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traumatized-motherfuckers · 4 years ago

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Stress-based sickness, psychosomatic disorders, and the F word. Fibromyalgia.

Read up or listen up @t-mfrs.com (podcast available wherever you stream.)

Waking up, like I didn’t sleep for weeks. Falling asleep after five minutes on my feet. A pounding head. That sense of dread. Sticky sharp pains through in my shoulders and neck. Brain short on energy, missing a few cards from the deck. Waves of nausea and stomach cramps. Chills and sweats, depending on the body amps. Swollen lymph nodes. Muscle weakness poorly bodes. Insatiable hunger but nothing sounds edible - shit, now desire to throw up is incredible. Eyes shriveling, dry, back into my skull. The aches in my legs, pulsing and dull. Foggy thoughts. Racing heart. When will this end, why did this start?

Did I finally catch the ‘rona? Or am I just past my limit for being stressed out again? Well, I just moved, so this time I know that the answer is very likely… stressed.

So who wants to talk about getting sick? Yeah, among this group, the answer might be surprising. A lot of us do.

Why? Not because we love bitching and complaining when we feel less than ideal - spoilers, that’s every day, there’s really nothing left to say about the raging shit storms inside of us after a few years of it. We’re tired of hearing about it, too… just like we’re tired of living it, feeling it, and fearing it.

No, for us, it’s because it feels like there’s always a surprising ailment right around the corner when we least expect it. One that seemingly has no logical basis or reasonable solution. One that no one else understands. One that feels like it’s born of mental illness, somehow, while being very physically present. One that we don’t even bother bringing to doctors anymore, because no one needs to be shamed and shoved out the door again by their flippant disinterest in anything we say after the words, “Yes, I have anxiety.”

Yep. If you haven’t tried to mingle mental health with western medicine before, let me give you a quick disclaimer: unless you’re missing an arm, don’t bother. In my experience, the only thing you’ll get is an eye roll, possibly a prescription bandaid that somehow makes you feel worse, and a bored recommendation to see a psychiatrist - even if you already do.

All of this, of course, has the effect of only making you feel more upset. First, mentally, as you ruminate over the disrespect of essentially being called a liar just because the doctor doesn’t have enough training. Then, physically, as your increased stress and systemic arousal pushes your body into a new level of overdrive.

Oh, was it a mindfuck just to make the doctor appointment, get yourself there, and deal with the social anxiety of a waiting room for 30-120 minutes? I bet it felt great for someone to then invalidate your health concerns, recommend you calm down, and send you out the door without even looking you in the eye. Feeling more upset, now on a highly emotional basis? Enjoy the shame, hypertension, and lost sleep, as if you needed any more of that.

Today, I want to talk about the stress-central area of my health that hasn’t been completely figured out… and the label that I - embarrassingly - just recently learned is highly applicable to my physical condition.

But also, the outrage that I feel over said label, because, well, it explains nothing. In fact, if anything, it probably does all of us a huge disservice after we’re granted this diagnosis by pushing us into the express lane for being written off. It also separates two issues that are poorly explained, rather than combining them into one full picture that might actually yield answers. Oh, and should I mention that I think this is a larger problem of gender bias in the healthcare system? Yeah, why the fuck not. Might as well air all my grievances as a nice lead-in to another upcoming episode; is mental illness diagnosis skewed by gender?

I don’t want to let my pounding head and aching shoulders deter me too much, so let’s just get started.

History of ailments

I’ve talked about this before, but to briefly cover how fucked up this body is… let’s take a trip back to 2013 when my system failed me out of the blue. And by “out of the blue,” I mean that I had chronically overworked myself running on anxiety, obligation, and starvation for 2 years, leading to physiological revolt.

So, looking back, “duh.”

But at the time? This was all-new. It was crisis-inducing and beyond comprehension that I went from a perfectly healthy, physically resilient, surprisingly strong and low maintenance specimen to a chronically pained, systemically ill, digestively impaired, and constantly exhausted sack of wallowing self-hated.

After a lifetime of zero health concerns, I found myself bedridden and obsessed with every weird thing my body was doing to me. Which, as you’ve probably guessed, came hand in hand with the new weird things my brain was doing to me.

You’ve probably heard the “What IS CPTSD?” episode by now, so I’m guessing you’re not a stranger to the details about the common emergence of complex trauma symptoms. Yes, that’s based on a lot of research, but it’s also a throwback to my own experience. I was a long time depression and anxiety lurker, first time complex trauma contributor around age 23, when my brain was suddenly uprooted by a series of new social and therapy-based traumas.

My depression became debilitating negative self-regard and stronger suicidal ideation. Suddenly, my social anxiety became agoraphobia. My new health issues became topics of obsessive and intrusive thoughts… you know, when I wasn’t ruminating about my role in every trauma, my worthlessness as a human, and my recently-unsettled childhood memories. My early twenties were a great time.

And with all the mental strain, came the unresolvable insomnia. Which fed right into the health problems. Which circled back to spark more mental duress. Health anxiety is not a fun way to live.

So, to call my illnesses psychosomatic is completely appropriate. But, also, completely insulting when a western medicine practitioner utters the phrase as if it was a turd slowly coming out the wrong end. And that’s exactly what happened every time I tried to seek help.

To be clear - back in the day I had some very easily detectable physical problems. I understand that doctors have a difficult job when it comes to interpreting the immeasurable inner experiences that their patients detail, but that wasn’t entirely the case here. When your body stops digesting food, well, there’s some evidence to prove that it’s a fact. When a 96oz medical grade laxative used for colonoscopy prep results in zero percent colon cleanse… uh… somebody isn’t doing their duty (pun intended). And boy, did my digestive system just decide that it was DONE doing its only job.

Everything I ate seemed to spark unpleasant physical responses, but moving materials through my guts and extracting nutrients wasn’t one of them. After months of garbage disposal failure, I was basically a walking sewer mixed with a compost pile. I found myself chronically starving, exhausted, puffy, distended, intestinally inflamed, and generally sickly. Your body doesn’t fare so well when it has no sustenance, it turns out.

At the same time, or maybe slightly predating my digestive protests, I started getting ill in weird ways. Things I had never experienced before started popping up, like chronic respiratory tract infections, sinus infections, and gum infections. I was having what seemed like allergic responses to something in my inner or outer environment. I was often covered in hives or my face and stomach were inflating like balloons for no apparent reason. I had near-constant pain in my continually-locked shoulders and neck. My actual skin, itself, hurt, as if I was being stretched to the brink of bursting. My lifelong migraines transformed into something new - disorienting tension migraines that came with horrifying loss-of-vision auras and feverish shakes.

Generally speaking, I was so tired all the time that I could barely get out of bed for more than a few moments before retreating back to my safe place to feel like garbage. My limbs felt like someone had tied weights to them and extracted several major muscle groups. I struggled even showering or washing my face, because both required holding my arms up higher than I was capable of enacting. I was so deliriously tired that I couldn’t see straight, think, or complete basic tasks.

On top of giving up my impressive life trajectory in the aftermath of the physical breakdown - because I was too fucking exhausted to consider the next steps I needed to take for grad school - this is also where I’ve previously mentioned my drive-aphobia coming into play. When you can’t count on your own faculties, you definitely don’t want to be behind the wheel. And suddenly, life gets very restricted.

I gave up my… anything life trajectory at that point. I went from a wildly social and focused student with a fantastic sense of humor about life and stronghold of self-determination to… Hiding indoors. Keeping isolated. Obsessing over my health. Googling the most embarrassing things late at night. Having no answers. Feeling like a crazy person. Hating myself. Fearing that this was the end. Assuming that my future was over. Guilting myself for fucking up my past. Replaying my tragic story of a rapid flight and a crash, after everything I had fought so hard to accomplish. Giving up.

This is riiiiight about where I pull most of my inspiration for talking about living in perpetual “trauma states” from. Being consistently triggered, out of control, and terrified. Having no answers and no one to even ask. Watching mental illness take over my world without the slightest clue of what was happening. And, oh, the perpetual torment of unpredictable physical breakdowns.

Everyday a new surprise. Every moment the opportunity for a shocking change in vitality. Every night a battle of my brain versus my chronic pains versus sleep.

And so it persisted, throughout 2013 and into several later years… despite the fact that I actually came up with an answer for myself that vastly improved a good part of the sickness struggle... but definitely didn’t fix it all.

Finding AN answer

I’m sure I’ve already mentioned this, too… but eventually I found some respite in my health struggles through no help from modern medicine. In fact, I helped myself thanks to familial clues when I decided to exclusion-diet my way into an answer. My grandpa had celiac’s disease long before it was trendy and I decided gluten was a logical place to start. And what do you know? That helped about 60% of my ailments.

So began years of obsessing over figuring out the gluten free life. Which, contrary to popular opinion, fucking sucks. I get that it became a trendy idea at exactly the wrong point in my life, but goddamnit, I hate the question, "Are you ACTUALLY gluten free, or is it by choice?" It is not a dietary walk in the park when essentially every item is contaminated with some form or another of secret sauce and your body is going to flip out at the slightest dusting.

I remember being so distraught over having these drastic dietary considerations to figure out on my own that I would spontaneously break down into tears in all sorts of places - the fridge, the grocery store, restaurants, social contexts when people kindly asked, “how about you choose where to eat this time.” I can’t choose! I can’t eat anything! I would privately bawl to myself. What a fun time that was.

But that was not nearly the end of it.

It turned out, yes, entirely cutting the glutens helped immensely. I also realized that sugar was not my friend. In fact, processed anything was not going to have a great outcome. But then… there was this other weird pattern that I started noticing in my life… sometimes I was pretty healthy and (relatively speaking) happy with the way things were going off-wheat. But sometimes I was just as sickly and digestively screwed when I definitely hadn’t consumed anything questionable. As if other tried and true components of my diet randomly became gluten analogs that upset me just as much.

Plus, there were some ailments that just never seemed to go away. The insomnia was a persistent problem that stretched back to being about 5 years old, but got more severe with time. The aches and pains in my neck and shoulders only worsened, no matter how many tennis balls I rolled on, yoga classes I attended, or muscle relaxers I popped. The exhaustion came and went with connections to my mental health and diet, but not directly related to bready food items. The brain fog didn’t clear up when I had a strictly regimented diet. The tension migraines never fully returned from where they came.

I was still finding myself bedridden and ready to give up on the whole idea of living on a semi-regular basis. Sometimes it was every two weeks, sometimes once a month, sometimes a few months apart. But I never knew why, how long it would last, or how to control the system-wide failures.

And if you want to know how western medicine helped me with any of these continued challenges… it didn’t. I tried to get answers for years before I finally gave up. Every doctor turned me away. Every specialist was critically uninterested. Even the Mayo Clinic neglected to listen to what I said or utilize applicable resources, after I was so sure they could solve the medical mystery of my life.

So. I stopped trying at a certain point. I resolved myself to being health anxious and perpetually confused by myself. I realized that I would never know what any day was going to bring, because my discomforts and continued sicknesses seemed to come and go with the tides.

Eventually, after years of this bullshit, it got a bit better. I buckled down with - you guessed it - strict routines designed to circumvent some of the challenges.

I realized that my diet needed to be incredibly tight, and by that, I mean “boring.” Beyond gluten, I cut out basically everything sugary, carby, and processed. I noticed that without a certain variety of physical exercise on a regimented basis, everything started slipping. I prioritized finding ways to get to sleep at night, even if it meant being rigid and assessed as “dramatic” by less slumber-impaired humans. I gave up any activities that caused neck and shoulder strain, and tried to be better about things like stretching. I also noticed that dealing with my emotions was a gateway to pain and discomfort relief, which was an uphill battle all it’s own. And, you know, eventually I learned about this Complex Trauma thing that explained a HUGE part of early to mid twenties, including a majority of the physical ailments.

But, although I began to live like an above-averagely healthy human again… I’ve still always had a few mysteries about my health.

Sure, over the course of many years I’ve figured out how to live with a semi-predictable body after long periods of never knowing what tomorrow would bring. But, unfortunately, there are still times when my system throws me a curveball. During those unanticipated spans of health failure, I’m left ruminating on a question or three that haven’t ever been answered consistently.

One of the most common inquiries is coming at you next.

Stress or sick?

So, even after all my life changes and careful modifications. All my sacrifices and seemingly over-the-top regimes. I’ve still had an ongoing health obsession that pops up from time to time when my shit starts to go downhill.

The incrementally-observed question that runs through my head on repeat… “Wait, am I communicably sick, or am I just fucking stressed out again?”

I realized a while back - maybe in my mid-late twenties - that holy hell, I sure felt like I was coming down with the flu more often than it was logical. The thing was, my symptoms only ever progressed to the point of feeling like I was still actively fighting off the sickness as it took hold. I would get the temperature dysregulation, the headache, the muscle pain, the foggy feeling, and oh boy, the exhaustion - that generally serve as your first signs of contagious trouble.

I would be too deliriously tired to get up and do anything. If I made myself go to work, it felt like wading through a dream. Half present, half falling asleep at my desk. My body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. Even my head was too heavy for my neck to manage the task.

Beyond the energy void, I would genuinely start to experience pre-illness complaints, like swollen lymph nodes, congestion, and the aforementioned shivers and shakes. I would find myself incredibly hungry, as though my immune system was ramping up for a fight. I would get weak, like all my electrolytes were purged from my body. I would characterize the experience as feeling “generally under the weather” in preparation for something much larger slamming into town.

Beyond the energy void, I would genuinely start to experience pre-illness complaints, like swollen lymph nodes, congestion, and the aforementioned shivers and shakes. I would find myself incredibly hungry, as though my immune system was ramping up for a fight. I would get incredibly weak, like all my electrolytes were purged from my body. I would characterize the experience as feeling “generally under the weather” in preparation for something much larger slamming into town.

And I would respond in kind. I would retreat to bed, Nyquil and vitamin C showering over me on frequent intervals, gearing up for the systemic war of a lifetime. I would drift in and out of sleep for a day or two, fending off the weird muscle aches and sweat sessions that come with an emerging fever. Interestingly, many of my old food reactivities would rear up during this period. I would get my neti pot and vomit-bags ready for action.

And then… nothing else would happen. Assuming I chilled out and retreated to a state of forfeit when I actually treated myself with kindness and care, everything would work out. After 1-5 days of being back in my bedridden state, determined that significant contagious sickness was headed my way, it would seem to just disappear overnight. Or, clear up by about 70% overnight, to be more realistic.

It took several rounds of this pattern - I couldn’t tell you how many - before I finally realized… heyyo, my body shuts the fuck down when I’m stressed out. Every time I experienced one of these sudden falls from health, it followed (or ran in tandem with) a period of significant stress, anxiety, and/or depression. And if I let myself relax for a week, it would all be okay. If I tried to push through it because ObLiGaTiOnS, I was signing myself up for a prolonged and far more serious health failure. It happened too many times; I knew it wasn’t a coincidence. Like I had postulated earlier in my adulthood - my health seemed to be drastically affected by my mental state. Particularly, my interpretations of stress, obligations, and fears.

And I can tell you, my health anxiety quieted down for a while in the aftermath of the acceptance. Call it immersion therapy. When you’ve experienced the same event over and over again, but A never leads to B, and C-alming your shit makes condition A disappear back into the ethers... well, eventually you take it for what it is and just stop panicking so much. I think I got tired of preoccupying myself with the whole dumpster fire at some point and preferred to extinguish the flames by letting them run their course.

This is where I’ve lived for the past many years now. Realizing that if I push myself too hard mentally or physically, or if I let too many stress signals infiltrate my brain… I’m about to get fucked up. My health will slip quickly. I will be reactive to essentially every food on this planet. My body will be puffy, inflamed, and painful. Not to mention, so goddamn tired all the time. But that’s it. It won’t last forever. I’m not going to die. Telling myself the opposite makes it all last a lot longer. Don’t pile stress about your stress-induced sickness onto your existing stress, and you'll be better soon.

And yet, when it’s happening, I also never know for a fact that my stress-based illness is definitely what’s going on. The result is getting trapped in a “will I or won’t I” obsessive spiral of anticipating the worst while reassuring myself that it might be nothing at all. There’s a lot of internal and external conversation about it, as people want to know if you’re sick and you want to be able to warn them that you feel like death… but also have to throw in the caveat, “Iunno, you have to realize that this happens to me all the time and it’s usually nothing, though.”

Of course, this creates the opportunity for my brain to 1) tell me I’m probably fine, quit complaining, pussy, and 2) compare myself to everyone else on the planet, who doesn’t crumble when their brain interprets times are hard. Because, of course, I have to make myself feel mentally ridiculous for feeling physically horrible. Other people are always happy to help in this regard, too. "You sure get sick a lot. I thought you had the flu last month. Wow, it always seems like something is wrong with you." Mhm, I feel the same on all accounts.

And, Fuckers, that’s why I stopped talking about it or looking for answers a long time ago. Instead, I've just relied on the most logical answer and quit worrying. I’ve done enough research on my own, not to mention all my Animal Science schooling, to know how stress responses work. They’re significant. They have the potential to disrupt your entire body through hormonal dysregulation. And they work differently - as far as we can tell - depending on the organism.

So that’s what I’ve leaned on. Acknowledgement that stress really screws with me. It zaps my energy. It fogs up my brain. It makes me overstimulated. It causes weird pains and immune system responses. It churns up my digestive problems. It also makes me feel like I’m starving but nauseous all at once. Over long periods of time, it can lead to infections. It, obviously, ruins my sleep, which reaaaaally doesn’t help with any of it.

That’s that. Pretty complicated but simple. Try not to stress yourself out and god help you, if you do. Chill for a few days and you’ll be alright, probably. No one knows why it happens. Doctors don’t care. Just watch out for yourself, because no one else deals with this shit.

Unless… they totally do.

So, that’s fibromyalgia

I guess this is where I tell you something that a lot of folks have probably already figured out. Sorry if you’ve been yelling at me through your headphones this whole time - chill, I’m getting to it.

There definitely is a term for everything I’ve described. There are millions of other people who experience it. And, yeah, doctors often still don’t believe it’s real… but the numbers and anecdotal evidence don’t lie.

Ever heard of fibromyalgia?

Of course you have. But have you ever really looked into what it meant? Because… I hadn’t.

Annnnd then a listener and I were chatting on Instagram a few weeks ago. And she mentioned... everything I just mentioned. And her diagnosis had been? Fibromyalgia.

Via DM, your fellow Fucker started telling me about being tired all the time, mysterious aches and pains that worsen with stress, IBS symptoms, improper temperature regulation, and over-exertion that leads to required days of recovery. My jaw hit the floor.

You know I hopped online and started doing more research of my own. And all of the information was confirmed and expanded upon in a way that drove my mandible straight into the basement.

