#therapist's words

[dumblr]

If i were your therapist, i would give you heart-shaped meds.

[whumpwordsoftheday]

“I guess…I’m just scared of ending up like my dad, someone who doesn’t really care about anyone else. And I feel like if I don’t reblog all those posts about important issues, it’ll make me a bad person”

“I don’t think that makes you a bad person. But um having me locked inside your basement kind of does.”

“…ok well that’s different, it’s self care.”

[kindofsharethat]

i can’t believe i’m making this post. i feel sick to my stomach. everything is in a fog, like this is all a terrible dream.

i didn’t know liam personally, but even just watching him move about life being his tactile, steadfast, human-labrador self with boundless amounts of love to give, even if it meant taking on the brunt of others’ pain himself, as a bystander has been an honour and a privilege.

he had a talent—a true gift—and chose to share that with us. and through that talent, as a disabled high schooler who literally had trouble finding my voice and never fit in anywhere, i found a community. a home. somewhere i knew i could always turn, through the good times and the bad. in many ways, one direction saved me. there’s no “thank you” that feels big enough to encapsulate what he did for me and so many others.

all my love and well wishes to his family, friends and whoever was lucky enough to be in his orbit.

rest in peace, liam. ❤️

[whendidmythoughtsgocrazy]

If you don't have these problems with any other person in your life, why do you think you're the problematic person in this one?

k.b. // therapist quotes

[eiraeths]

thinking about jason rejoining the batfamily by learning he’s immortal and his visits with death make him confront his morality and mortality, or lack of thereof.

[residentrookie]

dr. potter’s whirlpool

microfic summary: james loves being a physical therapist. until he takes on regulus as a patient and discovers that compartmentalizing his work and his love for his husband might be harder than he anticipated; 1794 words; married jegulus, car accident survival, physical therapist/patient, hurt/comfort (cw: injury, mentions of vomit); in my head this takes place a little bit before part 1 and before part 3

James is a really fucking good physical therapist. Which, most of the time, is great. He loves to feel accomplished, more than just capable of doing his job, but doing it expertly. It fulfills him. It makes him happy.

Right now though, he wishes he could go backwards in time and select any other occupation in the world. Because if had, he wouldn’t be able to look at his husband and know exactly what’s wrong with him and exactly how much pain he’ll have to endure to get better.

James has to put him in pain to make him better. Has to hurt him to heal him.

He doesn’t want to be the person responsible for it, but he is. Which means he has to endure days like this. Days that make him want to scream at Regulus or himself or any unlucky person who crosses his path.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Regulus give up halfway through an exercise, panting for breath, sweat slick across his forehead. James waits for him to start back up and when he doesn’t, approaches the table he’s stretched out on.

“Regulus. I saw that,” James sighs.

“Saw what?” he asks innocently.

“You give up at 15. It’s 30 reps. No exceptions.”

“Oh, sure. Right away, Dr. Potter,” he replies scathingly. James doesn’t react.

It has to be this way, he’s found. He has to compartmentalize. When Regulus is here, at his practice, he’s not James’ husband— he’s his patient. The reason James is so good at his job is because he’s relentless— emotions never make him compromise when he needs to push. In his profession, results are hard won by his patients, fought for through gritted teeth and steelhard determination to overcome the pain it brings.

So, yes. He’s been forced into a calm, collected, professional role when all he really wants is to fall to his knees and beg Regulus for forgiveness every time he sees the all-too familiar pain wash across his pale features. But if he does that, then everything, everything, will fall apart around him. And he can’t let that happen.

Regulus rolls his eyes at James’ silence. “It fucking hurts, if you haven’t noticed.”

“You don’t have to tell me it hurts, Reg. I know it does.”

Regulus laughs cruelly. “Really? Because I feel like someone should remind you. Since you aren’t the one up here on the table having to do these exercises.”

James glances up at the clock on the wall. They’re nearing the end of their session which makes sense. Regulus is always crabbier right around now, partly because he’s hungry and partly because putting yourself in pain for an hour isn’t anyone’s idea of fun.

