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jj-iz-bae · 4 years ago

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Don't tell me not to worry

Word count: 1722 words

Requested by @sunwardsss : Can you do comfort 38 and 43 for Chase please? 38: “I’m in the hospital.”43: “You don’t have to sleep here just because I got admitted.”

Pairings: Chase Stokes x Reader; Chase Stokes x Rudy Pankow; Rudy Pankow x platonic!reader

Warnings: Hospitals,seizures,Fluff,bad spelling and grammar

Note from author: so this is actually based on a seizure episode I had. It only happend one time and was caused by strep throat which triggered a reaction in the auto immune disorder (the disorder basically is that instead of my immune system attacking the virus or illness, my immune system attacks my brain causing all sorts of weird things to happen. When I was younger only strep throat triggered a "flare" of increased symptoms ie ocd,anxiety,age regression,mood swings,foggy brain and other things. Sadly the disorder has developed so that I flare with any illness, not just strep) ANYWAYS 😂 I hope you enjoy this Fluff with a tiny pinch of angst. Just a tiny bit if you squint. Ace is my nickname for Chase and I've used it in other blurbs. I just think it's cute. Kinda like how I call Rudy Panky🙃

Chase was wrapping up a day on set, shoving all his belongings into a backpack. He slung the backpack over his shoulder and grabbed his keys ,leaving his casting trailer when his phone started ringing. He just realized he hadn’t heard from you all day. Seeing your name flash across the screen, he stopped in his tracks and answered. “Hey baby girl! I haven’t heard from you all day!” Chase exclaimed as he started to kick a rock around with his foot. “Sorry Ace. Please don’t freak out.I’m totally fine now but I'm in the hospital.” you explained slowly. Chase’s eyes grew large as he starred jogging to his car. "Don't tell me not to worry baby! Where are you? What happened?" Chase asked as he reached his car and fumbled with the keys, trying to move quickly in his panicked state. He swore under his breath as he dropped his keys and put you on speaker phone while he picked up his keys. You heard the rustling on the other end of the phone and grew nervous. "Chase! Babe are you OK? Calm down I promise I'm OK!" Rudy just so happened to be walking to his car when he heard your voice and saw Chase cursing at his car keys. "Hey dude! What's going on? You OK?" Rudy asked as he walked over to Chase. "Rudy! Y/n's in the hospital and I need to...I just can't.." Chase stuttered. Rudy grabbed the keys out of his hands. "I'll drive. You just talk to her." Rudy threw his stuff in the back of Chase's car as he hopped into the drivers seat and Chase ran around to the passenger seat. "OK sorry babe. Rudy is driving cause you're freaking me out. What happened?" Chase asked, running his hand through his wavy hair as Rudy pulled out of the set parking lot. "Thanks for taking care of him Rudy! I swear I'm fine! I'm at St. Marcus hospital. I think it's pretty close to town." Rudy picked up his phone and pulled up directions on his GPS before placing his phone in the cup holder so he could see the map. "No problem hun! Now tell us what happened before Chase pulls his hair out." Rudy answered ."Yeah you're scaring the shit out of me,Baby girl." Chase let out a breathy giggle.

"OK. Well I had my mom over and we were just hanging out watching TV and everything went black. Everything sounded echoey and I tried to open my eyes but it was like i had no control. I started convulsing and got sick. Mom called an ambulance and they brought me to the ER. The Er sent me here so I've been in the ambulance twice today!" You sighs. Chase nervously picked at his lips. "So what does that mean? Like did they run any tests yet?" Chase asked as Rudy broke a few traffic laws to get him to you quicker. "They have me hooked up to all these monitors and I'm going for an MRI tomorrow. The doctor said I most likely had a seizure." You explained as you looked at all the wires and iv lines covering your body. Chase let out a breathe that he didn't know he was holding. "OK baby. We will figure this out! Rudy, how far away are we?" Chase looked over at the blonde with red eyes, on the verge of tears. "It's right up here on the left." Rudy mumbled as he leaned over the steering wheel to make sure it was clear to turn. "OK babe. We just pulled into the parking lot. Where do I go?" Chase asked as he unbuckled his seat belt. "I'm on the 7th floor room 54." You said yawning. Rudy pulled up to the main entrance and stopped the car. "Go ahead man. I'll park the car and meet you up there." Rudy explained as Chase gave him a quick hug and jumped out of the car and jogged to the entrance. "OK I'm getting in the elevator now. Ill see you in 2 seconds OK? I'll be right there!" Chase babbled on as he put the phone up to his ear, taking it off speaker. "So how was work?" You asked trying to distract him a little. "Y/n as much as I wanna tell you about my day, I can't remember shit right now." Chase smirked as you hummed in response.

The elevator dinged and Chase got off the elevator and walked up to the nurses station. He put his phone on his shoulder so he wouldn't look rude for not giving the nurse his full attention. "Hello miss! My girlfriend is here somewhere. Room 54. Her name is y/f/n y/l/n. I can give you her birthday if you want to verify I'm not some weirdo." Chase said talking a mile a minute. The nurse just smiled and got up from her desk. "You must be Chase! She told us you were coming! Said you'd be the tall surfer guy with the chocolate brown eyes. Follow me." The nurse smiled before walking down the hall with Chase on her heels. She got to a door and knocked lightly before opening it. "Hey y/n! Surfer boy is here!" The nurse giggled as Chase walked through the door and the nurse closed it behind him. You were laying in the hospital bed with leads attached to your chest and stomach. You also had an iv in her arm and a couple stickers with wires on her head. Upon seeing Chase, you total lost all your composure and started sobbing. Chase rushed over to your side and gently hugged you close. "It's OK baby. I'm here. I've got you." Chase cooed as tears started to run down his face. You scooted over on the bed making room for Chase to lay down. He carefully made sure all the leads were out of the way and nothing was being pulled before tucking you into his chest. " It was so scary! I didn't know what was happening or why." You sniffed as you snuggled into his chest. "Shhhh. It's OK now. It's over. You're here now ad we will figure out what happened and why. Just relax baby." Chase cooed as he rubbed your back. A soft knock made you jump in your sleepy state. Chase said come in before kissing the top of your head, noticing the jolt of your body at the sudden noise. Rudy entered the room with Chase's backpack on his shoulder. "Hey y/n. How you feeling, sweetheart?" Rudy asked in a soft voice as he crouches down next to the bed. "I'm exhausted and confused as to what happened but I feel ok. Thank you for making sure Ace got here OK. I really appreciate it." You said while reaching out to grab Rudy's hand. "No problem at all! JD is coming to pick me up so Chase's car is here." Rudy explained before putting Chase's backpack down. "I thought you might want your bag." Rudy nods to Chase as he stands up. "Thanks man. I owe you one." Chase bumped his fist to Rudy's. "No you don't! You would have done the same for me. You rest up OK y/n? Don't let this guys puppy energy keep you up." Rudy said pointing between the two of you, which made you let out a small chuckle. "He smells like the ocean and is warm. I think I'll have no trouble falling asleep." You mumbles as you snuggles into Chase's chest again. Chase smirks ,holding you close. Rudy's phone dings and he waves good bye so he doesn't disturb the half asleep girl on Chase's chest.

You awoke from your nap to Chase still at your side. You smile up at him. "Sorry I fell asleep on you. You didn't have to stay." Chase opened his eyes lazily, drawing shapes on your arm with his finger. "No way am I leaving you baby. But since you're awake now. I really need to pee." Chase chuckled as he slowly scooted off the bed and walked to the bathroom on the other side of the room. You turned on the TV and sat up a little, looking at the screens and wires all around you. Chase came out of the bathroom, tossing a paper towel into the trash bin, before grabbing his bag from next to the bed. He pulled out his charger and plugged your phone in before putting it down on the table next to you.As he placed the bag down and sat next to you on the bed, a nurse knocked and entered the room. "Hey you two! I have extra sheets and blankets for you! This chair fold out into a lounger so you both don't have to smush together all night." The nurse explained as she sat the extra blankets and linen on the chair. "Thank you so much!" Chase beamed as the nurse came over to your bed side to check all your vitals. "Is there anything I should look for overnight?" Chase asked the nurse."Well if she has any convulsions or gets sick, press this call button." The nurse said pointing to the red button on the wall. "Other than that, if anything has you worried press the button and we will come make sure everything is OK." The nurse smiled as she finished getting your blood pressure and typed the vitals into her laptop before leaving the room. Chase got up from his seat on the bed and opened up the lounger chair, putting on the different sheets ad blankets. "You know, you don't have to sleep here just because I was admitted." You smile watching his basically throw blankets round until he was satisfied. He came and laid down next to you again before pecking your lips. "I told you ,baby. I'm here with you for everything. We'll figure this out together." Chase cooed as he pulled you closer and watched SpongeBob with you on his chest, running his ringers through your hair. "I love you, Ace." You said before kissing his hand. "I love you more,Baby girl."