Hey, you know how fibromyalgia is synonymous with “widespread pain?” Oh shit, if you dig into it, there is a lot more to learn. Here’s a (maybe, complete?) list of the currently known associated symptoms. Keep in mind, I couldn’t find a single comprehensive resource for this information. This list is compiled of information from the the peer-reviewed article I'm going to read from later, the American College of Rheumatology, the CDC, Healthline, and Medical News Today. And if it sounds like a bit of a "catch all" pile, I think you're right.

Pain and stiffness all over the body

Fatigue and tiredness

Depression and anxiety

Sleep problems

Problems with thinking, memory, and concentration, known as “fibro-fog”

Headaches, including migraines

Tingling or numbness in hands and feet

Pain in the face or jaw

Digestive problems, such as abdominal pain, bloating, constipation, and irritable bowel syndrome

Tenderness to touch or pressure affecting muscles, sometimes joints or even the skin

Irritable or overactive bladder

Pelvic pain

Trouble focusing or paying attention

Pain or a dull ache in the lower belly

Dry eyes

Sleeping for long periods of time without feeling rested (nonrestorative sleep)

Acid reflux

Restless leg syndrome

Sensitivity to cold or heat

Problems with vision

Nausea

Weight gain

Dizziness

Cold or flu-like symptoms

Skin problems

Chest symptoms

Breathing problems

Insulin resistance

Wait, wait, wait. THAT’S what fibro is? Because, I’m sorry, I have literally never heard any of that detail before… and although it gets so ambiguous that I suspect these ailments are all the conditions that just haven't been explained before by medical science... this list just described my life. All the way down to the tiniest detail of dry eyes, as I now recall chronically dumping drops into mine for those same years in my 20s. What. The. Shit.

Prior to this research, my symptomatic knowledge of fibro was essentially - pain, of the unexplained and incurable variety. No one ever once has mentioned anything else about the condition to me, or allll the ways that it correlated with my years of health trauma. Not my peers, not my doctors, and not even my amazing, well-informed therapist.

So, maybe I’m really late to the game here, but long story short, my mind was blown when I heard that there’s actually a term for this experience which I had forfeited to processing as a “unique way that my body individually destroys me” for all these years. I thought I was just uniquely uncomfortable all the time and stopped burdening others with my experiences.

Maybe that’s why I never had anyone clue me in to the diagnosis - I honestly stopped talking about the cyclical sickness a while back, after recognizing that people didn’t respond favorably to the narrative, “I just get too stressed out to function.” Shutting my mouth and writing off my experiences may have halted my potential for hearing a realistic account of living with fibromyalgia. Oh, how the trauma shame shenanigans never stop royally fucking you.

Of course, based on my own recent education, now I’m wondering if fibromyalgia applies to far more of us in the trauma community. Because if I hadn’t found reliable information on it in all my trauma and inflammatory illness research over the years… how many other people are in the same boat?

And this brings me to my next point. I really hate the term fibromyalgia.

Why I hate the term

There’s actually another explanation for why I never heard about everything that fibromyalgia describes. Uh, you’re going to hate me for this, but I didn’t think it was a “real” diagnosis.

Yep. I’m telling you with moderate guilt that for the longest time, I appraised fibro in the same way that western medicine considers all psychosomatic illnesses - not valid. And I’m unhappy with myself, too. Believe me, I feel like my least favorite kind of person... a hypocrite. But this also points to the systemic issue that undermines so many of our attempts to get help, and that makes me far more unhappy.

You see, a number of years ago, as a budding counselor with a few years of experience, my therapist friend mentioned something about fibro. Specifically, that it was a common label granted to more seriously mentally affected patients… and it wasn’t believed to be a real thing. I wish I could remember more detail on the context, but the basis of the story is, someone that I trusted - someone with many trauma patients - told me that in her experience, no one took fibromyalgia seriously. People with intense mental illnesses regularly presented with unfounded complaints of pain, and this is the term they were assigned as a result.

There was no proof of their physical discomfort. The patients tended to have myriad mental and physical health issues. They tended to be more difficult clients. Professionals had doubts about how serious the complaints were. No evidence, no respect. It was just about that simple.

To give more weight to the story, here’s one quick excerpt that is actually validating to read, from an article titled, The management of fibromyalgia from a psychosomatic perspective: an overview.

“People with FM often reported dismissive attitudes from others, such as disbelief, stigmatization, lack of acceptance by their relatives, friends, coworkers, and the healthcare system, that consider them as ‘lazy’ or ‘attention seeking’ people, with their symptoms ‘all in their head’. Such dismissiveness can have a substantial negative impact on patients, who are already distressed, and also on the degree of their pain.”

So… similar to the asshole social associates described above… for years after that, I paid no attention to fibromyalgia. When people brought it up, I nodded and moved on. I didn’t disbelieve that there would be a connection between mental illness and the onset of bodily pains after my own experiences, but the term had also been shuttled to a file in my head that sidled up next to, “seeking prescription pain meds.” This was an incorrect judgement based on incorrect, oversimplified information. But unfortunately, it left an impression.

So… similar to the assholes described above… for years after that, I paid no attention to fibromyalgia. When people brought it up, I nodded and moved on. I didn’t disbelieve that there would be a connection between mental illness and the onset of bodily pains after my own experiences, but the term had also been shuttled to a file in my head that sidled up next to, “seeking prescription pain meds.” This was an incorrect judgement based on incorrect, oversimplified information. But unfortunately, it left an impression.

It took the real life account of someone with the diagnosis to show me all the ways that my previous perception was completely incorrect. I suddenly realized how reductive and insulting the false information had been. Annnd all the ways that I could have really helped myself and a few others a lot sooner if I had just investigated the term on my own, rather than lazily falling back on someone else’s casually-expressed opinion.

So, I’m saying… fuck me. 100%. That makes me really upset with myself. But it makes me even more frustrated with the medical field.

And this is why I hate the term fibromyalgia.

It doesn’t actually explain a fucking thing… and it doesn’t seem like anyone is actually trying to.

At this point, there is no known cause for the development or persistence of the disorder. Fibromyalgia has essentially become more of a label for a grouping of symptoms that we “allow” people to assume when we don’t know what the hell might be wrong with them. I say “allow” very purposely, because it feels like our medical overlords have granted us this word as a way to pacify the uncomfortable masses - not treat them.

At this point, there is no known cause or organic mechanism for the development or persistence of the disorder. Fibromyalgia has essentially become more of a label for a grouping of symptoms that we “allow” people to assume when we don’t know what the hell might be wrong with them. I say “allow” very purposely, because it feels like our medical overlords have granted us this word as a way to pacify the uncomfortable masses - not treat them.

Millions of humans have detailed the same experiences, but science hasn’t yet come up with a way to explain them, so let’s go ahead and give them a new diagnosis that boils down to “Not sure what’s going on, but they say it’s unpleasant and it sounds a little something like widespread pain. Cool, let’s call it a day. Nah, we don’t need to educate the medical community or the public - we don’t need a single list of all the known comorbidities - because we don’t get it, ourselves. Let’s make sure we put that disclaimer right in the definition, so everyone knows it’s a controversial topic."

And implicit in saying that doctors and scientists don’t understand the term, comes a negative connotation of assumed delusion or attention-seeking complaints.

Essentially, what I’m bitching about is the tendency of researchers and practitioners to shuttle things they can’t directly measure to the back of the relevancy line. Despite all of the anecdotal evidence from fibro sufferers that corroborate the same causes, symptoms, and outcomes… we can’t see what they’re talking about and we don’t have an easy explanation, so we put this in the “fake news” stack of information - AKA psychosomatic illness.

Now, it’s also worth mentioning that fibromyalgia is deeply intertwined with trauma. Something like 2/3rds of fibro patients also have confirmed PTSD symptoms, if not higher. Exact numbers depend on which study you trust. Just know, it is a prevalent, accepted, correlation between trauma and the development of fibromyalgia. And of course, no one has determined the causative or affective relationship between the two at this point in time.

Hell, we all know that a lot of mental and physical health professionals don’t even want to acknowledge trauma at this point - or, do so with a smirk and an eyebrow raise, at best. So tethering the two poorly-comprehended disorders together? Oh boy, it’s a sure-fire way to ensure that no one listens to a word you say after honestly answering their background information questions. Might as well throw down your wallet and walk yourself right out of the office at that point.

The medical field’s lack of trauma education is a big problem. Making “psychosomatic” a dirty word isn’t helping millions of folks out there. Being invalidated by the people who could possibly help you is another mental health crisis waiting to happen. And all of this is infuriating to me, following my own experiences and thinking about other people’s.

Should we take this one outrage step further? Sure.

You know that a vast majority of fibromyalgia sufferers are… women. Sorry, about to get a tad feminist. Is anyone here surprised that primarily female voices tend to be written off by medical professionals? Ha, ha, ha. No, probably not.

For all of human history, the ladies have been getting the shit end of the stick when it comes to medical care. We all know that women were given amazing explanations for their ailments, such as having “hysterics” or "the vapors" not so long ago.

Furthermore, there is research showing that doctors do not take women’s accounts of pain severity seriously, in particular. Even fellow female doctors and nurses are given different treatment by staff when they go to the ER, versus male counterparts. And if you’re a minority or socioeconomically challenged woman? The data says you might as well take two aspirin and see what happens the next morning, because the medical attention research is even worse for those demographics. Huge surprise.

So, pulling this all together: Considering that the majority of us who receive complex trauma diagnoses are women… considering that implicit in this label, comes the increased likelihood that we’re not economically well-to-do and belong to minority groups one way or another… how do you figure we’ve ever had a chance of receiving real help for our unmeasurable physical conditions?

So, pulling this all together: Considering that the majority of us who receive complex trauma diagnoses are women… considering that implicit in this label, comes the increased likelihood that we’re not economically well-to-do and belong to minority groups… how do you figure we’ve ever had a chance of receiving real help for our unmeasurable physical conditions?

Yeah, we haven’t.

We’ve been given a term - complete with a wink and a nudge - that no one wants to meaningfully research or prioritize understanding. We’ve received a new phrase that doctors will “generously grant us” when we’re drowning in unexplained symptoms and pain. We’re then labeled with a word that essentially amounts to “disregard and humor” for all our future appointments. On top of it all, we’re carrying the burden of traumatic histories, which immediately qualify us for misunderstood diagnoses that more or less equate “ghosts in their blood” - because, hell, we can’t quantify mental illness, either.

The whole ordeal makes me really upset. The fact that I was inadvertently pulled into this biased disbelief makes me more upset. It also serves as quite a demonstration of how powerful or deleterious knowledge can be after it worms its way into your head involuntarily and becomes your only “go-to” piece of data, true or false.

One seemingly-trustworthy person mentioning a negative opinion of fibromyalgia one time in my past somehow infiltrated my thoughts to the extent that I didn’t have a second thought for 5 years? And we're talking about a goddamn trauma researcher - with, what I consider - an otherwise open and connection-happy mind?

The power of assumed authority and truth in opinion is significant. If I can be swayed in this way, how could less mental health informed medical professionals stand a chance in responding differently? That’s frightening and clarifying… though immensely upsetting.

So, since biomedicine hasn’t bothered to find any great information for us, despite the rapidly increasing rate of fibromyalgia diagnoses in the past two decades - how can we make sense of the information to actually help ourselves?

Let’s talk about that next.

What we can conclude

So it kindof blows finding out that you probably qualify for a new medical term… only to find out that we don’t actually know anything about said term. I say this, because if you’re waiting for me to pop off with some sweet research on fibromyalgia… uh… I haven’t found it yet. But not for lack of trying. So far every article I’ve seen has been pretty basic and uninspired.

Does fibromyalgia correspond with trauma? It does. Does stress mediate and moderate fibromyalgia, PTSD symptoms, GI problems, and depression? It does. Does it take a long time and numerous appointments to receive medical help for fibromyalgia complaints? It does. Does the comorbidity of post-traumatic symptoms make fibro more uncomfortable and challenging to overcome? What do you know - it fucking does.

(Wow. So enlightening. Having two debilitating disorders is less fun than having one. Who’s funding these research studies, anyways?)

The first thing I can conclude is, there’s not that much to conclude. This is to say, no one - that I’ve seen, so far - has revealed anything super shocking or thought-provoking about fibromyalgia.

Really, the most interesting things I learned from my reading are that

1) insulin resistance is another associated disorder, which explains even more of my baffling life

2) sex hormones are leached from your system under stress, which, refer to point number one... explains another huge chunk of my existence, and

3) the recommendations for treating fibro long term are the same recommendations I’ve given for getting your trauma life re-ordered.

You know how I always push for people to find out what’s manageable on their own through trial and error, rather than approaching trauma recovery with preventable fires burning in every area? Hey - someone agrees.

Namely, it's recommended that in order to manage fibromyalgia you establish routines including strictly nutrition-based eating habits, non-threatening forms of consistent exercising, prioritizing tons of sleep, and controlling your environment as much as possible for stressful stimuli. Doctors can also supplement your rehab with antidepressants, because, again, fibromyalgia is related to the same underlying hormonal imbalances as depression - but the larger health issues are managed best by changing your behaviors. Just like I’ve said.

I suppose this is no surprise, since this entire time I’ve unknowingly been talking, in large part, about how I’ve controlled my own fibromyalgia symptoms. I just thought it was mandatory trauma pains I was dampening. But the word is out! There's a separate phrase for it. The doctors and I agree; stop treating yourself like a turd, and maybe you’ll stop feeling like one. Whatdoyouknow. Sometimes there are reasons for the things I notice experientially, even if they aren’t originally informed by medical lingo.

Secondly, looking at what we can conclude at this point about fibro… Well, it justifies my previous hypothesis that stress is the root of my body’s evil. There’s not much to definitively say about fibromyalgia at this point, but we know for a fact that it is agitated and potentially caused by stress.

This perfectly aligns with my observations that a terrible work week mixed with a personally challenging month on top of a physically exhausting cleaning marathon will lead to a systemic breakdown every time. And, conversely, those times when life has actually been pretty chill correspond to periods of bodily health and limited upset - the times when I wonder “was I ever really sick at all?” and start to health gaslight my damn self.

Realizing the link between stress and sickness, of course, also begins to explain the correlation to trauma, and particularly, complex trauma.

Now, let me start by saying that there’s some debate over the downstream effects of PTSD - some researchers swear that it decreases system arousal in the face of later stress, others have collected data reflecting that a nervous system hyper-sensitization takes place. From my own trauma involvement, I’ve seen and heard more cases of the latter; we’re quick to upset and easily pushed into stressed territory. I don’t know many, if any, trauma folks who are non-responsive to disturbing life events... but that sounds more like a deep, dangerous, clinical depression symptom to me.

Personally, once I’ve been chronically stressed for a few weeks or months, then I notice the loss of stress response take over. My limbic system gives up, the HPA axis stops responding, and therefore nothing can rattle me. Perhaps you’ve also had the experience of laughing when your car breaks down, because it’s already been 3 months of disaster around every turn and there’s nothing else you can do for yourself. So, sure, people can reach a point where they legitimately don’t respond to the chaos anymore, but I’m not so sure that’s a consistent norm. I think it’s more likely that you turn off your stress reactions if you’ve been adequately prepped to dissociate for the sake of sanity or your chemical balance is so wack that your danger center has powered down.

I can tell you without a doubt that before the point when my stress threshold has been raised sky-high thanks to repeat exposures and wiring disconnections... I’m a rapid-responder when anxiety comes calling. Stimulus - rapid survival reaction - no space in between being startled and shaking from head to toe. And this is the case for basically every Motherfucker I know. I’m no expert, but I think we tend to fall more into the hypervigilant camp surrounding this podcast, rather than the laxadonical one. Always on the lookout, always ready, often bowled over by our own responses.

I’m a rapid-responder when anxiety comes calling. Stimulus - rapid survival reaction - no space in between being startled and shaking from head to toe. And this is the case for every Motherfucker I know. I’m no expert, but I think we tend to fall more into the hypervigilant camp surrounding this podcast, rather than the laxadonical one. Always on the lookout, always ready, often bowled over by our own responses

This nervous system sensitization, as they call it, explains a lot of trauma symptoms. I’ve regularly discussed the hypersensitivity problem it creates, when your brain doesn’t adequately filter out or assess neutral stimuli because it considers basically everything to be a threat. This can also contribute to the ADD and ADHD diagnoses that we receive, when our heads are too busy trying to sort all that data streaming in to direct our thoughts in a steady way. Or, the ways that we’re uniquely thrown immediately into panic mode when we sense a risk. Plus, we’ve probably all had the experience of tiny, secret triggers sneakily upsetting our bodies when the stimulation wasn’t even significant enough to pass through our cognitive recognition centers. These are all caused by the same systemic over-sensitization problem.

In general: yes, we trauma folk are sensitive to our environments - inner and outer. We are easily pushed down survival pathways to fight/flight/freeze/fawn responses. We rapidly catastrophize ambiguous information, which can convince our brains and bodies that the worst has already happened. We’re hyperaware and easily overstimulated, often agitated, and regularly on edge.

I maintain, in the face of controversial evidence, that we get stressed out easily. And our bodies react dramatically.

I feel like I should also state that this is especially true, as most of us have read, when we have unresolved emotional strain floating around in our meat jackets. We can be overstimulated and aroused (in a bad way) from the inside, out. Since the majority of us are not skilled in emotional recognition or resolution, we’re often walking around with a lifetime of hard feelings stored in our guts. And there’s been roughly zero doubt in my head about emotional and environmental stress contributing to dissociation, contributing to a vagal nerve shutdown as a big part of the digestive failure that characterizes fibromyalgia, IBS, Crohns, and so many autoimmune disorders.

On top of the unresolved emotional root of stress, this pings another episode that I've previously released. The one about being overly restrictive in your diet and exercise for the sake of appearance perfectionism. If you physically exert yourself too strongly through caloric deprivation or extreme work outs, you can easily stress your body into a survival response. It can't tell the difference between starvation for bikini season and starvation for lack of food. Running your ass off for your upcoming wedding or running your ass off for your upcoming bear attack. Your danger sensing center is sensitive and it overreacts, much like myself.

Now, considering that all these examples of central nervous system sensitization and physiological survival states that go hand in hand with Complex Trauma and Fibromyalgia, so many weird health mysteries are potentially resolved. But, not exactly the pain component. Or, is it.

Again, the authors out of Italy and Brazil who penned, The management of fibromyalgia from a psychosomatic perspective: an overview, have a potential way to think about that. They state:

“Even if the causes and pathophysiology of FM are not completely known, widespread chronic pain could be explained by a vulnerability due to a perturbation in the central processing of sensory information, named ‘central sensitivity’ or ‘central sensitization’, that amplifies the response of the central nervous system to a peripheral input. Hence, people with FM and/or other central sensitivity syndromes have a lower threshold for interpreting sensory information as noxious. Several factors, such as genetic predisposition, deficiencies in neurotransmitter levels, biochemical changes in the body, endocrine dysfunction, mood states, anxiety, sociocultural environment, psychological trauma and past experiences in general, expectancy beliefs, and catastrophization have been proposed as explanatory mechanisms of patients’ subjective experience of central sensitivity. Current research indicates that abnormal sensory and pain processing is a key factor in the pathophysiology of FM. There is robust evidence that abnormalities in central pain processing, rather than damage or inflammation of peripheral structures, play an important role in the development and maintenance of chronic pain in patients with FM.”