“Why don’t you give me 10 more and we’ll call it even?” he offers.

This tactic might have worked on other patients, but not Regulus.

“How generous of you,” he says flatly.

“Five?” James really shouldn’t be bargaining with Regulus on this, but he’s the one who has to go home with him after this. He does have some self-preserving instincts left.

“I’m done for today, James,” Regulus tells him firmly, sitting up with a groan. “Let’s go home.”

James has a choice here. He can choose to let this go or he can choose to push. Should he be the understanding, sympathetic husband or the hardass, ruthless therapist? Always, the impossible choice presented itself to him. But only one of those choices was going to produce results.

“Fine,” he say, his voice clipped. “But any stretches you don’t do here are just going to be added to your home exercises. And I’ll know if you don’t do them because, well. We live together.”

“Funny enough, that fact hasn’t escaped me,” Regulus hisses, eyes narrowing to slits. “You know when I signed up for this, I didn’t realize I’d be exchanging my husband for a fucking drill sergeant. Is Dr. Potter following us home now? Is Dr. Potter supposed to sleep in my bed and fuck me and make me coffee in the morning?”

James doesn’t rise to the obvious bait. ‘Technically, Dr. Potter does all of those things anyway.”

Regulus isn’t even close to done. “Seriously, James, what is it that makes you incapable of fucking human emotions in this building? It’s like you’re devoid of any care or concern for me and how I feel as soon as you walk through those doors. Sometimes, I don’t even recognize you!”

James doesn’t reply. He looks down and starts picking up cones from the floor, gathering them in his shaking fingers. He will not lose his cool. He will not. Will not.

“Look at me, James,” he demands, but James refuses to, knowing he needs to keep his hands busy with something. He grabs a metal water bottle off the floor and starts to carry it over to the shelf.

Regulus continues regardless. “Every single day I come in here, and I do exactly what you tell me to. And every day is fucking hell on earth. But I do it. I do it for you. So why is it that you can’t let up every once and a while?” He laughs once, bitterly. “What, do you fucking enjoy this or something?”

And then the water bottle in James’ hand is suddenly airborne as he hurls it with all his strength against the opposite wall. It hits the sheet rock with a devastating crack before clattering to the floor, rolling a comically far distance before bumping into the front desk. Breathing hard, James studies the hole it left behind and calmly thinks about the supplies he’ll need to buy to patch it. He doesn’t look at Regulus, who has fallen silent. He simply turns and walks to the supply closet. Opens the door. Closes it. Sinks to the floor.

The tears are falling before he can stop them. They flow almost as fast as the memories now crowding his brain, reminding him of things he wishes he had the power to forget.

It’s been five months since the accident. Five months, six days, and a couple of hours, to be exact.

At the risk of sounding cliche, James remembers exactly where he was and what he was doing when he got the call. That call. The one that could have killed him on the spot if he’d had a weaker heart.

He was washing the leftover dishes in the sink. He answered his phone with suds still on his hands, his soapy fingers smearing the screen as he pressed the speaker button. When he’d bolted to the car, he’d accidentally left the sink running. It had run for days. The price of their water bill that month was the least of their worries.

As someone who works in healthcare and frequents hospitals more often than the average person, he can say with authority that no amount of familiarity prepares you for seeing a member of your own family in one of those beds. James only has to close his eyes to picture Regulus there, fresh out of surgery and delirious on drugs and pain. He had a bad reaction to the anesthetics and couldn’t stop vomiting from the endotracheal tube removal and the nauseating medicine which only pulled at the stitches on his back. And he was crying. Through it all, he was crying, these horrible, racking sobs taking over his whole body, making him shake and shiver. This was misery at a magnitude he had never before experienced, even half lucid as he was. This was helplessness at a magnitude James had never experienced before, even with his fancy medical degree.

For that entire, terrifying night, James thought that Regulus was going to die. He sat there by his bed, fully believing he was going to watch his husband die before they could even celebrate their first wedding anniversary. But when the vomiting stopped, and the medicine started working, and Regulus could finally rest for a few hours at a time, James felt the breath return to his aching lungs in small increments. Things weren’t exactly easier after that. There were two more surgeries with two more difficult recoveries. Every day was a struggle, but Regulus was born a survivor and wasn’t about to let this change that.

