What is this problem and how do I fucking fix it.

Analyzing an entire song through roninpluralau lesgo ^_^

Song: Things to Do - Alex G

Ok so “only the cheapest things left for you” is a line for Donnie, because throughout his life he’s been the one to pick last. He picked his weapon last, he gets to be the one who deals with most of the after effects of his brothers actions. BUT it’s also a Ronin in general line, because throughout their life they were basically living off of leftovers from other people. Their favorite stuffed toy was stolen off a porch and their first blanket was a sock

“And the only thing I learned from you…” this is a splinter and ronin line specifically from Ronins feelings of splinter leaving them behind throughout their childhood. but largely with how splinter fucked up his own life before Ronin was born, and how they’re now dealing with the consequences of it. Sins of the father and all that

“I was asleep for days…” I’ve mentioned this briefly before but throughout Ronin’s life, largely due to trauma-related developmental issues, they’ve struggled with chronic fatigue and chronic pain. Pain to a lesser degree but the fatigue is really what hit them the hardest. When April first appeared in their home she helped with a lot of depression symptoms that came with their fatigue and generally helped them get up in the morning. This can also be related to Raph and Casey’s relationship, as Casey helped alleviate a lot of Raphs dissociation and anger issues, generally helping Raph feel more grounded and awake to the world

“The calculator will make the same mistakes…” 100% a Karai and Ronin lyric. It’s about generational trauma and repeating the history of their parents, and trying so hard not to repeat that history because they both love each other so much. But their parents loved each other once too, and they'll stumble and trip over some places but it’ll be ok in the end. It has to be. Also the calculator line being about how Ronin (Raph in particular) and Karai felt more like Machines or Soldiers being raised under their parents than actual children. “Yeah I see it in its face” is specifically Ronin @ Karai

Ok so if you’ve heard this song then you know that this part sounds like it’s pitched up/sung by a child so imagine this from child Ronin

“Hold on tight to this time this place…” so at Ronin’s old home them and Splinter only had a few months to a year of actual stability and safety before they were attacked by Shredder, where Splinter was almost killed. So this would be from the perspective of a younger Ronin talking to an older Ronin and reminding them that’s this won’t last. Since the period where Splinter, Ronin, April, Casey, and Karai all got to be together as a family was only for about a year or two before disaster struck again. “Cause everything you know will be erased” *Spoiler.*

“You were born inside your head…” They’re a system, they’re plural, all of them were quite literally born inside their head. This is a reminder that no matter how much they want to escape themselves that they can’t, that this is how they have always and will always exist, even if they don’t want to. Which is especially the case for Donnie and Leo. They will exist like this no matter how much they change. No matter what happens or how little they want to, they will persist, they will survive and live and persist. "Despite not wanting to" being especially true for Donnie. “That is where you’ll be when you are dead” they can’t escape themselves.

"You're just a boy you are no man..." they're just a kid. They've always just been a kid, they've never stopped being a kid. They've had to grow so much so quickly and no matter what they're not grown up yet. It's both a remorseful reminder but also a wake-up call to their own misplaced confidence in themselves. It's a smack in the face to say "you're a kid and you don't know shit" and that's ok. Because they're MEANT to be a kid. They're meant to be learning and making mistakes and they don't have to do everything right or know everything or be the most competent person in the room all the time. They're just a dumb kid. And that message is sympathetic but frustrating

"Nobody you know will understand" this is also about being a system. Being plural can feel so isolating because no one will understand the inner-workings and relationships in their mind as much as they do. They barely even understand themselves or how their trauma effects them. It's complicated and loud but so quiet to those around them. It's something constantly going on in the background that's invisible to other people. A vast innerworld that only they have access to. But it's also about how those different traumas effects each of them. How their life gets split up between 4 different people each with different ideas of how their life even happened.

Raph's experiences and Leo's experiences are so different from each other, and it's hard for them to mesh their memories in a way that's accurate to real life. This constant internal turmoil, "it's not what actually happened, but it's how it happened for me." Raph remembers getting the shit beaten out of him, he remembers hurting and hurting back and he remembers falling and getting up, and falling, and falling again and again and still having to get back up. But what Leo remembers is the way their dad cradled them and tended their wounds afterwards, he remembers how Splinter would bring meals into their room when they couldn’t get out of bed, how’d they chat over breakfast, how he sliced fruit for them, how he'd read to them and tuck them in. How their dad did this for them even on days where they knew he barely could.

They know it's not what technically happened, but it still happened. And it's hard for those memories to co-exist with each other, and even harder for other people to understand how those memories exist within each of them.

This in when it goes back to the regular singing voice.

"The only one that you have ever known.." it was just them and their dad for the longest time.

"The only one that you will ever know." They have to make a new home again, and again.

"Welcoming you back home" They find a new home, and they persist, persist, persist.

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Everything and Nothing

part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4

Pairings: Eventual LAMP, Demus

Warnings: Food mention, spacing out, loss of ability to read, mild negative self talk, guilt, mentions of a bully, mentions of intentional misgendering, cursing

Word Count: 1,214

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Logan was trying to read. He really was, usually, he was very good at reading and chose to do it recreationally. He could focus on the words and tune out the clutter that was the rest of the world. The book would take him to a place where his parents were proud of him, where he could sit still for longer than a minute, where Virgil was comfortable and Patton talked about his feelings. But not today. 

He was stuck. The sentence just didn’t make sense, there was no way to explain it without sounding like a complete lunatic, but Logan had temporarily lost the ability to read. ‘Not the best thing to happen in the middle of AP English’ Logan thought with a sigh, bouncing his leg at a ridiculously fast pace.

With nothing better to do Logan looked around the classroom. The week's homework was up on the whiteboard. Frankenstein’s monster, the book they were reading, was written in lovely cursive (which Logan also couldn’t read) at the top. Closer to Logan, Patton sat reading. They had worked so hard to get into this class, and Logan was very proud of them. 

School didn’t come easily to Patton, the way it did to Logan. But they were one of the smartest people Logan knew. They were invariably there for their friends, they knew what to say when Virgil was having an anxiety attack and knew what to do when Logan was overstimulated or having a meltdown. They understood emotions like Logan understood math. Logan would be lying if he said he wasn't a bit jealous. 

Logan was so zoned out he didn’t even realize that Mr. Flores had moved to stand next to his desk until the teacher spoke. 

“Hey, Logan'' the man whispered with a smile, “are you alright?” Logan looked up at him, “um, I’m having a bit of trouble reading right now, it's ok though I can just read this chapter for homework as well.” he replied with an awkward smile. “Oh don’t worry kid, I know what that's like, give me a second '' after a moment Mr. Flores returned with a small box and headphones. “Here, you can listen to the book and do the assignment at the same time instead of reading” Logan took it with wide eyes, “You know how to work these things?” Mr. Flores asked, “Uh yeah, thank you!” the young boy said, quickly sliding on the headphones. 

Patton looked back at him and smiled their angelic smile. Logan involuntarily smiled back and began working on the assignment. 

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By the time the class was over Logan’s head had cleared considerably. Patton, of course, had checked on him as soon as they had a moment. Logan was quick to reassure them that he was fine. Both of them thanked any god that may be up there for Mr. Flores. Knowing that without proper action Logan’s light zoning out could quickly turn into a dissociation episode. 

Patton was kicking themselves for not noticing sooner. And Logan was feeling like a burden. Neither enjoyed their next two classes. 

When lunch period rolled around the glasses gays were hoping that the day may improve for them. Roman had been joining the group during lunch break, and though she and Virgil weren’t yet quite as friendly as the others were, it was always nice to see him. 

Logan walked through the crowded lunchroom. He let muscle memory take over as he sidestepped the popular cliques, slipping into a chair at their usual table next to Virgil.  Bumping knees with the boy to alert him of Logan’s presence without scaring him. 

Virgil didn’t even look up, handing Logan an earbud for the BuzzFeed Unsolved video he was watching. Logan happily accepted scooting closer to the angsty teen. 

They were quite the pair. Most of the school was used to the odd friend group. But in many situations, it is not common to see a boy with purple emo bangs, baggy clothes, and heavy black makeup sitting shoulder to shoulder with an uptight nerd who wore ties to school. 

But it gets even odder, as the fluffy, happy, sunshine child slides next to the emo reaching over to turn on the close captions. Along with them, one of the two new kids, the one who wore a red trench coat to school, watched over their shoulders. 

Despite their oddness, they were important parts of the school’s hierarchy. Patton was the head of the cheer-leading squad and had turned the naturally misogynistic club into a safe space of sorts. Logan was the head of the debate team, this was a very popular club to watch after school. Because he would become very passionate about even the smallest subjects, and when the subjects weren’t small he was known to become violent. Which was entertaining, to say the least. Virgil was less involved than the other two, opting for running the small art program. He volunteered during his study hall and after school some days, helping the art teacher. 

The new kid had very quickly established herself as an immense theater nerd and had won the heart of the chemistry teacher who ran the theater program, Mr. Sanders. The cast and crew had also quickly accepted Roman as a part of the team. 

But despite the friends that the four had outside of their group, they opted for each other. If you asked Patton, they would say that it was because they were “bestest friends”, Logan would go on a rant about how they balanced each other out well, Roman would say that it was destiny that brought them together, and Virgil would mumble something about how queers always found each other. 

Of course, not everyone liked this, and there were people that even Patton would punch in the face if given the chance. 

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The video came to a dramatic end and Virgil let his head fall against Logan’s shoulder. Roman and Patton were teasing each other about something while eating their lunches. He could tell from the look in Logan and Pat’s eyes that it had been a tiring morning for the two of them. It had been a rough morning for him as well. 

The bitchiest bitch of them all, Greg had been in both his Math and history class this year. How he got into AP math, Virgil will never know. He was a bigoted fuck and as dumb as a rock. Those two things, unsurprisingly, often went hand in hand.

He had a lovely habit of misgendering Patton and Virgil. It was difficult for Virgil to see his best friend bullied like that and was tempted to tell someone. But for the most part, he just physically and verbally harassed Virgil. Hopefully drawing attention from the others. 

If L and Ro ever found out about Greg there would, without a doubt be bloodshed. The two of them could get in trouble, or hurt, or killed, and it would be all Virgil's fault. So he kept quiet about it. He had to. 

Logan gently wrapped an arm around Virgil pulling him back down to earth. “Are you alright Verge?” he muttered. Virgil just nodded burying his face further into Logan’s chest. He felt Lo hum in response, continuing his lunch one-handed. 

Like.

I was eleven the first time I made a Plan. I had gotten my period and I was going to run away into the wilderness and maybe catch a bus and start a new life, or maybe die because I couldn't handle what was happening to my body - and maybe that was a sign I was broken and God should take me.

I spent the next few years dreaming of being a martyr. Of looking for signs in the sky that the End Times were here and hoping to God I'd have a chance to prove my faith my giving my life to Him. That's what I thought about, day in and day out. That was my plan for the future. Die a gruesome, public death so that I may somehow find some shred of worth in my last moments.

I started getting really depressed at 14. I didn't think I'd make it past 15. Still, I told no one.

By 16, I was switching between "I have to kill myself to find out the truth about reality because I can't handle what the eldritch gods are telling me anymore and I know the government will imprison me if they find me and the world keeps glitching and I can't handle not knowing anything anymore I can't I can't I can't" and "I'm a worthless piece of shit and I deserve to die before I hurt anyone".

When I told a Christian counsellor I hallucinated sometimes, she acted like she didn't hear me and talked to me about respecting my parents and we prayed a lot.

I had a short stint of happiness for a few months at 17 before it all came crashing down on me tenfold. By that point, I didn't believe in recovery. I just didn't.

The psychotic symptoms came back again, different themes this time, but no less terrifying. I attempted twice at 18, and you know who I told? Absolutely no one. I still think it's some kind of miracle I survived the second time around. I secretly went to two sessions of campus therapy and said I sometimes feel like wanting to die, but don't worry, I don't have a plan and would never actually do it.

At 19, I moved back home and had a long mental health evaluation where I was desperate enough to be kind of honest. I got diagnosed with ADHD and put on medication and for once in my life I felt like my brain worked. I got therapy with a man who self-identified as a fundamentalist Christian - but was mature enough to set his beliefs aside to help me. This was the first time I learned actual CBT skills. The first time I felt a glimmer of hope for my future. I started exercising. I started seeing my grades improve. I got accommodations for my disabilities. For once I started to develop dreams and an identity beyond how abysmal my mental health was and "what's the best way to kill myself?".

I think the times I was most convinced recovery wasn't possible for me was during the relapses of this period. I wish it'd taken me less time to learn that relapses would Happen. I thought I was doomed. I thought the universe had a target on my head and my time was here at long last.

Instead, I moved out at 20 to get some space. I had the faintest glimmer of myself and I knew that glimmer was incompatible with the church-heavy life my folks were having me lead back there. My identity was in shambles, but this time, I liked myself just enough to want to build one.

The flashbacks and dissociation began to take over my life and after about six months of that I thought shit, I need to start seeing a trauma therapist. So I did, in secret, with cash, leaving the phone tracker at home while I drove to hourly sessions and it turned out yep, this was PTSD.

And slowly, I learned how to live again. I was finishing my AA while working almost full time at a minimum wage job and living off of oatmeal and sweet potatoes and beans and rice. I didn't really have goals. Or a social life. Or even decent grades. But I learned to love the parts of myself that wanted to die, and I learned I really, really liked cooking, and I met my best friend, and I fell in love. And suddenly it didn't feel like my mental health and the deeply closeted life I was living affected just me anymore.

There were relapses, of course there were. But then my car broke down completely, and somehow I garnered enough of a self-preservation instinct to ask a friend for help, and I stayed at his place for a few weeks, and kept the phone tracker at work, and I came out to my parents, and that's still the most terrifying thing I've ever done. (Speaking as someome who drove across the country in the middle of a national uprising and a pandemic.)

And now - woah! I have so many goddamn goals and dreams I don't even know what to do with myself or where to start! I'm so fucking scattered and indecisive it's frustrating and sometimes it feels like it'll be impossible to finish any of them but holy shit! I have dreams! I want to be alive! There's so much I want to do and so little time and that's!!! Woah!!!

Despite that, I'm still depressed. Seriously, it takes me hours to get out of bed without a pressing Responsibility. I feel at least somewhat grey and foggy and tired 75% of the time.

But when you look at the fact that I've been actively suicidal for PRETTY MUCH my entire thinking life minus the majority of the past couple years? Bro, I'm on cloud nine. I'm doing great. [insert "do you think a depressed person could make THIS?" screencap from parks and rec here]

I never thought I'd make it to 15, 16, 17, 18, 19. 22 was out of the goddamn question and you know what? I'm on like, teenager-level of Life Plans right now. But I have a LIFE! And I have PLANS! Plans ABOUT that life - not about vanquishing it! And isn't that wonderful?

