#the games i would play if i could actually fecking. buy them head in hands

[chiisana-lion]

screw you steam for not letting me use my paypal

[xxgoblin-dumplingxx]

Tempest in a Teacup: Ten

“You want to send my daughter where now?” Clint asked slowly, raising an eyebrow at Steve. Steve sighed, “To a rave,” he said.

“For what exactly?” Clint ground out through gritted teeth. Steve had the grace to at least pretend to be ashamed of himself, “We think HYDRA is using the club as a distribution point for drugs. That may contain a nano-virus with a built-in kill switch. Or mind control.” 

The archer leaned against the wall and folded his arms, glancing out to where you were playing a heated game of Mario Kart with Tony and Natasha, “Why can’t you send Parker?” he challenged, “At least he’s a legal adult.”

Steve sighed, “Parker would stand out too much. Y/N is... well I mean. She’s not going undercover. She’s going out. That’s all.” Barton raised an eyebrow and Steve winced, “Clint, I understand,” he started. “No, Steve. No the fuck you don’t,” Clint countered, “this isn’t an agent in training. This is my kid. And I may not be a great parent but fuck if I haven’t kept my promise. Fuck if I haven’t kept her safe. And now you want to use her to what? Get intel on a dangerous criminal organization? About mind control? Because she wears platform boots and has purple hair? Fuck you. Fuck you, Cap.” The archer had to walk away. He couldn’t stay in that room with him and hear Steve justify putting you in danger. Not you. The one good thing that ever came out of his time as a petty criminal.

Peggy leaned against the wall and fixed Steve with a judgemental stare, “You could have handled that better,” she said primly. Despite her age, her gaze was still sharp and Steve felt it boring into him. “Peg,,” he said, “We don’t have any choice.” Peggy snorted, “I know that. You know that. Clint knows that” she said, “But that’s his child.” Steve opened his mouth and Peggy held up a hand, “Before you try to tell me you know that,” she said sharply, “Clint’s right. You don’t. She isn’t a kid he mentors. She’s not a soldier. She’s his child. To Clint, she’s everything.” Steve folds his arms and settles in, he knows a story coming when he hears it. “She was the reason we took Barton.” Steve tilts his head, curious and Peggy smiles. “No,” she said, “That isn’t in his dossier but, when Coulson and I first went to assess him, we almost passed him over. Wrote him off as another criminal. Another petty thief with no heart.” Steve sighs, “Then what changed?”

Peggy smiles a little, “Barton was good. He covered his tracks pretty well. It wasn’t until we actually followed him that we knew he had a daughter. Let alone one that clever... She and her Grandmother were living in this god awful little house over the South Side of Chicago. Clint was still visiting as often as he could but, visiting costs money. Money he decided was a lot better spent making sure she had school supplies and a roof over her head. So when he did visit, it was never for long and only when he had a job in the area... Barton had one weakness though. We looked at receipts and there was one. One bookstore where he ALWAYS went. Every time he was in Chicago.” Steve quirked an eyebrow and Peggy grinned, “We thought it was a drop point. We never figured on him waltzing in with a five-year-old on his shoulders telling him all about how Egyptians buried their cats.” She laughed, “So here Coulson and I are, Guns drawn ready for a fight and that little shit looked at me and told me to put my fecking gun down or she’d break my bloody knee caps she would.”

Steve can’t help it. He snorts and Peggy laughs. “I was so bloody shocked I did... To this day I’ve never seen Barton move faster than he did hauling her off his shoulders and getting her out of the way.” Steve shook his head and Peggy sighed, “The rest, you know... But I’ll tell you one more thing.” Steve hummed and Peggy glanced to where you were sitting on the back of the couch trying to teach Bucky how to play Mario Kart and giggling. She smiled softly, “She’s the reason there’s purple on his gear.” Steve cocked his head again, “How’s that?” 

“We’d sent him the proofs of everything so he could see what it looked like... We just happened to send them in Black and white. Well. Little Miss had a new box of crayons and some time on her hands. So when Clint sent them back to us, they were very neatly colored in. All the white parts were purple... her favorite color.” Steve smiled, “I bet Barton was furious.” Peggy shook her head, “Just the opposite. See, he can’t exactly keep her picture in his pocket, can he? But now he always has some reminder with him.”

Steve looked to where Clint was now standing behind you, letting you lean back against him as he heckled Bucky. Something in his chest clenched. Steve realized two things in that moment. The Archer would do anything to see you safe and happy and Steve had no idea what that felt like, to want that for another human being. Not like that. 

