolfsbane. "I wear it like this everyday, Malfoy. You know this." I said as I rolled my eyes. Draco let out a sigh of anger as he started writing down what we needed as well. "How about why you were with Zabini last night, past curfew? I know you weren't studying." he queried. "How do you know I was with Zabini? Also, what I do with my life is none of your concern. If I wanted to have fun with Zabini, I could. You don't control my life Draco!" I whisper yelled as I got up, handed my finished essay and my homework in, and left to go to my dorm. I was so frustrated with Draco at the moment. Honestly, who does he think he is? Thinking he can control my life and what I do. I got out of my school uniform and changed into my black ripped skinny jeans, my Machine Gun Kelly shirt, Rap Devil hoodie and my combat boots. I put my hair into two braids, and put on my EST 19XX bandana. I grabbed my firebolt and my wand, going out into the corridors before mounting my broom and flying out of the window.

I flew around the castle, over the trees of the forbidden forest, and then to the Quidditch grounds, where I lazily floated in the air, casting random spells and practicing for our charms quiz later this week. After about half an hour of flying around, another person joined me. I looked over to see the ever so annoying Draco Malfoy flying next to me. I rolled my eyes, not ready for another argument with him, and slowly started flying away. It started to drizzle as I was flying around so I decided to just take it slow. Malfoy was still following me, which was making me even more pissed off. "And what in the world could you possibly want now Malfoy? Haven't you got Pansy to go and be with?" I asked him, letting my anger seep through my words. He looked shocked, but quickly recovered as he replied with a witty comment. "I really don't want to be around that clingy bitch. I would rather annoy you to the point of breaking." I sighed and flew down to the ground, heading off towards the castle. "We aren't done with our talk yet little miss." He yelled as he sent our brooms to their respective places, picked me up, and apparated to his dorm. "What the bloody hell are you doing you numpty?" I questioned as he cast the Muffliato charm on his dorm. I rolled my eyes at the fact that of course the Prince of Slytherin got his own dorm, and went and sat on the couch. He walked over to his bed, took off his shoes, socks and his jumper, loosening his tie before lying down and motioning for me to join him. "I'd rather not thanks." I said icily as I turned back to the fire and continued to stare into it. I heard him sigh loudly in annoyance before he went quiet. After an hour of nothing being said between us, I sighed and finally joined him on the bed after taking my shoes and socks off.

"Why aren't you talking to me anymore Emma? We used to talk everyday before the holidays, and now you are just ignoring me and swanning around with other guys that aren't me. What's going on?" He asked me as he put my hood of my jumper down. I looked at him and saw that he truly was hurt, but I honestly did not feel sorry for him at this moment. "You know what you did Malfoy. You know why I'm not talking to you. You don't control my life, and if I choose to go around enjoying myself with other men, then I can. And you can't stop me Malfoy. It was YOU who made the decision to join in with your stupid friends when they gang bashed Jason. It was YOU who had no intention of stopping them. It was YOU who I thought would have the common sense to realise what you were doing. But you didn't. You fucked up. You just can't accept that. So no, I will not stop messing around with Zabini or anyone else I want to." I finished my rant and wiped away the tears that I wasn't even aware were falling down my face. I went to go get off the bed and leave when I felt Draco's hand wrap around my wrist and pull me into a hug. "I am so sorry for what I did Emma. I know I can't fix it. I know that what I did was irreversible and I can't take it back. If I could have done anything to help, you know I would have. I am so sorry for what I did and I want you to forgive me so bad. I know that you hate me right now and I shouldn't be trying to control who or what you do. I just want us back. I want you to be mine the way we were before I fucked up. Please Emma. Please give me one more chance." he started trembling as he spoke and I knew the tears were going to start soon. I pulled back from the hug and wiped his tears. I noticed he had rolled up his sleeves, and when I looked down I recoiled from his touch as if it had suddenly become acid and was melting my skin. He noticed and then realised why I had.

"HOW COULD YOU DRACO?! YOU PROMISED ME YOU NEVER WOULD. YOU SAID YOU WOULD RATHER DIE THAN GET THAT DONE!" I yelled as I got up an went to leave. "NO! DON'T YOU DARE WALK AWAY FROM ME EMMA! I HAD NO FUCKING CHOICE! HE WAS GOING TO KILL ME IF I DIDNT. I WAS GOING TO TELL YOU, BUT YOU JUST WOULDNT FUCKING TALK TO ME. IT'S BAD ENOUGH BOTH OF OUR FATHERS ARE WITH HIM. IT'S EVEN WORSE THAT NOW WE BOTH HAVE OUR MARKS!" He yelled as he grabbed my arm and pushed up the sleeve of my hoodie. I ripped my arm away and glared at him. "DON'T YOU DARE BRING MY FATHER INTO THIS! I SWORE WHEN I TOOK THE MARK THAT NO ONE WOULD KNOW. DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS FOR ME AND MY BROTHERS TO HIDE IT FROM PEOPLE? YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE IN THE SCHOOL THAT KNOWS DRACO! SO DON'T YOU DARE TRY TO TURN THIS ON ME!" I retorted. His face was red with rage as he tried to think of a reply. I was so prepared for him to yell at me, so when he kissed me, I was shocked. This wasn't the slow, gentle kind of kiss either. This was the rage filled, passionate, demanding type of kiss that sent shivers down my spine. He picked me up and threw me on the bed, climbing back on top of me as I threaded my hands through his hair. He bit my bottom lip and I moaned into the kiss. He took this opportunity to slip his tongue into my mouth as his hands slowly trailed down my body, sending electric shocks through my body wherever he touched me. He pulled my hoodie off and discarded it somewhere in the room, along with my shirt. I loosened his tie enough that I could pull it off, before ripping off his shirt, buttons flying everywhere. He smirked at me before dipping his head down between my breasts, leaving kisses all over my chest as he unclasped my bra and threw it somewhere in his room.

He took one of my nipples in his mouth and started sucking on it whilst playing with the other. I moaned when he bit my nipple as it sent a pleasurable pain through my body. His hands trailed down as he came back up to kiss me, undoing my belt in the process. He took of my jeans and my panties before I flipped us over and took control. I took off his belt, jeans and boxers, and threw them somewhere in his room, not really caring right now. I looked up into his lust filled eyes as I slowly made my way down to his cock, leaving love bites all over his hips as I went. I licked and sucked on the tip, keeping eye contact the whole time. Draco moaned out in pleasure, and I was glad he had cast that spell. I slowly started taking him in, inch by inch, until I had all of him in my mouth. I bobbed my head up and down as Draco laid back, moaning in pleasure beneath me. I pulled off and slowly licked him from base to tip, tasting his precum before going back down. I went faster and faster as I started pumping him as well, trying to get him to his climax. "Ahh. Shit. Emma! I'm g- gonna --" He emptied his load into my mouth before he could finish his sentence. I swallowed it all and licked him clean before showing him. "Holy fuck." He whispered as I moved on top of him. I smirked and then giggled as he rolled us over so he was on top.

He slowly started kissing down my neck, sucking on a few spots to mark his territory. I moaned as he found my sweet spot and I felt him smirk against my skin. He continued sucking on that spot, leaving a dark purple hickey on my pale skin. He then continued his journey down to my core. He kissed my inner thighs, and made his way up to his destination. He licked a long strip up my heat as I let out a long, loud moan. He put my leg over his shoulder and then put his tongue inside my heat. I was in heaven. He slowly started working his fingers in as well as his tongue and it felt so good. I was moaning and biting my lip, trying not to scream out from the pleasure that I was receiving from him. I threaded my hands through his hair and was tugging so hard, I was surprised I didn't rip his hair from his scalp. Draco started to rub his thumb against my clit and within a few seconds, I reached my climax, moaning out Draco's name as I came down from my high. I pulled him up and kissed him long and hard. I then put his fingers in my mouth and licked them clean. Draco groaned at the sight, and his eyes darkened even more. "Fuck me Draco. Now." I demanded as I laid down on his bed, stretching out on his silk sheets. That was all Draco needed to lose all control. He slammed into me, hitting my spot right on the first time. I screamed out as he thrusted hard and fast, continuing to hit my spot dead on. Our kisses were filled with passion as our tongues danced and our bodies collided. I was reaching my climax. I could tell that Draco was as well. I tightened my walls around him and he started get sloppy with his thrusts. I screamed out his name as I reached my climax and he did the same as he reached his. We rode out our highs before he pulled out and collapsed on the bed next to me. I tried to catch my breath as he pulled me into his arms, putting the sheet over us.

"Well, if that's a way to get rid of our anger, I suggest we do it more often." Draco spoke, panting as he also tried to catch his breath. I looked up at him and grinned, nodding my head in agreeance with him. He kissed the top of my head, wrapped his arms around me, and held me as we fell asleep. We would deal with the hell that was to come for the both of us in the morning. But for now. Sleep.

This is so bad. I’m sorry

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claimingtheflame · 4 years ago

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Lincoln Trail Mental Health Facility Part 1

Once again I want to reiterate that a lot of these posts are diaries I wrote never finished. Some of them jump around in my life. The story is about something that took place several years after D left

I remember the moment I turned in the paper. It was nothing. The last question asked my thoughts on the final death of Juliet. I sympathize. To this day I do. Many people probably do. She ended her life because she was in the grip of a mythic tragedy. Who could walk away from such a fate?

Except. Even though this is exactly how I felt, my teenage brain did not yet have the skills to articulate this. I ended up writing something like "I feel what juliet did was right. The world is ugly and filthy and who wants to live in it without someone you love." Because I was an edgy goth kid.

This would send me into the clutches of my own sort of tragedy. A brutal, destructive storm began churning that friday that would completely knock me out of my stupid unlaced combat boots on monday.

It happened like this. I walked into first period, Biology. I sat next to Adam, my closest friend. A knock came shortly after the period started and it turned out to be a senior girl who wanted me to be escorted to Mrs Mudds office. I did not know who that was. It turned out she was a counselor. She had coppery hair and a long, perky, somewhat simian face.

In this story, there is a long list of incompetant people who should not have had their jobs, and possibly should have been in prison. Mrs Mudd is not one of them. As much as I dislike her to this day. Maybe she did really mean well. Maybe she was just swept away by the drama of the whole situation. This is Elizabethtown KY after all.

We talked for a few hours. Looking back, I really don't think I said anything to her that should have been construed that I was depressed or suicidal. We talked about a secret place I visited in the woods behind my neighborhood. We talked about various religious beliefs and about music I listened to. Either way, my mom picked me up from school and I was somewhat excited for the break-in monotony.

We have drove to Lincoln Trail Behavioral Health Center , and I really didn't know what was happening. I had friends who had gone, but I didn't really believe that's why we were there until I saw the look on my mom's face as we walked in. There was a serious feeling of betrayal then. Like God woman haven't you put me through enough. This was an unfair thought. My mother is the second person blameless in the story. I would find out later that basically everybody from my school was telling her I was planning on killing myself quite literally. Mrs. Mudd had apparently told them that the place in the woods was my planned spot to die. I had self-harmed in the past. It was all pleasure related though and I thought it had nothing to do with my mental health. Either way it had been months prior to this, but it added to the Snowball Effect.

