#some people for some fucking reason: reinforces the mental illness in ways never thought possible

[kkoct-ik]

i dont think i will ever forgive what the internet did to DID because please explain to me how "your sense of self is so torn apart you think youre multiple people" turned into "youre actually multiple people"

do you understand what i mean? please understand what i mean

[trials-of-a-spirit-worker]

MORE Things I Want Y’all To Know

So I try to make it very clear that I make mistakes. As far as we all know, I’m only human (people have suspected I am an alien of some sort, idk why... my squidilly splooch is just the same as everyone else's, goddamnit) and I would like people to learn from my mistakes and then not do them. You know? Do better. 

Read more- Witch History, Basic witch practices, read up about other culture and all that. It took me a hot minute on my journey to start doing it and I regret it. Its like rejecting the tutorial like oh it’s all the same and having to revisit the settings and control menu again and again. 

Just focus on a couple things at a time- This is admittedly one of my biggest issues, because I’m like Well I want to learn about this and this and this and this and this and--you see where it gets bad. Calm thy nipples, Herfeffine Heferfefer! (If you understand that names reference, I like you.) You’ll get to learn what you want eventually. Have patience and learn to be well acquainted with a couple things before moving on to the next. Don’t spread yourself too thin.

There is not one way to read tarot- This is beyond learning meanings that your neat little booklet that you get with a deck. Not only should you try and focus on neutral meanings for each card and not associate them with good or bad meanings, but also how your intuition is working with what you see. Your cards are there to help you illustrate what a possible answer or path may be. Treat it as such. I’ve heard people say go through it as if it were a story being told and I really like that method. Tarot is a tool for your intuition and a tool of divine communication. It is an extension of the mind and methods to see become as individual as you are. 

Just because you feel  like you’re ready to move on, doesn’t mean that you are- Sometimes we get a little overzealous and that's fine. We’re excited, we want to learn, get better, wiser, stronger, etc. But just....hold your damn horses. Don’t force yourself to try and catch up with other witches that you may see. You’re gonna have a bad time if you’re more focused on being on someone else's level instead of just working within and focusing on yourself. I guarantee you, the witches we look up to suffered the same slow grind as you did. Respect that power crawl boo. We all go through it.

Not everything is a lesson or a point from the universe. - Be able to see the difference between a strange occurrence and coincidences and actual lessons. If you’re like me who thought damn near everything was some karmic lesson you’re gonna end up a paranoid mess trying to decode and decipher EVERYTHING. Whooo, just thinking back to it makes me tired. Relax some weird shit happens. The world is weird. Sometimes, you can even catch someone else’s karmic lesson, doesn’t mean you need to get involved, it just means you see some shit. And that's okay. Sometimes you just see a lot of shit and as long as you’re not seeing things you’ll be okay.

Your Health Takes Priority- Self explanatory. Mental and Physical damnit. Your mentor shouldn’t be draining you every time you’re with them. You do not need to harm yourself for a spell like Hollywood loves to do sometimes. Here, lemme supernatural style gash my fucking hand open for a spell that requires six drops of blood. NO. I swear to all that is holy and not I will bap you with rolled up magazines.  Just...be reasonable. I generally trust the lot of you, but there are reasons certain warnings exist you know? Also, I cannot stress this enough. Witchcraft does not have to be 24/7 I swear. You can take breaks. You can back out of things. Relax and recoup when you can. You owe it to yourself. Just fucking take care of yourself mkay!?

NEVER EVER be afraid to ask for help- Some of us (*cough cough* Me included *COUGH*) can be super prideful and stick with our problem like its fine when we know good and well we’re ill-equiped for whatever the fuck just happened. Swallow it and ask for help. Hell, I can tell you about a time where I was dealing with some awful spirit I had no experience with and was like I handled some growly bastards like this before and then it turned out to be nothing close to what I experienced before and got my ass handed to me before I limped back to a mentor like a dipshit. Don’t be like past me. Don’t be a dipshit. Just. Get. Help. Even if it’s just advice, just fucking do it. Whatever it is, take the L and get some reinforcements. Learned this the hard way. Learn from my mistakes please.

That’s all I have for you. Please be safe out there, love yourself and others and don’t do stupid shit.

[capriccio-con-espressione]

N(oona) C(raving) T(endencies)

This is my 3k words of analysis of NCT members who I think are likely to have a noona kink based on the ask. Enjoy!

Disclaimer:

By this I am not saying that other members not mentioned here don't have any possibility to date an older female/enjoys referring to their dommes as noona, it's just like the tendency/preference isn't that clear or obvious in my opinion. Do not send in rude comments just because you disagree though I will appreciate some feedback.

Warning: Sub!Taeyong, Sub!Jungwoo, Sub!Mark, Sub!Xiaojun, Sub!Jaemin, Domme!Reader, Femdom, Noona kink, Degradation, Whipping, Spanking, Pegging, Public humiliation, Role-play, Oral sex, Sex toys, Dry humping, Dildo riding, Mentions of mental health issues/negative emotions

Taeyong

This boi is insufferably kinky and subby

In Baby Don't Like It he stated he likes it rough

In Whiplash he literally emphasized again how much of a painslut he is

And his ideal type is “Someone who can teach me, lead me, and make up for my flaws.”

To conclude this, Tyongie may be craving for a strong, mature female's guidance when he's lost and insecure, a noona domme who can heal all the anxiety, stress and inner guilt he's been through by her ruthless discipline, plus, the age hierarchy implied in the title will allow him to sink into his headspace even more.

He's such a sucker for this torment that, with one stern look from you, he will automatically strip naked and ready himself in the humiliating positions assigned by you before without any spoken command, and obediently waits for the first slap/whip while trembling in both anticipation and thrill

I can totally picture him begging his noona for more punishment, though already red, sore and sobbing

"...Ahhh noona I'm sorry... *sniffles* please punish me more for being a bad, ill-mannered boy...don't stop mmmff-"

However, that being said, if that noona domme is actually younger than him, he may be down for the added humiliation due to the role reversal

Imagine that younger domme dismissively orders him to call her "noona" in public, and commands him to use honorifics to speak to her, the exact type and wording that make him sound humbled…

He will be turned on by that while people around you shoot puzzled gazes toward you as they wonder why the hierarchy dynamics aren’t in the right place, making Taeyong feel embarrassed as well as aroused

By the way, some role-plays can be added to spice up your sex lives as well, e.g. CEO x employee, professor x student, guard x prisoner, to name a few, as long as you are in power and makes sure to beat the naughtiness and disobedience out of him

Though being intensely kinky during the session, aftercare for this precious boy has to be really fulfilling as well

So you have to be able to play an attentive caring role just like a noona (a little bit maternal figure as well, I have to admit)

Make sure the process is all intimate and brimming with praises, reassuring the broken figure that the "bad boy" is "forgiven" to thoroughly sew up his wounds

Bubble bath, scented candles with calming aroma, sensual massage with essential oils of his favorite scent and texture, or having some good quality snacks while cuddling, are all good options for aftercare because all of them can reinforce the idea that he’s “worthy” of anyone’s love and attention due to the physical contact and interactions allowed in them 

So steamy and sensual that if done correctly, Taeyong may be in the mood for another round of vanilla sex to get an extra gratifying orgasm again

Jungwoo

A clingy little pup that will follow you around and will cutely pout when not given enough attention or skinship

Loves to be babied and taken care of, so he would love the accompany of a sweet caring noona to make him feel at ease (borderline mommy kink as well)

Remember that Valentine's Day Facetime vid where he just referred to the viewer insert as "noona"? That probably implied his preference for an older female figure

Will do anything to please you since he's very love-starved and doesn't want you to feel uncared for because he knows too well how much that sucks, he will shower you with the same amount of affection he expects from you as well

Anxious and always worries about if he's still "needed", so that's why he will opt for a perspicacious noona to counsel him for his delicate soul to rely on, and shower him with the adequate amount of love then pamper him 

Melts at cute pet names such as pup, angel, prince, little fairy, snoopy or any endearing terms because they make intimacy upgrade to another level

May act a bit playful or even borderline bratty from time to time, mainly to spice things up and get some sexy punishment to release his excess nervousness

But hardcore stuff definitely isn't for him, since the soft boy can't tolerate much pain. 

Light impact play on his erogenous zones is fine, but he enjoys the feelings of vulnerability and exposure more rather than the pain itself

The type to let out loud moans even when just getting his underwear peeled down because the instant when the air hits his flesh is a huge turn-on for him, so much to the extent he is yearning to beg you to fuck him just from getting naked

Very sensitive, literally gasps, squirms and grinds every time when you caress or slap his sweet zones and will beg you to stop though you know he's enjoying it too much

Will repeat your title like a mantra as if it's the only thing that can keep him sane

Be wailing like "Hnnngh noona pretty pleeaase stop spanking me ahhh noona no I'll be a good boy pleaseee it stings noona I'm sorryyy hahhh" but the way how his hips rock against your lap will betray his words, giving you more reason to torture him

Loves being pegged and used, or getting his all possible sensitive spots stimulated and stuffed at once because he just lusts after every inch of his body being thoroughly pleasured inside-out, and drown in the depths of overstimulation and hedonistic ecstasy to feel completely loved and secured

Edging is really suitable for this delicate boy because of the enhanced experience after prolonged denial, which makes the orgasm more earth-shattering than ever

Though he will be a teary puddle and begs you to end the ordeal, the uncertainty and feebleness associated with edging will turn his mind into a soaring frenzy state even more, enabling him to release all his pent-up frustrations and negativity while finally allowed to empty his balls

Likely to get emotional and will hold on to you very tight during post-climax aftercare due to the intense sensation that just washed through his mind and body, feeling extra fragile and really needs to be thoroughly cared for

Petting his head, kissing his tears away with "I love you"s constantly coming out of your lips is a must, as he drifts to sleep like a fallen angel nestled in his safe space, which is the warm spot between your chest and your arms

Mark

An easily flustered mess when it comes to straightforward proactive girls 

Having left his family and devoted himself to the industry at such a tender age, he may want to be the more passive, dependent one in a relationship to make up for his lost adolescence

So he's probably looking for someone who he can rely on and takes the initiative in bed, while all he has to do is to close his eyes and enjoy himself

When he finds you, to whom he trusts enough to pour his doubts and perplexion about life, and is always guaranteed to receive some really thoughtful response, he sees you as someone very valuable.

But more than that, you are a woman who seems to have endless fuel of passion, the exact type with whom Mark can replenish his strength when he got engulfed by the abyss of stress

Also, you are notably witty with words that sometimes aids his lyric writing process, but that means he can never win against you in any friendly bickers as well, especially when you cite some of his lyrics to roast him that renders him speechless.

Yet somehow, he gets hooked to the feeling of being a powerless flustered bundle in front of you

Gradually it develops into dirty imagination of you manipulating him into a mindless mess

And you are exactly the burning blaze that will scorch his body with vehement desires, make him so depraved yet still internally demand more

Never did he realize that being obedient for a noona figure will feel this good until he met you, his ideal match

You will guide him how to touch himself properly like a big sis, then demonstrate it yourself followed by some edging, as he whimpers at the sense of loss every time his build-up is ruined, pleading you with those big puppy eyes

And when you get to peg him, he will love the feeling that he's completely owned by you, getting his ass spanked while fucked also serves as a good reminder of who he belongs to

Doesn't talk much during sex to indulge fully. Expect some incoherent moans and weak chants of your title from him instead

But the boy also knows how to reciprocate when he's ordered to. He knows how to work that rapper tongue too well even if his brain is not fully functioning

His tongue can do wonders to your folds and is guaranteed to perform great with your strap in his mouth, looking up at you with those pretty doe eyes all the time to see if you like how he's doing

Will probably require some time and space for himself to just chill and cool down during aftercare instead of being very clingy, all you need to do is to make sure he’s comfy, or place a glass of drink he likes beside him while he’s organizing his thoughts or doing anything that fits his mood. 

No extra words or skinship is needed at this moment because based on your understanding and observations of him, he’ll be fully recharged when you decide he is most of the time

Xiaojun

A sensitive, sentimental bub that ponders a lot about lots of things

Passionate about music, and perhaps some classic literature or philosophy

So he may want his partner to share the same interests so he can love the way she wanna talk even more

Likely to crumble for a woman who’s sophisticated, cultured and speaks in a refined manner, and is often willing to discuss some profound matters with him, to the extent sometimes Xiaojun cannot keep up easily and may feel a bit flustered, but is secretly admiring her wits deep down while she’s patiently explaining some new art concepts or ideas to him

Hence, when he finds you, who is capable of playing that role and opening up new worlds to him, he is not only delighted but also excited and intrigued, anticipating every chance to talk to you more but when he finally seizes the opportunity, he will appear to smile shyly, avoiding your gaze all the time but whenever he slightly peeks at you, his eyes will be glittering with dreamy haze of enchantment

Because to him, knowledgeable women seem to have boundless potential that makes them distinctively mysterious as well as alluring, and he’s all about succumbing to that vast endearing wilderness, with you being the compass controlling his every move (lowkey sapiosexual I guess)

The fact that you are the embodiment of versatility, artistic grace, and mellow charisma, yet all cordial to him just like a jiě jie (noona in Mandarin) next door will flutter his heart as he falls for you even more

So once you finally end up in bed, he will be very enthralled and eager to please, and will literally subserviently worship every inch of your body as if you are a Goddess while complimenting you all the time

Yet not long after he will be amazed by another fact about you, that is, you are the definition of the saying “Sweet in the streets, freak in the sheets”

Xiaojun will soon find himself restrained while bent in compromising positions, with toys he never imagined a sweet person like you will ever own torturing his body and lust-crazed soul, as you whisper nasty degrading things to him, skewing and corrupting some classic literary works during the process, which makes him intoxicated in another sinfully imaginative aspect of your mind

Since he’s a sucker for anything about you, neglect play is a perfect way to torment him. 

Chain him up and place a toy on him, which can be either a vibrator or a prostate massager, before leaving him untouched, and watch him writhe and moan helplessly in unsatisfied heat, with his distinctive brows furrowed, eyes glossy with plead and need, a beautiful image perfect to be ruined

Open to lots of kinks since you are able to make them gratifying and mind-blowing every time as he becomes closer to your ideal notion of subby boy toy with every progress

Will still remain a blushy mess when ordered to beg or admit something humiliating even after getting fucked multiple times, though he likes it so much 

Something simple and lewd like “jiě jie please come in and fuck my slutty hole” “My pathetic dick only exists to be ravished by jiě jie” works well for him as he finally climaxes

This precious pretty boy is not all passive when receiving aftercare. Instead, he will sensually plant kisses all over your body while telling you how good you made him feel and how deeply he loves you

Melts and buries his face into the crook of your neck or sheets later on when you say the same back to him and praise him for taking you so well

Few moments of silent bliss will pass between you before you guide him back to reality again 

Jaemin

Another little painslut that wishes to be tamed and roughed up

His tolerance of pain may not be as high as Taeyong, but he likes the humiliation as much as the older does

Being an idol is stressful and suppressing, so he desperately needs to find some release through some pleasurable pain for the endorphin rush

Preferably receiving it from a noona-like figure who definitely knows what she’s doing, and again the hierarchy from her title will enable him to feel floaty and more deserving of the punishment

He’s the type to be horny really often and does barely anything to hide it, qualifying him as a very communicative, responsive and expressive sub

So he acts up all flirty and bratty in front of females who he deems as potential targets, to evaluate who’s probably sadistic enough to cater to his needs judging from their reactions, and of course, your dismissive attitude and sharp chastisement on his behavior intrigue him

Then he will make a further approach to gain your attention, from unsolicited winks and aegyo to cheesy pick-up lines, even going as far as some skinship that you are smart enough to know how intentional it is, all screaming brat demeanor that gets you irritated and riled up

Once he finally successfully gets you to bare his bottom and bend him over your lap, he’s a mesmerized moaning mess while enjoying basking in your tauntingly degrading words, admitting he’s noona’s dimwitted slut even before you ask him that

But of course, a sound spanking is still not enough to quench his submissive needs, he will literally shamelessly beg for more

In a provocative way

He will blatantly seduce you, from inappropriately touching you to straight-up humping you until you lose it to punish him for being obnoxiously needy, tying him up and dishing out toys or other implements that can deliver even more intense pain

At first, he will feign reluctance by pouting or complaining how much it hurts even though it’s still far from what he is able to take, in order to infuriate you and provoke more out of what you can give him

Being insatiable as he is, after some pain inflicted on him, he will reveal his true masochistic self and directly asks you to punish him harder just like Taeyong will do, but Jaemin’s self-degradation will be much more hardcore and a bit creative

“Noona please do it harder! Ahh- I’ve been badder than that! Make your naughty indecent-minded whore cum just by paddling me because I’m that pathetic mmmff-”

When you are dicking him down, he will beg you to destroy his hole and be really graphic about it, making his intentions of wanting you to abuse him like a fucktoy utterly clear to drive you wilder, with that iconic blissful smile plastered on his pretty features

He will be obsessed with your powerful strength while ramming into him so much that he will masturbate by riding a dildo while moaning loud enough for you to take notice and break into the room

After you are pissed that he’s playing with himself without your permission, he will be all like “But I missed noona’s big mighty cock so much that I can’t wait hnnnghh noona please come punish my horny hole and make it so swollen and sore that it won’t whore up ever again pleeaaseeeee”

You will definitely be so sexually active and satisfied with him as your sub because of his neediness and salacious talk to ignite your dominant desires

Even though he enjoys getting fucked all over to earn some revival to his work-drained soul, and appears to recover really quickly after orgasms, even capable of engaging in some playful conversations with you, it’s still likely for him to feel hollow and internally worn out due to the drastic neurochemical change but he won’t make it obvious

So you will need to be really observant and keep reassuring him for his well-being because all the excessive stress he’s been struggling through that makes him this submissive is stemmed from his desperate needs for praise and recognition

That’s also one of the reasons why I think he will be into a noona domme because approval from superiors is relatively more rewarding

But with proper aftercare, he’ll stay hooked to you and continue to pleasure both himself and you with matching kinky desires

[trikruheart]

Bellamy Is The Abusive One, Not Octavia: A Rant/Meta

There’s two main “reasons” that people give when they claim that Octavia is abusive. That she beats up Bellamy after Lincoln’s murder, and that she has him put in The Fighting Pits.