*photo cred to pintrest*

Taglist:

@afterglowsb-tch13 @cherryobx @sunwardsss @yourlocalauthor @starkeymarkey @k-k0129 @royalpogue @ilovejjmaybank @beatement-l @miniatureauthorpartyspy @bxmaaa @allielozoya @shawnsthighs @i-love-scott-mccall @lilbabyharrys @dannii-li

Comment tag list on any of my writing to be added❤️

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media-on-the-mind101 · 4 years ago

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Turtles All the Way Down: OCD and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (Book)

* May contain spoilers*

I recently finished reading Turtles All the Way Down by John Green, and it is now one of my favorite novels. The story hit me close to home because it deals with a disorder that I was diagnosed with. I thought writing an article about it would be a good way to educate you readers, while also sharing a little bit about myself.

Turtles All the Way Down is story about a teenage girl named Aza Holmes who suffers from OCD or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. The story shows how the disorder impacts her daily life as well as her relationships. Because the author suffers from the disorder in real life, the depiction is fairly accurate. However, I spotted a few things that might suggest a whole different diagnosis whatsoever. The story also covers Aza’s treatment which I felt was missing a lot of important things.

According to the DSM 5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a disorder where a person gets caught in a cycle of obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions are intrusive thoughts that trigger distressing feelings, while compulsions are repetitive behaviors that are performed to relieve anxiety or prevent something bad from happening. OCD is often confused with OCPD (Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder) which is characterized by extreme perfectionism, order, and neatness. OCPD is often portrayed as OCD in the media which means that stereotypical OCD is really OCPD.

While Aza does have obsessions that involve cleaning, they are more about health and less about being organized. People with OCD often have a specific thing they worry about, and for Aza it is contracting an infection from a parasite called C-diff which essentially causes food poisoning and stomach damage. While she doesn’t really do anything to neutralize or cancel her thoughts out, she repeatedly reads articles online and uses hand sanitizer to relieve her anxiety.

As you may already have figured out, people with OCD often have illogical thought patterns and they are fully aware of it. But their anxiety makes them perform their compulsion anyway “just to make sure.” This is seen in the book when Aza drinks a bottle of hand sanitizer to insure that all bad bacteria inside her body are cured. Of course we all know, that drinking hand sanitizer would actually be more harmful then helpful.

“Drinking hand sanitizer is not going to make you healthier, you crazy fuck. But they can talk to your brain. THEY can tell your brain what to think, and you can’t. So, who’s running the show? Stop it, please (pg. 210).

In this scene, Aza knows that drinking hand sanitizer is actually more harmful then helpful, but she feels as if something is controlling her brain. The “they” refers to her OCD and she tells it to stop but isn’t able to control it.

While reading the book, I noticed that some of Aza’s symptoms don’t quite fit the diagnosis of OCD, such as her feeling of not knowing if she is awake or dreaming, real or non-existent. In one chapter she says the following:

“the pressing of my thumbnail against my fingertip had started off as a way of convincing myself that I was real . . . every time I thought maybe I wasn’t real, I would dig my nail into my fingertip, and I would feel the pain, and for a second I’d think, Of course I’m real” (pg.106).

The feeling of disconnect she has from her own body and surroundings are actually symptoms of DDD (Depersonalization - Derealization Disorder). According to the DSM, the disorder is characterized by persistent feelings of being a stranger to yourself or your surroundings. According to Psychology Today, however, you have to have no signs of other mental illness that can explain your symptoms, in order to be diagnosed with DDD. This is when diagnosing a patient becomes challenging; so many disorders can have similar symptoms or be co-morbid with each other that it they can difficult to differentiate.

The other symptom I noticed that is actually its own disorder, is the fact that Aza has a habit of digging her nail into her fingertip to the point where her finger becomes scarred. While picking of the skin is often comorbid with OCD, it is actually a separate disorder called excoriation disorder or dermatillomania. According to mhanational.org, this disorder is characterized by picking of the skin that creates skin lesions and that causes disruption in everyday life. It is true that the disorder falls under the category of obsessive compulsive disorders in the DSM, but excoriation disorder is not the same as OCD.

Now we’ve defined what OCD is, but another important part of how the book portrays it is in the treatment. According to Mayoclinic.com, the most common treatments for OCD include CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), exposure therapy, and medications such as SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors). These are the treatments that I had during my childhood, and they have been statistically proven to be very effective.

In the book Aza sees a therapist and takes medication, but she doesn’t get exposure therapy, one of the main treatments for OCD. Aza mainly gets CBT which is essentially talk therapy, but she is not forced to face her obsessions without performing her compulsions. An example of this would be touching a dirty substance and then forcing herself not to take out her phone or use hand sanitizer.

The last important thing is how OCD effects a peoples relationships. Throughout the story, the characters in Aza’s life talk about how hard she is to deal with. One scene toward the end really emphasizes the importance of this issue. In this scene, Aza and her best friend Daisy get into an argument because Daisy feels that Aza is too self-centered.

She says “and you’re so, like, pathologically uncurious that you don’t even know what you don’t know.” And later she adds “I don’t mean that you’re a bad friend or anything. But you’re slightly tortured, and the way you’re tortured is sometimes also painful for, like, everyone around you”(pg. 216).

Daisy is frustrated because she feels like Aza is so caught up in her own thoughts that she never shows any interest in the lives of others. When she says Aza is “tortured” and it makes it painful for everyone around her, this shows just how much her illness impacts her relationships with other people. Basically, people find her difficult to be around because they, in a sense, have to experience everything with her and they begin to lose patience. At the end of this scene, the two girls get into a car accident because they weren’t paying attention to the road.

Aza’s other important relationship in the story is with is Davis, who is like a friend with benefits. The reason he never becomes Aza’s boyfriend is because of her social anxiety and fear of contamination that prevents her from being physically close to people.

“I enjoyed being with him more in this nonphysical space, but I also felt the need to board up the windows of myself. Me: I feel kinda precarious in general, and I can’t really date you. Or date anyone. I’m sorry but I can’t. I like you, but I can’t date you” (pg. 162).

I this scene, Aza reveals that she communicates better online then in person and this suggests that she has some form of social anxiety.

Another scene tells us just how much her fear of germs effects her life: “billions of people kiss and don’t die just make sure his microbes aren’t going to permanently colonize you come on please stop this . . . then you’ll get C. diff and boom dead in four days please fucking stop just kiss him JUST CHECK TO MAKE SURE. I pulled away” (pg. 152).

In this scene, Aza has difficulty being physically intimate with Davis because her fear of germs prevents from enjoying it like most people would. Based on this fact, we could predict that Aza will have difficulty in her future relationships because of her mental illness and this is a great example of how it effects people in real life.

As I mentioned in the beginning of this article, the author John Green himself suffers from OCD. Compared to his own experiences, the book is pretty similar. Like the main character, Green suffers from obsessions about contamination. In an episode of the Vlogbrothers Youtube channel, Green explains that

“I might worry out of nowhere that my food is contaminated or somehow poisoned and then somehow suddenly that will be the only thought I'm able to think . . . I can lose all control over my thoughts for an extended period of time to the extent that I can't follow what's happening in a TV show or read a book.” (Green).

*John Green, author of Turtles All the Way Down*

So like Aza, he worries about contamination to the point where he can’t focus on anything else. He also has the same kinds of thought spirals :

“the compulsive behaviors I use to cope with these obsessive thought spirals, repeatedly checking my food for contamination, for instance, or spending hours Googling what will happen to me if I eat moldy bread.” (Green).

