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doctorstephenvincentstrange · 3 years

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What If S1E4 Meta: The True “Heart”

The same way Stephen couldn’t let go of Christine in the fourth installment of What If...?, I haven’t been able to shake this episode off and out of my head since watching it. I’m pretty sure it’s put me through the grieving process. Lately, it’s been haunting me like a ghost, and while mentally revisiting it for the fourteen millionth time, I realized something BRUTAL that I just had to share ASAP!

Hear me out, homies. What if...

The running theme and title of the episode was Stephen Strange losing his “heart.” But although the setup and storyline seems to suggest the euphemism refers to Christine Palmer, it doesn’t! The “heart” of Stephen Strange is not the girl of his dreams he lost in that car accident, but the greater man he had gained.

OK LISTEN. Let me have a shot to show you what I see (even in shite quality, pardon my crappy screenshots). Let’s start with the DS1 recap, 'cuz I’m still not over the first movie, either, and it’s relevant.

Like the watcher explained, after the devastating and tragic death of the love of his life, Stephen Strange began to look for answers. Not different from Stephen Strange of the sacred timeline, he was obsessed with reversing the great loss and trauma he’d endured. It was with the same perfectionism that made him a great surgeon, that Stephen sought the power to “find his own way back.”

... By any means necessary.

They both discover that “power” they were searching for when they stumble upon time magic. However, Stephen is lectured that time magic is something that could risk the stability of the universe, and should never be done lightly and certainly never for the sake of one person over all others. Although harm is not his nature and Stephen doesn’t want to hurt anyone, he struggles to give up on his quest to heal his hands, or alternatively, to resurrect Christine. He was told a solution wasn’t out there, but found it in the Book of Cagliostro.

Despite every person that told him it couldn’t be done, Stephen can’t accept that. He won’t admit there’s nothing that can be done, there has to be something he can do. He’s conceited with the delusion he can alter his past to better his present. And he won’t be swayed of it.

But when the Ancient One fell, Stephen Strange rose to take her place and fend against the invading Dormammu. He saw for the first time the world that was so much bigger than him, that he could do so much good for, more than good only for himself. He saw the millions of lives that had not yet been lost to tragedy he could prevent and save from it, even if not what hardships had already been done and could not be undone in his own life. Things he could save, not fix.

And it wasn’t his own life he saved with that time magic in the end, but earth itself. And Stephen Strange became something much bigger than himself. No matter what he’d lost in that car accident, he learned there was still much more he could gain, regardless of what he’d lost. He didn’t need to fix his hands. They were still good.

Better than his brilliant mind, was his beautiful heart.

His capacity for goodness, not greatness.

And yet, for all the good he’d achieved and learned, on the two year anniversary of Christine’s death, Stephen can’t help but get sucked into his past, and in a moment of weakness, allow his grief power over him once more. He can’t stop reliving the past. He loops it over and over again, trying to reverse fate, trying to find a way to spare Christine and find that “miracle” that must exist to spare her.

The Ancient One has sensed his presence and meddling with the Eye of Agamotto, and warns Stephen that the path he had set himself on would lead him only to more pain. When Stephen refuses to be reasoned with, the Ancient One brandishes him with a single blow before he escapes into the past. He thinks she missed. She didn’t.

SHOT THROUGH THE HEART, AND YOU’RE TO BLAME! DARLING YOU GIVE LOVE A BAD NAME!

But *ahem* seriously, notice how Stephen was struck mid center his chest, directly over his heart. It was in that moment that Stephen Strange lost his “heart,” as the Ancient One had knocked it out of him, just as she had knocked him out of his own oversized head when they first met. Theory: she cast a spell to separate Stephen’s heart from his mind, the two halves that make one complete man.

Because even if Stephen Strange’s mind was still set on Christine Palmer, his heart had been changed, and there was still hope for it. And Stephen Strange’s heart had enough with “living in the past for one day,” and chose instead to share drinks with Wong.

Meanwhile, Stephen’s “mind” searched the Library of Cagliostro for a way to reverse an absolute point and save Christine. Eventually, he found the answer he was looking for. He needed more power, that could be obtained by otherworldly creatures. Now, harm is not in Stephen’s nature. On his first attempt, he actually tries asking “nicely,” and ends up getting ass kicked.

O’Bengh, the librarian of the books of Cagliostro, patches up his body and tries to warn Stephen. He may have lost his heart, but if he he keeps going at this rate, he was well on his way to losing his mind.

But Stephen didn’t heed those words of warning. He distorted his body, darkened himself with every sacrifice he made for Christine’s sake. So caught up in the memory of Christine’s greatness, Stephen had forgotten he’d once had one of his own. Christine was all he saw.

So obsessed with her, he lost himself.