I'll admit that I didn't really understand my own mental health at this age. I had just been released from D's clutches only a few precious years earlier. I had no clue what was going on. I was going through a suspended childhood in many ways. All that said, Lincoln Trail Behavioral Health System did not help or address any my mental health issues. Let me reiterate. Aside from some experimental self harm 6 months prior(I received counseling, was evauted, etc), at age 15 I was pretty well behaved. I rarely got in trouble. I certainly never acted disturbed. Lincoln helped nobody who actually went there. In fact I barely escaped with my life and sanity. This is not a dramatic statement. This was a terrible place, as you will learn.

I was obviously scared the moment I walked into this place, all the stories I heard. We were buzzed through a security door after a few accusatory last looks at my mother when I went in quietly. I heard if you resisted or yelled that they gave you a shot in your ass of some kind of sedative. I did not want to give anybody the satisfaction roughing up the goth kid and shooting them in the ass. This was a short-lived Triumph. I would learn quickly that this place was not for me and that there was some horrible mistake pretty early on . I was led to a room and told to take off my clothes down to my underwear. I was told to turn around in front of this guy, who nodded with approval after watching and told me to put back on my clothes. I was wearing really baggy SpongeBob boxers. I guess I could have gotten away with hiding something into the facility. That's the thing. I wasn't a f****** delinquent. Not yet or not anymore depending on how you look at the chronology of things I did as a teenager. Anyway I do remember a kind moment here. The guard escorted me down a hallway and a girl smiled at me brightly. "It's really not that bad here." She said. I smiled and shrugged. This was more of a kind gesture than I realized, I would find this out later.

I was then led to the office of the first real fuckup in this story. This would be my counselor. I don't remember her name. She was somewhat nice to begin with. I'll call her mrs. Wannabe because later she would read a bunch of poems about her Native American ancestry. This extremely blond, blue-eyed woman with a square German face and freckles. Me and Wannabe would talk for about 30 minutes and she would send me on to my actual psychiatrist. I do remember this man's name. I will never forget it. His name was dr. Kodali. We can call him King fuckup. Fuckup prime.

He was a small man, with a small mustache, and skin the color between a beet and a russet potato. He spoke in broken English. He asked me why I thought I was there. I told him about the paper I wrote. He smiled and said " yes we all say things we don't mean. " he asked me if I follow the rules at home. I said yes as long as they are within reason. He laughed at me and said " my own daughter thinks several of my rules are not within reason. Children come to learn to obey. " we did not talk about depression, and this statement would turn out to be significant in many ways. It would come to outline the failure of this institution to children who actually suffered depression. Which I will admit that back then I might have been suffering from. Certainly anxiety. But who doesnt, to some degree?

Let us frame our Shit Pit King with what I didnt know about him before I explain my own experiences. He received kickbacks for pushing certain medicines. This is an important detail. He had been accused on several occasions of over-prescribing meds. He was widely hated as a doctor, and I can't believe he still has a job.

During my first visit, he was mostly dismissive. Interrupted me and laughed at me often. He was mostly interested in my behavior. If I acted up. If I respected authority. Literally nothing about suicide was discussed. So why did this guy prescribe meds at the end of our conversation? He picked up the phone, called my mother, and gave her the dosage information. I narrowly escaped this medicine, whatever it was, due to a surprising hero figure in the story who we will discuss later.

He dismissed me and I was sent to "group" for the first time. This is nothing like "support groups" you see in Lifetime movies. It was a huge room, an obnoxious amount of desk chairs crammed in a circle. Boys on one side. Girls on the other.

I immediately dislike this. It feels tense, and I feel scrutinized. I try to ask a girl near me if I can use one of her pencils. She folds her arms and rolls her eyes. " I can't talk to him." She says to the ceiling. This gets the attention of the counselor of the group, who is actually just an early 20-somethings aide of some kind, there are a few of these. This one I call Nick neckbeard. He says " we are here to work on our problems, not to date. " I am immediately embarrassed. I definitely wasn't trying to date anybody. I let it go but it does set the tone.

Since I am the new kid, a round of introductions is done. Not a lot of these people are notable other than the fact that a lot of them are in here for drugs. Some are in here as an in-between stage between Juvenile Detention and Society. I get the distinct feeling that most of the boys are here for drugs and violent crime. I reflect bitterly that I am in here for writing a stupid paper.

There are several thug wannabe types, maybe two or three other white guys that aren't like that. One obvious skinhead as well. It's split in half racially. Five white Boys & 5 black. There was a round of introductions. Most were there for, as mentioned, substance abuse and violent behavior. The skinhead boasted of being in because he stuck foreign objects in his body. He stabbed himself with pens and various utensils. Another boy was in for desecrating graves. The girls were almost exclusively substance abuse. There was one Arab girl that was in there, and though she talked much I never quite understood why except that I knew she definitely needed to be in there. She either talked incessantly of sex or repeatedly told this story about a "bad doll" that lived in her house- all in broken english.

So this was the introduction to the place. Honestly yes, I would have problems with the other patients. That's really out of the scope of the story though. They are mental patients. What do you expect?

The true problem with Lincoln trail was its staff and overall structure. Such a problem was this structure that it would break me down to that kernel of a child you see on all the other stories on this blog. Such that Lincoln trail would reduce me again to that boy child whispering a question to the darkness: "Why am I being punished?" It would make me know, through recognition and reinforcement of abusive themes I was already familiar with, that I was not in a safe place.

The first night I felt this first blow through humiliation and guilt. It was a simple thing really. We were sent to bed. A corridor with a small basket on the outside of each door. A female counselor was pointing each of us down the hall to our rooms. When my time came, she pointed vaguely down the hall to the right side. I tried to ask for clarification and she shouted "Right there!" And my immediate reaction to being chastised like this was to go to one of the rooms with my belongings. She did not stop me.

I noticed one of the wooden bed frames(they were double rooms with single bathrooms) had no mattress. My roommate was a boy my age. He had close-buzzed haircut. He seemed politely surprised. I shrugged and got in the shower. When I turned the water off, I heard yelling on the other side of the door.

The boy was yelling angrily that he did not know who I was and that he had nothing to do with me. He was explaining that I came into his room unbidden and to no fault of his own. I dressed quickly and came out of the bathroom as soon as possible. A middle-aged blond woman grabs me by the arm and began leading me out of the room. When I asked her where we were going she did not say anything but tightened her grip and sat me down in a chair. This woman becomes important later. Five minutes later Dr kodali came into the office with my other counselor, both looking at me sternly.

I apologize for not knowing the exact words of the conversation. Basically the boy was supposed to have his room to his self. He was gay and had been known to have had sexual contact with other patients. They grilled me hard about whether or not I was gay and deciding whether I should be disciplined. Dr kodali somehow remembers that that my girlfriend had given testimony(positively) over my mental health and he seemed to leave it at that. The blonde lady didnt seem convinced.

When she led me back to my(actual) room, she took the liberty of going through my clothes and belongings. She confiscated basically all of my clothing, saying that it would distract patients(black jeans and tees...none of my flashier stuff). She confiscated my copy of Cannery Row, all my homework, and my shampoo. She really let off on me while doing this. Talking about how sneaky I was and if I was planning anything with Chester(the gay guy) that she would know.

This was Day 1. I would kneel beside the bed that night and pray(I just prayed to 'the goddess' back then), just to feel peace inside. I was so put-upon about the stupid clothes. They were my armor, in a way.

The next day would be a lot worse. I'd learn a lot.

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mameleh-life · 5 years ago

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How to try and Spark Joy when there doesnt seem to be any: creativity and kindness

I want to teach my baby girl that she is smart. She is important she is beautiful and kind and valued. I havent always felt that way about myself after my divorce and the stuff that followed but it took alot of soul searching to realize I am all of those things on my own. And there is alot of hate an alot of negative vibes in our world and you know I get cynical and I get jaded and I definitely had my moments when I was more goth than happy go lucky but I realize now it's all Hevel it's all nothingness any bitterness any hate any sinas chinam we harbor because why because someone is different? Because someone is a little different than us or has a rougher story than us and has some scars and bruises? Is this a reason to hate? Is this a reason to make someone feel unworthy. Nah, people go through so much in life, everyone carries around with them a world of pain we all have tzaros this is galus. But it's how we deal with that pain that makes us. It's how we overcome that pain and persevere and never let life break us that's how we become better people and we can do that by letting go of any negativity we got stored up and just live life the best way we can and give love to our best friends the ones who care about us our sisters ,our fellow single mamas out their basically on their own taking care of their babies and trying to navigate this totally messed up world we live in with babies in tow.

And the only we can do that, the only way we can really love ourselves shake off all the self doubt and those feelings of not being enough just because were different or we've been through stuff we dont want to talk about or we were given very high expectations in life and never felt like we owned it, never felt like we succeeded at life the only way we can get our groove back, our life back our capacity to smile back is to stop caring and to start caring at the same time and we do this through our daughters the girls who will need our strength and our confidence imbued in them and then they can far far surpass us in life and that's the goal, that's the dream right there🙌

I stopped caring. I stopped caring what people think of me, I know I'm a single mama of two gorgeous babies knayna hara who hustles every day to not only take care of them but I make sure they have a beautiful breakfast, Israeli music dance parties, mordechai shapiro sing alongs, shalom sesame lessons, chessed lesson plans I teach them all day long, I get them to laugh all day but not as much as they make me laugh 🙈

And I know at the end of the day all I am doing is surviving and taking care of my babies and just being a good mama and a good soul. And that's when the caring part comes in. All I do now is care about others I care about my babies and my friends and my family and I worry and I think about what can I do to put a little positivity back in. I'm nowhere near perfect but I'm trying and I'm doing it despite the odds and trust me in my past I've had alot of reasons to give up but I didnt I changed as a person and changed what's important to me 🦋

And so today I taught Layla about Tikkun Olam and she really understood the concept and she was so happy to be a part of this mitzvah and so excited to help the world with her small act of chessed and I knew then yeah that's what makes everything worth it. Not what people think of us not what our life story was crazy or not who cares at the end of the day we are all humans we all have beautiful neshamas who deserve to feel as such, beautiful and cared for and connected and I want my daughter to feel like she not only feels cared for but that she feels inner beauty and important enough to make a difference.

Because I promise you I was on the receiving end of a smile when I felt my own world in total darkness [one of my best friends in the world literally did just that became my bestie on like one of my most difficult days and reached out and is one of the kindest most amazing people I know] and that warm smile or kind word or that gesture of checking in on a person it could change the course of their life it could change their day and cause a domino effect of kindness. Be the kindness that you want to see in the world and like Layla says do it because it's a mitzvah but also do it because you'll feel so good after trust us🦄🦄

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grief-is-a-noun · 4 years ago

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the stages of diagnostics

i was diagnosed with a 5 cm brain tumor last tuesday. before i got my results, i knew something was going on, which gave me the hunch to make a doctors appointment during the peak of a worldwide pandemic. i was losing weight, losing appetite, constant headaches, blurred vision, you know... the whole 9. i went to my radiology appointment and bam, what do you know, lit up like a fucking christmas tree. i wasn’t upset. i knew my life always had ways of bringing obscure tragedy at the most inconvienet times. they said they were going to see if the tumor was benign.... or if i had cancer.