Let’s start with the old discourse; Bellamy did get Lincoln killed, not Octavia. Bellamy is the person who got Pike into power, the person who stood by him even after seeing + being told multiple times by people he supposedly cares about that Pike was instituting facism and going to get everyone killed. Bellamy knowingly decided to be a Nazi even though he had other options and was aware of them. And, no, Nazi is not an exaggeration, Bellamy was 100% willing to wipe out an entire race just for being that race including putting them in concentration camp-like conditions to die.

Octavia is not at fault just because she didn’t accept Bellamy’s last minute “help”, he had given her absolutely no reason to trust him so it’s not her fault she didn’t. If my brother was fhe right-hand man of a fascist leader then I wouldn’t have trusted him that after he belittled my concerns several times and stopped me from escaping, he’ll get my boyfriend out of the camp he put him in to begin with. Octavia had no obligation to trust Bellamy after he did everything in his power to destroy her trust.

So, yes, Octavia beats up Bellamy. If I had just saw and heard the love of my life be murdered at the hands of the man that my own brother knowingly put in power then I probably would beat him up to. Especially if my brother had already been abusing me my whole life.

Side note: Let me also just point out that Bellamy was never adequately redeemed for that whole being a Nazi thing, everyone just pretended it never happened. Octavia herself even calls him out “You didn’t turn on Pike because you thought what he was doing to the grounders was wrong.” and he AGREES. Bellamy 👏 never 👏 earned 👏 redemption, because men in this show don’t need to be held accountable for their actions while women (mainly Octavia and Clarke) have to supplicate themselves to men and be dragged through the dirt mercilessly for every wrong breath they take.

The Fighting Pit issue is an even weaker example because Octavia didn’t put Bellamy in there because she was angry or wanted to (although she had every right to be) she did it because Bellamy publicly broke several laws and she would have completely undermined her own authority (and given special treatment, making her a poor leader) if she let him get away with treason, child endangerment, murder, and attempted assassination. Bellamy getting put in the fighting pit was a consequence of his own actions, one that he was well aware of. Octavia wasn’t being abusive, she was being a fair leader.

Now that that BS is out of the way, here’s a list of why Bellamy is abusive to Octavia:

1.) Bellamy has had all of the power in their relationship from day one. Octavia was literally trapped in a room and only able to interact with two people for sixteen years, Bellamy came and went as he pleased. Octavia was essentially a captive, she couldn’t have possibly been more powerless during the entire time their relationship was developing. Then when they get on the ground, Bellamy is almost instantly put in a position of power which he uses to isolate and control Octavia. There’s also the age difference, I think a lot of people forget that Bellamy is way older than all the other Skaikru. Bellamy is 23 at the start of the show and everyone else is under 18 (except Raven is 18). So, we’re talking about a barely 17-year-old girl, one who grew up extremely isolated so is even more immature than most kids her age, and a 23-year-old man who lived most of his life relatively normally.

The power difference entirely favors Bellamy. Octavia has no power over him at all pre-Blodreina (which we’ll get to that) so the idea that she could possibly abuse Bellamy is pretty absurd. Abuse is a habitual pattern of controlling and belittling behavior by someone with more (actual or perceived) power over another, Octavia had no power over Bellamy at all; Bellamy had an insane amount of power over her that he constantly abuses to isolate and control her.

2.) Bellamy supposedly goes to the ground to “protect” Octavia but his means of doing so are abusive and controlling. In season 1 alone; Bellamy uses physical intimidation and manhandling against Octavia several times, he terrorizes a harmless teenager (remember how he’s a grown ass adult? Yikes...) to keep him away from Octavia who was enjoying his company, then he tortures a man in front of her while she begs him to stop because he doesn’t care about her opinions (more in 4) and he’s the leader of The 100 so he can.

3.) The whole “my sister, my responsibility” thing that everyone thinks is so cute? Yeah, that’s emotional abuse. A figure of authority repeating to a child that they are a burden for existing is disgusting and so, so harmful. That phrase is a reinforcement of the more vicious things Bellamy has said “Mom was floated for having you, she’s dead because you’re alive!” and “My life ended the day you were born!”

4.) Bellamy is constantly belittling, dismissing, and patronizing all of Octavia’s opinions and identity.

“You turned this place into a story from your childhood. I mean, the red queen? It’s a joke.”

I’m not saying that Blodreina was a positive identity for Octavia, but it was something she was forced (remember, she didn’t seek power like Bellamy and Clarke did) to become to survive. Octavia was a mentally ill teenage girl with very limited exposure to the world who has never had any power in her entire life, and suddenly she was responsible for saving the human race. How fucking dare Bellamy mock her for basing her leadership off of stories WHAT THE HELL ELSE WOULD SHE BASE IT OF OFF???

Bellamy had a job and a life on The Arc, Octavia never left her room and had no way of seeing the outside world except through stories. She has literally no reference for ruling, or anything else, except those stories and her brief time with the Grounders. Fuck you and your privilege, Bellamy.

On top of that, Octavia actually did save the human race. That “joke” kept humanity alive.

“It is time to stop playing Grounder before you get yourself hurt.”

Yes, how dare she identify with the only people who have ever accepted her and treated her like a human being. How about you stop “playing” Nazi before you get us everyone killed. Seriously, Octavia is not allowed to disagree with Bellamy without him grabbing her arm and talking down to her like she’s a toddler throwing a tantrum.

5.) As soon as Octavia is in a position of power, one she didn’t even ask for, Bellamy’s abuse gets progressively crueler because he’s trying to regain control. He starts actively using Octavia’s mental illness against her and literally suicide baits her several times.

There is NO excuse. None at all. To tell someone who is severely mentally ill, traumatized, and an active suicide risk that “I wish you were dead” and “you’re already dead”. Trying to push someone to suicide and using someone’s mental illness to hurt them, let alone your own sister, is one of the most evil things you can do. The fact that so much of the fandom ignores this genuinely makes me sick.

Bellamy chooses those words because he knows that is what will hurt Octavia the most and he wants to hurt her. Bellamy has heard Octavia say that she’s already dead when she’s at her lowest points, he knows that those are the words that haunt her and drive her to want to kill herself, and that’s why he uses them as a weapon. Notice that he says them multiple times and at very purposeful times, this is not something he yelled once when he was angry; we see him calmly make the choice to say these things to her several times when he is losing control and wants to break her back down to the helpless little girl who was always happy to see him because of her Stockholm Syndrome.

6.) I think trying to MURDER Octavia THREE FUCKING TIMES deserves its own point. Bellamy poisons Octavia, he suicide baits her and let’s her go through with it (someone else stops her, Bellamy makes no move to), and then he leaves her to die with a lovely extra “My sister is dead” for the road.

7.) Octavia spends most of season 6 groveling and trying to “earn” back Bellamy’s love and we see clearly that “earning” Bellamy’s love means being utterly powerless and subservient. Bellamy loved Octavia when she was a captive little girl but suddenly he can’t produce an ounce of human decency towards her? And don’t give me some “but she’s Blodreina” like Mr. Nazi has any room to judge Octavia for becoming a dictator out of desperation when she didn’t know what else to do and she was forced in a very, very difficult leadership position that she never wanted and all of humanity relied on.

My point is basically that Bellamy’s love is conditional, he holds it over Octavia’s head like a fucking dog treat. He wants “his sister” back but what does that mean? He wants back the scared little girl who couldn’t leave one room and was entirely dependent on him. It’s Octavia having autonomy that Bellamy hates, not her being “evil” because Bellamy is 500x as evil as Octavia and I will die on that hill. You’re telling me that Bellamy of all people is soooo upset that his sister was forced to kill some people in the context of war and keeping humanity alive? As if Bellamy isn’t a mass murderer who has killed way more people for way less. Give me a fucking break. “Octavia is dead” because Bellamy’s victim is dead and he can’t handle that.

But, please, do tell me again how two isolated incidents over six years apart from each other that are both the direct consequences of Bellamy’s autonomous choices make Octavia “eMoTiOnAllY AbUsIvE tO pOoR WitTlE BeLl”.

[alicezan-ncgred]

Bleeding Red

Preface: I’ve been bitching around the bush of this long enough. So, I’ve been really silent on a bunch of stuff that’s been eating me alive which has made me both inactive and unproductive. I’m going to get straight to the point, starting off with the TL:DR from my post on my main blog. Context: An anon asked me if I was alright because I hadn’t updated in a while.

TL:DR You probably didn’t ask this to hear about all the bad shit of my life so here’s the short of it. No, I’m not doing fine. I will try get next weeks post out on time and I’ll work on making up on the lost posts. Updates will return regularly, ‘ite.

Time for the thick and thin of it.

Insecurity and being shafted: I’m stoic, even at my worst I won’t say anything. I’ll push through regardless of my current condition and since I’ve gone years like this, it’s not hard for me to do. In my real life situation, I’m currently in a place of social isolation. This has lead to a somewhat near reliance on Tumblr to be my social outlet. This present many issues.

The main one is that I’m quite the isolationist. This has only been reinforced by many interactions throughout the entirely of my life. Because of this, I can’t say I’ve ever had anything really more than two friends at a time. While in a way this has helped me express myself so well through writing, it’s come at the cost of social skill. I don’t talk to anyone.

With this kind of issue you could easily imagine that the THREE PEOPLE (four now, but very limited) to ever directly talk ended up in a way shafting me. The first blocked and disconnected with me without warning or reason. At this point we’ve been talking to each for about a month and we hit it off very well and then one day, silence. Never heard from them again. That fucked me up hard when I finally realized what happened.

The second person left during the Tumblr P**n Purge. We were talking about how to contact each other on other platforms and then they stopped responding. I had already given contact to other platforms of which they pinged me in any way. Another person that I trusted massively on here just abandoned me and I’m still hurting from that. Wasn’t fair at all.

Then the third person was someone that I been following for a while. This person is actually the reason that I’ve been putting this off for so long. I don’t want them to see this post but they will. I got an ask from them that ultimately turned out to be misinformation. I said I wasn’t mad but I was. I was so fucking angry about it and I’m still kinda mad, but I didn’t want problems. I still don’t. I just didn’t want them to worry about it. This will come back later.

I try my best to be as inoffensive as possible. The problem with that is that much of the things I believe or enjoy are highly divisive. Hell, even my own identity can be seen as offence. I’m bisexual, non-binary (I’m currently still questioning this. I might actually be gender fluid but in the overall scheme, that’s worse than being non-binary), and nonreligious. I’m in a very religious area so you I’m still “in the closet” about much of this IRL. I though it would better online but with how much people are saying bisexuality doesn’t exist, or that non-binary isn’t a valid gender (or that being gender fluid make you insane and you should be locked up) and all the hate people who say they are this are getting, the very community that’s supposed to accept me, HATES me. I had a bi pride flag icon last year during Pride Month. I never doing that ever again. It was terrible.

I’m trying my best to come out of my shell like I said I would when I made this blog but it seems I’m just crawling further into it. People I think I can trust keep setting me up to fall, people I know in real life won’t ever accept my existence if they knew who I really was, and my own mental health problem and self loathing are eating me alive. But that isn’t the total of it.

Crumbling Pillar: I’ve always ended up in the position where things were thrown onto me. In which no one wanted to do, I was stuck with. Because of this not only do I have a severe distaste being around my family (beyond everything mentioned before hand) but I grew to have a negative out look on everything. This effect is still quite obvious in my writings, especially my poems. Out of the 14 poems on my poem blog @washed-soul​, only one has a happy meaning.

The one happy poem was called dreams. Under a metaphor it talks about how a demon kept me trapped in a dark space. I start to get better and nearly break free before I have a negative relapse back to my old ways. The poems ends with the demon putting a end to itself leaving the nightmare in which it was keeping me in to slowly fade away, letting one crack of light peeking through to become a window to a door until one day I walk free. When writing this poem, I never thought I would find myself rebuilding the nightmare but that’s where I am.

I’m done with holding things together that other people have placed onto me. Because of this, issues have began showing in my private life. Issues that should’ve been solved decades ago are only now being addressed. This change in the status quo of my life has caused many issues in my productive and mood. Between everything else I’m too tired to do anything.

Is that a reason, is that an excuse. No it isn’t but it’s the best thing I got as a reason. I’m doing my damnedest to do the best I can but of course, when it comes to the thing that matter I just fall short. Big fucking whopha my intelligence and capability does me if I can’t use it for anything that means a damn.

Meaningless Triviality: I’m a very emotional person. I’m very strongly bound to my emotions and if everything above hasn’t given it away, my emotions are very negative prone. But it just doesn’t stop there, it goes back into my memories. I can only honestly place 3 happy memories for certain that aren’t either A) a dream or B) me escaping reality through my mind. Besides that, almost all my memories are negative. 

People like to throw around the word Nihilist to describe themselves because today's culture is very, god while I hate to use this word, edgy. For those who don’t know a Nihilist is someone who views the world as being completely  meaningless and reject all religious and moral principles. I very truly struggle with this outlook of life. It’s a daily for me to berate myself saying “just kill yourself” or “I want to die” or just shutting down and crumpling up while say “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry” over and over again. Hell, I did that while writing this. 

I take things very hard, even the slightest transgression. I’m so used to trying to make things perfect and because people have the image that I’m the smart one, the mature one, the capable one, I’m left with the over hanging expectation of excellence. Almost no room for margin of error or being human. Since I’m the silent type, I put up no challenge and work to meet it. Only time I get any praise for anything too. 

I guess as a little self promotion to my main blog, for those that have read the very first few updates of my main blog @the-truth-behind-redacted, or read Defiance’s character sheet, while The Machine and Defiance are separate character, they both share the name Machine. That in part is a reflect of said above expectation. How ravenous and inhuman it can be all under the guise of something human. Those characters are the two sides to the same coin. 

Remember how I said I try to be un-problematical and how I try to avoid any potential conflict. In the first segment I told on how I lied about my feelings just so another person didn’t have to worry over something that honestly, in hindsight, wasn’t even really a big deal. But I also said how it consumed me in anger. I just don’t want to bother anyone over anything. It’s part of the reason why I am writing this post, as some way of a self enforced rehab program to get better. 

This absolute consumption of negative emotion has pushed me into a non human state before. I hit a point of absolute mental exhaustion and in such a self enforced bubble of actual hatred I became completely apathetic. I felt numb to everything. I watched and heard of terrible things happening to people, and felt nothing. I watched people lives crumble before them leaving them nowhere to go and LAUGHED. “Just another worthless pathetic worm on this rotting carcass of a planet being hit with the hard reality that life doesn’t care for them. What whimsical pathetic bullshit they deluded themselves with to think otherwise.” This isn’t an exaggeration on how I thought, this is what I actually thought. Which brings me too.

The Mandatory Sob Story: Roll your eyes everyone and get the tiny violin. I guess in order for everyone to exactly understand the place I’m coming from when it comes to mental health I’ll have to detail my experiences. I have a long standing history with mental illness. I have professionally diagnosed OCD, Bipolarism, Anxiety, Chronic Depression, and visual and auditory hallucinations. I take 600 mg of Seroquel a day as well as Amitriptyline when needed. I’m also still currently in therapy to deal with said OCD, Bipolarism, Anxiety, Chronic Depression, the visual and auditory hallucinations, as well as Suicidal thoughts, and my Nihilism. There’s a reason to why I’m so god damn familiar with mental illness and treatment plans.  

OCD and Bipolarism run in my family on my fathers side. My Father’s Father had them, my Sister has them, my brother most likely has them (however he refuses to see a doctor because he uses said possible mental illnesses as a get out of jail free card. He doesn’t want to be treated and he has FUCKING ADMITTED IT), my father has them, and I have them. I, however, have the misfortune of having it real bad. I said yes to well over half of all the total symptoms when I was being tested (I don’t remember exact numbers but I remember there being three pages worth of common symptoms) which was very worrying to the doctor. I was currently in an inpatient hospitalization program at the time for both suicidal thoughts and actions, and severe depression. 

On that, my graze in with suicide. Before I went into my first inpatient program I was contemplating suicide. I was sat in front of a mirror with a bottle of over the counter medication. It was an unopened bottle of ibuprofen, 1000 200mg tables. What I planed to do was down the whole bottle with benadryl and die in my sleep. I had the small box of benadryl got from the Kroger pharmacy and a hand full of ibuprofen poured out looking directly into the mirror. My suicide note was sitting on the desk on my room with an online copy on my laptop open.

