#while normal is “a pathological people pleaser”

[alexaatla]

your losing me by taylor swift could you be more normal and scarys opposite narratives

[traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors]

Hi, this is a fairly urgent question because I finally found the courage to go look for a therapist and don't want to wait until I lose the spirit again. Sorry to bother you.

I need some help on how to write the first message to them. I want to filter them already but not too strictly, since we have a shortage of therapists and maybe I won't be able to settle for a perfect one.

It is very important for me, that they use a trauma informed model, that my cptsd is a normal response to the trauma and not my genetics or alike. I have been in clinics and seen a lot of other patients with trauma, whose struggles have been minimized ("Oh it's only the genetics, your dad has depression too. There was never abuse") or maximized ("Since it is in your genetics, you will never recover and can only take pills and cope for the rest of your life") or by default been diagnosed with bpd. And that's not what I believe in and not how I want to be treated.

But on the other hand... I don't want to seem to be too informed because idk maybe it's the people pleaser in me or being raised as a girl, but in my mind, people don't appreciate smart... lower counterparts (like a patient is to a doctor).

I also want to generally check them out, if we have the same ideas about therapy, but I can't think of questions to ask them.

Another problem is, how to write these questions in a polite way? When I try out some sentences, they are low key impolite, because they kinda bear a suspicion.

Do you have ideas, how to phrase my thoughts? And what else to ask?

Thank you!

Hi anon,

It's great to hear that you're taking the step to find a therapist. It sounds like you already have the framework for your message, but you want to word it in a way that considers the therapist's thoughts and feelings.

While I definitely understand being a people pleaser, it's also worth considering that a therapist will likely see right through that, so simply showing what you know about the field and trying to get a comprehensive understanding of their beliefs is the best way to connect. If a therapist doesn't react well to it, perhaps they are not a therapist you'll want. While a relationship like a doctor and patient may strive towards equality despite the power dynamic being inevitably different, a therapeutic relationship is supposed to be dedicated to giving you as the client as much power as they can possibly give.

You can say something like, "I believe you may be a good fit for me. I wanted to ask about your approaches to therapy, particularly regarding trauma-informed care." You can also explain that it's essential for you to work with a therapist who understands that CPTSD is a normal response to trauma and not solely attributed to genetics or similar factors. It may be worth mentioning your experiences where struggles were minimized or pathologized.

You could ask something like, "Are you open to discussing your approach to therapy and how it may relate to trauma and CPTSD?" It might also help to clarify in your message that you understand the importance of maintaining a respectful and collaborative relationship with a therapist, and that your intention is not to challenge or question their expertise, but to find a therapist you can build a fulfilling therapeutic relationship with.

If anyone has any comments or suggestions, feel free to add on. I hope I could help. We're here if you need anything.

-Bun

[enneamage]

so idfk critblr ask etiquette because i dont go here also i was supposed to have left the fandom a year ago but what can you do, right. i'll just throw my shit at you like a monkey and hope something sticks???

my interest is billzo, esp how endlessly trauma informed all of his actions are, ever. I watched his recent video about his expirience with disassociation and content creation and all that. Have you watched that? Do you have opinions? I have opinions. I am not gonna type them all out because rambling that much in a random ask would probably be rude (?). But still, anything on Billzo would be neat my brain is in overdrive figuring him out.

One thing i find interesting about him is how much and how well he lies. Like he does it for fun all the time, to the point where i almost want to pathologize it (mans having a bit too much fun with it ಠಿ⁠_⁠ಠ). Also normally i am very good at telling when people are lying but he catches me off guard regularly... And im kinda of stuck between putting the lying into his trauma informed actions or just calling him a Pathological Liar (which seems harsh). Also VERY possible some of the stories other anons said he has told on stream are bs, just saying.

Another thing is this (trauma response?) he does where he wants to say something, believes it would be offensive to his fans or people around him. Then, he does this weird thing where he gets pissed at shutting himself up, gets defensive over something he hasn't even said yet, decides offense is the best defense, and usually it comes as the original thing that he wanted to say, but defensively and rude-ish. He does it multiple times in the misfits "do all streamers think the same" video, if anyone is interested. Its SUCH a weird behaviour and i want to dissect his brain like a frog (Joke). I dont know a lot about that number wizardry you do, but yeah anything is aprechiated at this point (i am desperate)

physically have to stop my rambling here or i will look even more insane. Goodbye

Hello and goodbye anon we love the transparency.  

He seemed fairly normal in the video you mentioned, but I do broadly get what you mean by playing the defensive-offensive; the way that Bill’s people-pleaser traits can get run through an aggressive filter is fascinating. It’s hard to be edgy while also staying on peoples good sides, but he’s compelled to do both, and it seems to make him act strange sometimes. I’ve seen behavior like that a few times before, it’s like witnessing a negotiation where one person is really pushing for their side, with repressed anxiety feeding the pseudo-agression. I would put it somewhere between angling for his input to be given a chance (helper streak comes out strange for him sometimes) and unconscious worry around rejection. The video mostly seemed like him being mindful of not pissing off The Mob, though, which is a skill that most public figures need to master in some way.

Technically lying due to trauma could fall under the “Pathological liar” umbrella because it would have that deep psych component, but I haven’t seen enough to make that call. (Edit: I got cold feet on this line since sources were mixed, it's just not something that people get diagnosed with outside a bigger condition so it's an umbrella term.) I also haven’t seen enough / caught on to enough of these moments to spot if there’s a pattern in what he says and when he says it, but that’s something to keep an eye out for. Is there generally an effect/emotion that he’s looking to create, or is it the simple fun of fooling people? Who does he lie to the most? He might just be a trickster, but these things are sometimes layered. (Things I would keep a special eye out for is lying to make others more sympathetic to him, that can sometimes be a form of asking for help without having to ask or risking rejection in unhealthy Twos.)

The dissociation is interesting because on one hand Bill suffered with it uniquely in the way that it affected him, but it could be both his psyche and the situation together. It wouldn’t surprise me if more cases of people blowing up quick going forward had that feeling of unreality, where the sudden lack of adjustment period knocks people off balance and they don’t have the time to steady themselves again. It’s common to hear “It was an out of body experience, it didn’t feel real” in kind of a passing way when people talk about big changes, but if you think about it those are dissociative concepts, people not integrating the new reality fully. If he was already predisposed to dissociation, it might have thrown gas on the fire for him.

I feel like I come off as harsh on Bill because of the ways he usually comes up in conversation, but I think a lot of people share the sentiment of not only liking him but wanting to like him. I'm hoping that he'll be able to get his feet underneath him in the new year because I do want him to do well.

[1d1195]

omggg nooooo !!!! never let anyone make you feel insane i’ve literally dreamed abt moving up there. you’re so right i don’t think the south is for me either :// i was actually born up north but my parents moved when i was little and we’ve been here ever since i think a piece of me stayed up there tho bc ive ALWAYS loved the new england area

i used to watch gilmore girls and think “oh my god i need to live somewhere like that it would be perfect for me”

dw there’s no specific way you need to listen to it and the songs themselves are actually pretty self-explanatory but a little backstory:

taylor was dating a man named joe thru 2016-2023 and at firsttt we all thought it was sunshine and rainbows. they were vry private and we (swifties) thought that’s what she wanted !! we thought she’d found her forever !! and she thought so too :( but apparently there were comittment issues (among many other things). she wanted to take the next step, marriage & babies & whatnot. he DIDNT (there were multiple songs on lover that mentioned marriage and engagement) ((there was a song released last year with the lyric; “and i wouldn’t marry me either. a pathological people pleaser. who only wanted you to see her.”))

fast forward to the start of the eras tour breakup announcements are EVERYWHERE and she’s seen with some other guy ! oh who’s this one ? THE LEAD SINGER OF THE 1975 !!!! they went out for a few weeks and APPARENTLYYYY according to what i’ve seen all the other fans posting, HE MANAGED TO DO THE SAME AMOUNT OF DAMAGE THAT TOOK JOE 6 YEARS. HE DID THAT IN ABT A MONTH OR TWO. (they had a history together BEFORE this andddd they worked on music for midnights sooo it seems he was privy to all the inside details abt her relationship with joe and he might’ve used that to his advantage)

basically all this to say, she was going through a LOT last year and before that. so this album has ALL the feels. losing your sense of self, processing the deepest betrayals, learning to let go of something when all you want to do is hang on as tight as possible, not knowing who cares about you anymore, but eventually finding yourself at the end.

the song ‘i can do it with a broken heart’ has a lyric video on youtube and the clips are all clips for HER TOUR while she’s singing about her being miserable the whole time😭😭😭😭 BUT PUSHING THROUGH IT😭😭😭😭😭 it BROKE my heart to see that.

there’s nothing wrong with you and everything wrong with 14 year olds trustttt omg i don’t know what is in the air for these younger teens but they’re insane. and how was your vacation ?

mwah

~ 🎶

I LOVE GILMORE GIRLS I love that for you! I hope you move if that’s what you want 💕

I knew about Joe and Matty but not in detail like that. Honestly I was obsessed with the show/book Normal People and subsequently watched Conversations with Friends and I thought Joe was about as personable as a towel sitting in the rain and Taylor is way more talented and dimensional than what I saw so I can’t even imagine what happened behind the scenes. Matty seemed like too much of a bad boy tbh for her as well. I saw something about people feeling bad that they were going to The Eras Tour when she wasn’t feeling her best. It made me sad (no shade to anyone that went to the tour. She obvs wouldn’t have gone if she couldn’t do it ya know?) I’m excited to listen—waiting to have adequate time to really digest it)

My vacation was good! Relaxing and productive. A good combo. It’s gonna be a long couple of months. Trying to balance a lot of things and not go insane. Hope you’re doing well! 💕 tell me what’s going on in your life!

Xoxo

[masterthespianduchovny]

Ted Lasso’s reputation as a wholesome, nice, feel good show at times comes at its expense. This isn’t the fault of TL, but rather:

1. People who literally judge or write the show off based on these three descriptors. They think they know exactly what the show is about and how it’s going to play out and they don’t.

2. People who literally watch the show yet don’t understand it. These past weeks I’ve come to understand that some people who’ve watched the show either miss/don’t comprehend things OR fundamentally don’t understand the show.