*fuck*

one of the very few things in this world i am actually afraid of, aside from going blind (as this would be a major threat to my independence) two days later i got an automated voice message, telling me i was diagnosed with stage 1 neuroblastoma and asking me to call back for a follow up appointment with treatment options.

can you believe that? first i am “blessed” with an involuntary existence and then they give me a choice between life and death and expect me to somehow find a will to live?

bullshit

well, what the fuck am i gonna do now? a few thoughts raced through my mind in that moment. i knew for certain i wasn’t going to tell my family. the look on my fathers face would send me into a mental space i don’t think i’ve ever been in, i am not ready to go there. i’ll be fucking damned if my mother started treating me nicely simply because i was dying, or choosing to die as i’m sure she’d love to remind me. my brother would cope by being angry, he’d throw shit, punch walls. this would cause my dad to grow angry and i can’t have a part 2 of what happened about 8 weeks ago when i almost got fired from my job trying to break up a family fist fight. i didn’t want to tell my friends but that option quickly left me when the sheer look of panic arose on my face from receiving that automated call. i didn’t tell them all at the same time, but i couldn’t not say something. fuck, how are you supposed to drop news like that on someone? hey i just found out i have cancer and i could probably make it out with a few scratches and a shaved head but i don’t really want too, not because you aren’t good enough but because i had prayed my father would outlive me and i guess this is my consequence for manifesting bullshit into the universe. no. they cried, i mean of course they would cry what else are they supposed to do? i never understood the power i had over people, i never understood why they loved me or how they wouldn’t be ok with just losing me. i didn’t ask for it, it just happened. but there we were, piss drunk and crying in my kitchen. they asked me to fight, said they’d do everything and anything they could to make sure i didn’t feel alone on this “journey” (if a journey is what you’d even call it, i’d say it’s the highway straight to hell)

i felt bad so i agreed, even tho i didn’t want too. even though every part of me saw this as a beautiful out. i wrote my two weeks notice at my hosting job but buried it deep in my bag moments after i found the words to say. almost like my flight or fight response kicked in and i chose fight. it was short and simple starting out with “to whom it may concern” and ending with “thank you for all you have done for me” yada, yada, fucking yada. what i really wish i could write is “i started out this job to help my ex-best friend get promoted. we started fighting on the first day i began working there, it was hell every moment after. he fucked another co-worker and it caused this girl to hate me knowing he had fucked me also and created drauma. (oh that ex-best friend of mine, also my ex fuck buddy ironically enough and you could probably write a book on how the dynamic we had of one another in each other’s minds was so off it could be comical) i lied to him which was a serious lack of judgment on my part but in all honesty he can be the fucking epitome of impulsivity, afraid of his own feelings because he blurs the lines too much. fucking dramatic. and honestly, sometimes, i just wanna cradle his misunderstanding so tightly that it’s finally understood...and other times i wanna punch him. anyways, to the general manager, you’re a babe and to everyone else, i don’t think i’ll be thinking of you in my last days (no return address for that apology) i had fun here while it lasted and i wish you all a long and happy life, one i will never have the pleasure of living. sincerely, kaileen savannah pugh” i always admired my efforts to make my trauma cynical. this was hard for most people to do and i don’t find crying to be beficial. only sometimes, only when it really fucking hurts and there’s nothing to do but to poor out a puddle of saline fluid that makes your face red and your eyes puffy. so here i am, the 21 year old girl with brain cancer, who’s family is falling apart and who just told the guy she’s in love with that she does in fact love him and his response was “thank you” and an unfollow on instagram. (i can’t be mad for that, i told him not to treat me differently so if i conjured any negative emotion it’s my own problem at this point)

*great*

the doctors followed up with me today as i had another radiology appointment at 3:30 pm, november the third. i walked into the disease infested place, alone. alone was the only way to do shit like this. they took my blood and a urine sample, it was then the doctors (yes plural) walked in and told me they misdiagnosed my tumor as cancerous when it was really benign.

are you fucking kidding me?

so, not only did i have to digest the brain tumor and the cancer, causing my mind to think of who would get all my stuff when i died and how the fuck was i going to keep this from my family. but all that emotion was wasted on a false fucking positive? to say i was irate would be to put it nicely. i texted my friends, most of them cried and i know it was a joyful cry. i mean, i was relieved, for the most part. you see the dark parts of me really wished i had cancer. yet the light parts of me found a plethora of reasons to live and therein lies the catch. for once i had an out. an out that wouldn’t count me as a loser or a disappointment. the 5 am nanny shifts would be put to a halt. the panic attacks before work seeing the guy that i loved would be over. knowing i had to keep going in order to get where i want to go wouldn’t cross my mind. i was relieved of the stress of filling out my college applications, filing for fasfa, making sure i was no longer a dependent according to records of the IRS. i didn’t have to worry about voting, the outcome of the election, the mass hysteria from the result. parking, rent, car insurance, bills, gas, groceries all the little things i need to survive that seem so minuscule yet forced me to be in a constant hustle, didnt fucking matter anymore. i could let go of the future. let go of the way i feel everyday knowing that i got here by my own work ethic and the only person who could let myself down would be me. i didn’t necessarily want to die, but rather escape for reasons that wouldn’t make me feel like a failure. anyways, now i’m left with two options: because my brain is almost fully developed a craniotomy isn’t necessary because it won’t affect growth, however, if i still feel the affects of the brain tumor it might be better to get extensive surgery than kill my liver with all the pain medication. second option is to leave the tumor and hope it doesn’t turn cancerous in the future. my friends tell me to get the craniotomy, but i am honestly scared. i just want whatever option will make me feel most normal and i guess that leads me to ask myself this question: what’s more terrifying: the fear of dying or the fear of living?

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modronlotus · 7 years ago

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I need to get something off my chest.

I've been thinking about how my family officially found out (well, somewhat) about my practice and it's clinging to me. All of the emotions are latched on to me.

I've been wanting to tell you guys about what happened. That way you can learn from my experience. Because I'm honestly no different than any of you who haven't officially said your spirituality out loud.

So let's get this going:

First I want to say I don't officially know what I am.

I know my beliefs; I love the idea as everything is energy and manipulating it creates magic. That belief is reinforced every time I do a tarot reading or practice with my pendulum. I believe in the power of chakras, meditation, and balancing your body. I believe in your right to choose what you want out of your practice and not dictate what others should and shouldn't do. I like the ideas of Buddhism and reaching a state of enlightenment. I'm an eceltic cottage witch who likes tarot, green tarot, everything that has to do with Taurus, and five-hour baths.

But I don't know what I am religiously.

I don't dabble with deities, although I have thought of working with Hecate, Chang-E, or Nox.

But I don't know what I am religiously.

This is completely the opposite of how I grew up. I was raised as a Jehovah's Witness, I was even an Unbaptized Publisher (which is pretty much a fancy title for nothing) when I was nine.

But I remember a few things being wrong with that belief system. And I remember having a hard time with the smallest things growing up this way:

I wasn't allowed to say the Pledge of Allegiance in school. It was considered worshiping an idol. I had a teacher who refused to believe this and gave me the hardest time about it.

I remember sitting in class reading a "Young People Ask" book. Its a publication that's supposed to help explain puberty and going to school among those who aren't Witnesses to teens. There was a picture of a girl and boy kissing in a car. My grandmother came to school and whooped me because the teacher (same one as I previously mentioned) told her I was sneak reading it and being disgusting with the pictures.

I wasn't allowed to watch Scooby Doo, Harry Potter, or anything to do with ghosts, witches, demons, or anything magic. That's So Raven was off limits, especially.

I remember having a hard time explaining after Christmas break that I didn't have a Christmas. My grandparents did celebrate their wedding anniversary around that time and everyone received gifts from that, but no Christmas.

I wasn't allowed to go to Halloween parties or participate in them in school. I went trick or treating once when I was four or five; I was Blossom from PowerPuff Girls.

Birthdays aren't celebrated at all, as the two birthdays mentioned in the New Testament of Jehovah's Witnesses had someone killed. I kind of know how old my mother is and I definitely don't know how old my grandmother is because of this. It's awkward telling that to people.

I remember hearing a talk at a convention once when I had a crush on a boy who wasn't in "The Truth". We were in fourth grade, he was the son of the Vice-Principal, and was incredibly smart and sweet. A good kid. But that doesn't matter to Witnesses; you're not allowed to marry or date anyone outside of "The Truth". I remember crying my heart out during the meeting, my grandmother holding my head to her side to keep me quiet. I never told her why I was upset.

You see, growing up a Witness wasn't that bad. I didn't go anywhere really and stayed home, but I just was used to it. We weren't supposed to have friends outside the Kingdom Hall anyway.

But the problem was I felt dirty being there. I felt like an outsider. I remember looking at the two other people there that were my age and thinking about how different we were. I didn't want to be a missionary. I didn't want to give talks. I didn't want to go out in Field Service and go door-to-door. I didn't want to sit in that meeting three times a week; I constantly got in trouble for falling asleep.

The biggest wakeup call I had was when my mother tried to kill herself. I was nine, my sister was a few months old, and my mother had just gotten back into the congregation.

I still went to meetings with my grandmother, did everything the same, but didn't say anything about my mother. You see, my family doesn't like to talk about anything negative. Depression is a bad topic. Leaving the Kingdom Hall was worse.

My mother wasn't ever the same after that, but that's an entirely different discussion. But she plays apart in this story:

My mother has always prided herself on being "a friend to the friendless". She wears everything she does with a badge, even if it's not good. Like going to jail, being in a mental institution, or leaving her kids. She tries to make it sound like an amazing experience for her to have.

She has friends upon friends who are some of the lowest individuals you can think of. Thieves, drunks, druggies, etc. She helps them anyway. She considers herself their friend.

I never saw it that way. I just laid in my room, quietly cried and blasted music with a million candles lit. I read books I personally bought, like Vampire Diaries or Wolf at the Door. I loved Twilight, I'm not ashamed of it. It was an escape, especially with vampires.

One day, I received a gift from an ex-boyfriend: a pentacle necklace. I thought it was beautiful. I didn't have an association with the symbol, I just thought it was gorgeous.

I wore it everyday. My grandmother saw it, called me a demon lover and possessed, and my mother had me throw away all the books I bought. Over sixty. Twilight was spared because I was letting someone borrow them at the time and I told my mother I'd give them to him. His dog tore them to pieces.

Now, even though my family doesn't talk about and tends to forget negative things, if it's something bad that they don't like they'll never forget. Like me getting that necklace.

In December of 2015 I got married. We didn't have the money for a big ceremony, but we did our best. Bought a cake, made reservations for 15 people at a local Chinese place, and had a handfastening ceremony in the park. I made my dress from red velvet and leftover white fur from a Christmas show I was working on in college. My husband wore his interview clothes and a new cardigan. It was perfect for us.

Now, my husband wanted us to get married in winter. He hates the heat and I love the cooler time of year anyway. He chose December 21st for the first day of winter. Coincidentally that's also the winter solstice.

I got call after call, even the morning of the wedding, from my grandmother and mother about how I was being sneakily Pagan behind their back. They tried to back out of coming a good dozen times, but showed up anyway. They were the only ones from my side that did, along with my sister and my cousins under the age of seven.

I won't go into details, but my mother pretty much ruined my wedding day for my husband. I knew something bad was going to happen; I even asked my tarot cards the night before how it would go. It didn't end well.

They didnt know it, but the week before my husband and I found out we were pregnant with our daughter. I sent a letter to my mom, tried clearing the air, but before the baby was even mentioned I was pretty much disowned.

However, now that my daughter's here, my family felt a sense of entitlement. They wanted to see her. Everyone does when there's a baby. But dealing with birth and postpartum issues, I didn't want that.