Thankfully, Regulus has no recollection of those first few nightmarish weeks. Maybe that’s why he could say those awful things to James about being incapable of human emotions, because he didn’t watch him lose his actual fucking mind at the sight and sound of Regulus’ pain.

For a time, James did stop being human, but not in the robotic, emotionless way Regulus accused him of. Instead, he let his emotions consume him, crowding his senses, making him useless to his husband who was hurt and needed him strong. It took the combined efforts of his friends and family to pull him up out of the whirlpool of madness and fear and guilt that was sucking him down into the depths. But Regulus doesn’t remember that. And every time James feels even an inkling of that all-encompassing fear return, he shuts it down, focusing instead on actions that will produce results. He can’t exactly help that those actions cause pain and suffering to the person he loves most in the world.

The touch is so familiar that he doesn’t register it at first. Regulus’ hands cup his wet cheeks, lifting his face up.

“I’m sorry,” Regulus murmurs, kneeling before him, pressing their foreheads together. “I’m so sorry. I was so awful to you. I know you’re just trying to help me. I’m sorry, James. Please don’t cry, baby.”

“I hate watching you suffer,” James croaks. “It makes me hate my job. It makes me hate myself.”

Regulus whimpers, holding him tighter. “Don’t. Don’t do that. You love your job. I don’t want to be the reason that stops.”

James squeezes his eyes shut. “I try so hard. To compartmentalize. I have to, Regulus. I don’t mean to be unfeeling or uncaring, but if I let myself be ruled by my emotions, you won’t get better. And I need you to get better. I need you to be okay.”

“I know,” Regulus nods. “I understand. I’ll do better, I promise.”

“I love you,” James whispers. “More than anything.”

“More than anything,” Regulus replies knowingly.

“That never goes away. Not even when I’m Dr. Potter.”

After a moment, Regulus speaks again, his voice coy. “You know when all of this is over, we could make this whole ‘Dr. Potter’ business into a kinky sex thing. If you weren’t such a dick and I wasn’t hurting so bad, I might actually enjoy you bossing me around like that. Under different circumstances, of course.”

James can’t help himself. He laughs. “You’re fucking ridiculous.”

“Think about it,” Regulus bids him, rising to his feet.

And James, bless him, knows with certainty he won’t be able to stop thinking about it now.

(also posted these two one shots on ao3 so u can find them there as well :))

[5a-alf]

I fear Kevin Day is the type of person whose struggle always came second. He funcioned enough that while everyone knew he wasn't alright, it was also nobody's problem, as someone else was actively having a harder time and they took precedence. He internalises all his problems and keeps going and going but he is fueled by alchool and sheer desperation a 100% of the time. If he were to stop for even a second he wouldn't know how to start again.

Did he ever, at somepoint in his life -away from the ex foxes, a pro player, married to Thea- wish he had it worse, just so that maybe it would have been his turn being saved? Being first? How badly would he feel, just one second after thinking it, because he knows damn well he has enough trauma to fill a stadium and he isn't actually jealous of his friends that had it worse, he isn't . That's a fucked up thing to think, stop it, stop it.

Would he still drink himself into a stupor to shoote the ache, to banish the thought? That's the help he got, when he was at his worst, a drink, and then two, and then a thousand. And it worked, it made him go, it picked him up when he was down, and now he can't get down without crashing.

Did he wish to be saved? Did he hope somebody, anybody, took the time and put in the effort to help him, just because they saw him down, not because he begged, but because they noticed he could use a hand. Or two, actually. Was it torment, to always be under the spotlight, yet never been seen? Did he run toward fame hoping the more eyes on him meant it would be easier to be noticed?

