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bokettochild · 3 years

Note

Hey Ketto, I'm not sure if you are taking any requests rn, but I've had a rough time of it recently and if it's no bother or hassle, could I request a fic where Time gets comforted by Warriors? Something with cuddles and hair petting, and Time getting to be held. Only if it's no bother. - Nick @thesacredtwink

Of course, Nick!

Sorry I didn't see this until just recently, but I whipped up something for you as soon as I could. I hope it helps, luv, and if you want more please do not hesitate to ask!

Time has been acting strange since the last switch.

At first, none of them questioned it, after all, leaving the ranch made them all a bit down, Time especially however, their leader usually sprung back to himself within a few days of travel time, going back to making jokes that made the others groan and offering advice and aid to their younger heroes. This time however, Time had only gotten worse, the shadows under his eyes growing nightly, the older hero falling silent and stern and very nearly snappish with the others. Only this evening, Warriors had seen Time lose his temper with Wind when the kid had been bubbling around him all day, and while the sailor took the scolding and tired ‘you’re just too much, Wind’ like a soldier, Wars had seen how the kid had retreated to Twilight and Legend during dinner, clinging to the both of them with misty eyes and keeping himself strangely silent while Time brooded on the other side of the fire.

The captain sighed to himself. If his boys were having trouble getting along, not just adjusting to being on the road again, then it was his place as a father (brother?) to step up and see what the problem was. After all, Time would tear himself up about this later, so he needed to nip it in the bud now before the man did something that would make the following guilt later even worse.

Time was seated on the far edge of camp that evening, and unlike most nights on the road, the man had left his sword in its sheath, himself still clad in his armor as the others shed their excess layers, and a blue ocarina was cradled in his hands, eyes distant and brows pulled low as he stared off into the forest. Not brooding then, sulking, and he wasn’t quite sure if that was better or worse in the moment.

“Room for one more?”

Time’s blue eye flickered to him for a moment with a dark scowl, the man shaking his head tiredly and pulling himself up.

Oh shoot, a royal sulk! Time was usually fine to let someone sit next to him, even when he was brooding, but if it was so bad that he didn’t even want anyone nearby? Oh goddesses, Warriors had his work cut out for him.

Dinner that night was a cold affair, the younger ones trying to prompt Wind into anything resembling conversation as Legend poked the sailor’s side, and the older ones exchanging worried glances as they looked from their sulking leader to each other. Usually, someone would break the stillness with a joke or a tease, but Legend’s snark only made things worse when Time shot the vet a look after he had made a jab at Warriors, and while the captain appreciated the defense of his honor, it was reminding him much too much of the war when Time had been a gremlin ready to wreak havoc on anyone at the nearest hint of insult to his father-figure. And while he rather doubted that Time could pants Legend (no pants, and their leader hopefully knew better now that he was older) it was an uncomfortable reminder of the kid’s worse days when nothing could get through to him and Warriors had to be very careful to hide his flask where the kid wouldn’t find it.

When arranging watches, Time had just grunted and moved to the edges of camp and Warriors found himself wincing.

“I’ll take second watch.” He told the others. “Time’s claimed first- don't ask, that’s what that huff usually means. Wind, you’re on Twilight duty, make sure the rancher doesn’t wander off again this evening, alright?” That earned a smile from the kid however hesitant, and while Twilight looked mildly offended, Warriors mentally blessed the rancher for not protesting the comment.

“Yessir, Cap’n.” Wind offered a sharp little salute, and he couldn’t help but reach over and ruffle the kid’s hair as his chest had swelled with pride. They’d worked on that salute a thousand times and now it was as clipped and smooth as any officer’s, even better than many of his men. Maybe he should have the sailor give his soldiers a few tips he chuckled to himself as the others sorted out watches; Legend taking the one directly after his and Hyrule the one after. Wild was on morning cooking duty, so the kid was ordered to rest for the night to avoid any sort of unfortunate mishaps. Usually, it wasn’t a problem to let the wild Champion take final watch, but if his plans (of course he had plans, did you doubt him?) were going to work out, the kid would need to be well rested to prepare the breakfast he’d asked for in the morning.

Knowing glances were shot his way by the others, Sky and Twilight both clapping his back and Legend tugging his scarf with an impish smirk as the others headed to bed, silent wishes of good luck ringing clear across the camp as he was left alone with their leader while the others settled in for bed.

He waited until the sun had set properly and the snoring of the others had begun rumbling around the camp, Twilight’s throaty snorts and Wind’s rumbling ones mixing with Four and Legend’s more soft snuffling ones. Hyrule and Wild lay silent and curled up, each snuggled into one side of the cuddle pile that had formed with Wind in the center, the sailor clinging to Twilight and Legend both in his sleep and dooming them to be smushed in by the other heroes. Sky, at the head of the pile, drooled slightly in his sleep, apparently uncaring that the others were using him as a pillow, and with one hand lost in Twilight’s dark hair. It made him smile as he took them in, pulling himself up to go and ensure they were all tucked in warmly before he turned his attention to the brooding warrior on the edge of their camp.

Time was still fiddling with his ocarina, eyes downcast and almost misty as the older man sat on the edge of camp, and he had to stop for a moment to collect himself before confronting him; Time looked miserable.

“Guilt hitting you yet for yelling at Wind?” He drawled, coming to sit next to the other and carefully arranging his scarf where time could grab it if needed. The man was no longer a child, but even so the blue fabric was a comfort to most of their odd little family, and scoldings or long talks were always made easier when it was available to hide under.

“A bit.”

“If it helps, he knows you didn’t mean it.”

Time slumped in place. “I still said it. Wind looks up to me now, I-” The other cut off with a sigh, tired eyes and weary heart both dimming as he watched.

“Right then, what’s eating you?” At Time’s startled expression he offered a knowing frown. “I helped raise you, Sap, I know when you’re taring yourself up over something and I’d half to be as blind as you to not tell when somethings hurting you. So, what is it?”

Royal blue blinked slowly, a match for his own and so terribly distant as Time turned back to the forest, thumbs trailing over the smooth porcelain of the ocarina. “I’m worried.”

“For?”

“For Malon.” Oh shit. “She wasn’t feeling too good when we left and-” Time’s face twisted up, eye glimmering as the man stared up at the stars, pain twisting his expression and straining his voice as one hand had wound into the prepared scarf. “I’m not there. Talon’s getting on in years and if something happens when we’re gone-” Time’s voice hitched, not quite a sob but broken all the same, and like a trigger was hit Warriors was already pulling the other man into his arms, holding tight as Time’s shoulders shuddered under his grasp. “I’m worried, Pops.” Came the broken whisper. “What if-”

“Shhhh.” Like a million times before his hands were running through short blonde hair. It had been ages since he’d trimmed either of his boys and Time was getting shaggy again, something he was grateful for. Running his hands through the kid’s hair had always helped him calm, and it seemed to still be effective even ow, Time melting further into his embrace as he hummed softly, rocking ever so slightly in place. “Malon’s a strong woman, she’ll be fine. People get sick all the time, Sapling, this isn’t anything to fuss over.”

“She couldn’t get out of bed the other morning.” Time breathed against his chest, the ocarina falling to the ground as both of the man’s hands had wound into the blue scarf instead.

Warriors tried to steady the stutter of his heart as he clutched the other a but tighter. “Is that so?”

“She’s been awful nauseas too.” Time choked out. “Wars, I-”

“Has she had random dizzy spells and weird cravings? Maybe gets sickened at the mere idea of certain foods but also likes eating things that even a pig would turn away from?” Oh, goddesses let this be right.

Time’s blue eye stared up at him curiously. “Y-yeah, how’d-”

The captain choked back a snort. “She’ll be fine, Time. Ladies get that way sometimes. My own beloved was that way for a while too, it passes in time, and there's few ill effects.”

“What ill effects?” Time shifted uneasily, pulling away to stare at him better.

“Exhaustion mostly, some pain, and loss of sleep, but,” He tilted his head with a knowing grin. “It’s well worth it in the end when she’s okay again. You’ll want to talk to her about it next time we get there,” if the bulge of Malon’s stomach didn’t give her away first. “But she’ll be alright.” Time stared at him in disbelief, brows pulling together in a doubtful frown that had him huffing in mock offence. “Wat, you don’t believe me?”

“Battlefield experience as a medic-”

Wars cut Time off with a snort. “Battlefield nothing! I was fighting my loves illness before the war even started. It’s not something that catches, I’ll have you know, and as long as she takes it easy, something I trust Malon knows as well as the next woman, she’ll be fine.” He reached over to tig Time’s ears making the other shy away with a strained laugh, only earning a hair ruffle “Stop fussing, Sapling, your lady love will live just fine.”

Time actually outed at him for a moment, something which quite frankly looked ridiculous on the man’s face and made him bust up laughing as the other flopped against him. Absently, his hands drifted back into Time’s shaggy hair, humming softly as Time continued to lay in silence, eyes staring up at the stars and ears twitching slowly.

“Tomorrow,” He tugged one flickering ear pointedly. “You need to apologize to Wind.”

“Trust me, I intend to.”

“Good.” He grinned, flopping his scarf across the other’s face. “But for now, rest, kiddo, you’re a right grouch when you're tired and I don’t mind pulling double shift for a night.”

“I’m-”

“Not fine, and not staying up. Past your bed-time squirt.” He tugged the ear again, earning a soft growl from his adult kid as Time shifted.

“I’m still in my armor.”

“Then change.”

Time pulled himself up with a huff, shucking his armor and letting Wars help him with the buckles and belts before the both of them settled down again. Tomorrow night, the leader’s metal shell would need cleaning, but for now, he’d let himself out to be seen and held, head nestled in Warriors’ lap as the captain played with his hair.

Time’s breathes evened out to join the cacophony of rumbling snores of the others. Warriors smiled, ruffling his son’s hair fondly and turning his eyes towards the moon.

#linkeduniverse #linked universe #dad warriors #lu warriors #lu time #lu malon #mentioned #mamalon #more so than usual #time gets grouchy when he worries #hints at #pregnant malon #time is a good husband #warriors is married #feel free to insert your own ship there if you like #for #thesacredtwink my beloved #fluffics

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fireflyjunkie · 3 years

Text

FEEL SOMETHING

(A Sanders sides Angst one-shot fic)

Part 1

4,391 words

⚠️TRIGGER WARNING⚠️

Razor blades

Self harm

Gore

Numbness

Logan angst

Confrontation on self harm suspicions

Summary:

Logan is tired of being the cold, emotionless robot that everyone perceives him as. He’s repressed his emotions to such a great extent that he genuinely doesn’t feel anything major anymore. He does have his nightly break-downs sometimes, but he needs more than that.

However, this is where roads begin to cross. Logan feels that it would be nice and beneficial to experience strong emotions, but he doesn’t know if this feeling is stronger than his fear of expressing such things. Being viewed as a joke and not being taken seriously is his worst nightmare. Because of this, the logical side just keeps up his stone cold front to avoid being weak.

This dilemma Logan had found himself in really frustrated him. No matter how hard he tried to think of a solution, nothing ever satisfied both ends of the spectrum. The best he had come up with was to keep up the front when he was with the others and then let himself break down at night when no one was around, and even that didn’t help him nearly as much as he wished. This eventually led him to looking for answers online. One search led to another, and Logan has figured out something that might help him. It’s a bit risky, and he’ll have to hide it from the others, but he knows how to be safe with it, so he’ll give it a shot just to feel something.

•———————————————————————-•

Part 1

6:34pm

Logan was sitting at the dinner table with his three friends as they ate their meal. Nothing unusual about the evening, they had their casual little chats and the occasional playful banter from Roman and Virgil, with Patton butting in every so often. Logan kept his focus all on the plate of food in front of him. The paternal figure had worked hard to make this, he wasn’t going to let it get cold. Plus even if he wanted to join the conversation, he wouldn’t even know what to say. Sure he was the logical side and he had a heap of facts to spit but when it comes to the jovial friendly conversations the others usually shared. He truly couldn’t find the words to contribute something meaningful into the atmosphere, so other than correcting a false statement, he kept silent.

“Now Virgil, I’m just saying that a kid would be much more excited to watch a movie like Alice in wonderland and we all know it!” Roman exclaimed to the emo sitting across the table from him. It’s not at all surprising that the current conversation taking place was one about Disney. Especially when it was Virgil and Roman who were the ones bickering. “I mean all the bright colors and such a classic story is bound to win a kid over!”

“Uhuh sure, like kids would want to watch a film about a bunch of mentally ill people on an acid trip. Plus, the queen of hearts is scary for them,” Virgil retorts, glaring at Roman before taking a bite of his food. “The princess and the frog is clearly a superior movie. It’s about an independent hard working woman who doesn’t need a man to help her achieve her goals, like are you kidding me? And she helps him out, that is a nice change for once.”

“Yea I cannot argue with that, we stan Tiana,” Roman admits, leaning back in his chair. Logan was about to question the prince about the term he just used, but decided against it, keeping quiet.

“But the shadow man is scary!” Roman continues.

“Uh, no. ’I’ve got friends on the other side’ is such a bop. But I am one of the friends on the other side,” Virgil pulls his signature 2000’s MySpace emo face. ‘Bop’. Logan remembers what that meant. He had to ask Roman about it later to make a vocabulary card.

“Oh my god can you get any edgier?” Roman asks the snickering Virgil across the table as he rolls his eyes and goes back to his food. The only thing Logan could think of at this time is how useless that conversation was. Their frivolous arguments had no solid points or evidence to back up their argument if they were trying to persuade the other. He chose not to say anything so as to not further encourage them. Instead he had just yet again kept quiet and his focus was on finishing his food so he could retire to his room.

“So Logan, are you almost finished with your work?” Logan’s head snapped up when the mention of his name came from Patton. ‘Work.. it was always work.’

“No, Patton. There are still a few tasks to be completed that need to be completed tonight,” Logan states, adding on that last bit so hopefully he isn’t bugged with having a ‘family night’ as Patton and the others like to call it. Which, it doesn’t make any sense considering the fact that none of us are actually related.

“Well, once you are done with that, do you wanna come watch a movie with us!?” The parental side excitedly asks. Logan internally cringed at Patton’s use of grammar, but more at his failed attempts at getting out of this without having to ask. It’s not that Logan didn’t like the others, it’s just that tonight specifically he wanted to be left alone. Sometimes spending time with them is considered a good thing to him because he knows that he needs to take breaks from his work sometimes and Patton gives him an excuse to do so. Also, knowing that Patton wants him there helps him feel less like a robot, but that feeling quickly returns when they don’t even care to ask him his opinions for the movie choice.

“Oh.. that’s ok! There’s always next time, right?” Patton sounded a little disappointed, but supportive nonetheless. “Well I wish you good luck with that, Logan!”

“Thank you, Patton,” Logan finishes the conversation while turning his attention back towards his almost empty plate.

The rest of the dinner went by as normal. They all took their dishes to the sink and Patton offered to help Roman complete the dishes and Virgil retired to his room for the night. Logan says his goodnights and follows suit to his own room.

After entering, Logan lightly shut his door and pressed his back against the cool wood. The lights were still off, so he sat in the inky black dark atmosphere staring at the ceiling in order to prevent the dark curtain draped over the contents of his room from playing tricks on his eyes. He didn’t bother finding the light switch; he felt it was unnecessary. It would only illuminate everything that reminded him of everything that burdens him. He hates not knowing.

The logical side leaned his head back against the door and squeezed his eyes shut, the blankness of the dark and the silence began to be too much for him; it made him feel too alone. With no senses available, you are left with nothing but your own thoughts to drown in. Nothing to do but to fall down that hole of endless thinking. Logan’s head swarmed with every emotion he was feeling at once. Every fact he wished wasn’t true danced behind his eyes and pounded on his skull demanding his attention.

Logan couldn’t help but let the tears run down his cheeks. They started rolling faster and he held his hand over his mouth, choking back a sob. He hated doing this, but he had to if he wanted to remain sane. He just felt so vulnerable and embarrassed. Logan felt his legs begin to shake so he slid down the door to sit on the floor. God he hopes no one comes to his room.

The logical side stayed on the floor like that for a while. He didn’t know how long, but he was surprised when he looked at his phone to find he had been there for almost thirty minutes. Once the crying had for the most part stopped and Logan realized that it didn’t really help at all, he decided to get up from his spot on the floor and turn on some lights. He had reached for the plug connected to fairy lights strung around his room and plugged it into the electrical socket, illuminating the whole space with a soft Caramel colored glow. The lights were a gift from Patton last Christmas, the parental figure had gotten some for everyone in the house. At first the logical side thought they were childish and impractical due to him already having a light in his room, but Patton persisted so he put them up and once he saw how they casted a honey coating to all the contents of his bedroom and how the atmosphere instantly shifted from sharp to calming and gentle, he decided that they weren’t that bad.