As you can see, the characters compulsion of checking in internet comes straight from the author’s real life experience. According to the New York Times, John Green developed the disorder at around seven years old and eventually got it under control with the right medication and CBT. It was not said weather or not he underwent exposure therapy. So the treatment that Aza receives is based on the way some treatments work in real life.

While reading Turtles All the Way Down I often found myself feeling nostalgic because my own experience with OCD is very similar. Although I do not have an obsession with a specific thing like Aza does, I have the same types of intrusive thoughts. I also have similar compulsions to seek reassurance from the internet or other people about my health, as well as other compulsions to neutralize, or cancel out my thoughts.

Because I had Tourette Syndrome (a neurological disorder that causes physical impulses) as a child, I developed what is called Tourettic OCD. It is pretty much exactly what it sounds like; Tourette Syndrome and OCD combined. The reason this occurs in some individuals is because the ability to filter out and thoughts and the impulse to move, take place in the same brain area, the basal ganglia. As a result of this, my compulsions tend to be more physical, such as moving my eyes excessively whenever I see negative words in a book, or someone getting sick in a movie.

Like Aza, I went through CBT but I also went through several years of exposure therapy and I take an SSRI in conjunction. I think exposure therapy is a very important part of the treatment of disorders such as OCD and PTSD and I was disappointed that the book did not include it. I think that if you are going to educate a person about disorder, then you have to educate them about the treatment as well. In conclusion, Turtles All the Way Down was a great novel that captured OCD more accurately then any movie I have seen. The fact that the author has the disorder makes it all the more realistic and personal, and I have to say as a person with OCD and a psychology major, I was quite pleased with the way the character was portrayed. The story may have been missing a few important elements but overall it provided a realistic way of educating people about the disorder.

#john green #turtles all the way down #ocd #mental health #mental illness #books and literature #psychology

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tiiiiiired · 3 years ago

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i know this is a joke but ive also seen kids on tik tok unironically say this shit and now i have a fuckton of teenagers on my waitlist claiming they have EXTREMELY RARE disorders when really they're going through the extremely common and normal experience of occasional dissociation in response to stress. so, now that that run-on sentence is out of the way, time to throw in my mandatory PSA.

not all distress is abnormal!!! not all traumatic experiences will result in PTSD or even basic traumatic stress responses!!! sometimes people will go through some horrific shit and experience normal feelings of grief, but turn out completely fine in the long run with no pathology!!! (in extremely simplified terms) psychs are only Really concerned if you experience:

thoughts of harming yourself or others (including impulsive thoughts that you don't plan on acting on; better safe than sorry on these. sometimes it can be OCD, PTSD, or something more serious. no, we won't forcibly admit you to hospital unless we actually think that you will act on these thoughts)

sudden changes in behavior (especially if these changes involve risky behavior or if these behaviors are keeping you from doing what you love/what you need to do/causing you distress)

emotions that are so overwhelming that you feel like you're going to die. or emotions that are so overwhelming that you start getting unexplained physical reactions (stress hives, psychosomatic IBS, feeling faint, severe chest pains that arent explained by a physical disorder, etc). these have to have been occurring for a Long while before its considered a disorder (occasional panic attacks or anxiety stomach aches are not enough to diagnose)

you feel absolutely nothing. you regularly feel as if the world is far away and/or as if you don't exist, and you experience both gaps in your memory and a loose sense of time. (this has to happen regularly and we're only really worried if it's a product of a distressing event, or if you are experiencing distress because of it)

you feel invincible, like you could do anything. bonus points if you have extreme energy despite not sleeping.

your behavior accidentally causes harm to yourself or others (gambling away your life's savings, driving impulsively, severe and abnormal thrill-seeking behaviors, etc)

you begin to see, hear, taste, smell, etc things that are absolutely not there. or you begin to have extreme paranoia

you have fear or anxiety so severe that it has caused you to entirely avoid certain activities, people, places, or things. especially if the source of the fear is something you once loved or something you need to do on a daily basis

i might be missing some serious ones (im tired af pals) but these are the main ones we look out for. and even if you have some of these, remember that the REAL concern is level of impairment and level of distress. how severely are your symptoms affecting you? how distressed are you at the thought of them? if your answer is "meh, not really", you probably don't have the disorder. however, at the end of the day, therapy is important regardless of whether or not you have a diagnosable disorder. so please see a therapist if you're worried. just don't panic: your emotions are normal!

#psych blogging #helpful psych advice?#psychology #psychological disorders

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punkpal · 5 years ago

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Okay i’m sorry for this rant but i am struggling and i’m running out of hope so some of y’all better donate some of yours before i combust...

Read at your own discretion.

And please if you have any lived experience of complete fucking hopelessness along with bipolar disorder (because that specific diagnosis in my rather long list of conditions is really new to me) i am not coping and could do with some advise, so please do share if you have any, it would be really helpful.

Okay so i call bullshit.

I spent 3 months in a manic episode as a result of a setting change in my brain implant (the one i got to reduce the symptoms of my ocd which obviously as per my chronic bad luck not only didn’t work or help in the slightest but also gave me bipolar)...

Then upon getting tired of waiting for the mania to disappear i changed settings after finally getting permission from my surgeon who finally had also given up hope that the mania would subside and the setting start to work to help rather then hinder.

Only for the new setting to send me on the opposite side of the spectrum and make me suicidal (luckily only for 2 weeks as i was getting ever increasingly more unsafe even whilst inpatient in a psych ward, so a change of settings was allowed quicker for my own safety). But boy did that feel like a lifetime when every waking moment of those 2 weeks felt like i was drowning.

And just because after 10 months of constant setting changers (almost all of which options i have tried) i was getting tired of getting my hopes up with a new setting change, only for it to make things worse; i went back to a really low setting as per my doctors suggestion and i thought that would be a good choice.

That setting i changed back to, i had been on before and while it didn’t help it didn’t make me worse so until i can be fucked trying new settings with the chance it would send me over the brink i opted for a safe setting that in the past has done fuck all which i am willing to deal with if it means i don’t risk getting worse.

BUT

Noooo. No rest for the wicked, my bloody fucking manias back and while i new that was a possibility as the mania was caused by a specific setting and would likely only be present on that setting. It was mentioned that there was a possibility that the mania would stay because basically of an accidental fuck up caused by that old setting that is now causing that side effect to continue even when on a otherwise reasonably safe setting.

So long story short the mania is irreversible and likely will come in and out of my life on and off indiscriminately as well as the other half of the bipolar diagnosis (i know officially have, yay) being increased long periods of suicidal ideation and i am BIB MAD.

I got this surgery to help the main out of 7 mental illnesses (ocd) and satan or karma or god or whoever the fuck dished me out a entirely new diagnosis instead of fix the one i wanted benefited.

PLUS i scored a brain infection thats the first of its kind (that my state has ever seen) as a result of this surgery despite this surgery being common - mostly used for Parkinsons. And to this day i am still facing shitty physical health as a result of this, even having to have 2 surgeries 2 weeks ago to fix damage that infection caused by that ‘life saving, mental illness curing, miracle brain surgery’.

Honestly will my bad luck ever come to an end?

Theres only so much i can take.

And worse is i fear this mania will come to an end only to segway into a episode of prolonged suicidal ideation (and even intent) like what happened last time. Because i can’t deal with that again, not on top of all the other issues my still really really really fucking bad ocd is causing me.

I don’t get why all of this is happening to me.

What did i do to deserve all of of this misfortune?

Am i getting punished for crimes my soul committed in a previous life?

Does god exist and he’s a little bitch who has it out for me and goes out of his way to make my life miserable?

Am i actually dead and living in hell paying my debt to the devil in the form long term suffering and hopelessness?

Or am i cursed? Is that it?

Whatever the reason i have had enough.

Also honest observation insert: Apparently when i started venting my manic fueled frustrations in this post my mood was still heightened but if noticeable in the sharp change of pace in this post the mania has officially began to leave the building now (which i guess was what i was asking for) but as is tradition the end of this mania (thats luckily only been going on a few days) has plunged me balls deep into the depressive part of my bipolar and man is the desire to die starting to look more and more appealing.

I won’t do anything don’t worry!