I’m unsure if this is some type of media illiteracy for the second point, but I literally had to break down how the show works to someone who was shitting on it. Don’t get me wrong, people are allowed to dislike the show. That doesn’t bother me. However, when your criticisms either come from a lack of knowledge or the inability to understand how the show is structured, there needs to be an intervention.

In my honest opinion, I don’t think the foundation of the show is comedy nor is it drama, the genre of the show is influenced by Ted’s emotional state. It’s labeled as comedy for all intents and purposes, but observe how the tone/genre of the show largely matches Ted’s highs and lows. Some may say that’s normal, but I think there is a nuance here that’s missing.

A fan or fans pointed out that this season isn’t funny and that’s because Ted isn’t funny (again, the show is mimicking Ted’s emotional state); most of his jokes do not land. He’s trying way to hard and not at all at times, which is intentional.

He’s overdoing it and people are saying it’s bad writing when, in fact, it’s very good writing. We see more and more how Ted is missing things, behaving oddly around the therapist, internalizing shit, etc AND refusing help aka avoiding Rebecca presumably. Something is wrong and only one person notices this and Ted tried to pretend he was fine.

This show has noticeably become darker, which typically doesn’t happen to alleged feel good comedies. When it does, it’s like an episode or two, but in the case of TL, it’s steadily been doing this season the first episode of season 2. Furthermore, it introduced many of these themes and plot lines on season 1.

The show has also made us re-examine many “funny” moments and assess if there is a different context behind what we believed we knew and saw.

The show for the most part has been very internally consistent because it’s never been bound by it’s genre.

It’s quite ironic and sad that one of the most repeated and (at times inappropriately used) iconic lines “be curious not judgmental” is only applied to assholes and shit behavior rather than super nice/people pleasers, such as Ted.

It reminds me of the poem “Not Waving But Drowning”, which I’ll copy and paste at the end. The title is essentially “on the tin”, but basically it’s about someone drowning and people not going to help because they thought this person was happy go lucky and waving at them. The person didn’t have any help while they were in a crisis because people missed the signs. Which pretty accurately describes what’s going on with others see Ted MINUS Rebecca.

Lastly, the show is an examination and deconstruction of niceness for better and worse. What does it mean to be nice? What drives people in how they treat others? It’s not saying niceness is the cure for everything and that it will fix us, it’s saying we should start with kindness. We should try to understand what’s going on and be sympathetic.

Hell, I don’t even think it’s saying everyone can be redeemed (aka Rupert as of now). It’s saying that when we try to be better people, not immediately give up on someone, and understand that other people have different experiences, that is something that can help us connect and understand one another better.

But we are all flawed and it takes accountability and hard work to right out wrongs. Not all is forgiven just because we see the error of our ways. We have to actively towards forgiveness not matter how hard.

What’s interesting about Ted is that he’s the catalyst behind this change in AFC Richmond, however, he’s one of the fundamentally misunderstood people on the show, which is intentional on his end. He hides what’s really going on with him because not even he wants to see it. His kindness is driven by genuineness, but also trauma from his dad’s death and bullying. It’s gotten so bad to the point that it’s pathological for him to be nice to the detriment of himself as he suppresses his own traumas.

People (un) intentionally use him and don’t reciprocate most of the time. To be fair to them, Ted wants it that way. Except they also aren’t paying attention. Yes, everyone has their own problems, but how is no one curious about the man who is always “happy” that just got a divorce and is separated from his kid most of the time? Who flat out admitted to that he took a job across the ocean for a sport he knew nothing about to give his wife space? Or that he had a panic attack during a major game?

At this point, Ted isn’t hiding his struggles all that well, yet only Rebecca realizes that he isn’t well.

Ironically, some fans use Ted Lasso as their feel good show all while overlooking what the show is trying to say about certain behaviors and relationships.

Although it takes nothing to be nice, don’t make others responsible for your happiness whether you are the giver or the receiver. It does no one any good.

Ted thinks helping others and avoiding his own problems will make him happy and it doesn’t. Even when his marriage was good, it was a band aid for his problems. As a result, he started unraveling because he wasn’t fixing things or fixing enough things and people.

The show is saying a lot and through subtext and nuance, which is being ignored because the show isn’t what people assumed it was. This show doesn’t exist to help people escape from their own problems and/or the pandemic. Like, it’s nice that it did for some, however, we have to allow the show to tell the story it wants to tell. They never misled anyone about the nature of the show.

On the other hand, the show has helped people who see parts of themselves in Ted and either want to get help or finally understand that some of their behavior are maladaptive and detrimental to themselves.

Some people are seeing what they want to see and projecting on the show (as they do many) and are criticizing TL for what it isn’t, rather than understanding what it is.

TL has many compelling things to say, but since it isn’t behaving how people want it to, they can’t engage meaningfully with the show, which is unfortunate.

——-

“Not waving but drowning”

Nobody heard him, the dead man,

But still he lay moaning:

I was much further out than you thought

And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking

And now he’s dead

It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,

They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always

(Still the dead one lay moaning)

I was much too far out all my life

And not waving but drowning.

[slowlearnerstudygroup]

When did you realize your parent or parents were narcissists?

Usually, children are not aware of the psychological and emotional abuse they suffer, and they realize it only in adulthood. Many adult children of toxic parents have not yet realized that their parent is a pathological narcissist.

You can recognize narcissistic parenting from these signs:

1. Narcissistic guilt trip.

Narcissistic parents act like they're doing you a favor by feeding, clothing, and giving you a place to stay. Whenever they want something from you and you say no because you have the right to say no, they'll remind you of how much they gave up in their life to raise you or how much they sacrifice for you, saying for example “if I didn't have you my life would be better”.

2. Conditional love.

Parents who are emotionally healthy love their children no matter what. When their child does something wrong they'll punish them but it's still obvious to the child that they are loved.

Narcissists don't display to love their children. They don't have the ability to love their children, so they will only give out conditional love.

The minute you do something that embarrasses them or the minute you rebel against them, they will cut off your supply of love from them completely.

And when you're raised by a parent like this it's easy to see why when you become an adult you turn into a classic people-pleaser.

You grow up thinking that all love is conditional because that's what your parents taught you and so you constantly feel like you must prove your worth in order to be loved. You constantly feel like you have to make everyone happy in order to earn love and it's always the sense of shame inside of you that always makes you feel like you're not good enough.

3. No boundaries.

Narcissists see their children not as individuals but as extensions of themselves, so they see their children like their property. They don't see their child like a thinking human being that deserves privacy and respect. So narcissistic parent will always cross your boundaries and that includes buzzing into your room without knocking, not respecting your privacy in the bathroom etc..

4. Jealousy.

When mothers look at their daughters, they see youth, they see beauty and so a normal mother would want to nurture that and help that flourish and grow. But a narcissistic mother is jealous and will actively try to destroy her daughter’s self-esteem and even compete with her. Narcissistic mothers especially are in competition with their kids the minute the child is born. If someone pays more attention to the child than her, she will resent the child.

Narcissistic fathers are also in competition with their son and they put down their self-esteem.

5. Taking credit for your accomplishments.

Narcissistic parents usually do this in public but not in private.

6. Lack of empathy.

If you've ever been in a situation where you just needed your parents to empathize with you and tell you “everything's going to be okay”, and they genuinely could not, it's sometimes a sign that they could have a narcissistic personality disorder.

Even worse is the fact that they may even appear to enjoy your pain. It's weird for a parent to do that and that's why it's called a personality disorder.

7. Infantilization.

Narcissistic parents will do their best to keep their children in a child-like dependent state at all times. They don't want their children to grow up and gain their independence because that means their children would go off on their own. And they can't let that happen because how could they take supply from their children then?

So, they want to keep their children around for as long as possible and the best way to do that is to basically train their children to be helpless.

They will not teach their kids how to cook or other basic things that you're supposed to teach your child. So that in the end, the child can always feel like “I'm dependent on my parents and I can't make it without them”. There is also mental abuse as well because they'll constantly put their child down while reminding them that they're helpless.

8. Never admitting wrong.

Just never expect a narcissist to apologize. They won't because they don't feel bad about it. Sometimes they will acknowledge it and then later they'll tell you that it didn't happen. If they're not gaslighting you, they're probably turning it around to make themselves the victim. They will never admit their wrongs.

9. Projecting bad traits on to you.

Your parents could be visibly selfish, inconsiderate, evil, and negative. But for some odd reason, they will throw those things onto you as if you are the one with these traits.

10. Destroying your self-esteem.

They plant small seeds of insecurity in your head. These seeds germinate and push your self-esteem into the ground.

As a result, you grow up having no self-love, self-esteem and can’t stop paying attention to that voice in your head that tells you that you're not worthy or good enough.

Another way they will lower your self-esteem is by comparing you to other people. Even if you did the best that you can, it will never be good enough for them because they'll always find a person to compare you to.

11. Causing drama.

They enjoy drama because they feed off of emotional responses. For example, if you have siblings, nine times out of ten, your narcissistic parent will try to make you guys not like each other, especially because narcissistic parents tend to have a favorite called “the golden child” and then they have “the black sheep”.

Narcissistic parents make the black sheep feel like trash, like this person does not matter and is inadequate. They will then put the golden child on a pedestal. But remember they don’t really love the golden child, they just love the image that the golden child represents.

Often they try to call family meetings because they are running low on drama and are searching for an emotional response.

When you feel negative and you have a negative emotional response, they are taking a hit of narcissistic supply; they can see it in your face and in your tone. The more you respond to them with a negative emotional response the higher supply they get and then they’re addicted to that.

Furthermore, a narcissistic parent gives affection to children only when they want something from them. It’s very difficult to meet all their expectations.

As a result, the children feel like they are not good enough. This results in adult children who always feel incompetent, incapable, anxious and have low self-esteem.

Now that you know this, how do you all feel? It's sad but it's happening 😭

SLOW LEARNER STUDY GROUP Est. 1995

[ladyreapermc]

Fic: This isn’t a rom-com 17/17

Author’s notes: So we finally arrived at the last chapter of this fic. I’m really proud of myself for writing something this long and actually getting to the end. I am already planning a sequel and I’d love to hear feedback on this chapter and what you think I could include in the sequel. I also would like to thank everone who stuck around and commented on this. You have no idea how happy you made me. Enjoy this last (for now) chapter!