So I decided a few weeks ago to call my mother and explain that I wasn't comfortable with the demanding nature of everything around my daughter. I'm still not. But she's my daughter, my decision.

She understood that, in her talking-over-me way.

Then I decided now was the time to tell her about my tarot business.

This is why: we're moving back up to where she lives soon. With how nosy everyone is, they were going to find out anyway. It's better to give a warning to avoid bigger issues down the line.

Plus my mother has a track record with hiding things like this from my grandmother. You know, to help me out and cause less drama. She'd do the same thing here, right?

Wrong.

She called me a demon, again. Didn't understand why I wanted to tell her about my business, about my spirituality. The same woman who says she'll always be there for my daughter in one sentence and then demonizes me, literally, in the next. And then she brought up my wedding day, saying I lied about getting married on the first day of winter.

How am I supposed to take that? I'm expected to lay down, agree, say I'm sorry, and forget about it. I'm expected to let her berate me and then demand to be near my child. I'm expected to agree to being a liar when I'm not.

So I cut her off. Her and everyone else.

I've dealt with the abuse my entire life. I've dealt with the toxicity my entire life. But this conversation, this hypocrisy, is not happening to my child. I don't want her to feel support and love and then complete dismissal from a family that's been there her whole life.

Not ever.

I wanted to share this because it's a constant conversation in the magical community about whether to stay quiet about your practice or expose it.

I do agree with some teachings; that you need to be like the Earth; silent and speaking when it's necessary.

I agree with keeping your craft from those who would cause harm or problems.

But I also believe in putting your foot down and nipping problems in the bud.

Should I have said anything? I think so. It was going to happen sooner or later.

I was tired of the constant battle over child care and if my business really matters and when I was going to make something of myself.

I was tired of not feeling any support.

I was tired of being told I was loved by the people who said they only cared about my baby.

I was tired of my husband being excluded from everything, and in turn me.

I was tired of being seen as less than a person by the people who raised me.

And I was tired of constantly being told, "You can always go to the Kingdom Hall".

No. I can't. And I won't.

I took some to sit down and talk with Karyn from The Lost Lemurian about my experience with coming out of the broom closet.

We also talked about how difficult it is to have an ongoing practice while living at home with religious restriction.

Take a look at our conversation here; lots of tips and tricks are given for practicing in everyday subtle ways.

Bit of a personal post today, but I hope I was able to help you in some way. Talking about your spirituality is such a sensitive topic. I just wanted to be open and honest with you guys about my own.

I also want to say if you guys ever need someone to rant to about things like this, feel free to email me. I'll listen. I'll help in any way I can. No matter what you believe, I promise that.

#witchy #witchcraft #out of the broom closet #broom closet witch #sercret witchcraft #magic #personal #story time #religion

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thisiswhatafighterlookslike · 8 years ago

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My Pageant Journey

In September 2016, I saw a post from my FB friend Chontell Lucas (Miss SC Plus America 2016) asking ladies to consider taking the pageant journey in the next year. My initial thought... “Not for me.” Over the next few days, I saw the post a few more times and I kept being drawn to it, even though I didn’t want to be...LOL! So I eventually left a comment on one of the posts, wishing her well on the next phase of her own journey and assuring her she would find the ladies she was looking for. A few messages later my, now friend, was in my inbox talking to me about the pageant and sharing with me her belief that I would do well. She felt I really should consider it. Hmmm I don’t know... maybe... I told her I just never believed in pageants and I still don’t. I don’t believe in competitions and the thought of me standing on a stage (especially as a plus size woman) for someone to judge me and tell me if I am “good enough” or “the best or not” according to THEIR opinions just was not going to work for me. She shared with me, that she had the same feelings and that she was in my exact same position not long before me. She completely understood. She explained Miss Plus America (MPA) is more of a community service driven, faith based pageant...they aren’t just focused on beauty. She is said “Sis you do so much in the community and with your own work as it is, you got that part!” (She was selling it lol!) Ok so my personal reflection, I no longer use the “label” or term “Plus” for myself. I had weight loss surgery in 2014, tipping the scales approx 440lbs! Once I lost significant weight and got focused on my goal, I just didn’t look back on any term connected to my “former” look and life. So for me, “Plus” was not a word I called myself or desired to in over 2 years. It wasn’t bad or something I hated, I just was focused on moving forward and getting smaller and healthier. Words have power. So we have to be mindful of the power we give them in our lives. But the truth is prior to seeing the post and my conversation with my friend, I had been thinking about a few things and wondering what I wanted or needed to do in the next 6 months to year, if at all.

1) To Pageant or Not Pageant... That is the Question! With doctors telling me cancer was taking charge of my body and it’s functions, I began to write the proverbial “Bucket List.” I thought of some things I had not done and looked at the reasons. I asked myself the Reason, I didn’t want to be in a pageant. I forced myself to be honest. It wasn’t just not wanting to be judged. Because the truth is, I am strong enough to handle that. It was words I had deep in my mind, heart, spirit...words spoken from my ex-husband that I had tucked away. Yet, they weren’t maybe so tucked. Words speaking to me, telling me that I could not be accepted or received at my size, that I am not as beautiful as I could be being so “Big” and the only people that see me as appealing are just men who like BBW. Words shot at me saying the world has not come to truly accept fat people, especially fat women and a fat black woman, will always be viewed as a lazy and “less than’ woman, so I will never be truly accepted or valued for who I am or seen as beautiful as other women no matter how well I dress, speak or carry myself. I THOUGHT I didn’t give these words my attention, but somehow they were coming to the surface after many years and torturing my thoughts on a regular basis as my life and work was becoming more public. So were the people who said they love me and love my look, lying to me, was I as good as the next woman. I found myself trying to hide in public places and although I never stopped working and doing all the many things I loved, I preferred to do more from behind the scenes and place others in the front. So now a pageant... no I don’t think so. BUT, was my reason good enough to go to my grave with? I was beginning to think it wasn’t I needed to face this, address this... Embrace this. I needed to take this journey at least once, and even if I didn’t win... I did it! I needed to be able to kill and bury those words and be done with them for good.

2) Was “Plus” really such a bad word? I looked in the mirror. Why was I so upset with this word? It didn’t have anymore power now then it did in 2014 when I was over 400lbs! So what was my issue? As long as a word could affect my world and attitude, I was not free, and I believe in living freedom. I thought about the reality of my life. Due to all the treatments I was taking and even the chemotherapy (yes we don’t all lose weight) I was at a major stall in my weight loss and had even gained at some times. So at this time in my life, I am a Plus Size woman and as I faced the mirror and looked at old pictures.. that was absolutely ok. I am still smart, beautiful, loving, giving, and every bit the same person I always was and nothing could be taken from the success of my previous weight loss. I may not be where I want to be but I surely was not where I was! I also thought, how many women (young women) look up to me and are inspired by me at my current image. These ladies see someone that encourages them to be their best and be who they are at their own best. I get countless messages and emails from females who tell me when they see me, they are so inspired and uplifted. When meet me and see a full figured woman who has curves, yet remains elegant while embracing fashion and personal style, they feel better about themselves. So I felt I owed it to them to show them you walk that pageant stage Full Figured, Curvy, Positively Plus and LIVE in that! You are inferior to NO one due to the size and shape of your body.

So after about a week and lot of reflection, I decided to GO FOR IT! What did I have to lose really? Nothing to really lose but the crown. I would gain experience from the journey, freedom, connections to new ladies and beautiful friendships, learning more about other platforms and causes and investing myself more in this state of SC that I call home and what it has to offer.

These months of preparation of definitely been a process. It is always interesting coming into a group of people you don’t know and getting to know them. You hope and pray it goes well and you become good acquaintances and if you are truly blessed, you develop genuine friendships and embrace sisterhood. Of course this is all a “time and work” situation... you get out what you put in. Honestly, in the beginning, I wasn’t putting in much, or as much as I could for my own reservations and issues, but over time I began to get comfortable with these beautiful ladies and they became a part of my life.

In March, I believe most of our lives officially changed during the Crowning Ceremony & Bootcamp Weekend. We were all finally together with each other and able to meet, chat, work together and really get to know one another. I was happy to meet these lovely ladies and connect faces to some hearts who had become so beautifully kind to me over the last few months and particularly the last few weeks.

I wish I could say my journey was just a challenge of personal adjustment and getting to know various personalities. That would be SO easy... a cake walk! It became a literally painful challenge as my health became a major issue for me, that exceeded far beyond the pageant and affected everything I did and attempted to do. As it affected my body, the pain intensifying and weakness and sickness increasing, it affected my mentally and emotionally. I started to feel like such a failure and I was letting everyone down. I began to battle with the notion to step down. I never want someone to feel they can count on me, or look for me and I not be there. I take my obligations and my word seriously. My finances were hit hard, as my medical insurance was erroneously cut back in November and I was without coverage for little over 90 days. This had me paying for some of my meds, appointments and treatments out of pocket and some I had to go without, some doctors/appointments I had to reschedule and 2 procedures were rescheduled until they could be covered by insurance. This very negatively affected my health. But I didn’t tell anyone. Some I didnt even share with my parents. I was quiet in my own world. I kept thinking, maybe this was a mistake, or maybe not now. But my heart would never allow me to let it go. Right before Christmas, I showed my dr 2 lumps under my right arm that had been bothering me for about 3 months. I think I had been putting off mentioning them out of fear. We scheduled biopsy and in February I was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. This was in addition to the Ovarian Cancer and Leukemia. I was hit with a hard blow and I really was broken... During this time I kept complaining about pain when I ate and even drank a lot. I was told this was probably the ovarian cancer and just being tired, but we will do some tests. Well after 3 trips to hospital, I was diagnosed with Crohns Disease! A result of the Chemo!!! So now what do I do? I finally had a talk with my ambassador Kendra and my director and they encouraged me to keep going, but pace myself. Something I have no clue how to do! LOL!

As I got closer to pageant weekend the biggest issue became managing my pain. It was getting harder and harder. A year ago my bones in lower back, hips and legs began to show deterioration. I was told they did not know how well I would be able to dance/walk in a year, or If I could at all. My doctor strongly advised I stopped wearing my beloved stilettos, slow down and change my life to something more peaceful. Despite how much I remain active and I have NOT given up my beloved stilettos/heels (nor do I plan to), it has become so painful to walk. I have taken a break from dance/choreography. We decided 2 weeks ago to test a neurostimulator in my back to assist with pain management. It definitely was no “magic cure” but for the first time in well over a year, I was able to sleep. So after a 4 day test, we agreed place permanent device in, at least for now. The issue, I had some problems after the fact that put me on medical restriction and my doctor was absolutely not in favor of me going to the pageant. I had to cross this finish line! I spoke to the staff, made them aware. I was tempted to just say I can’t do it. But I just do not have “Quit” in me!

So Pageant Weekend. I didn’t have the finances for so much I still needed and it seemed so many signs were saying... this is not your time Lady lol! But down to the final moments... God stepped in! I was blessed with the money and all the pieces of clothing I needed! My hotel was paid for in full and I never worried about eating. I was here and I finally at peace! My journey was coming to an end and all was getting better...No..all was well! I was bonding with my SisterQueens in a beautiful way and I just felt good!

