#tw// addiction

[autisticrosewilson]

'Cause the hardest part of this is leaving you

@perseus-jackass He knows what she did, you guys can blame them

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Her dark skin looks sallow in the amber glow that bathes her, Jason has never hated the beer bottle stained glass more. His mother is too still, sometimes he can't tell if she's breathing, he has to keep leaning over to check her pulse.

(Why can't he feel anything? Maybe he missed the spot, maybe the lack of sleep is catching up with him.)

Her hand is cold, the fingers stiff. The track marks on her arms are swollen and bruising. He hopes she can't feel it.

"Mama," his voice cracks and he blinks tears from his eyes, "it's time to wake up ma." He shakes her, the bones in her ribs shift oddly though he's barely applied pressure.

She is smiling. He can see it even in the dark, the small quirk frozen on the corner of her mouth. Her eyes are vacant, glazed over as she stares at something he cannot see.

In many ways, Catherine Todd has been dead for years. The first time the needle pierced her skin. Some may argue she was born dead, the disease of her mother and her mother's mother that has festered in her bones, that's been eating at her long before she came back to Gotham.

She'd wanted to spare her future child from it, so she never gave birth. It seems the curse of her blood is not so easily escaped. Perhaps she's saved him from rotting from the inside out, but she knows better than most the cruelty of watching your mother wittle away in front of you.

"Fuck-," Jason gasps, the tears blurring his vision spilling over and down his cheeks before he wipes them away aggressively, "mom please." He sobs, begs, prays to a god he doesn't believe in.

Because she did. The sickly light catches the silver cross dangling from her neck, it looks like it's on fire when the ochre hits the metal. It's warmer than her when he touches it.

He squeezes it in his tiny fingers until the skin starts to split, blood smearing on pendant and the pale blue of her dress both.

It's simple cotton with small white flowers dotting it, long sleeved and reaching her calves. It used to fit her, but she's lost a lot of weight and now it only hangs off her frame like an old sheet. Jason used to think it reminded him of a ghost. The irony is not lost on him.

It's littered with stains and cigarette burns and Jason counts every one of them because a blanket of numbness has settled itself in his chest, emotions he can't afford to feel right now crested on the other side. There used to be decorative white ribbons on the bodice but the bow had long since fallen off, leaving only frayed criss-crossing string behind. The perfume she wears to try and cover up the smell of cigarettes has faded. Coffee, Marlboro reds, and sweat cling to his nose and threaten to send him over that edge again.

The metal cross is still digging into his hand. It's sharper than it looks. Why had he let her sleep in this for so long? It could have hurt her. She might not have even noticed and what if he hadn't been there, and she didn't call for help?

But he had been there, sleeping right beside her, when the raspy breathing that lulled him to feather light slumber was cut off with a choked gasp and then disappeared entirely.

He hadn't been able to help anyway, in the end.

It dawns on him slowly that his mother is dead. She will not wake back up. It's just him now. He let's himself cry, just for a moment. Not enough to even begin to grieve the loss, but maybe enough to let him get through the night.

He muffles his sobs with his hands because the walls are thin and he doesn't want the neighbors to hear. There's a single mom across the hall that he babysits for sometimes and he doesn't want to wake her up, especially because he knows she'll come check on him and he hasn't figured out what he'll do after this.

His mom is dead, and he's looking at her body.

Oh god. His mom is dead. And he's looking at her body.

The agony in his chest gives way for panic, he can't hear anything over his heartbeat rabbiting in his ears. Numbly he pushes himself up, digs through his closet for his backpack and dumps all the papers and folders and assorted pencils into the trash. Feels a pang of guilt for how much that hurts, that he won't get to go to school anymore. It's not important now.

There's still the breakfast muffins and cereal bars and juice cups he's been saving in the front pocket and he shambles to the kitchen to swipe the half empty jar of peanut butter and crackers they get from the church and soup and canned peaches the old lady next door gave him the other day. He shoves as many water bottles as he thinks will fit and then roots around under the kitchen cupboard for the lacking first aid kit.

The light switch in the bathroom has long dangled from the wall by its wires, so the only way to turn the light off is to unscrew the lightbulb. He doesn't need light now, thankfully. He reaches into the hole the switch hangs from, far to the back where it's impossible to see the money he's been slowly collecting. He's always scared something will bite him or he'll find a spiderweb when he does this, some lingering fear of the dark or unknown that makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Nothing ever does, and he stuffs the hundred odd bills and loose change into one of the smaller pockets inside his bag.

He goes back to the bedroom, tries to focus on just collecting the clothes he'll need but that's his mom. He kneels beside her bed for the last time, folds her limp hands over her stomach, adjusts the bonet covering her hair, presses a kiss to her sunken cheek. Her eyes aren't brown anymore, they're murky blue and it's so unnatural on her that his stomach churns. With a shaking hand he closes them for her. She has seen enough.