Summary: Keanu and Lilah meet at the set of John Wick. Rom-com shenanigans ensues

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6  Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16

Wordcount: 3923

Warnings: bad language; smorking, fighting and some angst

Lilah woke up the next morning with the sound of her father’s car pulling up in the driveway. It made her stomach twist into knots, dread filling her chest because she knew there was no way to avoid it now, they would have to have that conversation. She untangled herself from Keanu and it was clear evidence of how exhausted he was because he barely stirred.

She exchanged her PJs for a pair of shorts and the first t-shirt she could find and went down the stairs. Lilah paused just outside the kitchen, listening to her parents talking in hushed voices.

“He’s out of sedation and breathing on his own,” Frank said with a sigh, weariness and fatigue coloring his voice. “I really thought… for a moment there…”

“Don’t,” Alba said her voice breaking a little. “He’s gonna be just fine. He’s strong.”

“I know, I just…” another sigh from her father. “He had a couple of cardiac arrests during surgery. Turns out amphetamines in his blood were reacting badly with one of the medications.”

“Amphetamines?” Alba’s tone was confused. “Like speed?”

“I don’t know what it is exactly, but yes. He’s doing drugs.”

“It’s not speed,” Lilah said walking into the kitchen and making her parents look over in surprise. “It’s probably Adderall.”

“Adderall?” her mom frowned. “Why would he take that?”

“To help him study for some tests. He promised to stop…” Lilah hated to break Jamie’s confidence like this, but they needed the full picture.

“And you believed him?” Frank snorted, his expression almost scornful. “All junkies say that!”

“Jamie’s not a junkie!” Lilah exclaimed. “He just…” she trailed off, at lost of what to say. “Had a lot on his plate and thought he needed a bust.”

“Oh please!” Frank snorted again. “I worked two jobs all through med school and never used drugs to pass my tests! He’s stupid, that’s what he is! And ungrateful! He was given a golden opportunity and just threw that away! Once the board of directors finds out he was on drugs while working for the hospital, that’s it! His career is over!” He slammed his fist on the table, making Alba and Lilah jump. “Stupid, reckless, idiot…”

“Stop!” Lilah shouted, making Frank’s angry gaze shift to her. “Just stop! Jamie’s in the hospital and all you care about is if he’s gonna have a job when all he gets out? How heartless are you?”

“Lilah…” Alba called in gentle warning, but Lilah was too far gone to pay attention. Between the terror of almost losing her brother and all of the soul searching she had been doing the past couple of weeks, hearing her father talking about Jamie like that made something inside of her snap.

“Do you even care about us? Aside from making sure we’re the poster children you can brag about at the country club?” she all but yelled in her father’s face, watching his blue eyes going wide. “Do you wanna know why Jamie was taking Adderall? Because he was working 80 hours a week in a hospital where everyone knew he was your son. He knew every action he took, every misstep he made would come back to you. He was working in a place that anything less than perfect would be unacceptable. I’m surprised he didn’t snap!”

“All there you go again!” Frank scoffed, rolling his eyes. “I’m the big bad villain because I want my children to succeed. How awful of me.”

“Not a villain. Just an asshole!”

“Dalilah!” Alba’s voice was like a crack of a whip, making her stand to attention with a start. “You will not speak like that under my roof! Especially not to your father.”

Lilah pressed her lips together and crossed her arms over her chest. She hated how her mom always took her father’s side of things.

“No Alba. Let her speak,” Frank said with a sneer. “Maybe that way she can work out through these daddy issues of hers! Because that’s the only reason I can think of for her to crazy enough to date a man old enough to be her father!”

His words made Lilah stumble back and straight into Keanu’s strong chest. He steadied her with gentle hands on her shoulders and she looked up at him, catching the somber expression in his face. She wondered how much he heard.

“And you,” Frank continued, getting to his feet and walking towards Keanu. Lilah made sure to keep herself between both men just in case. “I’ve been trying to figure out if this is some kind of mid-life crisis or if you’re just a creep who prey on naïve young girls.”

“I’m not a fucking girl!” Lilah shouted, making her father gaze snap back at her. “I’m twenty-nine, dad! A damn adult! Completely capable of making my own decisions about who I date or what I want to do with my life!” she declared stepping up at him and Frank actually backed away. “And you don’t get to criticize anyone about dating younger women. Wasn’t mom 21 when you met her? While you were 36? Don’t you think you’re being a little hypocritical?”  She saw her father’s eyes narrowing and the way he swallowed hard as he glanced at his wife. He didn’t have an argument against that. “You don’t get to judge my choice in boyfriends and you certainly do not get to bully me into being ashamed of this.”

“Is that what I’m doing?” he snorted, arms crossed over his chest.

“It’s what you always do!” she pointed out. “Darling, don’t you think that skirt is a little too small? You don’t want boys to think you’re easy, do you?” she pitched her tone lower, mimicking her father’s voice. “Baby, I’m sure creative writing classes are interesting, but what are you gonna use that for? Be smart about what you spend your money on. Film school? Are you out of your mind? Grow up! You need a real career!”

She could see her father’s eyes widening as she threw his own words back at him. Lilah always wondered if he even noticed how much they hurt. From the corner her eye, she saw Alba staring at them, her expression just as horrified.

“Truth is I do have tons of daddy issues. Jamie too,” Lilah said, her voice returning to normal. “Because you spent all of our lives making us feel worthless unless we were doing exactly what you wanted. You made us feel like unless we were your perfect children, you would never love us. I became a nearly pathological people-pleaser and perfectionist, while Jamie kept pushing himself so hard he felt his only choice was to take drugs so he wouldn’t disappoint you. So, congratulations! You did a great job fucking up your kids.” Lilah turned her back on her father, heading towards the door. “Oh, not that you care because it’s not a career you’d approve, but I got in film school. Starting next year, I’ll be getting a master's degree in screenwriting.”

She walked out the door, without a second look to her parents, but she felt Keanu following her like a silent shadow all the way back to her bedroom. She felt weirdly numb after that shouting match. All the words that had been stuck on her chest for so long finally out there. She dropped on the edge of her bed, staring unseeingly at her own hands.

“Are you ok?” Keanu asked, tone soft and gentle. He was kneeling in front of her, trying to catch her gaze. “Talk to me, please.”

“I don’t know,” she finally replied with a shaky breath. “I think I went too far. I overreacted and…”

“Don’t do that,” Keanu asked, caressing her cheek with his thumb. “You have all the right to be upset. Always. It doesn’t matter the reason; doesn’t matter if they don’t understand it or if they wouldn’t react the same way. It doesn’t make your feelings any less valid, okay?”

And those words hit Lilah in a corner of her heart that had been shoving all the hurt and pain of having her feelings invalidated and reprehended by people who were supposed to love her unconditionally, including herself. Lilah swallowed around the lump on her throat and hugged him tightly, hiding her face in his chest. Keanu maneuvered her until she was sitting on his lap and pulled her closer, kissing the top of her head and mumbling soothing words as he held her through it all.

She didn’t know how long she stayed like that, but after a while, Lilah’s tears finally stopped flowing and she just stayed cuddled in Keanu’s lap, letting him embrace her, keep her safe, away from the harsh reality of her brother being in the hospital or the epic fight she just had with her father. In his arms, none of that existed.

“Can I ask something?” Keanu started, voice low and gentle and Lilah nodded against his chest. “You’re really gonna go? To NYFA, I mean?”

“Yeah,” she replied, looking up at him. “I got the money and you were right; it is my dream. I’m tired of pushing it aside.”

“I’m very happy for you,” he smiled wide, kissing her forehead and Lilah grinned, some of the tightness in her chest loosening a bit. “But just so you know, if you decided to take that job at Oxford, I’d be happy for you too. I just want you to do what is best for you.”

“I know,” she replied, meeting his lips for a kiss as relief washed over her. It was good to know that Keanu would be supportive of her choice either way. “Thank you.”

There was a short knock on her door and Lilah got up to open it. She found her mother outside, her eyes red and puffy, she had been crying just like Lilah herself had.

“I’m going to see you brother. Are you coming?”

“Yeah. Just give me a moment to change?”

Her mother nodded and stepped away, letting Lilah close the door. She turned to Keanu and he just gave her a soft, understanding smile, still on his spot on the floor.

“Go. You need some time alone with your mom.”

“Thank you,” Lilah sighed, bending down for one last kiss before quickly changing clothes and meeting her mother by the car.

Most of the drive to the hospital was made in awkward silence, her mother staring straight ahead, shoulders and arms tense almost like a statue as she drove.

“Mãe (mom)…” Lilah started once they pulled the car to a stop at the visitor’s parking lot of the hospital. She just couldn’t take the silence anymore. “Desculpa (I’m sorry).”

“Não, amor. Eu que deveria pedir desculpas. Eu nunca soube (No, darling. I should be the one to apologize. I never knew) …” Alba choked up in her words, tears springing in her eyes. “Eu nunca soube que você se sentia assim. Nós te amamos, não importa o que você faça ou quem você namore. Eu sei que seu pai às vezes age como se isso não fosse verdade, mas é. Eu prometo (I never knew you felt like this. We love you, no matter what you do or who you date. I know sometimes your father acts like that isn’t true, but it is. I promise).”

“Eu sei (I know),” Lilah sighed, rubbing her face. “Mas saber e sentir são coisas bens diferentes (but knowing and feeling are very different thins).” Alba sighed too and pulled her into a hug.

“Vai ficar tudo bem. Jamie vai ficar bem e nós vamos encontrar um jeito de consertar tudo isso. Todos nós. (It’s gonna be ok. Jamie is going to be fine and we’re gonna find a way to fix everything. All of us).”

As Lilah stepped out of the car, she really wished she could find a way to believe her mom, but after everything that had happened in the last couple of days, being ok seemed like a very distant reality. She kept quiet and followed Alba through the hospital and to the ICU room where Jamie was being kept for observation.

The sight of her brother all hooked into tubes and wires looking small and frail was so jarring it made her freeze at the door. Lilah had always seen Jamie as a force of nature, unstoppable to the point of being annoying at times. But right here, in that hospital bed, under the harsh lights of the room, he looked anything but that.