Interesting, huh? I still think inflammatory responses are a big part of the 1000 piece stress puzzle, but I don’t disagree with the idea that our finely-tuned danger detection systems amplify pain and discomfort signals to deafening levels. Putting all the system data together, you can deduce a fairly complete picture of how strain, physical degradation, and pain are all related.

Finally, I have confirmation that being overly stimulated causes everything from my energy drain to my dietary responses, migraines, and autoimmune attacks... all the way down to my temperature sensitivity, random presentation of allergic reactions, and even that occasional sharp pain in my jaw… not to mention all my life-altering functional problems, like being unable to sleep at night, existing with debilitating pain, and living while feeling sedated?

All of my strange health complaints from the past decade have aligned with this new label. And that label corresponds perfectly with my inkling that running on cortisol and overzealous guardsmen have been the major source of my health anxiety sauce. Welp, it’s been validating research for all of my educated guesses, to say the least.

Long story short, there’s not a ton of helpful information about the reasons for developing fibromyalgia or what makes it get worse. But there’s one thing we do know for a fact; stress is the enemy. At least I think it’s comforting to conclude that stress is the root of many of our C-PTSD complaints, as well as depression, anxiety, insomnia, obsessive thoughts, and now… a whole list of common maladies, labeled fibromyalgia.

Whether or not it’s really understood, at least there is a connection between everything. At least there’s something that ties ALL the random, disjointed pieces of torture together. I’m guessing that for many of us, fibromyalgia is similar to complex trauma, again, in that regard.

And, lastly, I can conclude that… I have more questions

More questions than answers

Here’s one last excerpt from the aforementioned article, which is the only one I found that’s worth hearing from.

They state: “FM is labelled, often with a negative connotation, as a ‘functional somatic syndrome’, part of a ‘somatization disorder’, ‘fashionable diagnosis’, ‘idiopathic pain disorder’, ‘non-disease’, ‘psychosomatic syndrome’, dismissing the true suffering of the patients. In the absence of a univocal identified biological cause, subjective reports of symptoms by the patients are often viewed derogatorily and discredited as ‘psychogenic.’”

Like I said, there isn’t a lot of helpful information out there if you’re looking to learn more about this controversial condition. Unfortunately, it has been categorized as a “functional somatic disorder” which essentially means that we don’t have an explanation for the organic basis of the disorder.

Uh, I don’t know what could be more organic than the endogenous hormones in our own bodies creating downstream health effects, but hey, I’m not a biologist anymore, what do I know?

The fact remains - there’s a lot more to understand about the assorted mechanisms that lead from trauma into depression, generalized stress disorder, and physical manifestations of a biochemical system that’s running off-balance. And this is where I have the biggest questions.

First, I have to get this out of the way. I’m wondering about the known gender split in fibro. The numbers are horrendously skewed towards women as the primary sufferers, and that’s not helping the medical legitimacy case. So, what are the chances that men just don’t have fibromyalgia at the same rate as women? Either they don’t get stressed to the same magnitude or their bodies respond completely differently? It’s possible. OR. Is it something else?

It seems to me like this follows another similar mystery - what are the chances that men just don’t suffer from Complex Trauma at the same rate as women? Pretty poor? Probably more of a diagnostic or seeking-help issue? Yeah, I think so, too. Yet, if you look strictly at the numbers, it sure seems like there are more women hearing about C-PTSD than men.

This analogous labeling issue between the genders makes me think of a few explanations…

1) Men don’t seek help for their physical ailments the way that women do, either because they’re less in tune with their bodies or because they’re shamed for not being tough enough if they complain. Just like C-PTSD.

2) Men don’t hear about fibromyalgia, because it is an engendered diagnosis reserved for dramatic women at this point. Just like C-PTSD. They receive other partial diagnoses, like IBS, that are less controversial. This leads me into a whole spiraling rant about several genital-dependent psychological diagnoses that I feel similarly about, but one of them is…

3) Men don’t receive the same level of fibromyalgia labels as women because men don’t often receive Complex-PTSD labels, which would serve as a hint to their doctors, since trauma is a well-known predisposing factor…

This brings me to the next set of questions.

It’s unpopular opinion time, but, frankly, I don’t know that any of these trauma and fibro issues are really that separate.

It seems to me like we’re talking a lot about one particular problem that splinters off into a thousand different outcomes, depending on the circumstances, the biology, and the human in question. Not separate conditions.

First comes the trauma, then comes the presentation of downstream physical and mental symptoms. Presentation, magnitude, and personal recognition of these symptoms varies, just like severity of Complex Trauma does. But under both conditions, our experiences are often so similar - the hard part is that we struggle to describe them and often lean on abstract language which can be used in such diverse ways. We focus on different problems, depending on our own life impacts.

So, maybe we notice and report internal events differently, but it’s hard for me to believe that the two disorders aren’t more than corresponding diagnoses - and are, in fact, one and the same.

I could be very wrong, but I’d sure like to find out.

So, to the small percentage of fibromyalgia sufferers who don’t have trauma… you sure? To the depressed and anxious folks who can’t seem to get a grip on their physical health, but never saw their life as traumatic… want to take another look? To all the traumatized folks with Raynauds, food allergies, hypertension, ADD, aches, and migraines… have you really looked into the full definition of fibromyalgia?

ARE these conditions of trauma and fibromyalgia different? Or is this another complication in identifying unseeable symptoms in a population of folks who never learned to name their mental and physical experiences? Is this an artifact from a group who tends to underestimate and under-report their own experiences in light of unhealthy others’ core beliefs? How prevalent is fibromyalgia, really? Especially in the context of Trauma?

Is it possible that everything boils down to one underlying event - trauma - that produces a whole host of other biological adaptations down the line? Did we create a separate term for it, simply based on a lack of standardization?

Or is this an exclusionary problem?

Have all the various ways we’ve learned to categorize and describe our experiences actually separated one full disorder into two half-disorders; one that encompasses the brain and another that covers the body? Is it our societal misunderstanding of the connection between our perceptions and our meaty husks, forcing us to separate the issues of mental and physical health that would be better understood together, as one?

I’m not sure! But I’m definitely thinking a lot about it.

Partially, from personal bias. I always considered my physical issues to be part of my trauma life, not separate from it - and that explanation made perfect sense to me. Where do these disorders really split? Maybe it’s possible to have Complex PTSD without the physical symptoms, but that's really not what I hear from people. The most of us have at least some periods of physical ailments, even if they're not persistent. To me, it seems like a distinction that should be made within the trauma diagnosis - with or without physical wellness degradation - rather than piling a separate, largely-ineffective diagnosis on the vast majority of us who have some variety of said bodily ailments.

I feel like the real issue isn’t “what is fibromyalgia?” The actual problem is a lack of biological understanding in the Psychology field. And a mirrored failure to understand Psychology in the medical field. Then, throw in a reluctance to study the conglomerate of bio-physiology and mental health issues in the scientific research literature because both experiences are difficult to measure or confirm and the studies would be less elegant.

If more psychologists actually learned system biology and more medical practitioners actually studied abnormal psychology, maybe we wouldn’t have disparate diagnoses that each come with a half-recognition. Maybe we could have one term that encompassed the full experience of trauma. Maybe these professionals could confirm all the details that we don’t understand by working with a more comprehensive approach to how humans work as a whole, rather than organ by organ. Just a fucking thought.

Because, I can tell you, if my therapist friend had the same biological education that I did at the time, I guarantee that she wouldn’t have told me fibromyalgia was a “pseudo diagnosis.” If she had knowledge of the connection between stress hormones and bodily breakdown, plus the trauma physiology that determines our sensitivity to stress - there’s no way she would have been so flippant or insensitive with her words. But under the influence of her counseling peers, the diagnosis became a fallacy.

I think this highlights the danger of the problem at hand. It only took one industry-determined void of knowledge to pass along an unfair opinion that skewed at least my perception for years down the line. And, think about it, how many times has one innocently-baseless comment in the psychology or medical fields probably created a lifetime of bias in an up-and-coming professional?

Maybe this is why we have the self-perpetuating negative connotation of psychosomatic illness in our society that seems to crawl its way towards improvement, while every other disorder makes significant strides. A lack of personal understanding of the biology-psychology connection is easily turned into a respected opinion, and readily transmitted to unknowing people who are eager to learn from their wise mentors. And so, the next generation inherits the same set of half-baked progress-stunting ideas. Over and over and over.

Depressing! And enlightening.

And that’s roughly where I stand today, after days of fibromyalgia research and very few satisfactory answers. Depressed and enlightened.

More or less, asking myself more questions about the legitimacy of our entire mental and physical healthcare system and all the lines we draw in the sand. Confident that trauma leads to increased stress leads to increased brain and body trauma. Somewhat happy to know that I’m actually not the only one who consistently apologizes for feeling like shit and questions if it’s “valid” or not because it seems connected to my brain. But also, pretty pissed off that we’ve been given a word that comes with no explanations and a hellofalot of medical field judgement, as if we needed more of that.

Oh, one more factoid to throw into the end of this conversation. There’s a link between low socioeconomic status and fibromyalgia.

Hey, the same link exists between socioeconomic status and complex trauma. Hey, it’s another predisposing factor for post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms’ emergence. Hey, big surprise, if you have a stable and predictable physical and financial environment, you’re less likely to develop the terror-based conditions brought on by earlier trauma.

If you have financial resources, you’re also less likely to be chronically stressed by the demands of life. You’re probably also more likely to receive respectable medical care. Therefore, meaning that you’re both less likely to have enough perturbation to develop over-sensitive nervous system responses and less likely to be dismissed by doctors with a label they don’t believe exists. Plus, probably more likely to have access to mental health care that could prevent the onset of Complex Trauma presentation, and likely fibromyalgia, altogether.

Oh, look, logic explains so many things. Or, fuckit, let’s just choose to believe that poor people are lazy and always want to complain about something, whether it’s in their heads or their bodies. Whatever the rich white men say.

Big issues to think about.

Like I state way too often on this show, it’s the small things in this trauma life that bring you comfort. And monumental societal failures that make you scream. (Okay, I just added that last part today.)

Wrap it

Okay, let me get out of here before I question more beliefs that are way out of my paygrade. Sorry, medical and psychological practitioners. I know that I’m just a critical observer who, like that kid everyone hates in class, perpetually asks too many questions.

At the bottom of all my complaints, I just wish that we could come up with a way to characterize these disorders that actually helped people understand what was happening. If you know how your body is reacting to what stimuli and how the symptoms are all related, that's a lot more powerful than throwing assorted barely-defined titles at them.

If we can't definitively say that fibromyalgia and trauma symptoms are one and the same, fine. Let there be a distinction. But I think it would be preferable to call fibro something more telling and true to the accepted cause. Call it semantics, but something like Stress Affective Syndrome would be more useful than the made-up word of fibromyalgia. Please, anyone feel free to come up with a better phrase, because I just made "Stress Affective Syndrome" up so I could say "I've got SAS." It already fits the bill.

I guess I’m just up in arms that I’ve tried to find answers for my brain and body health all these years, and turned up completely empty handed until random connections have eventually given me the information I’ve needed after a decade of effort. Maybe if I had my complex trauma diagnosis before I had my health complaints, someone would have mentioned fibromyalgia. Maybe, they would have knowingly smirked and sent me to a psychiatrist. Hard to say.

Even if I had gotten that information about fibro, would it have helped separate from the C-PTSD diagnosis? Honestly, probably not. I would have just been harder on myself for suddenly being too weak in the face of stress. And after reading that medical professionals doubt the validity of fibromyalgia, in the first place? Well that would have been a whole other source of disbelief, anger, and negative self-regard. Maybe a whole new crisis, once my inner critic got a chance to hammer away at my head.

I suppose that figuring out the patterns of my strange bodily conditions actually needed to happen organically for this Fucker, because any semi-questioned diagnosis would have just been more fuel for my trauma fire at that point when I so thoroughly despised myself. Confirming to myself, for a fact, that stress fucks me up may have been a prerequisite for accepting that I might be “one of those fibro people.” You know, the ones who lie about their symptoms. Ha.

And, again, this says a lot about the potential damage that poorly-described labels can do to people… just as much as it says about my own reluctance to be considered a weak-minded over-reactor by outsiders.

All of this being said, I’m so grateful for finally finding out exactly what all fibromyalgia actually entails. It took too long, but honestly, the information came at the perfect time. Two days after I got it, I was stress-sick. Ahhh, it's fibro time. How’s that for irony?

As always, I do think there is some empowerment in the basic root understanding that you aren’t the only one who’s dealt with any of this. The mysterious illnesses, the pain, or the lack of care from modern medicine aren’t individual experiences. Hey, you might even be relieved to know that someone else on this planet routinely asks herself, “Do I have cancer for real this time, or am I just overworked again?”

After years of nobody I spoke to having a tale that even mildly resembled my autoimmune breakdown, finding anybody who related to my issues was extremely relieving. Not only was it a common experience, but it meant that I hadn’t somehow brought the discomfort on myself - through mental illness, physical shenanigans, or plain old weakness - the ways that I feared.

Furthermore, it proved that I hadn’t imagined it all. Because believe it or not, you’re surprisingly willing to throw yourself under the bus after all the pain has passed. I’ve spent the past decade telling people, “I think I have the glutens, as I call it... but I don’t really know though, it’s never been explained, sometimes other things bother me, and sometimes it’s really not a big deal, I don't know what it is” as an almost-apology. A disclaimer that I, too, doubt my own memories and conclusions because they weren’t properly validated by who I considered authority figures.

Hearing that other people had digestive disorders and autoimmune disasters in the wake of Complex Trauma, via the book The Body Keeps The Score, shocked me into self-acceptance of my prior experiences. Hearing that all of it can be encapsulated by this term fibromyalgia a few days ago - well, shit. This is a more mainstream occurrence than I ever previously thought.

And you know what? It does matter to me that I’m not the only one who falls apart when my brain gets overwhelmed. Even if it doesn’t fix anything. Even if my own postulations for how fibromyalgia is born from trauma feel more applicable than the scientifically proven ones. Even if I don’t believe the term deserves to stand alone as a medical label without further delineation - especially of the connection to and overlap with trauma. Even if I think… it might be inseparable.

And you know what? It does matter to me that I’m not the only one who falls apart when my brain gets overwhelmed. Even if it doesn’t fix anything. Even if my own postulations for how fibromyalgia is born from trauma are more enlightening than the scientifically proven ones. Even if I don’t believe the term deserves to stand alone as a medical label without further delineation - especially of the connection to and overlap with trauma. Even if I think… it might be inseparable.

Now I know. When I feel a physical breakdown coming on, with the suspected cause being stress… I don’t have to apologize for it. I don’t need to tell people that I just can’t handle the pressure with unfettered shame for my own biochemistry. I can rest assured that what I’m going through is common - far more common than we know - and completely valid. Even if there are people ready to tell you that it's not.

But, to be honest, I still probably won’t tell anyone that it’s called fibromyalgia. I’m not proud to say, I wouldn’t want them to think I’m just being dramatic.

UGH.

#cptsd #healcptsd #actually CPTSD #just cptsd things #traumabrain #Complex Trauma #trauma recovery #complextrauma #complexptsd

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gaiatheorist · 4 years ago

Text

A little knowledge...

I keep starting this, and then deleting it, that’s either an indication that I’m trying to process as fully as i can, or that I’m being avoidant, and slipping into another depressive episode, I’ll keep an eye on it.

I have an untidy heap of paperwork at the side of my desk, it’s not ‘on’ the desk yet, because I’m not quite ready to fill it in. There’s no deadline on it, so it’s ‘floating’, rather than ‘fixed’, and the formatting of it is doing my head in. It’s the end-of-course review and coping plan for the Trauma Stabilisation Group I finished last week. I told my son a few days ago that the ‘mentals’ write their own coping plans, and he was incredulous, I’m relatively good at planning, and taking all factors into consideration, but the new medication, and the appeal against the denial of my disability benefit, and, well, 2020 are taking a toll on me, I’m slipping.

‘Introduction to Trauma Stabilisation Class’, three 90-minute sessions, delivered via Microsoft ‘Teams’, on account of the Covid-19 pandemic, we’re too unwell to be left to our own devices, so the online group was the least-bad option. It’s free, I know a fair few people who have had to pay for their own therapy, because they can’t access NHS treatment, and I know I’m part of a very small, but fortunate number, to still be on NHS lists. Groups of people with mental health issues are always a bit of a gamble, there’s the waiting-room-contagion factor, where some people will exchange symptoms and ‘unhelpful coping mechanisms’, and the weird mix of characters that are inevitable. This was either my third or fourth ‘Introduction to...’ group, and the online format was differently stressful to the in-the-flesh ones. I know ‘most’ of my group-dynamic bad habits, and there’s always a little bit of my cognitive functioning occupied with telling myself *don’t* do this, or that. In a nutshell, I’m a watchful show-off, the ‘feeling small and vulnerable’ part of my C-PTSD would, historically, lead me to muck about, or attempt to dominate groups, throw in my autistic ‘organising’, my professional desire to help, and the fatigue and over-stimulus from the brain injuries, and I *could* be a nightmare in groups.

I was honest with the triage staff right from the beginning, it’ll be in my notes that I acknowledge my tendencies to ‘take charge’, as a means of coping with so much in my life that’s been beyond my control, it’s not all deliberate, and it’s sometimes really useful. I’m a sheep-dog, which is productive when I’m rounding up stragglers, and pointing them in the right direction, less-so when I’m distracted by a squirrel outside the window.

Being what I am, and knowing what I know from my previous career is a double-edged sword. I know the fancy words for the theories and processes, so can be mildly irritated when the language has to be dumbed-down to the lowest common denominator. It does have to be, though, on the previous course, we had a couple of participants who couldn’t read the text on the worksheets (formatting issue, too much text crammed onto each page, to save on photocopying costs, they strained my eyes a bit) I can’t do my (TM) Autistic thing of assuming that, if I ‘know’ a thing, everyone else in the room does too. I can do my helpful thing of re-explaining something the facilitator has said if the group don’t seem to ‘get’ it, or clarifying something a participant has said if the facilitators misconstrue it. (One of the staff on the previous course was an absolute horror for that, she wasn’t listening actively, just barrelling on with what she thought had been said, people stop volunteering information when that happens.) I’m not there to ‘help’, or to ‘lead’, though. One of the participants in this last group threw a bit of a tantrum, she’d dominated most of the speaking in the previous session, and flipped when I was given air-time to explain something. That was hard to deal with, because I automatically switched to Mentor-mode, and very nearly lost track of the content trying to think of a way to alert one of the facilitators to check in on her, and try to bring her down from her agitated state before she hurt herself.