I sat there for an hour in the dead of midnight complicating my life. I had lost all hope in the world, filled with hatred, anger, pain, and despair. I had no god or after life to look forward too, part way hoping that a Hell existed for me to burn in. I hated myself that much. I was close to taking the first handful before before I caught a glimpse of my own eyes in the mirror. In what was in a weird sudden epiphany I realized that I truly did become what I hated but not for any reason I told myself. I became the very bastion of negativity I sought to fight and rid of in what little friends I did have. That was what set off my path to recovery in spite of the medical system. I guess if people care I’ll make a separate post on that. 

Before I move on, I feel I should explain my history with the visual and auditory hallucinations. It should be no surprise that with everything else above, I also had extreme paranoia that led to me having very bad insomnia. Insomnia is, just like most other medical disorders like Depression, Self-harm, Anxiety, OCD,  Bipolarism, is romanticized to hell. Insomnia isn’t having one nights bad sleep where you got 5 hours of sleep instead of 8.

You know what Insomnia is? insomnia is being physical incapable of sleeping despite not sleeping in 2 to 3 day while your body suffers massive agony brought on by this. Muscle spasms and seizing, difficulty breathing, your eyes feeling like fire ants are eating them, and of course visual and auditory hallucinations. Now I already had issues with visual and auditory hallucinations even when I could get sleep regularly but the combined effects of my OCD and Bipolarism made this perfect condition of Insomnia, Anxiety, Paranoia, with the already added in disposition to hallucinations and I felt like I was actually losing my mind. 

My hallucinations presented themselves in three forms. Disassociation of reality, night terrors, or alterations of reality. Disassociation of reality often were complete black out moments. I would lose any perceived connect to reality and enter an episode of my mind. I can’t remember what they actually were but I do remember what it felt like. Cold sweats, anxiety to point where if I didn’t lock up I would vomit, actual physical pain, mind numbing fear, and intense fatigue. 

The second were night terrors often in the form of horrific “things.” I do remember these and most of them were as best as I could describe, forms of things that were vaguely human and formations of industrial machinery. The most vivid one I remember was of a long lengthy apparition that was for the most part human but many locations of it’s impossible physiology were rebar beams and mechanical sockets. It began when I was about to fall asleep and it was next to my window. The thing was making week groaning and gasping sounds before it violently slammed against my window breaking it then letting out a horrific howl that I can’t describe as it tossed itself out followed shorty after with the sound of bones breaking against the dirt. 

Now that might not seem so bad, exspecally with everything that is in horror movies or games now, but keep in mind that was fucking real to me. It was as real as the clicking of the keys of my keyboard as I’m writing this. As real as the chair I’m sitting in and as real as the wall in front of me. As far as my mind was concerned that thing, what ever it was, actually existed. It took me physical touching my window to make sure it wasn’t actually broken and checking outside to see if there wasn’t a body there. This isn’t the type of thing I talk about lightly. 

Finally there is the alteration of reality. This is very simply but it’s something that fucked with me hard. For very little meaning or warning, I would have trouble interpreting the world around me. My hearing and sight would be warped and there wasn’t any real way to tell what I was hearing or seeing was real or not until the episode was over. The way I got through these was the ultimate fake it till you make it. Obviously, very often I failed and this created issue in my schooling. 

Ending Message: I’ve been in a very bad state for a while now and as it is now, no signs of getting better. I also strongly believe my medications are being to fail me which I’ve been telling my doctor and therapist for over a year now but nothing’s been done. Mainly it’s my Depression but insomnia episodes are beginning and my own paranoia been on the rise. It’s gotten to the point where I can’t even look at a creepy image or thumbnail without having a very bad episode. 

I’ve managed to eat something today which was nice but my body is cramping hard. And to possible stave of a possible comment, I’m biologically male. Like I said I’m not in the best head space, or living for that matter. If this gets better, only time will tell. 

[sawthefaeriequeen]

Top Ten Books Read In 2018

1) The Last Summer of the Death Warriors by Francisco X. Stork

I picked this up at a book fair, read the summary, and figured I'd surprise myself with this author I'd never heard of before. It's about the friendship between DQ, a guy with terminal cancer dealing with his complicated feelings for his estranged-but-conciliatory family, and Pancho, a guy who's biding his time until he can get revenge on the person who's killed one of his family members. I like that both boys are raw and real and people—Pancho obviously has messed up emotions, but DQ can be plenty bitter and angry too: he's not an Inspirational Cancer Patient stereotype.

2) The Sherwood Ring by Elizabeth Marie Pope

Girl moves into her uncle's old ancestral house sometime during the 18th century and gets immersed into the past lives and loves of the ghosts that thrived there during the days of the Revolutionary War, their paths often crossing each other's. I swear I have never seen more delightful ghost characters in my entire life.

3) The Unbound by V.E. Schwab

So by the time I'd picked this up, I was having mixed feelings about V.E. Schwab – on one hand, she'd always written worlds that engage me almost instantly with their creativity. On the other hand, I'd just recently been horribly disappointed by the ending to what's been her most popular series so far: I thought her final Shades of Magic book did a most spectacular job on dropping the balls on everything good about it. Up to reading it, I'd thought the author's hype was deserved. But after, well…

So when I picked this up, it was with much trepidation. I'd loved the previous book, The Archived: the big old house setting, the grim closed-off girl/sweet sunny boy dynamic the lonesome warrior setup, all were like catnip to my id. I didn't want it ruined by a bad sequel. Fortunately, this book took everything I loved about the book and turned it up to eleven. It upped the stakes, it intensified the relationships, and it also added a mental illness angle that I personally found very meaningful.

The author is still kiiinda on notice so I'm not sure I want a third book. If there is one, dear God, please be good. *crosses fingers*

4) Turtles All The Way Down by John Green

I remember thinking, as I was reading this: this is really, really working for me but will it work for someone neurotypical? 2018 was hell and I was just so desperate for the people in my life to get it, and so I kept hopping on trains of thought like this.

Anyway, this book was spot on in what goes on in the wirings of my anxious brain. Green's usual turns of phrase took an incredibly frenetic turn at times, which, I know, is exactly what it's like to have a mental illness. This is not a book about "this is what to do" it's about how it IS or how it can GET.

I'm still really grateful for that quote about the spiral – how it tightens, but also how it eternally widens. When I first saw the cover, I thought it was kind of blah; now I look at that spiral and see something different. I see the hope of creating a new 'normal'.

5) The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

This was so readable it surprised me. I thought I'd go slow on it because: war story where it's a foregone conclusion that it ends tragically for the leads? Yeah, I'm not in a rush to reach the end of that. But I blazed right through this book. There's something really addictive about Madeline Miller's storytelling and how she brings her characters together and follows their blossomings and downfalls through the years. And then, the course of the Iliad and the inevitable sadness for Achilles, Patroclus, and Briseis was more like the slow turning of the tide rather than getting hit with a tidal wave. Anyway, not only was it readable but I'm finding myself eager to re-read it.

6 ) The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley

Part of my Read Everything Robin McKinley Writes mission that began last year. I'd liked the sheer escapism and the desert setting in The Blue Sword, but that whole white savior thing kinda put me off from enjoying Harry and the book more fully than I would've liked.

It was not so for this book, thankfully! Who knew that reading about the nitty-gritty of slaying big scaly beasts could be so satisfying? That's classic Robin McKinley, as I'm learning – you love what the protag loves. And then I really dug how the dead dragon's ghost haunting Aerin acts as a metaphor for mental illness.

(As I continue to wrestle with my diagnosis, I continually appreciate all the depression/anxiety metaphors I encounter in media. Maybe one day I'll make a post about it) AND ALSO: a love triangle that's actually well done and that serves our heroine's identity and character rather than taking away from it? Yes. Yes, thank you.

7) A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb

Yeah so, this book killed me. It's about two twenty-something ghosts with unfinished business who find themselves in the bodies of two teenagers whose souls appear to have completely vacated theirs. They find themselves falling for each other and trying to find out what happened to their 'hosts' and what went on in their past lives. They also find themselves battling to survive the hostile home lives that their 'hosts' left behind. It's all very beautiful and kind of twisted and also a love letter to words and probably my most unexpected book of the year. And I have NO idea to rec it to people. "Read this, it's kind of fucked up but gorgeous but also can get triggery so step warily?" Uh.

8) Deerskin by Robin McKinley

See warnings above. Oh God. But really, I totally respect Robin McKinley for going full-out faithful to how utterly fucked up fairy tales can be while still creating a survival story. I'm not just talking about Lissar surviving spoilers incestual rape and miscarriage (indeed, I'm not qualified to talk about it) but how hers is a story of healing: by surviving the elements, by nursing living things back into life, by building herself up into a legend without even knowing it.

9) Muse of Nightmares by Laini Taylor

Just an incredibly satisfying ending to a duology that at the same time echoes that quote from Michael Ende's The Neverending Story: "but that is another story and shall be told another time." I love when something ends with that sense of: "there are even more stories and adventures for our beloved characters out there than you can possibly fathom, and you are now free to make up them yourself."

10) Autoboyography by Christina Lauren

I was intrigued by the premise: a half-Jewish guy and a Mormon guy fall for each other over the course of a writing class. And upon starting it, I could tell straight (heh, straight) away that it was going to be a favorite. It's an unabashedly kilig romance about falling for the wonderfulness in each other,and both mains are fucking adorable, and made me want to give them both a ton of hugs. Oh, and this book further reinforced my belief that the key to first-person writing is having a good voice.

Another thing is, I basically never see YA books that deal with growing up in a religion and actually-loving it and having it be an inextricable part of your identity… and then having to deal with the darker, prejudiced sides that you really wish would be excised from it altogether especially if they are opposed to who you are. To deal with it sensitively and touchingly, not only in a YA book but in an m/m romance? Well done.

honorable mention!

-The Secret History by Donna Tartt

I was reading this on the bus on the way home to the province for Christmas and I could not stop laughing and I had no idea to explain to my very curious sister that it was because half the protagonists were high as a kite at the funeral of the friend that they all killed and one of them had just very noisily killed a bee in the church vestibule and it made the loudest sound on the planet and they're all gonna have to ~aesthetically grieve and pallbear now even though THEY killed their friend and w o w it's like Nuwanda from Dead Poets Society was cloned five times.

Sometimes "pretentious people murder someone and somehow it is hilarious" is just exactly my cup of tea.

and a couple of series binges!

Almost 10 years ago (god, what the hell), I had a "YA Paranormal Romances I Might Actually Like" list, and the two trilogies below were on it. There's something gratifying about finally crossing off books on your TBR that have been there for ages:

-The Shade Trilogy by Jeri Smith-Ready (Shade, Shift, Shine) This series came out on the tail of the Great YA Paranormal Romance boom and I really wish I'd picked it up then (I also really wish some of the covers it got weren't so damn off-putting. It's like Animorphs all over again) because it's such cut above so many of the books that were being churned out in those days.

The premise is: what if there was a global paranormal event that left the portion of the population born after a certain year with the ability to see ghosts? I really like that the author thought this out thoroughly – it's not just a oooh spooky ghosties gimmick. Everything is affected: the educational system, the police force, politics, technology, travel, you name it.

The heroine was smart and truth-seeking and had nuancedrelationships with lots of female characters (bff, mentor, aunt who raised her, mom who died… ), the Betty love interest was a total sweetheart who also didn't seem too good to be true and who was capable of making major teenage fuck-ups, and the Veronica love interest was a rock-and-roll ghost who had the post-life character arc that I sadly wish Maggie Stiefvater had given Noah Czerny. I kind of loved them all a lot and one of the reasons I wish I'd read these books as they came out was so I could've been un-jaded just a little bit about Those Pesky Love Triangles.

(Someday I…really ought to make an analysis about why I dislike love triangles in general and what exactly was up with the ones that DID work for me.)

-Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy by Maggie Stiefvater

I read the whole series toward the year's end. It was precisely the cold-weather binge I was craving. I may have my quarrels with some of her writing decision, but really few people can do atmospheric, poetic writing the way Maggie Stiefvater does. The romances were a bit too YA for me in this one, but I ended up really sympathizing with every single POV character anyway. And I mean, cold and poetry and family and books and wolves-as-family*.

(*One day, I'll have the emotional armor to watch Wolf's Rain again. )

[buffernie]

Become a Mental Health Advocate in Ten Seconds or less

On some kind of social media that I’m not sure what it is, someone named Madison (aka @https_mads) wrote the following:

“Stop dropping the suicide hotline every time someone commits. People who are depressed don’t want to talk to a random stranger they want your support and love. We know the hotline exists. It’s a Google search away. If you really care you’d fucking check on your friends.”

Original post seems to have been penned on 6/5/18 at 8:25 PM

I originally saw a picture of this post on facebook and was eager to see the comments but quickly became dismayed to discover how little people understood. For whatever reason they had, they were calling quote selfish, self-focused and several other things. Losing courage, I called my mom for a pick me up only to discover that she felt the same way as those who were against Madison’s brilliant post. My mom believes very much in family—which is great—but believes that once someone is IN a relationship, especially if they have kids, I am to assume their friendship “commitment” to me is to lessen as they have other, new priorities. I was really upset and here are my concerns.

1. PROFESSIONAL CARE IS NEEDED, YES, BUT DOES NOT PROVIDE THE TENDER TOUCH

2. Anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder: WHATEVER THE ISSUE IT IS REINFORCED BY ISOLATION

3. AM I QUALIFIED TO HELP

WHAT PROFESSIONAL HELP CAN’T DO

You might be wondering why I’m so “stuck” on this as my mom would say. Here’s why. I’ve got possibly the best therapist I’ve ever had at this point (I’ve been super blessed that way) and I have a doctor who is very good and cares marginally about my well being. Why isn’t that enough? Easy: Partially because I am paying them. It is like hiring an escort and feeling loved. Unlike an escort, my therapist can’t hold me while I cry. My doctor isn’t available on long nights when the voices are telling me to take my own life. BUT YOU—the one who works odd hours? Could totally field a call and just listen or even talk for a sec about yourself and make me laugh. YOU—who has your kids all day—could totally invite me over for tea or coffee while your kids run amok around the house. YOU—who has a really shitty band with a great name—could try to get me out of the house even just for your practice. YOU—who has a dog and knows I love them—could recommend a play date for our pups. YOU—who works at a bakery— could bring me three left over bagels because you know how hard it is for me to eat breakfast. YOU—who loves the outdoors—could invite me for a short walk. YOU—who ANYTHING—all day at any time could do anything to let me know you care. I told a “friend” a few years ago I was depressed and she promptly informed me that she wouldn’t be able to be in my life. I was heartbroken. But what I told her was there are so many ways to reach out to a friend who is hurting. It is as simple as sending a cute meme to make me smile. Literally. That simple. It says: Hey, I thought of you, I know your heart hurts and I want to make you smile. SO SIMPLE. Not difficult. Not time consuming. But you just did it you magnificent asshole. You just ministered to a mentally ill person. Look at you, soaring far above the blindness of society about this horrific group of illnesses by doing nothing more than sending a text (which you’re doing every day, anyway).

AM I QUALIFIED TO HELP?

Hell to the yeah you are. We all are. “But I don’t know anything about ______”. Oh yeah? Here’s an idea. If you care about your friend as much as you say you do PICK UP A FUCKING BOOK. That simple. Trouble reading due to time? No problem! There’s this great tool called the internet and it’s not too difficult to discern sites that are reputable. Even better, sit down with your friend. Ask them to tell you what they are feeling. Do they feel like meds are helping? Do they need help finding a doctor? What are they scared of the most right now? BOOM. YOU JUST WENT FROM STUPID TO ADVOCATE IN LESS THAN 20 SECONDS. If I were there I’d put a pin on your lapel.

DISEASE OF ISOLATION

Much like addiction, those with mental illness struggle with isolation whether self-imposed or societally-enacted. We’ve all heard the general list of things that are hard to do when you’re depressed like showering or other self-care, getting out of the house, etc. etc. Every time I’ve been suicidal and started making a plan to end my life, 9 out of 10 situations involved me being lonely. Of thinking no one cares. That I am a drain on society. And that both the national budget and my friends would be happier if I were gone. At 34, I’ve finally come to believe that some of my friends really do love and value me; that they would be upset to lose me. Use of semi-colon on purpose. Because that has been a real game changer. But I was diagnosed at 17 and never believed it until now. So now when I think about suicide I cry because of how I know it would make them feel, but in those moments, the pain is so intense, my desire to escape it is very real.

TL;DR SYNOPSIS: it takes less than ten seconds to be there for someone who is hurting.

[theworstassassinever]

So I’m just going to put this here because I need to shout into the void? It is going to be long and ranty and personal, so whatever. 

There’s a possibility that the people this is referring to will see it, and like if that’s the case, so be it. If you do see this, know that I still care about you and whilst I’m angry now about everything, I’m not going to hold onto this resentment and I will forgive you. You’re not a bad person.  I’m hoping that putting this out there will finally get this shit out of my head. Because I’ve been going though phases of being fine, and the suddenly remembering and it’s shitty.  It is going to talk kinda in depth about someone else, and this will refer to some of their personal struggles because the whole incident revolves around that. But basically the story starts with having two friends who are very, very, very fucking sick. Like, one of them cannot stay out of hospital that’s how sick they are. I am going to refer to them as R and K.  I’ve been that kinda sick before, to a slightly lesser degree. It’s not fun. I get that it fucks with your brain, and you at your sickest is not who you really are as a person. And that’s why even though I am angry, I’m not going to hold on to my anger. Because I know deep down, this isn’t you. 