When you stroll into the kitchen and greet Peggy with a hug and a kiss on the cheek, she smiles, “Hello, dearest. How’s the new school?” You sigh, “It’s school.” She squeezes your hand, “That good huh?” You nod and she chucks you under the chin gently, “At least the audition is over.” You crinkle your nose, “They’re still making me do performance pieces. Which sucks because they only ever want me to be all litling and lyrical sounding... Fuck me running. Like. I can buy them a Celtic woman tape if they want one.” Peggy snorts, “Oh dear, they aren’t big fans of punk?” You roll your eyes, “Only if It’s about vague green hills and I sound like I ought to know how to dance a jig or two.”

“You know how to do that,” Peggy said laughing. “I know but that’s beside the point. Christ on a bike. Don’t you dare tell them. They’ll be trying to get me to audition for Riverdance or some shite,” you groan. “Your secret is safe with me, Sweetheart,” Peggy says kissing your cheek fondly.

“What secret?” Clint asked guardedly. “That Reggie made me take dancing lessons,” you answer. Clint chuckles, “You always looked so cute in your costumes.” He tugs the end of your long purple braid and you blush, “Did not,” you protest. “I’m afraid you did, darling,” Peggy teases gently, accepting the mug of tea you’re holding out. She likes it when you make her tea. It tastes like home and you know exactly how she likes it. Steve catches Clint’s eye, he frowns and nods. 

He’d come to the uneasy conclusion that if you wanted to go, he wouldn’t stop you. He decided his main issue was not the danger but the expectation that you should just do as you were told. Like a good little soldier. Because you weren’t. You were a kid. An artist. Not an agent. 

“Y/N,” Clint said leaning on the counter, “I- just know, you can say no. You don’t have to do this.” You cock your head, “Do what?”

Steve sighs, “We need you to go undercover,” he said. You frown, “Why me?” Clint smiles ruefully, “It’s a rave. They think the club is a front for drug-running operations.” You snort, “If wardrobe for your agents is an issue like. You can borrow stuff out of my closet.”

Steve pinches the bridge of his nose, “Look. We need someone that looks young. You look 12 most of the time.” You roll your eyes, “So you need bait.” Steve winces, he hates that you’re looking at him the way you are. Clint is smirking. Proud of you. “Yes, and no. We wouldn’t be sending you alone. We’d have agents standing by. Even with your... skill set, you’re still a civilian. There’d be a team in the wings.” You sip your tea and Steve looks away. It feels like you’re judging him. “You could help a lot of people,” he tries. You sigh, “Alright,” you say finally. “When do you need me to do this?”

Steve smiles, “How quickly can you get ready?” You snort, “It’s like 4pm. Chill. The good clubs don’t open until 9pm at the earliest.”

Tags: @lancsnerd​ @stevieang​ @golddaggers​ @blameitonthecauseway @qxeen-of-hearts​ @process-pending​ @xmarveled​ @beautybyfire, @etherealwaifgoddess, @mschellehitt, @mistressoftorture @thorfanficwriter, @ctinadiva, @innerpaperexpertcloud @amalthea9

[sexlessrpmemes]

Call me Kevin quotes

’Call Me Kevin’ quotes, because this man is funny (and deserves more subscribers), and half of what he says is pure gold, and a lot of it works really well, for starters/ask memes:

Brackets like [] are for things that make sense to be replaced by a name, either of the character being spoken to or of another character.

{TEXT} are for things that could work well for being sent as a text

Sims 4 But My Restaurant Is To Die For:

‘does no one care? dude’s on fire yo IF only anyone cared, my plan would be perfect.“

“Sorry dude *nervous laughter/normal laughter* I hate to bring this realization to ya like this.”

’'don’t interact with me, go away.”

“yeah, i know, he’s dying, i don’t care, he was only meant to be a distraction anyway.”

{TEXT} “yES, my introduction made her leave, as soon as i introduced myself she’s like: i don’t really want to be around this guy.’'

’'YES! THE DISCO SYSTEM IS MINE - and had a great price; it only cost one human life.”

“maybe i should buy a boat.”

“[they/we/I] don’t even sell drinks… you can’t even wash down your death meal.”

“food quality: normal, oh wait.. no that was the water.”

“i want to be the last thing they hear (before they die; me, playing) on this piano.”