He calls the fire department, because he trusts them more than the police. Not that it matters, he's out of the house before they get there anyway. Hood pulled over his head, he watches from the shadow of a nearby alleyway until they find her. Some of his neighbors come outside to watch them take the black bag on the stretcher.

It is a different kind of love but he thinks he understands Orpheus now. He used to groan and huff when his mother told him the story, and when he started reading it to her he always changed the ending, because she deserved something happier. Trying not to look back at his mother's body as it's wheeled away - doomed to one of thousands of unmarked graves, another addition to a statistic that will be toted around by the politicians who never gave a shit about the crime in the city anyway - it's the hardest thing he's ever done.

If he were better he'd say a prayer for her, but god had never helped them before and death has taken her regardless of what he has to say about it. He doesn't think he could speak aloud if he wanted to, no one who matters would hear him anyway. His voice died with his mother, nothing but rot festering in his throat.

He presses one of her cigarettes to his lips, uses his dad's lighter to light it. He's never liked the taste, but the smoke curls into the night sky and the smell reminds him of a home he no longer has. He exhales and the smoke disperses, a dreadful cold settles in his empty gut, seeping through the cracks in his brittle bones. He takes another drag and the smoke fills all the hollow places inside of him, smothers the spark trying to catch in his gut before it can turn into an engulfing fire.

He makes peace with the cold, not yet experienced enough to fear it, and leaves the neighborhood that raised him and the mother that loved him behind.

[emotionaleating]

pls don’t flirt with me i want to be nonchalant so bad but i unfortunately crave connection so intensely that i will give you my entire soul and forgive you over and over until i’ve lost myself completely and feel like i’m drowning

[genderqueerdykes]

i saw this helpful print out at my local library earlier, i thought this could be of help to someone. even if you personally don't inject, this advice could save a life. I'm here for all addicts and users, we care about you and love you. everyone deserves to be informed about their health regardless of what substances they use

[totaldramaeffy]

doszłam do momentu kiedy jestem zadowolona z mojej wagi i tak dalej, ale poprostu uza

leżniłam się od liczenia kcal

[thebestpearl]

no drugs no cigs no vapes no energy drinks just me against the world rawdogging this disorder

[uncanny-tranny]

I guess what gets me about fatphobia is seeing someone literally recovering from addiction and gaining weight being framed as a bad thing because a substance use problem that is eating you from the inside out is preferable so long as you are twenty pounds lighter.

It has never been about people's health.

[tavania777]

the moment sh goes from punishment to reward, you're cooked

[lacquerheadd]

pov: you ask the good mayor for some chems…

[sibmakesart]

im not set on how the older crew reacts and responds to sanji's breakdown but what is sure is that zoro's is bad lol

[psychath]

As if we want attention so bad

[todostoast]

you ever just want to cut even if you don't really have a reason just because you miss the feeling of the cuts or am i losing it

[emotionaleating]

[wishiwasanyonelse]

I get it when people avoid me. I don’t even want myself around.

[ashisdedd]

Idk if this will actually work but doing the notes trend

20 notes I’ll drink more water

50 notes I’ll clean my room

100 notes I’ll take my blade out of my bag

200 I’ll eat more

400 I’ll cut less

1000 I’ll do the butterfly project

Edit:WAIT STOP OMG HOW DOSE THIS HAVE 200 NOTES

YOU GUYS ARE SO NICE HOW YALL DOING LIKE 50 COMENTS

[dzknik]

McGucket is increasingly having anxiety problems, as he was before, and these anxiety problems are actually not problems, they are him being right about what they’re doing.

But he so wants to please Ford. I think McGucket sees his own value as “I’m the guy who builds stuff, and you’re the idea guy, and I’m valuable to you when I’m building stuff. And when I have a problem I can build a solution, and any time there’s an emotional issue, you build your way out.”

So the canon became that McGucket proposed such a thing (the memory gun) early on, and then was told “You shouldn’t do that”, and then like an addict, like an alcoholic who has a little sip and notices it takes the edge off, privately, he can’t bear to say it to Ford. He’s keeping a lot from Ford, he’s keeping just how scared he is of what they’re doing, he’s keeping just how concerned he is. McGucket doesn’t really know what’s going on, but he’s internalizing and thinking, “I just need to be a better partner. If I have anxiety, I’m gonna pop anxiety pills, and I’m gonna get through this.”

[uncanny-tranny]

"Treatment" for addiction that requires you to lock up, confine, coerce, or otherwise strip addicts of their autonomy, it isn't treatment. It is a revenge fantasy that prioritizes your desire for subjugation over the actual betterment of addicts.