R is autistic, recently diagnosed. Now this friend has a habit of clinging to things they identify as and kinda making that the core of their personality. It’s been a few different things over the years, however they will pick an identity and then get very mad at anyone who they perceive as attacking them for it.  I’m not sure why they do this, but I think it’s because they are ill. See, mental health is like a house that you’re building. It takes self-care and attention to build the house, and whilst others can help you and will help you at the end of the day they can’t build the house for you. Houses are built on a foundation, however if you do not have a strong foundation (identity, self worth, sense of who you are) then anything you build on top of that foundation is going to crumble down at the slightest knock. And R? I don’t think they have a foundation, let alone a stable one.  And R used to message me a lot, mostly consisting of ‘This has happened to me, this is shit, I want someone to know about it’ and like whilst I care, sometimes they message me this when I am in a really bad place. Like last time they messaged me.  See I’d been going through a lot of personal things around this exact same time and I was already upset for various reasons. And then out of the blue I get R messaging me telling me how bad they’ve been treated by these people and how awful everything is, and it’s just like I get that you’re upset, but damn dude I’m already on a bloody downer myself I don’t think I can cope with anything else. Like I was feeling pretty depressed myself and like hearing someone else tell me about how bad things can get and how awful you are treated when you’re that bloody depressed and at the hospital isn’t something that I can deal with all of the time. It’s a lot.  And R told me that a health care professional said something about them, saying that they should speak up for themselves instead of having someone else speak for them. Which like, whilst I can understand the health care professional’s point and where they are coming from, I don’t think it was right for them to say it within the patient’s earshot and in a situation where you’re looking after an incredibly sick person who isn’t going to tell you what is wrong, it’s probably for the best if someone else speaks up and says what it wrong. However, I do not think that that the person themselves should not try to speak up.  Because I said that, R messaged me saying that it was against autistic people, that it was ableist and neurotypical standard that they should not be forced to uphold. And I was like, wait what. And I stated that I disagreed with their statement, that I did not think that someone saying that R should attempt to speak for themselves and not let someone else speak for them all the time is inherently ableist. However I did say that I thought the context in which the statement was said was extremely unprofessional and should never have happened.  R stopped replying to me, and like I knew instantly they were pissed at me. However, I thought this would be something that we’d get over and move on from and that R just needed some time to cool down. This was the last direct interaction I had with R. About two days later I got a long message from R’s girlfriend, K. Now K is someone who at the time, I would have considered a very close friend. I care a lot about K, and they haven’t had the easiest run in life. Like K is someone who has lived with me and my mum a few times because their own home is pretty unbearable.  This message started with them saying that they’d spoken to R, and wanted to hash some things out with me. The whole message felt very condescending, and it was very much of the tone ‘you know nothing about autistic people’. A direct quote from K’s message is “I think things need to be explained so people who aren't autistic, or aren't around autistic people a lot can understand.”  And that kinda made my blood boil. For some back context, I realised that neither K or R asked me how I was doing or anything about myself around about April? And I was curious to know weather this was just be being too sensitive to something or not realising, or if it was an actual thing that was happening. So I made a conscious decision to not offer information like I used to, and to wait until they asked me about my life, or what I was doing and that kind of thing.  And part of what annoyed me the most, was that for the past few months I had been unofficially seeing / casually dating someone. And the person who I was seeing was autistic.  Now again their autism wasn’t the main focus of our relationship (fucking obviously) but I did do quite a bit of research into finding out more about it and like talking to this guy about things and just in general spending most, if not all of my time, around this guy.  So for K, who I considered one of my closest friends, to basically talk down to me about autism and say that I clearly didn’t understand it or spend a lot of time around people with autism (also, another member of that same friend group is autistic might I add) really like offended me.  K didn’t know this about my life, and I connected the dots and realised that K didn’t know a lot of things about my life anymore that hurt because I always asked K about things, how uni was doing or R and other stuff because I cared. Everyone in my life knew about the guy I was casually seeing, and I realised that neither K or R did, because they never asked and i started to think that maybe they do not care.  I even asked this guy himself, told him what had gone down and asked if I was being ableist and I even asked a few different people who I knew to see if i had done wrong and just couldn’t see it. Some people didn’t word their responses kindly, but the consensus was, wtf?  I was stuck in this conversation, feeling like I was being talked down to, realising that these people did not actually know really about my life, not being able to disagree with them on a certain point, and i thought to myself, this isn’t healthy. I was being told that I cannot speak on the issue, that what I think doesn’t matter because I wasn’t autistic. I don’t get to decide what is and isn’t ableist, however wouldn’t anyone who was accused of such a thing try to defend themselves? Especially if they wholeheartedly believed that the statement wasn’t true.  K messaged me to explain and defend themselves for speaking up and telling the mental health professionals things about R and that was fine. And it is fine, K had every right to do that. Just like I have every right to tell someone that, hey I do not agree with you and i think you are wrong.  And fundamentally I realised that I could not disagree with R, and in turn that meant K.  K also told me that ‘Yes autistic people can learn to change how they communicate but why should they? Why should an individual constantly distress themselves and tell themselves they aren't good enough to learn to communicate how "normal" people do’ And my response to that is, no one is telling an autistic person that they are not good enough. No one has said such a thing. I think that maybe R is insecure about being autistic, that they feel bad about it when it is not something to feel bad or ashamed of at all. Autism is not something that will hold you back from achieving anything, it may mean that it takes you longer to do certain things, that you need more help and patience and support whilst doing things, but I do not believe that it excludes you from doing those things either.  No one is telling themselves that autistic people are not good enough, because they are good enough. Some of the sweetest, kindest, most intelligent people who I have met in my life have been autistic. They are good enough to learn to communicate.  I think it is good for them to push themselves to use words and speak to people, because especially when coupled with social anxiety you can create a fear of speaking to people in your head and by not even attempting to speak, you are reinforcing this fear in your head.  The only way you are going to get better at communicating is to practice doing it. Again I do not think that being autistic gives you an excuse to not try to speak or do anything. I do not think that is problematic. I just do not. I may be wrong in thinking that, but I do not feel as if I should be made out to be a bad person for having that point of view.  I should be able to disagree with my friends without it turning into a massive blow out and completely breaking up a friendship. 

So I composed a long messaged.  Now I am not going to lie, this message was harsh.  I told them that I understood a fair amount about autism, more than they believed I did anyway. I told them that I spent time around people with autism. I stated that whilst I understood everyone was different that I did not understand why they expected everything to change for them, and that they seemed to expect these changes to happen overnight whilst the world does not work like that.  Change happens gradually over time, and other people need time to get used to things. You cannot just force things upon other people, because the more do you that, the more someone tries to reject that viewpoint.  I said in regards to R and how they are treated, everything is awful and nothing is ever good enough. Everything seemed to be awful, and problematic, and everything was derogatory and bad and no one ever seemed to be kind to R or say anything that wasn’t directly attacking them.  I stated that I was scared to speak my opinions, tell them things about my life or say things that I truly think because I believed they would just brand me as ‘toxic’ or ‘problematic’ and that a disagreement would become a big issue.  I told them that I believe both K and R, but R especially, victimises themselves and takes everything as a personal attack even when they don’t need to. That everything is doom and gloom and going to hurt you or attack you, when if you look at the world from a much healthier mindset that it isn’t the case. (again, going back to the strong foundation, which neither R or K have because they are sick).  I stated that they only see the world like that because of their illnesses, and that it is easier to focus and blame other people for what is wrong and what is going on, because especially when you are that sick it is harder to focus on your own issues or what is going wrong with you.  Calling everyone else ‘problematic’ because they do not agree with you, isn’t healthy. Taking everything as a personal attack on your and your character, isn’t healthy.  K and R need to reflect on why they feel like that, realise that those patterns of behaviour are not healthy and are just making them feel even more sick. It’s a downward spiral that they are never going to climb out of until they break it. They need to focus inwards and internally, fix themselves and help themselves and put on your own goddamn oxygen mask before they go out and try to fix the world.  I stated that if someone else was constantly in the wrong, that they did not have to examine their own behaviour and look at what they were doing, I told them that if someone was hurting you and attacking you, that you feel powerless to stop them and you do not do anything. You absolve yourself of power, when in reality you have more power over that situation than you ever realise.  I said that their world views were very skewed because of how sick both K and R are. R will happily walk around with fresh self harm cuts and burns with them out on display, and not realise how harmful or triggering that could be to anyone else. They used to have the saying that implied self harm wasn’t bad because it stopped you from attempting suicide, which is an awfully dangerous and super unhealthy mindset to have.  Both of them together create a toxic environment, where one negative thing leads into another. Where R is constantly telling K how bad things are, how awful the world is and when K is hearing them things constantly, K is going to start believing that and it will in turn make K worse.  With both of them together, feeding into the same cycle, neither will get better. And it breaks my heart because when both of them are healthier, they are amazing extraordinary people who I care for a lot.  But when they are sick? It is awful. I told them that every conversation we had revolved around R’s illness, because it did. Every single conversation any of us had ended back to that. I pointed out that they didn’t know anything about what I had done in the past year, that they had never asked and did not seem to care. And it fucking hurts when you care about someone more than they care about you. It’s awful. I said that neither of them seem to care about anything other than themselves or their illnesses, that it was unhealthy and it was too much for me to deal with because being in that one-sided relationship where you are constantly providing support and care but getting nothing back would drain even the most selfless of people. It creates a negative impact on your mental health, and when you are already feeling bad and like depression is trying to drag you down into the abyss, the last thing you need is someone telling you how awful everything is and trying to claw you down as well. I told them that I deserved better than a one-sided friendship, that I deserve friends who I can disagree with without being made to feel like a bad person, I deserve friends who ask how I'm doing and know things about my life and actually care about me.   I’m not wrong there. I do have friends like that, other friends and I love them.  I ended the message by saying that even though I cared about both of them, I needed a break and to be away from them because it was negatively impacting my own mood. I had to put on my own oxygen mask, and help myself before I could help anyone else. Because at the end of the day, I am the only person who can fix me. And they can only fix themselves.  The message I got was a ‘if that’s how you think and feel, then that is that, if you need space and time away do that, I’m not going to write a long message back’. And like, in a way I could understand it but it also broke my heart. I felt like K did not care enough to fight or put effort into our friendship that we’d had since we were 14. It felt like one disagreement, and they were just ready to throw it all away and that hurt like a bitch.  They stated that they were not even going to say anything, not try to sort out any of the issues with me or communicate. It was just radio silence.  However I decided that, maybe it was for the best and what I wanted. I was willing to leave things at that for a while.  UNTIL TWO HOURS LATER. I got a message, from a friend of K and R’s who shall be named S.  S messaged me saying how me saying that I’d be better off without R and K was very triggering, how S would never call them selfish because R cared about other people and their animals, how knowing one autistic people didn’t mean that you understood autistic people (not hypocritical at all...), how S disagreed with me saying that they viewed themselves as a victim, how S witnessed a different side to things and how S didn’t want me to lose a friendship over a disagreement.  Well guess what S? Your message was the reason why I decided to terminate the friendship.  I have never spoken to S before in my life. I didn’t even know S was someone who existed. However I felt violated that K had not only shared the message I had sent, but twisted the words.  I never said that I would be better off without K or S, I said that I deserved better friends who cared about me and that I needed time away from them to look after myself because they were a lot. I never called anyone selfish.  And it was the fact that my words got twisted in such a way, that S had been told so much and decided to message me, that K couldn’t say anything to try and fix our relationship but was more than happy to rant about how awful I was to S? That the message had been shared with R, and they too had been ranting to S and other mutual friends.  That was too much, especially after I said that I needed time away and that I needed space. I was made out to seem like such a bad and awful person, however none of this was said to me.  I messaged S asked them to never speak to me again, but then at 3am when I was upset and angry and hurt I send a long message back which I when through their points. I unfriended both K and R, because I didn’t like the idea of someone who was so willing to say shit about me behind my back and be so unwilling to talk things through with me or say it directly to me being labelled as a ‘friend’.  I said what I needed to say directly to K, knowing that R would read it. So much awful things have been said about me behind my back and not to my face. I blocked R on facebook, because I did not want them to contact me (i also sent a link to a taylor swift song containing the lyrics ‘did you think i wouldn’t hear all the things you said about me?’ because i was angry and petty as fuck). However, the line for K to talk to me is still open, because I still care about K and whole fucking lot.  R went on to message a mutual friend that I had said awful things about autistic people, painting me in an bad light and the mutual friend even messaged me to get my side of the story knowing that I would never deliberately be that malicious.  Which upsets me, why talk shit about me to a mutual friend when you are not willing to say anything directly to me?  But no, I’m the bad person who got a whole entire facebook status written about them. I’m the person who gets told ‘screw you’ by K even though before this incident, I fucking cared about K so much and would do pretty much anything for them. But no, I’m awful and screw me. It is a lot.  And I want this to be over with.  I want to stop hurting about my ‘friends’ doing this to me. If they truly knew who I was, they would know that I’m not malicious or vindictive or someone who hates another person because they are autistic.  Sure, especially when I am hurt or in a bad place I am harsh and blunt but does that make me bad? No. If they knew me at all, they would know that.  It hurts to care about someone, and then realise that evidently they do not give that much of a fuck about you. It hurts that someone is so willing to trash you to mutual friends and try to turn them against me just to make themselves feel better.  It hurts, but I’m stronger than that hurt. And here is the thing. I’m upset, I am angry. I don’t think that I explained myself the clearest or did everything right. I am not always right.  However, I am not a bad person. I know who I am, and I know who I am not.  I don’t blame you for being hurt, I don’t blame you for being angry. I do think you treated me awfully, and should take a long hard look at yourself and your actions and not do it to someone else.  I think once you get past the stage of hating me and writing screw you messages, maybe you will be able to realise that I’m not the awful person you think I am.  K, if you want to talk or sort things out, that door is open for when you are not angry and when you do not hate me anymore. If you never want to talk or do not get to that point, it is fine, but if you do you know how to contact me. I still care about you a lot and wish you well. Your actions have hurt me, but it isn’t anything I won’t come back from.  You’re a good person, and you need to look after yourself and take some time away from the whole situation, from everyone involved including me and R and work on yourself. You are stronger than your issues.  I don’t know what else to say. I’ll forgive both of them eventually, because holding on to the hurt and the anger is only hurting me. It’s something that I will get over, and i hope by sending this out into the void and getting this off my chest that maybe I’ll be able to forget about it and move on. For now, peace out. x 

[golbatgender]

The thing I don't see talked about in regards to people who claim to be triggered by ships or the word "queer": if you're repeatedly exposed to an innocuous trigger (in other words, a trigger that didn't literally cause the trauma in the first place but is merely associated with it), it usually becomes less triggering. Meanwhile, acting like it's a deliberate insult or assault every time you accidentally encounter it makes it worse. So does displacing the fault for the trauma onto the trigger coincidentally associated with it instead of connecting it to the actual cause or perpetrator.

People should get to control their own trigger exposure. Other people should endeavor to help them to a reasonable degree. However, this is not always possible, or in some cases the measures necessary to avoid the trigger actively harm others, as opposed to mildly inconvenience. Additionally, for any of this accommodation to do anything but cause you develop secondary triggers at the mere thought of your primary triggers, you have to want to get better. You have to want to desensitize yourself to the triggers that are so pervasive or intrusive that they impede functioning or make it so you can't be in the presence of people just living their lives. You have to learn to ground yourself and say "No this is not actually harming me," instead of reinforcing your avoidance of the thing. You have to keep doing this because you know it will get easier. You're allowed to take a couple years to decompress after a bad thing, but you don't get to inflict it on innocent bystanders and pursue them if they try to escape the toxic offload, and after that you have to, have to realize that you have years of life left to live and you need to go on and go about living in a way that will long-term be less miserable, because being triggered by everyday phrases or subjects or household objects is an extremely miserable way to live, especially if you intend to continue living for several decades, and your brain can change those associations or make them less bad with enough time, motivation, and practice. Some of them, at least. The ones that occur as a part of everyday life, definitely.

And this is not some "neurotypical bullshit." This is "I have two mental illnesses that cause trigger formation and one of them means I form triggers more easily than most other people in response to distressing situations, and I had to figure out how to deal with that somehow so I could hug my friends or function in the vicinity of Halloween decorations or keep a job or even do the fucking dishes." It works. And your right to ask people to modify things for your access ends where it threatens to undo decades of queer liberation or control people's sexualities without their consent, or involves accusing people of crimes they didn't commit and never would commit just because the flashback logic says something is similar. How dare you be that self-centered. Why not just get a cold and deliberately sneeze on people, if you want to make your problems an excuse to hurt people for your own comfort? Learn how to deal, because, though you may not agree with me now, you do have a future and you will have to live with the consequences of your current actions, and you need to make that future worth living, for the sake of everyone around you, but most of all for you.

[juuls]

Facing uncomfortable truths about abuse

This week has been about facing truths, some of which I wish I never had to face, and I know that Mr. Juulna has had to face some pretty harsh truths as I have spoken them to him. Some he has accepted, at least at face value, and some I don’t think he will ever be willing to face, let alone accept.

One of which (is a vast meta umbrella) is that he abused me.

