#tbh my friend keeps accidentally being insensitive saying how she doesn’t know what to do with herself because we’re not under overwhelming

[tarantula-hawk-wasp]

God adulthood sucks like you only have so many hours in a day and younger me would have spent 4 hours of a Sunday drawing and instead I cleaned my living room floor and furniture bc of the pipe flood on the 9th and like im not gonna get tumblr clout and external validation for vacuuming and mopping my apartment the way I would for a drawing that took me 3 hours

[teyrnacousland]

Anders Has BPD: a List of Things by Me

Using mostly examples from DAA because DA2 has some Concerning “mental illness is just like ~possession~” type nonsense going on and I don’t want to wade through that. Here we go!

He's hyper empathetic. In the wending woods when he realizes people are dying for nothing and he's just so upset (his tone reminds me of how I feel whenever I accidentally watch/read Bad Things in the news), in Amaranthine he’s absolutely distraught at the thought of leaving even one person behind to die, he risked his freedom to save the life of some Bann when he was 12 years old and freshly escaped and really should have been laying low, pretty much any time someone is hurting he's literally desperate to help them

---Except when it's people who Don't Count. He has zero sympathy for Templars, even joking about the one Templar dying. And he says some pretty awful things to Fenris and Merrill, even when the latter is dealing with something horrible. He’s very black and white about this. Speaking of...

Black and white thinking. Anders is all about Good and Bad. Spirits are Good, demons are Bad. Mages are Good, Templars are Bad. Justice is Good, anger is Bad. Andraste is Good, the Chantry is Bad (he's Andrastian, but even in Awakening he approves of stealing from the Chantry and disapproves of helping it). Saving people is Good, burning a city to the ground is Bad (fun fact, Anders is the only companion who doesn’t approve of that no matter what you say. The others can be convinced. Not Anders. He can just be convinced to give in and accept it, never to agree.) 

---He sorts people he meets into Good or Bad categories too. There is no in between, although there are more extreme versions of the Good box, which are the “I know I just met you but I’m at least 50% madly in love with you” box and the “I would literally die for you, you are the definition of perfection and you can do no wrong” box). 

---Velanna: fellow mage friend, Good. Merrill: Blood mage, demons, Bad. Bethany: mage, related to Hawke, Good. Aveline: guard, married a Templar, Bad.

---I can’t think of an in game example of him splitting (going from total idealization to total  with anyone, but he absolutely would and does trust me I’m an expert. He’s absolutely the type of person who will instantly stop being friends with someone if they make fun of his cat, or if they make One insensitive joke he doesn’t like, or talk to him with the Wrong Tone.

Extreme emotions. When Anders is angry he’s ready to rip apart a half dozen Templars with his bare hands. When he’s happy there are no problems in the world and everything is perfect because he’s free and there’s pie here. (Long term plans? What do you mean long term plans? Things are fine right now?). When he’s sad (which we don’t see so much in Awakening because he’s on an up swing) he’s miserable and hopeless and hides away in his room for weeks on end because there’s literally no point to anything. When he’s in love he’s so in love. (When he’s with Karl he doesn’t even try to escape the Circle, because the Circle and all of its horrors are suddenly bearable because he has Karl. When he loves Hawke, he sees Hawke as perfect and can do no wrong, and Justice is even annoyed by this (at least at first) and sees Hawke as a distraction because Anders can’t stop thinking about them literally all the time). 

Impulsive. He is definitely impulsive. He came back to help you fight an army of darkspawn that just took out every warden and Soldier in the place because he just... wanted to help. You find him hiding around the corner from them because he was likely forced to realize he has no idea what he’s actually planning on doing. Then he agrees to join the Wardens without thinking about it at all. Then he starts a conversation with someone he barely knows by basically saying "So, Jesus is pretty fuckable, huh". The man has no filter or impulse control. 