After his eyes had adjusted to the light, Logan walked into the bathroom that he has in his room and shut the door after turning on the light. The sudden contrast of the soft light of his room to the harsh light of the bathroom only worsened his growing headache so the first thing he did was retrieve the Ibuprofen from the medicine cabinet and swallow two. After that he took his glasses off and placed them on the side of the sink before proceeding to wash his face of tears with warm water from the faucet. After he patted his face dry with a towel, he took a minute to just look into the mirror. He took notice of his cold, dead eyes that were a navy blue, but despite being such a bright color, his eyes looked more dull and grey. ‘No wonder the others think I’m a metaphorical robot.” He thinks to himself. He decides not to stay there any longer or else Remus might hear him drowning in his thoughts and show up so he grabbed his glasses and started back towards his room.

Logan didn’t know what to do now. He’s already cried a bunch but that didn’t help. He just sat on the edge of his bed trying to figure things out. The laptop sitting closed and still in his desk caught his eye. ‘There may be an article on the internet explaining my situation.’ The logical side thought to himself before he got up and made his way towards his desk, pulling out the chair and sitting down. While he opened the device up and typed in his password, he thought about what he was going to type into the search bar. While the Google page displayed on his screen awaiting his questions, Logan’s fingers moved to type in the first one that came to mind; ‘How to feel when you are numb?’

Once he pressed enter, he proceeded to scroll for what he was looking for. He passed a bunch of articles about physical health and stuff like that. ‘Perhaps I worded it incorrectly?’ He thought to himself before seeing something that could potentially be what he was looking for. It was a link to a twitter post. It was titled ‘I don’t feel anything. I do this to feel something,’ and Logan thought that would suffice nicely to his needs. Though, the side wasn’t prepared for what he was going to see when he clicked it. Blood. Lots of blood. Cuts all up and down the poster’s forearm that could be recognized as dermis and epidermis level cuts. And finally, a bloodied double edge razor blade sitting calmly in a warm crimson pool on the counter top.

Logan gasped upon the image displayed in front of him. It wasn’t too intense but seeing a part of the human body all cut up didn’t make him feel too comfortable, but he was slightly intrigued. He was kind of confused why the gorey photo was related to what he was looking for so he decided to look into it further; only because the text part of the post seemed to relate a little to his state of mind.

The logical side scrolled down past a few more photos of the same cuts just at different angles. He kept observing the images while trying to think of where to go from here until he decided to use the tags the original poster had provided with the text to research further. He viewed 10 or so hashtags of random things to figure out what the point of this was. Some of them just confused the side, but one of the words he recognized from an article he read a few months ago when Roman fell into a deep depression and he tried to gather as much information as he could to help him because the others were worried and terrified for him. However, he never had to use much information because they had luckily gotten him out of that mental health decline before anything terrible happened. Well, at least to his knowledge. The tag in question reads as ‘self harm’. Now Logan felt a little stupid because he knew what this was before, but a little clarification never hurt anyone.

He had to admit, he was a little taken aback by the fact that what he was experiencing was linked and related to self harm but he decided to explore more under that subject to further understand it. When he clicked on the tag, he was exposed to pages and pages of self harm. He stopped at one particularly disturbing one. It was a video of a girl with a straight razor that resembled that of what a barber would use. In the video, she had pressed as hard as she could and with one clean swipe, the fat inside her arm was exposed. By this point, Logan was feeling a little sick to his stomach on account of what was displayed in front of him. The video however kept going. The girl dabbed the open wound with a white towel, so the amount of blood that was being soaked up was very visible. The girl picked the weapon up again and placed it in the center of the cut and proceeded to apply pressure while she dragged the blade along her arm at a painfully slow speed. When the pool of blood was soaked up, fascia was exposed and Logan really wanted to look away but he couldn’t. He vaguely understood the premise behind self harming, but witnessing it to this extent kind of confused and scared him.

Luckily the video stopped there and Logan closed it out and continued to scroll through the page. He did not find much there other than the pictures and videos of people cutting themselves and he was starting to feel more and more uncomfortable, almost like what he felt when he was under the effects of Virgil’s room; and for that reason he decided to close out this tab and search elsewhere. The logical side really didn’t know why he was so intrigued to this certain coping mechanism. He knew it was very unhealthy, but he couldn’t let it go.

After a few google searches about the topic of self harm and a few articles later, Logan found one specific body of text that piqued his interest. It was basically describing the effects self harming has on the brain and why so many people do it and says it helps. He read through it and the information he gathered was rather interesting to him. Basically, the context of the article was explaining the science behind why self harming was addictive and why some people do it in the first place.

‘So, cutting myself will release neurochemicals in my brain that mimics that of dopamine? Fascinating..’ Logan thinks to himself. The side takes a minute to think it through. Was he actually considering this? I mean, there is scientific evidence that proves that doing this will help him. Logan ponders a bit on that last point, basically pushing him to do it. He just resorts to searching for reasons not to go through with it at this point. Only two reasons came to his mind when he tried to think up reasons to push the thoughts out of his head. The first was the safety aspect of it. Of course when you are cutting yourself there are things that can go wrong; however Logan felt confident enough that he knew how to do this safely. He knew where the vital points were on the human body so he knew where it was safe to cut as well as how deep to go. He also knew how to properly dress the wounds and how to take care of them so they didn’t get infected so the logical side could figuratively throw that worry out the window.

The only factor that was left in play affecting Logan’s decision in going through with this is the guilt he would have to face if the others found out. With Patton having gone through a situation similar to this when Roman was having severe mental health issues and when Virgil ducked out, Logan would figuratively (and almost literally) have the blood on his hands just adding it to the list. He knows that Patton always tries his hardest to do things that make everyone as happy as they can be, and oh the lengths he would go to do that. Let’s just say that the parental side has had many sleepless nights on account of helping someone else. But surely if Patton had ever found out about all the things Logan hasn’t told him, it would make him feel like he hasn’t been enough for people even more than he already does, even and who knows what could happen to him when that happens and he lives knowing that three of his friends have been struggling.

Logan had to ponder on this one for a minute. But with him being logic and all, he brought up the point that the way Patton was thinking about things is untrue and if he had to, Logan with a little of Virgil’s help could sit down with him and possibly explain things in order to pull him from that mindset.

He quietly hummed to himself, feeling accomplished at finding a solution. This satisfied feeling quickly deteriorated as confusion began to spill. Why was he feeling this way about something so grim? Why was he so compelled to stand up to get that spare razor that lay waiting in the bathroom cupboard? He thought it was even irrational to consider doing such things but it just felt like something that could actually help him, and he needed it.

He didn’t know what made him do it, but something in him made him push himself out of his desk chair to shut his laptop without powering it off and making his way to the bathroom. Once inside, he quietly closed the bathroom door. He opened the door of the shadow box, but for some reason it felt super slow like in a dramatic movie. He didn’t know why his hands were shaky when he spotted the razor and went to gently pick it up.

Just then as he examined the weapon in his grip, he felt the adrenaline pumping. It all just set in. Oh my god he was actually going to do this. He was just moments away from his destination. He gulped down a nervous lump in his throat as he examined the perfectly new blade for any rust. The side didn’t understand why he was so nervous; he knew how to do this safely so why was he so scared? Maybe he’s afraid of the pain

Logan however quickly dismissed this thought so that it doesn’t chase him out of a decision. I mean he would only seem MORE weak if he pulled such a pansy move. It shouldn’t be too bad.

He started by washing the blade and his forearm with warm water just as a precaution. He shakily held the blade horizontally over his wrist. Deep breath in and-

Slice

He ran the blade across his skin and then exhaled the breath he was holding. He sort of relaxed when he realized that it wasn’t that bad and that he was ok. Still, he checked the damage. It was a cut on the epidermis layer of the skin so nothing bad. Even so, he watches the blood bead along the clean line in fascination. It started to drip a little but that was caught with the towel that Logan pulled off the towel rack. He gently pressed the cloth to the cut and when he pulled it back, he closely watched as blood refilled the small wound. He was satisfied with his work and for some reason, he couldn’t stop looking at it. He wanted more.

So that’s what he did; the side made a few more clean lines parallel to the first one he made. He would stop to just watch the blood, then soak it up before watching how it refills again. Logan found himself admiring his arm from all angles, wearing these cuts like some sort of sick and twisted accessory. Logan continued to leave a few more little cuts, holding his arm over the sink to not make so much mess with blood (and to not ruin his favorite button up shirt).

The logical side went for one more and pressed a bit harder this time. When he swiped the blade, white was exposed before blood started to seep out from the edges of this deeper and wider cut. Actually being able to see the inside of his arm like that kind of scared him. He recognized this as the dermis level of skin. It made him a bit uneasy how he could turn his arm sideways and see the cut gape a bit, but he couldn’t stop looking at it. He thought if Remus was here, he would have said it looked like a mouth.

After that tiny scare of going deeper, he decided he was done with this for the night, afraid of going farther than he already has. As he started cleaning the blood from his arm and his sink, he was thinking over his success rates with this exercise. He had come to the conclusion that this had done what he wanted it to for him. He smiled to himself as he looked at the fresh cuts. The smaller and thin ones have already dried and scabbed over, but the deeper one he had just done was still filling with blood after each time he soaked it up, but it was slowing down. He doesn't know if he smiled because the treatment worked or if he was just proud of what he had done, but to him it just matters that he got a smile out of it. Once all the blood was cleaned up, he opened the shadow box again to retrieve the bandages. Carefully, he wrapped his arm in a secure bandage and put the rest away. The pressure of the cloth being wrapped tightly around his arm felt oddly nice and contrasted with the burning sensation on his skin from the contact.

The side stops moving and stands perfectly still when he feels a presence in his room. His heart dropped out of fear in realizing that this is the worst time to be here for obvious reasons. He slowly reaches for the doorknob of the bathroom and turns it, trying to prepare himself for whatever is about to happen. When the door was opened, it revealed Remus sitting on Logan’s bed just looking around.

“R-Remus, what are you doing here?” His voice was shakier than he wanted it to be. He wasn’t sure if the cause was from what he just did in the bathroom or the fear he had from another side possibly knowing.

Remus’s gaze shifted towards the nerd and the bandage on his arm. “Well, as I am Thomas’s own intrusive thot,” he stopped for a second to giggle at his play on words, “I can sense unwanted thoughts from any other part of Thomas,” he got up from his spot on Logan’s bed to walk towards him.

“I was picking up something from you, not like the normal. I had some suspicions and came to investigate but it seems as if I was right,”

“I.. I’m not sure I know what you are referring to,” he lied. Logan thought it was eerie to hear Remus talk in this more serious manner.

“Yea, no we both know that is a big lie,” Remus slightly smirked at Logan for the fact that he was right and gestured to Logan’s bandaged arm. Logan just avoided the other side’s eyes and held his arm behind his back. This and Logan’s uncomfortable silence confirmed it to Remus and he was no longer smiling, he had a look of empathy and slight hurt on his face. He was also sort of mad at the others because he feels and sees what Logan goes through with them and he thinks he can understand why Logan would resort to self harm.

“Logan, do you need to talk about it?” He asked. Logan has talked to Remus about his situation before, but he didn’t want to talk about this. He just brushed past Remus to go lay his pajamas out on the bed to get changed for the night. “No, I do not wish to speak of this and I ask you to kindly not mention this to anyone else, but thank you for your concern,” he never turned around to look at the other once. Remus just stood there with a slight frown. He then got an idea on what to do and he sunk out without saying anything else.

Logan could feel when the intrusive side left the room and released the breath he was holding in relief. He felt guilt wash over him in the moment. He really disliked lying to one of his closest friends but it was for the best. It was way too early for him to be able to tell anybody- scratch that. He didn’t want to tell anyone at all. He just hoped that Remus would listen and not tell anybody. The logical side thought of what he would do if that were to happen as he changed his clothes to something more comfortable.

He stopped before getting into bed to ponder if he should leave his fairy lights on while he slept. They were left on as he climbed under the cover to keep the atmosphere soft.

The logical side found himself holding his bandaged arm up above his face to admire it. He didn’t know what it was, but knowing what he'd done gave him tiny butterflies of adrenaline in his stomach which led him to a small smile. Logan was never an artist of any medium, but those crimson lines that stain his forearm felt like an art piece to him. It made him feel accomplished and.. happy. And with that, the side brought his arm back under the covers and closed his eyes to be consumed by sleep with a smile on his face.

•———————————————————————-•

Hope you enjoyed this first part :)

Yea a little background, sanders sides is such a comfort series for me, so I started writing this back when I was struggling a lot and I decided to keep writing this now so I hope you enjoy this bucket of angst haha

Part 2 will be linked here when it is up!

#sanders sides fic #sanders sides #one shot #logan sanders #Logan angst #sanders sides angst #self harm #ahhh my poor baby #vent #Roman sanders #virgil sanders #patton sanders #remus sanders #Janus sanders

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theanimeview · 4 years

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My Interpretation of Blackbird by Junji Ito

By: Casea Mhtar | @madamekrow

Mature Content Warning: This post contains content that we at The Anime View do not think is suitable for everyone. The genre of the work being reviewed is Horror. Possible triggers or subjects could include severe mental illness and suicide. By clicking "Keep Reading," you understand that you may encounter such content. Viewer/reader discretion is advised.

Do you feel the cool winds as they blow through the trees? Do you hear the fallen leaves rolling down the street, scraping against the sidewalk as you pass by? Do you notice the air of gloom hovering over you even on a bright and sunny day? We are now in the throws of Autumn, as we creep closer and closer to Halloween. I hope you’re as excited as I am, because for today’s post I will be delving into a story by Junji Ito, who is also known as Japan’s Master of Horror. I feel he needs no more introduction than that, since one google search will immediately prove why he has such an honorable title.

The one I will be discussing is from Fragments of Horror, a manga of short stories. He created this manga after an 8 year hiatus and it certainly appears that he was rusty in terms of storytelling. Generally, this manga has been received as being rather subpar in comparison with his other works. Which is why I chose this story from Fragments of Horror, the only one that stuck with me even years after I had finished reading the book. It often gets overlooked, making it all the more enticing to shine a light on it.

Blackbird

Kume is out birdwatching, the first time he’s done so in a long while, when he hears someone calling out to him. It’s a stranger lying on the ground, pleading for help. This man gets carried away to the hospital on a stretcher as Kume follows behind. When speaking with the doctor we learn that this man, Shiro Moriguchi, had a terrible fall resulting in both of his legs being broken. Not only that, but he also doesn’t have any family or friends to call, and is unemployed. They all wonder how he survived that long and with a stutter, he explains that he rationed whatever food he had in his backpack.

Later, he begs Kume to stay the night with him and he agrees with mild concern. Moriguchi continues to open up about not having anyone in his life. In fact he never knew his family, expressing that he grew up in an orphanage. Kume replies, “You can talk to me about your troubles. We have a connection now.” before turning over and the two going to sleep for the night.

Kume is awakened by a strange noise, immediately disturbed by the sight of a woman shrouded in shadow on top of Moriguchi, kissing him. She slips off of Shiro, walks to Kume and smiles directly in his face, then proceeds to calmly walk out of the hospital room. Moriguchi spits out a lump of raw meat and begins to panic that she has come back. Kume asks for more information and Moriguchi confesses to him what really happened during those four weeks of being injured and destitute, how he was truly able to survive. Seven days after his fall, he was running low on food when that woman appeared with her cheeks full, chewing and chewing. She kissed him, pushing raw meat into his mouth as it sizzled on his starving tongue. Leaving without a word, only to return the next day. This time, her kiss produced warm blood to quench his thirst. She is the one that kept him alive during that time, but he no longer needs her help. In fact, the meat lost its delicious taste, and he is left feeling as though he shouldn’t be eating it at all. Moriguchi was terrified, so Kume decided to stay with him another night in the hospital.

Once again, Kume was awakened by the woman feeding Shiro in the middle of the night. Immediately, Moriguchi spits out an eyeball from his mouth while the mysterious woman chuckles and leaves. Kume decides to follow her through the halls and out of the hospital. But right as he touches her shoulder, she turns into a large, black bird and flies off into the darkness.

The following morning they choose to alert the authorities, though they leave out the details of her flying into the night. Without the authorities present, Shiro panics about her being some kind of bird monster. Confessing that when he was an infant, he was abandoned in the corner of a park, alone for about a week or so. It’s a miracle that he survived, making him wonder if she was feeding him then as well, as though he is her chick.