I mean i guess now i have scored the start of a break from what was only a small manic episode but exhausting nonetheless. So i can finally get a good nights sleep, because the mania was defiantly cock blocking me from achieving shut eye until tonight. So i’ll use this opportunity to catch up on a week of lost sleep (plus sleep is like a vacation from life, a short visit into destination ‘dead’) so experiencing the complete lack of being consciousness through sleep will be a nice little visit into what i crave (death) without the huge commitment that comes with death and the sadness it causes others.

Any way this last week or so of mania has not been fun but as i crash into the opposite end of that bipolar scale i am realizing how much more preferable that mania was as apposed to my current quickly declining mood. And upon reflection take back all the smack i talked about mania only because now i want to go back in time to that manic period rather be in this dangerously depressing present i am currently getting stuck in. And just argghhhh.

Right when i think it can’t get any worse it does and then this happens again and again a fucking again.

When will all this suffering end? And when it does end will it do so by eventual good luck and recovery or eventual giving up and the welcoming of death like an old friend?

Because i really do want that first option to be the case. After all thats why i chose to get this surgery - for hope of recovery (and because it was the last option in recovery that i had yet to try). Because i do hold onto hope and i do want to fight for my recovery until i eventually obtain it.

But i have been fighting for this false sense of hope for more then a decade but the longer i wait and the harder i fight for recovery the more it hurts when i get nothing but bad luck to set me backwards every time i think i have made progress. And so the vicious cycle repeats.

This toxic cycle of suffering really does make it hard to continue feeling positive about the future. Therefor at times like these i find it easier not looking at the future at all because i don’t see myself being alive long enough to be in it most of the time. And that concept actually really does put me at ease.

Nonetheless i wake up and try again and again chasing what little hope i do still have left over from the abundance of hope i used to have before over time i began to loose most of it.

This dwindling hope really does scares me though because i am worried especially now with how low i am at the moment that any day soon that hope will start to run out until i don’t have enough left to save me from myself and if that happens i see no other outcome but to welcome death and admit defeat.

And don’t get worried ‘welcoming death and admitting defeat.’ is only a back up plan, its just kind worrisome to know the current plan isn’t gong too crash hot either and that my only organized backup plan revolves death.

Any way, this letter along with my mood stating off manic as hell.

And somehow ended here. In disappear.

But i fight on, for however long i have it in me to continue fighting.

And i ask (well lets be honest at this point i am basically begging) that the powers that be give me a break. I deserve it. Look even if that break isn’t recovery can it at least be to not continue getting worse. Because i don’t know how much further down this rabbit hole i can go...

#no one will read this but if you do please help #this is literally my cry for help so as is tradition i expect to be ignored and for that i am not but but if you do read and have any advise #i'd love to hear it #tw//#trigger warning//#ocd #bipolar #mania #depression #suicide mention//#okay i don't know what else to trigger tag this with...#because i really don't want people who don't want to see this be seeing it #but also like i said if you do especially if you found this by the ocd bipolar depression mania etc tag and have any advice to give #hmu if you think you can offer a word of advise or help even a little even if you just have personal experiences you think would be helpful #because i feel so alone in this and i hate it #personal

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deadmomjokes · 6 years ago

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Normal Anon Again 1: Your response was great, don't worry about a thing there. I just really feel stuck because Im still with my emotionally abusive family, and so I had to sneak to even see a doctor. I honestly felt like the doctor barely ever heard me at all, so even though she did prescribe an SSRI (not that she said what brand), I'm kind of scared to continue treatment with her. Because I made the notebook with a lot of care, she said I had OCD and did bring it up again later when I

had refuted it and tried to explain the notebook was just something I wanted to be well done for her. She didn't ever look at it either, so she based it off me buying little tabs and labeling them for ease of access and writing my name on the front I guess? I don't have a lot of money, as I don't have a job, and getting a job is the main reason I want to try medication... I basically have to move out by 2020 from my family, both by their desires and mine, so I'm on acrazy deadline to try to get my life together and I feel like I have no time to find someone new if I'm going to be looking to move away when all the apartments are renting. So it feels like if I want to try medication this is my one chance, but I don't feel like I can trust the doctor handling them. I don't know if I should just try to find a way to make my life work out for a couple months or give the medication a shot even though I don't trust the provider...I've got to worry about getting a job this month or being homeless too, which is why it feels so one or the other for my current situation. Thank you so much for all your feedback, sorry if this was a little messy being explained, I'm a bit frazzled yet, haha.

Oh man, I’m SO very sorry for everything you’re going through! You’re dealing with a ton, and this incident with Dr Garbage certainly didn’t help.

One thing that may be a possibility is going to a normal doctor, like a family medicine doc or general practitioner, and talking to them about your anxiety/depression problems. They can also prescribe psych medication, and it might be easier to pass off around your family and/or to find once you move, since a lot of offices partner or have networks that you can just transfer through. Anyone from a Nurse Practitioner to a PhD in general medicine can prescribe meds like an SSRI or even low-level mood stabilizers. (For my recently upped dosage, I went to a PA-C and they consulted with the folks at my obgyn, so I never even saw a psychiatrist. Tho I’m trying to get in with one anyway, but that’s way beside the point.)

I definitely understand you being unable to trust the current provider; she clearly didn’t hear you or take everything (anything?) into account. Anyone who comes to you from an emotionally abusive situation should warrant a ton of follow-up questions and in-depth probing. Even beyond that, just in general, taking stock of all the symptoms and reviewing any identified triggers is going to go a long way toward real diagnosis. Your notebook should have made her job a breeze, instead of her having to pick through your anecdotes of what happens when, she could just look at your notes! You were doing everything right; a therapist’s dream, honestly. I’ve been in therapy for years and I’m still not that good at keeping tabs on my own symptoms and patterns. I’m enraged on your behalf, because when someone comes to you for help you should reach back out to them, not be prescriptivist even if you’re dealing with prescriptions.

If medication is something you’ve been considering for a while, and feel like it might be a good fit for you, it may be worth trying the current prescription even though the current doctor is garbage, since SSRIs are usually the first try medications anyway. But that always comes with risks, because sometimes the first try doesn’t really work out for you or your specific situation. But SSRIs as a category are pretty safe, and are used for anxiety disorders (including panic disorder and generalized anxiety), ptsd, depression, and ocd as well. So chances are even if you found a psych who did their job well (aka not labeling you ocd for being prepared), they were going to land on an SSRI as a first try, too. That definitely doesn’t make it an easy decision, tho. That nagging fear may always be with you if you try it anyway despite not really trusting her diagnosis, and that could add a layer of complexity to deciding whether the medicine is right for you. Especially if you end up needing to switch medication or dosage, having a doctor you trust from the outset is going to be important.

I obviously cannot tell you what to do, nor do I want to, or even think I should if I could, because personal situations are just that--personal. I would only caution that if you’re already having difficulty getting or doing a job without medical assistance (ie medication), that trying it under serious stress for a few months may do more harm than good as far as worsening your difficulties, or causing new ones. However, sometimes we aren’t in the position to make the “best” decision for our health because living takes precedence; I’ve taken plenty of jobs that wrecked my mind and body and I kept them anyway because I absolutely had to. So I’m not going to get on a high horse because I know exactly how hard it is, and the difficult decisions you have to make in order to survive. I’m just so very sorry you are in that position to make such a decision.

If you do decide to try the medication anyway, some tips on kind of “going it alone” since you won’t be able to/won’t want to go back to the original doctor:

Start at a lower dose than the full final dosage. If she didn’t prescribe a “titration” schedule, starting at half dose for a week is a good place to begin.

Understand that things might get worse before they get better. You might have horrible mood swings, really bad depressive days, or bad anxiety spells before you start seeing the true effects. This isn’t indicative of whether the medicine is going to work eventually, but if it becomes too much for you to deal with, you should stop anyway.

Side effects may come and go. Just worth noting.

If possible, have someone close to you who knows that you’re starting this medicine. Obviously not a family member given your situation, but if you have a friend or anyone you do trust in your immediate vicinity, or even a friend you communicate with long-distance, make sure someone knows. That way you have someone to report in to and who can check up on you as you adjust.

Start by taking them with food, even if it doesn’t have a nausea warning. I’d suggest evening meal or soon thereafter, because SSRIs often cause drowsiness at first (great for helping with insomnia tho!).

You’re probably going to have a full month or two before it reaches its peak effect, since this is your first time trying them. You might see some relief right away, but full efficacy takes time as it builds up in your system. If you can tolerate the side effects (or don’t have any), and you’re able to deal with the mood swings or psychiatric effects, stick with it at least 6 weeks.