“You’re just gonna stand there?” he asked, voice low and raspy, surprising Lilah. She knew he was out of the respirator, but she hadn’t been aware he was already talking.

“No, of course not!” she walked in, standing by the side of his bed, unsure of what to do, where to touch. “How are you?”

“I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck,” he joked weakly, cracking a smile. Lilah snorted. Only Jamie would make such a terrible joke at such a time. “So, I hear you’ve got yourself a sugar daddy? Some famous old fart?”

“Seriously?” Lilah rolled her eyes, glancing at her mom, who just rolled her eyes too. “He’s neither an old fart or my sugar daddy. He’s just older and my boyfriend.”

“I wanna meet him. See if he’s good enough for you,” Jamie said, his eyes fluttering closed. Lilah could only imagine how much effort it took for him to stay awake to chat with them.

“You will. When you get out of here,” she said with a smile. “For now, just get better, ok?” Lilah pressed a kiss on his forehead and stepped outside to give Jamie and Alba a moment alone.

While she waited, Lilah emailed both NYFA, confirming she would be signing up in January, and Arthur Pierce, politely declining his offer. The action released what was left of the knot of doubt that had taken residence in her chest. Lilah was still terrified of course. It was a lot of changes in a short time. She had no idea where her life was going. But for the first time, she felt that, wherever it was heading, it was on her terms and no one else’s. Or so she hoped.

After visiting Jamie, they headed back home and Lilah made a beeline to her bedroom, expecting to find Keanu there, but to her surprise, the room was empty and his suitcase packed, ready to go. The sight of it made her smile fall. She knew he couldn’t stay, but she didn’t expect him to go so soon.

As she was coming down the stairs to search for Keanu, Lilah saw her father heading towards the kitchen. She went after him, knowing they needed to talk. She wasn’t gonna apologize for what she said, but she knew she had cut him deep and someone needed to take the first step.  

She followed him to the backyard, her heart hitting her throat when she saw Keanu was sitting outside, smoking. Her father loomed over him for a moment, but Keanu seemed unfazed as he looked up at the older man.

“Give me one of those,” Frank said, at last, taking a seat on the lawn chair next to Keanu’s. “It’s been ages since I’ve smoked.”

“Not a good habit to have when you’re a doctor,” Keanu commented, and Lilah thought she heard just a hint of tension as he handed one and the lighter.

“I googled you,” Frank said after he lit his cigarette and returned the lighter to Keanu. “Wanted to know what kind of man my daughter was dating.”

“What did you find?”

“You certainly have been dealt a shitty hand in life,” Frank said, and Keanu snorted.

“I guess that’s one way of putting it,” he said, glancing sideways at the older man.

“This isn’t just some random fling for you, is it?” Frank asked, meeting his gaze.

“I don’t just jump in flights to Miami for random flings, Dr. Bennett. I love your daughter very much,” Keanu replied, his tone almost matter-of-factly and Lilah’s heart lunged in her chest.

“So, you knew about this film school thing?”

“That she got in? yes. That was decided to go I learned at the same time you did.”

“Tell me honestly, can she make it?” Frank asked his tone almost pleading. “I know she thinks everything I do is to control her, but all I ever wanted was to keep her safe. She’s my baby girl. I’m afraid of what the world can do to her. How it can hurt her, break her spirit.”

“Dr. Bennett, I can’t tell you if she’ll make it or not. There’s no way to know,” Keanu started, shifting on his chair so he was facing the other man. “I will tell you this: your daughter is amazing. She’s smart and stubborn and she’s stronger than you think. Tougher than you think. Even if she doesn’t make it, she’ll be fine. It’s not like she doesn’t have a backup plan. Knowing her, she probably already has a backup for the backup.”

“Yeah, that sounds like my Lilah,” Frank said with a chuckle.

“Trust your daughter, Dr. Bennett. You and your wife raised an incredible woman,” Keanu said with a smile and Frank snorted, eyes downcast.

“Didn’t you hear? I screw her up.”

“Only if you hold onto that image of who you wanted your daughter to be, instead of seeing who your daughter is and can be. That woman? She’s breathtaking.”

As Keanu said that, he glanced over at Lilah, catching her soft smile and smiling too. Frank followed his gaze, noticing his daughter was there watching them, before looking back at Keanu with a chuckle.

“How long have you known she was standing there?”

“A while.” Keanu stood up and offered him a hand. “It was very nice to meet you, Dr. Bennett.”

“You too, Keanu.” Frank stood up too and shook his hand.

With one final nod, Keanu walked up to Lilah. He paused in front of her, hand on her cheek, just watching her. There was such a sadness in his gaze that she felt her chest tightening.

“I’ll give you two some privacy,” he said, pressing a kiss on her lips and walking away before Lilah could say anything else. She thought about following him, but there was another man in her life she needed to focus her attention on right now.

Lilah took the seat Keanu had vacated, hugging herself and keeping her eyes away from Frank. Part due to hurt. Part due to fear. She wasn’t sure what to expect just yet.

“He’s sneaky, that one,” Frank commented, stubbing the remains of his cigarette and Lilah nodded. “But wise and very much in love with you.”

“I’m very much in love with him too,” Lilah said, glancing at her father to gather his reaction but he just sighed.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” Frank said, his voice breaking, eyes welling up. “I never wanted to hurt you I was just trying…”

“I know, dad,” Lilah sighed too, struggling to talk around the lump in her throat. “But Keanu’s right. You need to trust me, let me make my own choices. If I screw up, then I’ll face the consequences. That’s how life works.”

“I know,” he replied with a shaky breath. “If I could turn back the time…”

“We can’t,” Lilah interrupted, taking his hand and squeezing it slightly. “We can try to do better from now on.” Frank nodded, drying his eyes on his sleeves.  

“He’s right, you know?” he said with a soft smile. “You already are an incredible woman and I’m very proud of you.”

“Thanks, Dad,” she replied, letting him pull her into a hug.

Lilah knew this wound between them was far from healed, but they made steps in the right direction today and that was definitely something. She stayed wrapped in her dad’s embrace for a while longer before they both headed back inside. Frank stayed in the kitchen to help Alba, while Lilah headed to her room, finding Keanu sitting on her bed, all ready to go.

“How are things with your dad?” he asked before Lilah could even begin to speak.

“It’s… not good, but better, I guess,” she admitted, take a seat next to him and letting Keanu entwine their fingers together. “We’ll need to work on it. I need to work on it. Just another thing for the list.”

Lilah let out a long sigh. She didn’t even recognize her life at this point. Not after most of what she thought she was and wanted changed and Lilah didn’t even know if for better or worse just yet. Only time would tell. There was one thing Lilah knew, though.

“You can’t stay, can you?” she wasn’t just speaking about Miami.

“No,” Keanu sighed, voice so low Lilah barely heard it. “You’ll never be sure if you made these choices because of yourself or me if I stay.”

She let out a shaky, strangled breath, tears prickling her eyes again. She hated the fact that he was right. Would Lilah even have considered film school if she hadn’t met him? Would it even have been such a hard choice between NYFA and Oxford if Keanu wasn’t in her life? After everything, Lilah wanted to do this for herself and be sure she was doing it for herself.

“You know, if this was a rom-com, right now would be the part we make big declarations of love and kiss and everything would be magically alright,” Lilah pointed out, her tone a little bittersweet.

“This isn’t a rom-com,” Keanu replied, bringing her knuckles to his lips. “There’s no magic fix, Lil. Despite what The Beatles said, sometimes, love is not all you need.”

“I know,” her voice was cracking, tears making it hard for her to get the words out. “I don’t wanna do this.”

“Me either,” his own voice was rough and choked. When Lilah dared to look his way, Keanu had his head bent low, hair shielding his face. “But you’re figuring yourself, figuring your life and I’m afraid that if I stay, I’ll get in your way because I’ll want to help. Right now, if I could, I’d try to protect you from all harm. It took everything of me not to intervene when you were arguing with your parents. I still didn’t manage to stay out of it completely. I just wasn’t built that way. You need to know that it was all you. Your decisions, your mistakes, your wins… I can’t be part of it. Not yet anyway.”

“K…” her voice died as Lilah didn’t know what to say to that and Keanu let out a small snort, glancing her way, his eyes reddish.

“I like how you call me, K. Everyone else goes for Ke.”

“I’m not everyone else,” Lilah replied, and he smiled, that same sad smile from before.

“No. You’re not,” Keanu pulled her into his lap, hugging her tight, face buried on her neck. Lilah wrapped her arms around him just as tightly, nose in his hair, breathing in deep.

“What time is your flight?” she mumbled against his hair.

“In four hours,” he replied, and Lilah felt his warm breath tickling her skin.

“Can you stay until then?” She asked and Keanu tilted his head up, meeting her eyes.

“I’d like that,” he said, letting Lilah seal his lips with a kiss.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxthe end (for now at least)xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Tag list (give a shout to be added or removed)

@toomanystoriessolittletime @meetmeinthematinee @theolsdalova @krazycags01 @beyond-antares @cumberbatchbaps @sgt-morgan @futuristic-imbecile @howtoruin-someones-perfect-day @a-really-bi-girl @fanficsrusz @nonsensicalobsessions @poisonedjoinery @soarocks @kindainlovewithkeanu @ficsnroses @weird-civilian​

[southboundhqarchive]

MEET MARGARITA,

FULL NAME › Margarita Celestina Dominguez Espinosa AGE › twenty two GENDER › Cis female (She/Her/Hers) FROM › Tucson, Arizona RESIDENCE › Villas Adobes community (Downtown) OCCUPATION › Waitress at the Turquoise Star Diner NOW PLAYING › Don’t You Forget About Me by Simple Minds

BIOGRAPHY,

trigger warnings: cheating, mental illness, depression, psychosis, ableist mentions/language

Was there ever a happier baby than Margarita Dominguez Espinosa? To hear her parents tell it, she was born smiling, and if you were ever to insist it was impossible or just a reflex, her parents would actively shush you—you weren’t there, you didn’t see it. Margarita grew up believing she was the luckiest little girl ever born, and she was right to think it. Her parents, so deeply in love. Her mother, so doting and caring. Her father, so wise and loving. Her brother, teasing and attentive. The Dominguez Espinosa household was practically built with bricks made of love; a nice, happy family that smiled at strangers and waved at neighbors. So positive, so sunny that the very idea of muffled yelling behind their closed doors was preposterous, unlike other families on the street that nearly had nightly shows of their not-so-behind closed door dramatics.