I sometimes muster the energy to work on my fursuit. I draw a fair amount. I'm making OCs and original stories, again. I go on runs with my boyfriend and we cook together and cuddle a lot and I actually get to go outside and hike around sometimes. I'm looking into getting involved in volunteering somewhere and I'm gonna start weightlifting again. Medical/legal transition is no longer some faraway, impossible dream. And I pet dogs. And watch a whole lot of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

So. Yeah. I'm not cured. My level of functioning now is about at the neurotypical level of "holy shit, what's wrong with me, I need to see a doctor". (And guess what - that's in the plans, too)

But I'm recovering and coping and likely will be the rest of my life. That's how lifelong illnesses are, babey. But I've accepted that. And I've got a good, full life ahead of me - a life I didn't even think I deserved, a few years ago.

Anyways. I hope my story gives someone out there some hope. I see a LOT of mental illness recovery stories like "I had an acute depressive episode for a year, talked to a therapist and got some meds, now I'm back to Normal Happy Life!!", but... nothing for those of us who've been dealing with severe mental illness for so long that we don't even have a before to go back to.

From a young adult who's been fighting with their own brain since they were a kid: As long as you're alive, there's hope.

And for the love of GOD, stop comparing yourself to people who've never have to deal with this level of Brain Fuck before.

Moana + Beauty and the Beast for Lake and Sleeping Beauty + The Lion King for Rain!!

Moana - Does your muse believe in fate or destiny? What is theirs?

Lake does, now, believe fate and destiny kind of exist, though in a complicated game of webs that can snap and throw everything completely out of order. There’s fate and then there’s people who fuck up the order and they’re usually something powerful like The Arcana. He figures the main key of his destiny was being the right power in the right place to stop The Devil, and the rest is contributing to other people’s destinies or story lines.

Beauty and the Beast - How has your muse changed as a person over their life? Have they changed for the better or for worse?

yo guess who got way carried away with this answer be warned!

This is more complicated because I’m liking ‘loses amnesia’ Lake more and more (for everything but his main universe where he has to be able to forgive Lucio lol) I really felt for a while that Lake losing his memories really left him a less hurt and less angry person, because he didn’t remember the hurt and betrayal of his life. But sometimes I really like stories about mess broken people who are pretty far from perfect still being someone people will like and be interested in and love and care for.

As a very young child Lake was like... a kid, while being cared for by nannies and stuff he didn’t know any different so he just toddled. When he started getting lessons and his parents’ attention at first he became very reserved. He spent a long time into his adolescence as shy and reserved, afraid of causing problems or drawing ire. After his teacher was sent away (not, unfortunately, to e punished or because he did anything TO Lake, but because the scandal of Lake sleeping with his teacher was scary to the Caliburns. So he was paid for his silence and sent out of Haven.) He had a brief period of extreme emotional instability (screaming, crying, dissociating, extreme episode) then when they started getting out again they started figuring out that people outside of his family don’t know he’s “bad” and he starts connecting with the local boys his age. However, he was not at the time a boy himself and was fairly pretty and developed, it started as just flirting and getting attention, but it did eventually slip into sexuality. It was Lake to escalate things to sexual though ‘cause he was the one who was familiar with how sex worked thanks to his teacher, so he mostly considers this time ‘playing around as a youth’ or whatever. All very hush hush so his parents wouldn’t find out (not like... a really well kept secret, Lake kept finding himself with new suitors when other boys found out he was kind of easy. Small town gossip is strong, and small town folks are BORED)

Eventually in his late teens Rain caught him in bed with another boy from another of the noble houses and got him in serious trouble. From there he snapped and decided he was going to do what ever it took, no matter what, to get away from there and survive. When the time came he was cold to the needs of his family and stole as much of monetary value as he could carry and joined a caravan traveling North. He started drinking because a lot of the men he hung around with on the caravan introduced him as a casual way to stay warm and loosen lips.

When he wound up in Vesuvia he bonded with Asra, both being kind of on the street and kinda messy and emotional and honestly Lake saw Asra with his masks and was like ‘that’s the most relatable person I ever saw in my life’ and went to earn some money to buy a mask so he could get an excuse to start a conversation. Since it was the masquerade him and Asra danced and partied and definitely connected. It was through conversations with Asra that Lake was able to put a name to a feeling and understand that he was a man. It still took him a little bit of time to live full time as a man as it was difficult to earn enough for top surgery. Working with Asra and Muriel and kind of bonding through varied traumatic experiences led to a lot more emotional stability and a proper understanding of love, both platonic, romantic, familial, it didn’t really make sense to him until he made a little family with Asra and adopted/got adopted by his ‘aunt’ who was an elder trans woman who helped him get his surgery.

Then the plague hit, Asra left, the aunt died, Lake dedicated himself to trying to find a way to mix his magic and folk knowledge into his medical knowledge to address things. He and Julian bonded, but badly over the course of the plague getting worse and worse and more and more people dying. They ended up desperation fucking once but Julian freaked out at the assumed intimacy and Lake got isolated until he caught the plague and died.

I’m still working on how getting his memories back would alter him as a person, but I think he’s definitely grown better now that he has support and love in his life again. His happiness is very dependent on having people, which is pretty normal I suppose.

*

Rain:

Sleeping Beauty - What is the worst possible curse your muse could face?

I think for Rain it would be to have done something so disgraceful he loses the faith and trust of the people of Haven and had to be banished away from his life and duty he had dedicated his life towards. So just losing Haven, I guess, but the disgrace would be part of the fear.

The Lion King - Is your muse prepared for the responsibilities laid out for them in life?

He thought he was, he studied the magical theory, trained his body, studied the defenses. But there’s a lot about maintaining a house he’s not aware of because his parents hid their struggles behind the scapegoat that Lake had ruined them financially and they had to work extra hard to make up for that. Instead he has to figure out how to save his house financially while maintaining his duty, helping around the town, and learning new ways his family had previously neglected as ways to do their job. He will be, he just needs a transitional period and a bit of help.

Slenderman and Creating Real Tulpas

I remember a couple of years ago finding out about Slenderman.  It was so creepy that I looked into it a lot, especially when I heard the theory about Slenderman being a Tulpa.  As if he wasn’t creepy enough just by being a made up story on the Internet, kids were killing other kids, or stabbing other kids, in order to “please Slenderman”.  Clearly a game that they had invented and taken deadly seriously.

A Tulpa is an intended hallucination which can be sentient and have its own thoughts and personality.  It is (according to the Tulpa Community, but not, I may add, folkloric legend) only seen by the person who created it, who has done so by prolonged periods of thinking solely about what the tulpa looks like, talks like, moves like etc, thus developing, in essence, another person who is sharing their body and mind, but functions as a separate personality.  We know of lucid dreaming, as I have often done it myself.  We’re aware that our brains are more than capable of producing extremely real and vivid hallucinations.  

So is it entirely impossible that if enough people all put enough thought power into the creation of the same, singular individual, that a tulpa could be formed which could break free of the constraints of individual minds and be a person all of its own, with its own free will and the power to manipulate others?  I believe it is possible.  Call me crazy.  My tin foil hat is firmly in place.  It’s hilarious really when you consider that I laughed down the Flat Earthers, yet here I am saying that it’s possible to create an imaginary friend who can turn into a mind-bending, master manipulator.

I didn’t have many friends growing up.  So I was one of the kids who didn’t mind admitting that I had invented an imaginary friend.  His name was Bill and he was based off of Bill from ‘Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure’ because I was obsessed with that movie.  I would talk to him whilst walking home from school alone, ask him what he would do in my place during different situations that I was struggling with and he always had an answer that I imagined.  I would say, “Bill, do you think [insert boyfriend name here] is a dick?” and in my head he would instantly say, “Hell yeah he is, you need to dump his ass!”.  Of course, I never once thought that I had created another person.  It was my imaginary friend.  In my head.  Made up by me.  Well, me and Alex Winter.  His instant “responses” was just my own subconscious mind telling me what I really, truly felt, without having to consciously think about it.

Having perused the Tulpa Community it seems to be an extremely dangerous rabbit hole.  For one, what they are describing as “tulpas”, at best, mostly seem to be an adult version of an imaginary friend and at worst, a real mental health issue, possibly Dissociative Identity Disorder which is incredibly serious and is being passed off as something that is perfectly normal and almost a uncommon achievement to be able to create a tulpa, rather than the reality which is that there is real medical and psychological help out there for cases such as DID and it should certainly not be explained away as a deliberately induced imaginary friend who will solve all your problems for you.  Passing it off as such could potentially make the case even worse.  I’m not a psychologist.  I’m just using common sense. If you cultivate something, it grows.

So.  I have made a decision that I don’t buy into the Tulpa Community.  There are also a lot of comments on YouTube videos and forums that are quite blatantly people who are full of absolute shit and others who are just clearly attention seeking.  I thoroughly enjoyed the brilliant sarcastic responses to those comments.

Now let’s get serious (ish).  Bear with me.  Let’s get back to the theory of many people being able to collectively produce a tulpa.

As I said before, I became obsessed with Slenderman.  I watched videos (all of Marble Hornets), read newspaper articles, looked at pictures, read stories, until he became my every waking thought.  After a week and a half I developed sensations such as paranoia, racing heart, dizziness and the feeling of constantly being watched by something just out of the corner of my eye.  I began having horrific nightmares and would wake up drenched in sweat.  I stopped being able to lucid dream and wake myself up and was forced to play out the nightmares, helpless.  It got to the point where I didn’t want to sleep.  The times that my boyfriend had blessedly snored loudly enough to wake my conscious brain, I sat up in bed, exhausted, trying desperately to keep my eyes open and not fall back to sleep.  Every shadow in the bedroom seemed to resemble Slenderman and I was convinced that as soon as the lights got dim or it was dark, he was there in the shadows waiting.  I stopped going to bed before my boyfriend.  I didn’t want to be in the house alone.

Looking back, naturally it all seems totally stupid.  Me, a grown 35 year old, scaring myself silly because of a kids’ story on the internet.  But what if it really is possible to create a tulpa by using enough collective subconscious power?  Thousands of people in the world at the time were reading those same stories and scaring themselves silly like I was.  If it was possible to create a tulpa, Slenderman and his fame would most certainly warrant it.

For anyone who isn’t familiar with the 80’s movie ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’, the main bad guy/killer is Freddy Kruger, a demon (who was a bloke who killed kids and then got burned in a fire by their fucked-off parents, then he came back from the dead in peoples’ dreams, as a...you know what, I don’t fucking actually really know what kind of thing Freddy is) who kills people in their dreams.  Enough people get to know about him and he suddenly can break free of only being in their dreams and can exist in the real world, killing whomever he chooses in reality.  Freddy, is a tulpa.  He existed in reality, purely because all the kids talked about him, described him to each other, then dreamed about him, which cemented him more in their brains, until he became a reality.  By what was, if I remember correctly, the 407th film featuring Freddy, ‘Freddy vs Jason’ the townsfolk had worked out that the only way to defeat Freddy, was to pretend he didn’t exist.  No one was allowed to talk about him, no one could mention his name, and anyone who dreamed about him was given dream suppression pills so they ceased dreaming altogether (boy didn’t I crave Hypnocil during my Slenderman nights).  In this way, Freddy became weak and the town was safe (for a while - Stage Right - freaky hockey-mask-wearing-dude-with-mommy-issues).

My point is that from my personal point of view, the Tulpa Community are people who have really good imaginations, like myself and are doing nothing more than imagining another person.  They are not “creating” a tulpa.  Not in the sense that I think they think they are anyway.  I sort of feel like a tulpa is akin to a golem who is created to protect someone or something and is capable of physical destruction in the real world.

I digress.  Touching on Slendy for the podcast is something I’ve wanted to do for a while now, but I’ve hummed and hawed because, let’s face it, I’m scared.  Slenderman did become a bit too real for me, even if it was in my head and my mind playing tricks on me, but it put me through sheer terror, I was legitimately scared of my own shadow so opening this can of worms is a big deal for me, even if it seems utterly stupid for a grown woman to feel that way.  If two young girls can pretend that killing their friend as a “sacrifice to Slenderman” is real, then who’s to say if enough people genuinely hallucinated Slendy and his creepy, murderous personality, that other people could not be compelled to kill?  He would become his own person. I’m a tin-foil hat wearing silly girl who believes a lot of ridiculous things (except Flat Earth, you guys are wrong - just saying), but from a mass hallucination point of view, I do genuinely think this could be plausible.  And by delving back into this research, not only am I opening up the likelihood of scaring myself silly, into seeing shit that isn’t there, I would also have to be held (partially) responsible for creating the master Slenderman that wipes out the world by making people kill each other.  Hmph.  And Ted Bundy thought he had some great ideas.

Also, “Tulpamancy” is a thing.  Although not according to the Tibetians, where the tulpa originated.  Funny that.  Almost as if it’s a made up word.  (It is.  By the Tulpa Community.)

As for the pretend “Tulpa Community”?  Some of these people envision their tulpas as characters from ‘My Little Pony’.  Make of that what you will.  I wouldn’t personally be taking career and life advice off of a fucking horse.  All I’m saying.

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grounded | billy hargrove

Long-time no see! To make up for my time away, I have this little baby for ya. It’s longer than my other posts, but I definitely think it’s worth it of course, I could be a bit biased. All joking aside, I hope you guys enjoy! It starts with a little bit of a onesided crush from the reader on Steve, but don’t worry. Our favorite guy (who just looks so deliciously badass in this gif) is the main focus. Remember folks: consent is key, and it’s never the victim’s fault. Never.

Word Count: 4,653

Warnings: Dissociation, sexual assault, mentions of abuse, swearing, victim-blaming (self-blaming), panic attack, and I think that about covers it?

There were times where you didn’t quite feel like your world was real. It wasn’t like you were delusional. You just sort of... floated sometimes. Like you were there, and you were living your life, but it was through this misty haze that separated your consciousness from your body. You didn’t really know how to explain it, honestly. And it’s not like you could predict it or control it. Sometimes it would just last a few minutes. Sometimes it would go on for a week or two.