[karliahs]

I tried to give myself a little break from writing because I thought that's what I needed, but turns out the writing is load-bearing at this point. what I really needed was a break from writing stuff that I ever intend to polish up and show anyone. tapping out random comfort daydreams full of square brackets and 0 context is vitally necessary in fact

[irrealisms]

ok im gonna pass out now but i transcribed a decent chunk (5 minutes/1k words) of vitalasy & zam's conversation from yesterday! transcript under the cut

Vitalasy: Hi. 

Zam: Hi. Okay. I've got a couple questions for you—

Vitalasy (overlapping): What’s going on?

Zam: I'm a little nervous.

Vitalasy: Okay

Zam: But, yeah. I don't know! Okay. when I think about my, like— my relationship with you on the server, right? it's a little, it's a little complicated, right, it's a little— little tricky, right? you know? We've had a lot of…tension, at times, or a lot of times where I wanted to kill you and you wanted to kill me and of course there was the time where… I ended up betraying you of course, and just— a lot that I've been thinking about a lot recently, and… I just, I don't know. I— I don't know, I just want you to know that… I'm sorry, and that (giggles) I don't know, I, it feels like— I I don't really know how to word this. but like— I don't know. A lot's changed since then, and I wanted you to know that. I really wanted you to know that, you know? I'm very different person now, so. I don't know. (pause) I'm really bad at this whole communicating thing, but, um—

Vitalasy (laughing): I mean, that— that's something that has stayed the same, then.

Zam (also laughing): Yep, yeah. Didn't improve in that r- I mean, I've improved a little bit—

Vitalasy: Maybe it goes both ways here, though.

Zam: Yeah, I don’t know. But, um, I wanted to show you something, okay? Because last time you were on the server, right? it was, like, during the abyss, right? or, I guess—other than this season, of course—but like—it was like, sort of abyss related?

Vitalasy: Yeah.

Zam: After— after you gave all your stuff to Jumper, um, after you gave all your stuff to Jumper and left the server, um… I— and like, she betrayed us, I kind of went on this whole, like, arc where I wanted to blow everything up on the server— specifically your base, um—

Vitalasy (overlapping): Wh— (splutters) I was gone! 

Zam: because I knew it meant a lot to Jum— 

Vitalasy (overlapping): What do you mean?

Zam: Well, it's because— it was to hurt Jumper, specifically, for betraying me, um—

Vitalasy: Okay.

Zam: And, again, a lot has changed since then, I'm not— I don't, that's not who I am anymore, and I want to show you that that's not who I am anymore, (breaks the slab in the corner revealing a water stream going down) so— I've built you a little present—

Vitalasy: Last time I— last time I followed you down a hole, I died.

Zam: (splutters) Th-th—that's not— okay— no,

Vitalasy: Let that be clear.

Zam: Not important! I—I— it's different. It's different this time, there's water and I'm down here. Just come on down! (pause; Vitalasy starts coming down the water stream) You can put your armor on if you want, but I mean, it's fine if you don't, it's cool. But, yeah. I don't know! Derapchu told me that I should build something—or, no, I think it was Kaboodle actually—said that, every single build that I have on the server, or, like, every place that means a lot to me, is, like, out in the open, right? Um, so I wanted to build something that meant a lot to me but wasn’t out in the open, so I've had this little area for like the past couple months and I just come here every now and then whenever I need to think and figure stuff out and I've really wanted to show it to you. for, like, a while now. (pause) So like, yeah.

Vitalasy: Zam.

Zam: mhm? …Cool.

Vitalasy: Cool.

Zam: (laughs) (sniffs) I'm sorry.

Vitalasy: Oh my God—wait. I need to— hold on, my camera is being annoying right now. But—

Zam: mhm. 

(pause)

Vitalasy: Wait (inarticulate noise) Okay. Okay okay okay. 

(pause)

Zam: So, like. Yeah.

Vitalasy: Zam, I don't— I don't know what to— 

(pause)

Zam: What?

Vitalasy: When I think back on my favorite story

Zam: Mhm

Vitalasy: That I've done on lifesteal, 

Zam: Mhm.

Vitalasy: I— think and talk about Eclipse Federation.

Zam: (noise; halfway between an exhale and a ‘hahh’?)

Vitalasy: Without a doubt, like— 

Zam: mhm.