Of course, things are never as perfect as they seem. People aren’t as happy as they seem, but the Dominguez Espinoas were, for a time. None more than Margarita. Rarely did she have a bad mood, a temper tantrum. Her family showered her with love so much that she assumed every family was the same, every person as happy and carefree as herself, and nothing made her happier than making others happy. She would bend over backwards to do good things, her little hand was the first to be thrown in the air when a teacher needed a volunteer to pass out tests, she would bring in her neighbor’s groceries and feed their dog when they went on trips to visit family elsewhere. Margarita, or Margie as she became to her classmates, was voted Most Helpful three years in a row, because helping others made her feel happy inside. She felt good when others were telling her how good she was. (Maybe her need was driven more by selfishness, that need for validation.)

From a young age, Margarita was watched by every adult around her, because Margarita would say yes to anyone. Her need to be liked was nearly pathological and while it made her popular, it could also get her into trouble; if someone asked her nicely, she’d steal a pen off of a desk or a tube of lipstick off of the makeup counter. It also worked in her favor, when she was caught doing something naughty, her teachers or parents or the parents of her friends knew that someone must have put her up to it, as she was too sweet to come up with something so devious on her own. Margarita Dominguez must have been the most blissful, serene child they had ever seen.

Margarita was eleven years old when her family joined those on the street that had parents fighting behind closed doors and children pretending not to listen. Though those doors were closed, it couldn’t muffle much, and Alejandro and Margarita knew instantly what their father had done. Carlos, a pediatrician, slept with one of his patient’s mothers. No, he didn’t just sleep with her, it was an affair. The months following the revelation were hard and it only made Margarita smile harder. Dorothea, disgusted by her husband’s betrayal, kicked him out. Shortly, like it always seemed to work out in the movies, Carlos moved in with Kathleen. Kathleen, with a fifteen year old son from her teenage years and a five year old daughter from a failed engagement just a little while ago. A divide came between Carlos and Dorothea, mother and father on two different sides of a war with Ale and Margie in the middle.

Alejandro, disgusted by his father just like his mother. Margarita, while upset and hurt by her father’s betrayal, was so much softer in that upset. When Carlos begged his children to stop ignoring him and to pick up his calls, Margie broke first. When Carlos wanted to introduce his children to Kathleen and her children, Margie met them first. Margarita was the only one of their family to attend their wedding. While she hated that her father hurt them, and resented Kathleen and her innocent children, she did much better when in the same room as them. Alejandro warmed up over time, but only thawed enough to exchange pleasantries with a smile that couldn’t convince anyone of anything other than a son’s still bitter feelings and the fact that he’ll never accept his father’s new family.

Her family broken apart and (albeit unwanted) new family gained, all within two years. Whirlwind and quick, so different from the calm, content childhood just a few years in the past, it didn’t stop when soon after their wedding, her father heard the siren call of Boot Hill. A pediatrician, job offers weren’t scarce, and often Carlos would scoff at the idea of leaving Tanque Verde, but the offer that came from Boot Hill burrowed itself into his brain until it was all he could think about. A once tranquil home, it once again grew explosive when Carlos announced to Dorothea that he was taking Margie with him. (Alejandro, however, would be left in his mother’s care.) Technically he couldn’t just rip her from her mother’s grip, but he damn near tried, and when they finally turned their eyes onto the thirteen year old Margie, she could only sputter for a near minute before she meekly whispered yes.

She didn’t really want to move, but she didn’t want her family to break apart, either. She never wanted her father to leave her and she never wanted to leave her mother, but the look in her father’s eye that silently pleaded with her to accept, pleaded with her to say yes, made it clear that making her father happy was more important than making her mother angry. Since she said yes, there was no reasoning that Dorothea could use against Carlos to make her daughter stay (and really, it was only a few hours away, it was still in Arizona—if only Dorothea had known she’d never see her daughter again), and so she was off. Off to Boot Hill. Within days, the car was packed up and they were following the directions printed off an email by her father’s employer.

While Tucson was a middling city, Margarita believed it had a small town feel, but she realized that she had no idea what small town meant when they finally rolled into Boot Hill after what felt like days. Her step-brother, Garrett, muttered something under his breath, Kathleen looked vaguely like she was going to cry, and her father was smiling, so she smiled too. It would be a new adventure, her father had promised, and she didn’t realize before that adventures weren’t always fun or even interesting, sometimes adventures were downright bad. Or just… overwhelmingly normal. From the outside, Boot Hill looked like every little town they showed on teen dramas that her parents used to call ridiculous.

Everyone at her old middle school already knew her, they knew she acted as if her blood consisted of pure sunlight, they knew Margie Dominguez would do anything you asked of her. At this new school, this new town, Margarita Dominguez Espinosa was a blank slate. She could walk into its halls and be a brand new person, no one here knew that Margie cut Josie Weaver’s hair because Desiree Hernandez told her to or that Margie once pulled the fire alarm during an assembly because some boy two grades above her said it would be so cool if she did, but immediately, Margarita fell back into old habits. Margarita, above all, was herself, and who she was was a people-pleaser. Her heart would soar when she was told she did a good job. Her mind would nearly black out if someone called her their friend.

Almost immediately, Margarita gained the reputation of sweetest girl in class, and eventually the school. She became protected by her girls, anyone caught teasing her would get shit for trying to tear down a girl that only ever wanted to help people. She was so pleasant, so smiley and sweet, others would swear it was pathological: Tinkerbell on crack. The sweeter she was at school, the moodier she became inside. Not so much a facade, but a defense mechanism. A wall, or maybe a fence, something to block anyone from seeing just how little control she had.

She was sixteen when Margarita realized bad things can happen to anyone, even nice girls who just want to do good things. Everything seemed to crash then (for the third time). Her father, a respected and liked pediatrician back in Tucson, was sued by a patient for malpractice. Her step-brother became more incorrigible, blooming into something more than just the regular allotted teenage mood swings. Her step-mother seemed to be growing more wild in the eyes, growing more caged by boredom in a town that she never seemed to be able to get away from, even if she tried. Things seemed to be getting worse by the minute, but no one around her seemed to notice. No one ever seemed to notice anything in Boot Hill.

Margaritia, despite the slow decay of her family—her father spent more time at work than at home, Kathleen spent more time sitting on the couch staring into nothingness, Garrett more sullen and sometimes explosive with each passing day—she maintained her status as the nice one out of the popular kids. Sleepovers at her best friend’s house turned into parties at a cute boy’s house, drinking after (and during) a football game became the norm, Sunday mornings were spent having breakfast at May’s after staying up all night instead of sleeping in or going to church. She spent so much time hanging out with friends, she rarely had time to be at home and watch the decay, sometimes even unaware of how bad it got, sometimes deliberately staying at a friend’s all weekend just so she wouldn’t have to watch her step-mother regret moving to Boot Hill.

She loved her family. (Despite disliking her step-family for many years, they slowly became family without her really realizing it.) She loves her family, truly, but being around them was starting to hurt her cheeks from all the smiling, all the salving over the tension and the depression and acting like nothing is wrong. Somehow, high school relationships were easier to navigate, and Margie never feared she peaked in high school, she already knew she did. With her family becoming more and more fractured, separated by walls and closed doors, she had to wonder why she was the only one pretending nothing was wrong, the only one trying to make their house into a home again. She never asked, only because she was afraid of the answer.

High school eventually ends and as her graduation quickly approached, Margarita realized the extent of what was kept behind closed doors, namely Garrett’s. Her step-mother in bed, her father gone at work, Margarita was reading at her desk when she heard something rustling in the room next door, Garrett’s room. He called for his mother, but Margie was the one to answer, opening her door slightly ajar to see him frantically searching around his room. Bugs, he said. He kept seeing bugs in his room and implored her to enter, confirm his suspicions, and there was no smile on her face when she told him she couldn’t see anything. Quickly she jostled Kathleen awake and stood on the sidelines, watching as Kathleen tried to calm Garrett down, only for him to be more convinced, only for him to escalate, to beg them to see what only he saw, doubted that they didn’t. By the time he claimed the bugs were inside his skin, Margie had already dialed 911.

A few days without Garrett mumbling something behind a closed door, Margarita was still deeply shaken when he came back from the hospital, seemingly fine. He was okay now, her step-mother told her, but Margarita had a fear in her stomach that she never had before. There was an anxiety now, the way her heart dropped every time she heard her step-brother moving about hurriedly in his room, afraid she’d have to relive the scariest night of her life, only for the noise to quiet down and the night to continue smoothly. Now, Margarita rarely came home if she could avoid it, overstaying her welcome at friend’s houses and passing out at parties only so she wouldn’t have to go home to sleep it off. She got a job, waiting tables at the Turquoise Star, picking up any shift available and covering for anyone who needed it, even at her inconvenience.

Everything ends, even high school. Margarita tried to be ecstatic that she graduated, and while she was happy, that night (and the few subsequent bad nights that occurred every few months, with her there or not) had brought a heaviness to Margarita that most noticed, others ignored. She still smiled, she still did whatever was asked of her, but there was less passion with which she did these things. Her people-pleasing manifested in bumming smokes off of older men for her and her not-yet-eighteen-years-old friends instead of helping old ladies cross the street or donating to the annual food drive at the local church. While a younger Margie had dreamt of going to college, doing whatever society expected of her, the gulf between high school and college seemed to grow longer until she was longer thinking about it.

The gulf had to be substituted, filled to help her stop thinking about it. Practically living at the Turquoise Star with how often she is there, even when she isn’t scheduled for a shift, nothing matters more than earning her paycheck, filling her days. Picking up hobbies, like puzzles and knitting. Riding bikes in the winter when it isn’t too cold and swimming at the pool in the summer before the water gets too hot. Spending time with friends and trying to get back that fuzzy feeling in her stomach when helping others at the local church. Nothing can replace that well of anxiety at each raised voice in her step-brother’s room, nor the pit of sadness at her step-mother’s refusal to rise out of bed, nor the lake of anger in her chest at her father’s avoidance of home (despite doing the same herself). The only thing that keeps her coming home is her step-sister, Emma, thirteen years old—the same age as Margie when she moved to Boot Hill—and entirely innocent, she doesn’t deserve to be abandoned by the only constant in the Russell-Dominguez home. She still tries to keep the family together, but it’s becoming clear they’re only going to decay, like the Dominguez Espinosas. They are decaying.