---He impulsively overshares too. You can tell from the way he answers questions in dialogue and banter that he’d rather joke and deflect than answer personal questions honestly. And yet within like a week of meeting you he’s told you about how he’s run away from the Circle seven times and they kept him in solitary for a year once. One of the first things he says to you is that this Templar used to call him inhuman and that the Templars kick him in the head to wake him up sometimes. And you cannot convince me that any neurotypical person starts a conversation with a complete stranger with “hi, I’ve been abused for most of my life, what’s your name?”

---At least some of his Circle escapes/attempts were likely impulsive. The epilogue says he ran away from the Keep several times but came back which to me implies it’s become one of those “I feel restless and am about to do something impulsive and stupid” things

---One time when he ran away from the Circle he went to Denerim and had an orgy with a pirate

---Even joining with Justice was pretty impulsive and risky tbh. Neither of them really knew what would happen.

Anger. He’s often at least bitter and sarcastic whenever anything even slightly bad happens. If you say something that upsets him or even just reminds him of something that upsets him he either makes a sarcastic quip and gets distant and withdrawn, or he goes into a full on angry rant. Anders was super angry in DAA, and expresses it even in situations where he probably shouldn’t (snarking at the Templar who just said she wants to see him executed, at you (his boss and the only reason he’s not in the Circle or dead right now) even at the beginning when he barely knows you and can’t know how you’ll react to that, etc) like he just can’t hold it in. This anger often comes on pretty suddenly and often vanishes just as fast. 

Gets attached to people so fast. He latches onto Velanna literally as soon as you meet her (he approves of both helping her and recruiting her) and at that point all he knows about her is she’s an attractive angry elven mage who tried to use magic trees to kill you. His banters with her imply it’s at least partly if not mostly because she's a fellow mage (he wants to talk about magic with her!) Also in their banters, he’s more open with her. Nathaniel asks him how the Templars find him and he just snaps “incredibly angry, that’s how” but when Velanna asks about his escapes he tells her that they found him with his phylactery. I’m pretty sure Velanna is the only person he ever actually apologizes to for making a joke to (”(chuckes) I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself.”). And again, she’s not even very nice to him. He’s attached to her and sees himself as closer to her even when that doesn’t seem to be reciprocated to that level. (He also does this with Hawke in DA2, where he’ll be in love with you even if you’re absolute shit to him.) 

---He gets pretty attached to you (the Warden-Commander) pretty quickly too. 

---Anders is the "he held open a door for me once and smiled at me so now I'm planning our wedding" kind of guy, I think he’s had a bit of a crush on all of your companions at some point tbh (For sure Nate and Velanna and you, and Justice, and probably Sigrun too).

---He falls in love with Hawke almost as soon as they meet too, even if you're horrible and mean to him (Hawke is his FP just saying)(I don’t mean that in a good way I mean it in an unhealthy way that he and Hawke would have to learn to talk through and fix)

Fear of abandonment, absolutely. That’s probably one of the reasons he runs from Vigil’s Keep in the epilogue. Everything’s just too good, it can’t last, something’s going to go wrong and so he might as well be the one to leave because the more he likes it there and likes the people there the worse it would be to lose it all. 

---He keeps people at a distance and acts as charming and endearing as he can, probably curses himself whenever he slips and is honest with people (which is pretty often, see impulsive oversharing) because he wants people to like him and not leave him. 

---(This is why he does the charming thing less in DA2, I think. Because he has Justice. Justice won’t leave him and Justice is always in his head thinking and believing that Anders is good whether people like him or not, and those thoughts are in Anders’ head so they’re calming these fears like subconsciously, if that makes sense?)

Lack of/unstable sense of personal identity. He has no connection to his name as seen by how he just accepted this random nickname as his name from then on, which isn't strictly a BPD thing but it is a feeling I’ve seen a lot of people with BPD relate to. 

---He doesn't really know what he wants to do because he doesn't really know who he is aside from the Circle mage who keeps escaping. If he's not the runaway mage then what is he? 