When Strange returns to O’Bengh’s side, the librarian has aged and is dying. He reveals the passage of centuries Stephen has spent devoted to this madness. As someone Stephen thinks of as a friend passes away, Stephen can’t think to cherish these last moments or listen carefully to his final words. All he can think is to use his magic to spare O’Bengh, which O’Bengh refuses, trying one last time to reach through to Stephen before giving up and leaving hope to the “heart” to be strong enough to withstand and stop him.

*Wink, wink, wink.* Do you see it now?

Now, onto the confrontation between heart and mind. Stephen’s mind can’t achieve anything if his heart isn’t in it, and I love the symbolism of that. He must get it on board first, unite on both fronts.

Stephen’s heart can recognize that this isn’t love, but the work of his broken mind lost in a delusion. And Stephen’s so far gone down the rabbit hole, he won’t even listen to his heart. Instead he ignores it, even burns the cloak of levitation... the very symbol of his finding something new that could uplift him after spending so long down on his knees in the past... and he burnt it to ash. When his heart won’t be persuaded, he resorts to trickery, attempting to con his heart with the same delusion that haunts his mind. It’s the same Christine that Stephen first was hung up imagining when he picked up the eye of the Agamotto and got himself into this mess, his trump card.

But again, the heart cannot be deceived. It knows Christine is dead, and it realizes the fantasy his mind is pursuing is not the same as the Christine they once knew and loved. More importantly, his heart remembers that there are other people who need him now, people that are not beyond saving. And the mind is done playing.

If his heart won’t come willing, then he’ll just have to beat it into submission until it can’t make a single sound of protest, and then swallow it whole. Stephen makes the ultimate sacrifice the Ancient One had tried so hard to prevent, and abandons that heart she saw so much potential in and inspired her to teach him.

This episode AMAZINGLY tackles the narcissism and arrogance that hides in specific shades of grief and depression. In believing our problems are greater than anyone else’s, that no one else could understand as Stephen insisted “they didn’t know her!” The selfishness that comes with refusing to see the world or those around you that still need you and choosing instead to chase the memory of the ones you’ve already lost, who are beyond saving. If we choose those delusions over our reality, in the end, we will lose everything, and the ones who will pay the price for your arrogance won’t be you, but the ones you loved. Even the memory of the one you loved, that you twisted to fit your mold. There’s a selfishness in seeing only the bad of what was rather than the good of what could come.

Unless you want to end up alone inside a cold and empty shell, maybe it’s time to listen to your heart, and move on.

#Doctor Strange #Doctor Stephen Strange #Stephen Strange #What If #Marvel #Marvel Meta

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emerald-amidst-gold · 3 years

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WIP Wednesday

It’s a rainy Wednesday where I’m at (not that it’s helping with the humidity) and I have a treat in the form of writing! >:D

Thank you @noire-pandora and @oxygenforthewicked for the tags! <3

Sadly, I am still slow going on starting my next chapter, but I’m trying not to get too upset by that fact. All things come in good time! :3 For now, have some sibling drama! :D

Mhairi crossed her own arms, mirroring him in every way. “Brother, we have no other alternatives.”, she said, delicate face hard, eyes harder than the ice they reflected. “We have to match Corypheus’ strength! He has a dragon! If we want to match that specific strength we need a dragon, too!”

Fane scoffed with disgust. “That’s your justification? To bind a living being further than it already is to practically mimic a delusional cesspool?!”, he snarled out once again, barely registering how Solas’ mind reached out to his own, seeking to soothe it, knowing it hurt to do this. It did hurt. It hurt so fucking much, but this agony he would bear if only to keep his kin from being leashed and directed like dogs once again!

Mhairi scoffed in disbelief, shaking her head. “What other justification should I have?! The world is at stake! People’s lives are at stake!”, she argued, voice rising and mildly making his ears ring; his kin from behind let out a low growl from its own sensitivity. “If we aren’t prepared, we’ll fail, Fane! Corypheus will win and then what?! We die?! We surrender to his delusions?!”

Fane felt his body blaze with rumbling rage. “Maybe we should rely on ourselves and our own strength rather than take it from another source! Especially a source I have stated, over and over, isn’t supposed to fight!”, he roared, feeling a light flinch on his mind, but ignored it as he continued. “That power you gained from the Well of Sorrows is a curse, Mhairi! It isn’t a blessing or a right; it’s a bond of slavery! You are enslaved to Mythal and if you approach the Guardian, she’ll be enslaved, too!” He couldn’t let that happen! Not again! Not again!

“It is not slavery! I chose this! Whatever you feel about the Creators, Brother, you have to know they would never bind their own!”, Mhairi yelled back, undeterred by his booming roar unlike Dorian’s; the man’s eyes were wide, but flitting towards Solas as if to say, ‘Some help?’, but his sky’s eyes were locked on his sister, hard, assessing and filled with pain. “And how would you know anyways?! You’ve never cared about the elves, the Dalish or any of our culture! You didn’t take the Well’s knowledge when it was offered! You were happy to let Morrigan take it without protest!”