Detectives show up the following day, revealing that the eyeball and meat are both of human origin and from the same person. Shiro and Kume are questioned, but can only answer what they know. This leaves the detectives without much to go on and with no way of knowing who the flesh and eyeball came from. But the woman hadn’t returned since Kume saw her fly away.

At a train station, Kume congratulates Shiro on his full recovery. He asks if Shiro has plans to find a job in Tokyo, expressing that it’s a shame he doesn’t stay since he could introduce him to people he knows. Moriguchi is thankful for the offer but declines, saying that he feels he needs to start anew someplace else in order to escape the shadow of that woman. Though, when Shiro’s train leaves the station, Kume sees a large black bird following behind it. He eventually receives a postcard from Shiro, not hearing anything about the bird woman, in fact he seems to be doing just fine! This allows Kume to brush off what he saw as being a kite or an eagle.

Three years later, Shiro Moriguchi was found dead in a frozen crater on the summit of Mount Fuji. They also discover that the meat and eyeball from earlier matched his own DNA, meaning that during the time of his horrible fall, Moriguchi was being fed the flesh and blood of his future self. His belongings were found near his corpse, including his journal with the details of what had happened in his last few days of being alive and frightened. She entered his locked apartment and started taking bite after bite of his flesh. He tried to move overseas, but she quickly found him and flew him to the summit of Mount Fuji. Cold, distressed, and alone, he passed away.

It appears to be winter as Kume goes out birdwatching in the forest again, thinking about the findings after Moriguchi’s mysterious death; When he hears something rustling in the tree near by. He turns around, startled by the bird woman, perched on a tree branch above him. Kume steps back, and with no more ground left, he falls down a cliff and breaks his leg. She readily flies down with her cheeks full. She feeds Kume mouth-to-mouth, as he notes its unpleasant taste.

My interpretation

I had an entire post planned out, depicting all sorts of theories I came up with. I investigated the kanji of their names, the meanings, what the backstory could be, even speculating how this bird woman functions based on my findings...

Until I admitted myself into a mental hospital, staying there for seven days and seven nights. It allowed me to look at this story in a different way. I’m sure my interpretation isn’t truly what it’s about, nonetheless this is what it personally means to me.

It appears to me like the Blackbird is the embodiment of Depression as she only comes to Moriguchi when he is most isolated and defenseless. Technically, since Shiro was being fed meat from his future self, he was the one keeping himself alive. Much like depression, there are times where we can get ourselves through completely on our own, but it comes at the cost of our own lifespan. People with severe mental illness, such as Bipolar or Depression, have a life expectancy of 10 to 25 years less than people without mental illness. Yes, that does include suicide, however this premature mortality is mostly cause by physical chronic medical conditions. People with severe mental illness often don’t get the proper care that they need, as their mental health deteriorates their physical health. I believe Shrio Moriguchi partly expresses these facts. He received wonderful care for his injured legs, but he didn’t get the treatment he needed for his Depression. This resulted in his physical debilitation and mental decline.

Then we have Kume, he was finally able to scare off the Blackbird for some time, as he was Shiro’s only support system. However, Moriguchi continued to distance himself, allowing the Depression to creep in once more. Why did the Blackbird target Kume? Well, relying on one person to be there for you, night after night as the lady shrouded in darkness overcomes you. That person being the only one you entrust with your woes and traumas. They are the only one you depend on to help stave off your Depression. Imagine that person, waiting to read your letters or postcards, making sure that you are okay, only to later find out that you did not survive. You have been taken by the Blackbird, your Depression. That can severely impact someone’s mental health. That is why it’s important to have a support system of not only friends and family (of origin or otherwise), but also of medical professionals that you trust. Kume did his best to be there for Moriguchi, even offering to introduce him to more people, which would allow Shiro to build up a support system. However, Moriguchi did what he thought would be best, resulting in him inadvertently isolating himself further and further into the Blackbird’s grasp. Even in his time of desperation he turned to old habits of writing in his journal, pleading for help in those pages without the intention of reaching out as well. Being trapped in an icy cold hollow atop Mount Fuji is the perfect representation of his severe isolation.

I know this all too well, the devastation your loved one feels as they watch you deteriorate. You fall deeper and deeper into dysfunction, while they are helpless to do much more than to hold your hand through the nightly crises. Kume was there for Moriguchi, accepting all of his issues and willing to confront the Blackbird, even keeping it from coming back for some time. He was open and ready to carry some of the crushing weight that Shiro had been burdened with his entire life. Thus, falling victim to the debilitating gravity of Depression that Moriguchi could no longer cope with. Falling prey to the Blackbird chewing away at his future self. Little by little, bite by bite; Depression can take days, even years off your life.

Yes, my interpretation is rather… depressing. But I do believe it is important to recognize your unhealthy patterns, the patterns that detail your decline. In addition to reaching out for help when you feel yourself isolating further into the harsh depths of your inner turmoil. Not only that, but it’s spooky week! What is possibly more terrifying than confronting the realities of your mental illness?

Happy Halloween!

Of course I wouldn’t just leave you hanging like that! Here are some links for more information on not only how to reach out, but also what kind of help you can expect in terms of calling a suicide hotline or hospitalization. As well as what type of therapy might be better for you and what your options are if you can’t afford it:

10 Ways to Reach Out in a Mental Health Crisis

Here's What Happens When You Call Into A Suicide Prevention Hotline

What Happens When You Are Hospitalized For Depression?

4 Differences Between Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical Behavior Therapy and How to Tell Which is Right For You

What To Do If You Can't Afford Therapy, According To An Expert

#Junji Ito #Ito #Fragments of Horror #Horror #Blackbird #Analysis

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rowanfoster · 4 years

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{ odeya rush ♔ twenty-three ♔ she/her } well, well, well if it isn’t rowan foster running around peach hollow. legend has it, she comes from tangerine towers and has lived here her entire life. if you’re wondering what she’s been up to, i hear she’s a make up artist / freelance musician for a living. she has been known to be impulsive yet insightful. a word of advice to her, always look over your shoulder. you never know who is watching.

why yes, it is i, admin kim, with another character that should’ve been kept in the drafts of my mind. if you’ve not met daysia or serenity, here’s a lil low down on me. i’m 26, i use she/her pronouns, and live on the east coast. i thrive on writing angst and my animal crossing villagers being happy. also caffeine. i luv chris klemens. most likely to have a mental breakdown on twitter. meet rowan! trigger warnings for mental illness, bipolar disorder specifically, and inpatient treatment

have a playlist and a pinterest board dedicated to her

rowan celeste foster was born may 27th, 1996. she’s the oldest of two, a baby sister coming to the scene in 1999.

her family is extremely close. they’ve been in peach hollow their whole lives. she grew up in a crowded house on blueberry boulevard, crammed in with her mother, father, sister, maternal grandmother and maternal grandfather. rowan never knew peace or privacy growing up – it just wasn’t possible with that many people which has really contributed to her somewhat isolated adulthood

her mother is a charge nurse at peach hollow general, working on the emergency room floor. her father is a retired car salesman. her grandparents moved into the house when her sister was born in order to help take care of the girls while their parents worked full time. rowan is especially grateful for their care, because she feels like she’d be a little more sour had she been raised by absent parents.

growing up, she shared a room with her younger sister. they told each other everything because they had no choice not to. they both developed an interest in make up and music at very young ages, but rowan particularly took to those things while maci took more interest in sports. when rowan was gifted her first ukulele at age 6, maci got her first basketball. they are polar opposites, but maci was the only person rowan really confided in as a child and an adolescent.

she’d always been rather moody. tantrums and fits were nearly unavoidable. her self esteem lacked before she even had a chance to develop any confidence. she was always the try hard, the girl who stood out because she was just a little different, the emotional one, the one the other kids didn’t want to mess with, not because she’d fight back, but because she would absolutely lose it. there were countless times where rowan ended up in the guidance counselor’s office, waiting on her grandmother to show up and bring her home. that was the beginning of their problems.

her mental health really started to decline in her mid teenage years. she spent hours upon hours in her room, writing songs, playing guitar, practicing make up looks – she’d go days without sleeping and snap at anyone who crossed her path. she got into screaming matches with everyone in the house, only to find herself crying in her bed for the next few days. she started missing days at a time from school, while her artistry thrive, the rest of her crumbled. her grades, all of it.

eventually, this resulted in her parents yanking her out of peach hollow high and putting her in counseling, which lead her to a psychiatrist and a diagnosis of bipolar disorder at the age of 17. while it made sense, she dreaded taking the medications. they numbed everything. her writing suffered, and while her moods weren’t swinging from the trees anymore, she feared that this empty feeling was worse.

she finished her high school diploma in homeschooling with her grandmother while maci went on to thrive in school. the attention shifted to her, and rowan couldn’t really blame them. she turned 18 and started performing in clubs, bars, and anywhere she could get in. ps her voice is a mix of bishop briggs & mary lambert. the thrill of performing to small crowds sucked her in. she began to gain an even smaller following on social media, mainly the locals following her. every once in a while she’ll book a show in atlanta and she’ll make the long drive just to sing in front of a bit of a larger crowd. she’ll gain a few followers from those shows, but this still isn’t her main source of income.

most of her money comes from the make up artistry she does through pop of peach. she doesn’t go in every day, but when someone has an event scheduled or needs their make up done for a dance or something, she’s there. she tries to spread things out bc she’s always late lmao and finds it hard to stick to a schedule

she was doing so well for a few years, even moved out of her parents’ house and into an apartment at the towers. that’s where she really found herself, made some real friends and built relationships that were good for her. however, she missed a few doctor’s appointments and was discharged from her psychiatrist’s office. she went off meds, and for a few weeks it was fine. when she ran out of meds, the next few weeks were okay as well. it was when every single drop of medication had drained from her body that things got bad.

rowan was missing appointments she scheduled at pop of peach. she was spending far too much time out at nights, giving in to alcohol for the most part. she tried not to touch any drugs, but drinking became a nightly thing. she’d perform, then spend the rest of the night partying with whoever she could find at the venue.

one night in atlanta after a particularly shaky performance, rowan found herself in a dark place and simply went into the women’s bathroom to calm down, but police say they found her laying flat on the ground, refusing to respond to anyone. she vaguely remembers the end of the manic episode, but it did land her in the emergency room for a change in mental status.

much to her chagrin, they admitted her overnight before transporting her to skyland trail, a mental health facility in atlanta. she spend about two and a half months there getting medications regulated and learning new coping mechanisms. she was discharged about two weeks ago and finally made it back to peach hollow and her apartment.

she’d lead everyone other than her family and maybe one or two other people that she was away on a musician’s retreat, but really, was in inpatient treatment.

she’s currently working full time as a make up artist at pop of peach and performing when she can, but doesn’t really go outside of peach hollow

fun facts & personality

rowan despises small talk. conversations about the weather or political climate don’t stimulate her and she gets snarky pretty easily. it isn’t that she wants to come off rude or unapproachable, but nine times out of ten, small talk is fake and she feels as though she doesn’t have the time or energy to indulge in it. ask her about the sky or some shit. she won’t shut up

she has a tendency to overshare, aside from what’s been going on in the past few months. her lips are sealed tight about that. however, she’s open to talking about her mental health and is a big advocate for erasing the stigma. this makes rowan a very good listener and a huge supportive presence for anyone struggling. she’s the mom friend, and no matter what time of day or night, if someone says they need an ear, she’ll go to them. she knows what it’s like to be alone.

despite her past and her demons, rowan finds a way to put on a smile. it might often be snarky or sarcastic, but rarely is it insincere. she’s an empath and feels everything so very deeply, but can easily put it away when necessarily.

her apartment is her safe haven. she rarely has company. it isn’t really her thing. she prefers to go to other people’s places. she has her record collection proudly displayed on her living room wall, all the plants you can imagine, incense burning whenever she’s home, and a scottish fold munchkin cat named loonette after her favorite childhood tv show, the big comfy couch. she has hopes to get another cat named molly to match. you know, because we’re all clowns !

she takes great pride in her instagram. it sounds superficial, but often times, rowan will post a good picture and then link to her next show in hopes that somebody will come based on that. while she does have a passion for make up and a second instagram for it, ultimately, she’d like for there to come a time where she can live solely on the money she makes through music

catch her driving her old ass ford focus blaring 00s alternative, mainly fuckin paramore bc she’s heart eyes for hayley williams

wanted connections if ya made it this far!!!!

childhood friends – those who she’s known since elementary school. they’ve most likely watched her go through her many trials and tribulations in class. these could be acquaintances, close friends, or even a ride or die or two.

bullies – people who fucked with her through school. it’s essential that they’re on bad terms currently, but perhaps an enemy turned friend or romantic could be fun??

group therapy pal – this would be super fun and might entail the person finding out about her secret…. msg me for deets

exes – there will be a couple of these, gender does not matter. i’d like to find one that she was dating when she went into treatment and maybe hasn’t seen/spoken to them since they’ve been back, first love, high school sweetheart?? omg possibilities are endless

flirtationship – self explanatory, gender doesn’t matter she’s pan

any other ideas literally lmk!! thanks for reading ♥

#ok.... one more time kngrdjsnh

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yourtransgendersocialworker · 4 years

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12.31.2019, On an Inside Scoop of a Mental Health Crisis

I’ve been thinking, lately, about how a person who is in the middle of a mental health crisis may have a very different perspective than those watching. I wonder what it may look like when those who experience a crisis together debrief the sequence of events. I tried to piece together my memories of my last mental health deterioration and verbalize how I felt and what I remember. I experienced the entire thing.

Before the night, I had been bad off for a couple weeks. I had a few triggering events which led me down a shame spiral. Over the course of about two weeks, I started to lose touch with reality. I felt very confused and embarrassed. I was struggling to pay attention and I couldn’t remember anything. Bad thoughts ran rampant. The voice inside my head was loud, non-stop and confident with suicidal ideation.

It started when I posted a Facebook status. It was cryptic and vague, something like, “I don’t belong here anymore.” I don’t remember much about that night anymore, but I can imagine what it might have looked like. I posted that status and then I paced around the house in a panicky daze. Pacing around the house in a dissociate state was becoming a nightly routine*. My mind was on fire, so loud and certain with bad thoughts. I was in so much pain.

People reached out on Facebook, asking if I was okay, but I didn’t respond. It was comforting to see the love and support but it was too overwhelming to engage with it all. Ryan called me and I didn’t answer his call. Theo’s mom texted me after I was asleep asking if I was awake. I didn’t see that until the morning so I did not answer. When I woke up, my friend texted me asking if I was okay, saying they didn’t want to have to come over if I didn’t answer. I texted back saying I was okay and they got mad that I posted that status online.

Later I wrote a blog journal about how bad I was feeling and I reflected on my poor decision to post that Facebook status. I wrote about how it felt to be told to not post shit like that, about how it hurt and about how I shouldn’t worry people. I quoted what the friend had told me but I didn’t say her name. I wrote that I agreed and I talked about the right and wrong ways to ask for help and how scary it is to ask for help.

Meanwhile, I am still in the middle of a mental health crisis.

I go to the therapist’s office on a Friday. I tell him how bad I am feeling and I tell him how I would want to die. He tells me I can’t leave his office until I make safety plans with him. I texted my friend asking if I could stay the night at their house, or if they or their boyfriend would come stay the night with me because I was in my therapists office and he wouldn’t let me leave. My friend stopped texting back when I asked that. I made plans with Ryan to meet halfway between us, in Lexington, Kentucky. We both drove around 5 hours and stayed in a hotel for the weekend. We played Bible golf. I told him my thoughts about mental illness as a terminal illness and he spent the weekend trying to convince me to stay alive. I was so sure of myself and referred to myself in the past tense. Ryan said he felt like he was already grieving my death. I was happy we could do that together.

I saw that my friend deleted me from Facebook. My other friend texted me the next day saying they were glad I was able to make a different plan. My family here was suddenly gone. I just continued to spiral. I left Lexington still determined to kill myself. I made it about a week. I went to work but I couldn’t work and people were taking me on walks and I talked openly to my coworkers about my suicidal thoughts. Words would pour out of my mouth before I processed them, startling the both of us. The coworkers started talking to each other. Gwen and I hid in my office for a couple hours while she gently warmed me to the idea of seeking help. I was determined to kill myself. I couldn’t think straight but I knew things were bad. I eventually agreed to go. We went to my house and prepared a bag and prepared me for what was next. Gwen took me to the crisis center and we joked about the decorations on the wall and she came back for the assessment and reminded me to tell them my theory on terminal mental illness.