I’m dabbling with the slightly paranoid theory that some participants, or even facilitators might think I’m a Mystery Shopper sort of thing. My ‘old’ practices and processes made a lot of people ask “How do you DO that?”, the ‘Matilda’-thing, I just do, I’m exceptional at a lot of very difficult things sometimes, but I can’t use oven-gloves, and, especially recently, I’ve been forgetting a lot of words. Other participants might think I’m a smart-arse, I am, it doesn’t matter, I imagine I frustrate the facilitators because I can give theoretically correct answers, but can’t consistently apply the theories in my own life. I’m not there to make friends, we all have to sign contracts of expectations saying we won’t form relationships, I understand that, an elective empathy with other high-end mental health cases is never going to be a good thing. My curious combination of conditions makes me a bit of a distance-er anyway, I stick as firmly as I can to the procedural pathways, it’s a process-with-purpose, not a popularity contest.

I’m struggling with the ‘be kind to yourself’ angle again. It’s not in my nature, I don’t know how. That bumps heads with the ‘normalising nice things’, even at this level of mental health intervention, we’re encouraged to ‘savour the taste of your favourite food’- food is just fuel, I don’t have a favourite, and, when people start banging on about chocolate, or cake, or whatever, I don’t get it. Visit a favourite place, phone/meet up with a friend, listen to uplifting music, go for a walk, buy yourself flowers, have a haircut, all of the ‘normal’ nice-things leave me cold, I don’t really have hobbies or interests, very few things spark my oxytocin or dopamine responses, I’m not a joyful type, that’s my baseline-normal, not a press-the-panic-button indicator that I’m depressed.

“You’re just not trying!” Luckily, nobody ‘medical’ has trotted that one out, but it’s been the backing track to my life pretty much forever. I am trying, I’m trying very hard, especially since the brain injuries. There’s been a slow realisation that I have to pick my battles wisely, though. I’ve long maintained that anyone who’s ‘always’ happy must have a flap in their back where the batteries go, I’m not advocating living in a constant state of ‘Eeyore’ gloom, but constant joy must be bloody exhausting. I’m not always moody or maudlin, I’m just sort of ‘flat’, not particularly animated or enthusiastic about much, but I can engage for short periods when I need to. “Smile, love, it might never happen!” can get right in the bin, and, as the internet pointed out the other day, telling someone to ‘just think positive’ as a cure-all is ridiculous. Well-meaning, but oblivious people will chip in with their intrusive-insensitive opinions of how a bit of yoga, or more vegetables are all we need to be all-better, and it’s a challenge to not point out that some of us are a bit beyond ‘just snapping out of it’.

That’s not defeatist. I’m autistic, my brain runs on a non-standard Operating System, the updates don’t always load, and I have to make a hell of a lot of work-around adaptations. Sometimes life’s like walking everywhere with my shoes on the wrong feet, and sometimes it’s like my appliances have come with the wrong plug, and I have to stick a spoon-handle in the Earth socket to make them work. On top of the autism, I had a succession of adverse experiences through the course of my life, which have left me with C-PTSD. I have a telephone-directory of medical conditions, and the icing on the cake was the brain haemorrhage five years ago, I have brain injuries, bits of metal plugging up aneurysms, and one area of ‘risky’ defects on my brain-stem. Those are facts, I have a file of medical paperwork about two inches thick, but the UK disability benefit departments have decided to latch onto the fact that I’m not on any medication for mental health issues. (I’ve tried lots, none of them worked long-term, and now we know we’re dealing with a neurodevelopmental disorder, and physical brain damage, I don’t think a bit of Prozac is going to help.)

Knowing that my brain is physically and chemically different to ‘most’ people’s is not a get-out-of-jail-free-card. These are reasons, not excuses, and I’m doing what I can to work within and around my limitations. I’m not unique, or a special unicorn, I’m disabled, and damaged, and trying to work with the fragmented NHS. One of the issues with the trauma course was the assumptions. I absolutely don’t blame the facilitators, they’re working with pre-prepared material, and a ‘difficult’ cohort. I did gently correct the course-leader, when she started listing ‘normal’ coping mechanisms, the walk-in-the-park, cup-of-tea-with-friends type ones. Some of those ‘simple’ activities are incredibly difficult for some of us, that’s why we’re at this level of intervention, if we could have ‘just’ joined a knitting circle, or taken up photography, we’d already have done it. I explained the need for pacing, the other two participants had limited impulse control, so giving the ‘shopping list’ of strategies was a bit risky, I know I have a tendency to over-reach, so need to be careful with myself. None of us had mentioned nightmares or flashbacks, but they’re on the standard list of indicators for PTSD. There was an assumption that we all had them, in the same way as one of the other triage practitioners, ages ago, told me “It’s not PTSD, because you don’t have nightmares.” I have auditory and olfactory flashbacks and hallucinations.

The doctors that didn’t make further investigations for the mutated migraines before the aneurysm ruptured. The gyneacologist that told my HUSBAND “There’s nothing physically wrong with her.”, the Occupational Health doctor who told me “It’s not vertigo, because that’s spinning.” and “It wasn’t a stroke, because you don’t have one-sided weakness.” I know they have to have lists of diagnostic criteria to start from, but Little-Miss-Autistic here spent far too long just-trying-to-cope because I didn’t fit neatly into their matrices. (Don’t get me started on DWP/PIP ignoring reams of evidence, and just picking out that I turned up to the assessment with my trousers on the right way around...)

I know too much about some things, and not enough about others. My ‘flat’ presentation gives the impression that I’m calm when I’m not, and coping more than I am. The review for the trauma class isn’t until September, and I genuinely don’t know what the next step will be. I’m already on the waiting list for the ‘Compassion’ course, and the very long waiting list for the Specialist Neurodevelopmental Service in the city, to see if there’s anything ‘else’ I haven’t already tried to work within and around the autism. I’ve slipped through a million holes in a million nets, because I know enough to give the answers I ‘should’, the biggest irony is that when I answer “I don’t know.”, the assumption is that I’m being defensive or difficult. A little knowledge is indeed a dangerous thing.

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idealnreal · 4 years ago

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I would love a meta on a timeline of takuto’s mental state

meta / who ever you are nonnie you have my love forever

I solemnly swear i will not make this a thousand words long crap it is. But yes, lets do this.

1) Childhood to his teen-years

Being quite a sensitive child, Takuto was hyper aware of the emotions running through the house in his early childhood. He still remembers being quite stressed and upset whenever he heard his parents voices being raised. A part of him also understood that he should not expect his father to come back, and he understood enough to feel upset. At school, he was easily overwhelmed in busy and noisy classrooms -- and will often withdraw or to sit on his own. However, for the most part, he was fine with making friends, and did make a few. He also quickly bonded with his step-father, who did get him a cat for a present -- and the combination of both helped him manage his social anxiety.

In middle school, his family moved into another town, and though he experienced a lot of initial stress -- middle school was where he met Shibu and Rumi. And with them, he began to become alot more social and able to manage his anxiety and emotions. He joined school activities, went bouldering with his friends and seniors. He did have his share of taking on more than he could handle, as he was often who his classmates would go to talk to -- and for help. There were several times where he would mistake the experiences and feelings of another for his own. And would come home terribly upset. He also became more aware of the wider world through both fiction and non fiction, and the news. It was probably in high school when he began feeling anxious of the state of the world -- and his place in it.

2) University

He remembers his time at university as the happiest of his years. With Rumi and Shibu -- and his new found direction in life -- for the most part he felt completely in control. Sure, there were long nights, short tempers, impossible deadlines and exams-- it never caused him any anxiety that he couldn’t handle. His social circle is limited to Rumi’s and Shibu’s friends, as well as the people he climbs with -- and he never felt the need to have anymore than those. Towards the end of medical school is when he first discovered cognitive pscience and began to research it -- which would become his purpose and joy.

Perhaps the most difficult portion of this stage of his life was his psychiatric residency. He had become painfully aware over how responsible he was over someone’s happiness -- even their lives. This stress made it difficult for him to block himself from over-empathising with his patients again. And he suffered emotional burn-outs and depressive episodes regularly for years -- straining most of his relationships. Which made him all the happier and prouder when he completed his residency, completed several papers on cognitive pscience, was licensed -- and most importantly, when Rumi agreed to marry him.

3) Prior and after the Incident

He began experiencing migraines several months before the incident-- which he thinks could be the effect of staring at his research too long and working late into the night. But despite this, his hope was higher than ever-- as he felt that his life and his future had fallen into place. He was over the moon at the idea that he will marry Rumi -- and though finances were tight, he was sure that his research would one day be able to earn him a decent salary to make their lives comfortable. But his life would never be that simple.

The months that followed the Incident were characterised by periods of intense depression, broken by a handful of days of manic overworking on his research. It is also after the Incident when he began experiencing dissociative/ depersonalisation episodes due to his trauma and survivor’s guilt. He also regularly gets auditory hallucinations, while the migraines also seemed to intensify. However, he feared admitting to anyone that he was suffering from these conditions -- much less seek treatment. He was terrified that it will be used to discredit his research and push him further out of the academic funding circle. Besides, he needed to keep sane for Rumi. He needed to stay strong for her. This is also the point where his distortion begins to manifest.

His first awakening to Azathoth and the subsequent ‘loss’ of Rumi, revealed his path forward. He knew what he had to do, how to do it and why he must see it through. This singular and clear vision began driving him forward on working on his research, despite various failings and attempts to shut his work down. While the migraines and hallucinations have stopped, he still experiences dissociative episodes, as well as very lucid nightmares due to his link with Azathoth -- even if it was under-developed at the time.

4) Years prior to the start of the game and prior to the third semester

He has pushed away almost everyone in his life in the years prior to the game, his friends and his family-- a result of his unresolved survivor’s guilt and paranoia. He continues with his research and working at a few private practices over the years to help heal people, and to gather data to test his theories.

And while he suffers from various setbacks to his mental health, he has been able to methodically manage his anxiety, emotional burn out, and his dissociative episodes. He still refuses to admit it to others or to seek treatment -- and he convinces himself that as long as his episodes don’t get too out of hand, and that he’s still able to work on his research, it’s fine.

Any small happiness he has felt during this period would soon be quenched by compulsive suspicion and guilt. Perhaps any true feelings of joy he felt were all related to advances of his research -- spotting the phantom thieves returning from the Metaverse, and Joker helping him realise that he could integrate the collective unconscious into his theories.

To make clear, despite his attempt to keep people away -- he cares deeply about every single person he meets, and every single patient or student he takes on. He is genuine in everything he does for them, and he would be the first to go above and beyond to cheer them up or to help them. He shares their joys, as well as their burdens, and these people drive him onwards.

6) Third semester

His full awakening to Azathoth was a cathartic experience. For years, he had worked on studying the cognitive world, formulated theories of how it can be used in therapy and gathered proof that it can be used to heal. And if his first awakening granted him the key, now, he was shown the lock and the door. While his heart was distorted with his messiah complex long before this event, it has now been given validation and supercharged. Now Takuto had been chosen to give the world and all humanity the peace and happiness it deserves.

His full awakening also fully merged his mind and self with Azathoth, and as a result, I think he has gained all the maddening knowledge of the world between realities, and of all realities and of all worlds. And by taking root in Mementos, he also began experiencing all of people’s fears, pains, and memories. Now, knowing and feeling all of humanity’s agony -- whatever doubt he had was gone, replaced only by the singular conviction that what he must do was the right thing.

And this was also the same time his survivor’s guilt twisted into deep self-loathing. When before he would dissociate from a room full of happy people, now, he was convinced that there was no place for him in this perfect and ideal world that he was creating. He would take all of humanity’s burdens and sins -- he would sacrifice his own life and existence-- if it meant their salvation. There was no going back.

7) Post royal (True Ending)

Atlus: Ta-Da! he’s fine, happy taxi driver man! Me: Uhm, Doubt.

While the change of heart definitely caused his messiah complex madness to disappear -- it left a gaping void of his unresolved trauma, survivor’s guilt and an intense anxiety about his purpose in life and place in the world. He now doesnt trust himself to help or heal anyone -- the only real thing he had about him ‘self’ and his identity. And now -- he has experienced that perfect reality and tormented with the knowledge that he had failed to uphold it, and that if the world was suffering now, it was his fault. The world was back to being the terrifying, chaotic, meaningless place it always was -- and there was nothing he can do about it.

As a result, for the months that followed his defeat -- he would have crippling depression and intense dissociative/derealisation episodes. His would also experience auditory and visual hallucinations -- which, together with everything else, usually resulted in some degree of self-harm.

Yes, I do think he will eventually admit and ask for help from Shibu and his own family-- and he will find some way to pick up the pieces and pull himself back togethe, and that he’ll seek out Rumi and work through their trauma together. But it will be an incredible struggle. There is a happy ending for him -- it just might take a couple more years. And some goddamned therapy.

#(( ppl in this club really enabling my brain rot huh #trauma tw #dissociation tw #self harm tw #c: the self #f: notes #Anonymous

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snowfall-fanfictions · 5 years ago

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Beware the Frozen Heart Ch. 13- The New Plan

Previous chapter

Ao3 Link

FFN Link

Eryn rethinks his approach to this assassination

Enjoy!

Eryn was taken aback by how such a small town could be considered a “provincial capital.” He sat on the front porch of the inn he and Elsa were staying at the morning after they arrived alone, contently puffing on a pipe as he watched the people pass by. In a matter of minutes, Eryn was certain he had seen every person in Fjellby at least once. He was also taken by surprise at how boring this town was. It felt like most people around here did nothing but wander the streets and discuss trivial things. Eryn was certain that he heard the question, “How’s the family been?” at least fifteen times. He deduced that the fringes of Arendelle were absolutely miserable places to live; they were dreary, miserable, and above all else, monotonous.

But he wasn’t here for entertainment, he had a job to do. Eryn released a puff of smoke from his mouth, feeling his mind clearing with each puff on the pipe. He had to find a way to kill the queen, get out of town before people realize what happened, and get to Karnisvarne while trying to avoid any soldiers. Poison was officially off the table, not only because he killed his only means of getting anymore poisonous supplies, but the queen was a little more suspicious of any food she didn’t see prepared. There was the old “knife to the throat” routine, quick and noiseless. But would he have time to escape before the body was discovered? He remembered seeing a river nearby, a large and rapid one at that. Maybe he could “accidentally” push her in and let nature take its course. Eryn let out a discontented sigh, releasing a plume of smoke around his head, clouding his vision. This was supposed to be a simple job: kill the queen, return to Karnisvarne, collect the gold, become a legend…

… If it was a simple job, then why was it so difficult?

It had been over a month since he was hired to kill the queen. Usually, he’d have the target dead within the week. Eryn had killed several people much more difficult than the queen, he fondly remembered impaling an Ottoman general trained in swordfighting, so the fact that he couldn’t take down a woman with no combat experience within a few days, let alone a few weeks, hurt his pride. All because of that stupid, haughty… kind, beautiful, caring, gentle... Eryn tried shaking these thoughts from his head until-

“Um, Derrik?”

“JESUS CHRIST!” Eryn jumped from his seat, dropping the pipe from his mouth. He snapped his head to find Elsa standing next to him with her arms wrapped around herself. She was wearing a plaid red and white commoner dress, her hair hidden behind the same white bonnet she had brought with her. “Oh, sorry,” Eryn said, “I was thinking that you’d want to rest a bit, we had a long day yesterday.”

“I don’t sleep that much,” Elsa replied, taking a seat next to him, “Lot of long nights as queen of a small country, unfortunately.” “Anna doesn’t help you?”

“She wants to help me, but I…” The queen let out a small sigh, “I feel like I need to do this myself.”

“That… doesn’t sound healthy. Why put all that stress on yourself?”

“Two years ago, I froze the Arenfjord, I ran away from everything, and I nearly killed my own sister. Not only that, but Arendelle… isn’t the strongest nation in the world. A sudden shift in the monarchy will do that to a country. I feel like taking the reins myself would prove that I’m worthy of being a queen.”

“You won’t have to prove yourself if you wind up dead from all this stress, you know. Every great monarch doesn’t throw the weight of the world on their shoulders.”

“Every great monarch isn’t a colossal screw-up either.”

“Elsa,” Eryn placed a hand on her shoulder, staring deep into her sapphire eyes, “I’ve only known you for about a month, and even I can see that you’re the farthest from being ‘a screw-up’ than anyone I’ve ever met. If you feel like you need to prove yourself to the people, you’ve already succeeded. The people of Arendelle adore you, especially in the capital! I’ve never even seen any king or queen mingle with the people like you do. And as for the rest of the world, if they can’t see the dedication and love you have for Arendelle, they can fall into the ocean for all I care. But I cannot stress this enough: don’t push yourself too far. Arendelle still needs you.”

Elsa smiled warmly as she brought her own hand to Eryn’s, causing his heart to race. “Thank you, I-I needed that.” Eryn returned her smile with the same amount of warmth. Guilt soon wormed its way into Eryn’s heart. Elsa poured her heart out to him, and here he was thinking about killing her. Seeing her like this reminded him of his early years, when he was well and truly alone.

“I’m always here… if you need me…” Eryn tried to hide the sadness in his voice. Elsa lifted herself up from the porch and proceeded to walk back into the inn.

“I’ll be taking a nap, then,” she said, “I’ll see you in a few hours.”

“You sure you won’t need me for that? In case someone gets a bright idea?”

Elsa let out a small squeak as she was about to walk into the door. “Uh, n-no. It would draw too much attention.”

“Are you sure?” “Positive.”

Eryn let out a small, and slightly disappointed, sigh, “Very well, have a nice nap, then.”

“Thank you,” with that, Elsa walked back into the tavern to her room.

Eryn ran his fingers through his hair as his heart returned to a normal beat. Eryn had been ignoring his feelings for over a month now, but this time, there was no denying it: He had serious feelings for Elsa.

I can’t go through with this, Eryn thought, scrambling for his pipe. She doesn’t deserve this, any of this! He let out a small sigh as he picked up the pipe. It was cracked along the side where it hit the ground. It’s no use, I already took the fool’s money, he won’t be satisfied until she’s dead…

...Or thinks she’s dead.

Eryn’s face lit up as a perfect idea filled his thoughts. It was a genius plan: return to Arendelle, spread a rumor that the queen was dead, return to Karnisvarne to collect the reward, then lead the guards to the man and arrest him. After that, Eryn would make his escape and never return to Arendelle ever again. It pained him, but it was the best option for Elsa’s safety.