“i forgot i have a kid here.”

“I always feel like he’s up to something… I just – he’s thinking about something evil.”

“Why do they even got this old dude running the party? It should be this old dude running the party.”

“Oh! I have an idea!” *proceeds to set a person/thing on fire*

“Why are you laughing?!” *realises it’s about someone’s death* “Oh, I like [her/him/you/them]” *laughter*

“Plus, no-one’s in there so I can get away with it scot-free.”

{TEXT} “Well, now everyone’s come inside and they’re all just watching me do this now… they’re happy about it for some reason though.”

{TEXT}“Oh, no, they’re not so happy about it anymore.”

“Wait, what? What’s wrong with you – oh, yeah, I turned them all into vampires! Of course.”

“HEY! Get down behind the counter, people can see that you’re not wearing pants!”

“[He] takes everyone’s food for no reason. [He] doesn’t even need it – [he’s] a vampire!”

“Jesus, I pay [that guy] $2 an hour…”

“This is actually a huge, generous act I’m doing here; paying [him] at all.”

“If they eat the poisonous meal, and then I drink their blood… am I poisoned?”

“I don’t even try with this stuff, it just kinda happens.”

“Sorry [folks], I hope this inconsiderate bastard dying didn’t ruin your day.”

Bad Cooking: Baked Alaska:

“Join me, on this great adventure, as we pre-heat the oven.”

“Sometimes I just eat a whole stick of unsalted butter.”

“This is about the daily recommended dose of butter. You should be getting this into your system at least every… five hours.”

“It doesn’t matter, that step isn’t important.”

“Spoiler… it actually is… very important.”

“This is a special irish plastic lemon… they’re ah, quite rare.”

“Ah! Oh! Shit, stop!” *Pause.* “its fine. It doesn’t matter.”

“It really, really matters.”

“FECK! Every time…”

“I’ve never seen a cake look this good!” *shakes the tin.* “It… kinda jiggles a bit.”

“I call this the T-Rex Technique.”

“It’s as easy as that. Wow!” ß intended as sarcasm.

“This is the saddest cake I’ve ever seen.”

“This isn’t gonna work. This is gonna be bad, I know it is. I know it’s gonna be bad.”

“That sound is fine. That sound is supposed to happen… the sizzlin’.”

*is holding a fire extinguisher* *notices [you]* “Oh! It’s fine. We won’t be needing that. We’re just gonna be lighting some whiskey on fire.”

“Wow! [name] that looks great! That looks amazing!” ß intended as sarcasm.

“You’re not supposed to look at me. That’s supposed to be someone else.”

“Please don’t fall apart please don’t fall apart please don’t fall apart please don’t fall apart – It’s falling apart, wait, hold on.”

“Oh yes. Here we go. I feel like making a sand castle.”

“You could argue that it doesn’t look exactly like as in the picture. But I would say better – some would say better. I – I would say better.”

“Now we just need to light it on fire.”

“Realistically, it should be lit on fire. It’s the only –“ *laughs* “-It’s the only reasonable thing to do.”

“That’s not – that’s not gonna survive going the other way, so that’s how it is now.”

*drinks straight from whiskey bottle.*

*pours whiskey into saucepan/whatever it’s a thing on the hob* “Why are you backing away? WHY ARE YOU BACKING AWAY??” *suppressed laughter.”

“The [Meringue] was the downfall, that’s where it went wrong. As opposed to the rest, that – that went fine. That was great.”

“Okay. Well. That went well.”

Superhot VR But I’m More Like Super Not:

“Alright, let’s get started, I’m gonna… pick up, the gun.”

“And everything goes to hell right away.”

“So I can keep moving, do the ol’… roly-poly, and then shoot him. Easy.”

“Don’t shoot me, don’t shoot me!” *takes gun.* “Aha!”

“I’m just gonna stand here, I like the compliments.”

“Holy crap this is awesome! Floppy discs are back!”

“Oh god, I’m sorry, that was a bit unfair.” *saw you and shot you.*

“I smashed my wall so hard that I cut my hand. You should’a seen the wall though. I’m like… really really strong.”

“So this is what it’s like to feel cool. It’s pretty awesome, but disappointing to know I’ll never actually be this cool.”

“This is a nice bike shop, now that I look around. They don’t have many models, though, feels like a bit of wasted space.”

“Why am I throwing ninja stars? I have guns.”

“I am not a ninja. I am an action hero. Not. A. Ninja.”