Listen to that “don’t drive or operate machinery” warning. First-time-medication drowsiness is a special breed that sneaks up on you and also makes you feel WEIRD.

You can also see about filling the prescription and then researching the name on the label before you decide whether or not to take it. Or, if you have an online account with the pharmacy, as with CVS, you can see the name of the drug there, or even call the pharmacy she sent it to and ask them what the name of it was (”for insurance purposes” or “because I forgot which one it was”) and then research it on sites like Mayo Clinic and rxlist.com (don’t do webmd). These websites include lists of what it’s approved to treat, so if you’re fairly certain you actually have anxiety/depression, look for that on the list. Just know that all websites are essentially required to remind you that an SSRI (really any antidepressant or mood stabilizer) could worsen any suicidal thoughts or behaviors, though this is mostly a risk for the 24 and under crowd with emphasis on teenagers. And it doesn’t happen to everyone.

Should you decide not to do the medicine right now because of the doctor who prescribed it, I applaud you for your bravery and strength in facing both your uncertain future and your mental/emotional difficulties without the assistance you feel you need. That’s a hard, hard thing to do, and I wish it wasn’t a choice you had to make.

I’ll be sending good vibes, thoughts, and prayers your way as you’re dealing with so many transitions and difficulties. I know cyber hugs are kind of a dated internetism, and may not mean much, but I give you all the cyber hugs my cyber arms can muster.

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mental-health-advice · 6 years ago

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(james 1/2) so I don't have a diagnosis but I'm 17 and for 3yrs I've had symptoms of OCD (and for a little while when I was 7 or something) and it's getting worse and I have no access to meds or a therapist. my main issue is with germs, and recently I've been thinking about how distressing it's going to be to date in the future cause already I can hardly handle sharing space with my family or having them touch my stuff, and it's just going to get worse. I don't want to be constantly obsessing

(james 2/2) over what my partner touches or asking them to wash their hands every 10 minutes or being afraid to do what puts my mind at ease in case they judge me for it, and I don't even want to think about how stressful sex would be. and I feel like relationships are such a trivial thing to be worried about rn but knowing that I'll never be able to just have a normal dating life has been really bugging me and I'm not really sure what to do

Hi James,

Thank you for getting in touch with us here at MHA! I am really sorry that you are struggling with these symptoms and worries at the minute, that must be really hard for you. I hope I’ll be able to give you a little bit of advice and reassurance to make things a little easier for you.

I really do think that reaching out to a professional would be the best option for you right now; it is important to ensure that you receive a correct diagnosis and any possible causes are eliminated. However, I do recognise that sometimes it isn’t so easy to get that professional help, so I’m going to share with you some self help ideas and resources that I think could be of some use to you.

Firstly, I am linking you to our page about OCD here! We have some really great informative pages which may help with your own understanding of what you are going through. Also the following webpages might be helpful for you to read:

NHS

OCD-UK

Intrusive Thoughts.Org

Speaking of techniques, there are a couple of things that I want to suggest that you may find helpful. I know for many people, challenging the intrusive thoughts OCD can cause cause can be really effective. Basically, whenever one of the intrusive thoughts speaks to you, reply to it, really sarcastically like you would if someone said something really silly. For example, you could reply by saying ‘woooow, what a great idea that is!’ in the most sarcastic tone you can muster. Hopefully this will help you to start giving the thoughts less value and you will find they begin to effect you less. Grounding techniques might also be something you could try? Grounding techniques help to bring your focus away from any intrusive thought, bring it back to your consciousness and back to reality. We have a page of them here! I suggest to begin with you try something like saying the alphabet forwards and then backwards slowly, or running your hands under really icy cold water.

Something quite important when dealing with OCD is to not give your thoughts too much power - so, stop, acknowledge them, jot it down briefly, then try to think of it as put away in the writing. Hopefully this will make it a little easier for you to move on from the thoughts. You could also try giving yourself a certain time frame within the day to think about and process the thoughts - so you can say that between 18:30-19:00 I will think about the thoughts I have been having. This way you avoid ruminating about them for long periods of time and hopefully this means they will have less power over you.

Here are some other tips and pages that you might find useful for self-help:

Mindfulness

Distractions

This 4 step programme

Avoid caffeine as it can make negative thinking/feelings worse

Suppression

I cannot personally give you any advice about how to manage OCD in a relationship and when being intimate, however, I am so sure that there are people out there who can. Have you considered maybe reaching out to an OCD help group online (or in person if you are able!) and asking if anyone has any advice for you? I completely understand why you are worried and those worries are very valid - please try to remember that love is a super powerful thing, and when you meet someone who falls in love with you, your OCD and the things you need from them in regards to that, will not be a negative thing to them - it will be something that they want to help and support you with, not judge you for. Relationships are about communication and compromise and I’m so sure that you will find someone who is willing to do both of those things with you and who you will be super happy with!

I hope this was of some use, love. Please feel free to send us in another ask if there is anything else that we can do for you! Please take care,

Rhiann xo

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lusilly · 7 years ago

Text

out of the woods

I realized I’ve never actually written Damian and Iris’s first kiss, so :)

this is all in canon with Earth-28

“What travels all around the world, but always stays in the corner?”

“A stamp.”

“The poor have me. The rich need me. What am I?”

“Nothing.”

“What, if you put it in a barrel, will make the barrel lighter?”

Damian hesitated, then frowned. “A – lower caliber bullet?” His father cocked an eyebrow, and the penny dropped. “Oh,” he said. “Not that kind of barrel. A hole.”

“Forward,” began Bruce, “I am heavy. Backwards, I am not. What am I?”

“A ton,” said Damian.

“What kind of flowers grow on your face?”

“Tulips,” Damian said, “but that one’s dumb.”

“You have one match,” Bruce instructed him, tone very serious. “You enter a room in which there is a kerosene lamp, an oil burner, and a wood burning stove. Which do you light first?”

“The match,” answered Damian.

At this, Bruce finally gave an approving nod. He typed something in the computer, apparently distracted, as Damian finished tugging on his gloves. “A man is found dead on the beach next to a rock,” said Bruce; Damian turned to watch his father, listening. “The rock was the cause of death, but never physically touched him. How did he die?”

“He’s Superman,” said Damian, without skipping a beat. “The rock is Kryptonite. Which is actually carcinogenic to any creature, but I suppose for the sake of the riddle it has to be someone who’d die of Kryptonite exposure relatively quickly.”

“Good,” Bruce said, without turning from the screen. “How far can you run into the woods?”

There was a moment’s pause. Damian blinked at his father. “Is that it?” he asked.

“That’s it,” Bruce replied. “How far can you run into the woods?”

Damian took a long breath, considering this. His brow was knit in concentration. “The entire way through?”

“No.”

“As far as you can?”

“No.”

“As far as I can?”

“No.”

There was another short silence as Damian wracked his brain. “Is this one of those, when are the woods not the woods? sort of riddles?

“No,” answered Bruce. “It’s very straightforward.”

“How far can you run into the woods?”

Bruce nodded. “How far can you run into the woods.”

Damian made a noise. “Hm. Can I think on it?”

Resuming his usual work on the computer, Bruce said, “Though that isn’t usually protocol in the field, I know you’re running late, so I’ll excuse you just this once.”

Pressing his domino mask across his face, Damian headed down the steps from the computer hub down to the garage below. “Thanks,” he called. “I’ll have it figured out by the time I get back on Monday.”

Raising his voice to be heard as Damian headed away from him, Bruce called, “I thought we agreed Sunday night?”

“Alfred said Monday was fine if I checked in.”

Begrudgingly, Bruce stopped himself from protesting this. He’d have a conversation with Alfred later. “Be careful,” he called, as a small light on his computer screen informed him Damian was getting into the personal jet. “Have fun.”

The comm inside the jet’s cockpit picked up Damian’s reply, playing it directly out of the computer speakers. “How far can you run into the woods?” he repeated, apparently ignoring his father’s farewell. “Suppose I’ll have to find out, hm?”

The engine roared. A few minutes later, Damian was gone. Bruce sat alone in the empty cave. It was good that Damian was gone more often, spending more time with the Titans, but it also had the odd effect of making the Cave and the Manor itself feel bigger, emptier. Lonelier.