Eryn rose from the porch and hurried back into the inn. As it was early in the morning, few people were up and about. To his left was the fireplace, where the innkeeper, a tall elderly gentleman with a short grey beard and no hair on his head, was busy sweeping around the various chairs that encircled the hearth. Moving past him, Eryn bolted up the stairs and to the left. As he approached his room, he fumbled the key out of his pocket, jammed it into the lock, and quickly darted inside. Across from his bed laid a small wooden desk, with a fresh piece of parchment and an ink well with a quill resting in it. Moving over to the desk, he pulled the quill out of the well and began scribbling out:

Queen is dead Meet in Karnisvarne Don’t draw suspicion

Eryn gave the ink a second to dry before rolling it up and shoving it into his jacket. He felt awful for abandoning Elsa like this, but he knew that with all the guards here would be more than enough to help her.

I hope you can forgive me, Elsa, he thought as he quickly strode out of the room.

XXXXXX

Elsa slammed the door to her room behind her, covering her mouth. She should’ve confessed her feelings right then and there. He was so kind and thoughtful with his words, too. Why didn’t she? Elsa felt incredibly stupid. She untied the bonnet from her head, allowing her blond braid to cascade down her shoulder. Elsa secretly hated that thing. Maybe she had it on too tight or something, but it was starting to give her a migraine. As she ran her fingers through her hair, Elsa pondered how exactly she would tell him. Maybe the two of them could take a short walk around the town, or even find somewhere to eat. She had no idea when the best time would be. This romantic love stuff was better left to Anna. Elsa was secretly impressed at Anna and Kristoff’s relationship, how it looked and felt so natural. Maybe she should wait until this all blew over and then ask Anna.

Elsa walked over to her bed and unceremoniously flopped onto it. Derrik was right, this was the best decision, she thought before dozing off completely.

XXXXXX

��Woah,” Kristoff panted. He was currently sprawled out on the floor, completely exhausted. Anna was right beside him, similarly spent and breathing heavily. Her hair was matted to her head with sweat.

“Told you this was great!” She said, cheeks flushed from adrenaline, “Y’wanna go again?”

“Already? Aren’t you tired?”

“Not at all.”

“What about that meeting today?” “We’ll have time, trust me.”

“...Okay, one more time.”

“You’re the best, honey,” Anna picked up the sword she was using and lifted herself off of the floor of the training grounds. Kristoff did the same as he readied himself for another round. Anna flew at the mountain man, who parried her attacks with ease. Kristoff tried his hand at landing a strike, but was similarly thwarted.

“Y’know, when you said there was a way for me to make this up, I thought you had something else in mind.”

“Are you gonna talk or are you gonna fight?” Anna twirled around before going back in for another series of blows.

By God, did he love this woman.

XXXXXX

Eryn casually strolled through the streets of Fjellby, avoiding as many guards as possible. It felt like around every corner there were a handful of guards. It didn’t help that there was only one way both in and out of Fjellby. Several people tried to stop him for a quick chat. The people of Fjellby were a social bunch, Eryn thought, mostly likely because they were so isolated. New people must be as rare as unicorns or something around these parts.

As Eryn approached the road out of Fjellby, he noticed a small group of guards converging around the statue in the center. Looking over the men, Eryn stopped for a moment. Among them, a tall man with broad shoulders and a thick red mustache was directing the other guards, and judging from his facial expressions, these men were a bunch of idiots. I-it can’t be Eryn thought, is it? Before Eryn had any chance to react, the large commander shot his head up, making direct eye contact with Eryn. Panicking, Eryn bolted down an alleyway with blazing speed.

“HEY, YOU! STOP RIGHT THERE!”

He heard the shouting of guards and the shuffling of feet behind him as he ducked in and out of roads. After a few minutes, Eryn was able to catch his breath in behind a group of barrels. Panting heavily, Eryn knew that every guard in Fjellby would be on his tail at this point. Now, there only seemed to be one option he had left.

“Might as well get an earful now,” Eryn mumbled as he pulled the dagger out of its sheath. How was he going to explain all of this to the dagger? Would it just allow him to abandon this contract? It seemed more adamant on getting this kill than before. The idea to abandon it afterwards came into his head, but he decided to wait until he was out of Fjellby to make a final decision.

He brought the dagger up to his palm but stopped before slicing into his hand. He expected to be greeted by the familiar runes of the blade. But, there was none. The handle wasn’t even the same, it looked more like a modern hunting knife. Eryn racked his memory to where he left the real dagger and where this one came fro-

That’s when Eryn remembered who gave him his knife. Just before he and Elsa left.

“Olaf found this in your bedroom. Wouldn’t want you to lose it…”

“BJORGMAN!” Eryn growled. How could he have been so stupid? Of course he didn’t forget the knife, the reindeer fucker took it! How did he get it?! None of that mattered, all he had to do was get back to Arendelle, get his knife back, and kill the son of a-

Eryn found himself hoisted off of the ground and pinned against the cobbled walls of a nearby building. The familiar sight of the commander from the statue greeted him, his eyes narrowing on the man.

“You have a lot of nerve showing your face around here… Eryn.”

#frozen fanfiction #disney frozen #OC #queen elsa #princess anna #olaf #kristoff #duke of weselton #hans #fanfiction #assassination #Eryn Odrikson #blood tw #gore tw #mature

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y-not-loki · 6 years ago

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The Soul Thief | Loki L.

A/N: So apparently the first time I tried to post this fic, it didn’t work, so let’s go lesbians, times two. Sorry, I had to. Anyway, same gif, same shit, so pissed off right now hope you enjoy that I can’t find a gif and can’t write.

Warnings: Bit of swearing? Some violence in the beginning (opens in a battle).

Word Count: 4 554

Blurb: (Y/N) is different. She can feel it in her bones, she can see it everywhere. She can see souls. She can manipulate them. She can make them do whatever she likes. Of course, she doesn’t do it all the time, because her lack of experience makes it difficult to do if she doesn’t have a sugar rush. When she gets caught mid-battle in her hometown between the Avengers and whatever-those-things-with-the-horns-tails-and-scales-are she ends up revealing her abilities in front of a very impressed God of Mischief and Iron Man. If only she had her phone with her now.

*DISCLAIMER: I DON’T OWN ANYTHING IN THIS BUT THE PLOT*

(Y/N) wasn’t ashamed to admit that she did get out of the bed on the wrong side, but she was ashamed to admit that everything was going wrong. First, her favourite coffee shop was closed for employee training, then she found out that her favourite bookstore had closed down to move somewhere else, and finally, it started raining on her usual walk to work. She usually didn’t mind rain, but she was wearing her favourite jumper and jeans that day in hopes to counteract the bad luck.

But surely such bad luck wasn’t meant to land her here, was it?

Here pertained to being bodily shielded by an incredibly handsome God of Mischief, who was also incredibly dangerous.

Something about aliens?

She glanced around wildly, and her eyes flashed gold, to most it was a trick of the light, but she knew better. She could see the souls of any living creature (somehow, including plants, which was very unnerving), and holy hell did she regret it.

There were thousands of them.

Loki sneered down at her, she turned her gold eyes on him as they returned back to their normal colour before paling as she realised his attention as on her how. “You’d better hide fast, Midgardian.” He growled, and as a blue-scaled, long-tailed and horned creature galloped (?) towards him. Loki summoned twin knives, whipping his arms around, (Y/N) didn’t even see them leave his hands, but the creature fell with a dagger in its forehead and its chest.

They were vaguely horse-like. But very colourful, some blue, some red, some even golden.

Which is what made (Y/N) more scared than she already was, because in nature, the more colourful something is, the more poisonous or venomous something is (except cane toads, those ugly buggers were as dull as dirt).

Fear coursed through her veins, but she closed her hands into fists and ran for it, covering her head with her arms, but leaving her stomach bared for any one of the horned creatures to lower its head and charge at her unprotected torso.

Which is exactly what a red one did.

She had enough time to feel properly terrified, her knees shaking, and her arms flew down to cover herself, but she knew she wouldn’t be fast enough.

It was less than a metre away when it keeled over and died, its soul disappearing before her golden eyes, the adrenaline and the fight around her making her abilities spike.

“Kid, are you alright?” Iron Man descended from the sky, lowering a hand, which still glowed slightly from shooting the creature down.

If only she had her phone now, but alas, it was left back at her apartment. Another thing to add to her bad luck.

“M-Mostly.” (Y/N) stuttered, unused to being spoken to by two Avengers within twenty-four hours.

“Good, now duck.” Tony ordered, and (Y/N) ducked immediately, and she heard him release two or three mini missiles behind her, and she felt two souls fizzle out, her heart ready to pump out of her chest.

She looked back up to see a two smoking craters with vaguely monster-shaped shadows in them, and turned back to see another one run up behind Iron Man.

No one was looking.

Loki was preoccupied.

Iron Man was busy with the ones behind her.

No one would know.

“Behind you.” She ground out, gritting her teeth, and her arms shot out, her eyes a glaring gold now, bright like headlights and her pupils turned into vertical slits as her blood glowed a beautiful golden colour, and a brightly coloured orb flew into her hands as the monster behind Iron Man stumbled and died as she held its soul in her hands.

“What is that?” Iron Man asked bluntly, and (Y/N) turned pink as she held the soul sheepishly, throwing it into the ground as her blood returned to normal and her knees gave out from the stress.

“Just a little talent.” (Y/N) replied dazedly, giggling as tingles swept over her body and a shiver went up her spine. She always got high on the rush of energy that came with using her abilities, but it wasn’t an energy that was useful, so she refrained from doing it again.

“Do you think you can do it a few other times?” Iron Man asked, landing on the floor with a dull thud as Loki’s face appeared in her vision on the other side.

“Do you really think, that the petty Midgardian in this state, would be able to do something so taxing again, Stark? She’s obviously too weak.” Loki snapped, and (Y/N) swore she saw two of him, one ran off, throwing daggers, and the other placed a cool hand on her forehead.

It felt nice.

But his words did not.

The words made her just a tiny bit mad that Loki would assume that it only would only take one use of her ability to bring her down.

She was not going to let him think that; she wasn’t going to let anyone think that. Jumping up, she glared at Loki, who just raised an eyebrow, before raising her arms in front of her as her eyes turned gold.

“Too weak? Watch me prove you wrong.” This was not going to work. The thought raced across her mind, pulling a few others along. You’re never going to get your paycheque at this rate. You literally just showed superheroes your ability. You’ve only ever done this to one other person. HOW THE HELL ARE YOU MEANT TO DO IT TO MORE THAN A THOUSAND CREATURES?! Well, thankfully about a hundred had been defeated by the Avengers and police alone, and she was pretty happy to admit that hurtful words broke a dam in her, she could feel her power coursing through her blood vessels a thousand times stronger.

This would be easy.

She opened her closed eyes (when did they close?) and everything was dark, she could only see the souls. The monster souls looked different, they flowed through their bodies differently, instead of hovering in the chest and head, they flowed through every part of their body. She quickly pulled each of the monsters’ souls to her, and let them flow around her body.

One by one, she grabbed nearly a thousand souls.

Her vision returned to almost normal, except she could still see the souls swirling around her like a whirlwind.

Thank goodness she was hovering, because the migraine that came with doing that amount of soul manipulating would probably last for days, and although she had a vague idea that she was actually pulling her own soul upwards and using the monster souls to elevate her as well, but she really didn’t care.

Her voice sounded distant, ethereal and dark at the same time. “Who’s the weak one now?” She hissed at Loki, who looked slightly amused, but quite definitely astonished along with a Tony Stark who had taken his helmet off.

She thrust her arms downwards, and the souls flew into the ground as she collapsed, the second last thing she saw was the Avengers running around the corner before the darkness clouded her vision.

The last thing she saw was a worried Loki hovering over her.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. TURN THE INFERNAL BEEPING NOISE OFF YOU IDIOT. (Y/N)’s hand flopped around, trying to find the alarm clock, then the scent hit her.

Hospital room. She bolted up, eyes wide. Oh shit. What did I do this time?

“Calm down, little Midgardian.” The smooth voice of Loki penetrated the cloud of panic that had descended over her mind.

“I’m not little.” (Y/N) retorted, absently but (somehow) still angrily. She was glancing around, slightly queasy and self-conscious. She shouldn’t be in the hospital…. Should she?

Recent memories told her that she should probably be in the hospital after the stupid stunt she decided to pull.

Why did I do that? She flopped back over and closed her eyes.

“Don’t go back to sleep, mortal!” Loki shook her awake, panic clearly in his voice and his eyes were wide and blood-shot.

“What, you want to apologise for getting me into this situation?” (Y/N) told him coldly and he pursed his lips.

“Why should I apologise?”

“Well, for one, there were thousands of those creatures, so you’d probably die of exhaustion if you hadn’t already died of the monsters, and two, you’re the reason I’m still alive, and therefore in this hell. Oh yeah, and your goaded me into doing that stupid move that I have never even attempted before in my life.”

“I am a seasoned warrior of Asgard, I would have long out-lasted those hideous abominations. And it may be true that I am the reason that you are still alive and in this situation, but I was ordered to save the Midgardians. Although I’m starting to doubt you are a Midgardian. But it’s definitely not my fault you have very delicate pride and feel the need to defend it.”

(Y/N) groaned. “This is the worst day ever.”

“Reindeer Games giving you a headache, kiddo?” Tony waltzed into the room, as if he owned the place (which he probably did).

“More like a migraine.” (Y/N) shot him a glare, and he raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

“Well he hasn’t left your side since you fell unconscious, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you were annoyed by his very presence.”

“Ah, that explains the disgusting scent permeating from him. And honestly, why would he stay by my side? I’m just a petty little weak Midgardian.” (Y/N) took the opportunity to jab at Loki’s pride, and he frowned.

“I guess as I have been displayed as unwanted, I shall take my leave now. And maybe clean myself.”

“Good riddance.” (Y/N) glanced up at him and was surprised to see he was slightly hurt, and rolled her eyes, letting her mouth twitch up in a smirk to let him know she was joking. He looked almost openly relieved, but still kept up the façade that he was hurt.

“Wow, you seem to hate Loki quite a lot. Possibly more than Legolas.” Tony sat down where Loki had been previously sitting.

“Not really, I just don’t like the idea of being a useless pet that can’t fight for themselves. Loki happened to be there when I was pretty useless and he pointed it out as well, so I didn’t appreciate that.”

“What is your ability, anyway?” Tony asked, glancing at the monitor that currently showed her heartrate, which had spiked as soon as Loki left.

“Well…” (Y/N) glanced at her hands and her eyes flickered gold again. “I can see souls and manipulate them. It’s not much, but it’s saved my life once, now three times, so I guess it’s a good thing.”

“You can manipulate souls. Without any outside force. And you can see souls. Your eyes changes to gold when you use your ability. You realise that makes absolutely no sense?” Tony said bluntly, and (Y/N) rolled her eyes good-naturedly.

“I didn’t expect a scientist, let alone a mechanic, understand the delicacies of removing souls. Hell, I could swap your soul for Loki’s right this instant. It wouldn’t be as taxing as actually having to hold a soul in one place, because they need to move, they need to flow and control, think and react. They are what makes you, you. Your brain gives you knowledge and your soul gives you personality and morals.”

“In English please.”

(Y/N) sighed. “Your brain is the hard drive that is already built in, and your soul is the USB. You put the USB into the computer so you have something to do, but you already have the basic information you need in your brain, which is the internet. Your soul gives you purpose and it gives you all your unique flaws and perfections, your hard drive, or body and brain, starts out similar to that of everyone else. Is that English enough?”

“Yeah.” Tony sat in quiet contemplation as (Y/N) burrowed underneath the covers, if she was to be stuck in here for a while, she might as well get comfortable. “What do you say to being an Avenger, kid?”

“I’m not a kid.” (Y/N) responded, voice muffled as only her eyes peaked out.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“It depends on what you mean by being an Avenger. Being a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent or a toy for S.H.I.E.L.D. to play with? No. Being my own person, but still helping others with my abilities… sure.” (Y/N) said, flipping over and laying on her stomach, although it took some manoeuvring because of the IV drip in her hand.

Still didn’t know why she needed an IV drip thing attached to her, all that happened was fainting.

“You were out for nearly a week.” Tony said absentmindedly, and (Y/N) panicked quietly on the inside. Maybe it showed on her face too. Maybe. But Tony was quick to assure her, “Don’t worry, you’re in capable hands here, and we’ve taken the liberty of searching you up and cancelling all your plans for the past week and next week for your recovery.” (Y/N) sighed in relief and settled back down into the (surprisingly) soft hospital bed.

“So where exactly am I? A local hospital or a specialised one for the Avengers?”

“Well, right now, you’re at the Avengers base, and this is simply the infirmary, Bruce is next door monitoring your vitals and your current state.”

“Can I get out of here yet? When can I leave?” (Y/N) asked, and Tony shook his head.

He fingered at the edge of the blanket, which was halfway over his lap, “I’m not too sure, you’re going to have to ask Bruce. I’ll tell him to come in here and let you know when you can leave. Also, welcome to the team. Only around three people here answer to S.H.I.E.L.D., and that’s because of either spy-work or patriotism.” Tony rolled his eyes, stood up and held out his hand. (Y/N) took his hand slowly, but gave it a firm shake, causing Tony to smirk down at her, before whirling and leaving the room.

Too much socialising. (Y/N) thought to herself, shaking her head, but only managing to summon a headache from the depths of Tartarus.

A few torturous seconds later of the infernal beeping noise and a painful headache, Bruce stepped into the room. Then Loki stepped in. It gave her a moment to actually take in his size, he stood maybe half a head taller than Bruce, and although Bruce was hunched over a clipboard, and his head was bowed over at a 45-degree angle, he was still obviously taller. Not to mention, he didn’t share the same wider build of Captain America or Thor, instead he was lean with muscle that his leather battle armour didn’t hide at all.

He narrowed his eyes at her assessing overview of his body, but ignored her, instead standing next to the door and crossing his arms like a petulant child.

“Hello Miss (Y/L/N), I’m Dr Banner. As far as I know, you’re nearly healed and you’re allowed to start moving around in about half an hour, when your withdrawal symptoms from the drugs we gave you disappear. Don’t worry, they were simply to make you fall asleep. For a week. Anyway, Loki volunteered to show you around, but you can come by the labs and infirmary any time if you have any questions for me or Tony.” Dr Banner half-stuttered over his clipboard and then glanced up at her, biting at his lip. “Also, I’m sorry if you get caught in the prank war that is currently wreaking havoc over half the Avengers.” With that, he shuffled out of the room, nodding to Loki, who didn’t spare him a glance, as he exited.

“So tell me, how did you, a mere mortal, take down thousands of grindelgrawps?”

“So tell me, how did you, a powerful god, manage to get stuck here on this pathetic excuse of a world, helping civilians and saving the world?” (Y/N) turned the question around on him, stating it as if he were speaking it. He would call himself a powerful god, and he would call Earth – no, Midgard – a pathetic excuse of a world. He was easy enough to read what he might say, but not easy enough read what he might do.