“I need ninja stars now, all of a sudden.”

“That was probably a low blow anyway. It’s probably best I fail that part.”

“Like everything else I love in life, it disintegrated in my hand.”

“I don’t know why I just tried to catch a knife… by the sharp end.”

“Well I’m not gonna get a long life. Or maybe I will!”

“Once again, I am prepared for everything.”

“I had to look around me, because I was like, ‘this is the moment something comes behind me.’”

“I’ll just swat away their bullets like they’re just flies.”

“So maybe I’m actually a super villain as opposed to a super hero. I could believe that.”

Deathly Hallows Part 1 but we frustratingly finish the game:

“What the hell – what’s going on – why are you shooting at me?!”

“Wait – this is where we choose to camp; in this nuclear waste?!” *laughingly incredulous*

“Okay, fair enough… I mean, we were in a lovely forest but, I prefer nuclear reactors too.”

“I’d love to be able to count the days of two weeks on my hands.”

“Alright, you’re – apparently freed, now? I’m – not really sure how…”

“Like, do we not have anyone else that’s out here tryn’a help people? I mean, I’ve got a pretty important mission no-one else can do, can I not be doing that instead?”

“Oh my god, this guy’s strong, they’re just reflecting off him!”

“I’m just gonna keep running, it’s honestly not worth fighting from my experience.”

“Oh, this is the one that doesn’t sound as fun.”

“Oh. It’s just a newspaper. I thought it’d be like, a weapon.”

“That makes me sad, for numerous reasons.” *laughingly, but serious.*

“I’m not undesirable, lots of people desire me.” *mulish.* *pause.* “Alright, I lied, no-one does.”

“My god, he looks eerie as hell.”

“That doesn’t even look like what she’s saying, look at her lips. I think she’s possessed… Let’s kill her.”

“I’m not tryn’a be mean or anything, I know I just sound like a dick.”

“This is a lot of people to dedicate to just watching over my grave. Wait – my grave? No, my parents’ grave, my grave comes later.”

“Are you sure? It’s not like, obvious, at all.” ß sarcasm.

“That’s actually spooky as hell, not gonna lie.”

“Y’know, the house is just exploding… casual old lady stuff.”

*laughs* “I think I just got head-butted by a snake.”

“How many times am I gonna get head-butted? And how strong’s that snake’s head; he keeps head-butting me through walls.”

“Oh! Finally! You realise something’s amiss!”

“Here. Now you’re free. If you could help me, that’d be great.”

“Like anytime I kill people they drop like, random potions, and I keep wanting to drink them, but I don’t know, it seems dangerous.”

“At least he sounded thankful, the others just seem to go like ‘oh, cheers.’”

“Thank god the dead don’t know how to use stairs.”

“Like, what are you even doing? One, they’re not coming in, and two, you’re hitting the wall.”

“Sometimes you just gotta live with the consequences of your actions, y’know? [I] can’t always come save you. Even if [I] do have a bazooka.”

“Yeah, I think so too! Please!”

“Let’s see if you can handle it, then.”

“Oh. Okay, maybe you can.”

“Let’s choose the worst possible place we can find.”

“I mean, it’s nice and all, but it’s no nuclear waste, am I right?”

“Spiders I just ignore. Because they’re losers, and they have too many legs.”

“Is he following me? Or, is this following him? Either way, he’s got a lotta hazards to deal with, because I am not dealing with any of them.”

“Ah, thanks for just standing there.”

“I’m just gonna start nuking these snakes.”

“What are you doing?”

“Yeah, I think we can beat the rock.”

“Yeah but you don’t need to scream or – or do anything, to be honest, I think you’ve just won by being human.”

“The only thing good about this is hearing [] in pain. That’s the only thing that keeps me going.”

“Don’t bother attacking them buddy. They’re already dead. Just like my love for you…”

“Oh come on now don’t exaggerate, I was fine. [] just kinda stood there.”

“You’ve changed since you came back, [], you used to just be pathetic… now you’re pathetic and mean.”

“Why does [] have all these dead people in [] front yard?”

“Now even the guy try’na explode the side of the house isn’t hurting me.”

“What?! We didn’t even do anything, we just [exploded] and [died!]”

“You had about ten minutes to figure out who I was in that fight.”

“Yeah, just shout my name. Really makes messing up my face worth it, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah I’m gonna blow this house apart.”

“Ah, this is gonna be traumatic, isn’t it?”