The first time it happened was at a party. You had gone with Carol and Nicole, your two best friends, with the promise that a certain pretty-haired boy would be there. At the time, you had a major crush on Steve Harrington. He was one of your close friends, and you were convinced you were in love with him. And Carol and Nicole used that little fact to drag you to the party— nevermind that he had recently been rumored to have started dating a certain Nancy Wheeler. When your constant efforts to flirt with him went unnoticed (or worse, laughed off), you decided to try and make him jealous. You approached a senior boy who had been eyeing you all night. One who was well-known for being sighed over in the cafeteria. One Carol and Nicole had checked out before, despite Tommy sometimes sitting right next to the former when it happened. You figured a little kissing wouldn’t hurt. You hadn’t kept track of how much alcohol you were drinking, and he talked you into another few shots. Before you knew it, you were drunk. Not drunk enough to go into a back bedroom with him, but definitely drunk enough for him to get more than a little handsy with you.

It was all fun and games until he started trying to grab your chest. You batted his hands away a few times before he started to get frustrated. You remember what he said. Sometimes, late at night when you can’t fall asleep, you still hear his rasp of “quit being such a fucking tease, it’s just your tits” brush across your ear and send chills down your neck. You stopped pushing his hands away after that. You thought maybe, just maybe, if you let him try then Steve would see you were open to fooling around. Maybe he’d look at you if he thought you were as fun as Carol or Nicole. You glanced over the nameless senior boy’s shoulder, searching for him. You saw him across the room, laughing with Tommy and Carol. Nicole excitedly pointed you out to the three of them, and your heart broke as you saw him raise his glass towards you. Egging you on. Not caring another boy was feeling you up for all to see.

It was then that hazy state washed over you for the first time, leaving you with this surreal sense of being that made you feel simultaneously detached from your body and more connected to it than you had ever been before. You barely registered his hands brushing across your body, touching you where no other guy had ventured before. Violating you. He felt up your chest, squeezed and groped your ass, and had just finished working his way to the apex of your thighs before you finally managed to feign a sudden wave of drunkenness that had you on the floor and finally safe from his greedy hands. You were left in that floaty, surreal headspace until Nicole called you the next afternoon. You finally learned his name. Allard Collins. She demanded to know everything that had happened between the two of you. She was disappointed to find out it hadn’t progressed much further than what she saw. You realized she thought you were lying when both she and Carol cornered you, asking you about it on Monday before class.

You felt the haze wash over you again as they tried to dig more information out of you. They kept bringing it up, giggling and talking about what a snag he was and “great catch” and “better give it to him again quick if you want him to stick around.” It wasn’t until Friday, when they heard he had gone home with another girl from the party a week before, that they believed you. But by that point, the damage was done. You had been in that floaty headspace all week, and you weren’t sure you were ever going to come back down to earth again.

You slowly stopped hanging out with them, and slowly the floating stopped. You found some new friends, started to get close to Nancy and Barb, and began separating yourself more and more from the incident. You ignored the voice in your head that hissed it’s your fault and you deserved it. You got over your infatuation with Steve, swearing men in general off after a while. You’d still find yourself in that floaty space every once in a while, but you learned to manage it. You could still function just fine and go about your daily business. You just weren’t... connected. But that was okay. Honestly, sometimes it was nice.

Every time, you were aware it was happening. And there was some small voice that told you it was bad and wrong and shouldn’t feel as... peaceful as it did. But you never had to feel anything when you were there. You didn’t have to feel the pain or the panic or the anxiety that would set in when a guy looked at you funny or a girl would talk about a particularly steamy makeout session. You didn’t have nightmares when you were in that floaty space. You didn’t freak out when you went on dates and a boy tried to kiss you if you were floating. (You had tried to stay grounded once on a date, the first guy after the party, and it ended terribly when he tried to kiss you after walking you back to your door. You almost had a panic attack.) When Barb went missing, you weren’t even fazed. You had already been floating for almost a full week by that point, withdrawing from her and Nancy as the latter started dating Steve. That was the longest time you lived in that hazy existence. It was another week before you finally came crashing back down.

When you crashed, you crashed hard. Everything would hit you, all at once, and you’d often wind up having panic attacks. Not that anyone but your mom knew. You kept it hidden from everyone you could, only turning to her because you didn’t know who else to turn to. Even she didn’t know the real reason they started. You had cited school and bullying, and she had accepted those answers without hesitation. She was content to offer whatever help she could, letting you stay home after your hazy periods when you would crash and be so anxious you got physically sick. She hoped with enough love, it might go away.

You got used to this new reality, drifting along and floating sometimes while being painfully grounded at others. You were content with it, practically even happy. You were fine with only experiencing your love life through a clouded sense of touch until he came roaring into town.

The first time you saw him— the week of Halloween, 1984— he walked into your math class. It was Monday. You were still floating from a date you had gone on the Saturday before. You were floating all through class as he walked in the door, the teacher directed him to take an empty seat, and he scanned the room. You were floating as he smirked, spotting the empty desk behind you. You were floating, barely registering it as he sauntered down your aisle and practically collapsed in the desk behind you. You were floating for the next few minutes, scribbling notes down and paying the new kid no mind (unlike the rest of the girls in class). It wasn’t until he tapped your shoulder that you stopped floating.

You blinked, registering the sudden intrusion into your personal space, and stiffened. A year of flinching every time someone unexpectedly invaded your space and having to make up an excuse as to why had quickly trained you not to draw attention. You ever so carefully leaned away from his finger, trying not to let the panic overwhelm you, as you turned to face him. You turned to meet the prettiest blue eyes you had ever seen, a wild head of blond curls, a sun-kissed face, and a very disarming smirk looking up at you from where his head was resting on his hand.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a pencil I could borrow, would ya doll?” His raspy voice seemed to hum the request. Without missing a beat, you offered him the one in your hand. He sent you a toothy smile and a wink that made your heart stop. You mechanically turned back to face the front, reached down to your backpack, and grabbed a new one as if nothing else had happened. It wasn’t until you were four lines of notes down the page that you realized he hadn’t had a notepad in front of him. Or a binder. Or any paper at all really. You glanced back to see him still watching you, drumming your pencil against his desk without a scrap of paper in sight. He smirked again when he caught you peeking. You whipped back to the front and refused to give him the satisfaction of catching you glancing back at him again.

It wasn’t until the bell rang, signaling the end of class that he caught your attention again.

“Mind if I hang onto this?” You almost shrieked, jolting forward in your seat and practically grabbing the edge of your desk. His voice in your ear and the unexpected presence at your back had sent your stomach into summersaults and your heart flying. It only took you a millisecond to gather your wits, but it seemed like that was enough to make Billy curious. You turned around to face him, and you were quickly caught off guard. He wasn’t smirking in victory at catching you off guard, like you were half-expecting. Nor was he sending you another flirtatious grin. Instead, he was watching you with a hint of... what looked like confusion. Maybe even suspicion? Surprise?

“Hang onto what?” You hated how breathless you sounded. You knew he clocked it too, from the assessing look in his eyes. It was only there for a moment before he slid right back into that easy, flirtatious persona again. But you had seen it. And you weren’t sure what to do.

“The pencil.” He raised his eyebrow as if it were the most obvious thing. You supposed it was. You just weren’t quite fully firing yet. “After all, you never know when you might need to give a hot chick your number.” You could see his mind working behind the wink he sent you.

You sent him a tight smile, still a little off-guard and not sure how to feel about his blatant flirting. “Keep it. Not that there are many ‘hot chicks’ in Hawkins. At least, not to what I’m guessing are your standards.”

“Not if they’re trying to compete with you.” Oh, he was smooth. You’d give him that. “What’s your name, sweet cheeks?”

“Y/N. You are?”

“The man of your dreams. But you can call me Billy.” That time, you rolled your eyes. You started gathering your stuff as people began filtering out the door and into the hallway.

“Well Billy, keep the pencil. Good luck finding those hot chicks.” You were the last two in the class, and you were hoping to get away with the last word. You should’ve known better.

“I don’t need luck. I already found one!”

You were halfway through the next class before you realized you hadn’t had a panic attack after crashing down to earth from your floating headspace. It was the end of the day before you realized it was the first time in almost three months you had crashed without having a panic attack.

Billy started to become an interesting factor in your life. He was in a decent number of your classes (which surprised you, since you didn’t exactly take it easy in school and he didn’t seem the type to really try). He stopped surprising you with little touches and invading your personal space after a few more attempts at it left you alert and uneasy around him. (You were half-convinced he was looking for something with these little touches. You weren’t sure what though.) Instead, Billy found other ways to flirt with you.

He was still just as verbally flirtatious towards you as he was other girls, but he relied more on eye contact and expressions with you. With other girls, it would be a causal touch here, or pinning them against the lockers there. But you always got the searching looks, the mischievous smiles, the lingering glances that lingered just a little too long. Honestly, he’d flirt with you more than he would them too. Sometimes he’d even stop flirting with one of them when you walked by in the hallway, just to make prolonged eye contact with you or send a little greeting your way. You’d long since gotten used to this little game and started playfully rejecting him or teasing him for his lines. You saw the little thrill in his eyes every time you snarked back. And you enjoyed the little moments with him too.

The stolen glances and fleeting words grounded you. The time you spent floating around slowly became shorter and far less frequent. Before you knew it, you had been grounded for a week. It was like Billy could see the hazy mist wash over your eyes, and he was always there with some sort of line to pull you back down to earth in the most charming way. You looked forward to your little chats with him. You heard the rumors about him getting into fights, and you didn’t doubt he had some anger issues. You could feel it, bubbling under the surface, and you could see it in his open defiance of authority in class. But you saw the gentle way he handled you, as if he knew without asking that you had been hurt. As if he knew the kind of interactions you needed to feel safe. He understood your boundaries in a way nobody else seemed to, and that drew you to him despite everything else. But you refused to do anything more than flirt.

Flirting was fun. Flirting was easy. Flirting was something he did with every girl in Hawkins, something that meant you could stay off of the radars of your ex-friends. Pursuing anything else meant he’d inevitably want to spend time with you outside of school. Pursuing anything else would put you right back in line with Tommy and Carol. And you didn’t want to go back there. You weren’t sure you’d ever come back down if you did. So instead you kept him at arm’s length, content to stay grounded in his stolen glances and flirty smiles whilst pretending to ignore his roving eye and the whispers of his conquests.

It stayed like that through the end of October, into November and December. And every time Billy would take even a moment’s break from his girl of the week to flirt with you, you counted it as a tiny victory. Winter break slowly crept in, and Tina’s annual New Year’s Eve party was suddenly marking the end of break. In true Tina Rager fashion, the girl had procured all the alcohol Hawkins High’s student body could drink and then some. The lawn was crawling with your classmates as you walked up to the house, blaring the biggest hits of the past year from Tina’s brand new sound system. It paid to have parents who were loaded.

You slowly wandered into the house, unsure of how to approach the rager. It had been almost two years since the last time you went to a party like this. You felt the haze start to creep in, clouding your mind before you had even taken a sip of alcohol. You weren’t even really sure why you were here. You had ignored your friends the year before when they tried to drag you to Tina’s party, so you had surprised both them and yourself when you agreed to go this year. All you could think of was a red shirt, left open down to his navel, a leather jacket, and breathtaking blue eyes when you agreed. You had even dolled yourself up, wearing a tight skirt and curling your hair for the occasion. You hadn’t recognized yourself when you stepped out of the house earlier that evening, and now you were stepping into another world.

Your friends dashed ahead of you, making beelines for either the dance floor or the liquor counter. Your eyes tried to scan the room, but you couldn’t find his blond mullet anywhere. The sound of cheers over the music reached your ears, and you followed them to the back door. There, you found a whole crowd of people surrounding what looked like two guys doing keg stands. Or at least, that was your best guess from the fringes of the very dense crowd. You could only guess it was Steve and Billy, facing off yet again. You turned your back on the jeers and the shouts of the rowdy group of teenagers, wandering through the sweat-filled and musty living room to the kitchen. You didn’t pay attention as you grabbed a bottle of what looked like whiskey and the bottle of coke and just poured. You didn’t keep track of how much of each was in your cup. You simply capped the bottles and took a swig, hoping the alcohol would help settle the nervous feeling in your stomach and the voice at the back of your head whispering you shouldn’t be here.

One of your friends found you with half your cup gone and dragged you on to the dance floor. You swayed there with the gyrating bodies, slowly letting the haze settle over you as unfamiliar hands and bodies brushed against yours. It had been a while since you had felt its familiar presence, but this time it felt wrong. It didn’t hold the same peace and comfort it once had. Now, it was confining. Constricting. But you weren’t sure how to escape it. All you could do was sway and down your drink until suddenly it was gone. As the bodies around pressed closer, the haze thickened. You felt a pair of hands grab your hips, pulling you against a teenage boy (that was very clear by the bulge pressing against your ass). You felt the familiar detachment settle in as the hands started to roam from your hips, up your body, and that heart-stopping dread took root in your core. You closed your eyes, hoping that would help, knowing it wouldn’t. You tried to breathe through your nose, telling yourself to just get through it. You felt it flow into every limb, as warm as the bodies around you, and the mist in your head thickened until it was practically a foggy soup. You were drowning in the familiar haze until suddenly the body against you was ripped away.

You didn’t know what was happening at first. You didn’t register the shouting, the cheering, and the shrieking until you had turned around to see Billy pummeling some boy you had never seen before. You watched blankly as Billy released the shirt of the boy he was beating, causing his new punching bag to drop to the floor. Clearly unable to support himself. Billy stepped back, reeling up for a kick, when his clear blue eyes flickered to yours. And that’s when you knew.

The horror that accompanied the realization swept over your body, and you tore your gaze from the California boy to the asshole at his feet. The asshole whose hands had been all over you. Who you had let feel you up, grope you, violate you yet again without doing a single thing to stop it. You felt the panic begin to set in. Your head began to spin with the information coming in all at once until you weren’t sure which way was up. You felt a hand grasp your arm, and you tried to struggle against it. You really did. But as your panic attack began, you had little strength left to fight whoever was leading you into the yard, away from the mass of people that had gathered at the sight of the fight. It wasn’t until you were seated in a car that you finally heard him.

“Breathe, y/n,” Billy’s voice rumbled through the small space. “Breathe. It’s okay. I’ve got you. You’re safe. That asshole isn’t gonna touch you again.” Your frightened eyes darted over to his face, and you tried to calm down. You really did. But you could still feel both sets of hands— Allard’s and the nameless boy from the party— roving your body. The leather jacket he had draped around your body to keep you warm left you feeling suffocated and stifled. You felt nausea grip your stomach, and the waves of heat crashed over your body. You threw yourself out of Billy’s car and onto the snowy ground, crawling a few feet away before vomiting up the liquor you had downed. You heard a car door slam and someone cursing as you began to hyperventilate on your hands and knees, tears streaming down your face and landing in the snow. You didn’t lift your head as boots stepped between you and your vomit, and you kept your eyes glued to the ground as the owner squatting in front of you.