Pageant Day... I woke up and everything felt WRONG! OMG No! I was in so much pain, I woke up weak, dizzy, stuggling to speak, I couldn’t get out of bed. In fact, I couldn’t sit up. I had to really pray and focus my movements. I crawled to the bathroom. I prayed. Tears poured down my face, I worked too hard to get here to not be able to complete this. Normally days with this pain, I medicate and REST. Today I need to PUSH. I pulled myself up and was able to get to my bottle of water and take my meds. Laid down for 15 minutes and slowly began to get ready... I was feeling well enough to move and hide the pain..but with every movement I had sharp pains shooting through my body and the weakness felt like someone through 50lb weight on my back!!!!!! I began to sing to myself and tell myself.. You can do this! I got to the venue for final rehearsal and I was.. OK. I led the ladies in heartfelt prayer as we started our day and I felt positive. As the morning went on, the looks from the queens started and they were asking.. “are you ok?” my response...”yes I am just tired.” but no the pain was getting worse by the moment. I did my walk through for my elegant pants wear and I had to lean on a table backstage. I thought just take a minute and breathe...... But something was wrong..the room was going black and pain went through every inch of my body. I have pain induced seizures and I needed to avoid blacking out. I was trying to sit on the floor.. but I only remember waking up laying on the ground. I had passed out. For a few minutes I couldn’t speak but I could hear and see people around me. After a few minutes I was on my feet and able to communicate some. The decision was made to send me back to my hotel instead of stay at rehearsal. I was upset... this was my day and I had to finish it! I took a nap and woke up still extremely weak and very much in pain. But I was taking that stage! My ambassador called to check on me. Ultimately the final decision was mine. I answered... I’m on my way. I am pushing through. See you soon.

MY MOMENT.... The night was finally at its apex and I actually felt a little better. I was laughing with everyone and relaxing offstage as we were preparing for our final awards and crowning. This was it. I stood in my coral strapless chiffon gown and matching heels. I won the Against All Odds Award and that was very special to me. I held it close to my heart. Now they called the queens for the “Mrs” Division forward... and they announced the winner... LEYA ELIJAH-ELLER! She is now you Mrs South Carolina Plus America. I looked at the 2016 winner who is a dear friend and it was so emotional... I said to her... We Did It! We both fought our tears. As they were crowning me and putting on my sash and still handing my trophies...lol... I got ready to take my first walk... Yeah. I lost my ballance...the crowd gasped. I actually laughed. I cant even desribe how bad my bones were hurting at that point and my stomache was throbbing in pain... but it was a fleeting moment... I smiled that signature smile and recovered... I took my walk... I was humbled. I DID IT! I WON!!!

Some parts of my journey were too personal, and I will keep those private. But I wanted to share in detail the journey of a Positively Plus Size Beauty... 39 year old mom of 3 young adults, currently surviving cancer, truly fighting like a girl... This journey to Queen taught me more about myself; my personal strength, inner strength, body confidence, self image and love for life and others. I during my time as Mrs SC Plus America 2017, I intend to encourage as many women as I can to face their face fears, live life, leave no regrets on the table and most of all cross that finish line no matter what! Who knew that responding to a FB post would result in my becoming Queen!

Ladies if my blog shows you one thing I hope its this, every dream you have is very real, and it was given to you for you to manifest. Don’t the issues and obstacles of life stop you from letting the LIVE.

This is your Mrs SC Plus America 2017, showing you “This Is What A Fighter Looks Like!!!!” Until the next time... stay Fierce and Fabulous and Fight for what you love, desire and want!

~Leya~

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returntopelon · 4 years ago

Text

Pam

My brother has always been my closest friend. He is easily the most loving and genuine person I have ever met and is loved by pretty much everyone he meets. Despite this, he hasn't been in many relationships. I think its partly due to the fact that he's a very "all or nothing" type of guy. When he falls he falls DEEPLY and BLINDLY. A blessing and a curse, I guess.

Anyway, the few girlfriends he's had, I've known quite well, despite being nearly 8 years younger than him. Most of them have been nice, normal, pleasant girls, with the exception of a few. We had high hopes that he'd settle in with a long term, wonderful girlfriend as he entered his adult life. We had no idea we'd spend 6 years sharing a hell with him, our family and our close friends, all by the hands of one girl. I'll call her Pam.

I met Pam when I was 11, my brother 19, and she was 17, graduating High School. I remember being surprised to have him introduce her right off the bat as his girlfriend, since neither my parents of I had heard anything about her. But, she was kind, warm, an honor student and beautiful. I admired her immediately.

For the first year of their relationship, Pam never seemed off. She was always happy, always kind and always had good stories to tell. She and I grew closer, as she seemed eager to bond with me and it was like having an older sister. We shared many of the same interests and friendship came easy between she and I, as I was mature for my age and she was so inviting.

But halfway through their second year of dating, we started noticing things about Pam. Just small, odd habits she had.

If someone was having conversation with my brother that did not directly involve her, or that she wasn't a part of, she tended to insert herself as best she could; sitting closer to my brother, laughing a little louder, calling him away, etc. If any of our family or friends would ask my brother questions about college or future aspirations, she'd grow increasingly uncomfortable and sometimes made comments like, "I hope you have it all planned out, 'cause I'm goin wherever you're goin".

My parents and I would chuckle about these behaviors, assuming that Pam just loved my brother and was a bit protective. We liked her a lot and had high hopes for their relationship. I hate to think now how blind we were.

One night, my brother came home late from a party, I was 13 at this time, he was about to turn 21. He walked in the door, our parents were already asleep, but I was up in the living room. I could immediately tell he was upset about something. I asked him what was wrong. As he walked into the kitchen I realized he had a large welt on his cheek. I asked, "What happened to you?"

He said, "I got in a fight. Its cool." This immediately raised suspicion as my brother was as far from the fighting type as you could be. "I fight over what?" I asked. "Pam." He said simply and went to his room

The next morning he was driving me to my soccer game and I pried again about what had happened. He didn't answer at first but then said, "Pam is kind of... Weird." I asked how so. He said "I don't know, she likes to start things."

Pam was a pathological liar. Apparently, she did it all the time. Looking back, the constant new stories of places she'd been and things she'd done didn't seem to be truthful. That night at the party, Pam had told my brother that another man at the party had attempted to rape her. My brother, being the man he is, confronted him and he said "I've never even seen her before." And a fight ensued over the accusation. On the car ride home, Pam said that my brother must have misinterpreted her words and that nothing close to rape had occurred.

The lying seemed to be a detrimental bump in the road, and my brother broke things off.

After several weeks, Pam contacted me asking if I wanted to go shopping with her. Having had a good relationship in the past with Pam, I agreed. My parents thought it was strange that a 20 year old wanted to spend time with her ex-boyfriend's 14 year old sister, but they let me go anyway.

The day started pleasantly, Pam caught me up on her life and asked how I was/how my family and brother were. Nothing seemed strange, until she began to bring up uncomfortable conversation. She explained to me that she had had a sexually traumatic childhood and thats why she lied so much. But she also aggressively defended herself saying "Whatever your brother told you was a lie. He was the one telling lies. Thats why I had to breakup with him". She seemed to jerk around the conversation from normal to deeply personal and strange topics. She explained in detail a lesbian experience she had had after ending her relationship with my brother and told me that I should try it, when I came of age, of course.

I became increasingly uncomfortable with the conversation. She noticed and immediately apologized, saying that she really liked being my friend and that she loved my brother and thats why she was acting so crazy. I told her I liked being her friend too and that I understood her feelings. This was a mistake

This is when the phone calls began.

It started with just one. She called me a week after we had hung out at 10pm. She was sobbing and saying that she was so sad without my brother and that she needed to get him back.

Then they happened nightly, later and later each time. I'd be dead asleep at 2am and receive a sobbing, hysterical and desperate phone call. I felt so much pity for her that I continued to answer.

One call was different than the other, though. She wasn't hysterical, she wasn't crying. I picked up the phone at 1:30 in the morning and heard a level voiced, monotone Pam. She said one sentence, "Tell your brother I'm going to slit my fucking throat tonight." And then she hung up. I felt numb. I had never experienced that before, no one I knew had ever behaved that way. I texted her over and over again asking if she was okay and telling her to not do anything. I panicked, I thought I had done something wrong and that since she told me I would be responsible in some way.

The next day, I told my brother what had happened and he said he'd go to her house to check on her.

A week later Pam arrived at my house, arm in arm with my brother. They had gotten back together and seemed as if nothing had happened. She smiled at me and never once mentioned the phone calls she had made to me.

The next month is when things escalated again.

I came home from school to my entire family sitting in the living room. They told me to sit down, I thought someone had died. My mother told me, "Your brother let us know how you're feeling." I had no idea what they were talking about. "Feeling?" I asked. My brother looked at me with pity in his eyes, "Pam told me that she wasn't the one who called you, you called her. And you're the one who wasn't feeling well." What the fuck. "No, thats not what happened, she called me every night for 2 weeks crying and saying she wanted you back." "Thats not what she said, she said that you called her with your problems and that she wasn't sure what to do." I was immediately angry that her lies were continuing and that my own family believed them enough to stage an intervention. I showed them the text messages she'd sent me, played them voice messages and showed my call history. That put and end to that lie.

After that I wanted nothing to do with her. My brother broke up with her again. She called him hundreds of times and sent hundred of messages. She showed up at our house a few times with baked goods, wanting to apologize, but we ignored her. Eventually, she left us alone and we didn't hear from her for almost a year.

On my last day of class before winter break during my Sophomore year, I walked out of school and was met by an incredibly unwelcome surprise. This is where things got scary.

Pam was pacing in the front of the school, biting her fingernails and scratching her head. Her face looked sunken in and she had bags under her eyes, I almost didnt recognize her. I began to cut across the front lawn with my friend, Liz, to avoid her, but she saw me and walked as fast as she could in my direction. She outreached her arms for a hug, but I stopped.

The first thing she said was "You're mad at me?". I asked her what she was doing there and she laughed quietly. "I wanted to apologize for whatever your brother told you. I'm sick, Oz." She used a nickname only my brother called me. "I know. Please don't talk to me anymore." I started away, knowing my brother was parked waiting for me around the corner. Pam reached out and grabbed my shoulder as I did. I quickly pulled away and said "I'm serious. Leave us alone, I think you need some help, Pam." She immediately began to cry, but I turned away and left. My brother pulled into the front parking lot of the school and opened his car door for me. "Is that fucking Pam?" He looked through his front mirror. "Yeah, I don't know what she's on, but she's crazy".

That night, at around 1 am, there was a knock at our door. My dad went to it and looked through the peep hole. "Uh," he said, surprised, "I think its, what the fuck, I think its Pam." "Don't open it, I think shes doing drugs." My brother said. My mom wanted to call the police, but my brother and my dad said we should just wait until she went away. A few moments later she rapped on the door harder and more violently. We heard her wailing and yelling "I hear you, fucking let me in!" As she cried. "She has a baseball bat or something" my brother said, coming from his room where he'd looked out the window. I looked from the den window. She looked like something out of a horror movie. She was wearing a grubby dress, bare footed. Her hair had been cut to above her shoulders and was in a wild, halfway in a bun, halfway out mess. She had wiped her makeup down her face like a ghoulish movie character. She looked even thinner than she did in day light and she swung a metal baseball back around as she stumbled about our yard.

"I'm calling the police, she must be drunk." My mother said. "No, it's fine. She's just giving a show. She'll leave." We didn't know people actually behaved like this. It was all eerily entertaining for a moment, like watching a true crime show. But just as she had been manically stumbling around, she stopped. She stood still, staring vacantly up towards the upstairs bedrooms, tilting her head side to side, up and down and licking her lips. "What is she on, heroin or something?" My dad asked.