But... it was in a subtle way. Before last Tuesday, July 4th (yes, apparently fate decided to be dramatic with me and its timing), I was unwilling to truly accept that I was abused. 

I wasn’t being physically abused. No, not often. (Yeah, and isn’t that a ridiculous sounding statement.)

But subtle, emotional abuse, is still abuse.

And it took me reading this passage in a fic I was reading, a poly Avengers fic called all this devotion (i never knew at all). It... has some tough topics, especially concerning Tony, a sub, and his former relationship with his dom, Obadiah Stane (the dude Tony killed in the first Iron Man movie). 

[Thank you so much @themonstersoflove for writing this beautiful fic and helping me handle my own problems dealing with abuse. You don’t know how much this helped me.]

Like... okay, fine. Poly and slash and sub/dom isn’t for everyone. The latter is certainly not my usual cup of tea to read, but I don’t mind it at all. I sort of read everything in a ship or fandom I enjoy. And this I very much enjoyed, but for more than the smut. It was an emotional journey, and an important one.

But the point is that, no matter the subject, this following passage has a very important message. And it struck a huge chord within me.

Tony sighs, [...] "You all do better than Obi on that front. What you say or do, you mean. Half the time when he said he was fine, he didn’t mean it."

“Why’d you stay with him?” Steve blurts, then winces. [...]

Tony rolls to face him, and gazes at him with incisive, dark eyes: Howard’s eyes. “I hate that question,” he says after what seems an age.

“Sorry. Sorry, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to-“

“No. I should.” [...] “I hate it because there’s never a good answer. There’s never an answer that satisfies people as to why a smart, wealthy man with all the world before him would choose to stay with someone who hurt him.”

“Any answer you give would be enough for me,” says Steve, and Tony half-smiles.

“So noble. All right. Part of it was that people have this picture of abuse, where it’s a hundred percent of the time someone’s being evil and hitting the victim twenty-four-seven and, I don’t know, threatening their cat until the victim gets mad and burns the bed with him or her in it.”

“I- is that… a real thing?”

Tony laughs. “No, no, it was this awful movie on Lifetime. Sorry, I didn’t mean to confuse you. But that’s the thing, is Obi wasn’t cruel ten percent of the time, or even five percent. The times when he would be angry and hurt me were few and far between, and I always believed him when he said he was sorry, that he’d change, because for months or years at a time, he would. You got to remember, Steve, we were together twenty years.”

“So… there were good times?” It seems impossible that someone who owned the things [very cruel and improperly used BDSM implements] Steve saw in that trunk could be kind, could be good.

“Of course,” Tony says, frowning and looking at Steve as though he’s said something exceptionally dim. “I mean, I know it doesn’t fit your – let’s face it – black and white concepts of morality, but he could be nice. Very few people in this world are a hundred percent evil to everything and everyone. He was a great cook,” Tony smiles with the memory, “and he used to make the best breakfasts the morning after scenes and feed me in bed. Or when I was a kid, and my dad and mom were out at charity things that I didn’t go to, he’d come over and we’d tinker together, and then he’d make pizza from scratch. Before I hired Pepper, after my parents died, it was Obi that kept me from self-destructing.”

Tony shrugs, [...] “Which was another reason. I had a lot of good memories associated with him, and if I acknowledged that he was abusive, those memories seemed… devalued. Unreal. [...]”

[...]

“Anyway. I suppose the last part of it was fear. Obi was… the most stable thing I had in my life. Everything else changed, constantly, but I could always go to Obi’s place and know exactly what to do, where to go. Obi said he could make me the perfect sub, could help me get over what the schools did to me, and I thought he could. Even though he couldn’t, even though it hurt, I valued his confidence. His belief that I could be perfect, and not broken. As time went on, he just became-“ Tony gestures, frustrated, “-part of me. I didn’t know how I’d ever find anyone who treated me like Obi did, like I was valuable for something beyond being Tony Stark, and it just seemed easier to stay than to go, restructure the company, possibly be revealed.”

After I read this passage, I sat in my bath and just stared at nothing, trying to process what it was that I was feeling. It was... it was really hard. To see what I was feeling (mostly) put into words that I could read on a page and recognize in a relationship laid out before me on the page, with characters whom I could see this readily happening to, with the way it was explained.

It was terrifying, but it was also freeing.

I’ve finally -- not just with this, but with a lot of things leading up to this -- been able to recognize what happened to me. To accept that I was abused. That I will be experiencing the aftereffects of what I went through for a long time to come.

That just because it wasn’t “as bad” or “physical” like other people experience in abusive relationships, that just because I am strong and have a good support network and came out of this relationship not a complete mess, broken pieces to be glued back together but never to be the same again...

... just because I’m not all of that, does not mean I am any less justified in calling what happened to me abuse.

I was made to feel like my illnesses were a burden; that I should stop complaining about the immense amounts of unrelieved pain I was in. 

I was yelled at and stalked online and told how terrible I was for blogging about what I did, and for writing fanfiction about what I did. That I was a whore, a harlot, a slut. That I was having an emotional affair; that I was cheating on him by writing what I did.

And when he would get extra specially mad, like when I would inevitably push back (because fuck him) -- he would throw things that would break whatever was hit by whatever it was he’d thrown. Or he would punch walls and doors. And more.

One time he was in the car and rammed it into the side of the house.

Very shortly afterwards, he threw his luggage at me.

And then... then he shoved me against the porch wall, his hand around my throat.

All of this was going on while I was being bullied in the reylo and reylux star wars fandom, and it was even going on before and after I was hacked and my fics removed (yes, it could have been him, but he’s terrible at lying and surprising me, and I honestly do believe he didn’t do it... but I still could be wrong). So, I was facing attacks about my fanfiction writing from two fronts, and I felt like I couldn’t receive comfort from him during my time of emotional need... which just led me further from him, and reinforced his accusations of emotional distancing. (Which, yep, were happening... but because of him.)

But... I still stayed with him.

Why?

Like Tony said... it’s hard to come up with an answer that makes sense and will satisfy the person asking.

He did all that stuff to me and more. Most of it was little things here and there that just added up. It got to the point where I was living in fear of him. I was still doing the things he hated (because, again, fuck him), but I was making sure to hide them -- to hide me -- from him so that he wouldn’t get mad.

All the while protesting that he was a good person. That he had his great moments, and great parts to him that outshone the bad. 

That I still believed in him and his ability to change.

And he did change. That’s what made leaving all the harder. The fact that he had changed from how awful he’d previously been, made it harder for me to realize that it just wasn’t going to work out. That I needed more than just his trying better and being better. I needed to not be with him more than I needed him to change to suit me.

Because in the end, I want what’s best for him as well. I want him to realize how fucked up everything became, how fucked up he treated me... but I also want him to have someone who can be what he needs, and what she/he needs.

Despite it all, despite how it sounds, he is a (mostly) good person. Our fighting is part of his development, and a divorce will serve as punishment enough. Because we did have great times. He’s still at fault, he still did me horrible wrongs that I will never forget or forgive, but I have hope he can be a better person for any new people to come into his life, into my former position in his life. I hope for their sake that he’ll have chilled the fuck out by then, though, and maybe he will without me in his life.

But there were a lot of warning signs that I missed -- that I should have seen and pieced together -- because those signs were too small, too far apart, too innocuous at first, for me to realize I was being abused.

And I know that there are many more people out there like me.

Don’t be afraid, ladies and gents, to leave. Leaving is the hardest thing you will do, but after that it gets better, despite the hardship, feelings of being lost, etc.

You have more friends than you know.

Abuse is abuse, no matter if it’s all the time or rarely, or physical or emotional/mental. 

I love you, even if I don’t know you. I’m here for you, as I know you’re here for me.

*hugs and love*

[lcncasters-blog]

hey everyone!!! i’m d, i’m 23, and i use they/them pronouns. super hyped about being here so i’ma just get right into it

so kai is my fave character and kinda notoriously The Worst while also being The Best, so i’m warning y’all before we even go in that he’s actually so sloppy and wild pls proceed w/ caution. i’ve been playing him for over 4 years. that being said, he does have a fuck ton of information, so while the bullet points are going to be as condensed as i can possibly make them, you should really check out the appearance section (or you can just look at my sidebar which is wonderful artwork of kai one of my close friends did for me --- give them love on their art blog nialls ok SO talented) of his STATS FRAMEWORK and then if you really hate yourself i have a DEVELOPMENT TAG too with a bunch of headcanons (feel free to RB the rebloggable ones from me btw)

LOUIS TOMLINSON? no ⏤ KAI LANCASTER, the DEMIBOY is TWENTY-THREE and was born with a GOLD soul, and now has a GREY soul. i would describe HIM/THEM as EXUBERANT + BRAVE, yet CARELESS + IMPATIENT. KAI spends HIS/THEIR time PLAYING AT SMALL VENUES WITH HIS ALT ROCK BAND AND WORKING AS A NANNY and has lived in seattle for TWO YEARS.

TW FOR TERMINAL ILLNESS/CANCER, SUBSTANCE ABUSE MENTIONS, ABLEISM, & MENTIONS OF SELF-HARM/SUICIDE.

kai was born a gold soul into a pretty posh, old-money typea family in manchester, uk. like i’m talking on his mothers side they’re all doctors, lawyers, scholars, etc, etc, and on his dad’s side entrepeneurs. his parents themselves built a fairly large business from the ground up together that now goes by the name of lancaster industries. their current biggest venture and pretty much what they’ve built the whole of their fortune on is a chain of luxury hotels that you can find basically in every major city in the world.

he had 3 younger sisters who he essentially raised considering his parents were too busy to be around during their childhood. only two of them are still living, his youngest sister having passed a couple years ago at the age of 7 from leukemia.

his mother is literally the devil? kai always hated school/struggled in it for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which were his not diagnosed adhd and his dyslexia, which he never got the help he probably needed for. he’s always kinda just thought he was extremely stupid, and that idea was reinforced by the way his mother always used to tell him the very same thing. “think harder, kai. use your brain.” is a phrase that’s essentially been reinforced so many times in his head, he p much hears her voice ringing in his ears every time he gets so much as vaguely confused now.

that being said, despite how he struggled in school, he was always a very vibrant, kind, charismatic, and magnetic young person. he tends to draw people into him with his silly nature and upbeat attitude, and he’s kind of the Eternal Optimist, so he was fairly popular when he was attending. to say he has eccentricities would be putting it lightly, and he’s loud, never seeming to run out of things to say or fail to command the interest of the room.

anyway things with his mum only got worse in his relationship with her when he barely managed to complete his a levels by the skin of his teeth (and with an absurd amount of tutoring), and then refused to go to the university of her choosing. she p much wanted him to “get his shit together” so he could take over the family business someday, but i am not kidding when i say kai would wilt away and probably legit just die if he had to work in a place like that forever – and that’s assuming he even got through business school in the first place.

his father was always a push-over and sort of was absent/bent to her will when he was around, so he didn’t bother to defend kai when his mother decided 2 cut him off from everything and essentially ex-communicate him once she realised he was refusing 2 be manipulated and forced into shit anymore.

that was at age 18, and by that point he had plans to move out and travel to london with his best mate anyway, so he was basically like “peace out” and got the hell out of dodge. he still harbours a lot of guilt for abandoning his younger sisters, particularly so considering his youngest one fell ill so soon after his departure.

he lives, breathes, and sleeps piano. music as a whole is something he’s passionate about, having taken the time to develop his somewhat unorthodox voice, but the way his fingers fly over the ivories is a living art form more than it is anything. it’s how he communicates, how he speaks his deepest truth and just like? put those feelings out there into the world that he otherwise wouldn’t be able to articulate in the common vernacular.

so what he wants to do with his life is to just? talk to people? through his music? to play for them and the be in front of a crowd every night and to feel the energy of them, to command them with his presence and to exist with them in that way. he almost gets high off of it? he’s been playing small shows since age nineteen with his band, but since he moved to america he obvi hasn’t had them and has been on his own.

SORRY I’M REALLY TRYING TO CONDENSE THIS so ok basically he was in love w this girl from the time they were 14. they lost their virginity 2 each other, they were on & off all through HS, & then through to age 20 after he moved away and all that. she was v v ill and struggled with mental illness and kai tried his best 2 take care of her, but he was always in over his head despite his dedication to like making her feel OKAY. she needed help that he could not give 2 her, and they ended up breaking up & him letting her go at the end. she died soon after that, and it remains unclear 2 him whether or not it was a suicide. it was officially ruled as an “accident”, but he knows different and yeah i mean. essentially like.... the most “smudges” on his soul kinda came from his sitch w her bc he was always coming and leaving and dropping her and returning when she needed him and like. he TRIED but he just COULDN’T? anyways

after that he got involved with this boy who was a substance abuser, addicted to H to b exact, and for a while he thought that he was getting better and they were building off of each other, building a healthy life together. the fact he called kai his “new addiction” was probably never a good thing, but kai didn’t recognize that at the time. they got engaged eventually, and kai was 100% convinced that he was the actual love of his life after caro. of course, in the end, it wasn’t built to last, and when it went bad, it went really bad. kai eventually felt like there was a chasm several miles deep between them, and he had no hope of getting to the other side again. he broke it off, broke the guy’s heart, and made his soul even darker.

THIS NEXT ONE IS KINDA AN OPTION CONNECTION OKAY SO IF ANY1 IS INTERESTED PLS PLS LMK!!!

kai has been posting vids on YT of him covering songs on his YouTube for like actual years, and when he was around 20 he met this person via the comments section on one of them. they seemed to be quite the fan of his interpretation of some of the songs he chose to play. they ended up talking more and more as time went on, exchanging contact information, and grew very very very close.

that was the start of the LDR that is what brought him to america/to seattle in the first place. they were together for about eight months and had seen each other in person three times for a total of about 3 weeks before he made the decision to get started on his visa and move to the states. the moment he was able to, he crossed the pond and moved in w them!!

strain on their relationship was created when at first kai was unable to find work and contribute to the bills and the household funds. they lived in a tiny flat, and going from barely seeing each other to having each other all at once and all the time was a lot. on top of that, kai was homesick and restless and felt trapped because that’s what kai does and it’s not okay and it’s totally wrong and he cheated on them soooo there’s another tick against his soul ig. within six months of his arrival, they broke up, and kai moved out.

he couch surfed w some friends he’d met 4 a while, and eventually found a decent paying job as a nanny for a well off family.

he plays live shows at small venues in bars/clubs and still seeks to make a living as a musician but it’s hard out there and plus his soul aint exactly the prettiest to look at any more. i mean he doesn’t have a DARK DARK grey soul, it’s more a lighter grey, not quite silver, but definitely not storm clouds.

he’s still working on getting his full citizenship though he’s v v v close 2 it & has been lowkey getting help from his cousin w paying for the process so!!

THAT’S BASICALLY IT

last but not least IM REALLY FUCKING SORRY  ICOULDN’T MAKE THIS SHORTER I JUST HAVE A LOT OF THOUGHTS AND fEELIGNSA

SEND ME AN IM OR LIKE IF YOU WANT TO PLOT!

[thelocalrebel]

on emotional neglect and mental health struggles; with a malay-muslim twist

They say life is a series of coping mechanisms, and waiting for just that one mechanism that will finally kill you.

Freaky, right? But as someone who’s managed to ‘keep it together’ despite their internal monologue of screaming (or absolutely nothing, on those numb days) this is how I’d describe my state of existence. 

I don’t have a diagnosis. A lot stops me from getting one: firstly, a family and culture that deems mental illness as a lack of faith, or just “being weak”. Two, knowing that having one likely won’t solve the problem. Three - and the loudest no in my head - is the constant, chafing guilt that I’m not sick enough. That I don’t deserve to seek help because I get out of bed everyday, I get things done, and I have a huge smile on my face. In short, because I appear “normal” and “haven’t suffered enough”. Whatever that means.

Sure, I have days when the Feelings™ smack me with a hammer while yelling “Suffer Time!!”. Days where I forget to eat, where I just want to self-isolate and shut out the world with its never-ending expectations of me. Where it’s like I’m wading through a fog, all the while mindlessly doing things for the sake of doing it and to pass the time. Just to fill the void in my chest, and the incessant voice in my head that insists I’m a shitstain who deserves everything bad happening to me. What’s worse is I can’t pinpoint the trigger for this - it just is, and it’s everywhere. Like clingwrap, but somehow it’s around your throat and your face and someone’s pressing it down on you and you just. Can’t. Breathe. (If it’s bad enough, I shut down. I’ll be conscious, but I won’t be here).

So I bottle. I minimise my feelings and sublime all that toxic energy into other endeavours. Like getting high on sugar, caffeine, or anything that allows me to escape. If I’m lucky, I’ll feel numb again - which, ironically, maxes out the self-loathing. It hurts more as an asexual aromantic, because this just reinforces the stereotype of how I’m still broken for not having feelings. Which is why I prefer to constantly keep myself busy and get things done, because at least that shuts out my thoughts. Usually. And if nothing works, there’s always the perfect go-to fix: sleep.

It’s to sell the facade, see. Besides ensuring that I can still function, it’s to avoid the concerned questions because when it comes to Real Talk, I’ll probably start crying thanks to all repressed emotions all these years. That’s why humour - a mature defence mechanism, even - is an amazing cover. What’s the point of Suffering™ if you can’t laugh about it, right? (It’s to blunt the sense of hopelessness and powerlessness, actually). HAHA. People still get surprised when I tell them I have stage fright. They see the easy-going confidence and calmness - but not the tension in my muscles, my racing heartbeat, and the tunnel vision.