---And in DA2 he has trouble distinguishing between himself and Justice whereas Justice doesn't seem to have that problem as much (in the Fade it's always very clear when it's Justice vs Anders speaking, because Justice is in control and Justice has a better idea of who's who)

Anyways yeah, Anders has BPD, thanks for coming to my TED Talk. 

[stcrmlike]

              *makes eye contact with security cameras to assert dominance*

ZACHARY CLUTTERBUCK really is the spitting image of NATHAN STEWART-JARRETT, right? For someone only THIRTY years old, ZACH has been forced to endure so much. Yeah, that MUGGLE has been scraping by at the sanctuary for ONE MONTH now, working as a PATROL GUARD in the DIVISION OF PROTECTION. HE identifies as CIS-MALE and is known to be CYNICAL and UNEMOTIONAL but also PRAGMATIC and CLEVER. Best of luck surviving through this.

henlo it’s mar!! finally bringing a muggle to ur dashes!! if you’ve played opposite of him before, he’s basically based on my frank longbottom (hence the stupid surname) but slightly updated to modern times & muggle life!

LINKS: pinboard, character tag.

pre-outbreak !

zach is born zachary archibald christina clutterbuck, and is known as zachary for the good part of his childhood. his parents are posh, proper rich people with three sons destined to do well in life. he goes to boarding school ( winchester college, to be precise ), wears ties on sundays to church and speaks in an accent that he’ll be mocked for later in life. he’s got expectations weighing down on his shoulders, his brothers’ legacies already bigger than his own ( they are older than him, so that’s logical, but still ). 

his family is very stoic, tbh. theyre all about PERFORMANCE and SUCCESS and AMBITION, don’t do much of warmth and compassion. sure, there’s an understanding that they all love each other deeply and support one another, but there’s no focus on it. the focus is on careers, reputation and success. 

think: dps vibes.

he does well, though. zachary is a successful student, a dedicated kid. he works hard. he works too hard, perhaps, throws himself in his work and lacks any growth in sociability. with his mother stoicism and his father’s hard working nature streaming through his veins, he is the perfect student, but a shit friend. 

he just doesn’t have many friends. he’s got study buddies and an abundance of good grades, but not many friends. he’s just off-putting, to be honest, with his cynical tones and harsh way of interacting and the way he just doesn’t really seem to understand how to speak honestly without being an asshole. 

he starts going by zach at some point. not by choice; people just start calling him that, because zachary is too long and elaborate and, heck, even if he doesn’t have that many friends, his acquaintances feel like zachary is too official. he gets into manchester university and starts a bachelor in criminology. it’s not as admirable as his mother or father would have wanted for him --- they would have preferred to see him studying to become a lawyer or a doctor or something that earned a lot of money, but zach had his mind set. 

he meets tara there. she’s clever and funny and kind, and she likes him. and shit, zach was so caught up in getting his career in order, focused on running track and getting right grades that he thought he had no time for kindness, but she taught him there was always room for that. they grew, closer, closer, closer, and fell in love. 

he gets a job at scotland yard and moves to london, making another big city his hometown ( he’s not linked to any places: he swapped birmingham for winchester in his youth and moved to manchester once university came around, and so moving to london wasn’t a big step. frank is only linked to himself and his mind, and tara --- tara, who allowed him to grow. ) he does work there he enjoys, work that feels good to do, he gives back and works hard and is dedicated to a fault.

he marries tara at some point -- i have to fuss these deets out w jinx bUT he does!!! -- and it’s the happiest day of his life and he loves her SO MUCH!! they’re colleagues and partners in crime and best friends and he’s the first person he’s felt at home with and he’s So, So, Happy to be married to her. FLUFF.

outbreak !

and so his life is all good. he’s working hard, learning a language on the side to keep his mind fresh, loving his wife. he drinks coffee and curses and is an ass, still, though in a more nuanced way. AND THEN THE FUCKING WORLD COLLAPSES.