Twenty two now, Margie tells herself all her paychecks are to get an apartment, move out on her own, maybe bring Emma out with her to the Silver Spurs, but she knows she’ll never escape that house. She’ll never escape Boot Hill. Has anyone?

❝ girl as a honeycomb—sickly sweet, riddled with empty spaces. ❞

CENSUS,

FACECLAIM › Georgie Flores AUTHOR › Admin Rachel

[southboundhq-a-blog]

 MEET MARGARITA,

FULL NAME › Margarita Celestina Dominguez Espinosa AGE › twenty two GENDER › Cis female (She/Her/Hers) FROM › Tucson, Arizona RESIDENCE › Villas Adobes community (Downtown) OCCUPATION › Waitress at the Turquoise Star Diner NOW PLAYING › Don’t You Forget About Me by Simple Minds

BIOGRAPHY,

trigger warnings: mental illness, depression, psychosis, ableist mentions/language

Margarita Dominguez Espinosa felt like she was the luckiest little girl ever born. Her mother told her that she born out of the strongest love, her parents so happy together and so in sync, that Margarita was a totem of their love—as was her brother, Alejandro. Her parents doted on her like she was a little princess, and in their eyes, she was. Her mother Dorothea said she was born smiling, and if you tried to interject that it wasn’t possible or maybe it was just a reflex, she’d actively shush you, as you weren’t there, you didn’t see it. Anyone who knew the infant Margarita would say the same, and Margarita grew up believing she really did smile from the moment she was born. She grew up smiling at her own reflection, her father told her she looked her prettiest when she was grinning like it could power the sun. 

If a boy pulled on her braids, or another girl made fun of her, Margarita smiled. She would smile any time something hurt or upset her, if she saw something scary on the news or read a sad passage in a book. She smiled because she had been told that when she smiled, nothing bad could happen, and it was something that stuck to her for years. She would bend over backwards to do good things, her little hand was the first to be thrown in the air when a teacher needed a volunteer to pass out tests, she would bring in her neighbor’s groceries and feed their dog when they went on trips to visit family elsewhere. Margarita, or Margie she became to her classmates, was voted Most Helpful three years in a row, because helping others made her feel happy inside. She felt good when others were telling her how good she was. She felt happy when she made others feel happy.

From a young age, Margarita was watched by every adult around her, because Margarita would say yes to anyone. Her need to be liked was nearly pathological and while it made her popular, it could also get her into trouble; if someone asked her nicely, she’d steal a pen off of a desk or a tube of lipstick off of the makeup counter. It also worked in her favor, when she was caught doing something naughty, her teachers or parents or the parents of her friends knew that someone must have put her up to it, as she was too sweet to come up with something so devious on her own. Margarita Dominguez must have been the most blissful, serene child they have ever seen. It was a shame Alejandro was much more moody.

Margarita was eleven years old when her father heard the siren call of Boot Hill; a [something], job offers weren’t scarce, and often [Dad name] would scoff at the idea of leaving Tanque Verde, but the offer that came from Boot Hill burrowed itself into his brain until it was all he could think about. As tempted as he was to accept, he knew better than to make such a big decision for his family without discussing it with them (or at the very least, his wife), so he sat them down and asked how they would feel about a move. Dorothea hemmed and hawed. Alejandro reacted with well-expected teen angst. Margarita smiled, because it didn’t matter if she didn’t want to leave Tucson if it made her father happy. Within weeks, their car was packed up and they were following the directions printed off an email by her father’s employer.

While Tucson was a middling city, Margarita believed it had a small town feel, but she realized that she had no idea what small town meant when they finally rolled into Boot Hill after what felt like days. Alejandro muttered something under his breath, her mother looked vaguely like she was going to cry, and her father was smiling, so she smiled too. It would be a new adventure, her father had promised, and she didn’t realize before that adventures weren’t always fun or even interesting, sometimes adventures were downright bad. Or just... overwhelmingly normal. From the outside, Boot Hill looked like every little town they showed on teen dramas or family dramas that her parents would call pretentious.

Everyone at her old middle school already knew her, they knew she acted as if her blood consisted of pure sunlight, they knew Margie Dominguez would do anything you asked of her. At this new school, this new town, Margarita Dominguez Espinosa was a blank slate. She could walk into its halls and be a brand new person, no one here knew that Margie cut Josie Weaver’s hair because Desiree Hernandez told her to or that Margie once pulled the fire alarm during an assembly because some boy two grades above her said it would be so cool if she did, but immediately, Margarita fell back into old habits. Margarita, above all, was herself, and who she was was a people-pleaser. Her heart would soar when she was told she did a good job. Her mind would nearly black out if someone called her their friend.

Almost immediately, Margarita gained the reputation of sweetest girl in class, and eventually the school. She became protected by her girls, anyone caught teasing her would get shit for trying to tear down a girl that only ever wanted to help people. She was so liked, so high in the clouds, Margarita thought nothing bad could ever touch her, nothing bad could even attempt to do it. And she rarely ever stopped smiling.

She was fifteen when Margarita realized bad things can happen to anyone, even nice girls who just want to do good things. Everything seemed to crash then. Her father, a quickly respected [job name], was sued by a customer/patient idk yet. Her brother became more incorrigible, blooming into something more than just the regular allotted teenage mood swings. Her mother seemed to be growing more wild in the eyes, growing more caged by boredom in a town that she never seemed to be able to get away from, even if she tried. Things seemed to be getting worse by the minute, but no one around her seemed to notice. No one ever seemed to notice anything in Boot Hill.

Margaritia, despite the slow decay of her family—her father spent more time at work than at home, her mother spent more time sitting on the couch staring into nothingness, her brother more sullen and sometimes explosive with each passing day—she maintained her status as the nice one out of the popular kids. Sleepovers at her best friend’s house turned into parties at a cute boy’s house, drinking after (and during) a football game became the norm, Sunday mornings were spent having breakfast at May’s after staying up all night instead of sleeping in or going to church. She spent so much time hanging out with friends, she rarely had time to be at home and watch the decay, sometimes even unaware of how bad it got, sometimes deliberately staying at a friend’s all weekend just so she wouldn’t have to watch her mother regret moving to Boot Hill.

She loved her family. She loves her family, very deeply, but being around them was starting to hurt her cheeks from all the smiling, all the salving over the tension and the depression and acting like nothing is wrong. Somehow, high school relationships were easier to navigate, and Margie never feared she peaked in high school, she already knew she did. With her family becoming more and more fractured, separated by walls and closed doors, she had to wonder why she was the only one pretending nothing was wrong, the only one trying to make their house into a home again. She never asked, only because she was afraid of the answer.

High school eventually ends and as her graduation quickly approached, Margarita realized the extent of what was kept behind closed doors, namely Alejandro’s. Her mother in bed, her father gone at work, Margarita was reading at her desk when she heard something rustling in the room next door, Ale’s room. He called for their mother, but Margie was the one to answer, opening her door slightly ajar to see him frantically searching around his room. Bugs, he said. He kept seeing bugs in his room and implored her to enter, confirm his suspicions, and there was no smile on her face when she told him she couldn’t see anything. Quickly she jostled her mother awake and stood on the sidelines, watching as Dorothea tried to calm Alejandro down, only for him to be more convinced, only for him to escalate, to beg them to see what only he saw, doubted that they didn’t. By the time he claimed the bugs were inside his skin, Margie had already dialed 911.

A few days without her brother mumbling something behind a closed door, Margarita was still deeply shaken when he came back from the hospital, seemingly fine. He was okay now, her mother told her, but Margarita had a fear in her stomach that she never had before. There was an anxiety now, the way her heart dropped every time she heard her brother moving about hurriedly in his room, afraid she’d have to relive the scariest night of her life, only for the noise to quiet down and the night to continue smoothly. Now, Margarita rarely came home if she could avoid it, overstaying her welcome at friend’s houses and passing out at parties only so she wouldn’t have to go home to sleep it off. She got a job, waiting tables at the Turquoise Star, picking up any shift available and covering for anyone who needed it, even at her inconvenience.

Everything ends, even high school. Margarita tried to be ecstatic that she graduated, and while she was happy, that night (and the few subsequent bad nights that occurred every few months, with her there or not) had brought a heaviness to Margarita that everyone noticed. She still smiled, she still did whatever was asked of her, but there was less gusto with which she did these things. Her people-pleasing manifested in bumming smokes off of older men for her and her not-yet-eighteen-years-old friends instead of helping old ladies cross the street or donating to the annual food drive at the local church. While a younger Margie had dreamt of going to college, doing whatever society expected of her, the gulf between high school and college seemed to grow longer until she was longer thinking about it.

Twenty two now, Margarita has found a groove in her work at the diner and made attempts to get back into charity, the thing she loved so much as a child. It’s taken progress. She still lives at home, still fearing her brother as his illness deepens and ignoring her mother’s, still ignoring the fact that her father would rather sleep in his office than at home, but things are getting easier now that she’s saving up to get an apartment. Things are getting easier now that she’s growing up.

Maybe one day she’ll even make it out of Boot Hill. She smiles thinking about it. I don’t love this ending line but i’m tired and i’ll fix it laterssssssss

❝ girl as a honeycomb—sickly sweet, riddled with empty spaces. ❞

CENSUS,

FACECLAIM › Georgie Flores WRITER › Admin Rachel

[oovitus]

Weekend Reading, 4.29.18

I nearly broke into clapping (at home, alone) earlier this week when I read Amanda Cohen’s Women’s Health article on women and appetite.

In her essay, Cohen describes a scenario I think most women can relate to:

Over the years, I’ve watched hundreds of dinners from the pass, and I have a terrible confession to make: When I see two women sit down, my heart sinks a little, because of what I see happen so often. First, one of them says, “I’m starving, do you want to get this? And one of these?” then the second woman begins, “I’m not that hungry, but if you really want it. . .” Soon, three courses becomes a few appetizers, and a bottle of wine becomes a glass. I get it: We all want to look and feel good, but I see this so predictably that it feels pathological.