Yet, I still don’t think I deserve the “honour” of putting a name to my struggles, not when other people have it worse than me. That I’m just blowing things out of proportion again, that I’m being hyper-sensitive, that it’s just a phase, that I’m being irrational. But I cannot honestly remember a time when I wasn’t like this, and I don’t know if my inability to remember is because I’m repressing again or I genuinely don’t remember.

It doesn’t help to grow up in a family that - in typical Asian style - throws around you’re imagining things, I did [hurtful thing] because I love you like confetti when I tell them my feelings about their actions. Sure, they support my physical needs just fine, but on the flip side, rarely affirm whatever I do - and definitely voice out when I do fuck up. What’s the end message I got? That my feelings aren’t valid. That what I want or do isn’t worth it. Because if I don’t respond the way they want to, they’ll somehow redirect it to make it my fault. (This is emotional neglect and/or abuse, by the way).

For some reason, collectivism (i.e. “Asian-ness”) demands us to be emotionally unexpressive to not offend others or influence them with our emotions. Plus, in my experience, praise is frowned upon in Malay-Muslim culture in fears of inflating egos and cultivating self-pride because such behaviours are sinful. So what do we get? A community that frowns on affirmation. I don’t remember a time where I was ever praised by family. If I was, it usually was a backhanded compliment, making me wholly resistant to compliments I receive now because I just can’t accept it. I can’t believe that I’m what people describe me to be, because I grew up in an environment that always made me second-guess my worth and right to exist. Yes. What’s the thought that gets hammered in? I’m never enough.

I don’t even want to talk about how religion has influenced how my feelings are trivialised by well-meaning but ultimately harmful statements from family, where I eventually internalised such thoughts to self-minimise my own feelings. The concept of rezeki, or one’s fortune, makes them say things like at least he’s still providing for you when I point out his toxic behaviours towards us, and you should be thankful that you’re not like those people in [impoverished or disaster-stricken area] when I talk about how some aspect of modern life distresses me. “Contentment culture”, as I’d call it, doesn’t do shit for our mental health. Rather, it further reinforces how we don’t deserve to feel the way we do, because “we’re not suffering enough”. Yes, I don’t doubt how helps us stay aware of our blessings, but it shouldn’t be used like a bludgeon to shut down someone’s feelings. You know what’s missing here? Validating what we feel. (Surprise! It’s possible to do both!). It’s exhausting to constantly justify why I feel the way I do, and it’s no surprise when I stop bothering to share and because I came to believe that my suffering will never be bad enough because there’s always someone out there who deserves it more.

What’s the result? Someone who refuses to seek help because they’ve been socialised to be independent - no matter what. Someone who fears responsibility because the fear of fouling up expectations stops them from the start. Someone who has trouble regulating their emotions because they’ve been told and learnt that emotions are Not Welcome. Because to have needs, to “take up space”, is to be a burden. So when emotions do flare up...the bottle breaks. 

Like how a friend put succinctly, it’s tiring. It’s so tiring. It’s exhausting to get up and go about doing the 10001 responsibilities and performances to quell the feelings of self-loathing and self-blame once I don’t meet the unrealistically high standards I’ve imposed on myself - which, at the same time, I don’t hold others to. Because I don’t want to burden them. And of course, the resultant snowballing of consequences and the stress that arises from having to manage them.

But I keep it together. That’s what I do; what I need to be. (I’ve long lost the ability to discern whether this is another expectation hardcoded into my brain, or something I genuinely want). Along the way, when the going gets tough, I have my coping mechanisms - anything remotely mood-altering or escapist...but halal - to force myself into a better state of mind (it works, kinda) while conveniently shutting off my emotional self because it’s too much for me to handle without exploding.

And I sincerely hope that I’ll never find one that’ll kill me.

A/N: I don’t know why I’m writing this. Maybe it’s for catharsis, maybe it’s the hope that you’ll find comfort in relating to this - because you’re neither broken, nor alone for feeling this way. But I guess I mainly wanted to say: your feelings are valid. If it hurts you, it hurts you. And that should be enough a reason to seek help - professional or otherwise - like I did. Notice how the notion of “deserving help” isn’t in the picture, because that’s a judgement and not a feeling.

It’s not easy learning to love yourself again, but finding unconditional positive support and validation from adult figures or friends helps. So does learning to listen to yourself again, instead of shutting out the most basic part of yourself - your emotions. Most of all, allow yourself the time and space to stumble along the way. 

As an important person in my life told me: 

don’t be too hard on yourself when you think of “your issues”...the last I checked, broken crayons still colour beautifully.

I know it seems impossible, but one day, we will find the peace that we crave.

[oldladydatin]

Unfiltered

Yesterday I got a notification from tumblr to write something unfiltered, to be brave. Well I’ve had something on my mind alot lately, something I’d normally be afraid to share. I’ve been thinking about it because I’ve been having nightmares, about none other than Eric. I’ve had nightmares off and on, frequently not so much nightmares as just recalling things he did to me. When I told him I didn’t want him in my life anymore I was afraid, for many reasons. Besides the actual physical attacks I endured there were other strange things that had happened. I remember going to Vegas with Mark and he just stopped talking to me and of course I was hurt but I started to feel okay after awhile. Then I received a text and he said he had been in jail and he was embarrassed about it and asked to see me. I didn’t know if I wanted to see him, I tried to get out of it by being like well when I get out of work I’m going grocery shopping and I’m tired whatever. Normal people would say okay well it doesn’t have to be today but no he insisted, he said he’d see me after, I really didn’t want to see him. I got home and took a shower first because I felt gross from work and by the time I got out of the shower he had texted me to ask if I was home yet. I got dressed and texted back that I had and he said he was near by then boom he was at my door. It was like an uncomfortably short amount of time. Like he had been outside when I got home or something. It made me really nervous. He made comments like if he wanted to know if something was going on he wouldn’t ask me he’d find out other ways. He was telling me about a book Dave Chapelle discussed in his stand up about this pimp. He told me that this pimp made his girls loyal by beating them excessively with a coat hanger and then taking care of them all weekend so in the end they were grateful. He had this really uncomfortable look on his face, I remember feeling sick by that, because it was like he thought that was genuinely a great idea. Just some really inconsistent things. Between that and everything I experienced I was all too aware he might really be mentally ill and I might set him off by not wanting him in my life anymore. I also knew I had these really strong feelings about him that I didn’t always feel in control of so I posted on facebook that I changed my number because of him and that I hadn’t been completely honest about our relationship and that he had attacked me more than once, non consensually, unfairly, and I just wanted him out of my life. I guess I felt like that was the best way to, burn that bridge, I felt like if people in my life knew how unhealthy this was that I wouldn’t go back and people in my life would only reinforce this. I changed my locks, I put a few extra cameras up incase he showed up and attacked me again and I promised myself I’d press charges the next time. I smudged my room because I felt uncomfortable in my room, I got the new car and I had the windows tinted day one, and I parked my car in the garage so he wouldn’t know if I was coming or going incase he really did do something crazy. I joined this group on facebook with women who were abused because I didn’t understand ya know, how did I let this go on, how did I end up with this guy. Not that I necessarily think I’m better than others I think I’m better than this and how on earth did I end up here. So I’ve been having the nightmares again and I’m on this page and some girl posted that the women in this group should stop whining and they’re to blame etc etc and it hit a nerve. My best friend said something like what were you thinking you know better than to let someone put their hands on you. I corrected her because the most terrifying points I fought I didn’t let this happen to me, maybe by allowing him in my life after and thinking it wouldn’t happen again but I didn’t just do nothing. But I can’t help but wonder what led up to me being in this situation? Or honestly any of these fucked up situations I’ve found myself in. How did I end up married to a man who put me down and beat my kids? I think that’s a legitimate question because I don’t want to spend my life being a battered woman. So what started as a decision to not waste so much time dating and focus on my goals, has turned into maybe I need to be single and celibate until I’m healthy, maybe I need to stop dating and work on myself. 

One thing I think led to this is being raised in an abusive household. There’s a real culture of abuse in my family. When I was growing up both my parents were abusive. I don’t have a lot of good memories of my childhood. I remember being called a bitch, fat, lazy, stupid, you name it, by BOTH my parents. In middle school I was seeing a therapist because I was really depressed and anxious and she wanted to have me tested for ADHD, I was failing classes, and I wasn’t really trying but I was also having trouble focusing on anything. I don’t know that I had or ever had ADHD, as a grown up I realize depression and anxiety can cause difficulty with focus but I knew things weren’t okay. My son is ADHD and his therapist says there’s a lot of evidence it’s genetic, so it’s possible. So I brought this up to my Dad. My Dad blew up and threw a book at my face and told me there was nothing wrong with me that I was just a lazy ass bitch who needed to open a book, it hurt enough I remember it 30 years later. I remember being beat with an axe handle because I ran out the door to go play and the door didn’t close and my Dad said it was because I didn’t shut the door but I knew I had, so I wouldn’t say I left it open. He beat me until I had bruises and I remember screaming because I was worried about getting hit with the sharp part of the axe. Turned out the door was broken and wouldn’t latch. I remember my Mom pinning me down on the bed and slapping and punching me because I laughed at an inappropriate time. I watched my brothers head dent my wall from the other side of the wall because my Dad threw his head threw it. My friend recently told me she didn’t want to stay the night at my house when we were kids because one time when she was over my Dad pulled my pants down and beat me with a hair brush and then made me sit on the couch and watch everyone else eat cookies and they kept trying to get her to join in. I was frequently denied food. Even as a grown up I wouldn’t go see this doctor my Mom swore by because I remember as a 3rd grader he encouraged my parents to put me on a 1000 calorie diet. I remember crying and begging my Mom for food because I was so hungry. My Dad tried to put me on the slim fast diet that same year, and then tried to convince me to go to a fat camp, and I look at pictures of me during this time and I wasn’t even that overweight. My weight has always been a subject of ridicule from both my parents, even as an adult. I went home when I was pregnant with my son because I was sick and and needed help. I ended up septic with cellulitis and I was holding ice packs on my stomach to sleep because they wouldn’t take me to the ED because they felt nothing was wrong. My Dad told me the only thing that was wrong with me was that my fat ass needed to get up and do more. The night before I ended up in the hospital for two months they took me to the mall for my birthday so I could walk because they didn’t feel like I was moving enough. Then tried to take me to Applebees for my birthday because they had a low fat menu. I had just turned 30 and I was home and they initially forgot my birthday so this insult was their attempt to make amends. After I realized that they’d forgot my birthday I took my daughter to get ice cream and go to the beach alone. For my ex husbands birthday they threw him a surprise party, for me as an after thought they tried to make me go to a restaurant I didn’t even like because they had a menu that would hopefully help me not be such a fat ass. The kicker, everyone in my family is overweight, not just me. Infact I look like my Dad in that respect. I remember going to my Grandmas house when I was 8 or 9 and passing a cemetery and wishing I was there, my Dad had just beat the shit out of me for getting an attitude with him or something that earned a seriously disproportionate reaction, and then he made me go to the bathroom and wash my face with cold water which he always did if we were crying too hard and then he was taking me to my Grandmas because he had to do something over there. I just thought if this is what my life is going to be like I’d rather be dead. To be honest the happiest my parents have ever been with me was when I married my husband. In therapy I read a book about a narcissistic Dad and it was creepy how similar the Dad in the book was to my Dad. All the way down to pitting siblings against each other. Because to this day my brother and sister and I are in some giant competition with each other for my parents approval. I’ve opted out, it’s why I didn’t move home because while I could recognize that Eric and my ex were damaging to my life, I could recognize my parents are just as damaging to it. The really crazy thing is my Dad and Mom will tell me how happy or proud they are of my brother and sister but never that they’re happy or proud of me. But over the years I’ve come to realize they do this to them in regards to me. So we are all trying to get their approval because they won’t ever compliment me to me or my sister to my sister. Now they do this with their grandkids, so my sister and sister in law are in some war over this, I’ve opted out. I will occasionally find myself getting upset because my kids are frequently forgotten but then I think about my childhood and I think maybe that’s a good thing. I don’t want my kids exposed to this. I think all these experiences really groomed me to be okay with being abused. Then of course as a teenager I dated a guy who cheated on me and lied to me all the time, like ALL THE TIME. I didn’t ever stand up for myself, I think now I maybe didn’t realize I deserved to be treated better. Then I was raped, I never said anything to anyone about that. Infact the guy showed up to lunch and asked me to go riding around with him the next monday like nothing happened. My best friend knew something happened. I was hanging at her house and he showed up and I acted really weird as she said and then I took off. She kept asking me what happened, what he did, and all I said was she’d be smart to keep him out of her house and away from her daughter. I was so ashamed and I just wanted to pretend like nothing had happened.

Eventually I got married and he was everything I could’ve asked for. He made me feel safe and confident. He was calm and always happy. When we left Michigan and my husband started working in his professional job, something changed. He really started to treat me like he was better than me or something. I was struggling so much at that point with post pardum depression and I initially felt like it was because I was letting him down because I sometimes couldn’t get out of bed. I ended up in the hospital for weeks at a time, I was on drugs. But even as I started to recover he did this and it gradually got worse. Nursing school pushed him over the edge. He frequently told people I wouldn’t do it I’d just quit. He started putting me down really passive aggressively, then more directly. I’d ask him to help me or ask him to do something around the house and it was almost like he intentionally wouldn’t just because I asked, it really was that childish. We fought constantly about money and housework, from the beginning. He didn’t do housework, I almost didn’t marry him over this. We got engaged and moved in together and I quickly found out that he was gross. That sounds mean but it’s true. We have actually thrown away 2 stoves because he will not clean the stove top, but he insists on cooking. So no matter how big my workload was I was still expected to do all the housework. So when I worked 70 hours a week, with a new born and post pardum depression, to put him through college I was expected to clean just like I did when I was a stay at home mom or a freelance artist. When I was going to school full time, working part time and still doing everything I did with the kids like I did when I was a stay at home mom, I was still expected to do 100% of the house work. I was exhausted. If I spent money on myself at all it caused a fight. We struggled with bills, and even when I was struggling to feed the kids he wouldn’t work overtime. He also insisted on getting an allowance so that all his money didn’t go to bills and even if I was struggling to feed the kids he insisted on an allowance, that was also exhausting. He would tell the kids we didn’t have the money to do anything because I wasted all of our money when in reality there just wasn’t enough money. He frequently involved the kids in our fights. He’d make fun of me in front of them and his friends. The abuse towards the kids didn’t start until they got older. At first I honestly didn’t even recognize it as abuse, it wasn’t that much different than what I experienced growing up. We’d occasionally have fights about that, if I felt like he went too far I’d bring it up and we’d fight. If he called the kids names I’d get mad. He frequently called my daughter a bitch. I think of all the things I dealt with growing up the name calling was the worst, being put down was the worst. To this day I hear my Dads voice in my head calling me fat and stupid and lazy. So I was really sensitive to that. It was like well she talked back of course she should get smacked across the face, she lied or whatever. Until my daughter lost it at school and admitted she was planning to kill herself. My 7 year old was having the same thoughts I had as a kid driving past a cemetery. I cried and cried and cried, because I knew exactly what she was feeling. I rarely hit my kids, like occasional spankings and never when I was mad. I just felt like after the things I had gone through with my parents I had the potential of going too far and I didn’t want to hurt my kids. With that though I knew I had to make changes, it was no longer optional. It’s sad that him insulting me wasn’t enough to make me leave though? Isn’t it? The first time he stood there with a bunch of people and made jokes about how stupid I was, while I held back tears because I felt so hurt and betrayed by that, should’ve been the first time I thought about leaving. But my self worth was so bad that him treating me like that wasn’t what made me want to leave, it was him hurting my kids. But what did I do? I clung to another man who would only treat me worse?