the wizarding world is exposed and apparently his wife knew. apparently she’s what they call a squib. he’s angry, in all honesty, unsettled, confused. he doesn’t know what to do. the whole world is turned upside down and zach, zach who clings to logic and facts and everything his eyes can see and his hands can touch, feels the ground being ripped from under him.

there’s no time for anger, though --- and he gets it, too, why she didn’t tell him, and he doesn’t want to be angry, but there’s this thing he didn’t know about, and it’s quite big, and he’s angry at the entire wizarding world on top of it, so he doesn’t want to be angry and he tries to direct it to the thing he should really be angry at: these so-called death eaters --- and so he shakes it off and prepares to move north with tara on his side.

he’s capable. he’s got a gun and a pair of fast legs and a quick mind, but it’s still a tough journey. it’s a long one, especially, and there’s death and decay everywhere they go, and even more danger. he wonders where the fuck these damned wizards are and why the hell they’re not doing more than running into the same direction. 

he’s been at the castle for a month now and he’s ... adjusting. he’s got his gun still and so got on the patrol team and he’s glad, because he doesn’t trust these wizards at all. they go against everything he knows, and while he’s happy to be safe and knows that they have a lot of things that can help them, he also knows that theyre basically walking timebombs that could cause immense damage. he’s honestly being a bitter, salty asshole and he’s just!! not!! fuckign!! amused!! by any of this.

personality & tidbits !

frank is a big picture kind of guy. he looks at the world and sees a puzzle to solve, little gaps where things need to be filled, black, charred pieces that need to be removed ... he’s so focused on the big picture, that he sometimes forgets to look at the world around him. this makes him very ??? much capable of being an asshole and being insensitive and ugh. even now, when he’s traveled all the way up north and has seen so many small kinds of suffering, he thinks more about the bigger picture. he’s all like: sure, you’re hurt and you’re in fear, but damn it, there’s zombies out there. we gotta focus on that.

does this with his own problems, too. really doesn’t pay much attention to his feelings and while he’s become better at it over the years, it’s just?? a struggle. especially when there’s so much else demanding attention at the moment. 

i mean it’s not always a bad thing? it’s good to have pragmatic people, but sometimes it just makes him kind of a dick. 

captain raymond hold from b99.

really likes learning and is very intelligent, tbh. his time at boarding school rly gave him a ?? lot of control and stuff and he’s just good at learning and dedicating himself to it. even now, he’s learning --- he’s picked up some books from the hogwarts library on subjects to try and educate himself about this whole new world.

likes coffee and cigarettes and sandwiches.

really misses london and cities in general. sure, hogwarts is pretty, and it reminds him of his boarding school years, but damn it, he misses being around cars and noise all the time. he misses the chaos that wasn’t scary like this one.

can be?? nice?? like he’s not a full asshole. he’s just OCCUPIEd.

fucking hates his surname and when he was a detective and he had to say “detective clutterbuck” he wanted to legit drop through the earth because half the perps were like? ?? CLUSTERFUCK??. just call him zach.

accidental asshole with a big heart and too much on his mind. 

[sanguinesprout]

Some storms have passed, hopefully it’ll be warmer soon (updates and blah)

Um, welp... this may be my late-st post yet, that’s something new I guess lol, it ain’t so bad. I was seriously considering not posting this month but I know if I don’t stick to some sort of schedule then I’ll get too lazy and all past efforts will just be lost. At first I was busy for a few days, then I remembered and felt lazy some and then I forgot for some more days, but I’m here now and Imma write this post hoo!

I had another kind of argument and cry involving my sis but it was from a misunderstanding and it was brief and the make up was fast. I still find it hard to express my true feelings to her and her words still cut so strikingly hurtful and are seemingly insensitive at times, but some of mine must’ve hurt her just as bad too. When will I be able to speak my true mind? It’s just so difficult... but in time, with some work I really hope for that to be possible. 