I see a lot of it, too. I’ll never forget being at a dinner long ago with a group of vegan eaters. At the time, I associated veganism strongly with newfound freedom and healing with food. So I was surprised when, after a multi-course meal, more than half of the women at the table started expressing remorse about how stuffed they were, how they’d need to go for long a run the following day, and started Googling juices bars for the morning after.

The meal had been wonderful. Of course I’d had my own little nagging nudges of guilt—should I have eaten every bite of every course? Did I really need to sample the two desserts that were brought out? But I’d also felt lucky to have eaten the food and proud of giving myself permission to bask in that sensation. I wasn’t actually stuffed—I was comfortably full—so to embrace a posture of having overdone it would have felt disingenuous, too, more socially programmed than truthful.

I knew it wasn’t my place to question anyone else’s experience that night: I couldn’t know what others were feeling, and if recovery has taught me anything, it’s to stop fixating on what other people are doing and to focus on my own needs. But it was challenging to stand by my feelings as the collective discussion of food guilt got louder.

In the years since, I’ve had this experience many times. The common denominator is how rarely I can actually relate to exclamations of fullness. When I’m at a dinner and everyone leaves the table declaring how stuffed they are, half the time I want to say, “really? That was delicious, but I could go home and eat a sandwich right now.”

Maybe that’s because I have a bigger appetite than most people, or maybe it’s because I’m not interested in pretending that my appetite is any smaller than it really is. As a kid, I was told repeatedly that I was a “bottomless pit”; at one point, when I was only eight, I was labeled at a family dinner table “the human trashcan.” I carried the sense that there was something wrong with me and my appetite and all of the shame that came along with it for so many years. Putting the burden down was a huge relief.

Maybe I do have an unusually robust appetite. If so, cool: it’s a feature of my body and biology, like any other. Maybe my appetite is enhanced by the fact that, at a very early age, I was instructed to deny it. No matter the case, years of watching the very scenario Cohen describes leads me to suspect that many women are in the same boat as me—hungrier than we’ve been socialized to say we are.

I know that there’s a flip side to all of this, which is that social situations and group dining can encourage a lot of us to eat more than we really want, because there’s a lot of food on the table or because we’re people pleasers and we have a hard time turning things down. That’s its own food-related challenge; I don’t want to make a broad assumption about what’s going on when people eat more than they initially expressed wanting.

But I do think that Cohen’s observations are worth talking about, and her main point is definitely worth talking about:

The dominant emotion I sense at these meals is fear: fear of looking like we want too much, of being judged. From the time we’re kids, we girls are taught to be ashamed of our appetites—that they have to be controlled, that they’re dangerous, embarrassing. The result? We live in a world where 53 percent of women are at a healthy body size but still report that they’re trying to lose weight.

Cohen’s essay brought to mind this post, which has always been one of my personal favorites from the blog. When I read it now, I’m aware of the fact that I was much less at peace with my appetite when I wrote it than I thought I was. It doesn’t matter; for me, that post was a brave declaration of an intention to eat and enjoy it, and I’ve done my best to live by that intention in the eight years since.

I’m grateful to Cohen and other women who are doing what they can to normalize, celebrate, and speak up honestly about the experience of hunger, wanting, and getting appetites met. And while this dialog may resonate especially with women, I think it’s crucial not to confine it by gender. A few of the articles that I’m sharing today demonstrate that eating disorders and food shame affect all of us.

Here’s to celebrating food, appetite, and the great blessing of being able to feed ourselves when we’re hungry. I’m wishing you all a wonderful week ahead.

Recipes

I was so excited to dive into my first meal-sized salad lunch in months yesterday, and it brought on a rush of spring salad fever. I love Marie’s colorful asparagus orange spinach salad with a bright lemon basil vinaigrette.

More asparagus! I have yet to try hummus as a pasta sauce, but I use it often as a quickie salad dressing, so I think I’ll dig it. Evi’s quick hummus pasta with asparagus is inspiring me.

A simple, inexpensive, nutritious, and colorful side: Caitlin’s Moroccan spiced carrot salad.

I’m always hunting for new portable lunch ideas, especially now that I’m anticipating a year of bringing lunch to work at clinical sites, and I’m super intrigued by Amy’s creative, colorful chickpea and cranberry coleslaw wraps.

Finally, a little comfort food. Mike’s sun-dried tomato and chickpea burgers are hearty, healthy, and super simple to make. I love adding sun-dried tomatoes to food for umami, and I’m sure I’ll enjoy these.

Reads

1. Runner’s World reports on eating disorders among men. I was really interested to read that, because male runners don’t experience the classic “female athlete triad” (underweight, amenorrhea, osteopenia), symptoms of ED often slip under the radar.

2. Another important piece of reporting on this subject: Daniel Summers on the very high prevalence of EDs in the LGBTQ community.

3. From the Cup of Jo blog, 17 beautifully sensitive reader comments about grief.

4. Joanna’s blog also pointed me to this article about how older Japanese women are finding community in jails. As I read, I felt saddened that a sense of support and belonging wasn’t more readily available to the women elsewhere, yet sort of amazed at the strength of the human impulse to connect at all costs.

5. Finally, Amanda Cohen on loving food. Lots of it.

Happy Sunday, and love to you all.

xo

The post Weekend Reading, 4.29.18 appeared first on The Full Helping.

Weekend Reading, 4.29.18 published first on

[gardencityvegans]

Weekend Reading, 4.29.18

https://www.thefullhelping.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/weekend_reading.jpg

I nearly broke into clapping (at home, alone) earlier this week when I read Amanda Cohen’s Women’s Health article on women and appetite.

In her essay, Cohen describes a scenario I think most women can relate to:

Over the years, I’ve watched hundreds of dinners from the pass, and I have a terrible confession to make: When I see two women sit down, my heart sinks a little, because of what I see happen so often. First, one of them says, “I’m starving, do you want to get this? And one of these?” then the second woman begins, “I’m not that hungry, but if you really want it. . .” Soon, three courses becomes a few appetizers, and a bottle of wine becomes a glass. I get it: We all want to look and feel good, but I see this so predictably that it feels pathological.

I see a lot of it, too. I’ll never forget being at a dinner long ago with a group of vegan eaters. At the time, I associated veganism strongly with newfound freedom and healing with food. So I was surprised when, after a multi-course meal, more than half of the women at the table started expressing remorse about how stuffed they were, how they’d need to go for long a run the following day, and started Googling juices bars for the morning after.

The meal had been wonderful. Of course I’d had my own little nagging nudges of guilt—should I have eaten every bite of every course? Did I really need to sample the two desserts that were brought out? But I’d also felt lucky to have eaten the food and proud of giving myself permission to bask in that sensation. I wasn’t actually stuffed—I was comfortably full—so to embrace a posture of having overdone it would have felt disingenuous, too, more socially programmed than truthful.

I knew it wasn’t my place to question anyone else’s experience that night: I couldn’t know what others were feeling, and if recovery has taught me anything, it’s to stop fixating on what other people are doing and to focus on my own needs. But it was challenging to stand by my feelings as the collective discussion of food guilt got louder.

In the years since, I’ve had this experience many times. The common denominator is how rarely I can actually relate to exclamations of fullness. When I’m at a dinner and everyone leaves the table declaring how stuffed they are, half the time I want to say, “really? That was delicious, but I could go home and eat a sandwich right now.”

Maybe that’s because I have a bigger appetite than most people, or maybe it’s because I’m not interested in pretending that my appetite is any smaller than it really is. As a kid, I was told repeatedly that I was a “bottomless pit”; at one point, when I was only eight, I was labeled at a family dinner table “the human trashcan.” I carried the sense that there was something wrong with me and my appetite and all of the shame that came along with it for so many years. Putting the burden down was a huge relief.

Maybe I do have an unusually robust appetite. If so, cool: it’s a feature of my body and biology, like any other. Maybe my appetite is enhanced by the fact that, at a very early age, I was instructed to deny it. No matter the case, years of watching the very scenario Cohen describes leads me to suspect that many women are in the same boat as me—hungrier than we’ve been socialized to say we are.

I know that there’s a flip side to all of this, which is that social situations and group dining can encourage a lot of us to eat more than we really want, because there’s a lot of food on the table or because we’re people pleasers and we have a hard time turning things down. That’s its own food-related challenge; I don’t want to make a broad assumption about what’s going on when people eat more than they initially expressed wanting.

But I do think that Cohen’s observations are worth talking about, and her main point is definitely worth talking about:

The dominant emotion I sense at these meals is fear: fear of looking like we want too much, of being judged. From the time we’re kids, we girls are taught to be ashamed of our appetites—that they have to be controlled, that they’re dangerous, embarrassing. The result? We live in a world where 53 percent of women are at a healthy body size but still report that they’re trying to lose weight.

Cohen’s essay brought to mind this post, which has always been one of my personal favorites from the blog. When I read it now, I’m aware of the fact that I was much less at peace with my appetite when I wrote it than I thought I was. It doesn’t matter; for me, that post was a brave declaration of an intention to eat and enjoy it, and I’ve done my best to live by that intention in the eight years since.

I’m grateful to Cohen and other women who are doing what they can to normalize, celebrate, and speak up honestly about the experience of hunger, wanting, and getting appetites met. And while this dialog may resonate especially with women, I think it’s crucial not to confine it by gender. A few of the articles that I’m sharing today demonstrate that eating disorders and food shame affect all of us.

Here’s to celebrating food, appetite, and the great blessing of being able to feed ourselves when we’re hungry. I’m wishing you all a wonderful week ahead.

Recipes

I was so excited to dive into my first meal-sized salad lunch in months yesterday, and it brought on a rush of spring salad fever. I love Marie’s colorful asparagus orange spinach salad with a bright lemon basil vinaigrette.

More asparagus! I have yet to try hummus as a pasta sauce, but I use it often as a quickie salad dressing, so I think I’ll dig it. Evi’s quick hummus pasta with asparagus is inspiring me.

A simple, inexpensive, nutritious, and colorful side: Caitlin’s Moroccan spiced carrot salad.