Pam began to shift back and forth between laughing and yelling and crying. We all sat down as my brother tried her phone and her mom's phone to try and get her to leave. We sat there and listened to the frightening, animalistic sounds of her outside. But then they stopped. We checked the windows and she was gone.

We all sat in silence for a moment, taking in the strange encounter. My father just chuckled and shook his head, my mother shook hers, pitying the girl for being so disturbed. But I was frightened. No one, except perhaps my brother had seen just how quickly her demeanor, her mental state unraveled. From overprotective nature, to small lies, to pathological lies, to full blown manic outbreaks. But this was her worst and we didn't expect anything more to come of it, that she'd fade away from our lives since now she knew we weren't giving in to her desperation.

But in the next 2 years, we learned how wrong we were.

After the wintertime incident at our house, Pam stopped coming around. She was still very present, however. Every member of my family endured daily text messages and phone calls. They ranged from apologetic and stable, to incredibly distraught or outraged, cursing and making threats. I remember wanting to sleep with the lights on for several months after the incident, afraid that she'd climb the fence of our back yard and I'd find her standing at my window with the same vacant, crazed look she had that night in our front yard. All four of us eventually decided to have our phone numbers changed and block her from our devices and social media accounts. She still had our home phone number, however. Pam left some of the most frightening and haunting messages I'd ever heard. I can remember standing in my kitchen with my family, my brother playing the messages back for us. One stood out-- it showed us just how unstable and potentially dangerous she was:

My parents and I had returned from an early morning indoor soccer game in February of 2015. My brother asked us to come into the kitchen because we "had to hear the new crazy" Pam had become. The first message was about 30 seconds long and received at 12:30am the night before. Pam sound mildly angry and demanded that we return the batch of cookies she had brought to a 4th of July party, some years ago, because she didn't want us to have them anymore. We all exchanged humored glances at how ridiculous of a request it was. My mother turned to leave, amused, but my brother stopped her, saying that that wasn't the crazy part. My brother played the message, received at roughly 3 in the morning that day. We were confused at first because the first 15 seconds was that white noise, the kind you hear when a device plays the sound recording of an empty room, if you know what I'm talking about. But all of a sudden, in a deep, animalistic and enraged voice, she screamed, "Stop FUCKING playing with me... You're gonna get it." and abruptly ended the call. We were all startled by this.

"I want to call the police, they need to know... that girl isn't all there and who knows what she can do." My dad decided that if anything physically happened again, we'd file a report with the police, but that they were just phone calls. My brother assured that she was all talk and wouldn't come around again. At this point I agreed with my mother. I no longer felt safe. I had never been around someone who behaved like this. I was constantly anxious and I had no idea what I'd do if she came around again. I felt like I was stuck in a Lifetime movie, because I didn't think that things like this happened-- that someone I knew so personally could be hiding such a deeply withheld, violent and manic side. It had always been there, but we set it in motion.

After disconnecting the land line, the personal phone calls stopped. We didn't hear from her ourselves, but some of the friends my brother shared with Pam would come to him, saying that Pam wanted to speak with him and that she would call and message them regularly wanting his phone number. Luckily none of them gave it.

Just before summer, Pam disappeared.

No one got any messages, no one saw her in town. Nothing. Nothing until my brother received an email from Pam's mother, who my brother continued to speak to occasionally. She informed my brother that Pam's family had moved her to the east coast to undergo treatment for a drug habit.

Pam's mother had given us more information about the mental state of her daughter. Her mother had not spoken to or seen Pam much during the time she unraveled, when she came to our house or when she'd made the phone calls. Pam's mother had been under the impression my brother was still in a healthy relationship with Pam, and only learned about their breakup and the incident's following it. She explained that her daughter had always had been a white liar; making up stories that didn't make sense, blaming others for things she had already been caught for, arguing the truth of things that were already proven facts. "I don't think she ever thought that anything she did was wrong, even when it was. I don't understand it, because she was not raised that way," she had explained to my brother. Pam's issues were something that had always been present, but settled comfortably beneath an intelligent and attractive exterior. She'd fooled us, and maybe even herself.

Without Pam to worry about, our lives seemed to go back to normal; I still looked over my shoulder every now and again. But, I was preparing for 11th grade, my brother was beginning a new career and dating a new girl, the daughter of a close family friend, who he'd grown up with. Pam started to fade away from our minds. For a while.

As myself and my friends began to drive, I remember noticing a car quite a bit. You know that car you see repeatedly around the area you live in, you notice it more than the others, because you noticed it once and now you can't stop noticing it since you know it exists? You know it belongs to someone, but you've never seen the driver, just the car? It was like that. I'd notice it out of the corner of my eye at a stop light, or out the window of a restaurant as it drove past. I didn't think much of it, but I noticed it pretty much every time I was out; walking, driving and many times with my brother. I didn't understand how often I'd seen it until one day it clicked, and it startled me. It scared me. I saw it parked in my neighborhood and I remember thinking, 'That's that fucking car. What is it doing here?'... We lived in a smaller, older neighborhood. Most of the people who lived there had been there for a long time. We knew a lot of the neighbors and houses were pretty much never on the market. New people showed up maybe, once ever 5 or so years, and when they did, most people knew about it. So an out of place, but oddly familiar car came as a huge surprise to me.

I pointed it out to my brother, who had been in the car with me at the time. He said "Oh yeah, I've seen it a few times." I didn't feel right about it, but I assumed I was being paranoid.

A few months later, I was well into school, had a job and was too busy to let myself worry. Even though I did.

One day at work, I was wiping down tables in the front of the restaurant, as it was a pretty slow day, only a few people in the store. I remember seeing someone standing outside the front doors, just barely visible out the window. I was busy and assumed they were deciding where to have lunch, as another restaurant was directly next to ours and people did this often. They weren't there anymore and I assumed they'd gone next door. I went out to clear dishes off the front patio and clean up and I saw them walking away from the store, down the strip of businesses in the plaza. Back inside as I worked, I noticed the same person walked back and forth several more times. I was wary at this point as the person seemed to linger for about an hour. I didn't think anything of it afterwards, though.

I was a theater student and had to take some time off for a play I was in. Come opening night, I was so burnt out, I didn't notice anything, even if it was out of the ordinary. My family came opening night, the 4th show and closing night. Leaving with my family from the 4th show is when I snapped back into my anxiety ridden reality. That car was in the parking lot. It was parked a few rows away from my parents' car. I had never seen it at my school before and I knew it didn't belong to any of my castmates. "What does Pam drive?" I asked my brother. "Pam? I don't know, why?" "That stupid car, it freaks me out. Its like, everywhere we are."

A few days later, I had an answer.

At closing night of my show, I went out into the lobby of the theater to greet everyone when we finished. I hugged my parents and my brother, but I noticed that they all looked distraught. My brother was visibly upset and my parents were trying to make conversation, the way they do to avoid something. "What happened?" I asked. "Uh, Pam. She was here." I sort of felt the color run out of my face. I didn't know how much what Pam had done had frightened me until then. "Did she leave?" "I don't know," My brother said, "don't worry about it."

I went and got my things and remembered how strangely violated I felt. That Pam had watched me for the past two hours without me knowing she was in the same state, let alone the same building.

I decided to go home straight away. We left the building and there she was. She was looking at her phone, standing at the mouth of one of the hallways in front of the theater. I stopped for a moment, but the four of us decided to walk as hurried as we could towards the parking lot, hoping to ignore her and breeze past her. She looked different; still skinny, but she wore makeup again. From a distance she looked almost like the old Pam. But as we got closer, she looked up from her phone and still had the vacant, animal quality to her face. A bit of anger flashed over her face as she noticed us. She looked like she was going to say something, but we all pretended to not notice her and continued on. She followed closely behind us, "Hey, wait a minute." At the front of the school, my brother stopped as we kept walking. I heard him say, "You need to stop." We got to our car and watched them talk from a distance. I wanted to get in our car and leave. My mom and I got in while my dad stood outside. Pam was yelling at my brother at this point. He made his way towards his car. Pam smiled artificially and waved towards my brother, shouting a goodbye to him as he went before storming off to her car. My brother stopped to talk to my dad a moment, got in his own car and left after Pam peeled out of the lot. In the same car I had been seeing for the past month and a half.

"Welp, just as crazy as ever." My dad said as he started the car, "We may need to call the police." We lived a short distance from the school, but I was shaken up and wanted my dad to drive as fast as possible. Every headlight we saw chilled me. I stared at my phone trying not to look out the window. I nearly dropped it.

We reached a street convergence in our neighborhood, at the stop sign to the right of us was her car. "Dad that's her." He drove straight and she turned the same direction. "Dad she's following us!" I had never felt quite so panicked. "Call the police, please." My dad said to my mother, his voice as level as ever. I stared out the back window, ducking low in my seat. My dad turned down another street and she followed again. "I'm gonna go in a circle, to see if she follows us, okay?" my dad said. I was crying at this point as I came to a realization. For 4 more turns, my mom spoke to a 911 operator, unable to accurately name streets, as they were not lit and it was pitch black outside. I laid across the back seat listening to my parents yell at each other, frustrated and I'm sure frightened, and my dad curse as she continued to follow more closely. The car was flooded with light as she turned on her brights, the grill of her car almost touching our bumper. My dad turned to mirror away to keep the light out of his eyes and sped the car up. Eventually the light was gone and I could no longer hear the drone of her engine behind us. She was gone.

We got home 10 minutes later and turned every light in our house on. My dad checked every closet and our back and side yards, carrying his gun with him. "She's been fucking watching me and [my brother]." I was almost hysterical in my realization.

For the past month, Pam had been stalking both my brother and I. Seeing that car had not been a coincidence. She knew what we were both doing; she came to my school function, on both nights my family was there (maybe all three nights). She knew where I was; she had followed me all over town, she'd been around our neighborhood and had been her lurking around my work place.

All of a sudden the threats became real. Pam was no longer afraid of crossing boundaries, if she ever had been. We were now in the middle of a full blown nightmare. My family was no longer safe. She had gone away to cure one disease, but returned having fed and grown another. She was our personal terrorist with the power to single-handedly pull our everyday lives apart. And she had already begun to do just that.

What may seem like the plot of a bad horror movie-- the psychotic ex-girlfriend reeking havoc-- became our reality, times ten. I cannot express to you how terrible it is to be kept awake by something you cannot see, but you know exists and is waiting for you when you get out of bed. I never expected a human being could terrify me more than any horrible monster or boogieman-- those things don't exist. I'm sharing this ordeal to help others understand warning signs and pressure those who see them to take action to protect themselves.

Despite the terror of that night, this was only halfway year 5 of 6. And things would continue to approach a boiling point.

After we told my brother about what Pam had done the night after my show, he finally began to confide in me the details of his relationship with Pam. She had come to his high school as a sophomore during his senior year. She immediately caught the attention of my brother and his friends, as she was beautiful and expected to be reserved as a new student. However, my brother recalled his female friends saying she was aggressive in trying to make friends and liked to talk about how her family had moved here from an affluent community in Texas, so elite that it didn't have a name. Many of his friends also had gotten strange vibes from her and pinned her as a "weird, snobby girl" right away. My brother met her again a few years later when she came in to where he was working at the time and said how she had seemed to mature vastly. He took her on one date and almost immediately she wanted to officiate their relationship. He thought it was a bit forward, but didn't hesitate because she impressed him with her elegant way of speaking, kind words and pretty face.