“You’re safe, princess,” Billy tried to soothe you. Some sardonic voice in the very back of your head, removed from the panic that gripped your entire being, laughed at the pet name. He’s really pulling out all the stops, huh? “No one’s gonna hurt you while I’m here. Come on, breathe with me.” He set a slow rhythm. You tried to match it, finally lifting your eyes to him. You continued to sob and your breaths were uneven, leaving your lungs feeling raw in this slow cadence he set. Ever so slowly, your breaths started to even out. The waves of heat stopped washing over your body. The nausea holding your stomach in an iron-vice slowly relinquished its grip.

“There we go. That’s better. Now, how about getting into my Camaro before I freeze my balls off?” You saw the concern in his eyes, knowing his crass words were his way of trying to bluster through the tenderness he showed. You nodded, letting him help you get back in his car. He turned it on, blasting the heat. You finally realized how numb the cold had left you as your skin began to prick from the hot air thawing you out. The two of you sat in silence, neither daring to admit you were in new territory.

He knew. There was no way he didn’t. Most people didn’t realize it, but Billy was smart. He had to have picked up on your aversion to touch, your dissociative episodes, your tendency to space out when guys got too close. You might’ve been in denial for a long time about it, but you knew somewhere deep down that was why he had stopped leaning into you, touching you, and flirting with you like he did the others. And after tonight, you were sure he’d put together it had something to do with guys touching you. That same voice in the back of your head started hissing at you. He knows you’re damaged. He doesn’t want you anymore. Maybe he never did. But he certainly doesn’t now after seeing the mess you are. Not after seeing how easily you give it up to other guys. Nobody wants you. Nobody worth it anyways.

“You don’t have to tell me shit.” His voice was quiet, but it still felt like it cracked through the interior of his car. “Your call. But you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. Just know, no other jackass is gonna lay a fucking hand on you. Not when I’m around. Not while you’re my girl.”

Your eyes snapped over to him, and you finally let yourself look at him for the first time that night. You could see the rage still flooding his veins, still itching to be released. You could see the fury, directed not at you but the boy who had put his hands on you. You saw a need to and to defend, a side you had never seen directed your way before. You saw an affection that went past the surface-level flirting you had been doing for months. You saw a desire to claim you, to declare you his, and it sent thrills down your spine. And as his eyes flitted to yours, nervous as you let the silence sit after his declaration, you saw something that chilled you to the core.

You saw an understanding deep in Billy Hargrove’s eyes. You saw an understanding of the fear, the sense of defeat, the panic, the dread, and the helplessness that had washed over you. You saw something in his eyes that told you he was no stranger to someone else laying their hands on him and, while you were pretty sure it wasn’t in the same way you experienced it, it wasn’t any less violating. You saw something broken in him— the same thing you knew was broken in your eyes— and your heart aches for him. As he let you see into his soul with that single glance, you came to a decision. You wouldn’t ask why he seemed to understand so perfectly. You wouldn’t pry, just like he wasn’t prying with you. Instead, you would accept his protection and his affection. You would trust that he would tell you his trauma and pain when he was ready, just as you would tell him yours. And until then, you’d learn to help each other.

“Your girl, huh Hargrove?” Your voice rasped out, not quite full after the shouting from the party and the vomit in the snow. You cleared your voice, hoping it would help. “That’s quite a claim to stake. And I don’t know if you’ve picked up on it, but I’m a bit of a handful here.” You sent him an uneasy smile, hoping he’d catch your hint and let the events of the night go without any explanation.

A searching gaze as he scanned your face was the only response you got at first. When he saw you were okay, that you would manage for now, he let the worry slide for a mischievous (if not a little cautious) glint in his eye. “Oh sweetheart,” he drawled in response. He playfully let his eyes scan over your body, checking in to make sure it was okay before letting his gaze linger a little longer on your chest. “I’ve noticed. And let me say, I can’t wait to get a hand full.”

The lecherous wink he sent your way really sealed the deal as you felt a giggle bubble up. He was trying to act as if nothing had changed, as if it were business as usual, and you appreciated that more than he could ever know. He wasn’t perfect. And neither were you. You were both broken, but a small part of you wondered if just maybe you were broken in compatible ways. You got the feeling he wasn’t the only one in this car who helped the other feel a little more grounded.

thevagabondthoughts ha risposto al tuo post “The anon wouldn't know a redemption arc if it danced naked in front of...”

If I were to say he needed redemption for anything other than throwing Bran off the tower, it would be doing little to save Tommen. His trying to intervene and stop Cersei abuse "their" son is utterly heartbreaking but so little and inconsequential to prevent the boy from crying and feeling threatened by his mother, left and right. How could he stand that I cannot fathom! Like, Jaime, you fucking jumped into the pit to save a girl, you cannot use an epsilon of that Lannister courage and intelligence to help your son? Where is your fucking will and determination?

that is a point but when it comes to it... I think that the thing is that he’s completely unequipped for that task and he didn’t have time to come to terms with it? I mean, when it comes to risking his neck he has absolutely no issues, but with tommen I think that it’s a) that he never let himself consider the option that he could have any say in the matter when it came to having a role in the kid’s life, b) cersei never let him get close period so late asos/early affc is the only period of time he’s somehow allowed to even have some sort of relationship with him, c) he’s..... wholly unequipped in the sense that honest he sees him crying at tywin’s bedside and his advice is ‘hey kid I know it’s hard but I have the perfect way to solve things that I found out sometimes after I turned fifteen, be ready for it... DISSOCIATE!!!’ which....... is indeed heartbreaking but you can’t advise people to dissociate at will as to-go method (which he also did with brienne haha), d) and basically from that point on cersei pretty much tries to get in between them, any time he tried to do anything for the kid she stopped him (I mean I think she hit him in the face after jaime said it would be good if loras was around tommen more when she didn’t want them to get any closer than they were already) and she obviously has more power than him in that sense when it comes to what to do with him, so......... I also don’t think he had detached himself enough from her at that point :///// that said during the riverrun siege he was like ‘edmure please just accept the terms so I can go back to my son [not to cersei hahaha]’ and he was obviously wanting to make up for it, then he most likely figured he wasn’t needed as much if c. got arrested in adwd and ngl I don’t think he’s still in a very good mental place when it comes to accepting that he did want to be a part of his children’s lives (at least two of them), but while he was getting there, he couldn’t do it when c. was around and he still hadn’t worked through his issues with her first, and he also is... really woefully unequipped to do anything because again if his advice is DISSOCIATE we need to work through some issues first I think /o\ like in my ideal world at some point he’d get to kl to get him out before he inevitably dies and he gets to make up for it when there’s no c. around to stop him from doing more than the bare necessary and he’s gotten better in that sense but.. :((

Venus trine MC, my MC lies in Saturn and Saturn is in 9th house Aquarius.

Saturn Return, and my Soul Journey into 12th house Sun conjunct Mercury (in Aries) bound by the 12th house Shadow Secrets. Jupiter is Leo and Mars is softened by my conjunct cancer moon, both in my 3rd house. The kicker is Chiron simultaneously sitting over in my wounded goddess divine feminine Luna moon compelling me to build a home, a base and a clan of like minded souls. cancer and Chiron sit together and Chiron is akin to the wounded healer. I have a complex but alchemical natal make up and its been 6 years of accepting the square and oppositions in difficult places to come to terms to work with my natal astrology in a way I can become creatively involved in.

23/3/20 initiated the formal induction of my Saturn return as saturn transited to Aquarius for the first time since 92/93.

It’s a taste of the full saturnine swing coming up after the December 21st astrology grand conjunction. Saturn will be in Aquarius up to July. before moving briefly back before that grand Conjunction with Pluto/Jupiter later in 21/12/2020. (activity period from 14 April 2020 until mid-July 2020) Venus trine MC

Yeah on a tangent but one day I will be thankful this was forged. I am will using my moonchild manifesto to track the astrology and transits for my own wounded healer journey. I don’t have the consistency of a computer to hoard things as I did before the big brother fascism came full formed this year and cannot freely trust anything can be stored. I will be putting things online purely to keep a record of what may soon be lost, unable to be accessed.

Plus I’m burning my journals after I take the photos of them and upload them for a ritualistic purpose.

It’s part of this creative alchemy and trauma soul retrival quest I’ve found myself on. I note this as my Saturn is returning home for my FIRST Saturn return. I have been formally initiated for the infamous, enigmatic Saturn return that marks the passage from “adolescence into adulthood”. (Funnily last time I heard a university lecture on neuroscience, the latest research noted recent findings that the brain of a fully, functional prefrontal cortex in adult brains don’t become fully formed until age 28-30. This first sparked excitement and also uncertainty about the privilege cast to the “teenage myth”. As kids brains are still developing when things like getting a driving cars, choosing a life career, alcohol privilege and making other major life changes at those critical developmental stages are still as risky when a 12-16 year old does it. So now psychology and neuroscience knows that the adult higher order thinking that marks the turn of a mature and civil adult come in the late 20s. Not the teens. So until after 25 a brain cannot be fully assessing its choices due to underdeveloped prefrontal higher order thought processes This was fascinating in the social science side of things where we look into social constructs of society and how teenager was a made up archetype for a post war period. I remember being in my early 20s at the time and my life was no longer a race as it had been made to be prior.the schools of the latest brain neuroscience confirm my impulsive nature could change before age 30. I was hopeful. Maybe I wasn’t a gifted genius who was highly sensitive and afflicted with the contrasting “ADHD or Attention Deficit Primaily Inattentive” which could only be “treated” (as far as I had experienced), via heavy duty schedule 8 drugs. The kind of medication that calmed me down but other people wound beg me to have. Meaning in the past people in my life around me were constantly trying to turn into their party high by taking advantage of my disdain for psychostimulants. But my love and need for money back in that time. Fuck fake friends I say. Taking advantage or dysregulated prefrontal cortex with or without all my labels was still, after all, a risky business, when it comes to juggling psychopharmacology and a myriad of labels that resulted in other medicines given to me that may or may not be accurate. No brain scan or confirmation has been given that my brain is anything aside from ADHD. So my academic quest in childhood was confounded due to this.I learnt a lot about my childhood and growing up with a long list of multiple mental illness diagnosis, and the medical pharmacology given to me for those things; was beyond measurable.

But my neurochemistry was tweaked ineffably by both psychiatric pills pushed on me from age 9 and for things I may not even need. The end result of what my social science teacher termed “social constructs akin to mental illness medical model DSM labels”. My self pursuit of understanding my own brain was a hard thing to understand in the sense that prior to hearing about this from the side of academic and professional training, I had spend 12 years in expensive and possibly more damaging than beneficial treatment for “mental illnesses”. My life was a focal point for the goal I set to help women with the “borderline stigma” after I had fixed my own borderline.

Clinical psychologist was my end game until I found the trauma truth sweeping me into a existential soul contusion merged with trauma after trauma therapy went into flooding memory. Academic research and the psychology and counseling journals I spent my spare time fine combing. For answers. For my why and how. By the time I found any sense of this it became a painful limbo of dancing with my demons, coping destructively and limbo between the underworld and the reality I found my body and mind entwined in.

Now it’s even more synonymous to my own Saturn return journey and how the Saturn return is the mark of adulthood. This can be a speculative musing I make now on celestial astrology and how it aligns to our inner psychological makeup. (The Jupiter return is age 12, puberty ; and the other inner planets all mark significant development milestones in growing up. I’ll go into that more in later blogs).

Astrology is a map of the soul, psychology makeup, can be so deep too. How does it measure up to statistics? Sun sign horoscope is nothing versus the natal chart and how it corresponds to planetary magick and Kabbalah. I have been seperate in my magick and academic work but it was always my will to merge these at one stage I could research it. But now the sands of time are shifting, and Aquarius Saturn is calling for novel innovation I never could convey due to academic being seperate as spiritual, magickal practice is something I was careful to keep silence on when working with clients, peers and mentors, forget telling my psychologists or doctors who wound dismiss any test as “bipolar mania”. I remember once I read “the difference between the mystic and the mad man is the mystic knows who NOT TO TELL.

Now it’s my time to informally but officially start logging my journey into my own healing, soul mapping, I call it cognitive alchemy, gnostic psychology, soul psychology, metagnosis.. I’ve had many a name for the potential inspiration from my true will calling. But I can now forget about the archaic bonds from the academic world I was schooled to excel in by confirming. I am also a high iq gifted kid and having been labelled gifted but “adhd” simultaneously while having traumatic events left right and center is a mix of confusion for me. Teachers classed adhd as a learning disability, my in attention confused with inability to listen to simple tasks. This meant my mind never adapted to that school conditioning but my education was still installed due to the private school system somehow making my alters succeed without effort. Most of my spare time as a kid that wasn’t dissociative was reading books. By me processing my own literature in my spare time, I knew so much random stuff but hid it in order to seem dumb bc that was accepted. But in private in encyclopaedias and non fictional library quests I’d devour books. for my 10 maximum haul of borrowing books. This was a routine my mum and I went to do each week but my reading speed was beyond anything known, as I read and synthesised up to 10 books mostly in one day, from age 6 onwards.

I also stole books and hid my reading habits at school due to a deep shame of not being liked due to reading being for losers without friends, as girls bullied me over my gifted weird quirks. I was pretty but saw my self as ugly for trauma will deprive the mind of seeing it’s own true perception. I was never understood how my looks became a thing used against me by girls who were jealous until I learnt about this myself. I recently accepted and remembered this all after 3 years of integrated healing. I was doing this all on my own. the spiritual and metaphysical work is my primary tool that was keeping me here. Actually saving my suicide program from self destruct after the March 2017 incident I shall not talk about now. But I’m here now, alive, kicking, Saturn here to shove my shadow to consciousness without prompt and this change can bring me into a 30 year blueprint of setting things right.

Now in order to build a solid and functional framework and foundational life. I have a litany of secrets I need to get off my chest. I think to share my growth, my thoughts and my experiences for my own liberation of my deep dark secrets finally free to be released into the public domain.

I have no choice but to share this.

I do this co consciously as a part of my integrative process.

Maybe One day it might be a guide for someone who was as alone as I feel doing all of this self work without support. Maybe it will fade into the cyber void forever. Maybe I’ll use this as a tool to help clients in the future. Whatever this is means nothing but what the process of alchemy can do to forge my liberation from soul loss and traumatic dissociative trauma.

As a therapist I always wanted to avoid what I went through growing up. Now more so. I never want another lost dissociative mental health client who was also stuck between professional and academic pursuits being my “purpose” and having to sacrifice career and my study and research to sit in my shadow to see the shit.