There were many occasions where Eric did things that should’ve been a red flag. I came to see him, and mind you I lived 210 miles away so it wasn’t a small thing to come see him at that time. I’d get here he’d have time to have sex and then he’d leave and that was it. So I’d make comments that all he wanted from me was sex and he’d say no no and give me some line. But it was, that’s all the relationship he wanted from me. I never came back from seeing him and was happy, I didn’t like feeling used and cheap but I don’t know why I just had these feeling for him. Then there was the time he used me to get a blow job and then just took off and never came back and laid in bed and cried. I felt incredibly used, but again I continued to see him. I wish these were the worst things that he had done to me, I really do. The first time he was violent was one fall I drove to see him after my night shift job, so worked 12 hours and then drove 3.5 hours to see him because I was just so in love and he said come take a nap with me so I did. I remember feeling so happy that he wanted to see me. I get here and he tells me he’s mad that I failed a test and he grabbed me by my throat and pushed up until I was on my tippy toes and told me he was upset. He proceeded to “punish” me. He took his phone out and took pictures during this, which I was upset about, I didn’t say anything though, I tried to ignore it but I was upset about it, during, after, everytime he brought the pictures up. We didn’t talk about pictures, we didn’t talk about punishment, we didn’t discuss any of this, the pictures weren’t consensual. To tell you how much I trusted this guy I was also in love with, after I left his house I did nothing but worry he’d share them, or put them online, I was so stressed out, I still to this day worry about it. This evolved from being beat with a cane, to him biting me and staring at me like he was hoping to make me cry, to him deciding to fist me. I didn’t want to be fisted either, we hadn’t talked about that but he did it and he kept doing it until he said he wanted to hear me screaming. Like he wanted to hurt me. Then he almost abruptly threw me out, grabbed a bunch of stuff in a giant hurry and left. The days proceeding this were shocking. So by the time I got to my friends house my whole vagina had swelled up, like this was actually a lot of trauma, to the point where I got to her house and struggled to pee. More shocking than this I told him about it and he didn’t really care. Like if I had done something to someones penis that caused it to swell up I’d be horrified and I’d go see them or I’d act really remorseful but he didn’t do anything. When I was at his house I had this feeling that there was someone else. Like he really might have done this to me then threw me out like trash to go see his girlfriend or something? Slowly the swelling improved over the next day, he didn’t check up on me to see if it was better, like he truly didn’t care that he had hurt me. With the bdsm stuff if I was with someone trying new things like that we would have some pretty extensive after care, but there would have been some pretty extensive discussion before hand too and there wasn’t. Like if it had been someone else I would have stayed the night, or if I had called to say there was an issue they would’ve come to me or insisted I would’ve come to them, something. There would have been more support. But this wasn’t bdsm this was abuse, I was just entertainment and he had been entertained and it was over. That week I went to look at his page on this bdsm site and he blocked me. He tried to play it off like no he just deleted his account but I’ve family that’s on the same site and I asked my cousin to look, my cousin by the way hates this guy, she thinks he is everything that makes the bdsm community look bad. He still had his page. He denied it and denied it, but I had no idea why he blocked me, but I had had that feeling there was another girl. I didn’t want to keep asking my cousin to look so my friend and I created another page and just kept checking and a month or so later I confirmed it was another girl. This would be the first time he told me he loved me, it wasn’t because he loved me, it was because I was leaving because I knew he was lying. I have no clue why he cared? He was just trying to protect his occasional piece of ass? I have no idea, because I knew he didn’t care about me. He really did at this point suspend his account and he said whatever he had to to smooth things over. I think why didn’t I leave him alone at that? Every bit of that should’ve made me think okay I’m in a relationship with a horrible person. But no what did I do? I made plans to move there, because while he was abusing me he said something that stuck to me, he said I needed to get through nursing school so I could come home to him. That really impacted me emotionally. I have no idea why you’d say something so profound if you didn’t mean it? Just like why would you tell someone you loved them if you didn’t? I can’t answer that because I am not a bad person, so I don’t act like that. I don’t abuse the people in my life, so I don’t know how to explain the behavior of someone who does. In the end I made excuses for all of this. I thought well I’ll talk to him about the pictures, maybe this was just punishment that went over board, maybe he doesn’t understand aftercare, he’s new to bdsm. He didn’t care, not about any of it, this wasn’t bdsm this was abuse. 

Other than the fact that he was just a complete piece of shit who walked all over me nothing really violent happened for quite a long time. I moved here, he’d come for sex then ignore me. I’d see things or notice things here and there that made me aware there were others. I should’ve kicked him out of my life 10 billion times but didn’t. I don’t know why, I feel like this is a problem, I think the fact that I allowed any of his behavior into my life is a giant red flag that maybe something is wrong with me, but I did. Eventually we were allegedly dating, because there were still others, so I was committed but he was not and I remember we had a conversation about how I some of my needs weren’t being met. He came over one night and it was rough, but quickly felt out of control to me. I remember fighting back, I don’t remember this as vividly but I remember him wrapping my hair around my bed frame and tying my feet together and beating me with my canes, and I remember crying. I remember thinking this can’t be happening to me. I remember laying there, not being able to fight him anymore thinking it was over, I really couldn’t be with this guy anymore. I remember he’d beat me and randomly stop and fuck me and I felt disgusted by the fact that he was turned on. Because I was screaming and crying. I don’t know about most people but if I have to pin and tie down the person I’m sleeping with while they are screaming and crying, I wouldn’t be in the mood anymore. Even with the sadists I had been with there would always be a point where they knew I was at my limit and the focus wouldn’t be sexual anymore. But this man was not only in the mood he was continuing. I don’t completely remember why I was being punished, but this was allegedly punishment for something. I remember crying and laying still and just saying Daddy, because that’s what I called him, and then he stopped for no reason. He let me go and he held me until I calmed down. Alot of times by the end of these things he made me feel like I had done something good for him, like I had made him happy and we’d have sex. I didn’t always want to but I felt like I had to. The bad thing about this was my daughter heard it, she heard him hitting me and me screaming and crying. When he left I walked out of my room and she was on the stairs crying, she was scared but didn’t know what to do, she was considering calling the cops. I didn’t know what to say to her? I wanted our new place to feel safe to her so I didn’t want to tell her what had happened. I played it off like we were just having a little fun and I was sorry she heard it. She still brings it up but now she thinks I’m loud when I have sex. I should have ended it there, because now it was effecting my kids but I didn’t. And this just got worse. Again I played this off like we just really needed to talk about it, that this wasn’t acceptable punishment and I was going to tell him that. He didn’t care, because this wasn’t a bdsm relationship, this was an abusive one. 

Eventually someone sends me this picture of him with another girl and I had to do something. Again that should’ve just been it but I thought well maybe he’ll just be honest with me now and we’d talk to out? I’ve had friends who had a spouse cheat and they went to counseling and their relationship was actually stronger. I thought maybe we’d work together and have a stronger relationship, maybe he’d be honest with me. He wasn’t, cause this wasn’t that guy, he didn’t really care about me or our relationship. He said he ended it with the other girl, he’d give me really inconsistent information about their relationship. I messaged her, the only question I had was does he call you princess, she didn’t respond, if she had I probably would’ve ended it because I’m sure he did, it wasn’t special to him just to me. When it seemed obvious he didn’t care I got on a dating app and started talking to men. One day he came to my house, it was a saturday morning, at the time I worked friday nights. And he acted like he wanted to see me, like he wanted sex, and we start having sex, this is the time I remember vividly. I was on my stomach and he wrapped his wife beater around my neck and pulled. At first this felt good I like to be choked but soon my fingers and toes started tingling and everything started sounding muffled. I remember feeling stunned like I wasn’t completely sure of what was happening. Then I heard him say so you want to send pictures to other men huh? And I legit panicked I knew what was going to happen next I was terrified and I started to try to fight to get away and he forced my hands into the restraints on my bed with me screaming and crying, please don’t, please stop. I was kicking and the was sitting on my legs. this went on for what seemed like forever. Just like the time before he beat me with my canes, he broke one, he bite me, he pulled my hair, he choked me, he stopped randomly and fucked me, all while I was crying and screaming and trying to fight him off me. I was begging him to stop. My kids weren’t home this time. I remember thinking about my friend Lori. I had a friend who was killed by her fiance when she ended it. She was beat in the head with a hammer, thrown in her car, drove a ways up the highway, and then he parked on the side of the road and set the car on fire and hitch hiked home. I thought I’m going to end up just like Lori, I really was afraid he was going to kill me. He wasn’t stopping, he didn’t care, he was sexually excited by this. I just kept thinking it’s over and I’m not being dramatic, I was that afraid. I decided at some point to try to get the restraints off my wrists and I managed to and that’s when he stopped. He got off me and I jumped off the bed and just cried, I was terrified of him. He kept trying to make it about other stuff, he kept saying over and over he loved me. He clearly didn’t love me. I cried the entire day, he got me to calm down long enough for him to leave and I started crying again. I thought about calling the cops, I was covered in bruises. I remember getting up for work because I had to go to work and he came back and I was scared. He brought roses, I really felt like I was in some stupid lifetime movie, he brought roses, he sexually tortured me and then he brought me roses. What a psycho! We had sex and I didn’t want to, I wanted him to leave, but I was afraid. It was very affectionate sex, like maybe he knew he went too far this time. I don’t think he felt sorry but I think he knew it wasn’t ok. It was the worst day. I remember walking into my job having not slept, having cried all day and being covered in bruises and I couldn’t even hold my purse on my shoulders. Through all the fighting I didn’t realize how bruised I was. I went in the bathroom and took pictures, I still have them, I was covered in bruises. I found bruises on my legs, back, breasts, stomach, I was covered. I used to get excited about bruises, it was like a reminder of a fun time. These made me sick to my stomach. There were other incidents after this but mostly he had basically bailed on me at that point. But he came over and we were going to have sex. I had bought this vibrator a guy I had went to this concert with had wanted me to buy so we could use it together because he lived like 3 hours away. I bought it but him and I weren’t seeing eachother and eventually I shared it with Eric. We tried to use it once but it didn’t go well and he claimed to want to see how it worked. He pulled my shirt over my head while we were having sex and I was nervous because he had his phone out to use the app and he had taken pictures of me without asking me permission before. So I was worried. It wasn’t until later that I found out that yes he did take a video of me with my shirt pulled over my head. Then he started threatening me. Eventually he started threatening to carve his initials in my boob and I just started crying. I was so scared of him, I thought he’d do it. I screamed and I cried and he stopped. He said you know I’d never do anything to hurt you. But he had, on multiple occasions. He absolutely would have. After that I changed my locks. After that I knew it was over, despite every little thing that happened after that, I was actually afraid of him and I knew this would continue no matter what I did. I have on occasion thought about going to the cops with my pictures and asking what I could do. More so because I remember that feeling of finding out my rapist had raped other people, I felt like I could’ve stopped it. Clearly this man is dangerous, maybe I could stop it. The charges he is already on probation for are all the same things he did to me. I think the fact that he did this to someone else and he got a year of probation is disgusting. It says a lot about how and why so much violence against women happens. And it’s why I didn’t go to the cops because they obviously didn’t care about who ever he hurt before me. After the nightmares lately I’m definitely considering therapy. I think maybe it’s good to take time from dating and work on myself because he did break me, and the worst part is he’s not even sorry.

So now I am paranoid about things in my life. I broke down on the side of the road close to my house and I panicked, I called everyone whose number I knew because I felt like I wasn’t safe, I felt like I had finally got him out of my life and I had finally broke that hold he had over my mind and I felt vulnerable sitting there on the side of the road. When my friend showed up I was shaking and I couldn’t even explain it. I did eventually tell her that that guy I was seeing he had hurt me and I just knew if he saw me on the side of the road he’d stop and if he’d stop I’d be in love all over again and he could hurt me again. Turned out she had been in an abusive relationship before and she completely understood. She helped me get my car home and now I feel a lot less alone. I got my new car and took it the next day to get it tinted, I was insanely insistent it happened immediately. I didn’t want to be driving around and have him see me in my new car incase he is watching me. If I had the money I’d have moved immediately. But I feel stronger now and I don’t think I’d so easily let him in again. But I don’t want the next guy to be someone like him, or my ex, or my Dad, I deserve peace and happiness in my life. So I’m taking a break for myself. I’ve smudged my house now, my weird native friend Darcy who was convinced I was a healer had showed me how when I was a kid, he taught me a lot actually. I’ve a bag of stones he put together for me for protection and I took it out. I’ve smudged my room more than once now and I think it helped. I asked a friend of mine who deals in crystals what she thought because it still feels heavy upstairs and I ordered a large orb recently. My goal is peace and happiness, no matter how much sage and sweet grass I have to burn. But counseling I think is needed. 

[notesfromthepen]

Million P1us

A Million P1us

They ignore us because they can.

I've been in prison going on seven years now. I started getting serious about writing when I came down. At first it was just about expression; an attempt to hold onto a little bit of freedom in a place otherwise designed to kill such things. A few years in I started writing about the shit that was happening in here. Figured, somebody should do it.

I wrote about corrupt officers, nonsensical policies, the cruelty of solitary confinement, the censorship, corruption, and the dangerous parole process. I wrote about the slave wages and the financial fleecing of inmates and their families. I wrote about the benefits of good time and Michigan's failure to offer positive reinforcement to inmates. I wrote about everything I saw, the ridiculous, hilarious, and serious alike. I wanted to give a full voice to this experience. Something deeper than stereotypes.

And then I realized that none of it mattered if no one was reading it. So I started a Facebook page, well Mama C started a Facebook page. I connected with amazing people, but it was clear Facebook wasn't the best platform. So we took what little money we had and started a website. Mama C, the saint she is, learned how to put it all together. And finally, a few moths ago, we entered the Twitersphere (they should bring back the electric chair, just so they can strap me in for writing Twitersphere). This is where the magic happened (can you be electrocuted twice?). In a few short months I linked up with so many like minded people, interested and passionate about what was going on in here, which inspired me to push even harder. After every new piece, I felt the sense of relief that comes from getting something off your chest. But whenever I'd see something written, or said about prison reform or mass incarceration, this responsibility, almost a guilt, would settle on me. I was getting good at pointing fingers, but I wasn't offering any solutions. I figured I'd try to put everything I knew together in a single, comprehensive, piece about the American prison system— to see if that would get rid of the feeling for good.

I spent months writing this pain-in-the-ass tome and, when it was finally done, I felt genuine relief. Everything I knew about the fiasco of incarceration was distilled down to single, coherent, piece of work. Dare I say, I was even proud? I was proud…but I was even more relieved.

Now it was time to get it in the hands of people who could actually make some change. Prison reform, after all, is the ONE bipartisan issue in the county.

With magnum opus in hand, Mama C tracked down all 110 Michigan State Representatives. She sent them each their own personal copy, along with a plea for the reinstatement of good time, and an open letter offering assistance. Twitter friends & the Facebook family sent links and messages to the Governor's office all the way up to federal lawmakers. There was even this amazing degenerate, who also claimed to be a famous comedian, who took notice. And he helped spread the word.

Not a single politician responded.

If this ex-telemarketer and procrastinating, but excellent author, who claims to know Joe Rogan, can't get any of the powers that be to listen, then what chance do the rest of us have?

ZERO. The answer, as it stands now, is zero.

And then I got to thinking.

I've always had love for the underdog, the oppressed, the voiceless. And now I was one. I wasn't surprised at the inaction I seemed to inspire in the political landscape. More often than not, these "leaders of men" do the RIGHT thing, only as often as it is incidentally attached to what they're FORCED to do.

They IGNORE us because they CAN.

Which got me to thinking more; what if I was IMPOSSIBLE to IGNORE?

At first it was just this funny little day-dreamt hypothetical; what if a currently incarcerated inmate had a MILLION PLUS followers on social media? What would that look like? The possibilities cascaded. It felt like a paradox, an impossibility, a glitch in the matrix—for an inmate to have that power.

The first thing I thought was, the system couldn't allow it. Then I wondered if could they stop it? Sure they'd try, but what could they actually do? Any attempt would likely back fire. It's a 1st amendment issue. The biggest strength we have at the bottom, is how little we have to lose. 

The fact, that this impossibility wasn't actually impossible, was hypnotic. I couldn't stop thinking about it—about what it meant.

Corruption rarely survives the light of day.

An inmate with a Million P1us followers on Twitter, for instance, would be like one of those nanny cams for the prison system. Knowing you're being watched will significantly curb a babysitter's urge to beat a kid into submission. Trust me, the first severe beating of my life was at the hands of a "baby sitter." I was so young I don't remember but Mama C says my whole face was swollen, that I could barely open my eyes. Then again I am half Asian, with baby eyes like slits, you ever think of that mom? Maybe this case of child abuse was just a simple case of racism. In any case, if ol' Rocky Marciano (he was Italian) had known there was a camera, he might've just let me cry myself to sleep without out the vigorous use of the five-fingered sleep aids.

Over share?

The point is, that without the ability to covertly fuck us over, they'd be forced to stop fucking us over, or at least cut back significantly. Politicians could no longer simply throw us away and ignore our pleas without repercussion. They could no longer anonymously give contracts to these abusive corporations who price gouge the hell out of us, while filling their campaign coffers—at least not without a Million P1us witnesses. From the lawmakers down to individual employees, they'd finally be forced to practice what they've been hypocritically preaching for decades: Personal Accountability.

It was fun to think about, but I wasn't actually going to do it. It was just something to think about during the commercial breaks of Rick & Morty. Just another game of "What If?"

Right?

My mischievous side disagreed; it absolutely loved the idea—wouldn’t let it go.

I'd be trying to watch TV and it'd chime in with shit like, "Why not? What are you scared of?" And the little bastard wouldn't shut up about Kim Kardashian. Kim this, and Kim that. "Kim snaps her fingers and people walk out of prison."

I did my best to remind my mischievous side that I'm not Kim Kardashian.

It reminded me I'm more of a Courtney anyway. And that Snooki, Guy Ferari, and half the cast of The Real Housewives all have a million plus followers.

I wondered how my mischievous side knew this but I didn't.

It said, "The whole point of prison is to silence us. Why not grab a megaphone and be louder than we've ever been? Ariana Grande:67 mil, Justin Beiber: 107 million followers on Twitter."

It was a good point.

"Ralphie May, Channel West Coast, Grumpy Cat..."

I don't know how accurate the research was.

All I'm trying to do is take a shit when I hear the subtlest voice say, "We've been waiting for this our entire lives. We are literally MADE for this. The ultimate thorn in the side of authority—of oppressive, corrupt, authority! An epic middle finger to the entire system."

The constant interruptions are starting to get to me but at this point I'm still unsure.