However, he noticed red flags only a few weeks into their relationship. Pam was very insecure: constantly asking my brother if he still had feelings for her, if he was angry with her and if he thought she was attractive enough. Eventually this insecurity took a different shape. Pam would send my brother unsolicited nude pictures of herself in the middle of the day attached to messages asking if he still liked the way her body looked. If my brother went a period of time in their conversations without calling her "beautiful" or telling her how nice she looked, Pam would point this out. If he protested in anyway she'd become emotional and claim he didn't love her anymore.

This behavior mellowed until the end of the second year of their relationship. This is when the narcissism became apparent. Pam would often talk lowly of my brother's previous girlfriends and female friends, boasting about how much more attractive she was than them. Pam refused to attended several of the events my brother asked her to go to (like my birthday dinner or our Aunt's funeral) because she "Wouldn't know anyone and would have no one to talk to". She also enjoyed referring to herself as a "princess" and wanting to constantly be doted upon. She often argued with my brother about him spending time with his friends without her because she didn't understand why he wanted to be around anyone but her. She was 100% convinced she would one day be a celebrity and marry my brother. (At this point I was in disbelief that my brother, a smart, kind and good looking man was wasting any more of his time with a girl who behaved like that.)

However, anytime my brother hinted at wanting to end the relationship, Pam would fly off the handle, becoming belligerent and promising to kill herself. My brother was trapped by the fear of her harming herself. He'd often think that she was simply bluffing and wouldn't actually do anything, but one day he discovered several bottles of prescription pills in Pam's home. He asked her about them and she told him that they were antidepressants prescribed to her after the death of her brother (a brother who he later found out never existed).

Eventually Pam began to become angry when my brother would want to spend time with his family without her around. He also told me that Pam fixated a lot of that anger on me. Once she proceeded to refer to me as a "slut" and made comments and theories about how my mother must have had an affair of which I was the product, because I was so ugly and my brother was not, so my brother decided it was time to end it no matter what. This information troubled me, as all of her actions following that (asking me to spend time with her, she wanting to be my friend, showing up at my school and the phone calls) seemed heinous, ill-intended and even more psychotic than they had been at the time.

But for the final year and a half of our ordeal with Pam, psychotic could not begin to explain what she did to us:

I slept little in the weeks following the car incident. My brother, who lived across town, visited and called more regularly. I suspected he felt as uneasy as I did. The nights I did sleep, I often sweat through nightmares of girls with axes or gowned women standing at the foot of my bed or in my window. One night in early December of 2015, it was a rainy and particularly windy night. I wanted to let the cold air in and I thought that the sound of rain would help me sleep, so I cracked the window only enough to where it could reach the second latch. I also placed the piece of wood my father had cut to help with security behind the window. I pulled my curtain in front of window, leaving the cracked part of the window uncovered to allow air to pass the heavy blackout curtain. I remember waking from sleep, vaguely hearing a foreign noise against the roof out my window. My room was on the second floor of our house. Our house had 3 levels and the "second story" was only 6 or 7 steps up from the primary floor of our house. All of the spaces where different levels, but the bedrooms where the highest, slightly lower than they'd be in a classic 2 story home. What I'm getting at is that my room was hard to get to from the outside, but not if you were aware of the parts of our home and the access points from other roof levels over the living room and garage.

I shook the noise off, as it was storming and I thought maybe some leaves or branches were moving around. I turned over to face the wall opposite my window. Not even a second later my room was illuminated by a surge of white light. I shot up in bed. I was momentarily paralyzed with horror. Every one of my limbs felt as if they were floating as I tried to make sense of what had happened. Then, again, myself and every item in my room became a black silhouette as another flash filled the space. I threw the blankets off of me and ran as fast as I could down the hallway. I was screaming so loud I surprised myself. I ran into my dad as he threw open his bedroom door. He was panicked and held me by my shoulders in the doorway to their bedroom and yelled at me to tell him what was wrong.

"Someone was taking pictures of me through my window!"

The roof and house was checked and they, of course, found nothing and no one. My mother sat up with me and asked every basic question a parent asks "Were you dreaming? Are you sure it wasn't lightening?" There was no thunder and I was sure that there had not been at the time it happened. The flashes did not have the same hue as lightening did. I had taken enough cell phone pictures in my life to identify the flash of a camera. I don't know if they believed me then, but I would eventually have proof that would astonish them.

My brother adopted Ike in January of 2016. Ike was a 2 month old Chesapeake Bay Retriever with one gold eye and one green eye. He had a very distinct white marking on his chest that looked like an hour glass and a white sock on his front left paw. Ike was the love of my brother's life, aside from his now fiancee, Kara. Ike would end our torture just 3 months later.

The holidays and my brother's engagement to Kara, who was amazing, beautiful and who's family we had known all our lives, had lifted my family's spirits immensely. My brother was starting his family, almost done with the police academy and seemed untouchable by any memory of Pam. We felt optimistic for the first time in a long time, Pam hadn't been around (to our knowing) in several weeks, all was normal and things were looking up. But that, again, didn't last.

A month or so after bringing him home, after letting him into the backyard for a few minutes by himself, Kara told us that Ike had escaped from the yard. She panicked and ran around the neighborhood looking for him. She got in her car, called me upset, and drove around the block looking for him. She picked me up and I helped her look in the creek area behind where my brother's house was. We couldn't find him. However, when we arrived back at my brother's house, Ike was sitting on the front porch. We were relieved as he was unharmed and seemed to be as happy as ever, despite missing his collar. I helped Kara check the yard for ways he could've gotten out. We both decided he must have shimmied through a small gap in the gate on the side yard. I couldn't help being confused to find no grass or burs in his fur.

We thought nothing of it.

A few weeks later, both my brother and Kara were going on a weekend trip with some friends and I offered to take care of Ike. They dropped him off on the Friday before the three day weekend. Ike was happy to play with our older lab, Dez. The second night he was with us, I was out with friends and my dad had let both the dogs into the yard at around 8pm. He sat in his chair in the living room watching a show with my mom. They say they remember hearing Dez barking because he yelled for him to be quiet. But they assumed the puppy was riling him up. A few minutes later Dez came to the door to be let in. He ran inside and barked at my dad. My dad was confused, as our dog was not a regular barker. He called for Ike but he didn't come. My dad went out and looked around in the bushes and still did not find him. He became concerned and hurried into the house to get a light. He checked the swimming pool and still did not find him. My mother joined him and they both scoured the large yard but did not find him.

When I got home, they had just finished searching the front and side yards. I told them that he had escaped once before, so we decided to take the car to look for him. As we drove around yelling for him, attracting the help of a few neighbors, I thought how strange it was that such a well behaved puppy had suddenly become a master escape artist in the past three or so weeks. Our yard had seen 3 or so dogs grow up in it, some younger and smaller than Ike, and we had never had that problem. The fences were high and well built and my dad had replaced the ones on the side of the house just a few summers ago.

We did not find him.

I hoped that he'd return that night, like he did last time, but he didn't. I informed my brother on Sunday and proceeded to look all day in surrounding areas, the pound, shelters, vet clinics and even looked to the sides of roads from bodies. We found nothing.

My brother was heartbroken. I helped him make fliers to post in our neighborhood and his.

A couple weeks past and we heard nothing.

My dad was doing yard work in mid-February. He came in after a few hours and he set something on the kitchen table. "What's that?" I knit my brow as I saw it. "It's Ike's collar, it was in the front yard, I almost hit it with the mower. You'll have to take it to your brother." It was Ike's collar. His first collar. Not the one he had been wearing the night he went missing from our yard. It was his puppy collar, which he had lost the day he got out of the yard at my brother's house.

I called Kara and asked her if they had found it, and she said they hadn't and had bought him a new one.

That's when it clicked. Someone had stolen my brother's dog not once, but twice.

I told my brother, Kara and my parents my theory and it was not a difficult one for them to understand. It had to be connected to everything else.

Right when we thought she was out of our lives...

We decided to take it to the police to add to our case file on Pam. I also told them about the night I had been photographed from my window. The police, like many times before, told us they could not do anything, as there was no proof she had done any of these things.

Frustrated, defeated and frightened again.

But a few short weeks later, in April of 2016, new developments would finally end it all.

By complete, God-sent coincidence, Kara was with her mother in a small town 45 minutes away from ours. We were planning for my 17th birthday that month and so preoccupied we almost put Pam and the fact that she undoubtedly had been watching us for months and had stolen, probably killed, my brother's puppy and thrown his collar in our front yard to help us connect the dots and give her credit for the crime. However, while Kara window shopped in the center of the town, she and her mother noticed a car parked on the street. A car with a puppy in it. It was a bit warm out, so they walked to the window and peeked in at the animal. Kara immediately recognized him by his eyes and the marking on his chest (and the fact that he began crying as soon as she called his name and he saw her).

She phoned the police, phoned my brother and sat on the back trunk of the car. The police arrived as the owner of the car came back to it. The girl was immediately upset by the presence of the police and Kara's angry accusations. The girl was not Pam, and she became rather helpful. The girl said that she had purchased the dog only a few days ago from an add online. She told police that the girl she purchased her from was "super shady" and eager to get rid of the dog who was skinny and a very cheap price. The girl who had sold her the dog claimed that she "didn't want the stupid dog, it was a present from her boyfriend, but it was the wrong kind". Pam had always liked small dogs. She told the police that she had met the girl to purchase the dog at an apartment complex a few minutes from where they were, but that she wasn't sure what apartment the girl lived in.

The police, after Kara had informed them of our situation, used Pam's name to find out that she indeed lived in the apartment complex with two roommates. They interviewed Pam's roommates the next day, but Pam was not there. They told detectives that they almost never saw Pam, her room was always locked and she was almost always gone. She didn't have a job, though she claimed to have one, and her mother was there a lot checking up on her and dropping off her rent to them. However, when they did speak to her, she talked a lot about her past relationship and switched between how much she loved him and his family to how they all "deserved to die" and were "going to hell".

With the information given by the girl who had purchased Ike and by Pam's roommates, the police finally had sufficient evidence to search Pam's apartment. I don't know much about what they found, but what I do know horrified my family and horrified me. On Pam's computer they found hundreds upon hundreds of pictures of my brother, my parents, Kara and of me. Our cars, our houses, my school, my brother's school, of Ike. Pictures taken through our windows at night. Picture of us sleeping. Photos taken from our social media of vacations, the picture of my brother's proposal to Kara, she had even doctored herself into some of them. She still had pictures of her and my brother and her with my family up around her room. She had kept Ike in her closet for weeks on a towel and with just water and little food. In her search history they found everything from rape-fantasy and other violent pornography to weapon research.

The police now had sufficient evidence to arrest Pam.

Pam had been obsessively stalking my family for more than a two years. She had stalked us from her car, following us around town. It had been her snapping photos of me from the roof outside my window. She had watched my brother drop Ike off at our house. She had documented her opinions of us, our habits and her plans in a journal which we will not get to see until the case is taken to trial next month. My brother, myself, my father, the girl we found Ike with, Pam's roommates, several of my brother's friends and Pam's mother will testify against her. It will be the first face to face interaction any of us will have had with her in many months and I am terrified.