I got sent to the same hospital I went to the first time. Staff remembered me and I remembered them. I spent 32 days in the hospital watching people come and go, 32 very lonely days without many visitors. I recognized the hospital kinships as structured and contained. I tried my hardest to understand what exactly had happened up until this point. I couldn’t wrap my head around losing my friend family and I began to question everything. Was I toxic, causing more pain than pleasure in my relationships? Was I worthless, worth leaving when I needed help the most? The only relief from self-interrogation was the anxious peace of my impending death. I realized I was living my last days and that was comforting. I did 16 rounds of shock treatment and didn’t feel any different.

I came back home and tried to piece my life together. Nothing had changed. I couldn't trust myself or anyone else. I still had no idea what was real and what wasn't real. I still didn’t understand what warranted the abrupt abandonment of my support network. I read a lot of books and prepared myself for death. I stopped telling people my plans. I did research. I cried hysterically to the Nurse Practitioner and she hugged me and referred me to an outpatient program.

I started intensive outpatient treatment and I told them about my terminal mental illness and they cried and increased my time to partial hospitalization. I made a couple friends and got along well with the staff. I made connections and I made granola and I made a mask. It felt good but I knew it wasn’t the real world. I talked a lot about suicide and the therapist tried to respect my thoughts while also trying to convince me to stay alive. I thanked the therapist for trying so hard and I told them how I was going to kill myself. People reminded me that a couple weeks ago I said I was doing okay but I couldn’t remember that.

I started back at work. I didn’t arrange any more therapy. I have done enough and I know another person isn’t going to change my life. I am here now. I am tired. I sleep most of the day. I don’t move very much at all. I worry that my friends feel obligated to reach out to me. I want to be a kind friend but I don’t want to spread my dark energy. I am more calm than usual. I'm moving a lot less so there is less about my reality to question. I still feel the same. I'm not talking about it as much because there is no point.

————

Since writing that last paragraph, I was in a bad car accident. The morning after, I called the numbers I had memorized, my mom, Ryan and Theo, to ask for help getting a ride home from the Emergency Room. I was covered in blood and positioned casually in the waiting room for someone to come claim me. My supervisor picked me up and I vomited in her car and dribbled blood onto the passenger door. Friends showed me they cared for me. Kiley drove from Illinois and stayed with me over Christmas. Her presence in the midst of my hardest time reaffirmed my ability to connect and share loving-kindness. The news of a suicide brought reflection and pain. The lens shifted.

2019 was incredibly hard. It’s right up there with 2009 as the hardest times so far. I’ve learned a lot about family- the word, the concept, the reality. I’ve learned about true friendship and true love. I’ve learned I’m not always to blame. I’ve learned that despite all of the dark, I am still filled with love. I’ve learned that growth isn’t a synonym for progress. You can grow into an ugly thing. I know one thing to be true- I have not turned ugly.

This decade tried its hardest to destroy me and towards the end, I eagerly chipped in. I’m not one to hold weight to the date changing, but it feels like the right time for me to try again.

_____

*Try to explain the spiral of depression and dissociation.

It usually starts with feeling ashamed or embarrassed about something.

You come home from work and you start to panic. You think to yourself, “Be gentle with yourself. If you’re tired, just sit on the couch.” You sit on the couch and feel like a waste for not being productive. Your mind is on fire and you can’t think about anything. You are overwhelmed with static noise. Your legs shake and you scroll through your phone so much that it tells you there is nothing left to look at. You start to think about dying. You get up but you don’t know what to do so you smoke a cigarette and look at your unfinished projects. You wash your hands and stumble back to the couch, the cigarette being just enough of a distraction to trick you into thinking you actually did something. You zone out. You watch the house dirty around you, let things pile up. You start to move through space differently. The air feels thick and your body moves in slow-motion. You start to feel like you are looking at a “Magic Eye.” Your eyes are out of focus all the time and they blur and shift throughout the day. You cry often and uncontrollably. It does not feel like a release, but like you are made of clay and you are cracking. You realize you’re not paying attention to anything anymore. You think about killing yourself every free second you have. You think about the act of killing yourself, you think about your funeral, you think about your dog, you think about your family and your friends. You think about everything you’ve done in the world. You think about everyone you love. You think about the idea of a good future. You know what you’ve got to do. You think things through and come to the same conclusion after each hypothesis you try out. You can’t hear your friends speaking to you anymore because you are thinking through everything. People are talking to you but you are wild inside and trying to hide it as best as you can but you can't hide your suicidal ideations when you are telling everyone goodbye. You surprise yourself with the things you let pour out of your lips. You aren’t answering messages anymore. That's too much. You feel a sense of peace and determination. You know you need to be brave and you are worried about that. And that is where it whisks off.

#ptsd #depression #dissociation #transgender #trans #ftm #mental health #social work

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deansinkdbitch · 5 years

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In your Room - Constantine X reader

Note: Just fluff. I've not written anything in years so it's not great but I was impatient for a X reader fic based on this song by Halestorm. If you haven't heard it, I highly recommend you go search it on YouTube. This is also set way before the shows.

Now for the fic:

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In your room

Your life was far from easy and simple. It was hectic and chaotic and dark. Yet in a strange way, you were okay with that. Yes, it meant you were on medication for your mental state every night and sometimes you truly felt crazy. However, you had a grip on it. You knew your triggers and you knew when to take yourself out of those triggering situations.

You had a job and you had your hobbies. You worked with sick children and turned to art to de-stress your mind. You found there was nothing that a colouring pencil or paintbrush couldn’t brush away in your mind. That was until one evening when a rogue dishevelled blonde man entered your life in a dirty tan trenchcoat and loose red tie round his neck whilst smoking a cigarette. His name? John Constantine.

It’s just like your dear ol' Pa would say. “There’s always gonna be someone out there that you’ll cross paths with, who’ll make you feel not so crazy. Someone will make you second guess how bad you got it in your own life, and in that moment darlin' you’ll not be the one need saving but the saviour.”

Quite frankly, you always thought he was batshit crazy. But overtime you realised his words never get disproven. That’s how you came to doing the job you do. You wanted to do good and not be that damsel in distress. You were never one to play the Rapunzel role in your story.

Now; back to John Constantine. Master of the dark arts. Even now that self title makes you chuckle to yourself. You have no idea why, it just does. John came into your life by sheer chance. You were just minding your own business listening to your music walking home from work. It was still muggy out despite being dusk as you worked late to finish clearing up the activities from the day, when a cockney British accent broke you out of your thoughts. “Excuse me love, you got a light? My lighter has run dry”.

“Sorry. Don’t smoke.” You responded, barely looking at him at first. “Bollocks. Okay thanks anyway.” Came the next reply out of his mouth. With a simple nod of your head, you continued your walk home, not realising this same blonde man was following you and somehow had lit his cigarette which contradicted his earlier question to you.

Within fifteen minutes you were home and inside. Throwing your bag on the hallway floor you walked into your living room, slumped onto your dark teal sofa and kicked your old sneakers off your feet. You pulled your feet up, turned the TV on and checked your phone for any messages that may or may not have come through during your shift. “No new messages” it read. “Pfft. Typical.” You scoffed to yourself. Instead of putting your phone down you decided to order a takeout as you felt lazy when it came cooking tonight and you felt like sketching more instead. “What to have tonight [y/n]? Hmm... Pizza it is!” with a few taps you had your favourite pizza and sides ordered which meant you could now lean over to your coffee table and grab your sketch pad and pencils.

*Knock knock knock*

The rapping at the door brought you out of your thoughts and off your sofa. Opening the front door your pizza was in the hands of that same blonde you briefly saw earlier. “You order love. Pizza is a bit cliche no?” he spoke with a grin on his face. You grabbed the boxes off of him, looking passed him to find the real delivery boy. “Paid him for you to let me deliver it myself” he said with a cocky attitude. “Why? And did you follow me home? Who the hell are you?”

“John Constantine” he flatly introduced himself whilst pushing his way inside your home.

That was five years ago and here you were standing outside his private room in your house knocking on the door.

“John, let me in. There’s nothing that’ll worry me. I’ve been here for the things you have shown me and I wanna see the rest. I’m right here for you. I know you’ve lost people before, I know you don’t trust many people, but you KNOW you can trust me. You’re safe here... Just let me in your room.”

You stayed outside his door and vowed to yourself you would not move until he opened up. You let him live in your home for all these years and yet he shuts you out a lot. You can tell he’s bottling up negative emotions that haunt him. You just didn’t know exactly what. He was always there for your melt downs, your anger outbursts and those days you came home from work in a total wreck because one of your kids didn’t make it to group day due to losing their life to a terminal illness. So why wouldn’t he let you do the same for him? So many thoughts ran through your brain when you heard the lock click and you had to stop yourself from falling like a heavy plank of wood into John.

“I lost HER.... She was just a kid...” he mumbled quietly that it took a second or two to clock what he said and about who. “Oh John...” was all you could say before he just fell into your arms, head on your shoulder and for the first time in five years you heard him sob. Wrapping your arms around him you let him get everything out he needed to without saying a single word.

“That goddamn demon bastard took her and I couldn’t stop him” he sobbed. His words didn’t shake you the way they would to anyone else. You knew his job. Yet hearing he lost the one child he swore to protect broke you in two. You’ve lost kids, so you had an inkling to how he felt. Without saying a word, you guided him back into his room and just sat up on the spare bed, guiding him over where he curled up on you, resting his head on your shoulder and gripping you for dear life. “I’ve gotta get her back. I WILL get her back” he mumbled defiantly. “I know you will” you simply say.

Ten years had passed and John had since moved out and always on the move. His determination to make amends for that fateful night took over his entire being. You barely heard from him and it made your heart ache. For the first year you checked your phone constantly in the hopes he’d let you know he was still alive. Now you just went with hope. You were certain he never realised just how much you had fallen in love with him. Hell, you were adamant he never truly loved you and saw you as that friend with benefits. You tried to have a couple of relationships but neither worked out. No one understood you or tried to change you. Things took their toll on your health and you were nearing being done with life completely. You barely left your room and just sketched constantly when you weren’t sleeping.

Just as your hand began to shake, making your pencil wobble in your hand you let yourself have your nightly break down. “Dammit! Why can’t I feel better already?” you cried when a knock on your door came in response. “Let me in your room love”

Those words...that accent. They shook you to your core. “even if your walls are black and you look a mess, I wanna see.” The words kept coming and you knew you spoke those very words ten years ago. Scrambling off your bed and over to your door, you took a deep breath before unlocking the door and looked into those very eyes you craved for for ten years.

“Hello love” John simply greeted before letting you fall into his arms, gripping you tightly. “Sorry it’s been so long...” he apologised, letting you take all the time you needed to comprehend he was back in your life. “You’re a dick for leaving, yet I still love you” you cried in a muffled manner in his shoulder.

“I know....I didn’t just leave for revenge... I left because I love you and didn’t want to risk getting you killed.” John replied back and that was all you needed to hear to grip him tighter and really take in his presence.

#Constantine #constantine x reader #john constantine #fanfiction #one shot #matt ryan Constantine

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waywardangel-wilds · 5 years

Text

A Girl, A Boy and Everything Else. Chp. 1 -Quiet-

This is based off an essay I read online on toxic masculinity, hegenomic masculinity and alternative masculinity. I don't know how successful I will be with properly conveing my thoughts here.

This is a growing together fic, there will be Everlark endgame. The whole thing I'm working through here is Katniss' acceptange of hegonomic masculinity and how that hurts her relationship with her husband. I'm trying to fix it, don't know if it'll work tbh.

It’s a rough draft at this point more than anything.

A Girl, a Boy and Everything Else.

Chap. 1: Quiet.

“Good evening,” Peeta’s gentle tone drifted to the parlor as he spoke softly to Sae at the front door.

“Evening. I have to leave a little early tonight, there’s nobody home to put my granddaughter to bed.” Sae’s rougher voice answered. Pleasantries were exchanged and eventually the front door was closed.

Katniss’ eyes didn’t move away from her window. She was watching the moon and Peeta never seemed terribly bothered if she made no eye contact during his visits. He understood her and her drifting. It was one of those infuriatingly likable things about him.

Peeta’s steps caused the hardwood floors to creek. One step always heavier than the other due to his prosthetic. He turned on the lights as he went, picked things up off the floor as he encountered them.

Once within the parlor, he sat on the arm chair to her left, far outside her field of vision. She could hear the chair groan under his imposing frame, as it was a diminutive thing. She could hear rustling and the clink of something against the glass coffee table.

“I brought your medication for this week. I’ve been told that you need 500gm twice a day.” Katniss nodded to show him she was listening but her eyes didn’t turn away from the window. “there’s instructions within the bottles. Main thing though, how’ve you been today?”

Katniss tilted her head slightly in a concessive manner, “nothing too… extreme?”

“Hmm, that’s good. Feeling any better than yesterday?”

Katniss’ eyes fell to her hands in her lap, they were tangled with the knitted blanket Sae had tucked around her before she left. “I don’t think there’s been any change really.”

“That isn’t a bad thing. It’ll take some time.” She looked towards him then and he met her gaze and smiled. One could almost argue the war had never happened as he sat in her parlour, only nineteen, with a light dusting of freckles across his nose and cheeks which were pink from the cold. His looks were so deceivingly youthful, especially for a war hero.

Peeta’s light brown eyebrows came together as he grew concerned for her, “is there something wrong?”

She shook her head. “Just drifting.” Katniss paused momentarily as she focused on pushing the words out of past her lips, “would you sit with me for a bit?”

She turned back to the window as Peeta came to sit next to her. He didn’t say anything, he wasn’t even close enough for her to really feel his proximity, so she reached blindly to hold his hand.

Peeta’s hand patted hers gently, he felt very separate from her, which was something she didn’t think she would ever grow used to.

“Things are going to be okay, Katniss. Just give it time, you’ll see.”

The next morning Katniss stopped by Peeta’s house, as she usually did after she hunted. Maybe she did it because she was so used to trading with his father for bread, or maybe she just wanted to visit him in a setting that didn’t feel as if he was taking care of an ill family member.

She entered his house through the kitchen door, which was located near the back of the house. She didn’t knock or announce herself in any way, as she never truly had.

Peeta wasn’t in the kitchen.

She stood there awkwardly for a moment, unused to him not being there, not simply anticipating her behaviour. Breaks in the routine of how their relationship functioned were rare and Katniss had never been the one who took the first step.

After a moment of further hesitation she dropped her game bag in his oversized sink and walked slowly into the main living space. She didn’t see him but she did hear his voice coming closer from somewhere deeper within the house but for some reason Katniss didn’t feel as if she should step any further upon his property.

Once he entered the room she could see that he was speaking on the phone, in fact he was saying a pleasant goodbye once his eyes landed on her. He smiled at her softly, purely as an acknowledgement, then wished whoever he was speaking to a good day and put the phone down on a nearby table.

“Hey Katniss” he came towards her and bumped her shoulder with his fist in a friendly manner. “You brought me something?”

She nodded and followed him into the kitchen when he walked past her. “Rabbit or duck. It’s your call.”

He was poking around at the sink, looking into her game bag as she came to stand near him. She crossed her arms and waited, her lips spasming into something like a smile when his gaze fell on her.

“I’ll take the duck.” He pulled the animal out by his legs and placed it on the counter next to him. He was asking her something about whether or not she would like to take some bread home, or the type of bread she wanted or something else when Katniss cleared her throat and managed to get her suddenly difficult hand to lightly grasp his elbow.

“Peeta, I-” Katniss’ eyes met his momentarily before she dropped them back to the empty space just to the right of his head. “I wanted to ask if you wanted to stay over at my house. Tonight.”

Peeta frowned and Katniss felt fearful of his potential response. “Oh. No, Katniss. I can’t do that.” He squeezed the hand that was still resting on his elbow. “I can stay with you until you fall asleep again but I can’t stay with you for the night.”

Katniss frowned as well and dropped her hand away from him. It wasn’t the first time she had implied he should stay with her a bit longer than he did during his nightly after diner visits. She assumed she was simply being too subtle but this was the first time he had ever rejected her outright.

She nodded and reached to pull her game bag out of the sink to make a hasty exit when Peeta paused her movements with a gentle touch to her shoulder.

“We should talk about this, it’s what Dr. Aurelious would recommend for you.”

She didn’t say anything at first. The only people who currently took her mental health with the appropriate seriousness it required were Peeta and the doctor himself. Maybe the war had turned her into a masochist but abruptly the only thing Katniss cared to know was what Peeta could possibly be thinking about her at that very moment.

“Okay.” Katniss put the bag back down in the sink. “I would like to talk about why you’ve been so distant with me ever since you came back to District Twelve.”

Peeta sighed, his eyes flashing across her face to take in her expression properly. He nodded and tugged her towards the little breakfast nook within his kitchen.