I’m always hunting for new portable lunch ideas, especially now that I’m anticipating a year of bringing lunch to work at clinical sites, and I’m super intrigued by Amy’s creative, colorful chickpea and cranberry coleslaw wraps.

Finally, a little comfort food. Mike’s sun-dried tomato and chickpea burgers are hearty, healthy, and super simple to make. I love adding sun-dried tomatoes to food for umami, and I’m sure I’ll enjoy these.

Reads

1. Runner’s World reports on eating disorders among men. I was really interested to read that, because male runners don’t experience the classic “female athlete triad” (underweight, amenorrhea, osteopenia), symptoms of ED often slip under the radar.

2. Another important piece of reporting on this subject: Daniel Summers on the very high prevalence of EDs in the LGBTQ community.

3. From the Cup of Jo blog, 17 beautifully sensitive reader comments about grief.

4. Joanna’s blog also pointed me to this article about how older Japanese women are finding community in jails. As I read, I felt saddened that a sense of support and belonging wasn’t more readily available to the women elsewhere, yet sort of amazed at the strength of the human impulse to connect at all costs.

5. Finally, Amanda Cohen on loving food. Lots of it.

Happy Sunday, and love to you all.

xo

[Read More ...] https://www.thefullhelping.com/weekend-reading-4-29-18/

[simplymorganunedited-blog]

A Double Whammy: Strawberries, Yogurt and Alphabet Soup

A double whammy of appointments today. 

I feel very refreshed. Meeting with my team always leaves me feeling positive, feeling brave, feeling like there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. 

Update: Mondays have officially become my favourite day. 

Here is what this particular Monday brought me. 

Dietician Talk: 

Blind Weight: 

Third one folks. 

I don't know what it is. I don't really want to.

I just wanted you to know it happened. 

Morgan Gets Shut Down Part One: 

“Gym?”

“No.” 

Sh*t. 

Hunger and Me: 

I’ve been feeling hungry recently.

 Surprise right?!

Actually, yes. 

I’ve been feeling hungry lately, right after I’ve eaten a “well-balanced, well-portioned meal.” (My dietician’s words; this isn't even Morgan’s Brian talking folks.)

Thus, anxiety. Anxiety, anxiety, anxiety.

So, what is going on? 

Apparently, this is normal. Apparently, “some recovering ED patients can eat a large number of calories, up to 5,000....”

*Jaw Drops. Morgan’s Brain preps her temper tantrum.. 

Ummmm excuse me??????? What?? 

“....and barely gain any weight.”

Double what??? 

Bodies are weird. 

Bean Talk:

I received a lovely lesson in carbs and protein today, so I thought I’d pass the information along. 

Beans: Both carbs and protein. 

Quinoa: Mostly carbs. 

Cool right??

Menopause:

I feel like I’m going through menopause. 

Like hot flashes. Serious hot flashes. 

Side Note: I would like to formally apologize to Karen Jenkin. Mom, I’m sorry for every single time I laughed at you for stripping down in the kitchen when you were sweating your face off. I understand now. Like seriously, I’m so sorry. 

Just kidding. Not menopause.

Basically, my body’s metabolism has a heyday every time I nourish it.

Hence, a speeding up of my metabolic rate.

Hence, the hot flashes.

Cue sweating. 

Strawberries and Yogurt: 

New snack. 

10:30 am: Strawberries and yogurt.

I’m actually pretty okay with this, much to the dismay of Morgan’s Brain. (More food equals more calories which equal more fat which equals imperfection), but let’s just forget about her opinion for a while (like forever), cause honestly it doesn't matter. 

I have really been enjoying my snacks. They are mostly fruit, and yogurt, and granola, which are safe foods for me, and foods that I really enjoy. Moreover, I think this will help the intense hunger/anxiety I feel around lunchtime, which causes me to panic during my lunch prep, which can equal an unplanned purge if the panic-meter gets too high. 

So yeah, strawberries and yogurt. 

I’ll keep you updated. 

A Positive Reminder: 

“Look at where you are now versus one month ago.” 

One month ago I wasn't eating. One month ago I was dying. 

I ate soup today. And liked it. 

Enough said. 

Wizard Talk: 

Continued Homework: 

Watch Brene Brown’s video at least once a week. Glean something new from it each time. 

(Not) Pathological Lying:

Real Talk: I thought I was a pathological liar. 

Honestly, I did. (No pun intended).

All my life I have lied. It started when I was a child. 

“Morgan, why did you lie about that?” 

“Honesty is the best policy.” 

It only got worse as I grew up. It happens all the time. I don't even mean to do it. I just do. It just slips out of my mouth before I can stop it, and I spend the next however long (days, weeks, months, years) trying to cover it up. 

Real Talk: I feel so much shame about this. Like, At-The-Core-of-My-Self-Hatred kind of shame. 

Realest Talk: It is the biggest strain on my relationship with my Dad. 

My father operates on truth. Honestly, he is the most honest person I know. (Pun intended). Yet, I lie. I lie to him constantly. But here’s the thing. I don't do it on purpose. I don't do it to be malicious, or mean, or unkind. I do it to make myself look better. I do it because I don't want to let him down, because I want him to be proud of me. 

I do it because I want to look perfect. 

“Morgan, you are not a compulsive liar. You are a compulsive people pleaser.” 

Yet again, the Wizard has outsmarted me. I crave approval. I crave approval in every aspect of my life. I crave authenticity, and just want people to think more of me. So I fabricate more. Or I avoid what I can’t perfect, what makes me look bad; the things that scare me. I look at myself, and see that I am not enough, and create more to cover it up. 

“Compulsive People Pleaser.”

That sounds a hell of a lot better than “Compulsive Liar.”

Real Talk: That doesn't mean it’s okay.

New Homework Part One: Realize what situations I feel anxiety about. (This usually triggers bulimic urges, but I’ll get to that in a minute) Make a deliberate effort to tell the truth, or correct myself if I do lie. 

“Be a flawed human being like everyone else and you’ll feel a hell of a lot better.” 

Okay Wizard. 

Alphabet Soup: 

“I don't want to give you alphabet soup, but you’re on the OCD Spectrum.”

Side Note: On top of being a genius, the Wizard is also funny as hell. 

But anyway. I digress. 

I’m not surprised. Like, not one ounce of me is surprised. 

I know I’m OCD. I am perfectly aware of how perfectionism rules my life, right down to the tiniest detail.  If I notice something is out of place, I HAVE to get up and fix it. Everything in my life has to be in its place. Everything has to be just so.

Side Note: It’s honestly so exhausting. I feel like I’m on a hamster wheel, constantly trying to make things perfect, constantly searching for control. 

I beat myself up if I don't go to the gym, if I don't clean my room on the day I decided I would, if I don't finish everything on my to-do list. Basically I beat myself up a LOT, cause let’s be real, we’re all human and stuff doesn't get always done. 

Except, I don't allow myself to think that. 

Except, I think its my fault; that I am a failure, that I am imperfect.

Hence, bulimic urges.

I had a moment this week. I had a moment this week, where I was working on my bullet journal, and I hit a road block. A book. I couldn't draw a book. 

I should go throw up.

I’m not joking. 

It’s usually like that. I think most people assume that when I need to purge, I’m thinking about my Mom, or school, or life, or him.

Nope.

Stupid sh*t like cartoon books. 

I wish I was joking. 

So what do I do? 

“Control avoidance, rather than let it control you.”

Fun Fact: Bulimia equals avoidance. Throwing up is a release, a way to escape a problem (however small), rather than face the thing that’s actually bothering you. Or, in other words, a coping mechanism. A  sh*tty one, but a coping mechanism just the same. Unfortunately for me, it’s the one I’ve been relying on for the past 3 years, whenever there’s a bump in the road, or things don’t seem to be going my way. 

Time to find a new one Morgs. 

New Homework Part Two: 

Watch Reed Wilson’s series, “Tolerating the Discomfort”. 

This will serve to build what the Wizard calls an “active toolkit”; strategies that I can use to deal with anxiety, rather than going to toss my cookies. 

Watch “Living Brave” with Brene Brown and Oprah Winfrey. 

Oprah for homework? 

Yes please. 

Morgan Gets Shut Down Part Two: 

“Gym?” 

“Absolutely not.”

Sh*t.

BUT. 

Strength training is okay. Kind of. Well, not the kind of strength training Morgan’s Brain thinks is okay, but the kind of strength training that is okay for Morgan right now.

Cue the 8 lb weights. 

I’ve also been cleared to maybe join a therapeutic yoga class. This may be something fun to do with friends.

A social event that doesn't involve food?

Double win. 

I really hope this helps with my anxiety. I also just really don't want to lose muscle tone. I think (and I hope I’m right) that focusing on getting stronger will make the prospect (reality) of gaining weight less daunting. By focusing on my body’s strength and abilities, I can focus less on the aspects of my body I don't like, or flaws that I (Morgan’s Brain) will inevitably find with weight gain. 

It’s funny. He brought it up months ago. He’s going to say “I told you so.” 

He should. 

He was right. 

For once.

Weight Talk: 

A goal weight. 

120 lbs.

Real Talk: I am completely, utterly terrified. 

I know its necessary, but still,  the word TERROR lights up my brain, in blinking red, with fire and lights and lasers. 

Neural pyrotechnics.

F*ck.

“You still have a LOT of weight to gain,” says the Wizard. 

Real Talk: I’m happy about this. Not the gaining weight part, but the fact that I’m so thin. 

I don't really know how to feel about these thoughts. I know they’re ED thoughts, but I also know that they are a part of the recovery process. 

I just cant let them win. 

“No negotiating.” 

You hear that Morgs? 

Just because you’re feeling better, just because you’re less tired, doesn't mean that you can stop trying. 

Just because you feel bloated,  just because you’re gaining weight, doesn't mean that you can give up. 

Cause you wouldn't be gaining anything.

There is nothing to gain on the scale.

There is nothing to gain in front of the toilet.

There is nothing to gain by dying. 

Here’s what you’ll gain by living. 

The chance to teach, to touch hearts and minds. 

The chance to travel, to expand your horizons. 

The chance to laugh, to love and be loved. 

The chance to be happy, to love yourself fiercely, to celebrate you and you struggles, each and every day. 

Seem worth it? 

It is.