On the flight to Titans Tower, Damian checked in with the rest of his team.

“What do you mean you’re not coming?” he demanded.

Lian Harper let out a frustrated sigh. “I mean I’m not coming, I have a family thing.”

“Is it a mission?”

“No, it’s not a mission, it’s a family thing.”

“What kind of-?”

“Oh, right,” said Lian, cutting him off, “I’m sorry Robin, I forgot all of your meaningful familial engagements are missions, my bad.”

This was true enough that Damian didn’t feel particularly cut by it, so he just began cautiously, “Arsenal, I thought we were doing training this weekend.”

“It’s not like I’m stopping you. You know you can actually train without me, right?” Then she added, “And without Sin either, she happens to be in my family so she’s also gotta go to the family thing.”

“You and Sin are our best hand-to-hand combatants. What am I supposed to do without either of you to spar against?”

“Go toe-to-toe with a Kryptonian? Wait, take a video, I want to see Superboy beating the hell out of you.”

Chris wasn’t coming this weekend either, which Damian knew because Superman had reached out to his father to let him know that he would be taking some time off for what Damian’s father had called medical leave, but that didn’t sound right to Damian. He knew that Chris had been having some trouble adapting to working in a group, and suspected that maybe he needed some time to decompress, or something. There was something a little off about Chris which Damian couldn’t quite figure out yet, but Chris was surprisingly bad at leadership for being the son of Superman, and awfully quiet in a crowd, and even had difficulty maintaining eye contact for too long. Though Damian didn’t want to pry – he hated the idea of the others noticing his own problems and trying to piece together the illness that haunted him –he was also terribly curious.

Either way, Damian didn’t mention anything about Chris to Lian. Instead he just ended the call, then hesitated, then opened another line on his commlink.

“GL,” he said. There was nothing. “Green Lantern, come in.”

A couple minutes later, he received a text on his encrypted personal phone. Cant pick up Im in civvies.

He texted her back. Are you coming this weekend?

No I cant, read her reply, not much later. Its my quince

Damian didn’t know what quince meant other than fifteen in Spanish, so he didn’t reply. Instead he thought briefly of trying to get a hold of Maxy, but her parents didn’t allow her to spend the night on her own yet anyway, so that seemed kind of pointless.

Jai West also rarely spend the night at Titans Tower, but he was the only other person left that Damian could think of, and he was starting to feel a little desperate.

“Jai,” he said at once, when the line picked up. “How are you?”

On the other end, Jai sounded confused. “Robin? Why are you calling me?”

Tactful as ever. “I thought we were meeting at the Tower this weekend, but it seems things will be awfully quiet. I was wondering if you planned on coming?”

“Um, no. I have to do homework.”

“And you couldn’t do it at the Tower?”

“Not really, because usually you guys all have to rush out at once to do a mission or something, and I’m not a big fan of the way the giant T-shaped tower is basically a supervillain magnet.”

This was more or less fair. “Well, I’ll be there if you do decide to stop by.”

“OK,” said Jai. “I think Irey’s already there anyway, so I don’t really have a ride.”

Something dropped into the pit of Damian’s stomach. “I see,” he said. “Well, let me know if you’d like to come. I can always pick you up.”

“Okey-doke. Hey, maybe next weekend.”

“Maybe next weekend,” Damian agreed. “Goodnight, then.”

“’Bye, Robin.”

The jet continued to race through the sky, chasing the setting sun. Below him, he could see a great rolling forest splayed across the landscape. How far can you run into the woods? As far as you could walk, just faster?

He slowed his pace as he reached Titans Tower, circling three times, then landing beneath the Bay. Maybe he wouldn’t stay the entire weekend; but then again, the earlier he left, the sooner he’d have to come up with the answer to his father’s riddle. It seemed frustratingly impossible at the moment, but perhaps the frustration was mostly just a redirection from something else.

So he exited the jet and headed up into the Tower itself with a heavy, roiling feeling in his stomach, nervous and unwell.

Recently, for what was the fifth time since he’d started taking medication, he’d had a change in dosage; after a month or so on his previous meds, his anxiety had gotten so bad he’d barely been able to spend time with the Titans at all, even though he had categorically refused to admit this to his father. But biweekly appointments with a therapist meant that these things were caught earlier rather than later, and now here he was, trying a different cocktail of medication to see if the side effects would be more tolerable this time.

Damian felt like a living economics experiment, an exercise in pareto efficiency: what was the optimal combination to make the symptoms of his OCD better off without making at least one other side effect worse off? At least in economics one could always solve dilemmas like these with a charts and tables and numbers. Nothing was that uncomplex for Damian.

But at least the anxiety in the pit of his stomach wasn’t paralyzing as he headed up to the main level of the Tower. The big television, which took up nearly an entire wall, was on when Damian stepped out of the elevator.

A girl popped her head over the couch. “Robin!” she said, sounding a little surprised. “I didn’t know if you were coming!” She laughed, leaning over the back of the couch. “I kind of thought I’d have the Tower to myself tonight. But this is cool, that’d be boring anyway.”

Damian stood awkwardly by the elevator. “Impulse,” he said. She was not wearing her uniform, and her curly hair was big and surrounded her head like a halo, instead of in her usual braids. He suddenly felt very stupid, standing there in his full uniform and mask. “I…didn’t realize you were here already.”

This was a lie, but his mouth was suddenly dry and he had to come up with something to say to avoid sounding stupid. Iris just grinned at him.

She pointed back at the TV screen. “You want to watch?” she asked. “It’s kind of boring, but Lian got me addicted.”

“I have some training to do,” Damian blurted out.

“Oh,” she said. “OK. Well, I’ll be here.”

There was a momentary pause. Iris didn’t turn away, just watched him expectantly. “I…suppose I could put it off a little,” he said, finally. She beamed at him, her face lighting up. “Watching television doesn’t appear to require the uniform, though,” he added. “I’ll go change.”

“It’s OK,” said Iris quickly. “I like the costume! It’s nice.”

If she, too, blushed, Damian didn’t catch it. While he tried furiously not to look her in the eye, she let out a little laugh. In the blink of an eye, she appeared before him, running so fast it could’ve been teleportation.

Without hesitating, she reached out and gently peeled at the corner of his domino mask, tugging it off his skin. Despite himself, he let her.

“You’re good,” she told him, crossing her arms as if appraising him like a piece of art. “It’s weird when you leave the mask on, but I don’t mind everything else if you don’t mind it.”

She was very close to him. He reached out and snatched his mask back from her, then rubbed at his left eye, then caught himself and stopped. “Maybe I do mind.”

“Maybe you don’t,” she countered.

She flickered again, then reappeared at the couch. “Come watch with me?” she asked, glancing back at him from over the couch’s back.

He hesitated another moment, then he let out a long breath and set aside his mask. He took off his cape, then his gloves, then his boots, and then he joined Iris on the couch. He sat at the opposite side, transparently as far away from her as possible.

“What is this?” he asked, watching the screen.

“Kay-you-double-you-tee-kay,” Iris replied. When he glanced at her, she grinned at him and then clarified, “Keeping Up With the Kardashians. Do you know the Kardashians? I feel like your dad’s famous enough that odds are good you’ve run into them at some point.”

Damian looked back towards the screen. “I don’t know the Kardashians,” he said, watching whatever reality TV drama was going down. “I don’t even know who they are.”

“Consider yourself lucky,” Iris told him, throwing a nice embroidered pillow at him. “They’re really annoying.”

“Why do you watch the show, then?”

She shrugged. “Guilty pleasure.”

They sat in silence for a while, watching TV. Iris was also on her phone, scrolling through something, playing a game; she could never focus on one thing for too long. Damian, on the other hand, found the show somewhat riveting, but couldn’t really get into it because he was acutely aware of the fact that Iris was sitting a mere few feet away from him.

An episode and a half passed. Damian glanced at Iris. She was typing something into her phone, probably texting someone. There was a smile on her face.

He rubbed at his eye, then stopped it. “I talked to your brother,” he said, all of the sudden. “He said he had homework to finish, or something?”

Iris glanced up. “Oh, yeah,” she said. “My mom’s been sort of training him on xenophysics lately. It’s cool.”