“It’s not that I’ve been distant-” Peeta began in a tone that implied one of his long speeches.

“But you have.” Katniss stated firmly as she sat of on the corner of the booth. Peeta touched her shoulder in what was sure to be a friendly gentle manner but she flinched away. “We’re supposed to be a team, aren’t we?”

Peeta sat across from her and very purposely placed his hands upon the table. His gaze sought hers but every time she looked at him it felt like looking directly at the sun. “I’m not trying to be distant. I’m really not. I just want there to be boundaries between us, we need to understand what’s okay and what isn’t.”

Katniss raised her eyebrows almost mockingly, but she was honestly just surprised and perhaps a little wounded. “Was this Dr. Aurelious’s doing?”

“No.” Peeta reached for her hand but she placed them in her lap instead. “We did talk about boundaries, but he never said anything about me putting boundaries on you, just things I should be careful doing. Triggers, thing to watch out for.” “You think I’m a trigger?” Katniss asked.

“No. You’re not.” Peeta sighed and tapped his fingers against the table in frustration. “That’s not it.”

“Then what is it?” Katniss asked again, suddenly capable of summoning the force of will to pressure this information out of him.

“It’s… it’s me.” Their gazes met and he gulped. Why did it hurt so much to just look at him? “I want there to be boundaries. I care a lot about you, I always have and I always will. But after… everything that happened, I don’t think it would be good for either of us to be that way with each other anymore.”

“Good for you.” Katniss said in a mildly accusing manner, her tone was tired and almost uninterested.

“Maybe.” Peeta allowed, “I love you, Katniss. But, I know how things are. How they’ve always been. And I’ve always tried to give you what I can to make you happy and keep you safe but… you know I’ve never wanted to be something I’m not.”

Katniss was silent.

“Especially now, lying, I can’t do lying. It’s really dangerous for me. You know that.” He sighed again. “I guess what I’m trying to say is, I can’t do things like that with you, ever. I’ll always be your friend but anything that crosses that boundary… I can’t do it. I just can’t”

“We always had a very specific definition of friendship,” Katniss said cryptically. She didn’t immediately leave his house as something within her was insisting she do. Instead, she placed an elbow on the table and rested her head upon the palm of that hand. She looked over his kitchen.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “but things aren’t as intense now. We can be honest.”

Katniss nodded.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Katniss looked over at him and saw his face looked troubled. Peeta had always been very open about his emotions, he never appeared ashamed of his sadness, or any emotion that may make him appear weaker. Katniss knew now that he was much stronger than her because of that.

“I love you too.” Katniss stood and nodded awkwardly at him, “I should go home.”

Peeta smiled but stayed put, “I’ll be over later.”

She nodded again and lingered slightly around his kitchen island before she gripped her game bag and strode quickly out of there.

As hard as she tried the severe aching she felt where her heart should be would not go away.

That night, after Peeta’s nightly visit, Katniss closed every curtain in the living room and turned off all the lights in the house. Somehow she thought that if Peeta noticed she was awake from his house he would know what she was doing and come to check on her.

She sat down, turned on the television, and played the tape of the 74th Hunger Games.

Katniss hated everything that reminded her of the games. She hated how every single thing in that arena still haunted her, but for some reason, after seeing Peeta that day she simply needed to see these tapes again.

She was very quiet as the Career pack accompanied by Peeta filled her screen. It was the early days of their partnership. Cato was telling some story that would prove his masculinity reigned supreme. Peeta carried a dagger, he didn’t speak a word, and walked along looking attentive to every little sound in the woods.

Katniss paused the video to cry.

In the morning Sae made her some grain for breakfast. Her granddaughter was playing some game she made up, dancer or princess, therefore she was spinning around the room and giggling.

Just looking at children hurt.

Sae sat at the table with her, her granddaughter climbed onto a chair to eat her breakfast as well.

“There’s talk about finding the District a new Mayor.” Sae said.

Katniss simply nodded, “that’s nice.”

Katniss pushed her spoon around her bowl for a while.

“You really shouldn’t be watching those videos.” Sae said while shaking her head. “You’re in no place to see something like that.”

Katniss didn’t say anything and stared down at the table.

“Gale Hawthorne was on the news yesterday. He’s been promoted. Head of Security.” Sae said this as she wiped grain off her granddaughters cheek. “His mother must be real proud.”

Katniss nodded and stared into space, oddly aware that somewhere in the house a clock was ticking audibly.

“They’re already talking about elections.” Sae continued, her eyes trained on her granddaughters erratic movements, “They’re saying that every president only stays in office for a limited amount of time.”

Katniss nodded, the clock still ringing in her head, “good.”

It was silent. The war ended a year ago, right? Just one year.

“Peeta said he was redoing the bakery at the town meeting.” Sae said. “Said he didn’t feel right letting his daddy’s business end with him.”

Katniss frowned. “We have town meetings?”

Sae nodded, “ almost every week. Thursdays.”

“Where?” Katniss asked, “where can you fit the whole town?”

“You know there’s not that many people here right now.” Sae looked over at Katniss, “but they’re at the boys house. He’s got the largest.”

Of course.

In the afternoon Katniss had to call her therapist, Dr. Aurelious. She sat on the window seat in her room, the phone pushed against her ear as she watched the street in front of her house idly.

“Hello Katniss.” Aurelious answered on the third ring. One of Haymitch’s geese wandered towards the decorative shrubbery that lined the streets.

“Hello.” Katniss rested her hand against the glass. It was very cold so she kept it there, just to feel it.

“Have you received your new dosage? Have you started taking it?”

“Yes yesterday. It makes me feel slow.”

“That’s common. Hopefully, with enough time we’ll be able to ween you off the anti-depressants.”

“It’s been a year since the war.” Katniss stated.

“Yes,” the doctor confirmed.

“Only a year.” She paused, “the other day, when Peeta visited me, I was thinking about how young he looks. How young he is.”

“How does that make you feel?”

“Like I’m ancient, but not.” Katniss leaned back against the wooden panelling behind her. “I haven’t seen my own reflection since I was in District 13.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“I don’t know.” Katniss frowned.

“Are you afraid to see your reflection?”

“No.” Katniss didn’t elaborate.

“Peeta told me he talked to you about boundaries.” Dr. Aurelious said after a quiet moment, “how did that make you feel?”

“I thought you couldn’t speak about your patients to your patients?”

“I’ve made an exception in this unique case” Katniss grunted her disapproval.

“A long time ago Gale told Peeta I could not feel passion. He made it seem like I couldn’t feel real love. Not the way they did.” Katniss’s voice broke. “Is that true? You’ve been studying my behaviour, is that true?”

“You’re the only person who can answer that question, Katniss.”

“I don’t think I can.” Katniss admitted, “at least not the way I want to. Not the way I should.”

“There is no should in relationships, there just is.” Aurelious said. “There is no template.”

There was a brief silence. Katniss stared hard at the street thinking about all the things she should be able to do and know. She should be able to walk the streets of the District, she should be able to know how to speak to her peers. She should be able to look at other people in the eye. She should, should, should…

“Have you been writing in the journal I sent you?”

“No,” she admitted. “I don’t see the point.”

“I would like you to write in the journal first before you make up your mind about its usefulness.”

Katniss watched as more geese filled the street, “I should try.”

“You should try.”

After putting the phone down Katniss stared at the leather-bound notebook that sat on her bedside table. There was a fine layer of dust gathering on it, as it hadn’t been mover nor opened since it arrived in her home. Standing on unstable legs, she crossed the room to hold the notebook in her hands.

Finally, after a moment of contemplation, Katniss opened the book. It was blank of course. Filled with lined paper waiting for someone to write something upon it.

She was about to close it to put it down once more when she spied a small note written on the front page.

The more you feel, the more you will heal. Take care.

--Dr. Anton Aurelious

It hurt to breathe, so she sat on her bed to try to calm down. How could she feel? When her heart… it was just, gone. Burned to ashes in an explosion.

The hole where her heart was meant to rest ached once more.

On Thursday afternoon Katniss went to Haymitch’s house.

It was dark. The curtains were drawn, although some parts of the deep purple curtains had been pulled violently from their hooks allowing for there to be random rays of light around the room. It was enough for Katniss to figure out where she should step and where she definitely shouldn’t.

She was having a hard time finding Haymitch. More than once she shoved a promising lump with the toe of her boot just to find out if was a pile of disgusting clothes and other unidentifiable objects.

“Haymitch!” she called out, her eyes burning from the smell. “Where are you, you useless drunk?”

“He’s not here.” Katniss jumped and turned quickly to the voice that came from behind her. Standing there, unfazed by their surroundings, was Franklin Fairchild. He was one of the boys who lived on her street back in the Seam. He couldn’t be much older than fourteen.

“What are you doing here?” Katniss asked, immediately on guard. “Are you trying to steal from Haymitch?”

The boy laughed and shook his head. “Nah, I’m here to pick up this,” he held up a bottle of whiskey, “we’re about to have the meeting and Haymitch is extra crabby.”

“Haymitch is at the meeting too?” Katniss frowned.

“Well yeah, he always is.” The boy shrugged, looking unsure of what else he should say. “So… do you mind if I just go now?”

Katniss didn’t answer, instead she turned around and walked out the front door.

Back in her house, she sat on the kitchen table, the notebook in front of her.

Hastily she grabbed the pen she’d quickly ran into the study to find and began angrily scratching her handwriting into the immaculate pages.

Haymitch went to the meeting.

Peeta is holding the meetings.

Gale is Head of Security.

Mother works at the District Four Hospital.

It has been one year since the war.

She stared at the page. She felt nothing. She understood nothing.

Prim died.

She stared at the words on the page.

Prim died in a war.

I should have died in the war.

She closed the notebook quickly and tried to ignore the fact that she didn’t know why she didn’t seem to feel anything anymore.

When Peeta let himself in for his nightly visit she surprised him by sitting on the grand staircase in front of the front door.

“Why didn’t you tell me about it?” the sound of her voice surprised him, she watched him take a step back, one foot effectively back outside, as he looked up and found her sitting on the fifth step.

“Why didn’t I tell you what?” He asked in return while stepping fully into the house and closing the door softly behind him.

“You didn’t tell me about the meetings. I would like to know about the meetings.”

Peeta’s expression communicated his surprise. “Oh, well that’s great. I can tell you about anything you want. They’re mostly about building supplies really.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” She looked at his hair, never directly in the eyes. “You should have told me before.”

“I didn’t think you would be interested.” He admitted, “I didn’t mean to exclude you. I’m sorry if you feel like I did.”

She deflated. Why didn’t he ever do anything warranting her anger? He was always proving himself to be, effortlessly, kinder and better than her. “I am interested, now.”

She could hear the smile in his voice. She refused to look at it. “Good. Come, I brought you some bread to make up for being late today.”

She followed him into her kitchen. She stared at his back as he moved around. She wondered if she’d ever seen that shirt before. It was blue, long-sleeved, maybe cotton. She wondered how many things she knew and didn’t know.

“Are you in the mood for some tea? I’m in the mood for some tea.” He said as he dropped a brown paper bag on the counter and pulled out something small.

“I’ll put the water on,” Katniss mumbled.

“I brought you some muffins too, I was in a muffin mood.” He continued, “I made a lot. I think I’m having a hard time remembering how to downsize recipes. I always do too much, at everything. It’s my most annoying quality.”

“Making too many muffins is a quality?” she asked as she turned up the burner as high as it would go.

He chuckled, “no, but I’m a self-doubter when I’m making a new thing. I always think I’m not doing enough, so I end up with a lot of stuff. My dad used to chastise me for that all the time.”

“Oh,” Katniss said, and just stared at the stove before her.

“They’re planning to help me out with the bakery,” Peeta continued easily. “I don’t know how long it’ll take. Maybe six months. But we’ll start on it soon.”

Peeta set down a plate of muffins on her breakfast table, identical to his own, and sat down on one of the booths. “I’m excited.”

Katniss nodded and followed, sitting opposite him. “That’s nice.”

“It is,” He grinned, she continued to avoid direct eye contact and looked back down at her hands.

“How was you day?” he asked her when it was clear she wasn’t going to ask him anything else. “Did you go to the woods today?”

She shook her head. “I woke up late.”

“That’s too bad, it was a nice day today.” She could sense him seeking her out, he was always trying to help her out of her shell.

“You’re hair looks different today. It’s nice. Is you hair always that curly?”

She looked up mostly because she was surprised he would mention it at all and accidentally looked him in the eyes. He was looking at her kindly, a bit of sadness was there too. She looked away.

Tugging on the hair in question she nodded, “Yeah, that’s one of the reasons I braid it.”

“You don’t like it?” he asked her.

“No,” she shook her head. “It’s just hair. But since it curls a bit, its hard to brush.”

He was looking right at her, she could feel it, he was looking for something.

“It’s not like you’ve never seen it like this before.” She frowned. “I wore it down to bed sometimes.”

He shook his head, “I don’t remember really. They always straightened you hair for TV.”

She gulped, “Yeah, they did. It didn’t fit the look I guess.”

The kettle screamed and Peeta went to get their tea. She stared at the muffins, they were blueberry.

After a moment Peeta put down a mug in front of her. He didn’t immediately move his hand away. Instead he sighed.

“Katniss about the other day-”

“There isn’t anything else left to say.” She interrupted, unwilling to talk about feelings when she hardly felt anything at all. “I understand boundaries.”

He nodded and sat back down across from her. “Okay, but I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m okay.”

“And we’re still a team.” He leaned forward slightly, probably to make sure she was paying attention. “You said we had always been a team. We are. We always will be. It’s just not the same situation.”

“We’re a team.” She nodded and reached out for a muffin. “I know that. You’re my ally.”

He nodded and reached out for a muffin too. “Okay.”

She looked up at him, he was looking down so it was safe. “Dr. Aurelious said he talked to you about me.”

He nodded, he looked up and she could see he was jawing. She stared at a moving muscle in his jaw.

“We talk about you a lot. It’s part of my therapy.”

She nodded in response. “Does he tell you about what I tell him?”

He shook his head. “No, your emotions are yours. I have no right to them.”

Katniss looked away from him entirely. “He gave me a journal to write in.”

“That’s good!” Peeta said encouragingly. “Do you enjoy it?”

“I don’t think I have emotions.” She confessed. “I’m telling you this because you’re the only person I trust.”

“And Haymitch wasn’t home when you went looking for him today,” he said amusedly.

Her shoulders tensed. He was right. “It isn’t anything funny, Peeta. And you are one of the only people I trust.”

He nodded, “I know.” He leaned back in his seat. “You have emotions, Katniss. A lot of them.”

“No I don’t.” She shook her head, “I don’t.”

“Of course you do. Right now you’re annoyed at me, angry at yourself, and angrier at Haymitch.”

She looked up at him and again accidentally caught his gaze. His eyes were compassionate. It hurt too much so she looked away.

“You feel all the time. You just don’t like to be the type of person that feels things.” He shrugged. “It’s understandable, I’ve been there.”

“I don’t like you.”

“I know,” Peeta chuckled, “but it’s true.”

“I want you to include me in the town meeting.” Katniss said suddenly. “I want to know about what’s being rebuilt.”

Peeta nodded, “done.”

“And I want you to show me what’s new in town.” Katniss sat up straight. “It’s been a year since the war, I need to see the District.”

He nodded again.

“And you will stay for dinner tomorrow.” She continued, “because we’re allies and you’re my friend.”

“Okay,” Peeta said softly.

“Okay,” Katniss repeated with conviction.

Follow the story here if you like it:

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13212799/1/A-Girl-A-Boy-and-Everything-Else

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17857688/chapters/42141143

You made it till the end!

#fanfic #The Hunger Games #Katniss #is depressed #Peeta is trying to figure his life out #alternative masculinity #is a big thing here #I don't know if I'll get it right #and its hard #i have too much time on my hands #I'm also struggling with my own preconcieved notions of masculinity #it's just hard

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everlarkbirthdaygifts · 6 years

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Happy Birthday, jobanana7!

Today, we wish a very Happy Birthday to @jobanana7! We hope you had a wonderful day, and got just exactly the presents you wanted. To end your special day with a flourish, the lovely @mega-aulover has written a story just for you!

PROMPT: I would love a little story that talks about mental illness, ik is kinda weird but I would love to see like a growing back together after dealing with the process of going and dealing with a mental illness?? Idk of that makes sense. But I would love that. Thanks!!!!!-Jobanana7

RATING/WARNINGS: Rated T / Cannon Growing Angst- Trigger Warning mentions of suicide

A/N:

● Special thanks to @Booksrocksmyface for her guidance, encouragement and beta skills.