Which is why (Y/N) was surprised when he took two long strides and sat himself down on the chair he had lived in for the past week (according to Tony).

“Tell me.” He demanded, posture stiff and his face carefully wiped blank.

“Not with that attitude.” (Y/N) scolded him. mimicking his posture and his facial expressions, overdoing it on a comical level, and Loki cracked a small smile. Small enough to not be noticeable unless you were really looking. And (Y/N) was really looking. At those perfect lips. Oh gods, what drugs did they pump her up with?

“Fine, will you please tell me what your ability is?”

“Soul manipulation.” (Y/N) replied simply, eyes flashing gold, then her head pounded particularly painfully and she grimaced.

Loki placed a cool hand on her forehead and she sighed as the ache died down to a dull throb that only appeared when she moved around. “Did the Man of Iron talk to you about joining their stupid club?”

(Y/N) rolled her eyes and nodded slightly. “Yeah, I said I’d be happy to join as long as it’s only helping civilians. I don’t want to hurt anyone.” She mumbled, eyes gold as she watched Loki. His soul was colourful. Surprisingly so, most people usually had a base colour lined with a secondary or tertiary colour. Loki was mainly green, pale blue, black, purple, red and a dark, dark blue. Green for creativity, pale blue for loyalty, black for chaos or fear, purple for royalty and pride, red for pain or anger, and dark, dark blue had never appeared for her. Knowing him, it could mean anything.

“What do you see?” He asked softly, almost instantly knowing what she was doing. He didn’t seem offended or scared that she was literally looking at what he was, but rather, a more curious expression hid his emotions.

“Sorry, that was incredibly rude of me.” (Y/N)’s automated response came out. Sometimes her abilities just… activated without her control, and it had happened multiple times. Everyone in her neighbourhood was very understanding, although they were also incredibly wary of her abilities.

“Tell me what you see and you’ll be forgiven.” Loki smirked, and (Y/N) rolled her eyes.

“How about I show you?” (Y/N) looked him in the eyes, and saw a swirl of colour behind them, yellow rose out of nowhere. Hope.

“As long as you don’t kill me.” Loki said nonchalantly. (Y/N) sighed. Thor said he had a habit of dying then returning. It didn’t surprise her that he was trying to reinforce the idea that she couldn’t kill him.

Her closest hand, her right hand, floated up and in front of his eyes. Focussing on the pulses of her soul inside her body, she pushed it into her hand, and Loki’s soul responded accordingly. Loki’s soul came up to her hand, trying to contact her own soul, and Loki gave a quiet gasp.

“Well, that is a dizzying experience.” He muttered. It was. It was as if your mind had just left your body.

“I’m assuming you know what the colours are?”

Loki nodded slightly, there was a miniature version of his soul between (Y/N)’s hand and Loki’s forehead, as she couldn’t remove Loki’s entire soul without his body going unconscious.

“Well, I didn’t expect it to be that dark.” Loki muttered, his hand reached up to try and touch it, and touch it he did, it got absorbed back into his fingertips and the colours raced along his blood vessels, before disappearing halfway up his arm. Loki looked back into (Y/N)’s eyes, and it suddenly felt very awkward. Or at least for (Y/N). “You are an interesting mortal.” He stated, then went to stand up, but (Y/N)’s hand on his forearm stopped him. “Why are you stopping me now, I thought you disliked my presence.”

“Not… no I don’t truly dislike your presence. But please stay.” (Y/N) tried her puppy dog eyes (which always worked on her friends) on him, and he sighed.

Sitting down, he stared at her until she looked away blushing. When she glanced back her heart rate spiked with the smirk that lay on his lips. His eyes glanced towards the heart rate monitor, and leaned down. “Let’s see if we can get your hear to go fast enough for the monster to come in.” Eyes flickering to (Y/N)’s lips, Loki smirked as she watched him warily.

“If you’re up for it, I’m up 100% up for it, I mean, I’ve always wanted to see-” (Y/N)’s ramblings were cut short by Loki’s soft, cold lips touching hers. Just a brief brush. Her heart rate still spiked. Glancing over at the door in sync, (Y/N) and Loki smirked, before exploring just how much (Y/N) could do before Banner came rushing in.

It turns out quite a lot. Loki holding her hand and kissing, thumb making small circles on the back of her hand and callouses fitting together from his many years of knife practice.

It got to the point where it felt like (Y/N)’s heart was in her throat as Loki pressed his lips against hers more insistently, lips moving hers slightly apart. She didn’t expect tongue, but woah, there was tongue. He started exploring her mouth hesitantly, but after (Y/N) seemed to give in, heart racing faster than normal, he got more insistent and-

“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?” Bruce shouted from the doorway, hair messed up, glasses askew and looking a little green at the base of his neck. “I see that (Y/N)’s heart rate is off the charts and come in to see you guys making out!” He shook his head in a disapproving manner, before coming over and unclipping the little pulse detector from her finger and pulling the IV drip out gently, before placing a little cotton ball with masking tape over the small wound. “I guess this proves that you’re perfectly fine and should probably get out of the infirmary before the other guy decides to make a surprise appearance.”

Loki paled behind him, but said nothing. (Y/N) smirked, and then looked innocently at Bruce. “So, do you know the sleeping arrangements? I’ll have to let my roommate know that I probably won’t be coming back.”

Bruce shook his head, eyes cast downwards as he muttered a response. “I don’t know anything about where you’re staying, you’re going to have to ask Tony.”

“I know where she will be staying. Stark told me when we passed in the hallway earlier.” Loki paused for a second, tilting his head slightly as a mischievous smile came across his face. “Or at least, I picked it out of his mind as we passed.”

Bruce shook his head in an exasperated manner before leaving the room quietly. Swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, (Y/N) looked down to see that she was in a hospital gown with a clean bra and clean underwear. Surprising and unnerving, but overall more comfortable.

“So, shall I escort you to your room?” Loki smirked holding out a hand, and (Y/N) rolled her eyes and bypassed his hand.

“Sure, without any silly shenanigans, not feeling up for mischief today.”

“Today.” Loki echoed and (Y/N) gave him a cheeky grin. Loki led the way to her room, and she found everything she owned there. Which was also surprising and unnerving, but overall more comfortable, because it meant she felt at least a little at home and didn’t have to go through the hassle of moving everything herself. Tony must have anticipated that she was going to choose to stay instead of leave them.

“Will my lady allow me to enter her chambers?” Loki’s eyes glinted with mischief and his face sported a smile that meant no good. She nodded.

Loki rushed at her, picking her up and pressing her against the wall, mouth centimetres away from hers. “Do you have any idea how much I’ve wanted this? Ever since I lay my eyes on you a week ago, saving Stark with your golden eyes and glowing hands. Ever since I had you underneath me, under my protection with your glowing fearful eyes. You were what your kind calls an angel.”

(Y/N) mustered all the snark and sarcasm as she could, hoping to counter Loki’s sweet words. “Well then, why’d you insult me. You hurt my pride, my king.” She smirked at the end mockingly, and his eyes darkened before he quickly dropped his head into the crook of her neck.

“When you know you’re likely to never see such beauty again, you become frustrated and angered at the fact that you know you’ll never see them again.” Loki murmured into her neck. Kissing her neck gently, he held her there for a second as she ran her fingers through his hair. “By the way, you tend to grab and cuddle things in your sleep.” He pulled away, putting her down gently and smirking cheekily.

(Y/N) looked horrified. “I do what in my sleep?”

“Well, you tended to steal my arm when I was resting it on the side of your bed, but I didn’t mind.” Loki laughed (Y/N)’s embarrassed expression. “Don’t worry, nothing funny happened, you just liked holding onto my arm. That was partially the reason why didn’t – couldn’t – leave your side. Banner suggested we simply create a superficial arm, but I liked your little quirk.” (Y/N) blushed and punched him lightly in the arm.

“Well, I guess I owe you for staying by my side, Trickster god.” (Y/N) shook her head at the ridiculousness. “Honestly, you could have left a clone and gone and taken care of yourself.”

Loki shrugged and grinned. “That’s actually what I would have done, except you woke up almost as soon as you let go for the first time.”

“You plan on sticking around and helping me put my stuff away?” She quirked an eyebrow and he mimicked her expression, waving a hand without looking and her stuff disappeared.

She gasped and hurried around the room, checking everywhere to make sure it was all in the right place.

“You bastard, how did you know that?” She growled, amusement glinting in her eyes, but her face serious.

“Eh, pulled it out of your mind when I had you against the wall.” He said nonchalantly, before laying on the bed as if he owned the place.

(Y/N) felt a blush creeping up her neck and sighed, shaking her head. “Cheeky idiot.”

“Your cheeky idiot.” Loki corrected as she lay down beside him on the bed, kissing the top of her head. She buried her face in his chest and said nothing.

The rest of the day was spent checking out the room and exploring everything. Everything = her room and the rest of the Tower thanks to Loki’s teleportation (despite the device attached to his wrists).

With a side of making out and getting to know one another.

129 notes · View notes

iglooface · 5 years ago

Text

My whole school career, despite how short it may be thus far, I have always been complimented and received positive remarks about how smart I was and how talented I was. They all find it strange that these are not traits I am proud of.

I grew up with depression, anxiety, and insomnia. My three original traits that have come to rule my life. I inherited mild depression from my mother, and anxiety and insomnia from my father. In all of my years in school except for the last I have been bullied mercilessly for everything about my being. It would vary from my hair, my style of clothing, my physical being, calling me ugly, exclusion, death threats, abandonment, being called names and excessively pointing out my mistakes (surprise! I'm human unlike most bastards I meet). I also had chronic nose bleeds, so from the beginning everyone was always grossed out by me for bleeding from my face nearly every day (most of my clothes are stained with my own blood because of this and I'm honestly too broke to afford new clothes very often). Even teachers and my own parents would put me down for nearly everything I did for one reason or the other; nothing I ever did was right. And to add more I'm often put after my sisters' needs and wants. I've never been prioritized.

I was, and still am, a sickly child. I've technically had my heart stopped and been dead twice before and I had a handful of major surgeries before my sophmore year in highschool. My doctors don't ever listen to me and they think I'm dramatic when I bring up actual chronic symptoms I suffer from.

As a child, we moved around a lot and so I switched schools often and was never able to make or keep friends. I come from a long line of verbally and emotionally abusive teachers who went on without consequence whilst I get in trouble for trying to fix myself. In grade school alone I had all but two of my teachers quit their jobs and/or be replaced after that year, if not during the middle.

Children are highly impressionable, and so these kinds of events did lead up to me thinking it was somehow my fault. Logically I know this not to be true, but impressions and mental illnesses are not logical.

In seventh grade alone, I had gone through 12 different prescriptions for pain and different types of birth control to regulate my period and my chronic cramps. It's highly likely that I had, and still have, endometriosis, yet my doctors are always reluctant to perform any blood tests on me simply because I am young, as if being young makes it entirely impossible for me to have health issues.

My periods were unstable to a point that I'd end up having one for thirteen days, or months apart. Given, young girls with periods often experience irregular cycles, but mine kept landing me in the hospital which is never a good sign.

I was bullied that year to a point that I tried to kill myself and failed, and I managed to avoid my parents finding out. This was the beginning of my incredibly high drug tolerance. At the end of that year, my favorite teacher was killed in a car accident.

The following year, it was found out I had massive ovarian cysts that were increasing my insomnia and put me in agonizing pain nearly every moment of my life. But my doctors refused to take action because I was young. That year I was further emotionally abused by a handful of my teachers. One of them, worse than others, was fired during the beginning of the third trimester of the school year. Her replacement, a long term substitute, was even worse. She had bullied and abused the class so hard that kids had killed themselves and I ended up getting conversion disorder.

Conversion disorder is a mental disorder in where my body cannot handle stress. My brain doesn't know how to function and deal with high stress situations, so instead it shuts off my physical body. Symptoms vary from person to person, but mine are on more of the extreme end. It varies from extreme memory loss, seizures, not breathing, choking on white foam produced by my body, screaming unconsciously, blacking out, temporary amnesia, and paralysis. This is a condition that I cannot control under any circumstances, and it truly dictates my life.

Now my mom had gone to the principal (the school cycles through five in a single school year because of a whole lot of drama) to report this teacher and get a new one. And instead of acting reasonably, the principal quite literally told us she wouldn't look into a replacement because it wouldn't change anything.

And, oh, how wrong she was.

I had previously had mild anxiety and depression from previous life experiences, but this year pushed me to be anxious to a fault (granting me a new stutter, hours long panic and anxiety attacks, migraines, etc), and pushed me into such a strong depression I became highly suicidal and went into an emotional shock. And because of this I also gained PTSD, which is a whole trip within itself.

Freshman year was a wreck. Another one of my middle school teachers had died; she died from cancer and was one of very few people who were ever nice to me. I was being bullied on a whole new level of horrid, and I was flunking every class I had been in. My conversion disorder episodes became do frequent and so severe that the school actually kicked me out illegally for about two months before they continued my education on independent study. That year my dog was put down. And normally that wouldn't be such a big deal except for the part she was quite literally my only friend for three years.

Even worse; I was in recovery after one of my more major surgeries to get my ovarian cysts removed to help with my pain and sleeping problems. I was fragile and under the influence of strong drugs when I decided to take my dog on a walk around my property for the first time in a month because I had been on bed rest. She had seen my neighbor, and gotten freaked out by him (he radiates massive pedophile vibes) and so she jumped on him. Now this over privileged scumbag thought the appropriate response was to threaten to shoot my dog if he ever saw her again no matter the circumstance, and proceeded to curse me out profusely all while I tried to apologise and make it right.

My dog had become a liability because of this man and we had to put her down. Take in mind she was an amazing dog, and had never disobeyed me. She was protective of me as she had been since we adopted her and was genuinely the best thing that has ever happened to me. She'd check on me when I cried and lay with me when I was sick, and was there for me more often that my actual parents were.

The next year, I was bullied slightly less, but I had a great ordeal of friend drama and my fair amount of fights with the office staff. One of my friends, who I thought was close to me, had threatened to kill me after I offended her exactly once. I had a bad day after another episode and she had built this reputation of not feeling and being unattached to the real world. I wasn't in the mood to deal with people and when she asked me if I was okay I questioned why she cared. That was it. Later I had apologized because I had come to terms that I was in the wrong for dismantling her emotions, but she decided to take it too far.

One of my teachers was permanently removed from the school for having nudes on a school device, and they brought in a long term substitute. This was about when my PTSD really started to kick me in the nuts, so I went back on independent study to complete the year. My only other friends moved away and my significant other had killed himself after killing himself shortly after telling me he loved me.

I don't expect people to understand the kind of psychological damage this causes to a person, but I can tell you that it hurts.

I was referred to a continuation school in my area for flunking both years of highschool, and this continuation school had a bad reputation of being troubled kids and violent beings.

I get there, I spend my year being amazed by how nice people are to me. This is the first year of my life I have ever been treated like a human, and it was by the people society had deemed misfits. I had a great year; I made friends and built connections to people. And then my friends left me, and my favorite teacher was fired simply for being a first year. My other teacher left the school year early for maternity leave, and, guess what, was replaced by a long term substitute. I don't think I've ever panicked as hard as I did in those months. Similar timing, same school subject, similar classroom. All of the stressors were right and I nearly fell apart at the seams. I had more frequent and severe migraines and anxiety attacks. My hands would shake in fear so hard I couldn't write, which was bad because the classes I had with that teacher were exclusively note taking and online courses. This substitute wasn't a bad person. He was competent and polite and was always helpful, but my mental illnesses and brain blocks caused me to lose the opportunity to work with them successfully. In the last trimester I tried to kill myself three times, and I accidentally overdosed on drugs about 14 times over the whole year. I almost died a lot by my own doing and it was horrible.

Children need stability to survive and develop normally and I had been deprived of both, as well as emotional stability and positive reinforcement.

Now, during these times I had coping methods. I draw and write professionally to distract myself from the physical pain in my being if not just stress plain and simple. I watched documentaries and studied nearly every subject during my sleepless nights. My coping method was learning, practicing, evolving, and then teaching. My IQ had beat the range of average and I've had a reading level ranked at post college since I was in middle school. And this fall I'm a senior and I've only been ranked higher and higher each year. I've always gotten extra credit on every individual assignment and I've always been too of my class. My teachers love my art, and I had exceeded my professional art teacher within weeks of knowing her. I see, I practice, I perfect, I personalize every trait and skill I want and find intriguing. I study and develop to keep myself from remembering the agony I'm in.

I have a really wide and extensive knowledge on almost every subject and culture I've come across from, because being awake and learning for days on end beats being awake and in agony for days on end.

Along with my severe insomnia, it becomes apparent that I've seen more sunrises than the amount of years most adults have been alive. My walks under the starlight and the moon at odd hours? Amazing. Laying in a field at night and listening to all the little creatures and the coyotes howling in the distance? Perfect. Stargazing in my driveway on a clear night in the winter? Cold to my bones but I'd never trade the memory. Walking home in the rain at 11 a.m.? It's made me wiser. Taking a moment to breathe in and feel nature has sometimes saved me.

My bones definitely creak; mostly because I have juvenile arthritis, but I also feel ancient in my mind.

The wear and tear my body has faced for such a physically young being is unnatural. I can't describe the strange feelings of almost bleeding to death or stomach ulcers brought on by stress.

Those weird feelings of my bones cracking wrong or my knees suddenly giving out.

I've seen more of the Galaxy from here on earth than most adults have ever seen in a poster.

The meteor showers, the shooting stars, the solar flares, the cycles of the moon, the constellations? They accompany me on my walk down to my death.

Even better, looking up daily to love the clouds. I've seen amazing things and infinite days in mere minutes.

The feeling of cool streams and powerful rivers. Almost drowning in the ocean on multiple occasions, feeling the rain on my face. Those are the most powerful moments I've ever experienced.

Hearing the cry of infantile wildlife and mothering it feels like an old friend of mine. I cannot emphasize on how many creatures I've fostered back to health.

I've seen life and I've seen death, and quite too much of it for my age. The wars, the shootings, the stabbings and car accidents. People hanging themselves and people who die clear well before their body does. The births i e witnessed, the blooming of Meadows, the appearance of the new foxes.

Aiding things that normally need help and defending those who have lost their shields. Befriending things considered monsters. Providing a moment of peace for animals searching for the bridge of mortality.

The comfort I bring to people, the therapy I provide from listening and accepting, it was never something I had received myself.

My therapist diagnosed me a sociopath path as an ignorant response to seeing my lack of attachment to people. Technically she's not wrong, I'm a mild sociopath.

And before anyone gets weirded out, sociopaths do have feelings. They are simply harder to reach and read by strangers or common uninvolved people. Psychopaths pretend to care when they don't really. They are violent and unpredictable. Do not confuse us, do your research.

My English teacher this year had made a remark about me being an old soul, and oh, how right she was. I am ancient and people notice.