In order to break the shit therapist mould I list journey through my own shit first. This meant I needed to be away from all therapy both as a client and practitioner and student for awhile. I’ve been off since the end of 2017 and now it’s clear it was neeed, how do I heal without healing my own shit first? Am I not the finest example of how bad therapists can get away with their bullshit and be paid for it but never really know who they are. I’m never doing that. I never was about that. So due to therapeutic negligence. I am finding my gift was the lesson. Those a shitty therapist who are a dime a dozen were the anti mentors I saw too often: but my purpose was to be a therapist. But a therapist who did things the way I never had.

Never did I want another to go into the heavy weight of shame from the secrets of sexual wounds, childhood schemas, mixed up and messed up conditioning made to seem functional to outsiders. But that was all alters. Now it was a spiritual journey as magick and my mystical path entwines to save my soul. The self awakening, trauma revelations, merging with the dark night of soul, and the shadow work. Plus everything else coming out is not a journey I can say is or was at all easy, I suffer more now as a co conscious intergrating my trauma. I feel it all without the dissociative switch to save me from witnessing all the shit. Now I see my entire life and it’s fucked up raw and grim reality and I have to do something because I survived it this far? Again I never suicided or stopped into self destruction when I knew my own inner child’s wounds were no longer blacked out but burning bright longing for love. Symptoms for survival and the survival was part of the dissociative switching making my outside self seem so functional, but never seen. It’s not something they needed to drug me for, but it’s another thing I have to address now. My symptoms they drugged with medications that were mind altering and powerful for anyone let alone a developing child’s brain, were suppressed by many meds. Who knows where that ends and the damage via trauma and other things begin? It’s a mess of some thing I was never aware of but always trying to silence due to the need for people to accept me. But that was many mes all living a life that appeased many people, but not for me. Here we are.

in which I’m getting to know my brain better

I can’t really pinpoint a time when I started reading about ADHD and believed that maybe it was something that I had. I think it’s kind of been in the back of my head from when ADD was still a commonly-used term but then I would go “naaaah can’t be me, I’m just a lazy person!” I remember ages ago in high school I was at a friend’s house and watching their brothers and I thought “This is what actual ADHD looks like” so I guess that kind of pins it for me thinking about it as long ago as 15 years ago but I never gave it serious consideration until more recently.

(This is very, very long so I don’t blame you if you want to just skip it entirely)

Just last night I was talking to Zack and I was giggling and going “I still can’t believe I really didn’t see this before” and they were going “Really?”

Let’s think about this. As a kid I was always pretty sensitive and had weird... I used to call them compulsions but now I wonder if it was more impulsive behavior where I would hoard things like rocks and leaves or do dangerous shit without thinking about it (one memory comes to mind immediately when I noticed there was broken glass on the playground and I started meticulously picking it up as carefully as I could, and my teacher freaked out when she saw what I was doing. It unsettled my mom too, but me explaining that I didn’t want anyone to get hurt didn’t help put them at ease). I would be deeply sucked into my imagination at times, like... 

When I was a kid I always kind of pictured myself like everything that was happening was a movie. I don’t really mean this in a dissociative derealization kind of thing, but just imagining every second was a movie or a video game. Sometimes I still do this. I can’t really pinpoint if there were a lot of hyperactive symptoms other than countless times my mom told me to stop fiddling with my hands or string or whatever was within my grasp. I would always come home from school dirty with grass stains on my jeans and holes in my knees and rocks in my pockets, earning the title “skruffy ragamuffin” from my sister, but I just kind of figured that was part of being a kid. Looking at it NOW through this viewpoint gives me second thought though.

I picked up on physical activities rather quickly from a young age like dancing and karate--probably the physical movement was what I needed to help me focus--and I do things like pick at the skin around my thumbs, bite the inside of my cheeks (Didn’t realize this was a thing until I watched Hannah Hart describe it as part of her fidgeting and went “OH.”)

As I got older and after my sister died, see... I always viewed this time period in my life as I couldn’t do school or focus because of my grief and my home life falling apart, and I think part of that is still true. However, I would continue this with “And because of that I didn’t form good study habits and that continued into highschool when I stopped giving a shit”. Which was better than thinking I was just a stupid failure, and I really don’t think I am stupid... I can think quickly on my feet, I notice things that other people don’t, I’ve been an advanced reader from a VERY early age and I can infer correct answers from context clues and analyze things in that way. 

There is one memory from high school that, in the past, I thought maybe was tied to an emotional flashback but I realize now that it might’ve been Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. There was a weird disagreement that I was having with a friend of mine over something (truly can’t remember what it was about now), and somehow this rejection of him not listening to me spiraled me into this state of Why Should I Fucking Bother and the first target for this heavy, painful feeling was “okay, well I should just stop drawing because Why Should I Fucking Bother”. My English teacher found me sitting in the hallway crying and sat down with me to ask what was happening and I tried to explain, and then he had me show him my artwork and he goes “You are an incredible artist, you shouldn’t give this up.” One of few teachers in my life who I will always respect because he was always stern in a kind way, understanding, and an overall wonderful man.

I’m kind of getting off track here but I think that’s really just self-demonstrating at this point.

When I worked at Target there wasn’t really an opportunity for the ADHD type symptoms to manifest because I was pretty much always moving. In school I could zone out very easily but at work I was able to have more bouts of focus, but traded off my inattention for anxiety instead. This was also just a few years after the big PTSD causing event, but retail in general can give pretty much anyone some anxiety issues. Nonetheless, the things that I enjoyed about working there is that I was able to master my work zone completely (to a point of annotating the training guide with new information and keeping it updated), became the go-to person for several things, and I enjoyed being able to have a bit of freedom of movement around my work space. I enjoyed being able to have physical, tangible ways to see progress being made on something and there was a surprising amount of nuance and problem-solving when it came to resolving customer complaints. 

Moving to a desk job in 2018 was a weird departure from all of that. I had started off kind of as a clerical worker and would compile the concrete goods vouchers that we send out to our clients, receive them back, prepare them for scanning, scan+upload to case files, etc. It was dreadfully boring a lot of the time but I didn’t mind the long stretches where I could sit and prepare documents for scanning because I was able to listen to music while I got them ready. After a while I was encouraged to become a fiduciary, and that is really when the Maybe I Have ADHD started to rear it’s head.

My job doesn’t have the tangible way to see that I’ve made progress. I update placements to generate foster care payments, I generate the vouchers for concrete goods, I put in ongoing foster care case management payments or daycare payments, I will sometimes resolve some payment issues but only to a certain point--I’m able to see information but being able to solve the problem is actually not my area unless I can correct it within the case management system. There is an extreme need to be detail oriented because we work with specific service dates, with some services ongoing but some needing to be renewed every six months, gobs of emails with paperwork and trying to get the right signatures on everything because we’re dealing in state money...

on top of this, in order to move into the permanent position, I’ve been taking the accounting classes online outside of work and (until the pandemic started) having a long commute-work-commute day that totaled about 12 hours out of my waking life. My diet changed radically because Zack and I didn’t see each other often and getting home at 6:30 at night didn’t leave a lot of room to cook and then eat before having downtime to sleep... only to wake up at 5:30 AM again... my insomnia started kicking in to a point now where I take a benadryl through the work week to keep my sleep schedule on track. I started having anxiety attacks at work because trying to keep up with remembering all the little details I need to at work was getting to me. 

As I was training, I would write a post-it reminder whenever I repeated a mistake and stick it to my monitor. I got up to about 14 post-its before it became distracting and I instead compiled them onto a list and tacked it to my cubicle wall.

A few months into this I had a crying jag talking to Zack because it felt like something was really wrong and I couldn’t pinpoint what exactly. Depression? Anxiety? Trauma? School trauma? I think it’s just been untreated ADHD this whole time. I keep thinking back to this post I’ve seen on Tumblr a long time ago where someone said “disability exists in the context of the environment” and I think that’s what’s happening to me. I previously have bee in environments that weren’t butting up against The ADHD as much, but this job has been extremely challenging for the past 11 months. 

Thankfully, my boss and I have one-on-one discussions regularly (used to be every other week but since the pandemic started it’s been weekly phone calls) and she has no issues with my work performance... likely because I exert a lot of mental and emotional energy to keep up with everything I need to do. I’m also in charge of the busiest field office in our region--there’s a high turnover rate, lots of child welfare cases, etc--and the social workers that I talk to on the regular enjoy having me as their fiduciary. There have been many times however, despite the fact I seem to be doing pretty good, where it feels like I am hanging on by a fucking thread. Here’s something personal that I don’t think I’ve shared yet on the blog: last year, within the first month and a half of adjusting to this new pace of work and school and the long commutes, the schedule was so stressful for me that it made my period late. Worrying I was pregnant just stressed me out more. Not being able to treat this Probably ADHD has been detrimental to my mental health.

On the 22nd, I’m going to have a telehealth meeting with a doctor to see if I can get a referral for a screening. I kind of worried that if I do get diagnosed with ADHD it would send me into this mourning state of what-could-have-been but honestly... I’m tired. I’m tired of beating myself up for exhausting myself into keeping up with other people. I think I owe it to myself to get the help that I need. Looking at my life with the lens of I Probably Have ADHD has actually given me a renewed sense of self-worth and confidence because it’s something that I can learn how to take control of. It’s worth it. I’m worth it.

Far From Ideal

lets yeet this wheat to mars

warnings: nightmares, dissociation

editing: no but are we surprised

ship: sprace i guess

Race slammed the door to the hotel room, throwing his bag down angrily, “I can’t fucking believe this,” he snapped, chucking his jacket onto a chair and sitting in it heavily, crossing his arms.

“Yeah, well, I ain’t too happy about this either, chief,” Spot grumbled, refusing to look at Race as he began to unpack his suitcase into one of the provided dressers.

Race groaned, hitting his head on the back of the chair and rolling his eyes to the ceiling.  He was currently in Los Angeles, California for the second stop on the national tour he’d booked.  They were to be staying there for nearly three weeks and because of a slip up with room assignments, Race was staying with Spot Conlon, the one person he despised in the company.  He wasn’t secretive about his little vendetta either, which was probably the reason the feeling was mutual.  He didn’t truly have a good explanation for his feelings, aside from the fact that Spot intimidated him with his talent and all around cool energy.  Having never been good at handling his inner dilemmas, he chose the course of action he knew best, turn the insecure energy into angry energy and no one will bother you.  Well, it worked, because Spot seemed to hold him in the same regard, but it wasn’t ideal for their current situation.

“Just, don’t talk to me,” Spot said, glancing at him quickly, before looking away again, “I don’t have the energy to put up with your annoying shit for three weeks.”

“Right back at ya,” Race replied, smugly.  They unpacked their things silently, the only sound being the too loud music playing through Spot’s headphones.  Race tried to ignore the noise, but eventually his nerves got the better of him and he tapped Spot’s shoulder.

Spot looked at him, raising his eyebrows slightly.  Race motioned for him to take out an earbud, and rolling his eyes, Spot obliged, “What, asshole.”

“Turn down your music,” Race snapped, “I can hear Mariah Carey from my side of the room.”

Spot set his jaw, fixing Race with an impressive glare, but turning down the music nonetheless, “Happy?” He asked, plastering a sarcastic smile on his face.

“Yes, very,” Race sneered back.

“I’m sure glad, princess,” Spot said, before turning back to his suitcase.  Race let out an irritated hum and got back to work unpacking.  

Twenty minutes later, Race and Spot lay on separate beds, completely enthralled in their phones.  They hadn’t spoken a word since their last interaction and Race fully intended to keep it that way.  At some point, Spot got up to take a shower and Race savored his moment of almost solitude to watch some TV.  He discovered that he had access to Netflix and logged in.  After a bit of scrolling, he decided on John Mulaney and settled into his pillows to watch.

Spot came back some time later and Race moved to turn off the TV, but Spot waved a hand, “Keep it on if ya want,” Race cast him a side eye, “I like John Mulaney, too,” Spot said, somewhat defensively.

Race nodded and turned up the TV, relaxing as John Mulaney schooled them on “street smarts”.  They started Comeback Kid after the first show had ended and Race got up to wash up before bed.  It was approaching 1 am and they had early rehearsal the next morning.  By the time he got back , he noticed that Spot had fallen asleep, and in an odd moment of care, Race took his phone from his loose grip and plugged it into the charger Spot had attached to his bedside lamp.  He kicked off his socks, climbing under the covers of his bed and turned down the TV, watching it until he, too, dozed off.

When he woke up two hours later, he was confused.  He didn’t usually wake up in the night, but his body must have been thrown off by the new setting and leftover jet lag, so he shrugged it off.  Then, he heard a soft whimpering coming from the other bed.  Frowning, he lifted his head, squinting in the dark towards Spot.

“Hey,” He whispered, “You good over there?” No response, “Spot?”

When there was still nothing, Race figured he must have imagined the noise and he rolled over, sinking back into the mattress and willing sleep to overcome him once more.  But before he could fully slip back into unconsciousness, a clear sob echoed through the room, shocking Race awake once more and causing a pit to form in his stomach.  He shifted so he was facing Spot’s bed and propped himself up on his elbow, reaching out to turn on his bedside lamp as he did so.  His stomach dropped as his eyes adjusted and he took in the sight of his coworker, sheets tangled around his legs and eyes screwed shut in fear.  Race could see him shaking and his head would twitch periodically, as if he were dodging something.

Race froze, unsure of what to do.  Should he wake him?  Offer him help?  Was this a common thing for Spot?  Race knew he was close with Albert, one of their other castmates, should he call him?  Would he even know what to do?

Another, louder cry sounded from Spot, breaking Race out of his thoughts.  He was starting to hyperventilate in his sleep and Race threw all rational thinking out of his mind as he jumped into action, instinct taking over.

He slipped out of bed and knelt next to Spot.  He tentatively reached out a hand, placing it slowly on Spot’s shoulder, “Hey, man, wake up,” he tried, shaking his shoulder lightly.  Spot didn’t respond and Race made to shake him harder, but stopped abruptly.  Didn’t he read somewhere that you’re not supposed to wake someone having a nightmare by touching them?  He bit his lip, considering his best course of action, but before he could make a decision, Spot startled awake, a final gasp escaping him.

Race rocked backwards, not wanting to accidentally invade the other man’s space.  He sat on the edge of his own bed, watching anxiously as Spot sat up, shoving his blankets away from him and and pushing himself into the headboard.  His body was wracking with tremors and his breathing was still ragged as he reached up to tug at his hair.

“Hey,” Race called, hesitating as Spot jumped and looked at him, recognition, then fear growing almost impossibly in his eyes.  He held his breath, holding terrified eye contact with Race, “Yo, it’s aight,” Race said, “You-”

Spot shook his head, seemingly regaining his voice, “Race, what’re you doing up?” He croaked.