Fane snarled deep in his chest, tearing into his armor to where it actively ripped. “I didn’t take it because I couldn’t nor would I ever! If that makes me a pathetic excuse of an elf, so be it, but don’t you dare say I never cared, Mhairi!”, he spat with venom, actually taking a harsh step towards his sister and watching how she flinched, but remained steadfast. “If anyone had listened I would have destroyed the blighted thing, but that wasn’t an option and neither is this!”

Fane motioned backwards with a hand to the brilliant gold dragon, whose eyes were trained on all of them, weary and almost looking as if it wished to delve into Uthenera due to the fight just prior. The sight of minor gashes and twitches that signaled pain nearly made his temper flare ever higher, but he kept it down, kept it contained. He was already feeling enough rage. He didn’t need more. But...but this would not stand! The past would not repeat as long he breathed and walked within this stagnant world!

“Brother,”, Mhairi called, voice taking on a softer edge as she chanced a tentative step towards him. “..please. It’s--” A pause, icy eyes turning away for a moment as if contemplating something before they hardened with resolve, turning back to him. “..it’s just a--!”

“Da’len,”, Solas addressed his sister suddenly, voice flat, but Fane blinked at the hint of concealed anger ruffling under its silk. “...whatever you are about to say, rethink it.”

Mhairi’s eyes flashed with white as she snapped her head towards the mage. “Excuse me?”, she spat, delicate eyebrows and features twisting with confusion and indignation. “Who are you to say what I can and can’t say?! You’re just as guilty of not caring about the People, Solas! So, don’t you dare try to say what I’m saying is wrong or right!”

Solas’ expression hardened, jaw locking up with quiet anger. “I am not stunting your right to speak, da’len.” The term of ‘child’ was almost hissing, almost dripping with venom. “Nor am I saying it is wrong or right. I am merely advising you to choose your words with more care. Both of your emotions are leading your thoughts in this moment.” Blue and grey shifted up to him, narrowing a bit with a chastising air to which Fane answered with a minor sneer but kept his mouth shut. “If neither of you attempt to control yourselves, then you may say something you will regret.”

...So yeah. Temple of Mythal was FUN! :D *goes and cries in the corner*

Tagging: @the-dreadful-canine @varric-tethras-editor @little-lightning-lavellan @rosella-writes @drag-on-age @dreadfutures @whataboutbugs @dungeons-and-dragon-age @shift-shaping and anyone else who’d like to share or who I may be forgetting because memory is...heh. (no pressure, as always! <3)

#my writing #oc: fane lavellan #oc: mhairi lavellan #solas #dragon age #wip wednesday #dragon age inquisition #mhairi seems a little ooc but this is waaaay later in the fic when some shit has gone down #little does she know her words are like KNIVES #and i'll let everyone guess what mhairi was about to say~ >:3 #fane is internally yanking on his hair because 'WHY WON'T SHE LISTEN?!'#the guardian is just in the background like #'i'm tired. shut up.' XD

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aspoonofsugar · 4 years

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Hi! How are you doing? Not sure if it's already been asked, but what are your top 10 favourite canon couples?

Hello!

I am doing fine, thank you! How are you doing?

It is alright, nobody has asked this before, so I can answer! That said, I am not really a hardcore shipper, so I am not sure I will come up with 10 pairs :’‘‘). I’ll do my best though! Also I have interpreted the term “canon” very freely.

As usual, here they are in no particular order:

1) Claire Stanfield and Chane Laforet (Baccano!):

I love their dynamic because they are fundamentally two almost opposite individuals who end up together in a surprising way. On one hand Claire thinks that he is the protagonist not only of his own story, but of the whole world. As a matter of fact he believes that the world is nothing more than a dream of his. Ironically, it is because of this selfish delusion that Claire is able to embrace the whole world:

“So what if I'd spare him? In my mind it's the certainty in myself that I possess which allows me to have that kind of mercy or compassion. There's no wavering on that point. It's fixed like the stars. The fact is I'm never gonna be killed! So remember this: mercy and compassion are virtues that only the strong are privileged to possess. And I am strong.”

On the other hand Chane has chosen to be nothing more than her father’s puppet. She is a satellite character in her own life and can’t absolutely think to live as a protagonist. If Claire’s world is too big, Chane’s too little because it has only her and her father in it. What is more, Chane has gone out of her way to make sure that it stays that way. For example, she asked her father to take her voice away and has not learnt alternative ways to communicate (like sign language).