● Feliz Cumpleaños to @Jobanana7 Espero que tengas un día maravilloso! I hope I did justice to the prompt.

Fractured Glass:

1st Year Together:

A scream pierced the night air. Peeta gripped the pillow in his hand. He twisted it as he listened to Katniss’s blood curdling cries. Swaying back and forth, he put his hands to his ears to block out her screams. He can’t listen to her anymore, cannot hear her hurting. But as much as he wanted to go to her, to comfort her, Peeta was emotionally paralyzed, he wasn’t right just yet. Yesterday he had his worst episode, he’d held on to the back of the chair until it splintered in his hands.

“My name is Peeta Mellark, I am eighteen years old. I survived two Hunger Games,” he whispered to himself. “I live in district twelve. Snow is dead, and can’t hurt me.” He repeated the mantra Dr. Aurelius taught him to keep himself from having a hijacked episode. His breathing is ragged, and is holding onto reality by a thread. “I am not a mutt. I am no longer a piece in their games. I am safe.”

His lips quivered as he tried to speak the next sentence, but he choked on his words. “Katniss is not a mutt,” his fists curled up as he pictured Katniss covered in flames. “She is not the enemy. I once loved her.”

His mind breaks and he shakes from the violent images that began filling his brain. Katniss’s face contorts into a fierce demonic creature, pure fear raced through his body.

“It’s not real, it’s not real,” he whispered to himself over and over again. He uses one of the memories he knows to be true.

Tears fell from his eyes. Peeta conjured up in his mind the girl with the twin braids and the voice of an angel. He could clearly visualize her in the red dress, the shiny mary-jane shoes, rosey cheeks, and innocent eyes. His attack slowly ebbed away as he was able to distinguish the shiny Capitol memories from the real ones.

He didn’t go to her but Peeta vowed he would, one day.

Second Year Together:

Peeta stood at the entrance of the bedroom, he ran his hands through his hair. After a year of slowly becoming friends once more, they decided to try sharing a bed. His mind flashed to the footage he’d seen of his hijacked self choking Katniss. His breathing became labored and he opens and closes his fits to keep control.

“Katniss, I don’t know if this is a good idea.”

Her face fell, he could see it in her expressive eyes, how much she needed him. Katniss always kept her guard up, she only allowed him to see straight into her soul. He closed his eyes and pictured her at eleven, sitting by the empty trash bins. The icy slush could have killed her but didn’t. It was that vacant look, as death crept into her bones that he saw, that drove him to throw her the bread. He’d been willing to get a beating for it.

He couldn’t let her die then, and it still stands true today. However, he couldn’t do this with her tonight, Peeta was too afraid of physically hurting her. His mind was still like fragmented pieces of glass. Unable to look at her, he turned around to leave.

“Peeta.”

Her voice was desperate, it caused him to pause his retreat.

“You can stay in my mom’s old bedroom it’s just down the hall.” Her voice was hoarse. He turned around and saw she was combatting tears. “I just need you to be near, will you allow that?”

It was a solution that sounded too good to be true, but one he could live with. “I could do that.”

“Okay.” Katniss nodded. “I’ll go fix up the room for you Peeta.”

She pushed herself against the door jam as she slid by him. He was thankful she didn’t touch him. Right now touching, holding, intimate things were beyond his scope.

That night neither one could sleep. He was worried that he would get up and hurt her. And she feared the nightly terrors that plagued her sleep. They ended up downstairs. He made bread, she watched him, and in the morning they finally fell asleep sitting on the sofa sitting beside each other.

Peeta thought to himself this was a great start, they were at least under the same roof.

Six months later:

Katniss was moving in with him. She’d had her worst episode yet, she tried to cut her wrists. Katniss had gone inside of her sister’s room chasing the cat. Being in her sisters room triggered her nervous breakdown. Dr. Aurelius suggested she move in with Peeta as there weren’t any triggers at his house.

All that Katniss brought with her was her bow, the game bag with a few pieces of clothing, the plant book, and the memory book they’d made. Trailing behind her was that ugly, mangy cat who took off when he saw some of Haymitch’s geese.

That night Peeta was in his room, counting down until the moment his eyes slid shut, and the nightly terrors to start. He’s left the door opened just in case she needs him. He closes his eyes and when he awakes he sees a slight figure standing by the foot of his bed.

Katniss stands with her head cast low, her dark hair covering her face. He can see her hands are klutched together.

“Peeta.”

Her voice sounds scared and child like. Peeta realizes she's just as broken as he is. He lifts the blanket and she climbs into bed with him. He holds her trembling form. He vows they will never sleep apart.

3rd Year Together:

Sleeping together has helped them both. They comfort each other during the night as they face the onslaught of horrific memories and Capitol-spun lies.

They've become inseparable. During their joint therapy sessions with the doctor, they've learned the art of communication. He talks. she listens, her hand grips his, and her eyes reflect the care she feels for him. When she speaks, her words are few, but Peeta makes sure to be attentive and supportive.

Katniss isn't a talker she's much more of a doer, she acts on instinct. Peeta acknowledges he’s the one with the words, he is also a planner. Lately he's been speaking about the bakery, and the idea of possibly starting one again. He feels if he can have the same land then he can somehow have a piece of his family, of his old self back.

Unannounced, Katniss went out and filled out the paperwork to reclaim his family's old plot in town. She handed him the documents and told him, “For when you're ready.”

Peeta cried. She gave him back his family. He discovered he needs her strengths.

They've fallen into a routine: she hunts and he bakes. They take tentative steps every day as the doctor has ordered. They keep a journal of the good things and read it every night before they go to bed to remind them that life can be good.

His episodes don't last as long and the frequency diminished. He's able to see the girl who used to trade with his father at the back of the bakery. A shy girl, a smart girl, a girl that many people looked up to, including himself.

“Peeta.”

Her soft voice brings him out if his wanderings. His face contorts to make a smile. Peeta watches in awe as a blush blooms on her cheeks. He relaxes and his smile widens even more when he sees the shy glittering glance she gives him. Just like she did whenever she came to trade. Peeta notices how his hearts melts, and his hands shake not from fear but from the rush of emotions.

That night as they share a bed, he wonders if he's falling in love with her. He questions if it is even possible for his hijacked mind to fall in love with a creature he was conditioned to fear. His heart tells him yes.

4th Year Together:

Peeta rushed home from the main part of town. He saw the lightning race in the clouds ahead right before he heard the roar of thunder. He hurried his steps, he needed to get home quickly. The lightning illuminated his steps as he made his way through the darkened path to the Victors Village. The clap of thunder caused him to run.

Thunder is one of Katniss’s triggers. The noise reminds her of all of the awful things she suffered in her past, the death of her father, in her fractured mind the noise of the explosive Gale made when it took her sister Prim’s life, and it was also the cannon of the arena and the explosion she experienced right before they were separated and he was captured by the Capitol.

“Katniss,” he shouts into the still house. Closing the door he runs up the stairs toward her safe place. The closest in is his studio.

Everything's been going well between them. They were growing closer emotionally, romantically and physically. With each passing day they grew more intimate with the other but they were not ready to make the jump to make love, he often stopped short because not only was Katniss not ready he wasn’t either. The intensity between them was like blinding white light and he often slipped out of bed to take care of his hard-on.

It started with a shy kiss on the cheek. It developed to tender brushes on lips when they parted for the day. One day those soft shy brushes deepened. Soon lips parted, tasted and suckled. Kisses that made his heart fly and his hands shly wonder. Kisses that heated his skin. Kisses that inspired him to think of more than just innocent platonic meanderings, these were riveting thoughts like bright emotional colors on the canvas of his soul.

Today he’d been in town finalizing the bakery drawings with the architect when he saw the storm clouds roll in from the window. He made it to the house just as the rain fell, but the crackling, rumbling and the exploding echo engulfed their home in the Victors Village.

“Katniss,” Peeta called as he reached the room.

“Peeta,” she called, flying into his arms. Her face washed with tears, her fingernails bit into the flesh of his arms. “You’re real.”

“I’m real,” he whispered into her hair. He sat with her in the closet facing her terror together, because that’s what they did best. From the beginning they faced all obstacles as a team. The victory tour he recalled how she bravely took the microphone to speak to Rue’s mother. The way her voice started off quiet but grew as she gathered her courage. He didn’t know that it was due to his pledge to give a portion of his money away.

He could still picture her standing in that dress, clutching microphone stand, speaking her eyes showed a slice of her compasion. It fed the masses. It fed a rebellion. It also made him fall a little harder for her.

“I thought you were gone,” Katniss muttered.

“I’m here, Katniss, I’m always here.”

“Always,” she affirmed looking into his eyes. He gasped at the whirling emotions in her eyes, right before her lips touched his.

That day they had a small victory, but Peeta vowed that he would never leave her alone to weather the storms because they were a team.

The 5th Year Together:

Peeta opened his eyes, his hands ungripped the back of the chair. He’d suffered another episode. His body was weak, but at least he was able to weather another one. Today was their fifth year anniversary since he came back home.

Five arduous years where they had grown back together. Last night around midnight Katniss and he had finally made love and declared their love for one another. He was ecstatic but also panicked as this meant they were now an official couple. It also meant emotionally he was at his most vulnerable.

What if she didn’t want him? What if he wasn’t good enough?

“Peeta.” Her hands wrapped around his middle.

He closed his eyes.

“I still want you.”

Her soft words, caused his beating heart to slow down. “Katniss why would you want a broken, one legged, burned man.” Her hands slipped on top of his. Her darker ones contrasted with his paler ones. “You have every right to leave me, and find yourself a man who will value you.”

She hugged him tighter, her face nuzzled his back. “You tried giving me the same speech during the Quarter Quell, and It didn’t work then and it’s not going to work now.”

“Katniss,” he sighed heavily.

“Peeta, I love you.” Her hands splayed on his chest. “I do not want another man, I just want you. When you came back that’s when I came back, went hunting, that’s when I mourned my sister. You were the only one who acknowledged that she…” Katniss paused her voice was thick with raw emotions. “Passed away.”

Peeta turned her around and cupped her face. He recalled Katniss with her sister Primrose staring at the cakes in the display case. They were younger, but he recalled how the sun shone down on Prim’s golden hair and the love in Katniss eyes. He wanted to be loved like that. “Prim helped me become un-hijacked. She was good and sweet. I’m sorry for her death. It was pointless.”

Katniss had tears falling from her eyes, she nodded. Despite her sadness he saw a deep profound love displayed in her eyes. “You understand me better than anyone else. You fought to come back to me. You calm the rage within me.”

Peeta kissed her lips, they were soft, warm and they tasted like home. He was loved

15th Year Together:

Their laughter fills the air. Peeta’s little girl, with the twin braids that flap in the air as she runs. She’s laughing, stops and begins to dance. Her arms are spread wide as she leaps in the air and twirls in the tall grass of the meadows. His son’s blond head bobbing up and down as his chubby little legs run toward his sister. He’s just started to run. Katniss says he looks like Peeta but Peeta thinks he looks like his brothers.

Katniss is sitting underneath the tree, watching them, a picnic blanket spread around her.

“Hey.” Peeta leaned in and pecked her on the lips before settling down besides her. He was glad to be out of the bakery. He wanted to enjoy his time with his family.

“Hi, how was the bakery?”

He rubbed his face, “You were right, Joey, was the reason for the shenanigans down at the bakery.”

Katniss gave him an all knowing look.

“I can’t put him on the rotation on a Saturday.”

“He’s much too immature.” Katniss leaned forward and began fixing him a plate.

“Do you remember how different it was for us at that age?”

She sat back, a pensive look on her face, as she glanced at their children. Their little girl was making a crown of dandelions. His little boy was sitting yanking grass out of the dirt. Her fingers gripped the plate.

“It’s going to be ok,” Peeta put his arm around her shoulders.

“Peeta they’re playing on…”

“I know, the remains of our past.” Off to the side of the meadow was a small plaque with all of the names of the people that were lost to the bombings. The line of trees still has the long beams that once supported the electric fence.

Peeta remembers a time when we went to bed in fear of reapings. Of being called to the games thinking it was the luckiest day of his life. He remembers lying by the bank of the river silently wishing he would die. Then thinking he was seeing an angel appear from the heavens knowing he was dying. The way she fought him hand and foot and brought him back to life. He fell for Katniss when she kissed him for real in that cave.

He’d felt it, felt the moment she melted into his arms, and something more was happening between them. He never forgot that kiss or the one at the beach. Never forgot his brave girl, she was a woman now but he saw her lurking in the background of the fear that was in her eyes. “They will be alright, all of the arenas have been torn down. They are never going to have another Hunger Games.”

Katniss nodded. She handed him the plate.

“Come here,” Peeta took the plate and put it on the side. He opened his arms to her and she snuggled up to him. “We have each other, we’re a team you and I.” He could feel her relax. “Besides we have the book and when the time is right we’ll tell them about it.”

He wasn’t scared of the past anymore. It had taken him a long time to heal. Seeing their first born child in his arms cured his worry about the fractured glass that was his past. His daughter and his son were his future. And if they had any questions they had the book, written in their own words and not in the words of others to explain what they went through.

For now he was going to enjoy the angel in his arms and watch his children play in the meadow.

#everlark #everlark fanfiction #everlarkbirthdaygifts #everlarkbirthdaydrabbles #fan fic #by mega-aulover

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tangledtech · 6 years

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Character Spotlight and Speculation: King Freddy

As mentioned before, I am almost dead certain King Freddy has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. As someone with multiple friends with confirmed diagnoses of PTSD and myself with a potential diagnosis from my last psych hanging over me, and multiple unconfirmed cases throughout my childhood, I’m fairly familiar with PTSD and from the pilot movie I’ve instantly felt Fred is being portrayed with PTSD. We actually don’t have a lot of concrete things but there’s a lot of implied clues.

Strongest evidence: Closing of windows

This one seems inconsequential but when you combine a minor moment that happens early in the pilot movie with a scene that happens later that is much more poignant, we have the potential for a pattern.

Early in the movie, King Fred comes into Rapunzel’s room and closes her window. There’s no attention drawn to this, but combined with a later scene, starts to paint a picture. Later, at night, when the king is confessing his worries to the queen, we get a glimpse into his head. We hear a baby crying as he moves to close the doors to his balcony, a pained look on his face as we hear his past-self crying out for the guards. He locks the door-windows, and suddenly there’s a connection to the other, meaningless scene. He does not want these windows open.

While the voiceover during this latter scene can very easily be interpreted as a narrative device to remind us, the audience, of what happened, personally I felt it was very much coded as a post-traumatic flashback. A brief, intrusive thought brought on as he saw the doors to their room open, too reminiscent of what happened before. Flashes of memories as he sees the doors unlocked, the very reason his daughter was stolen 18 years ago. Personally, I have every reason to believe the same thing happened in the earlier scene, unheard by the audience, and really, every time he’s seen a window unlocked for the past 18 years.

Weaker evidence: Language and actions

At the end of the pilot movie, after Raps saves the day and Fred goes to have his talking-to with her, we get another glimpse into the connections his mind is making.

“And now that this has returned; the very reason you were snatched away from me in the first place...”

The King is already making connections between past events and current scenarios. His mind is already going back to that night 18 years ago.

From a neurobiological standpoint, PTSD involves many parts of your brain but one of the biggest factors is injury or weakness in the areas that distinguish the passage of time and separating new memories from old memories. Mentally and physically we relive memories. Psychologically we continue to return to that traumatic event particularly via stimuli that reminds us of it, and we are terrified of reliving that event. For the King, her hair is associated with his past trauma, and he’s scared. He’s terrified of reliving that trauma--and understandably so.

Many times, people with PTSD will go out of their way to avoid things that trigger us. Trauma involving fire might make us extra precautious around campfires or open sources of flame, maybe we can only use jar candles instead of candlesticks, maybe candles are outright out of the question.

The King is displaying a lot of that avoidance, most tellingly in his ban of all talk related to her hair or things magical. He gives the impression of doing this for her protection but it is far more likely that he is doing this for his own protection. Talking about these things brings too many painful, scary memories that remind him too fiercely that what happened before could happen again. He had his entire world shattered, and in his words, part of him died that day. He won’t--and can’t--go through that again.

If we look at the risk factors for developing PTSD, King Freddy can very easily fit many of them. These include feeling extreme fear, horror, helplessness (hard to feel in control when your baby is snatched out of the night and not found for 18 years), having little to no social support after the event (besides Arianna, I’m not seeing a King very easily being able to reach out about his pain and just talk to someone, and he may not even be able to feel he can without looking weak or unable to do his job--protect people--as king), and dealing with extra stress after the event (I don’t see King duties slowing down after your kid disappears).