“Uh, I was on my phone,” Race lied, not wanting to guilt Spot by admitting that he was the one that had woken him up, “You were freaking out a bit in your sleep.”

Spot blinked, taking his hands out of his hair and lowering them slowly to his lap.  He looked around owlishly as he tried to ground himself to his surroundings.

“Can I do anything?” Race asked, awkwardly.

“I, uh..” Spot trailed off, “I don’t really know what’s happening.  I can’t really feel my legs,” He lifted his hands again, sluggishly touching his right pointer finger to his left palm, “Or my hands.”  he looked dazed and immensely out of it and Race couldn’t help but be put off by his sudden change in demeanor.

Race frowned when Spot didn’t look up from his hands.  His eyes were glazing over and the spasms in his muscles had returned.

“Spot?” He asked.  Spot didn’t answer and Race stood up, crossing over to Spot’s bed and slowly lowering himself down next to him.  

“Spot,” He said, more firmly this time, “Can you hear me?”

Spot blinked slowly, looking up at Race and flinching, “Fuck,” he mumbled, “I don’t know what’s happening,” panic was leaking into his eyes once more, “What’s happening?  Why can’t I feel my legs?”

“Okay, okay, hey,” Race said, quickly, reaching out to turn off the lamp, aiming to relax Spot a bit.  It seemed to work as Spot’s shoulders lowered from their tense position ever so slightly.

Race reached out to grab Spot’s hand, but stopped short, “Can I touch you?” He asked.  

Spot nodded and Race gripped his shaking hands tightly, “Can you, uh, can you feel that?” he was bullshitting a solution, but what other choice did he have?  Besides, if he remembered correctly from AP psych in high school, physical contact sometimes helped with dissociation, and he was pretty sure that was what was happening to Spot right now.

Spot nodded again, fixing his attention on their intertwined hands, “Yeah..”

“Okay, cool, yeah, so we’re just gonna keep that happening,” Race said, gradually increasing the intensity of his hold on Spot’s hands.

“I kinda feel like m’still dreaming,” Spot mumbled, “Am I?”

“Still dreaming?” Race clarified.

“Yeah.”

“No, you’re not, I gotcha.” “Oh, okay.”

“Yeah, we’re both here,” Race said, calmly, “So, like, do you remember where we are?” he tried.

Spot didn’t answer for a moment, then, “Uh, yeah, Cali.”

“Yeah, man, nice,” Race praised, he floundered for a moment, trying to remember other grounding techniques.  He wasn’t the best with this stuff, “Uh, what color is your shirt?”

“My...shirt?”

“Yeah.”

“Uh,” Spot glanced down, “Blue.”

“Awesome,” Race smiled, “and mine?”

Spot looked at his chest, “Uh, grey?”

“Yep,” Race noticed the shaking in Spot’s hands was slowing.  That was progress.  They were getting somewhere, “How about the sheets.”

“White,” Spot said, this time with more confidence.

“Pillows?”

“Brown.”

“Walls.”

“Green,” Spot paused, “Ugly green.”

Race laughed, relief flooding him when a ghost of a smile appeared on Spot’s face as well, “Yeah, they are pretty bad.  Who the fuck paints a room bright green?”

“The idiots at this hotel.”

“Right you are.”

Spot hummed and pulled his hands away, looking to the side, “How are you doing?” Race prodded.

Spot shrugged, curling in on himself a bit, “Better, I’m back mostly, I think.”

Race nodded, “Uh, does that happen a lot?”

“Hm? Oh, kinda,” Spot’s tone didn’t leave much room for further discussion, but Race pushed.

“You wanna talk about it?” He questioned softly.

Spot swallowed, “Not really,” a pregnant pause, “My dad was pretty awful and I’m still fucked up,” he said, scowling.

Race pursed his lips, “I’m so sorry.”

Spot shrugged, “Whatever.  I’m tired.”

“We can go back to sleep?”

“Yeah, uh, hey,” Spot was fidgeting with his fingers nervously and Race cocked his head.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“Could you, uh,” Spot shifted his shoulders, “I mean, I know you hate me or whatever, but I always like, uh, like contact, uh, physical contact after this shit and I was wondering if you could maybe uh stay for a bit?”

Race frowned at how utterly shaken up Spot seemed to be.  He wasn’t used to seeing the other man as anything but calm and collected, “Yeah, “ he agreed nonchalantly, motioning for Spot to shift over in the bed.  Spot laid back down and Race reached out, carefully hugging him, “This good?” Spot cleared his throat, “Uh, yeah, thanks.”

“Of course, whatever helps,” a moment passed, “Also for the record, I’m sorry I treated you like shit.  You were cool and you scared me.”

He felt Spot laugh against his chest and his stomach fluttered, “I scared you?”

Race shrugged, “Yeah, you’re like an intimidating meatball.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

Spot laughed again, Race joining in with him this time, “But seriously, I’m sorry.” “It’s chill,” Spot said, casually draping an arm across Race’s stomach, “Thank you,” he added after a moment, “By the way.”

“Yeah, of course,” Race said, “Thank you for letting me help you.’

Spot hummed, “You’re not bad for an asshole Italian beanpole.”

Race scoffed, “Go to sleep, meatball.”

Realizing how utterly exhausted he was, Spot closed his eyes, falling back asleep, feeling much safer than before.

-

thanks for reading, chiefs

hmu to be added to my tag

stay tuned for chaotic ralbert

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Today is my mom’s birthday. If she hadn’t died a year and a half ago, she’d be 53. I love her, and despite my childhood with her, I miss her. But I wanted to take today to deliver a perhaps... more nuanced tribute to her than I could somewhere like Facebook. I wanted to talk about a pretty difficult topic: when you still love your abusive parents.

Below the cut: child abuse, parental death

My parents separated when I was eight, after two years of increasingly toxic behavior toward each other. They both continued their separate downward spirals until about when I entered high school five years later, when they leveled out into a plateau of “mentally ill and still abusive but functional”. Coincidentally, when I hit high school (a year early at 13, I was bumped up a year before they split), I made some of the most genuine close friends of my life, a few of whom I’m still close with to this day. And that’s when I started to realize that even aside from being divorced, life with my parents... wasn’t quite normal.

I figured everyone got pissed with their parents and had screaming matches. Everyone had chores and had to look after their younger siblings. Everyone had to sit down and listen to their parents lecture them about the most tedious shit. But... something didn’t quite fit. I’d tell a story that I thought was hilarious and get met by a room full of horrified stares. My friends’ chore load wasn’t as heavy as mine. No one else got crowded into walls and told “you’re lucky I know better than to slap you” or “be careful next to those stairs, huh?” And no one else’s parents thought it was funny to give their eleven-year-old a drink or have them bartend at their parties. 

See, before high school, I didn’t have close friends I could trust. I didn’t understand how to socialize, really, until then. This was my first time seeing into the home lives of other people, and it was eye-opening. Even my parents on their best behavior clearly weirded some of my friends out a bit. Even the ones with abusive parents themselves. Probably because my parents were both alcoholics with severe bipolar disorder with psychotic features. My mom had dissociative identity disorder as well. My dad was a coke addict for several years who blew through quite literally multiple millions of dollars on either drugs or manic or drug-fuelled bad decisions in... oh, less than ten years, I think. So almost everything they did had to be extreme.

But the thing was, though, they weren’t all bad. That’s the thing that people sometimes miss in their depictions of abusive parents. You don’t just love them because they’re your parents. They’re also not abusive all the fucking time. My dad took us on fantastic island vacations and to Disney and out to eat for every birthday and to the bookstore every couple of weeks. My mom made us art and let us watch cool movies and listen to cool music and loved to let us choose clothes we liked. In retrospect, most of those choices were either financially or like, parentally irresponsible (I watched Natural Born Killers for the first time when I was thirteen), but when you’re a teen, you don’t think about shit like that. 

You think, ‘oh, my parents are the fun parents. They’re the ones who will let me stay out at night as late as I want as long as they know where I am. They’re the ones who won’t make us do homework if we have friends over after school. They’re the ones who will let us watch Rocky Horror and not tell any of the other parents, especially the religious ones. They’ll let me sleep in the same bed as my boyfriend. That’s so much better than what my friends deal with.’ And you take the rest of it - the responsibility for younger siblings, the yelling, the heavy chore list that really should belong to an adult that’s basically all the housework and cooking, the listening to your parents destroy shit and sob when they get upset, the hitting, the listening to your siblings get hit - as the price for them being the fun one. Or you think, ‘they let me do so much fun stuff, I have so much freedom, and I still fuck up. It probably really is my fault and this is a justified punishment.’

I was probably sixteen, in my junior year of high school, when I really realized that things weren’t right. I’d been living in a bubble of unreality. And that’s when the bad stuff started ramping up from my mother. I would start fights with her just to keep her attention on me, so she’d stop screaming at my younger sister over her grades. I’d get after my sister for her homework, but much more gently. I’d do all the laundry, clean the house, and cook dinner most nights. And most weekends, she’d get drunk and cry on me about her boyfriend problems, about my dad and how awful he’d been to her, about her relationship with her parents. I became the parent in that household, and it was suffocating. And it was most suffocating because I genuinely loved her. I still love her. I wanted her to do better. And I thought if I left, I’d be abandoning her and abandoning my sister.

I did leave, eventually, and it caused her to attempt suicide to get me back. When my sister left, three years later, she did the same thing. I had a very hot and cold relationship with my mother most of my adult life. With my father as well, but that was mostly papered over by pleasantries. My mom came to me and apologized for what a fuck-up she’d been during my childhood - a rambling, self-centered, guilt-trippy apology, but it was there. But even without that, I loved her and would have tried to make it work with her, because I genuinely wanted her mental health to improve and cutting her support system down wouldn’t do that. If she stepped over my clearly delineated boundaries, we didn’t talk for a set period of time. When she didn’t, we went out to lunch and talked about work and she gave me small little gifts that improved my day - bath oil in my favorite brand and scent, a tiny light with a screen over it to look like a planetarium, oil perfumes, things like that. Because she knew me. Sometimes she used that knowledge to hurt me, and sometimes she used it to care for me.

When she died, we were in a good place, relatively. I didn’t hear from her for Christmas, but I was going to see her for New Years, probably, because we never set much stock in dates. But two days after Christmas, I got a call from my sister. She’d died. She’d died two weeks ago.

I don’t think I can explain the conflicting mass of emotions that rose up in me, those first few months. I’d seen her a week before she died. She’d hugged me. But I hadn’t really talked with her, because it got up to 80 outside (yes, in December, I live in Satan’s taint) and I was making gravy on the stove without the AC and I got sick from the heat, so I laid down for most of the visit. But I said hello to her, and I did talk with her, and I hugged her goodbye. It was good. She behaved herself, didn’t drink, didn’t get too loud and self-centered. It was a good note to end our relationship on. But I can’t count how many times I expressed, to my best friend and my then-boyfriend, that I wish we had been on the outs so I’d feel less grief. That I’d feel less guilty that no one checked on her, even though she isolated herself and often went weeks without speaking to anyone. That if I was angry with her, doing the things that I needed to do would be easier. That if I was angry with her, I wouldn’t feel so badly about still having so much lingering anger about my childhood. That no one would expect me to come up with a beautiful eulogy at her funeral. That her friends wouldn’t be so angry with me for not checking on her.

It’ll be two years in December, and I’m still not done processing everything. I’m still conflicted. But two facts do stand out to me. She was abusive. I did still love her.

Happy birthday, Mom. I love you, and I see you, the whole person. You were doing better, but that didn’t make up for your fuckups. But neither did your fuckups take away from the good you did. You believed that things continue, so here it is, my tribute: I believe you are keeping on, somewhere. I believe that you’re beyond the concerns and hurts that dragged you down. I believe that’s what’s left of you is love. Love and dragonflies and the light of the moon and the sun.

Love, your kid.

Why I don’t ship Clerith

(Because what the hell, I may as well get this out here before the fun and games start next year, and I have to fight off Clerith shippers with a bat)

I think I've worked out the problem I have with Cloud/Aerith shipping, as far as I'm concerned.

[Clarification: this is why I have trouble with it, and won't write it.  I'm not saying other people can't, just that I do have issues with it, and therefore don't particularly like reading it, and I've sort of worked out why.]

Now, there are two predominant "schools" of people who ship Cloud with Aerith.  One of those is what I'd call OT3/OT4 fandom, where firstly, the relationship is happening prior to the Nibelheim event, and generally there's at least Zack mixed in to the bundle (sometimes with the addition of Sephiroth, to make the OT4), and it's generally a bisexual threesome at least.  And yeah, that one I find vaguely believable.

[Could all the anti-shippers who just leapt to their feet shrieking "paedophillia!" because Cloud is canonically somewhere between 14 and 16 in this 'ship, kindly sit the fuck back down again?  Cloud Strife may only be 14 years old, but he is a functional adult in his society, taking on an adult role (member of the army of the One World Government).  He would greatly resent any implication he is a "child", because he gave up being a "child" when he left Nibelheim to join the army.  Also, in the OT3 version, Aerith is about 15 - 17 years old, Zack is between 16 and 18 years old.  None of them are "adults" as we'd define it in Western Eurocentric cultures, but all of them are "adults" according to their own cultural system that they grew up in.  As such, they think of themselves as being adults, they consider themselves to be adults, and given they're performing adult roles for at least two years by the time the Nibelheim event comes along, they're not going to step back into childhood again, either.  If you're going to bitch about this, then start by bitching at the original writers working for Square Enix well before you start bitching at fanwriters, okay?

This is also leaving aside the cheerful fact that "adulthood" norms are generally socially and culturally determined.  So, for example, my maternal grandmother became a functional "adult" at the age of 14, when she came out on a boat from England to Australia in order to find work (accompanied by her 16 year old sister); my mother became a functional "adult" at the age of 16, when she finished her third year of high school and started working; and I became a functional "adult" at the age of 18, when I reached the legal age to vote and drink, even though I didn't have a full-time job and I was still living with my parents at the time.  My paternal grandfather joined the British army at the age of 12 (as a drummer boy, toward the end of World War 1).  What counts as "adult" is culturally and socially determined, and never a fixed point of reference.]

I can find it very believable that Cloud would get involved in a relationship with two people who are roughly around his own age, and that it would be a Good Thing in his life at the time.  He's going through puberty, he's behaving as an adult in his society, he would be doing adult things, including sex and possibly alcohol (although my head-canon is that Cloud is incredibly disappointed with Midgarian beer the first time he tries it, and refers to it as "sex in a canoe" ever after - fucking close to water.  He grew up drinking applejack and brandywine as antifreeze since shortly after he could first toddle).  