Life has been forever as I have been forever. My heart is still there, just ground to a fine sand and stored somewhere safer.

I'm tired, of course from my worrying for the human race and how much trouble people are creating these days. The people, they see me and tell me to smile, yet I have nothing to smile for.

My pain killers are border line overdose and all they do is make me a little dizzy. The last time I had pain relief was five years ago in a hospital. I had been in so much pain I hadn't slept in 17 days and they out me on morphine. I was only 12 years old and it was then it had become apparent I'd never be able to truly rest.

Somehow, I rest anyways. I find peace somewhere. Maybe in my hallucinations, maybe in my dreaming and dissociating, maybe in the way the trees speak. Listen to them, the trees, they can tell you more than a life time of science and precision.

I exist, not to overpower someone else's suffering, but instead to offer safety and support. I share so much to emphasize how much I understand. I'm not here as competition to see who can suffer more, but instead I am here to offer a helping hand to keep other people out of the pit of depression I often find myself in.

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chippedteakettle · 6 years ago

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I am on my first proper adult road trip today. We left yesterday from Dallas, Texas and today we’re rolling into Los Angeles, California. It’s been a surprisingly easy drive altogether, which I was really surprised about.

See, my boyfriend is a rather healthy human, and he did all the trip planning. I however am an HSP with some autoimmune issues that cause a lot of muscle and joint pain so a 20 drive (with no overnight break) sounded terrifying.

But, aside from a freak blizzard snowstorm that decided to spring up in some random town beyond the wall outside of flagstaff Arizona, I’m really in awe of how easily this has gone and proud of how well I’ve taken care of myself.

Only downside? discovering that I apparently get this really miserable unpleasant reaction to extended sun exposure and extended stints of being in a moving vehicle. So every time we stop and I get out, i feel like I’m lurching in the belly of some massive 1720s Atlantic ship that’s trapped in a squall. It also seems to be accompanied by an expansive outbreak of hives and a nauseating, queasy migraine headache.

Sooo.... that’s definitely not fun. Lemme tell you, it’s pretty miserable, BUT!! It’s nothing an antihistamine, lots of water, sunscreen and ginger ale + saltine crackers can’t soothe. It’s finally starting to wane a bit and I’m really proud of myself for caring for myself this trip.

Weirdly, I’ve been texting my mom about the symptoms and she had a lot of them in her early to mid twenties too. (She’s had lupus and other ailments my entire life) It’s been a weird way of bonding with her, and imagining what she may have been like at my age which makes me feel weirdly closer to her. Which is really nice since her relationship with me has been really painful and complicated over the years. So this has been a sweet, unexpected gift.

I packed my healthy snack creature comforts- banana chips, roasted chickpeas, lots of oranges, lychee jellies and I even made avocodo ‘toast’ in the passenger seat this morning. I distilled down my essestials and brought homey things that feel vaguely luxurious- rose hand cream, a lavender infused neck pillow, a fuzzy lavender blanket and white fuzzy pillow, a silver yeti full of peppermint tea, my rose gold bullet journal and favorite pastel brush pens, my pink Polaroid camera and the magians series by Lev Grossman and yes please by Amy Poehler on audible and a chill happy playlist full of Billie eilish, Khalid and BTS (even though my bf rolls his eyes at them)- and all of it is lovingly packed up in favorite my pastel faux leather and velvet bags.

HSP goals, man.

I stressed so much over preparing for this. I am beyond shocked that it came together. I did a lot of road trips with my family growing up, and as I’ve grown up and grown into myself, I’ve noticed that I get really sick and worn out and mentally + emotionally exhausted when I drive or am in a car a lot. I drive to do hair for weddings a lot and it’s a constant battle of anxiety about it- but at the same time, I long to travel to new places and see what’s outside of my world. But I’ve never had the money to. So my travel is always for other people and on their terms or is me heading toward something that overhwhelms and freaks me out.

So when my boyfriend suggested we visit his family in California and do it as a road trip, my heart sang at the opportunity to do something outside of my bubble and see the country and I was determined to do it MY way. To prepare for it in a way that made me feel comforted and relaxed and brought the best of my home with me as I saw the world, and in two days, I have already shown myself the most gentleness and attentive self care I ever have in my entire adult life.

I’m really proud of myself :’)

I don’t know how my body will feel once I finally arrive and begin to decompress. I can feel my PMDD temper bubbling to the surface after hours in LA traffic and my usual need for alone time and stillness re-emerging as I want to throw my shoe at my boyfriend every time he interrupts my thoughts while I journal/blog to tell me something he’s all ready said three times and my patience slowly evaporates beneath the sunny California sky, but I will never forget this experience.

I will never forget looking up at 10am today at the mountains around me, listening to one of my favorite novels, magicians book 1, in quiet companship with him while I munched on salt & vinegar chips and realized that for the first time in a very long time-

that I felt perfectly content.

I didn’t need a single other thing. I was completely happy exactly where I was with exactly what I had. And that is SO RARE. Like let me tell you, that sucker is elusive. So that experience was incredibly special

I will never forget it.

#hsp #mental health #autoimmunedisease #chronic illness #the magicians #lev grossman #yes please #amy poehler #pastel #hsp packing list #infp #enneagram type 4 #introvert #california #road trip #chippedteakettlerants

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spyderbones · 6 years ago

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All the OCs for the OC ask meme! 8D (Well, if you want, that is. xD I just love your charries. ♥)

I finally got around to this!! Whew, it’s been hard work, and I honestly kept forgetting I had to do this, lol… but, thank you!! I love your OCs, too! 8D ♥♥♥

Dawson O'Brian

01. Full name: Dawson Markus O'Brian02. Best friend: His girlfriend, Cora Anderson03. Sexuality: Demisexual04. Favorite color: Green05. Relationship status: Taken ♥06. Ideal mate: His ideal mate would be someone that balances him out perfectly. That can show him how to have fun sometimes, while still being serious when the situation calls for it. That’s supportive of him and encourages him to open up, and to be the best person he can be. Someone that accepts his flaws but inspires him to be a better man… so, in a nutshell, Cora ♥07. Turn-ons: Everything about his girlfriend, lol… but seriously, he’s got a weakness for red hair. And BDSM.08. Favorite food: He’s by no means picky, but if he had to choose a favorite, he’d probably pick some sort of Irish pub food… something hardy but simple, like a shepard’s pie or a lasagna (OH MY GOD HE’S LITERALLY GARFIELD)09. Crushes: Cora Anderson is his one and only ♥10. Favorite music: He doesn’t listen to a lot of music, but when he does, it’s mostly alternative rock, with maybe a bit of country thrown in. An odd combination, but he likes what he likes and he’s unapologetic about it.11. Biggest fear: Losing Cora or becoming anything like his father.12. Biggest fantasy: Literally anything to do with Cora. Seriously, that girl makes for one hell of a sex life~13. Bad habits: He used to be a smoker and sometimes, rarely, he’ll bum a cigarette here and there still. And he still turns to drinking when he’s in a bad mood, a remnant of his teenage years when he was a hardcore alcoholic.14. Biggest regret: Besides some decisions he made in his teenage years- his alcoholism and nearly flunking out of school and getting into fights, that sort of thing- his biggest regret would be a mistake he made early into his friendship with Cora, when he slept with another girl to try to make her jealous. It really hurt Cora, and to this day he wishes he could go back and undo that mistake.15. Best kept secrets: He tends to keep his past a secret, but very rarely does he keep secrets from Cora. In fact, the only secret he’s keeping from her right now is his plan to pop the question, which he’s had worked out for a little while now~16. Last thought: Probably something dirty related to Cora. xD17. Worst romantic experience: He doesn’t have a lot of romantic experience. Cora is his first real relationship, though he’s had a few hook-ups here and there before her. His worst romantic experience would probably be the aforementioned hook-up to make Cora jealous… either that, or the circumstances around which he lost his virginity. It was incredibly awkward, and not at all romantic.18. Biggest insecurity: He’s incredibly afraid of becoming like his father, so any traits he shares with the man- as well as his past in general- are a huge insecurity for him. He can also be a little insecure in his relationship with Cora, because she’s been in a serious relationship before and he sometimes worries that there might be some lingering feelings there, since the relationship didn’t exactly end on her terms.19. Weapon of choice: His fists, though if he had to pick a proper weapon, a greatsword would be the way to go.20. Role Model: Probably some famous architect… I don’t know enough about architecture to pick one by name. xD

Emily Lawry

01. Full name: Emily Julianna Lawry02. Best friend: The girl’s got a lot of friends03. Sexuality: Bisexual04. Favorite color: Red05. Relationship status: Single06. Ideal mate: Someone down to earth to balance out her wild side, and who accepts her for who she is, flaws and weaknesses and all.07. Turn-ons: Confidence, dark hair, crooked grins08. Favorite food: Is wine a food?09. Crushes: None10. Favorite music: Alternative rock11. Biggest fear: Being alone12. Biggest fantasy: She’s not much of a fantasizer… she goes out and gets what she wants13. Bad habits: If you could consider sleeping around a bad habit? She also doesn’t always practice safe sex, oops. She also bites her nails when she’s stressed14. Biggest regret: Losing contact with the only true friend she’s ever had15. Best kept secrets: She got pregnant at fifteen and had an abortion16. Last thought: N/A17. Worst romantic experience: She tends to guard her heart pretty well, but the one time she opened up to someone, he left her after she got pregnant. That wasn’t exactly a great experience for her18. Biggest insecurity: She’s got a bunch of little insecurities, but generally she’s a pretty confident person19. Weapon of choice: A gun20. Role Model: Clarisse from Silence of the Lambs

Steph Harris

01. Full name: Stephen Andrew Harris02. Best friend: He tends to keep to himself03. Sexuality: Gay04. Favorite color: Blue05. Relationship status: Single06. Ideal mate: Someone that understands him and helps to coax him out of his shell, while still being patient with him, since he doesn’t talk07. Turn-ons: Being dominated08. Favorite food: Grilled cheese09. Crushes: None10. Favorite music: Pop music, anything instrumental11. Biggest fear: Something bad happening to the people he cares about12. Biggest fantasy: Settling down with someone that he loves, having a family, the whole white-picket-fence life13. Bad habits: Bites his nails occasionally14. Biggest regret: Not ever getting to know his birth mother15. Best kept secrets: He doesn’t really have any secrets16. Last thought: N/A17. Worst romantic experience: None- he’s totally inexperienced18. Biggest insecurity: His artistic skills; he’s always worried his art isn’t good enough19. Weapon of choice: A pencil20. Role Model: Van Gogh

Kieran Jenkins

01. Full name: Kieran Jenkins02. Best friend: Kit Connolly03. Sexuality: Bisexual04. Favorite color: Dark blue05. Relationship status: Taken06. Ideal mate: Someone who’s patient with him and his flaws, but doesn’t coddle him or treat him like a child. Ideally someone who understands the hardships he’s been through and supports him through them.07. Turn-ons: Being dominated, confidence08. Favorite food: A nice steak09. Crushes: Kit Connolly10. Favorite music: Instrumental music11. Biggest fear: Bad things happening to the people he loves12. Biggest fantasy: He’s pretty tame, honestly13. Bad habits: Drinking when he’s stressed, can sometimes lash out at people who are just trying to help14. Biggest regret: The death of his squad when he was in the army; if he’d gone through the door first, they would have survived15. Best kept secrets: Generally he tries to keep his PTSD/migraines a secret16. Last thought: N/A17. Worst romantic experience: After being discharged, he started seeing a nice girl- nothing too serious, but he liked her well enough. One night, he had a nightmare and, in the haze of it all, attacked her while she was sleeping next to him. Needless to say, that relationship ended quite quickly.18. Biggest insecurity: All his PTSD-related quirks and triggers19. Weapon of choice: A gun20. Role Model: His commander in the military

Maverick Brennan

01. Full name: Maverick Brennan02. Best friend: Lindsay O’Shaughnessey (If I spelled that wrong please correct me, it’s been so long since I had to spell her full name omg)03. Sexuality: Heterosexual04. Favorite color: Brown05. Relationship status: Taken06. Ideal mate: Someone sweet, with a good heart, that balances out the instability he’s known all his life.07. Turn-ons: He’s also pretty vanilla08. Favorite food: Sushi09. Crushes: Lindsay O’Shaughnessey10. Favorite music: Pop/rock11. Biggest fear: Never being good enough12. Biggest fantasy: He’s a tame boi13. Bad habits: He’s a bit reckless, just in general14. Biggest regret: He doesn’t really have any regrets15. Best kept secrets: He doesn’t really have any secrets, either16. Last thought: N/A17. Worst romantic experience: He’s been cheated on before, but he was never serious enough about her to be heartbroken by it18. Biggest insecurity: His poverty… he’s struggling to get by, and he doesn’t like people knowing it19. Weapon of choice: His tongue- he prefers to talk things out20. Role Model: He doesn’t really have one

Dominic Markovic

01. Full name: Dominic Markovic02. Best friend: Katherine Devereux03. Sexuality: Pansexual04. Favorite color: Black05. Relationship status: Taken06. Ideal mate: Someone with some fire in them, who’s got a passion for what they do- and a passion for him- but that he doesn’t feel the need to keep up with, either. Someone who he’s just as important to as they are to him.07. Turn-ons: Dominating and doing the dominating~08. Favorite food: Again- does wine count as a food? If not, probably blood09. Crushes: Katherine Devereux10. Favorite music: Instrumental piano or violin11. Biggest fear: Losing the people he cares about12. Biggest fantasy: Probably some sort of BDSM fantasy- he’s into that13. Bad habits: He’s got a stick up his ass- does that count?14. Biggest regret: None, really15. Best kept secrets: He doesn’t really do anything that warrants being kept a secret16. Last thought: N/A17. Worst romantic experience: He doesn’t tend to give his heart to just anyone, so he hasn’t had very many “bad” romantic experiences18. Biggest insecurity: He’s not a very insecure person19. Weapon of choice: His fangs/claws- he’s a vampire20. Role Model: No one in particular; he’s his own man

Omg, months later I have finally completed this!! Sorry for the wait- but here, everyone, have this infodump of all my precious OCs. xD

NOTE: Cora, Kit, Lindsay, and Kat are all the creations of @essentiallyzem and are also wonderful characters whom I love so very much. 8D

#personal #my ocs #LOOK WHAT I FINALLY DID #this ask is from #like #the spring

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nikokova · 7 years ago

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Changes: Chapter 1

So I think I’m going to try to keep an update schedule where I post Tuesday or Wednesday, but I’m a mess so who really knows.

Prologue

Summary: Logan Summers: One friend, a 4.0, and a huge secret. He wouldn’t have it any other way. Virgil Mathews: barely surviving high school, let alone possibly being moved away from his one and only friend just so he gets to experience what its like to “Have a family”. Patton Pennington: can’t remember having a friend in real life, hopes that his parents taking in a foster kid can change things for him. Roman Royal: Arguably the most popular boy in school, but when he hears that the high schools are merging next year, will he be able to mend his checkered past?

Pairings: slow-burn pining analogical, slow-burn royality

Warnings: Anxiety, mentions to past bullying, food mention, foster system mention, bad writing

Word count: 2126

Tags for Changed: @zaisling @heir-of-the-founders (Send an ask or comment if you’d like to be added)

***

16-year-old Logan Summers really only enjoyed 3 things in life. Books, a schedule, and his best friend Virgil Matthews. Lucky for him, all three were a part of his daily life. He would wake up, go to his college classes, then his high school classes, and walk with Virgil to the library once school was over. He did this every day, other than the weekends which he spent all day cleaning, studying, or at the library.

“Earth to Logan.” A deep voice snapped Logan from his thoughts. His head jerked up and away from the book he wasn’t actually reading. There was a pale this face looking at him, observing him. It's dark russet eyebrows furrowed, contrasting against the pale skin. “What’re you thinking about?”

“I have a test next week, I'm trying to find out what amount of studying would give me the best grade. Then I also need to find out how to adjust my schedule to accommodate.” Logan responded with a shrug, his voice higher but not as soft as the others.

“Oh, lit.” His friend leaned back in his chair and looked around at the school libraries bookcases surrounding them. In doing so he almost missed the way Logan's brows furrowed in confusion, “Don't tell me you don't know what that means.”

“I-I do not-”

“It's been around for months. It means like cool or whatever, but like its just ironic to say it now since it's so old.”

“Virgil, you are aware that keeping up with slang is incredibly difficult for me.” Logan mumbled, a blush slightly on his cheeks. Virgil raised an eyebrow,

“But memorizing 40 words for an English class in one night is easy?” Virgil asked,

“Yes, it is.” He sighed. Before he could add anything else the sound of a bell cut their conversation short. Logan sat up straight and started to move the things from the table to his bookbag.

“I don’t want to go to 4th hour… Mr. Jones is gonna yell at us all hour.” Virgil groaned sinking down in his chair. Logan rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to remark on Virgil’s statement but is interrupted by an announcement.

“Will all teachers please excuse their students to the auditorium at this time.” The voice from the speaker said

“It appears you will not have to deal with Mr. Jones’ annoying voice today.” Logan slings his bag over his shoulder and glances at his now even paler seeming friend.

“Yeah, I just have to deal with the crowded auditorium, full of other people all cramped together, what if we have to sit in the front? Or they want volunteers and they choose me and everyone looks at me and-” Logan places a hand on his friends head to stop them.

“You don’t even know what we’re going to. I’ll make sure we sit in the back, and I’ll volunteer for you if needed.” He reassures, Virgil nods his head and takes a couple deep breaths. “We should head down before it starts to get too crowded. Are you okay now?”

“Umm, sorta.”

“Would holding my hand make you feel more comfortable?” Logan suggested, Virgil's face reddened but he nodded. Logan slowly took Virgil's left hand into his right and helped his taller friend up.

Logan had been the tallest of the two for a majority of their friendship. Though in the summer before 9th grade Virgil had a major growth spurt that rocketed him to 6’½”, leaving his best friend below at 5’5. Logan didn't appreciate this development. Though, neither did Virgil. Most of their childhood Virgil had spent hiding behind Logan when the anxiety became too much to handle. Because of his height, he wasn't able to do that anymore.

So, after some experimentation, Logan came to the conclusion that Virgil's anxiety seemed to reduce when they shared physical contact. He assumes it's because they have been friends for so long, and physical contact is a stress reliever for some.

Once they were ready, they made their way to the front of the library, keeping their entwined hands hidden between them. After Logan shared a wave with the librarian, they left.

The hall smelled of body odor and various smelling perfumes as they blended into the mass. The students were all heading to the right side of the hallway, which leads to the stairs near the auditorium. Logan lead their way through the crowd, nevermind the fact that he couldn't really see over the other students like Virgil could. All that really mattered was Virgil's tight grip on Logan's hand, like he was afraid of getting lost if he didn't hold on.