Vitalasy: I talk about it to— we're gonna, (stage whisper/exaggerated weird voice) I talk about it to my admissions officer, um—

Zam: Really?

Vitalasy: For college, yeah

(they both laugh a little)

Zam: Damn!

Vitalasy: Like, this was part of my, my, uh, college application season, ummm—

Zam: (laughs a lot) That's actually really cool. 

Vitalasy: Yeah, like— really, if I'm gonna be so honest, I— I have very few regrets, and… this is not one of them.

Zam: Awwwwwwww.

Vitalasy: I, I don't, I don't regret anything that happened.

Zam: Okay.

Vitalasy: And, um—back then—

Zam: I do. I feel like you were right and I was wrong. But, yeah.

Vitalasy: No! No no no. I don't—I don't—I don't say that as a, I don't regret it because I was right, that's not what I'm trying to say, um—

Zam: I know. But like— I don't know, it's just like, I don't get to see you that often, so—it's just—I really, I wanted you to know that I feel like you were right and that I was wrong, and.

Vitalasy: (laughs) Come on.

Zam: I just like, I just wanted to say that—

Vitalasy: No, no, no. I'm not taking that. No, no, I'm not taking that! Are you kidding me?!

Zam: What do you mean?

Vitalasy: You can't say that! What? (punches Zam)

Zam: Okay…? (laughs) Okay.

Vitalasy: (punches Zam again) ‘Cause that's not true! That's not true.

Zam: Okay.

Vitalasy: I, I hid stuff from you.

Zam: …Uh-huh.

Vitalasy: Like, let that be so clear. And I'm glad we're, we're actually talking about it now— (looks around at the room) it's so weird, ‘cause like my worlds are kind of combining right now, (Zam laughs) but, um— (Vitalasy laughs) uhh

Zam: Yeah. Damn. Yeah, I don't know. I've just— missed you a lot and I'm really glad that you're back. Even if it's only for a little bit. (pause) So yeah.

(pause)

Vitalasy: We should play more. (punches Zam)

Zam: Yeah! That’d be cool, I’d be down. 

Vitalasy: Yeah.

Zam: Yeah, for sure. I would love to see you around more, if you ever—could, I don’t know.

(pause)

Vitalasy: Yeah.

Zam: Yeah.

Vitalasy: We should see each other more. (punches Zam) We should see each other more.

Zam: Okay! I’m cool with that, yeah, of course.

Vitalasy: Yeah yeah yeah.

Zam: I really wanted to—yeah.

Vitalasy: (punches Zam) Let’s talk offstream. I, I think I have a couple ideas.

Zam: Okay, cool! I'm down, yeah. Alright.

[whumpwordsoftheday]

“So tell me more about why you hate physical contact so much”

“Please…please just let me go”

“Oh no, not until I’ve dragged every trauma, every memory out of you”

[justmelookingbackatme]

A while ago, my therapist talked to me about dialectical statements. They're two seemingly contradictory statements that are both true. I'm happy and I'm sad. I hate you and I love you.

We weren't talking about gender, of course, but it's what my mind jumped to. I'm a man and I'm a woman.

Dialectical statements aren't about having these statements fight until one is proven to be true and the other is proven to be false. Neither statement has to be more true than the other. You can let them exist in opposition to one another. Not even opposition, necessarily. They can just coexist.

You're meant to accept the contradiction, and that's what I'm doing. Trying to do, at least. I'm a man and a woman. I'm a contradiction. I'm trying to accept myself.

[marblerose-rue]

silly doodle for my fursona since i made her 11 years ago today :-)

[a-j-s-the-only]

you search for chaos because you don’t know how to sit in peace. You’ve never had the opportunity to rest.

-my therapist

[ticklepinions]

Raise your hand if you feel utterly behind in life 🫠

[purpurussy]

everything Dan said about labels in BIG was so extremely real and personal to me and people really gloss over a lot of it sometimes I need to talk about it more about it when I'm not exhausted

[rollingblakely]

If not talking to them brings you peace, you didn’t lose anything after all.

- My therapist