The other "school" of people who ship Cloud and Aerith tend to place the potential relationship during the canon time period of the original game, starting not long after Cloud rescues Aerith from the Turks in the church.  Now, I have a lot of problems with that one.

Firstly, I doubt Aerith would really be interested in a relationship.  It's made reasonably clear at the end of Crisis Core (and in "The Last Order" OVA) that Aerith knows when Zack was killed - she feels his spirit rejoin the Lifestream because she is who and what she is.  So her first serious boyfriend has died, she knows he's died, and you can't kid me she wouldn't be grieving as a result.  So I don't think Aerith is in the right emotional place to be starting a relationship.

As for Cloud... oh gods.  No.  Hell no.  So much no.  

Cloud is, at the point where he meets Aerith, a psychological mess beyond belief.  He has been incredibly traumatised, first by multiple years of experimentation, then by prolonged mako poisoning, and then finally, just as he's starting to come out of that, by seeing his best (only?) friend destroyed in front of him by pretty much the whole damn Shinra army.  Zack dies in his arms, and the best interpretation of what happens next is Cloud's mind, overwhelmed by the emotional and sensory overload of dealing with this (because he's not just waking up from mako poisoning, he's waking up from mako poisoning with Sephiroth-level SOLDIER enhancement, which means his sensory matrix has been boosted sight out of mind as well) basically shuts down completely on a conscious level, and wipes the memory, adding traumatic amnesia to the whole mix.  When he re-awakens, he re-patterns himself on a combination of Zack's memory, what he remembers of Sephiroth, and what he thinks a First Class SOLDIER should be like.

Now, mix in that Cloud Strife is carrying around the Buster Sword the first time Aerith meets him, in the plaza in sector eight, just after Reactor One has exploded.  Aerith knows what the Buster Sword is, she knows what it meant to Zack and she knew why it meant that.  So seeing it on someone else's back is probably a very nasty reminder to her that Zack isn't coming back.  She doesn't know why Cloud is wearing it, and I doubt in the shock of the moment (let's not forget: massive explosion about five to ten minutes previously, people running around the square like headless chickens the whole time, she's probably not really thinking all that clearly to begin with, and given Mako is also the Lifestream, she's probably felt a profound disturbance in the localised lifestream flows thanks to the destruction of the mako reactor, which may well have knocked her sideways as well!) she's really able to do much more than recognise it, feel the shock of the recognition, and move on to the next part of the interaction.

The second time Cloud and Aerith meet (and if you're familiar with Crisis Core canon, the second time someone drops through the roof of the Church down onto her flowerbed - if not, go look up who the first example was) she's a bit more capable of sustained thought past the shock.  So she sees it's the same guy with the Buster Sword, and this time, she's determined he isn't going to vanish on her, because there's something hinky going on here.  It gets even weirder for her when you consider Cloud is channelling a lot of Zack's mannerisms in order to be able to get through the encounter himself (I have a strong suspicion Cloud is dissociating continuously throughout at least the first five "days" of the game).  So she "hires" this strange guy as her "bodyguard", gets him away from the Turks who appear to have turned up to collect him (and really, it's much more likely at first approximation that the Turks and troopers are there to collect Cloud, given the ambush President Shinra staged at Reactor Four), takes him home with her, and deliberately makes sure she's able to keep an eye on him by following him back to Sector Seven.  Or at least, that's the plan.

I really don't think Cloud would be an attractive partner for Aerith at that point - not with her grief still fresh in her mind, and with his uncanny behavioural resemblance to Zack.  I think Cloud would be much more likely to creep her the fuck out, rather than turn her on sexually.  And as for Cloud, my head-canon for him is he probably isn't even masturbating at this point in his life - his mind is basically about fifty-seven different types of trauma all shaken up into a constant waking nightmare.  He might have a few wet dreams when the physical pressure gets too great, but he's not even thinking of himself as a sexual being at this point, and certainly not in a space where he'd be interested in an actual relationship.  The flirting is mechanical (and probably comes across as same, too) and I really don't think he would have been physically capable of following through, so to speak.  (Cloud, to my mind, won't be ready for a relationship until about two or three years down the line after the end of Advent Children, if then).

So no, I don't think it's possible for Cloud and Aerith to be involved in a relationship at that point.  Not even if they'd been involved in one prior to the Nibelheim event.  (Actually, in that particular case it would be even more traumatic for both of them - Aerith knows Cloud, but can't tell him because it would hurt him more than he can handle; he's constantly dissociating and suffering from traumatic amnesia, and he's only just got out of a state of complete catatonia - learning the truth in such a fashion would just knock him straight back there, and they need him upright and functioning.  Plus it's physically safer for him if he learns the truth of the matter slowly - if he went catatonic... well, that could very well dump him right back into Hojo's hands again, since it's a fair bet Shinra owns the majority of the medical facilities in the world).  

Then Sephiroth damn near manipulates Cloud into killing Aerith, and when that doesn't work, Sephiroth kills her himself, right in front of Cloud.  If you tell me that wouldn't be the cue for a massive attack of the guilts on Cloud's part, I'm going to ask what the merry hells you're on, because I need my doctor to prescribe me some of that.

Why are you reblogging mental illness posts, you of all privileged people don't know what real mental illness is.

I don’t know where you are getting I am “privileged” from, and mental illness comes in all forms. I drove myself fucking insane and still contemplate suicide to this day. I’m going to share my story with you, Anon, in hopes that you are listening. I’m going to add a “read more” because it’s going to be a long one. I’m only sharing this so people like you will understand that mental illness is a struggle. 

My parents were very mentally abusive and strict, preventing me from doing any normal teenage activities and even going so far as to monitor my texts. I had to delete my facebook app whenever they asked to check my phone. They wouldn’t let me leave the house from the ages of 10-17 unless I was going to school. I never got to experience normal teenage life which caused me to develop severe anxiety, depression and dissociative disorder.I couldn’t even do extra curricular activities because my mother wouldn’t let me stay after school. My mother wouldn’t even let me take the city bus, which was quicker, so I had to take the school bus with a bunch of middle schoolers. I wasn’t even allowed to get my drivers license. I don’t know why, she just kept saying I wasn’t allowed. She stayed up really late at night too so I couldn’t even sneak out or escape. 

My mother was ByPolar, and had PTSD, and refused to get treatment. When she was in her “bad” moments, she would get extremely angry over the littlest things. Like once I forgot to refill the ice trays and she got so mad that she threw them across the kitchen into the sink and started going on about “how she does so much for us and that we were ungrateful brats”. That was just one of the hundreds of incidents living with my ByPolar parent. Now that I am an adult I am too afraid to do anything on my own and always fear if my mother will be mad if I do something. Her issues began ruining her marriage, and she became so bitter that she drove my father away, and into the arms of another woman. My mother was very mentally abusive and drove him insane. My parents fought a lot, sometimes until 6 AM and my father had to get up for work at 7. I could never sleep because of the fighting half the time. I never really liked my father because he was barely around, but I felt so bad for him. My mother also favored my little sister a lot more and never ever disciplined my little brother. he has since become a spoiled brat. I used to always get in trouble if anything happened to him and he would always rat me out for every single thing I did. I never had a good relationship with my siblings. It was always a battle for who could be the best child and get all the attention. 

We grew up poor, and lived in a mobile home in the “shitty” part of town. The drywall on my ceiling caved in once and we found mold everywhere in the insulation. Every year during the spring I had a massive leak in my wall so the water would stream down like a waterfall. It would have costed too much to fix so we just dealt with a shitty house. My highschool was all the way on the other side of town and was a 20 minute drive every morning and afternoon. During the 11th grade, I wasn’t allowed to take the school bus anymore and she had to drive me to school, but she hated mornings and half the time she slept in so I missed a lot of school. Which led to a lot of missed classes and a lot of homework. My mother never answered the phone to numbers she didn’t know, and she never ever went to my parent teacher interviews, so when the school would call it didn’t matter. 

I started making friends in the 9th grade, a single friend who I miss very dearly. Lets call her… Julie. We both loved anime and art, I learned a lot of my techniques from her. One time she texted me saying she was going to the movies and really wanted me to go see Divergent with her, but my mother was taking a nap and I would have gotten in shit if I woke her up to ask. So I didn’t bother. I cried. Julie was such a good friend and threw a massive sleepover party during that summer with some other friends, and really wanted me to come, but yet again, I had to make an excuse because my mother would never let me stay at “strangers” house. They posted pictures on facebook of them hanging out at the waterpark and camping in their backyard. I cried because of that too. Those were just a couple incidents with Julie. I hung out with her at school a lot though. We had some good times during lunch and art class. 

The 10th grade was… okay, I had a great English teacher (Mrs. B) who really liked me and told me my writing was amazing. She even offered to publish a short story I had written, but I declined. She was the only teacher I had ever had that praised me for something. My science teacher (Mr. S) on the other hand was a prick. If I came to class 2 minutes late he would kick me out and tell me I was never going to succeed in life and that I would be homeless or living in my mother’s basement. He never believed you if you said you had learning disabilities or couldn’t understand something. If you got an answer wrong, he would make fun of you in front of the whole class. He also did not believe that art was a job and would degrade students who enjoyed it. I was finishing a sketch for art class in my science class once and he actually took my sketch book from me and locked it in his desk. I never got it back. I worked really hard on it too. I failed his class and was forced to enter a science class for “slow” children. That crushed my self esteem 100%. I also failed Mrs. M’s Math class that year because I literally cannot even comprehend times tables. I’m so stupid. 

During the late end of the 10th grade, I got a friend request on Facebook from a guy. His name can be… James. He began messaging me and apparently he was a student in the same English class as me and we had the same interests. We were also mutual friends. We became friends and slowly he introduced me to his group of friends who all sat at the same table during lunch. They played Magic, D&D, and other card games, and I felt so happy because I finally knew some people who also played these games. I didn’t realize that slowly I was leaving my old friend Julie for these new kids. I think that really hurt her and I am sorry. So James and I began talking more and more on FB messenger and at lunch. 

Over the summer we sent each other thousands of messages. Probably hitting the 11,000 mark. I began to depend on his messages because they gave me comfort when my parent’s were fighting or when I felt like dying. Soon I began to feel very stir crazy locked in my own house because I was not allowed to go anywhere unless my mother was with me. I became so depressed that I would curl into a fetal position on my floor and cry until my lungs hurt. Quietly however, as I was terrified to think what would have happened if my mother heard me crying. The only time away I got from myself was when I would take my dog for a walk. That was the only time I was allowed to leave the house. I rescued my dog, and my mom hated the dog because she barked and was too big. That dog probably saved my life countless times, she would snuggle with me every time I wanted to kill myself. She was a big 120 pound akita mix, who was very protective of me, but she was not friendly so I would have to hike for an hour into the deep woods just to let her off the leash. She was always attached to me and would whine and bark when I got into arguments with my mom. I remember once just hiking until I was lost, flopping down in the snow, and looking up at the evening sky with my dog sitting beside me. My dissociative disorder was so bad then it always felt like nothing was real and that I was in a dream. The trees didn’t even look real, but I knew they were trees. The snowflakes falling didn’t even feel like they were coming near me. 

James began asking if we could hang out, and I would always have to come up with excuses. When the 11th grade picked up, I found out I was in James’ History class and started to like him. I became so attached to him that I actively depended on him. I fell so hard for him that I literally couldn’t even look at him. This was bad. Art class that year I became friends with a punk, rebelious girl named Shelly. She was hot and influenced me very badly. She had a boyfriend and would actually message me selfies with condoms every time she was going to have sex. I was only friends with her because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings by saying I didn’t want to hang out. This, paired with what was going on at home was bullshit. She would cut her wrists and legs for attention and tell everyone about it and make it seem like she was so emo. She was never really depressed, she did it for show and actually told me that. 

She negatively influenced my life so much, I began skipping my science and math classes just to hang out with her around town. I only did this because my mother would never have caught me since our house was all the way on the other side of town. she even forced me to try smoking weed once and I don’t know what the hell it was laced with but my heart began palpitating so much I could see it on my chest and I had a severe panic attack. I don’t even remember what the fuck happened after that I just remember coming to in my English class. 

I got a job working at a fast food restaraunt and bought myself a cheap laptop and wacom tablet. I would skip my lunch and 3rd period class just to hang out with James, he ended up manipulating me into things I didn’t want to do. I didn’t want to miss my art classes, but it was the period that James had a free block so he would usually walk home. I began going with him. I really hate talking about this part, since it’s really what hurt me the most. His parents worked during the day, so when I would skip class to go home with him, the house would be empty. It was friendly at first, and we would just watch tv or play games. He wasn’t the nicest person either, he would make fun of me sometimes. I told him I wanted to be a Journalist but he said they never made any money and I should pick a job that society really needs. Those weren’t the only times he was a dick. 

Eventually it led to things happening that I wasn’t ready for. I went along with it because I was afraid of losing him, and that security. I felt awful. So far as to lose my virginity to him. I didn’t want to and it was very painful. I even said no, but he insisted. This is so cringey and awkward to explain. He was like 6′1″ and heavily build, and I was 5′1″ and maybe 120 at the time. It was so awkward to walk back to school after that and then get picked up by my mother haha. After that time we messaged on facebook for another week and suddenly we stopped talking. It was nearly the end of the school year and he would avoid me every time I saw him. He was so ahead in History class that he didn’t even need to go so I never saw him again. I wondered if it was something I did or said that made him hate me. Ugh… I regret it to this day and I still haven’t told anyone. My mother makes me feel so bad about it and highly degrades women who have sex before marriage. I was 16 and lonely! 

Over the summer after the 11th grade, I fell into a dark place. Like really dark. I had all these emotions and no one to talk to. My mother would just judge me and punish me for it. Oh my god I’m even terrified of writing this in fear she will find it. I began bursting out in tears for no reason, staying awake all night and going a week without showering. I would get out of breath just walking and I was always tired. Deeply emotionally exhausted. I would begin making food and give up because It wasn’t worth it, I would look at a sharp object and picture myself stabbing it into my body. I wondered if it really hurt. I even found some baneberries growing in our yard and really thought about eating them since they were highly toxic as stupid as that sounds. I couldn’t even get help for my severe depression and still can’t because that would mean therapy and my mother would need to know why. 