[gaiatheorist]

“This Anxiety Thing.”

I’m now 2/3 of the way through the NHS ‘Introduction to Anxiety’ course, that it’s taken over two years to be allocated onto. I hate it. ‘Hate’ is a strong word, what I mean to say is that there are many elements to the thing I actively dislike. It’s a stepped process, and if I don’t complete next week’s session, I’ll be bounced out of the system, and have to wait to go on the waiting list again.

The lovely ladies that run the course invited 20 people to each of the two 90-minute sessions they run on a Friday. They only laid out 10 chairs in the room, and they knew that they wouldn’t fill them all, at the end of my first session, a couple of people said they might not come back, and I volunteered to swap into the earlier session, to make the numbers easier. That would have made four participants. One of the facilitators was watching the waiting-room before she did the photocopying, and she guessed-right the number of us that would actually show. Three. (Side-slant, about the NHS not being able to afford photocopying wastage, they probably run this course multiple times, but can’t ‘save’ any spare copies for the next run, in case the budget needs to be trimmed again, and it’s cut.) That’s the level of damage, or disengagement, or just not-being-able-to they’re working with, by the time ‘we’ get our appointments for the ‘Introduction to’, ‘we’ are already at a stage where some of us can’t sit in a room for 90 minutes with other people. Have that, ‘Minister for Loneliness’ and ‘Community Prescribing’, it takes so long to get into the system that some of us are already beyond sitting in a room watching YouTube clips.

I’m finding it very challenging. Not the content, I could have written most of it, but the process. There’s a snarky mind-loop of the very lucid priest sitting in the Hairy-Hands-Hospice in the Father Ted episode, the one who says “I really shouldn’t be here, you know.”, while the other priests are yelling “Feck!” and “Girls!” and “Drink.” There’s also a niggle in me that I mustn’t go all ‘Randal P McMurphy’, and be an obstacle to the progress of the other two participants. That’s not to say that I’m ‘faking it’, just that my anxiety-behaviours, like most things about me, are atypical. The control-behaviour in me, when I know a situation is not under my control is a massive strand of my anxiety-thing. Hyper-vigilant, I watch and listen, and then I usually either show off, or clown about. (There was a bit of ‘tears of a clown’ after last week’s session, I just crashed and slept after this one, I’ve been ill most of this week, I was exhausted.) The other two participants are VERY quiet, I don’t think the girl spoke at all, other than to confirm her name, and the man only spoke when addressed directly. I tried to keep a lid on it, and not answer every question. I deliberately dedicated a bit of my conscious awareness to making sure I wasn’t the only one talking, that’ll be why I greyed-out part way through. My ‘executive functioning’ can be patchy when I’m distracted, profoundly ironic, because when a thing has my full attention, I’m still highly functional. I should have been focusing on JUST the course content, but I had a backing-track of “Don’t act the goat.”, with a chorus of “Let the other participants speak.” and a pervasive-thought bridge of “This is not the right place for me.” Oh, and the projector was knackering my eyes, everything smelled fusty because of the rain, and I was simultaneously regretting eating a McDonald’s on the way, and wondering what nonsense I’d be able to buy the kid from town and still catch the bus home before dark. 

This course is a sifting process. We’ve passed the stage of random individuals telling us to pull our socks up and just get on with it, we’ve negotiated past the doctor’s-receptionist-dragons, to be patted on the head and told to get on with it. I was eventually lucky with the third GP I saw at my practice, the first one said “No, lass, you don’t need ‘that’, you need ‘this’.”, and two years later, it transpired that I did indeed need the ‘that’. The second one was worse “No, I can’t write you a sick-note for stress for ‘that’, that would stress anyone.” Erm, Hello, I’m someone, and it’s stressing me to a point where I can’t function. I followed protocol, that’s what I do. I filled in all of the right forms, and ticked all of the right boxes during my ‘descent into Hell for a bottle of milk’, it took all of my cognitive capacity just to stay afloat, I’m still scrubbing the metaphorical flood-stains off the walls.

Natural attrition, and human collateral, some people will sink, I’m a kicker.