The tiled floor was an off-white color, Logan wondered if this was because of their age or if they were produced like that. He knew the white and bright lights of the building is part of what made Virgil so uncomfortable, and they often attributed to his migraines. Also the fact that the stairs were so steep everyone always felt like they were going to trip and fall. The group seemed to thin into small lines as they reached the different doors to the auditorium.

“Would you prefer to sit in the back?” Logan asked quietly, Virgil only squeezes his hand in response. Logan nods and chooses the shortest line to stand in.

Once everyone was sitting down, the principal climbed up the stairs up to the stage. Logan noticed that the green of his tie was lighter than the green on the rest of his suit. Principal Hepburn ran his hands through his short hair before walking up to the microphone. It took a couple minutes for the room to quiet, when it did he cleared his throat.

“I'm afraid I have some bad news,” he began, a murmur of concern swept across the crowd. “due to some, well I really shouldn't be saying this. But, due to some not superb financial planning, the school district doesn't have the funds to keep this building open next year.” The concerned murmurs quickly turned into concerned conversations.

Logan felt the grip on his hand tightened and he looked over at the taller boy. Virgil was now bouncing his leg and biting his nails on his other hand.

“Virgil, everything's going to be ok I'm sure they already have a plan.” Logan reassured, gently rubbing his thumb across Virgil's knuckles. The principal stood on the stage and waited for the room to quiet, he continued when it did.

“This summer they will be renovating our sister high school, Sanders Sides, and you should all be moved there next fall. Transportation will be provided for the whole district.” Hepburn finished.

“See, we’ll still go to school together, and that school is only a little further from the library than this one.” Logan whispered, giving Virgil's hand a comforting squeeze before they got up to exit the auditorium.

***

Patton's hands dug into the pockets of his jeans as he walked out of the school. He had been in a good mood all day, until the assembly ruined it. He had done his best to convince his parents to send him to Sanders Sides High so he wouldn't be in the same school as him. He walked down the sidewalk outside of the brick building to the parking lot furthest from the school, where he had asked his dad to pick him up.

The silver car was easy to spot in the near-empty parking lot. Especially because of the stuffed animals kept on the front and back dashes. He could hear the early 2000’s music from a couple feet away as he slipped his backpack off of his shoulders, leaving it hanging on one arm as he opened the door.

“Hey, kiddo!” His dad smiled, chocolate eyes identical to Patton's own seemed to sparkle. His dad was always in a chipper mood, his mom said that Patton had gotten that from him. Along with his curly hair.

“Hey dad, is mom home?” he asked flopping into the seat and setting his backpack on his lap.

“Yep.”

“What about Pa?”

“He won't be home till later. Had to stay back and tutor a student.” His dad explained, Patton nodded and looked out of the window as they pulled out of the parking lot.

“So, umm… Can we have a movie night tonight?” Patton asked quietly, his eyes locked on his fidgeting hands.

“Alright, what happened today kiddo?” His dad gave him a sympathetic glance. Patton hesitated before answering,

“You know the boy, the one I finally told you guys about last year?” His dad nodded but Patton noticed the color drain from his already pale face. “Well, I guess next year all the students from that school are moving to this one. So..”

“Do you want us to switch your schools?” his dad interrupted, looking at him with concerned eyes as they waited at a stop light.

“What!? No! I-I like my school, I'll be ok!” Patton reassured, trying to give his dad a bright smile.

“Pat, you know it's not a problem for us. We just want you to be safe and happy.” His dad sighed, the traffic moving forward once more.

“Really, it’s okay. I like my school, I’ve made friends,” that was a lie, “and he probably won’t even recognize me.”

“Alright, but we are going to discuss it with Pa and Mom later okay?” Patton just nodded and went back to looking out of the window. In truth, he hadn’t really made any friends. Sure, he had lots of acquaintances, but none of them were close enough to be called a friend.

Still, Patton found lots of reasons to be happy. He had an amazing and loving family, cats and dogs existed, he did pretty well at school, and he had some online friends. One was named Talyn, they were cool and liked dying their hair. The other was Valerie, she liked singing. lastly, there was Terrance. Talyn had added him to the group chat only a week ago, so Patton didn’t know much about him yet.

>>>

Dinner was quiet as Patton pushed his food around with no intention of eating it. He had hoped that his mood would have gotten better as time passed, but it hadn’t. His eyes wandered up to his parents, how they each sat on a different side of the table, smiles on each of their faces. They all loved each other. Sure, it was strange at first, when he was first introduced to his Pa, Ryan. He was only in 3rd grade then, but he and Ryan grew close very fast. His mom and Ryan had met when his mom decided to go back to college, he was in almost all her classes. Now his dad and his mom had been together since they were in middle school and got married a couple years before they brought Patton into the world.

“Patton, honey are you ok?” His mom's voice broke him out of his trance.

“Huh? Yeah, I’m fine.” He lied pulling a smile on his face. He noticed how his moms face faltered and her slight glance towards his male parents.

“Well, we have something we need to discuss with you. But, if today isn’t a good day we can always just talk about it tomorrow.” She suggested, she ran a hand through her red hair that was a little blonder than Patton’s.

“No, today’s a good day. I guess I’m just a little tired is all.” He shrugged,

“Alright, well you know how we’ve been trying to get matched with a kid to foster for a while, right?” Pa asked. Patton turned his head to the tallest in the room.

“Yeah, did we get matched?!” He asked excitedly, the clouds in his head seemed to lift.

“Yes, all we know for now is that its a boy around your age.” His dad said, but Patton couldn’t stop smiling. What would having a brother be like? They could become best friends, and maybe he could get him to try his food…

“We don’t want to say a definite yes to anything if you aren’t completely comfortable with the idea.” His mom pushed her plate away to fold her hands together in its place.

“We don’t want you to say yes because you feel like you should. Your happiness is our priority, alright bud?” Pa smiled, Patton just nodded and sat back. In all honesty, Patton often felt lonely even with all of his parents. Maybe it was because he had no friends, and maybe this foster sibling could be a new start for him. This time Patton would face his fears and try to make a friend.

“I… I would like to have a sibling.”

***

A/N: Ooooh, weak ending. I’m sorry. I promise that Roman is going to be in the next chapter. Maybe we’ll get an explaination on why he acted the way he did as a child, maybe not.

#analogical #royality #sanders sides fic #sanders sides fanfiction #virgil sanders #logan sanders #patton sanders #tw: bullying #tw: food #nesa writes

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tagsecretsanta · 7 years ago

Text

From Vikapediathat

to @wonderavian

I do not own this piece of art/fiction. @vikapediathat is the original creator and has agreed to this being posted on this blog for Secret Santa 2017.

Prompt 1: Alan and John tobogganing

*In the form of a Chat/screenplay*

————————————————

Title: Work Break

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(Alan and John communicating over their personal devices. Alan on the island in his room and John up on Thunderbird 5)

John: Really?

Alan: What?

John: Alan, no.

Alan: Hey, I think it’s a cool idea.

John: Alan... you want to go tobogganing… on Europa... with me?

Alan: Yeah, what’s the issue?

John: Everything! I am needed on rescues and communications just as much as you are needed on Earth and in space -

Alan: - Which can be summed up to not much at all -

John: -And Europa is the coldest moon of Jupiter. Not only is that an incredibly long journey, we’ll freeze if we go EVA. How do you expect to have any minuscule of fun in your cells tobogganing there?

Alan: The Pendergasts did it when I rescued them with Gordon.

John: So why didn’t you ask Gordo to join you in your little adventure for excitement?

Alan: He’ll make me watch all of The Pendergast’s seasons again during the flight. I can’t go through that traumatising experience again, it’s too soon!

John: Hmph, traumatising, sure.

Alan: Come on, we never get to spend much time together, the Space Bros are fading away. Besides, being on Europa is not as life threatening as you make it out to be. But if you don’t want to have the time of your life, fine. Go ahead and trip over your own feet in your gravity ring whilst you do next to nothing, I’ll thoroughly enjoy my “solo mission”.

John: Yes, go freeze to death millions of miles away from home. No one will be able to attend your funeral or want to because of your idiotic voyage!

————————————————

(On board Thunderbird 3)

Alan: I knew in your cold, deep space soul you still had some Tracy Island warmth left!

John: You gave EOS a hint, she spun the gravity ring quick until I left to join you. I tripped over my own feet multiple times getting to the airlock. I hope you’re happy.

Alan: Yes, yes I am. Thank EOS for me when we get back.

John: Just so you know, I’m merely supervising so you don’t get yourself killed. We are on a tight schedule: Make it three hours there, 30 minutes on Europa and three hours back. In the world of rescues, no one will notice we are gone.

Alan: Good thing I always have spare fuel then. Hold on to your butts!

*John smirks from the pop culture reference, but then in absolute shock from the force of the ion fusion accelerator*

*The planets go by Thunderbird 3 fairly quickly and the stars merge into laser beams. John is plastered to his seat from the force while Alan goes into auto pilot to get the toboggans ready. Then, he swiftly navigates the Asteroid Belt as Thunderbird 3 comes into contact with it*

*Thunderbird 3 halts at the orbit of Europa, Jupiter looming over the moon and the rocket*

John: *panting and doubled over with a migraine growing and holding back the will to vomit*

Alan: Hahaha! I love doing that.

John: ... *coughing and wheezing*... Four... Four and a half hours going back...

Alan: Thank you for travelling at 100% ion fusion accelerator force from Thunderbird 5 to Europa. The flight has been steady with some minor asteroid dents and refuelling needing to be assessed.

————————————————

(On the surface of Europa, water erupts from all over the icy horizon. Alan brings out his Space Board he had refurbished for tobogganing, a toboggan with rockets.)

Alan: Alright John, you’re supervising from Thunderbird 3. As part of the deal, I’ll be back in 30 minutes.

John: Good. Keep your radio on and don’t die. Scott will kill me if we lose our best, but irritable, pilot.

Alan: Okay, bye!

*Alan sky dives out of Thunderbird 3 with his rocket toboggan, only sitting on it when he is close to the ground for a soft landing. Once few feet from the ground he starts the rockets and shoots off into the horizon.*

Alan: Woohoo! This is even better than I thought, John!

John: *chuckles* Yeah, it sounds like it.

*John looks around the silent rocket interior and begins to feel a bit too isolated as the cockpit becomes darker. He realises that Alan makes Thunderbird 3 or any Thunderbird seem so lively with his personality which is what makes the people he’s rescued more relaxed than anyone else. It’s almost like he doesn’t try on the rescues because of how calm and happy he is, and that makes his life easier to unwind than any of the brothers after a mission. John knows there’s more to Alan’s excuse to nagging him to tobogganing on Europa than wanting to spend time with him, but he can’t figure out what. After all, Alan doesn’t need a break from the stress because he doesn’t have any. As John thinks, Alan’s comms become background noise.*

Alan: Jooooohn? Everything okay up there?

*John pulls himself out of his thoughts only to spot something duct taped to the back wall, a slightly bigger makeshift toboggan from Alan’s spare Space Board. With a fiery feeling of curiosity and action boiling up inside of him, John tears the toboggan off of the wall and puts Thunderbird 3 on auto pilot.*

John: I need a break, I coming down!

*John jumps out of Thunderbird 3*

*Alan sits on his board hovering five feet in the air as John hits the ground sitting on his toboggan*

Alan: Glad you could make it, big brother!

John: Well, I couldn’t let you have all the fun.

Alan: Come on! There’s a thing you can do with the geyser-things that’ll shoot you high into the air really fast and then we can race all around Europa to see who is the fastest rocket tobogganer.

*Alan speeds off. John laughs at his little brothers enthusiasm*

John: Hold on, I’m coming!

——————————————————

(Back up in Thunderbird 3, the rocket slowly flies away from Europa.)

Alan: Once again, for a console jockey, you weren’t half bad with the board. I must’ve accidentally made your board faster than my own.

John: Thanks. You gave me the incentive to give it a go and the cold was tolerable. Although, you also made us lose our schedule.

Alan: Hey, it was two hours well spent! And as a bonus, we got a close, clear look at Jupiter with our own eyes.

John: Yeah, it was well worth it in the end. I do feel refreshed and energised after today. So if I have a whole load of rescue calls to take tomorrow, I’m sure I can handle it well now. Thank you Alan, for dragging me out to do this.

Alan: My work here is done.

John: What?

Alan: You have been looking a bit overworked and stressed out lately so I wanted you to chill out for once. And… I… Umm… Also needed this time too, after these last couple of months.

John: Wow… For both things you just said. But you hide your stress well. I thought-

Alan: -I do stuff like this often, because someone on the team has to keep the atmosphere light. Anyway, that’s unimportant now, Space Bros once more?

John: Space Bros.

*John sees that this is a conversation for another day so, as Alan wishes, he drops the subject*

*The comms start beeping as Grandma Tracy’s face full of fury appears in the hologram*

Grandma Tracy: Where in the world have you two been all day?!

Alan: Uhh…

John: Umm, out?

Alan: *stifling laughter*

John: We’ll be home soon, Grandma.

Grandma Tracy: Well you better because you two have a lot of explaining to do and a lot of punishment to go through.

Alan: Then it’s all gonna be worth it.

Grandma Tracy: I heard that, kiddo. I’ll be seeing both of you on the ground.

*Grandma Tracy hangs up. After a brief silence, John and Alan burst into laughter*

Alan: We are definitely dead once we get home!

John: Well we can’t keep them waiting and get it over with.

Alan: Think you can handle full power this time?

John: My body is ready.

Alan: Haha, pop culture reference.

John: Oh I’ve got more: Beam us back, Allie!

Alan: Oh Yeah!

*Thunderbird 3 shoots off into deep space, heading home to Earth.*

#alan tracy #john tracy #Tag Team Secret Santa #Thunderbirds are go #Secret Santa 2017 #fanfic

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scientificallysocialblesupe-blog · 7 years ago

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Journal #10

SO the beginning of class was awkward. Usually, before class starts we’re all really chatty and happy to be in the room because without a doubt this is the best class in all of our schedules. This time it was different, everyone was quiet and just waiting for class to begin. The reason for our gloomy moods was because the day before we got out results for how we are doing in the class. We are all currently failing the class. Some a bit more than others but all of us currently have an F in the class. I was definitely not happy to be in that room because I knew Tanairy was going to let us know what she thought about our grades and how disappointed she was. One of the last things I was us as PCs to do is to disappoint Tanairy because I know that she sees a lot of potential in us and knows that we can be successful and lead a great BEP ‘18. Tanairy told us about why it is that we all were currently failing and that this is just how she grades. When we begin the semester we all have 0%. Over time with the work that we hand in our grades increase. The way that I like to think about it is us leveling up to be PCs. When we first started we had no experience to what it is we will see in the summer. As time goes on and we have more and more classes we gain more experience as PCs. The goal at the end is for us to be 100% (A) ready to be PCs and tackle the summer. When I think about it like that it makes me less upset about our grades. I tried explaining this to Tanairy and she found it to be a nice way to look at things.

After we discussed our grades of the class we had to finish the scenarios we couldn't present from the previous week. Hadja and I had we one of the two groups that had to act out our scenario in front of the class and show what the worse case scenario and then the best case scenario. I wasn’t really in the mood while doing it because it came so shortly after Tanairy expressing her disappointment in our performance. I was very unhappy and also feeling ill because I woke up with a nasty migraine. However, this is when I had to give 10 when I myself have 0. I had to step up for my teammate and show everyone our scenario. The reason that Hadja and I chose the scenarios that we chose is because many times during my BEP I got in trouble for staying too late in the kitchen. Primarily because the microwave didn't work so most of the time I would go over curfew. In this scenario, Hadja and I tried to come up with a way that we would try to handle the situation if it happened to us in the summer,

Our special guest, Nancy from the counseling center came in to talk about just that, the counseling center. Nancy dropped a lot of gems with her visit. The thing that stood out the most was when she talked about deep REM sleep and how despite people sleeping 8 or more hours of sleep they may still feel tired because they are not sleeping at the correct times. This was super eye-opening because I always struggle with understand why I wake up super tired when I go to sleep at 4am but sleep for 10 hours; it's very frustrating. She also talked about how the counseling center is open during the summer, open to us, the beppies, and the other staff active on campus. I honestly had no idea that they were open. I was wondering where the PCs would go if we wanted to talk about our problems and felt really stressed out. I knew that the counselors would be really busy because they are dealing with the incoming freshman and how stressful it is to be in BEP. I personally can attest to this because I had a very rough time during BEP and I believe that if it wasn't for my counselor I would’ve failed out of BEP and not have been admitted to Binghamton University. One of my classmates asked Nancy a really good question that I couldn’t have thought about but I definitely wish I did. She asked Nancy how many people of color work as counselors. I myself have heard that the counseling center isn't really a place for people of color because all of the counselors are white. I believe that it is incredibly difficult for a white person to empathize with a black person because they will never experience what it is that the person of color went through and with go through in the future. Nancy told us that there are 7 counselors of color including herself. One of the names that stuck out was Jon Jones. 1. Because I’ve heard of him before and have seen him at GBs regarding mental health and 2. Because that’s a really cool name and is the name of a UFC fighter.

After Nancy left Tanairy tried to change the mood of the room by asking us what are some ways that we de-stress. Immediately was able to think of something because my activity is literally my favorite thing to do. What I said was I like to watch entertainment on the internet while eating snacks (sweet and salty: aka cookies and chips). What I didn't say is what I specifically like watching. I like watching Desus and Mero (currently my #1 thing), Youtube, Joe Budden Podcast, and cooking shows (if it’s funny and the chef has a personality like Matty Matheson, Action Bronson, Binging with Babish, Cooking with Dashie, etc). After we all shared we all chose whose activity we wanted to try out for the week. After everyone chose I was left with Joel’s taking a long shower (can’t complain). I took down what it is that Joel does so I can try to replicate it and see what I think about it. Tanairy had us do this because the big part of that day was about self-care, which is why Nancy came in to talk about the counseling center. I also know that during the summer we WILL be stressed and getting tips from our teammates on how to deal with it could be very helpful. During me trying to de-stress “a la Joel” I did what he does. Joel likes playing music while he showers so I did the same. I played my custom [ :) ] R&b playlist because of it very soothing and relaxing, very self-care-esque. It made me very relaxed and did unwind some of my stresses.

To keep it real I am very much happy being on break right now. It landed right on my birthday which is on Sunday and my 2 year anniversary with my partner which is today. She got me a really fire shirt that I’ve been wanting for a while and I’m super happy about it.

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y-not-loki · 6 years ago

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The Soul Thief | Loki L.

A/N: Been a long time since I’ve posted a fic/one-shot so here’s one I’ve been working on for a while. I’ve always liked the idea of being able to control someone’s soul and remove it. Probably a million mistakes. Anyway, hope you enjoy! (also, enjoy the fact that I can’t find a gif to match the fic)

Warnings: Bit of swearing? Some violence in the beginning (opens in a battle).

Word count: 4 554