So I ended up dropping out of highschool. I couldn’t face going back to that highschool because I was pretty sure he had spread rumors about me. My “friends” just never looked at me the same. I was out of school for a while and my mother got very, very mentally abusive. She would tell me I was ungrateful and explode over every little slip up that I did. She would freak out and say things like “You don’t want to go to school and you don’t want to work so what the fuck do you want”. Which it was those types of things she would do that really hurt me. I never once raised my voice to my mother, we had some arguments but they were pretty one sided, I wasn’t allowed to say anything to her or disagree with her. I was out of school for a few weeks into grade 12 as well, until I heard about a 2nd chance highschool for troubled students. It was right across the road from my old highschool, and everyone always made fun of it and said it was a school for dumb kids. I decided to check it out and I ended up signing up. It was weird at first, since it was set up like a group home, but the school work was a lot easier and I actually understood the math. I felt at ease for once. I was getting a lot done. Until the end of the year rolled around and everyone at the regular highschools were getting ready for grad. No one understands the pain you feel when you see pictures on top of pictures on facebook of your old classmates and friends with their grad dresses and accepting their diplomas and you didn’t get to. I wanted to walk on that stage and prove to the teachers that I was better than they said. I wanted to have fun trying on grad dresses. I wanted to show them that I beat mental illness as I accepted my diploma, but unfortunately I didn’t. It is still very relevant and some of us can’t get help until our situations change. I fucking cried my eyes out when I saw pictures of them having fun at grad. I wish I could go back and redo my entire highschool life. I’m legal age now, so I can’t even go back and get my highschool education without paying a hefty price for it. Lesson learned people, don’t give up on education. It really is important. 

I didn’t want to write this but eh, it made me feel a little better. That was my story of how mental illness ruined my life, and how I let it. Anon, if you are reading this, fuck off. 

overlywhirly replied to your post “why do people still think signing a petition is gonna boycott a movie...”

https://youtu.be/Fnij3MHfl6k

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I am already of the opinion that your video here is disrespectful to the mentally ill as it uses ‘triggering’ in a sarcastic manner and triggers are a legitimate thing and should not be joked about or taken lightly, signed, a person with PTSD....but that’s a discussion for another time. just know that I already have an extremely low opinion of your video. it’s not coming from a place of caring about the mentally ill or understanding the stigma around our disorders, and therefore, it really can’t make any valid points.

but that doesn’t mean I won’t do my best to rip the “points” apart anyway, so here we fuckin’ go!

two-face? first happened in 1942. there was so little understanding for the disorder then, first off. there wasn’t even a community to rally against bad portrayals of it. on top of that, I wasn’t alive. I’m twenty. you, uh, see the problem there, right?

in addition....do you have any idea how hard it is to change media that already exists? do you realize how difficult it is to try and get people to retcon shit that’s been canon in a media world for any period of time that is over a month? the reason we’re rallying against Split is because it’s brand-new and it’s barely out. there’s still time with this one. on top of that, it’s been incredibly hyped, and it’s in a popular genre--horror films. something like Criminal Minds? not quite as big a following as a horror film. so not only does it make more sense to oppose a new thing than all the old shit that’s existed for ages and would be much harder to even try and get rid of or point out as a problem, it’s also a much more hyped thing than past media portraying DID as scary and bad.

why don’t I talk about films demonizing things like bipolar? simple: I don’t have bipolar, and therefore, I know nothing about the stigma around it....so I’m not equipped to speak on it, just like the person in your video isn’t equipped to speak on this subject here!

“does the fact that the antagonists are scary or mean or evil make it okay?” wow, somehow both you and this guy managed to completely miss the point of everything we’ve been saying! no. that’s exactly the fucking problem: the antagonists have our disorder and they are scary and mean and evil. that’s the issue we’re talking about here, that’s the problem, please try to keep up. (also, Psycho came out in 1960, I was again not alive and there still wasn’t much of a DID community....are you getting the problems here yet?)

and yeah, sure, there’s shit that hits way closer to the mark in terms of general mental illness....but nothing that hits anywhere near the mark for DID. funny thing I can’t help noticing here? this dude in this video keeps using ‘DID’ and ‘mental illness’ like they’re interchangeable. news flash, buddy: they’re not. and this is an issue specific to DID, that affects only people with DID, not the general ‘mental illness’ community.

“people need to be victimized.” ....you know, I’m suddenly getting the feeling this is one of those guys who doesn’t think sexism is still a thing.

no, people don’t “need” to be victimized. sure, there are probably people who enjoy feeling that way, but they’re not the majority and don’t try to pretend that they are. “people need to feel victimized” is an extremely typical response to actual fucking problems like racism, sexism, ableism, transphobia, and so on. and dismissal of actual problems is what leads to shit like Trump’s presidency! but you keep on toting that “people are making shit up because they want to feel victimized!” flag if it helps you sleep better at night for being so self-centered.

oh wow, we managed to hit on something I actually think is a problem! people fabricating mental illnesses while I, a person with the actual disorder, wonder why anyone would ever want it for themselves. yes, there are lots of people who fake DID or similar on Tumblr, and no, I don’t really get why they would; DID sucks ass, if I’m being honest. it’s just too bad that you and this fellow here can’t put two and two together to realize “people with the actual disorder are upset over people faking it inaccurately and causing problems for those with the actual disorder who need to be taken seriously” is also applicable to “horror movie blows disorder out of proportion, calls it the by the disorder’s name, and uses it as a cheap horror scare while making people with the disorder seem dangerous.”

almost every antagonist in a horror film suffers from some kind of mental condition, you claim? mmm...maybe. I’m sure, if we looked at every antagonist ever in a horror film, we could probably diagnose the undiagnosed ones with some form of a psychiatric problem, based on what was close to what the antagonist seemed to display. 

however! 

this movie, Split? it’s a DID-based movie. it uses the disorder’s goddamn name. it talks about multiple personalities. it makes it VERY fucking clear that this is DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER and nothing else. I can think of, off the top of my head, three horror films I really liked that didn’t label a mental illness for the antagonist to have the way Split does. that right there’s a big part of the problem. in addition, Split’s gone after a very distinctive mental illness--even if they hadn’t labeled it, it would be very clear what they were talking about. also a problem! on top of that....no, this claim is absolutely false; not every antagonist in a horror film is given a mental illness the way Split has given one to their antagonist. I can think of two off the top of my head that I’ve seen and enjoyed that didn’t use mental illness for horror factor at all. I can think of a third that used an extreme version of an existing autoimmune disorder as part of the horror factor. so no, this claim is very false. but even then--you’re not wrong. mental illness is often used as a scare factor in horror films. especially the “scary and dangerous” ones, like psychosis. it may shock you to find I also have a problem with that! but surprisingly, I have a limited amount of energy to devote to online stuff and opposing things, and so I’m trying to take this whole ‘trying to get better portrayals of the mentally ill’ thing one fight at a time. Split caught my eye because it’s been so hyped, and I went from there.

and hey, guess what? part of the whole fucking problem here is that Split is super inaccurately representing DID....in exactly the same way it’s been misrepresented many times before: as a scary disorder that makes you a murderer. like....again, this is part of the problem. (really starting to wonder if you read any of my posts at all, dude.)

why no outcry against the PTSD portrayal of the pink stuffed bear in Toy Story 3? I can posit three guesses: one, it’s a movie targeted for kids, who are rarely in a position to recognize or speak out against PTSD and portrayals of mental illness. kinda an obvious fact there, I’d think? anyway. two, PTSD absolutely can make someone overreactive, easily upset, easily triggered, and sometimes downright cruel or dangerous. that’s not an incorrect portrayal on the whole, and so I wouldn’t actually be upset by it. three, there are decently positive portrayals of PTSD in existence--something DID doesn’t have. PTSD affects many people and is relatively well known about and talked about and not horribly demonized as “having this makes you scary and terrifying”. which isn’t to say it’s totally accepted, but it’s doing better than DID! DID, on the other hand, partly because of its media history and partly because of how few people it affects, is rarely discussed, often demonized, and sometimes even viewed as fake....all of which makes it very hard for actual sufferers of DID LIKE ME to talk about their disorder, discuss it with anyone, be open about it with friends, family, or even therapists--which are PROBLEMS. problems that movies like Split definitely contribute to, but movies like Toy Story 3 really don’t, for aforementioned reasons.

oh boy, here we go with twisting the facts and ignoring the actual truth of how PTSD is handled in most media versus how DID is handled in most media! no, idiot, Toy Story 3 is not teaching kids to ‘fear people with PTSD’. for one thing, by the time a kid learns what PTSD actually is and puts it together that the bear has it, they’ll probably have seen a positive portrayal of it, or they’ll know someone who has it, or at worst, they will have it, and they’ll have to accept it and learn that people with PTSD aren’t scary. on the other hand, DID doesn’t get positive media, people rarely know someone who has it, and it’s even rarer that someone will have it themselves. in addition, this is media directed at adults, who will be able to process that Split is about a real disorder since they NAME IT IN THE MOVIE (the disorder of the bear in Toy Story 3 is UNNAMED), and will already know about mental illness and mental disorders, and will probably take away that DID is a scary disorder at the bottom line.

re: isn’t it teaching kids that if they had a traumatic experience, they’ll probably become evil? ahahahaha. wow. it’s almost like that’s not a rhetoric tossed out to abuse survivors with PTSD all the time, that they’ll grow up to replicate their abuse....OH WAIT IT IS WOW WHAT A COINCIDENCE

.....I don’t think my DID makes me a better type of person, lmao, so I’m not sure where we got THAT from

anyway....in conclusion, I think you and this guy are both idiots who didn’t do their research, and I think you didn’t read my posts at all, and I hope you’ve appreciated this picking apart of this dumbass video! assuming you’re still with me, that is, which I assume you’re not--people like you tend to be giant narcissists who don’t care about others and just want to enjoy things without those damn whiny babies it’s harming speaking up.

I'm so fucking tired and I need to be asleep already because work starts back up again tomorrow but just. Everything's kind of fucky right now. I don't really know what's happening and I told myself that this year I was going to start trying to reach out to real people about shit going on with me to see what that's like for a change but I spend so much time just not wanting to talk or think about things or have other people know about things because pity or even like sympathy or empathy often just give me the heebie jeebies. but I'm probably going to talk about it tomorrow with my close friends at work because I trust them all so much at this point but also that thought makes me want to vomit because I don't even know what I'm going to say so this is a long fucking intro into what is going to be practice for talking this out tomorrow. So NYE was actually kinda fun, went to the high school boyfriend's family farmhouse and hung out with the old gang and played dumb board games and burned big cardboard box sculptures out in the snow and played music and fucked around with an old sled (I ate shit while pulling it once and now I have a bruise covering my entire left kneecap lol) and then went inside and played a VR game and I usually hate video games but it was actually fun as hell. It overall was all just goofy and fun and low pressure but I left around 3am because i just need my own bed and the new house is only like 20mins away from where he lives instead of a whole hour so I got home and my parents and brother were all already in bed as normal so I just quietly went to bed and was passed out around 4. The next morning was just super lazy, I kept waking up for like 10mins at a time and feeling super groggy and then falling back asleep, I was just trying to enjoy my last morning of sleeping in. I finally got up and came downstairs around 11:30 and was still feeling super out of it, my brother was taking down the christmas tree, and I get into the kitchen and my mom's cleaning the counter and I just figured my dad was at church or something. My mom was like 'good morning' and I'm like 'hi' and then she just kind of... looked at me. So I was like 'what?' and she just goes 'i just want to let you know that your father went away somewhere for the week. I asked him to go. I needed a break. He wouldn't tell me where he was going though.' and I just kind of blinked and was like... '..Okay' after a couple seconds. And internally i was just like 'what. what' because it hardcore didn't feel real and I'll say more about why at the end of this. I didn't really know what to do so i kind of just joined in doing all my normal house cleaning jobs and was hardcore fucking dissociating. My brother came upstairs when I was cleaning the bathroom and stopped at the doorway and looked at me so I was just like 'what?' again and he was like 'did you not hear?' and I was like 'no, yeah, I did... did anything happen last night? Did they have a fight?' and he was like 'no, not that I know of, they were still just watching a movie at around 11pm when I went upstairs to call my girlfriend'. So I was just like 'okay.' And like. It's day 2, almost day 3. And no one's still really said anything. My mom asked us once if we were mad at her once, and we were like 'no', and neither of us are, but my brother has his own opinions on shit, he's happy when everyone just gets along no matter what, he hates fighting, and I do to, so much, but I am the epitome of nonconfrontation when it comes to anyone but my dad and my other brother, because boy do I lose my my fucking mind when either of them starts in on some bullshit. My mom is a lot like him in that way, she hates fighting, but for her it's because she's so fucking tired and knows nothing will change anyway. And that's how their marriage had been for as long as I can remember. There has always been periods when i've been like 'is this it?' when they've had a bad fight. But as far as I know, and I've lived with both of them my entire life except for the last 4 years of college, neither one of them has ever left or been asked to leave before. And I really don't know what to think or feel. My brother is being really quiet and texting a lot, probably his girlfriend, maybe our other brother, who has a job on the different side of the country, who he told what was going on. my mom is being my mom, getting shit done like a whirlwind as usual, but has been spending more time that usual up in their room by herself. And I'm existing. Basically we're all just pretending everything is fine and i half of me is grateful and the other half of me wants to scream. And the really fucky thing? That I swear to g-d I am not making up? I often have really vivid dreams in the mornings when I'm doing that weird awake/asleep/awake thing. And that morning I literally had a dream where my parents sat all 3 of us down at a table and we're like 'lol kids we're getting a divorce' and it was so strange because everyone was in a good mood and everything was so weird and jokey?? And then I woke up again and was like 'oh shit wow that was a fucking dream?' because again it was one of those dreams that really feels so fucking real?? Even if it's weird af? And then I was like 'ha fuck can you actually imagine if they finally fucking did do it', which has been an inside joke with myself for years and some close friends when we're all joking bout our heaps of issues. and I fell back asleep, before I got up and stepped into this reality. And let me tell you, I really wish I was making that shit up, because it's made it even harder than usual to pretend to be a functioning human being when I'm literally fucking shook by my own mind. like guys. I had no reason to have that dream. They haven't been fighting or anything really that I've seen in a while. Holidays are always a little tense, especially when my dad's sister and her husband, both of whom my mom and I hate, come over on Christmas day, but honestly everything was fine, we seemed to make it through without a hitch. But now this. The only thing that is making it feel real is that my dad hasn't come home from somewhere. And I have no idea what to think or feel. Everything's in limbo. I don't know anything that's going on. Will he actually come back at the end of the week and just be here again? Does further discussion need to happen first? Will everything just supposed to be *back to normal* if he does come back? What will it be like if he actually doesn't? our relationship is so fucked up and I can't stand to be around him for a lot reasons but he's still my dad so is he ok right now? Where even is he? Does he have any friends he's still close enough to anymore to be staying with? I don't know. I don't know.