“Just him? Not you?”

With a smile that was almost apologetic, Iris explained, “I kind of got bored after she explained it the first time. He’s learning all the numbers and stuff, I don’t really need that.”

“Why not?”

She looked back to her phone. “’Cause I get it already,” she said mildly. “Most people need math and stuff to understand things like that, so they can kind of work it out step by step. When you’re as fast as I am it’s like explanations like that are moving in slow motion. I get it. I don’t need to go backwards.”

Damian found this fascinating. He watched her, a gentle frown on his face. “So you don’t need to understand the equation,” he began, thoughtfully, “if you already understand the answer.”

At this, she looked up, and actually lowered her phone to her lap. “Yeah,” she said. “Basically.”

He nodded. “I can relate. My friend Colin, he’s our age,” he remembered Iris’s weird rapid-aging phenomenon and corrected, “my age – I’ve been tutoring him in chemistry. It’s basic stuff but sometimes it gets very difficult to explain, because it’s like,” he paused, searching for the right way to express this, “it’s like – there, that is the answer, obviously, but then he asks how I got there and I can’t really tell him.”

Iris’s eyes lit up. “Yeah!” she said, nodding. “Exactly! Like, I don’t know how I know that but I just know it.”

There was an awkward sort of silence. On the TV, Kim gave a tearful confession. Damian asked, casually, “So you don’t have any homework to take care of while you’re here?”

“No,” answered Iris, shaking her head. “I have a couple assignments but I can do them on Sunday. How ‘bout you?”

“I have an assignment too,” Damian said, thinking of the riddle. “But I don’t need to get it done right away.”

Iris cocked an eyebrow at him. “Do you go to school?”

“No,” he said. “Homeschooled. You?”

She shook her head. “Same. I was in middle school with Jai for a little bit but I couldn’t make it through classes. Too boring.”

Damian, who had never been in a traditional classroom and therefore couldn’t relate, just sort of nodded at this. The TV show droned on before them, but it was quickly growing old, so Damian offered, “Would you like to…go over some case files? Maybe we can identify our next mission before it falls into our lap.”

Iris looked at him brightly. “That could be fun,” he said. “Everyone else might want a say, though.”

Damian shrugged. “They’re not here,” he said simply.

For a second, she just watched him with something almost like suspicion in her eyes. Then a smile stole across her lips. “I guess so,” she said. “C’mon.” She was instantly on her feet, across the room, at the door. “Let’s go.”

When she began heading down towards the computer hub, Damian instead took her by the hand and pulled her in another direction. As soon as he realized what he was doing, heat rose suddenly to his face and he let go of her; embarrassed, he did not glance around to see her face. If he had, he might’ve seen she was smiling.

“My, uh,” he cleared his throat, “database on the computer downstairs is better. It’s got all of Batman’s files, so it’s more detailed.”

“All of Batman’s files?” asked Iris. If she was faking impressed, Damian couldn’t tell. “Wow.”

They went downstairs, to where Damian had an entire floor of the Tower to himself. Milagro liked to make fun of him for it, but he needed the room for his own tech and uniform and computer and also for his personal space.

There was only one seat before his massive computer downstairs, itself a smaller version of the Batcomputer in the Cave. He insisted that Iris take it, then giggled at him. “What a gentleman,” she said, amused. “You can always sit on my lap if you get tired of standing.”

He fought the blush rising to his cheeks.

Together they scrolled through the list of active cases, focusing in their particular area. “Looks like Green Arrow and the rest of his team take care of the worst missions up here,” said Damian, gesturing to a swath of dots on the map which represented completed missions. “That must be what they’re doing this weekend.”

“This weekend?” echoed Iris doubtfully. “I don’t think GA’s taking any missions this weekend.”

Damian raised an eyebrow at her. “I heard otherwise from Arsenal.”

Iris blinked at him, then she took her phone out of her pocket, scrolling through her texts. “Hold on,” she said. “I swore Lian said she was doing that marathon thing tomorrow.”

“Marathon?” echoed Damian, leaning over Iris’s shoulder, looking at her phone. There were an awful lot of heart emojis in her texts to Lian. “What marathon?”

“The AIDS one,” she said, then, triumphantly, she turned her phone around to show him the screen. “Yeah, the Star City AIDS Walk. Her family does it every year.”

Frowning at the phone, Damian reached out instinctually to take it – Iris pulled it away sharply, grinning at him. “AIDS Walk?” he asked, confused. “Why would they do that?”

“Um,” began Iris, “because it’s a charity and the Queen family are like the biggest philanthropists this side of Gotham City, obviously.” She poked him in the side then added, “You’re telling me your dad doesn’t do marathons for charity?”

“No,” answered Damian honestly. “No marathons or triathlons.”

The light of the computer screen lit up Iris’s face harshly as she gave him a confused look. “That’s…really specific?”

“In my family,” Damian explained, “we’re not supposed to do anything which might publicly draw attention to our…” he paused, searching for the right words, “atypical level of physical fitness.”

“What?” asked Iris, scandalized. “The public isn’t even allowed to know you’re hot?”

Despite himself, a smile tugged its way onto Damian’s lips. He leaned against the computer panel. “I’m afraid not,” he told her, almost ruefully. “So, if you could keep that between us…”

She laughed at him. Something glinted in her eyes and though Damian could not quite identify what it was, he liked it. A lot.

“Between us,” she echoed, watching him. “Sounds like a nice place.”

There was a short, loaded silence.

Then, before Damian could blink, she disappeared. A moment later she was back, this time sitting before the couch, laying a deck of cards down on a low coffee table before it. Without glancing up at him, she called, “You wanna play a game?”

He went around to the other side of the coffee table, then lowered himself to the ground. “Poker?”

“I was thinking Go Fish,” she replied, shuffling the deck.

“Go what?”

Iris stopped short and looked up at him. For a second she said nothing, then she narrowed her eyes and leaned forward across the table. Disbelievingly, she asked, “You don’t know what Go Fish is?”

“No,” he answered, truthfully. “Should I?”

A look of concern on her face, she watched him for a second. Then she asked, “How about War?”

“About what?”

“Rummy?”

He shook his head. “I know Solitaire,” he offered.

“What about Bullshit?” she asked him, with narrowed eyes. “Have you ever heard of that?”

This made him hesitate. “I mean – the term generally? Because if so then yes.”

“It’s a game,” she said, then she started the split the cards between them. “I’ll teach you.”

She did teach him; it was a fun game, if only because Damian appeared to be so calm and cool all the time that Iris started calling bullshit on every set of cards he laid down, so it didn’t take long for him to win. They played again. This time Iris called every one of his hands correctly, while he was only right about half of hers. She won.

Once the game was over, he asked her admiringly, “How did you do that? You can’t possibly have decoded my mannerisms that quickly.”

She grinned at him. So fast she seemed not to move at all, she collected every one of the cards – including those in his hand – and stacked them in a neat pile on the table.

“I cheated,” she said.

They got bored of card games quickly, and after poking through some potential missions they got bored of that too. Iris asked him if he wanted to watch a movie, and he said yes even though he didn’t really want to. She made some popcorn as he scrolled through Netflix. “We should get a pizza,” she called, standing at the microwave waiting for the popcorn. “No! Some Chinese food. I can just run out and get it, they don’t need to deliver it all the way here. Actually,” she said thoughtfully, tapping her chin, “I could go run out and get any food. What do you feel like, Robin?” she asked him. “Chicken nuggets?”

“You can call me Damian,” he called in reply.

She stopped, looking at him.

He glanced back at her, then he gestured around them. “There’s nobody here,” he said. “You don’t need to call me Robin. We’re not in uniform.”

“You are,” she pointed out.

He pointed to his face, the missing mask. “Not in full uniform, anyway.”

There was a beat of silence. Then she asked, “No on the chicken nuggets?”

As he took a seat on the couch, he told her, “I don’t eat meat. But you should get some if you want some.”

“No meat?” The microwave beeped. She took it out of the microwave and dumped it into a bowl, then went over to the couch. Without hesitation, she sat right next to Damian, close enough that the side of their legs touched. “Maybe pizza then,” she said, matter-of-factly. “But maybe later.”

She offered him the bowl of popcorn. He was extremely uncomfortable, and his stomach kind of hurt, so he declined.