And then my mischievous side, that rebellious little bastard, says something undeniable, something it knows will kill every excuse I could ever muster. Slowly, fully aware of what it's doing, it says, "J-E-R-E-M-Y R-E-N-N-E-R has FIVE MILLION followers!"

And just like that, I'm in. My mischievous side wins for the first time in a long time.

I tell myself, if all these people have figured out how to get a million plus people to follow them, just so they can sell spanks, talk about their next hair color, or just BE a displeased cat, then what kind of coward would I be not to take a shot. Even if it's an air ball, or whatever clunky sports metaphor you'd prefer, if it means the chance to expose corruption & abuse, the government waste, inhumane practices, family separations, and the mass incarceration of those with mental illness, addicts, black, brown, and poor white people, not to mention the chance to knock Jeremy Renner off his high horse, and make the occasional poop joke...then I have to try.

I mean why can't it be done?

If we can rally enough rebels & misfits, the bleeding heart liberals and the stone cold conservatives alike, these conscientious men and women, Millennials, Baby Boomers & Gen-X'ers, to take a few seconds to tune in, then we'll have done something that has never been done before.

We'll have created a blueprint for other inmates and underdogs to fight for change, to show that redemption is real and that you can affect the world around you, even if you're actively being stepped on, if you work hard enough, think outside the box, and reach out to a few friends, who reach out to a few friends, and so on and so on until you become impossible to ignore.

Plus it would be hilarious, for politicians to have to take into consideration the opinion of a convict they'd all but thrown away...And most important of all: to stop Jeremy Renner from using Jeep commercials to force us to listen to his shitty band.

The goal is to get to a #Million P1us followers before I'm released. Which, if nothing changes, gives us 'til 2025.

We can do it.

In a world of click bait and countless distractions, this FOLLOW and SHARE can be your little contribution to prison reform and ending mass incarceration, a small, but not meaningless, drop in the bucket that gives you something to pat yourself on the back about. I'll take it. Or maybe you're just a rebel who's looking for another middle finger to stick in the air. Maybe you're a troll that thinks it'd be hilarious. Or maybe you're just tired of the same old meaningless bullshit on the news, Twitter, and social media in general. Whatever your reason, you'll be a part of giving a MDOC inmate a REAL chance at grabbing the world by the ear, and letting it know what's actually going on in here.

You already know I can't do this alone. If successful, this will be OUR achievement. Anyone who throws in will be a part of this absurd and exciting movement, and together we'll loom larger than we do alone.

I hope you're in.

We can't live in a world where Grumpy Cat has 1.6 million TWITTER followers, and Jeremy Renner is strutting around like he's the cock of the roost —but a convict on the forefront of the ONLY bipartisan issue of prison reform, with a saint for a mother, an amazing group of friends, and a real penchant for subversive, often ridiculous, writing— can't muster up Million P1us people to pay attention. Whatever God you believe in will not likely spare such a world for too long.

Ok, so: inspiration, outright begging, guilt tripping and fear mongering; ticked all the boxes.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention; most important of all; it's actually a really GOOD Twitter account, on its own, regardless of it being about some convict writer.

So there's that as well.

Please link, share, mention, follow, or whatever you think would help. You already know groups and people that I'd never think of who'd be worth reaching out to. Oh, and CONTACT me...I want to know who you are, and what you think. I'm serious about this being OUR project.

Your friendly neighborhood convict, Bobby C. 

'til next time, appreciate the small things...even the annoying ones.

#MillionP1us

[blueberrypancakepotbellygirl]

oOoOooOooOo she has so many thoughts !! time to spill !!

diagnosis and next steps

so, after the bad appointment last time, my mum and I have been planning to go back to the doctors and try to see a different practitioner and see if I can get referred this way. my mum talked to this psychiatrist lady she knows, and she asked me to send her an email with my symptoms and why i want a diagnosis. i told her the truth, including that i want a diagnosis for validation of my experience and the ability to access special circumstances at the university and through whatever employment I enter (so that, when school starts and when i get a proper job, i don’t have to wait 6 months for verification of my illness while i... idk break down or something. preventative mental health care just seems so logical idk why it isn’t encouraged more.)

the psychiatrist wrote a letter with her recommendations, something i could maybe give to whatever GP I see. Right now, though, i’m wondering if this is 1) worth it, 2) necessary, and 3) if i’m doing it for the right reasons.

I know that something is still wrong. I know if I was neurotypical i wouldn’t be self harming, i wouldn’t be having panic attacks, i wouldn’t be having these episodes of severe sadness and suicidal ideation. i wouldn’t still struggle with food. so, something is wrong. a diagnosis of SOME KIND is needed, because i haven’t been evaluated since before first year and these seem to have expiry dates. so i feel like, even if the first GP i saw didn’t think i had BPD, he should have still referred me because of the symptoms I have????? like fucking maybe ??

the thing is though, i know i’m not supposed to be in therapy right now. i know the relationships i have with my therapists can stunt my emotional growth (... just saying.... this is another symptom of BPD... just putting that out there). so i don’t want a diagnosis so that i can access TREATMENT. i’ve been getting treatment for over a decade ! i need to see how i do on my own ! so far that’s been.... real mixed !!!! as my life always is ! some days i feel like a fully normal person ! other days i feel like a fucking GOD. and other times i want to Fully Die and i feel the Worst I’ve Ever Felt and it feels like every cell in my body has relapsed. but i feel like if i say i’m not looking for therapy a doctor is going to (fairly, as well) be confused as to why i want an assessment. 

the way i see it, a diagnosis allows me to access the SUPPORT i need to live my life without therapy. it allows me to have days off when i need them, it allows me extra time in exams, it is lenient with me in terms of how much is expected of me as a researcher or academic or employee. a diagnosis helps me navigate the world slightly easier. having a diagnosis of an eating disorder meant that i could be strict with employers about food breaks. having a diagnosis of depression meant i was given leniency when i came to missing classes and lectures. diagnoses are keys. if my life has these adjustments, therapy isn’t necessary. life gets its hardest when i can’t access these adjustments. but i don’t know if this is good enough for a GP to refer me. i know waiting lists are long (ahahaha i know this SO WELL) and doctors don’t want people on them who might have nothing wrong with them. i get that. but there is definitely something wrong with me, and i feel like this reason is a valid enough reason. maybe. i think i think i think.

okay but here’s where i stumble. because DESPITE IT BEING YET ANOTHER SYMPTOM THAT I DON’T HAVE A STABLE SENSE OF SELF AND I OFTEN CLING TO SPECIFIC THINGS TO MODEL MYSELF OFF OF BECAUSE I DON’T FEEL SUBSTANTIAL ON MY OWN i have always depended on my previous diagnoses as personality-makers. being ‘anorexic’ or ‘anxious’ became my entire personality. identifying with BPD has done the same. i honestly cannot remember a time where i didn’t have a diagnosis of some kind, just as i couldn’t remember a time until just recently when i hadn’t been in therapy. existing without a diagnosis is something i have never done, and the idea of it is SO FUCKING TERRIFYING. and, often, when i’m scared about something, it’s a sign i really, really, very much need to do that thing. 

so now i’m stuck ! between the possibility that maybe i need to see how i am without a diagnosis and no help ! and trying to get help again and maybe being rejected again !!! but, i guess, if this was a physical illness ( and ik ik it’s stupid to compare them i know) then i wouldn’t be like ‘well, i’ve always had the diagnosis of diabetes, so maybe i should go a while without having it’. that’s just dumb.

look, i know my symptoms are mild. they are nowhere near as severe as many of those with BPD experience. my mania and depressive episodes happen a 3/4 times a week rather than three times a day. i don’t have debt. my relationships are significantly more stable (definitely not perfect by any means tho, still a long way to go, can’t get complacent). the eating disorder is so much better, the self harming is so much better. i am getting better. but when things are bad, they are SO BAD !!! and if i wait until things are SO BAD then it will be too late ! i am being a good patient by going in now smh. 

i am going to go back to the doctors. i don’t know if i’m going to let my mum come into the actual appointment with me, because that’s a boundary i really want to reinforce. but i also don’t want to push her out of my personal struggles entirely either, so i feel like her coming down to support me through the appointment is a really good middle ground. we’ll see.

going home and family

i went home this weekend !!! i took alex and we got the train and my ENTIRE FAMILY CAME TO THE STATION and fucking Rory homophobe smith was there which was just... hilarious. so weird. why are my family so intense. but it went so well !! so so well ! i feel like dad likes alex way more than he ever liked mike (idk what he had against mike). i felt bad for not spending much time with my mum on our own, because that;s what i always do when i go home. but it was actually super nice to not do that, to not have super intensive emotional sessions with her. it was just... lovely to play chess and drink coffee and play with the dogs with alex and then leave the next day. 

the night was hard. the night is always hard. triggers creep in like ghosts in the night, they seep through the wooden floors and sink into me. i went manic and was going through all the cupboards on the first and lower floor. idk what i was looking for. it was a pair of strawberry-patterned converse at first, and then i started feeling paranoid for no reason and searching for old diaries of mine that i thought my parents had hidden.

partners meeting family is always a big and important thing for me. gay partners meeting family is... a Whole New Thing. it forced me to confront those lingering feelings of guilt and shame that i feel about my sexuality and the Big Feelings of guilt i feel for upsetting my mother by being queer (aha. lol. that was. the worst. feeling. ever. it broke my heart. i am absolutely still not over that heartbreak it turns out. i’m getting there though.) but we did it and it went well and i am so grateful to have such a supportive partner and i am very in love and i like them very much and it feels like we are in a good and stable place and that is the best feeling ever.

how summer is going

summer is going. it’s super good and super bad. i need to get more interviews. i need to keep trying to keep a routine and keep my room clean and get fresh air even if that means i buy coffee from some dumb coffee shop every day. work is hit or miss. anxiety comes in waves, as does dissociation. depression hits like a brick and then leaves like a moving van. i need to sleep more, need to shower every day. water the sun flower. i have my paints now ! and my brushes !!! so i can paint things for all my friends and that makes me happy. immy and chema and dara and ale and alex can all get little summer paintings to commemorate the end of summer.

what’s next

dissertation. i’m putting out a new round of posts tomorrow. meeting ihsaan to catch up because i have been a terrible, super negligent friend to him recently. buy groceries because i need to eat more vegetables and protein. maybe buy a baking tin and make banana bread this week. i get paid on wednesday: no. 1 priority? immy’s birthday present. i have MANY IDEAS. gotta pick one now.

[twopintsandaprayer]

i’m going to mainline some tylenol and forget that this whole afternoon existed

I see a therapist, like a real live person, at the beginning of may. I’m so utterly petrified that I’m going to say the wrong thing and undermine the help that I need. I wish, like I always do, like I have always, always wished that I knew the right thing to say and the right way to act. I need to be honest, and calm, and somehow condense my 20 plus years of medical history and my fucked-up family life into a succinct, half-hour session. I have to trust this person immediately, be open, be attentive. that’s ...a tall order. like I said, I’m petrified that I won’t say what I’m supposed to in order to make my case and I’ll be dropped from priority. I come across as....well, as not really that ill.  My psychiatrist called me defensive and combative. which I am. it’s not a pleasant trait but my god its firmly in there.  I’ve been living with depression since I was about 10 but it’s not...not very visible. It takes a very long time for that sadness to be apparent to someone else. It comes across as hostility and nihilistic humour, to be honest. I don’t like admitting it to myself, how deeply this combination of futility/self-loathing goes. It comes on like it’s never left. I think I failed my exam today. I’ve been contemplating dropping out of school completely because I don’t really see the point in continuing. the margin for error is so so small and I am unforgiving towards any mistakes when I could have tried so much harder. I don’t really know how to fight, you know? And it’s all so horrible, self-reinforcing. I know, point-blank, I have no reason to be like this. Yeah, emotional abuse from my father and my mother probably is autistic and is entirely too logical and judgmental for a fuck up like me as a daughter. also she was horribly horribly emotionally abused for like, a long ass time. - like I learned no coping skills or emotional regulation and I have like, negative self-worth and I have always been super super intense, childish, and the last to pick up on any emotional cues. that’s all pretty small stuff though, like everyone has a shitty childhood? my life has been pretty privileged, I cannot deny that at all. my psychiatrist keeps looking for trauma, reasons for me being like this. I don’t...really know how to explain to him that there’s no real reason, I’ve just always been this way. too loud, too close, too possessive, too needy, too young, too slow, too judgmental, too constantly seeking validation. Wholly, completely self-centered. Emotionally manipulative. I look into my memories and there is barely anything real, it’s all just a miasma of anxiety and talking over people. like, I don’t remember what things were like when I liked myself? I must have, at some point. I don’t remember when doing stuff didn’t fill me with fear, when the memories of good times weren’t tainted by my fuckups. And the constant, constant need to be liked, to have some kind of purpose, connection, something real. Some reason to keep getting up and putting myself through all this. The amount of friendships I have ruined or that have slipped through my fingers, or I have undervalued, or I have strained, just by being me. I never, ever, know it’s going to happen until it does. There’s an inevitability to it. I mean, my father was a lovely person, until you got to know him. He would give you the shirt off his back but he’d never, ever apologize for anything. We were all happier when he lived on a separate continent. IK mean, we talked all the time and we saw him a couple times a year. But the day to day living? That’s...that’s the kind of distance my presence requires. He knew he made us that unhappy. He was so terribly unhappy himself. He had plenty of reasons. I miss him a lot. We’re basically the same person. Unhappiness just kind of oozes out, infecting everyone around us. It’s hard to see at first. But it’s there. You feel it once you get to know me. 

How do I describe that to someone I don’t know? I can barely describe it to myself. I can barely type it without crying. How inevitable and ingrained this unhappiness is. And there’s no reason for it. It’s just...it’s like I’m missing something. Some piece of humanity that would make me real. That would make what I do sincere and normal. I know I have an issue with boundaries. I know I come across way way way way too much way too quickly.  It’s been a constant refrain since I was about 10: if only I didn’t need people, I would be all right. I don’t know what I’ve done until after the fact, until its too late. Needless, endless apologies should be my tagline. 

it’s just so horribly lonely. I’m so tired of being alone. I’m constantly trapped by and surrounded by my own self-hatred. It’s so cliche it makes me sick of myself. I don’t have any reason to be this hard on myself. I don’t have any reason to be this depressed. I can barely qualify as having depression. I just ...don’t see any point? Of living? Of trying?  I don’t remember what it was like not to feel this way. I don’t think I was ever normal. 

it’s this constant struggle of ‘I have a mental illness’ and ‘no i’m just lazy and entitled and I don’t want to do the work I just want perfect results’ and ‘I don’t have a legitimate reason to be this way’ and ‘I really cannot handle this for another second’. My whole family is the type to say they’re fine when they are literally crying their eyes out/in severe amounts of pain/ready to collapse/at their limits. everything’s fine, fine, fine, always fine. 

i do know that in the end, the only one who can save me is me. i just don’t really see any reason to. Like, I keep grasping at straws? I can’t kill myself though, I can’t do that to my mother or my brother. The thought of living for another 40 years (I mean, my diabetic complications will probably get me sooner than that) just feels me with dread and exhaustion though. The primary reason I don’t want to have kids (other than medical, cause I’m on too much medication that’s rough on a fetus) is because I don’t want to be resentful towards my kid for having to stay alive for them. Who can I say that to? How horrible does that make me sound? What a fucking load of shite, I’m so full of it. For some stupid reason, I thought things would just be better? I thought being on meds, and having a stable life, and being back at school after fucking it up so badly the first time, that I’d be better? 

It’s a wasteland, though. The space between not wanting to live and not being able to die. It takes such constant effort to keep all my shit in check. everythin just spilling out everywhere. 

But I’m just...like this. This is just the way that I am. I’m so sick of myself. I can’t fully put it into words how much I hate myself. All these opportunities and possibilities and a life that’s been free of trauma and responsibilities, and I’m just ...kind of a waste? A big ole burden on my family and friends? It’s...the weight of that makes it hard to breathe. It makes it really hard to try to do anything and it’s so fucking stupid. Just this big old cycle of never ending uselessness. I don’t really believe I can do anything. Everything, friendships, communication, school work, organizing shit, engaging with things, meeting up with friends, keeping my life together. All of it is ...more than I’m really able to handle. Everything’s a bit too much? Like i was supposed to tell my bank that I’m a student by november. I got the letter and everything. 

I just never went with it to the bank. 

Still haven’t. 

Thats such a microcosm for my life. All the materials, all the ability, all the chances, all the ducks lined up in a row and then...nothing. Just a disappointment and a missed chance. 

I can’t believe I’m 32. Nothing but my own self-hatred to keep me company from here on it.  Well. And my cats. I am though, a bad cat owner. keeping these hellbeasts inside is more than I am capable of. Haha, that’s pretty low on the priority list though. 

This is the work that I need to do. I don’t have a clue how to approach it. That’s what I need help with. Finding something to hold on too. It’s getting harder and harder as I get older. It shouldn’t, because my life is actually so much better now that it was. The bad stuff just gets harder and harder to walk back from. I think it’s the loneliness? I wish I wasn’t so horribly horribly lonely. My choices are always, do it alone or don’t do anything at all. Reach out and be rejected. Reach out and panic when someone reaches back. Reach out and alienate the person forever. Reach out and be told it was not my place. Fail, again and again to differentiate. Fail, again and again to learn. 

anyway. Tylenol. sleep. one more week of exams. 

my marks are going to be so horrible this year.