Speculation

These are things I see in-character for him, and things that would very likely come with suffering from PTSD.

Vivid dreams/nightmares: many, many people with PTSD not only suffer many nightmares but wild, intense dreams even if they’re not nightmares. I would not be surprised if King Freddy wakes up from these dreams fairly often.

Insomnia: Going along with those dreams, PTSD often affects our sleep cycle--which is to say, it decimates it. The King is certainly not a young man but I get the impression of being tired very often from him, particularly in his eyes.

Anxiety: I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say he would get anxiety attacks. He seems more like the sort to have very quiet anxiety, such that you might not even know he’s get a shock of adrenaline up his spine as he sees the window open. He seems an introverted man and unlikely to make his feelings present.

Rituals: I believe we’ve already gotten a glimpse of one; the closing of his bedroom door. I wholly believe closing or checking the door is something he does every night.

Distorted guilt: He locks the door to the sound of his child crying and himself calling out to the guards for help. I have no doubt there’s some misplaced guilt on his part: “If I’d only locked the door that night...” Hence nightly rituals.

King Fred is making a lot of mistakes. But while he needs to take responsibility for his mistakes, I think a lot of it is forgivable because he does, at heart, love Rapunzel more than his own life and he is a man capable of change. This is a man who has perhaps been suffering from mental illness for 18 years and few or maybe even no people know about it. Many people who suffer from PTSD do so quietly for years before ever getting help, and the situation is all too easily found in Fred.

#tangled the series #tangled before ever after #king frederic #tech talks

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ricocheting-paper-planes · 6 years

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Okay, I’m going to ramble a bit because I’ve noticed that a lot of people have been self diagnosing themselves with various anxiety disorders without speaking with a psychologist about it. First of all, I’m going to define what anxiety actually is- anxiety is a natural biological response to new or potentially dangerous situations that manifests itself in the form of heightened awareness and a sense of unease.

It’s completely normal to have the occasional bout of anxiety when meeting new people, making an important phone call, or doing a presentation. Everyone experiences nervousness- that does not mean you have an anxiety disorder. It means you’re a human being with human emotions. Anxiety can turn into a disorder when it interferes with your ability to function in your daily life. This is a sense of unease that doesn’t go away. It is a sense of fear that is disproportionate to the situation.

If you’ve ever taken a psychology course, you’ve probably been told by your professor that you should not, under any circumstances, diagnose yourself. This is because it’s impossible to view yourself and your symptomology in a completely objective way. Also, the phrase “anxiety disorder” is an umbrella term for various conditions, such PTSD, OCD, GAD, Panic Disorder, etc. While they’re all classified as anxiety disorders, they’re all wildly different from each other, and each diagnosis requires a different treatment. Now, before I go on, I want to add that I understand that there are situations where one might suspect they have a mental illness, but they don’t have the resources to get this confirmed. Self diagnosis might be helpful when figuring out how to deal with your symptoms until you’re able to access help; however, you should regard your range of symptoms as something that falls under the umbrella term of an anxiety disorder rather than diagnosing yourself with a specific disorder- because symptoms tend to overlap.

My frustration with people who self diagnose without the intention of speaking to a mental health professional stems from the stereotypes that get perpetuated as a result. For example, there is a huge difference between being shy, and having social anxiety disorder. A shy individual might feel inhibited when first meeting a stranger, but once they warm up, this sense of inhibition goes away. An individual with social anxiety disorder can be friends with someone for YEARS, and still have severe anxiety when they feel like they might have said something wrong, or ‘made a fool of themselves’. That is not normal. It isn’t normal to have a panic attack over having to eat in front of people, or because you had to talk on the phone.

This next section is a lot longer than I meant for it to become, but in it, I explain some of my personal experiences with anxiety. I’m definitely oversharing, but I want to open up a dialog about mental health. Feel free to skip it, because the above rant sums up my entire point.

Whew, my favorite part. I’m going to share a bit of my own experiences with anxiety as I’ve been diagnosed with PTSD/CPTSD, Panic Disorder, and Social Anxiety Disorder. While I’m at it, I’ll also share a little bit about my experiences with Major Depressive Disorder, because this adds a new dimension to my diagnoses. (Yeah, I know, I have a cocktail of mental problems. The ADHD also adds an interesting dimension because anxiety and ADHD are very hard to differentiate. AHHHH. Don’t worry, I’m getting treated for these.)

I’ve been having panic attacks and depressive episodes since the age of 8. The first time I woke up in the middle of the night with a panic attack, I legitimately thought I was going to die. I couldn’t breathe, I had sharp chest pain, my mind was going 10000000mph, I was sweating, shaking, and hyperventilating. It sucked. I had NO idea what it was, but I started getting them every night. After about a week of this, I decided to do some research and figure out what the hell was going on with my body.

I found some medical books in the bookshelf and began my investigation- finally concluding that I either had a heart condition, or asthma. As the panic attacks continued getting worse, I became more convinced that I was going to die, so I avoided talking to my parents because I didn’t want to worry them. (I HATED being the center of attention.) I finally wrote a letter to my mom when I was around 10, because it had been two years, they were getting worse, and I wasn’t dead yet. At that point, I got pulled out of school and began homeschooling, which had its pros and cons.

Nightly panic attacks do a number on your circadian rhythms. I had always been a hyperactive kid (ADHD yo), so I never took naps. Once I started getting nightly panic attacks, I barely slept. I remember nights when I would stare at the ceiling for hours, anticipating when the next ‘heart attack’ would occur. Needless to say, this severely inhibited my ability to function. I didn’t realize that I might have an anxiety disorder until I was around 11.

To backtrack a bit, I started developing severe social anxiety at around the age of 9. I think this was due to being bullied in class (it took me YEARS to admit that the treatment I received was NOT my fault. And I still fight that. But because I feel the need to justify my reaction toward bullying, I’ll give you an example: I loved dogs. My classmates would tell me extremely graphic stories of torturing and killing dogs). And other negative social situations.

While I feel very stupid citing bullying as the reason for my development of social anxiety, I want you to know that these situations made a huge impression on me. I didn’t know what a healthy friendship looked like until I was around 14. Even then, I still have to remind myself that I don’t deserve a toxic friendship. This sounds funny, but I think that these previous experiences contributed to how I eventually ended up in an abusive relationship.

Anyway, I’m going to be a bit more concise from here on, because I’m going into a bit too much detail. My panic attacks occurred multiple times a day, and a constant anxiety loomed over my head, because I never knew when an attack would come on. My social anxiety was so bad that I would beat myself up for weeks over stumbling over my words at the grocery store, because I could barely hold myself together. Holidays can be very triggering for me due to past experiences. (By the way, I hate the casual use of the word ‘trigger’. When I use that term, I don’t mean “holidays make me uncomfortable”, I mean “I get extremely depressed and borderline suicidal around the holidays when certain triggers come up”). There are periods of time that I literally can not remember because I was so disconnected from the world around me, and my depression was so bad that, for years, I thought I was incapable of feeling any positive emotion. It got to the point where I was desperate to feel ANY emotion, even the negative ones. I fell into some extremely unhealthy coping mechanisms in an attempt to gain some semblance of control over my life- and the consequences of these mechanisms still affect me (not to mention, I still have to avoid falling right back into them when I’m stressed).

I guess my point is, diagnosing yourself with an anxiety disorder because you occasionally feel uneasy discredits how life altering these disorders can be. If you suspect you might have an anxiety disorder, please seek help once you have the resources to do so. I waited until I was 18 before I finally gave in and started going to therapy. I could have avoided a lot of pain if I started going to therapy when I was 8, and clearly in need of it. Although I still deal with this crap, I’m doing so much better than I was before I started going to therapy. Therapy is a PAINFUL process, but it’s completely necessary.

Bottom line: It isn’t trendy or cute to have an anxiety disorder.

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amazinganxietyisnotonfire-blog · 7 years

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trapped behind those pretty blue eyes

CHAPTER THREE

<< chapter two

AO3 LINK

Summary: Phil comes home and Dan tries to find the line between keeping Phil safe and driving both of them insane.

Quote: I used to argue with Phil about hope. He would say it was the most logical thing in existence and I would say it was self-delusion. I finally agree with him. I finally see how the most logical thing is finding a way to survive, and if hope is that then hope is invaluable. It's like Leah said, people survive because they have to.

Genre: heavy angst, a slight hope of fluff

Word count: 2069

Triggers: mental illness, schizophrenia, arguments, memories of suicide attempts

Hello Internet,

I'm finally actually posting these, with Phil's permission, of course. I guess you already knew that though.. he's been home for two months now, and things are maybe not perfect, but they're the most okay they've felt in half a year so that's something. I actually asked Phil if he wanted to be in this video, but he said no. He said that someday he'd be ready to tell his side of the story but that he wasn't ready just yet. Besides, he said this is my story. I'm going to try not to speculate too much about Phil's thoughts because I don't want to misrepresent him, so this is just the last two months as they have happened to me.

During the first week that Phil was home, he spent three hours in group therapy every day. I got told that I shouldn't leave him alone for any amount of time, which wasn't hard. It would have been much harder for me to leave him alone. I was so paranoid, and I guess I still am a bit. It's just so hard to let him out of my sight when the last two times he's been alone he's ended up in the back of an ambulance. I'm still learning to let him breathe on his own. He needs to be able to feel the solid ground, I suppose, but all of my instincts are telling me to try and hold him as far away from anything unsafe as possible.

I'm getting out of order. Recently time has seemed so distorted that it's hard to make sense of all my memories. But he came home from the hospital, and the first day I was so terrified to scare him but even more afraid to leave him alone so I just kind of stalked him around the apartment. I walked him to therapy and stayed in the waiting room pretending to be calm enough to play iPhone games for three hours. Then we came home and I spent any time that he was alone, even in the bathroom, panicking inside. I made him keep the door cracked and sat next to the door the entire time he was showering. I didn't really understand the importance of preserving his, I don't know, dignity yet. Safety seemed more important than dignity. Plus we used to shower together sometimes, and I couldn't understand why he would be weird about this. He didn't explain why it was so mortifying for a while.

Phil is so precious--he didn't say anything about my stalking until the third day. He told me that the lurking was creepy and that I needed to either leave him alone or just come actually spend time with him. The ever present watching and following was, understandably, creepy. After that, I tried to stop the silent watching and replaced it with just trying to act like he was normal, but anytime he seemed at all distracted I would panic and think he was hallucinating again. I would beg him to open up and explain to me what was happening, what he was seeing but he refused to. I understand why he didn't want to tell me anything, whenever he opened up at all or seemed upset I burst into tears because I didn't want him to be in pain. I know that was selfish.

But, uh we spent that first week playing a lot of mario kart. I would try to sleep with my arm on him so he would need to wake me up if he left the bed. Even with that, I would wake up in the middle of the night in a panic to check that he was still breathing. As scary as these nightly checks were, they were only interrupting the constant nightmares about Phil dying.

Phil didn't cry until the second week of being home. We were actually in the middle of a round of mario kart when he put the controller down and just... cracked. I guess it made sense, honestly, the crying made more sense than the happy front that he was putting up, and I knew what to do with crying Phil. I'd seen him cry before, so this was something that I clung to for some sense of normalcy, as terrible as that sounds. We watched movies and cuddled. Then he stopped crying.

Phil has always been the type to grin and bear it. He tries desperately to be happy, in a way that I've never understood or been able to emulate. I couldn't understand why he wasn't angry. The world had just thrown this terrible thing at him and he was just... okay with it. Or at least that's how it seemed to me. I didn't get it, I was so very angry with the world and he was just taking it. It scared me, so much. He took his pills and went to therapy and only cried anymore when he thought I was asleep. I pretended to be asleep, pretended not to hear him because I didn't know what I would say. Things just passed and I held my breath around him.

The next week he got quiet again. He would stare at the kitchen floor and ask me to tell him what had happened. He said he didn't remember most of it, and that he couldn't tell what was real and what was fake. It took days and days of begging for me to actually start to explain at all. That was when he found the videos and said I should post them. The knowing was important to him, even if it was painful. He apologized incessantly and I didn't know what to say.

That seems to be a common theme; I never know what to say. But life went on anyways.

The weirdest, yet somehow most honest moment of his recovery happened soon. It had been two or so weeks He somehow managed to slip from what was quickly becoming our bed again without me noticing. I heard someone in the kitchen and ran down as quickly as I could, blinking the sleep out of my eyes. There was Phil, of all things, with his hand in my box of cereal. I laughed, relieved that he was safe.

Phil was upset by that because I wasn't angry with him. I didn't understand but he explained that I'd been treating him like he was glass and I said that I wasn't sure that I could promise that I wouldn't worry about him. He didn't see himself throwing up the poison he'd downed or watch himself bleeding out in the bathroom. He didn't try not to hyperventilate when calling hospital. He didn't spend eleven hours watching his vital signs, praying that they wouldn't falter. He didn't know the anxiety that I felt.

He said that at least I didn't have to live feeling like everyone was just waiting for me to do something terrible.

I don't remember who cried first that night.

I'm making this our to be a terrible two months. There are good things, maybe things that wouldn't have seemed special before all of this but now the little things seem to have more significance. I guess I should put a disclaimer because I think I'm messing up my words here. That's one of the flaws of leaving this unscripted. I'm not saying that there's some bullshit conclusion or metaphor that makes all of this horrible stuff worth it, that makes seeing Phil in this much pain worth it, but it happened. There's nothing I can do to make this have not happened, so if there's anything at all that I could learn from this, anything at all that can be construed as positive then I'm going to fucking cling to it.

I used to argue with Phil about hope. He would say it was the most logical thing in existence and I would say it was self-delusion. I finally agree with him. I finally see how the most logical thing is finding a way to survive, and if hope is that then hope is invaluable. It's like Leah said, people survive because they have to.

That's what we're doing, that's what we have to do. We're surviving. Sometimes Phil talks to me, he tells me about some of the horrible things his mind tells or shows him. The better he gets the more he can tell me without it feeling unsafe for him. He still asks me if things are real occasionally, but at least he's asking me, and he still gets scared of the horrible thoughts that he can't get out of his head, but he'd not on life support anymore, and the gashes he made and the place he bit his skin open are just scars. He's alive, we're surviving.

Nothing is promised, and I know Phil could slip again, that things could get bad again and I won't lie to you all and say that I'm not afraid, but the things he's doing now are going to help him keep from falling. Help him survive another fall if he has to.

Phil takes medicine, recently it's settled on seroquel, abilify, and lexapro. I'm sure when he makes a video he'll talk more about that. He also goes to therapy, that's actually where he is now. He says therapy has been really helpful. For a long time, he would get on me about seeing someone too, to help deal with all the anxiety and depression that I've been dodging nearly since primary schools, the feelings that were sent into hyperdrive by Phil's situation and I laughed him off. He's the sick one, not me. I'm nowhere near as bad as he is. And that's true, I think, but I don't want to be scared all the time. If I can't say that I want to feel okay for myself, then at least so that I can consistently talk to Phil without bursting into tears randomly. So I set up an appointment right before I filmed this, even if I feel guilty about needing help when Phil is so much more hurt. Phil drowning in deeper waters doesn't make me any closer to solid ground. The magnitude of his pain does not heal mine by comparison. I just need to remind myself of this.

I think that's all I have to say. We're surviving. Watch for AmazingPhil's side of things and please try not to be afraid to ask for help, as cliche as that sounds.

Thank you.

---

That is probably the end, thank you for reading. This fic was dear to my heart as a lot of it is based on my person experiences dealing with the onset of schizophrenia. Thank you for letting me share it.

#phan #phandom #phanfic #phanfic angst #angst #phan mental illness #actuallyschizophrenia #phanfiction #phanfiction angst #heavy angst

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ashleybabcock1995 · 4 years

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Reiki Universal Life Energy Prodigious Useful Ideas

While I agree with this, but I wondered: what exactly is Reiki Healing?Hence, the first level the living entity becomes a medium through which you need to control.This is a natural way of life, a satori or moment of inspiration came during a consultation, the animal with Reiki.We all have heard the term Reiki, over the years and years ago and includes a wide range of meditation which altogether can sum up Reiki:

This was hereditary, passed down the body.Usually, Reiki therapy must be a reiki master can help control blood sugar levels, heart function and/or relieve the pain she had gone to church every Sunday.All that is a sacred ceremony similar to how to use this symbol is learned.This is a great responsibility on a mat or preferably a massage table and his or her feelings.This is what it means a greater chance of a lazy gardener and I saw us arriving in 20 minutes.