When Damian started to play the movie he’d chosen, Iris let out a whine. “Really?” she asked. “A black-and-white movie? How old is this?”

Indignantly, Damian replied, “It’s a classic!” which he only knew because he’d found it under the Classics section on Netflix.

“It’s boring.” Iris threw a handful of popcorn into her mouth. “I’m gonna fall asleep.”

Something was screaming inside Damian’s head, but he tried to ignore it. He summoned up all the courage in his little fifteen-year-old body, the kind of courage that allowed him to jump off buildings and bridges and face goons with automatic weapons without blinking – and he moved his arm up, and he slid it around Iris’s shoulders.

Without looking away from the TV screen, he murmured, “That’d be OK.”

There was a tense second, and then Iris sort of settled against his arm. She held the bowl of popcorn in her lap and tried to lean her head against his shoulder but she was a little too tall; so she scooted down in her seat a little, and tried again. This time it worked.

The whole movie Damian’s pulse was elevated, which he wondered if she could feel. It was a weird feeling, a sort of buzzing in his head and a simultaneous sort of quiet, a focus, something that he really really liked despite the fact that it made him feel really uncomfortable.

She finished the popcorn, then put the bowl aside. “Damian,” she said, for the very first time, tasting the name in her mouth. It didn’t feel right, didn’t suit him the way Robin did.

He glanced at her. She lifted her hand and with two fingers turned his face towards her so she could see him better. Her eyes roved across his face, searching through his gaze and his sharp brow and down to the gentle curve of his nose and the width of his mouth. She liked him better without the mask, she decided. She liked seeing his eyes, as dark a brown as her own.

While she looked at him, he clenched his jaw. His brain felt like it was short-circuiting a little bit: he couldn’t think of anything to say.

Something popped up spontaneously, something he’d been turning over and over in his mind again and again, repetitively, obsessively, since leaving home earlier that evening. It spilled from his mouth before he could think about it, before he could consider if it made any sense or if it didn’t fit the moment or if it was going to interrupt whatever was happening right now.

It came out just as Iris leaned in, like a physical block between their faces, because if what Damian thought was happening was actually happening he wasn’t sure if he could do it without something bad happening, though he didn’t know what. The nebulousness of the thought scared him, the uncertainty principle, the potential chaotic motion of the double rod pendulum of himself.

“Iris,” he said, arresting the moment; in surprise and a little bit of shock at hearing him use her name for the first time, she stopped. He let out a silent but shaky breath. “How far,” he asked, “can you run into the woods?”

She stared at him.

Unhelpfully, he clarified, “It’s – a riddle.”

She didn’t say, “Oh,” or make any other indication of confusion. She just looked at him thoughtfully, then away from him for a moment. Then she met his gaze once more, and she smiled

“Halfway,” she answered. He stared at her, his brow knit. “You can only run halfway in,” she explained, “then you start running out.”

She grinned. Before them, the black-and-white movie continued to play, a rush of music rising to crescendo as the characters onscreen shared their first kiss.

#damian wayne #iris west #irey west #earth 28 #this is a decent start and it's kind of changing the way i'd always assumed their first kiss went #cuz when i was a young'un i was like Ya Confidence Sexy Theyre So Sure Of Themselves Ha Ha Ha #but as a semi-grown person im like.......they were 15 they knew Nothing

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pastelacrylics · 7 years ago

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Shutdown/meltdown vs. sensory overload vs. panic attack?

I've struggled with this one too. Its weird and hard to decipher. I tend to categorize them based on cause, outward symptoms, and severity.Sensory overload (while miserable) is what I consider the least severe. Everything feels too much but you can still function enough to leave and/or get the input to stop. This generally comes before a meltdown or shutdown.Meltdowns/Shutdowns are like realllllly bad sensory overloads, plus a level of exhaustion from communication and other people. This is a double whammy when it comes to causes, and is generally unsolvable without stimming and waiting it out. This leads to acting out or being unable to interact. Panic attacks are from anxiety attacks (a sense of dread) that just won't go away. Once it's a panic attack and not an anxiety attack, you've hit the point that you think you are dying, you can't breathe, and it feels like a freaking heart attack. Anxiety attacks are similar, heart racing and pounding, difficult breathing, but you aren't quite calling 911 over them. They are caused mainly by internal stuff, no sensory input you can just shut down. These can also lead to meltdowns or shutdowns, if its from other people and communication exhaustion mixed with anxiety, which I know they sometimes can be. I hope this helps!

So my sister has lots of things, one being autism, and when she has meltdowns, she hits her head. Now.. Okay, it wouldn't be so bad, but she has these plastic 'Yo-Kai Watches' (if you know what those are), and she hits her head with those, and has cracked them before. I'm really worried she might hurt herself, but any reasoning I try to give she doesn't understand. Any advice on what to do?? Because I really don't want her to hurt herself...

It sounds like she is stimming during these meltdowns! I know that redirecting one urge to do a dangerous, self injurious, or destructive stim into a less bad one can help her, and ease your anxiety. Next time she starts melting down, help guide her to a soft area like a couch or bed, and she can rock and hit that instead. You can also try finding stim toys or comfort items that she likes, and it will help her use other things to self regulate when coming down from a meltdown.

If you can figure out the cause of the meltdowns (usually noise/ lights/ other easily decipherable sensory input), getting rid of and preventing the cause will also help insure this happening less.

I'm newly diagnosed so I don't know much about my autism yet, but what do autistic burnout feel like? or what are their symptoms? because I'm not sure if this is what I'm experiencing or if it's something else...

((As a mod I would personally leave this question to someone else, but I really hate leaving things blank or without an attempt because I've had so many years of being taught not to, so I guess I'll try)

Autistic burnout is the feeling of exhaustion when it comes to having dealt with many social interactions and people. Generally for me its just a lethargic feeling, and I don't want to do anything and I enter a shutdown of sorts. A lot of the time I find it is personally accompanied by an anxious feeling.

Sorry if you've already gotten a question like this before but what are the main traits for diagnosing autism?

I dont personally know a lot about professional diagnosis's, but I know that for my self diagnosis I looked at loads of research that basically boiled down into three big groups, and one "other" group.

-Social issues This could include issues with communication or eye contact, or general misunderstandings and a lack of real friends and connections. -Sensory issues This includes being sensitive to noise, light, touch, taste, textures in general, or being so insensitive that you seek out anything to enrich your life with new/different sensory experiences. -Self stimulatory behaviors Stimming can mean lots of different things, but hand flapping is particularly common, as is spinning, rocking, or other "fidgets" -An "Other" category A need for routines, executive dysfunction, and other traits that are attributed to your autism would fall into this category. I would google any traits you are personally wondering about, along with "autism" and see if it falls into this category.

What is the difference between autism, ADHD, and asbugers ( forgot how to spell that sorry)??

Aspergers is no longer considered a separate diagnosis from Autism anymore, as they both fall under "Autism Spectrum Disorder", the new label under the DSM5.

Because of that, I can't tell you much about the old differences between those two, but I know that Aspies were basically just "higher-functioning" (less obvious) Autistics.

ADHD and the similar ADD, OCD, and SPD are all cousin disorders of Autism, having many (but not all) of the same traits. With ADHD in particular, it means that there will be very few social issues in comparison. Mainly, the issues will be in compulsions, hyperactivity, need for routine, easily distracted, and social issues will be confusion over not following the whole conversation. ADHD is often times accompanied by executive dysfunction, or the inability to do certain tasks, and you generally won't even understand why.

what are some examples of autistic social difficulties?

-Not being able to make eye contact (or being uncomfortable at all with it) -hyperempathy (or being able to feel what others are feeling) -general confusion -sarcasm going over your head -taking things too literally -answering people out of turn or when they aren't expecting you to -not talking when you are expected to -talking too much/ not taking turns in conversation -talking about "uncomfortable" topics (such as being very observant and talking about things you weren't told by the person and them shifting away)

Is it possible to become/appear less autistic as you grow older?

As you develop more and more coping mechanisms and stims, and learn from others what is or is not "socially acceptable" you may appear less autistic. It is part of growing up autistic in a world that doesn't entirely fit to you. This is common, but not everyone goes through it. If you appear less autistic, it doesn't mean you've become less autistic, just that you've changed how you deal with the world around you.

#in the life of me #txt

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