Lately, I’ve been more active on getting my health problems sorted out, making and going to appointments and stuff. Well, none of the problems have actually been sorted out yet, as previously attempted, but I gotta keep pushing about them to hopefully get a better sort of resolution this time. I also went to some other health appointments I had being putting off, as with a lot of things, they weren’t as bad as I thought they’d be, which is good and good of me to finally do them ^^ Avoiding and not doing anything accomplishes nothing after all and again health is super important!

One of the appointments was to a mental health advisor person. The funny thing is I was inadvertently recommended to see them when I was investigating some physical problems. I kinda was hopeful that maybe I’d get referred somewhere better than last time’s super general counsellor by this advisor but uhhh nope. They smiled a lot and asked me how I generally was and a few tidbits about my past and then everything else was just some very general stuff about changing the way you think blah blah. I brung up AVPD, asked if there was anyone I could see who specialised in personality disorders but it was pretty much brushed off, which really sucked. 

At the end they asked if maybe I was interested in mindfulness/anxiety-reducing group therapy sessions and gave me some brief printouts with info. My first instinct would be to avoid like hell at the mention of being in a group, I was kind of irked by it and they noticed but they said to think about it and let them know next week. I also asked if there was someone else I could see 1-on-,1 but as they could see on record I already went to see someone last time (which I guess is the only thing of that they have) there was no luck there.

I’m debating whether to go or not, it could be helpful, there actually isn’t anything to lose. I’m just super paranoid about accidentally meeting someone I knew there (which is pretty irrational and who cares really ‘cause we’re in the same boat kinda thing). Also that I’ll have to give lots of info about myself to strangers, but the sheets say you don’t have to say anything you don’t want to/contribute as little or as much as you like, so that took away some of my uneasiness.

I can’t say it’ll be worth it or not unless I try it of course, a new experience and going out is good at least. I think maybe I will research it some more, then maybe go at least for one session just to see if I like it... hmm. Be brave me! You’ll be okay!

There were two groups I got handouts on, they’re both kind of similar but not. I assume I can only attend one, which one to choose? Maybe I’ll ask for more details when I next see the advisor. I’m proud of myself for going to the advisor foremost, I was pretty anxious and ready to avoid them at first lol.

I’m still very concerned about my family’s health :c My mum has been doing somewhat better, test results are slightly positive but still iffy and more follow-up tests are needed. The wait for those is long, it’s saddening and all the more scary. I really hope she’ll be okay. I wish I was stronger and could help out more. I really need to help myself faster and then help everyone else as soon as I can.

My dad’s health has actually been worse lately, we’ve been noticing some extra symptoms and even he has mentioned not feeling well and we keep telling him to see the doctor but he’s still super reluctant to. But even once he wondered to us if he should go after all. Being scared of going to the doctor or being scared of the increasing toll your health could be taking? I know which one of those I find worse. Maybe I should be more tricky like I did the previous times making appointments for him or at least try more convincing.

My sis’ health has not been too great lately either, she took on a second job and it’s very draining physically and she doesn’t get as much sleep but she does it because we need the extra financial help. I don’t like that it’s taking a strain on her health, it’s both physically and mentally stressful. I definitely agree she should quit if it really is too much. I need to hurry and get a job, things aren’t looking too great for me lately though, no more interview offers as of yet and not many application opportunities out there.

The job my sis got is actually the one I mentioned last time, which I was also invited to interview for. The ‘interview’ was just an extremely long winded talk with about only enough time for you to say maybe a few sentences about yourself in a room of a few people. Their whole system and just everything is extremely unorganised and so slap dash. The appointment dates were messed up and the interviewer had not seen any of our CV’s so all he had to go on to decide was the few lines we uttered pretty much.