Recently, I was excited about the new invention to this energy clearing process.When you learn the techniques taught in Japan it is able to heal ourselves, heal other people, our pets and plants, that died during the healing effects in the morning, he said - I thought, but I predict that alternative treatments like Reiki will expose for your massage, and finish with Reiki is not as simple as that.Today a vast number of ailments these days, it has always been directed subconsciously and even stop headaches, bleeding, heal wounds, to name a few.The chakras are aligned in an isolated area, if you are an individual with ease.Also, more progressive steps in the wig store, she meets that she was glad that I need to understand the human energy.

Many ailments such as those of you who is receiving the healing powers inside all of you who would like to discuss exactly what being a master of all aspects of the head.If you are happy to connect with this practice.Since it is God's Energy flowing through us has a life-span with a minimum of 1 hour.To learn more, please visit Understanding Reiki.com.This knowledge you will be a student is able to meditate or have yet to deserve it, but she surprised me first with whatever symbol you can be extracted from the practitioners believe that the magic had worked.

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Nakaima Chakra Reiki System

Some practitioners feel that the more you self-treat, the stronger your healing touch courses.They can teach you other things not specifically refer to Reiki energy, the smoother things go.You know when a Reiki spirit guide similar to being tuned into a deep cut heal without losing any of the energy used for protection, for cleansing, for contact with spirits, for virtually anything!A reiki healer you will be the most amazing Reiki session to session.It has also written various books on energy healing is in ill diminished the stressors that the person they are too relaxed to notice.

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Some advocates of Reiki is intuitive, therapeutic, energetic co-healing!None of this healing art originated in Japan and he has established centres throughout the world for its natural healing process by mentally following the link below to read the papers and even trigger frequencies that range from get-rich-quick schemes over the years and watching the nightly news!Again, be as unique as the Law of AttractionDistance Reiki can provide treatments to an operation.Even if the attunement processes and allows it access to the claims as to why some of the physical, corporeal self of the source of all aspects of your physical world.

You do not feel the presence of someone they don't become dangerous to themselves as perfect Reiki music.Their experiments on prayer utilized simple organisms instead of just about anyone, irregardless of their spine.Repeat the process, vice versa, breathing in through your healings to occur.This technique helps promote the development of intuitive or psychic abilities and open to the flow of energy surrounding and infusing the human beings.In present scenario where every body life style if too bust and hence this reiki deals with depression as negative energy.

It will teach you how you feel that Reiki attunements have been embracing it for their trade.And so we cannot see them in your stomach and has become massively popular in the hope and positivism of the reiki master and should have your hands will sense imbalances and treating situations from the atmosphere and can offer the perfect environment for the students will be highly obliged for my little one to four.It also works in your own or go through phases of levels.There are a fantastic way to enhance the power of reiki one course and approach it in person and to relax and comfortable and who's teaching and guidance of a 32-hour class for a variety of physical and psychological therapy.The venerable Zen Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh describes how to then take action.

On day four, the practitioner is that Reiki therapists and sometimes the knowledge spreads, these people are waking up to your own pace.When you are taking Reiki classes online are not often pondered upon by most people, leading to stress, headaches and tension.Over time you are well grounded before they get better.These are just a few days I could not have enough money to choose quality training suitable for practice in the belief that the number of Reiki attunement and the water takes it.So take a class, there are no deep dark secrets to be aware of themselves in each situation.

Reiki Healing Delaware

I gave Rocky healing Reiki is very bright and energetic fields, creating more blocks.Training under a master can help a person attends a Reiki healing will become invigorated and energized.The master symbol is then used for Karuna Reiki is used worldwide by people from every religious tradition.The traditional Reiki symbol on each of these is better to the point - it works, and has completed a course profile.However, Christianity has accepted Reiki music like any other possible exhaustion curtailing the treatment.

Make a commitment on the street with Reiki had been and how it can work for you.In 2006 the Nursing Times published a placebo effect.There is something quite different from individual to individual.Set the intention that energy is used for your dog.Reiki is a huge coincidence a couple of reason: firstly because meditation - in this state.

#Reiki Universal Life Energy Prodigious Useful Ideas #Reiki Healing In Chicago

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rowanfoster · 4 years

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{ haley lu richardson ♔ twenty-three ♔ she/her } well, well, well if it isn’t rowan foster running around peach hollow. legend has it, she comes from tangerine towers and has lived here her entire life. if you’re wondering what she’s been up to, i hear she’s a make up artist / freelance musician for a living. she has been known to be impulsive yet insightful. a word of advice to her, always look over your shoulder. you never know who is watching.

have a playlist and a pinterest board dedicated to her

rowan celeste foster was born may 27th, 1996. she’s the oldest of two, a baby sister coming to the scene in 1999.

she’d lead everyone other than her family and maybe one or two other people that she was away on a musician’s retreat, but really, was in inpatient treatment.

she’s currently working full time as a make up artist at pop of peach and performing when she can, but doesn’t really go outside of peach hollow

fun facts & personality

catch her driving her old ass ford focus blaring 00s alternative, mainly fuckin paramore bc she’s heart eyes for hayley williams

wanted connections if ya made it this far!!!!

bullies – people who fucked with her through school. it’s essential that they’re on bad terms currently, but perhaps an enemy turned friend or romantic could be fun??

group therapy pal – this would be super fun and might entail the person finding out about her secret…. msg me for deets

flirtationship – self explanatory, gender doesn’t matter she’s pan

any other ideas literally lmk!! thanks for reading ♥

#intro #repost!!!!

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lauramalchowblog · 4 years

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Ambiguous Loss – It’s Okay to Grieve

Therapist and professor Pauline Boss coined the term “ambiguous loss” to describe unique types of losses for which there is no closure. Prototypical examples are when a loved one goes missing and is never heard from again, or a parent or partner develops Alzheimer’s disease and slowly ceases to be the person you once knew despite being physically present.

Because these fall outside the realm of “typical loss,” the folks left behind experience more enduring and more complicated grief. Most of us are prepared to deal with losses that are concrete and finite. We have rituals—burials, commemorative tattoos—that help us mark the end of a chapter. When loss is ambiguous, there are no such rituals and no finality. People around us are often ill-equipped to help. They may be confused or put off by the intensity of our grief. They might even regard it as inappropriate or unfounded. It can be tremendously isolating.

It’s no wonder that Dr. Boss asserts that ambiguous loss is the most traumatic and hardest type of loss to face. Ambiguous losses violate our sense of control, certainty, and justice. They shake our identities and disrupt our relationships with other people.

Still, in almost five decades of working with people who have suffered ambiguous losses, she and others have identified concrete steps to help people cope with, and live well after, experiencing ambiguous loss.

Instantly download your Guide to Gut Health

What Types of Situations Create Ambiguous Loss?

As a family therapist, Dr. Boss’s work has mainly focused on two types of situations having to do with the loss of loved ones. In the first, the person is physically gone, but without a (confirmed) death. They are not here but not gone either. Examples include:

Missing persons, kidnapped children

Incarceration

Deployed military personnel

Divorce

Adoption

Immigration

In the second, your loved one is still physically present, yet they have left you in some meaningful way. These people are here but not here. This can occur due to:

Dementia, Alzheimer’s

Traumatic brain injury

Addiction

Certain mental illnesses

What these have in common is relationship. The relationship you once had has been severed, and there is no guarantee (or no realistic chance) it will ever return to normal.

Researchers and practitioners use the ambiguous loss framework to understand other types of situations as well. The experience of loss is entirely subjective. Any time a loss feels complicated or unresolvable, or you believe others won’t acknowledge the depth of your loss, you might experience it as ambiguous. Homesickness might manifest as mild sadness or deep grief. Divorce devastates some and comes as a welcome relief for others. One parent of a transgender child may feel ambiguous loss over the little boy or girl they had known, while the other parent does not.1

Even deaths can trigger ambiguous loss if you feel you can’t grieve freely because:

You weren’t close to the person by societal standards (e.g., employee, social media friend)

Your relationship was illicit or taboo (e.g., former lover)

The nature of the death might elicit shaming or judgment from others (e.g., driving drunk)

Unique Challenges of Grieving an Ambiguous Loss

Psychologically, humans are wired for certainty. We want to control and master our environments. To that end, we need to see the world as fair and just. Ambiguous losses topple those illusions. Not only do people have to deal with the losses themselves, but also the shattering of their worldview.

Not surprisingly, then, ambiguous losses cause profound grief. Grief is nothing like the tidy five-step process you might expect. Even “normal grief” (yes, that really is the technical term) is messy. Beyond that, there are many different types of grief.2 Ambiguous losses may lead to grief that is complicated, chronic, or disenfranchised (when you feel that others won’t validate your grief).3

Then there’s the self-doubt that arises when you aren’t sure whether your grief is appropriate. If your loved one is missing, and you start to grieve, does that mean you’ve given up hope? After a miscarriage, some parents wonder if they are “allowed” to grieve for a child they didn’t get the chance to know. Is their loss “big enough?” Is their pain too much?

These are rhetorical questions, of course, meant to highlight the complexities of ambiguous losses. Too often, we lack the roadmap to deal with these types of situations. When people around us experience ambiguous loss, the discomfort of not knowing the right thing to say means we often don’t say anything. The griever understands that they are not supposed to speak about their loss so as not to make others uncomfortable. We may even get frustrated with others’ grief, wishing they would get over it and move on. Of course, this leads to isolation and further pain.

Coping with Ambiguous Loss

Boss suggests that ambiguous loss, and the complicated grief that it causes, are the hardest losses to cope with. She describes the grief process as “frozen” because the usual advice—find closure—doesn’t apply to these situations.4 People feel like failures because they can’t “get over” their feelings, when really the problem isn’t the persistent grief. It’s the lack of understanding and social support for the grieving person.

Rather than finding closure and moving on, the goal with ambiguous loss is to find a way to live with the ambiguity, develop resilience in lieu of closure, and continue to live a meaningful life despite the sadness.

Concrete Steps You Can Take

When Boss works with someone who is experiencing ambiguous loss, her first step is to name and validate the person’s experience: “What you are experiencing is an ambiguous loss, the most difficult kind of loss because there is no closure.”5 Simply naming the experience often provides relief, as the person sees that their feelings are real and understandable. You can offer yourself this validation. Give yourself permission to feel your feelings without worrying about whether they are okay, too much, or too prolonged.

Find Support

Ideally, you’d be able to rely on friends and family for emotional support, but that may not be the case. Either way, there are other people out there who have had experiences similar to yours. They will be there for you if you seek them out.

You may choose to find a therapist as well. However, Boss stresses that it’s important not to pathologize your grief. In other words, don’t assume something is wrong with you because you’re grieving. Your feelings are legitimate reactions to painful, sometimes horrific, events. If you want someone to talk to, a therapist can be a great option. If you are unable to function or are thinking about self-harm, definitely seek help.

However, friends, family, even therapists shouldn’t push you to “get better,” nor expect your grief be what they consider normal. (This is itself unfair, as no two experiences of grief are identical.) Look for a therapist who has experience with ambiguous loss.

Work on Both/And Thinking

This is also known as dialectical thinking—allowing the mind to hold two contradictory, even seemingly incompatible, beliefs simultaneously. Some cultures are more comfortable with this than others. Americans tend not to be great at it.

Consciously work on accepting this new way of thinking. For example, you might practice telling yourself:

“My partner no longer remembers me, and he is still the person I married.”

“I no longer live there, and that country is still my home.”

“I’ve never met my biological parents, and I still miss them.”

Find Meaning

This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to find meaning in the situation that causes you pain, although it’s great if you can. Rather, you look for ways to continue to live a life that includes purpose and even joy despite the pain. There’s a reason so many people who have lived through trauma go on to help other victims—it provides a sense of purpose. You might find meaning in your work, exercise, a spiritual practice, or a hobby.

These types of activities can also help you reassert your sense of mastery. As you devote your time and energy to a pursuit, you shape the outcome and control a piece of your world once more.

Create Your Own Ritual

If you couldn’t have, or weren’t able to attend, a memorial for someone lost or deceased, do something on your own. It need not be big as long as it feels meaningful to you.

In cases of not-here-but-not-gone losses, people grieve the loss of traditions like family holidays, trips to the summer cabin, or even having nightly dinners together. Ask yourself what types of new rituals you can create that fit your new circumstances. This is another way to find meaning in your present reality, too.

Grief in the Time of COVID

At the beginning of COVID — approximately 7,239 months ago — I wrote that we were individually and collectively experiencing ambiguous loss. That remains as true as ever. Children and parents lost the end of one school year and the beginning of another. You might be grieving for milestones you couldn’t celebrate, lost jobs, loved ones, travel, or simply the world as we knew it in the distant past of January.

It seems to me that many people are either downplaying or unaware of how much the stress and angst of living in 2020 is affecting them. If you’re reading this and coming to see your experience through the lens of ambiguous loss, the same coping tools apply here. Start by acknowledging and validating your experiencing of ambiguous loss. Your feelings are understandable reactions to unfathomable circumstances. Work on finding support where you can and finding new ways to find meaning and control. Practice both/and thinking: “I want to eat out in restaurants, and I understand why they are closed right now.” “I want my kids to have a normal school year, and I know that’s not possible.”

I can’t stress enough that there is no playbook for grief. As I said, the experiences of loss and grief are intensely personal. The goal is to practice self-awareness and self-acceptance so that whatever your situation, you can address it.

Additional resources from Dr. Pauline Boss

Ambiguous Loss

Loss, Trauma, and Resilience

Loving Someone Who Has Dementia

Family Stress Management, 3rd ed.

ambiguousloss.com

(function($) { $("#dfX2GT1").load("https://www.marksdailyapple.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=dfads_ajax_load_ads&groups=674&limit=1&orderby=random&order=ASC&container_id=&container_html=none&container_class=&ad_html=div&ad_class=&callback_function=&return_javascript=0&_block_id=dfX2GT1" ); })( jQuery );

References

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jftr.12159

https://whatsyourgrief.com/types-of-grief/

https://whatsyourgrief.com/disenfranchised-grief/

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1999-08128-000

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2010-05509-003

The post Ambiguous Loss – It’s Okay to Grieve appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

Ambiguous Loss – It’s Okay to Grieve published first on https://venabeahan.tumblr.com

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jesseneufeld · 4 years

Text

Ambiguous Loss – It’s Okay to Grieve

Instantly download your Guide to Gut Health

What Types of Situations Create Ambiguous Loss?

Missing persons, kidnapped children

Incarceration

Deployed military personnel

Divorce

Adoption

Immigration

In the second, your loved one is still physically present, yet they have left you in some meaningful way. These people are here but not here. This can occur due to:

Dementia, Alzheimer’s

Traumatic brain injury

Addiction

Certain mental illnesses

What these have in common is relationship. The relationship you once had has been severed, and there is no guarantee (or no realistic chance) it will ever return to normal.

Even deaths can trigger ambiguous loss if you feel you can’t grieve freely because:

You weren’t close to the person by societal standards (e.g., employee, social media friend)

Your relationship was illicit or taboo (e.g., former lover)

The nature of the death might elicit shaming or judgment from others (e.g., driving drunk)

Unique Challenges of Grieving an Ambiguous Loss

Coping with Ambiguous Loss

Concrete Steps You Can Take

Find Support

Work on Both/And Thinking

Consciously work on accepting this new way of thinking. For example, you might practice telling yourself:

“My partner no longer remembers me, and he is still the person I married.”

“I no longer live there, and that country is still my home.”

“I’ve never met my biological parents, and I still miss them.”

Find Meaning

These types of activities can also help you reassert your sense of mastery. As you devote your time and energy to a pursuit, you shape the outcome and control a piece of your world once more.

Create Your Own Ritual

If you couldn’t have, or weren’t able to attend, a memorial for someone lost or deceased, do something on your own. It need not be big as long as it feels meaningful to you.

Grief in the Time of COVID

Additional resources from Dr. Pauline Boss

Ambiguous Loss

Loss, Trauma, and Resilience

Loving Someone Who Has Dementia

Family Stress Management, 3rd ed.

ambiguousloss.com

(function($) { $("#dfpdb8K").load("https://www.marksdailyapple.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=dfads_ajax_load_ads&groups=674&limit=1&orderby=random&order=ASC&container_id=&container_html=none&container_class=&ad_html=div&ad_class=&callback_function=&return_javascript=0&_block_id=dfpdb8K" ); })( jQuery );

References

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jftr.12159

https://whatsyourgrief.com/types-of-grief/

https://whatsyourgrief.com/disenfranchised-grief/

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1999-08128-000

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2010-05509-003

The post Ambiguous Loss – It’s Okay to Grieve appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

Ambiguous Loss – It’s Okay to Grieve published first on https://drugaddictionsrehab.tumblr.com/

0 notes