I bed-blocked 16 sessions of IAPT counselling. A chirpy-chap telling me week after week that he admired my resilience, that some people wouldn’t be so tenacious, determined, focused, driven, brilliant, intriguing, able-to-survive. I don’t respond to praise and platitudes, I hit a plateau, and neither of us could shift me beyond that. He eventually ‘let me go’ when it looked like I had a referral for more appropriate intervention on the horizon. That mirrored the experience of trying to access meaningful therapy 2 years ago, Workplace Well-being didn’t want to take me on, because they’d made a referral to Neurology (which was never acted upon), my former employers weren’t going to pay for therapy for me, and their suggested alternative was wildly inappropriate. NHS-general mental health didn’t want to take me on because my employers were advised to buy-in therapy... that was ‘juggling a hot potato’ episode 1. Episode 2 was the Community Mental Health team saying they couldn’t take me on until the Neuro-Psych assessment had concluded it wasn’t entirely a physical-brain issue, and then Neuro-Psych giving me four agonising pages of reports on which bits of my brain didn’t work properly, and deciding that it WAS a mental health issue. It’s to be hoped that the gruesome game of pass-the-parcel I am doesn’t have any chocolate in it, I’ve been bundled hither and yon so much it will be melted. 

Unless you’re in absolute crisis, you have to wait for NHS mental health intervention. I’m not going to lie, I’ve been pretty close to that at various points over the last few years. In my case, it’s a combination of missed opportunities, and my stubborn streak. I can ‘appear’ functional for short stretches of time, but it’s bastard hard work, I go into my ‘emotional overdraft’, and tend to have to write-off the next day. (Due to having mental health issues and brain damage at the same time, my physical brain is no longer ‘playing with a full deck’.)  It’s very difficult, but I CAN do it, apart from that worrying grey-out yesterday, one of the facilitators asked me what phrase I’d used in an earlier answer, and it was just gone, no recall at all. (It was ‘graded exposure’, I have a phenomenal recall when I get something wrong, in 1988, I scored 99/100 in my secondary school entry spelling test, I’d transposed letters, and spelled the word ‘health’ as ‘helath’, the teacher was Mr James, nobody in the entire class scored 100, I was siting next to Gill, and she’d had a cough, so Mr James had given her a drink of water in his nasty old coffee mug.) 

I know I have some anxiety-behaviours, I know I’ve effectively ‘closed down’ very large parts of my world with my various resistances and aversions. Next week’s session is going to be the hardest one, covering the cognitive aspects of anxiety. It’s going to highlight how incongruent I am, how atypical, because, although I have some traits consistent with anxiety, the ‘anxieties’ are symptomatic of a deeper cause, we don’t need to ‘fix’ (most of) my anxiety. I ‘can’ do big, horrible, scary things, I can do things that other people can’t. This tiny, insular, closed-down world I live in is not because I can’t do things, it’s because I won’t. I have the ‘skill’, I just don’t apply the ‘will’. A cumulative toll of very challenging circumstances have led to me almost totally collapsing in on myself, and I’m beating myself up for ‘taking up a space’ on the anxiety course. I’m stupid-fearless, your original Pound-shop Wonder-Woman, there are very few things I CAN’T do, but about five billion things that I find difficult, so either avoid them, or find some mad work-around that works-for-me.

Linear-logical, I need to complete the anxiety course, because that’s the only way I’ll progress to the 1:1 ‘evaluation’, where I’ll apologise for ‘taking up a space that would have better served someone else’, and reveal the truth of me. (Mad analogy, there, about which of the kids in the Chocolate Factory I’d be, what’s my flaw? I have Charlie’s good-natured poverty, but I also have traits of the others, I don’t watch as much TV as Mike, my obsessions aren’t quite as entrenched as Violet’s, but I am absolutely adamant about what I want, like Verruca. I don’t want the world, I want to be as functional as I can be within it.) The anxiety course was a best-fit alternative from the options offered to me ‘off the peg’. I have a massive, pervasive anxiety about   harming other people. It’s not new, and I don’t think any amount of graduated exposure is ever going to undo it. It’s very easy to unpick, I’ve had a chain of people in my life do me significant harm, and I don’t want to be them. A snowball rolling downhill, I’ve picked up scars, and slights, and scandals, and slurs, and carried them with me, determined not to pass them on. I try very hard not to deliberately hurt others, to help and heal where I can.

That’s why I’m so strung-out wrung-out, I know I shouldn’t be on that course, but I also know it’s my only way in to productive intervention. I’m using up too much brain-space ‘guarding’ other people from me, because I’m an absolute nightmare. All the while, in the background, I have the conditionality of the Universal Credit and PIP systems drawing on the resources I should be using to ‘get better’.  The ‘safety net’ has me well and truly tangled.