And I'm angry. I'm angry that an evil, narcissistic, malevolent, psychotic parasite like her had latched onto my brother, onto my family and single-handedly stripped us of our security, our sanity and our trust. Every creak, every bump, every unknown face and every vehicle following too closely will send me into a tailspin of dread and I'll see her again, standing in my front yard in her dress and looking up to the sky with a vacant, animalistic gaze.

My life became a real horror story. Not because of a haunted house or because of an ax wielding murderer. But because of a sick girl with a broken mind and a fixation on something unobtainable. I'm 17 years old and I've experienced an ordeal most will read and think is a sad attempt at a thrilling fiction post. My family is healing, I'm healing and she did NOT break us.

I hope that this story helps anyone who has gone through something similar feel not so alone. I hope that those of you who read this and think of someone who shows the same warning signs as Pam did, are now prepared to take action to protect yourselves. Don't wait until things get as bad as they got for me. Be aware of the power of mental instability and the danger behind it.

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gyrlversion · 6 years ago

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Family didnt know their Downs syndrome brother was being neglected

The sister of a 61-year-old man with Down’s syndrome who died after going without food for 19 days, because of ‘miscommunication and inaction’ by hospital staff, has spoken of her heartbreak.

Giuseppe ‘Joe’ Ulleri suffered an unexplained fall at home in a supported living complex in Withington, Manchester, and was admitted to Manchester Royal Infirmary on February 26, 2016 after being found in a pool of blood on his bedroom floor.

He passed away less than a month later, after poor communication between medical staff and delays over deciding how best to feed him left him without nutrition for 19 days, causing him to lose 2st 12lbs.

Speaking publicly for the first time since her brother’s death, Ria Ulleri told MailOnline that Giuseppe was ‘sweet and funny’, and that her family did not know the extent of his neglect while he was in hospital.

‘It wasn’t until the inquest that we learned just how much Joe had been neglected. It was horrific. It seemed so cruel,’ she said.

‘All through Joe’s life, we had fought for him to be included and treated with respect.

‘Yet at the very end, he was failed by the people who were supposed to look after him.’

Speaking publicly for the first time since her brother’s death, Ria Ulleri said Giuseppe Ulleri was ‘sweet and funny’ and that her family did not know the extent of his neglect until his inquest

Giuseppe ‘Joe’ Ulleri suffered an unexplained fall at home in Withington, Manchester, and was admitted to Manchester Royal Infirmary (MRI) on February 26, 2016. Less than a month later he passed away after 19 days without food

Ria, 48, an actress from London, said: ‘Joe was a sweet and funny man, but he needed support. It is tragic that the people he relied on to care for him were the ones who let him down.

‘Growing up we knew there was something different about Joe, but we took it all in our stride. He couldn’t really talk much but he made himself understood no problem.

‘He was really funny and entertaining, and we were very close. Our parents were Sardinian and Joe loved to dance to Sardinian music. He liked gardening too.

Ria said that when she left her brother in hospital, he held her hands and wouldn’t let go. She added that looking back, ‘it was as if he knew’

Joe (centre) was the oldest of four siblings (three pictured). Their mother, pictured right, had died when they were little and they were raised by their father, Pietro (left)

Ria, 48, an actress from London, said: ‘Joe (pictured) was a sweet and funny man but he needed support. It is tragic that the people he relied on to care for him were the ones who let him down’

Joe with his father Pietro. Despite his objections when Pietro became ill, and Ria was diagnosed with MS in 2013, Joe moved into supported living

‘There was pressure from the doctors for Joe to go into residential care but my dad wouldn’t hear of it. Joe was part of the family and that’s just how it was.

Giuseppe was the eldest of four children. Their mother had died when they were little, and they were raised by their father, Pietro.

Despite his objections, when Pietro became ill and Ria was diagnosed with MS in 2013, Joe moved into supported living.

‘The move gave Joe independence and it gave my dad some respite so it was better for everyone,’ Ria said.

‘Although it was a difficult decision, he liked it there and the staff were fantastic.’

After his fall, Guiseppe fractured his pelvis, wrist and neck, but his injuries were initially missed by medics. They were only spotted after his carers brought him back to hospital a day later over concerns he could not walk or swallow properly.

Speaking of his move into assisted living, Ria said: ‘The move gave Joe independence and it gave my dad some respite so it was better for everyone’

After his fall, Guiseppe fractured his pelvis, wrist and neck but his injuries were initially missed by medics and were only spotted after his carers brought him back to hospital a day later over concerns he could not walk or swallow properly

His difficulty swallowing continued for several days, leading to staff deciding to make him nil by mouth and put him on a naso-gastric feeding tube on March 9 to prevent him choking.

But he found the tube uncomfortable and it was removed a day later.

The inquest heard poor communication between medical staff and delays over deciding how best to feed him left him without nutrition for 19 days, causing him to ‘waste away’ before he died on March 20.

Relatives told a coroner they had raised concerns with doctors about his lack of food, and described the hospital as having ‘first-rate buildings but third-rate medical care’.

Ria said: ‘I visited Joe in hospital and he wasn’t happy at all. He hated being in there. But I just thought it was a fall and that he’d soon be home again’

Ria continued: ‘I visited Joe in hospital and he wasn’t happy at all. He hated being in there. But I just thought it was a fall and that he’d soon be home again.

‘I had no idea what lay ahead. But when I left he held my hands and he wouldn’t let go. Looking back, it was as if he knew.

‘I held him in my arms and I said goodbye as he took his last breath. My heart was breaking. He had lost so much weight. He was a shadow of himself.’

An inquest into his death earlier this month recorded a narrative conclusion and cited an ‘overall failure of care’ and ‘failure to provide adequate nutrition’.

The inquest also found that these failures in care contributed to his death.

An inquest into Joe’s death earlier this month recorded a narrative conclusion and cited an ‘overall failure of care’ and ‘failure to provide adequate nutrition’

Speaking at the inquest, his brother Peter said: ‘We have two questions. Why the delay and did that delay contribute to Joe’s premature death?’

‘Why was there a delay in addressing his nutritional needs?’ asked Peter. ‘Could more have been done to alleviate his bronchial problems?

‘We are looking to avoid future failures. We have got a lot of questions we feel are unresolved, that don’t just reflect on Joe, but on other people with Down’s syndrome.’

He added: ‘We also have major concerns about the quality of care he received at Manchester Royal Infirmary.

Joe with his two younger brothers as children. Speaking at the inquest, his brother Peter said: ‘We have two questions. Why the delay and did that delay contribute to Joe’s premature death?’

Joe with his brother. Giovanni Ulleri had previously told the jury when his brother was born in November 1954 his parents fell in love with the baby who had ‘big eyes and a wide smile’

‘The injuries he suffered were possibly life changing but they did not appear to be life threatening. There was a fragmented approach which gave us serious cause for concern.

‘At MRI the buildings are first rate, but the care is third rate.’

Peter said he had previously raised concerns about Joe being nil by mouth and when he visited his brother two days before his death ‘he had lost a significant amount of weight.’

Two days later Mr Ulleri passed away with his brothers at his bedside.

Joe as a child. His brother said that Joe’s life had enriched that of his three younger siblings and that they had a happy childhood. Their father called Joe ‘a gift from god’

Earlier Giovanni Ulleri told the jury when his brother was born in November 1954 his parents fell in love with the baby who had ‘big eyes and a wide smile’.

‘I remember Dad telling me how Joe was not a burden but “a glorious blessing” and “a gift from God”,’ he said.

Speaking fondly about their childhood he said Joe’s life had enriched all of their lives.

‘He couldn’t talk but he was the best communicator I have ever met,’ said Giovanni.

‘We are still in shock that we won’t see that cheeky, innocent, toothless smile again or receive that gentle pat on the back or the tender embrace from one of his hugs

Joe, pictured cycling as a child, was cremated at his local church, where his family played his favourite song: ‘Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life’

‘I’m a better person for having had Joe in my life and so are all our family.’

Peter added he had phoned into a best interests meeting at the hospital on March 16 2016, where it was agreed that a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy, another feeding tube that is inserted into the patient’s stomach through the abdominal wall, would take place on March 18.

The witness said he believed his brother’s condition was deteriorating due to lack of sufficient nutrition, and said he told staff: ‘Why the delay? He could die from this.’

Another witness, Sister Christine O’Grady, worked for L’Arche at the time and said she had ‘grave concern’ regarding the perceived lack of pain relief or nutrition Mr Ulleri was given in hospital.

Joe pictured with his brother’s Giovanni and Peter as children. Peter said he believed his brother’s condition was deteriorating due to lack of sufficient nutrition, and said he told staff: ‘Why the delay? He could die from this.’

She said that before he was made nil by mouth on March 4, 2016, he had started coughing when staff at the Manchester Royal Infirmary attempted to feed him, meaning he had not been properly fed for a considerable amount of time.

Sister O’Grady said to jurors she told a member of staff at the hospital: ‘If you don’t do anything about it, then I will be seeing you in court.’

The qualified nurse said she believed medics had decided to fit Joe with a RIG feeding tube, but was worried because that also involved a tube being placed down his nose and feared he would just pull it out.

‘I did not see Joe for a week because I was off sick, but when I went back to the hospital it was still not in place. I was really concerned about and I told them he was not getting any nutrition,’ she added.

Joe, pictured as a teenager, enjoyed fairly good health up until his death, the jury of seven men and five women heard

Sister O’Grady also said she did not see hospital staff refer to Joe’s ‘traffic light’ hospital passport which detailed his specific needs.

She said she felt staff from L’Arche, the supported living group where he lived, were excluded from his care and were asked to leave the room when doctors and nurses were dealing with him despite the fact ‘we knew his needs’.

Naomi Tomlinson, who was also working for L’Arche at the time of Mr Ulleri’s death, said there seemed to be a lack of ‘joined-up thinking’ at the hospital.

Discussing the communication she had with staff the day before his death, she said: ‘Within 24 hours, there was a very quick escalation from ‘”Joe is not going to die” to “Joe is dying”.’

His brother Peter told the jury of seven men and five women that Joe had enjoyed fairly good health up until the last few years of his life.

One hospital staff member said that ‘within 24 hours, there was a very quick escalation from ‘”Joe is not going to die” to “Joe is dying”‘. Pictured: Joe as a child

‘That could be due to his relative old age for a Down’s syndrome person,’ he said.

Mr Ulleri lived with three other residents at the supported tenancy complex where staff were on duty 24 hours a day.

Despite having a troublesome knee and developing a stoop and poor eyesight he was ‘still mobile and continued to enjoy life’ which was ‘fulfilling’.

He also developed an issue with acid reflux and was diagnosed with Barrett’s esophagus, which can be an early sign of esophageal cancer.

Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust has apologised and promised it will not happen again.

Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust has apologised and promised it will not happen again. Joe’s sister Ria (pictured) said the treatment was ‘cruel and horrific’

His cause of death was given as insufficient nutrition, osteopathic fractures, and pneumonia.

Joe was cremated at his local church, where his family played his favourite song: ‘Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life.’

Acting area coroner for Manchester City Angharad Davies told an inquest jury: ‘Whilst in hospital Joe was looked after by a range of different staff, from nurses to speech specialists to dietitians.

‘A decision was made that he would be “nil by mouth” because of concerns he could breathe food into his lungs. A naso-gastric feeding tube was fitted, but that proved problematic and it was only in place for 24 hours.

‘After that Joe had a long period of time when he had no nutritional support, the only support was during that 24 hours when the tube was in place.’

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