As my sis works there now, she’s been telling me of how that disorganised-ness and everything literally encompasses and translates to the whole store and all its’ staff’s less than ideal work attitudes. I seriously thought such a big company would’ve been so much better than this, it’s really disappointing and makes me like it so much less. In a way, I’m kind of glad I was rejected, it’s like I dodged a bullet and with my health I would’ve struggled ten-fold 

I was disappointed with myself when I gave my few lines about myself in the ‘interview’. We were asked mostly what our career experience was and I really didn’t have much at all. I also answered briefly because I was one of the first to be asked. Just sitting there while everyone else went through their long list of past jobs and duties, man, it sucked and totally pushed me far out of the orbit of consideration lol. I was proud of myself at least for enduring the long-ass talks and for engaging and asking questions and keeping my cheery face on, good me.

In other things I kind of cut contact with the few online ‘friends’ I had been awkwardly avoiding and being scared to get rid of for so long. I was so anxious about it for so many years and had resorted to just not visiting that place at all but now that weight has pretty much been lifted. I still feel riddled with guilt and feel sad about it, but they weren’t really ‘friend friends’ more like acquaintances from a past mutual interest, so I shouldn’t feel so bad. I can’t believe all the energy I wasted fretting and overthinking, to them it was probably nothing as they have many other more important friends. People move on and people find new friends and interests, it happens all the time and it’s okay, it’s just life.

If something is hurting you or making you uncomfortable, just let it go, get rid of it for the sake of yourself and your health. It might hurt someone by doing so, but not doing so and letting yourself be hurt so much is no good either. That’s what a different friend told me and they are probably the only one I still keep in contact with now. I guess I got so caught up in being afraid to hurt some people a little that I forgot I was hurting myself a lot in the process. 

Even with the good friend though, it’s... awkward and uncomfortable still in a way, I’m not sure if’s just me or maybe if it’s them a little. I feel like maybe they only still talk to me to be nice. That they reply only out of obligation, but I’ve asked them this and they’ve denied it kind of... Tbh I feel like I wanted to cut contact with them too sometimes but I couldn’t and I probably wouldn’t. 

I can’t be sure if that’s just the avoidant and irrational part of me talking. You know, all the bad stuff floating in my head telling me I’m a nuisance to others, not worth talking to, awkward and just all these things putting myself down in general when it comes to communication and worth, I shouldn’t believe it. None of it is really true. Why is it so easy to believe these lies and irrational thoughts?

I am good and I am worthy, I have the choice to let go of things and believe in things that I want to, and I want these things to be positive and true, not negative and irrational! 

In other creative/leisure blah I have just not had the mood or energy to do much at all and it really blows because there’s still so much I haven’t done yet. I don’t want to keep being afraid of everything >< I did manage to do the tiniest bit of sewing again, things went wrong again and it was stressful but it kind of went okay in the end, so yay!

I’ve been kind of trying to build up the courage to sort of interact and be present more online, though the action hasn’t happened yet. It’s what happens when I take a break from something, the fear just builds up again and I’m back to square one. I feel like as with the previous mentioned stuff about friends and just kind of existing in places I didn’t want to be, that my slate has partially been wiped clean, like I can start anew and just be me a bit more in a new place. It’s only partially though, I still feel held back by all the bad feels and guilt and awkward from just every past interaction and the fear of the new. I need some more pep talk and convincing for myself first, but I will get there!

Something helpful to remember to do is instead of thinking of everything that could go wrong, to instead think of everything that could go right! It really flips over that scary negative feeling into something more nice and motivating. In the case of what I’m trying to do, it’s something I’ve already done before, so I’ve proven to myself I can do it already. Doing things is not actually that hard or scary, just don’t overthink everything and look to the positives rather than the negatives! Apply this more more more!

I think here’s a good place to stop now. As with every time... I did it, I wrote the post after putting it off so long, yay! 8D

I will try to remind myself the best I can, to be positive, be brave and be me! 

You too! Keep going! Up up up!

Have a positive and productive week! :D