Given this premise, it is interesting that a person so self-centered like Claire puts a person with such a frail sense of self like Chane at the centre of his world. Claire makes Chane, who is not even the lead of her own story, the heroine of his huge world. Claire instead plays a support role in Chane’s story. It is precisely because of this contradiction that their dynamic works. All in all Chane gets to get in contact with the world through Claire. Because of this, she is challenged to grow. This is another interesting difference between them. On one hand Claire is basically like Peter Pan and can’t really grow psychologically. On the other hand Chane is a character who has changed, but who is scared of this change. This is why she tries to actively regress, but she can’t really go back to who she was.

2) Komugi and Meruem (HxH):

I have explained here what I love about them. Their relationship conveys the themes of the chimera ants arc beautifully. I especially like it because it would have been easy to have Meruem grow fond of Komugi because of her kindness and goodness. However, this is not really what happens. The reason why Meruem is so attracted by Komugi is her prowess as a Gungi player. Komugi is not a character who coddles Meruem, but one who challenges him. As a result Meruem’s attraction for her is rooted in respect. Meruem brings out from Komugi her talent and stubborness, while Komugi brings out from him his caring and kind side. Meruem becomes interested in her because of the traits they share and grows to love what makes her different from him.

3) Ash Lynx and Eiji Okumura (Banana Fish):

I like their relationship, but I would have loved for it to be explored even more throughout the story. All in all, they are attracted to each other because they want something the other has. Eiji wants Ash’s initiative and daring personality, while Ash wants Eiji’s freedom and soothing personality. Eiji wants Ash’s ability to fight for himself, while Ash wants Eiji’s talent to heal others instead of hurting them.

Despite this, they are not fully able to grow as they could have because of the violence of the conflict they are in. Eiji makes some steps in the right direction, but the moment a wound incapacitates him he goes back to his more passive behaviour. When it comes to Ash, he is not able to take fligth like he would like because of self-hate. Their ending is tragic, but I wonder if it could have been different. For example, after a meaningful conflict the two of them decide to avoid fighting and to simply enjoy the time they spend together. This is a relatable choice, but a series of things are left unexpressed and because of this they are not really able to overcome their flaws. Maybe, if they had fought a little more and had called each other out more, things could have been different in the end.

4) Claire Nunez and Jim Lake Jr (Tales of Arcadia):

I have talked about them here. They are two very similar people to the point that they have basically the same flaw. They both feel responsible for bad things happening to them and to their friends. This is why they end up trying to fix everything by their own and fail spectacularly. It is nice to see them find help and support by their loved ones. And it is heart-warming that they keep being there for each other.

5) Chidi Anagonye and Eleanor Shellstrop (The Good Place):

Eleanor and Chidi are completely different people and this is why they are perfect to challenge each other. Chidi inspires Eleanor to be more selfless and to open up to others, while Eleanor inspires Chidi to be daring. This is obvious since season 1 and it is a constant throughout the series. Their relationship is a good example of a relationship which is conflictual, but enriching. In order to stay together they (other than escaping hell) must overcome their respective flaws. Eleanor must be vulnerable and let Chidi in her life, while Chidi must be decisive and actively choose Eleanor.

I also like that this is true even in those timelines where they do not develop a romantic relationship. The fact that their relationship is the same, but also slightly differs in each reboot makes it gain a very nice thematic meaning and enriches it. All in all, what Chidi and Eleanor represent for each other is always the same and what changes is the platonic/romantic aspect of the bond.

Finally I like the motif of them leaving messages to their future selves about the other. At the end of season 1, Eleanor writes to herself: “Find Chidi”, while at the end of season 3 Chidi writes to himself: “Eleanor is the answer”. This is a very cool motif which conveys their respective growth thanks to the other. Eleanor who only trusts herself chooses to trust Chidi’s ability to help her. Chidi who has spent his whole life searching for answers and failing to write them down decides that Eleanor is all he needs to find meaning in his life.

6) Roy Mustang and Riza Hawkeye:

Their relationship is my favourite of the whole series. Their characters are beautifully intertwined to the point that they can barely function without the other. This aspect of their bond is not excessively romanticized, but it is presented as a dreadful consequence of the traumatic past they share. At the end of the day Roy and Riza are too highly idealistic people whose ideals were shattered before they could evolve in something more than childish dreams. Despite this, they were able to put the fragments of those great dreams back together and have chosen to sacrifice their personal happiness to realize them.

All in all, Riza and Roy want redemption for their crimes and they find comfort in each other while they try to obtain it. In order to make things better they are ready to sacrifice their own existences and they have given up on the chance of living normal lives as civilians. However, they still have each other.

Roy gives Riza someone to protect, so that she does not fall apart and remains functional, while Riza restrains Roy’s most negative instincts. They make each other better even if they can’t completely overcome the pain of their past. They can just share it with the other.

Finally I especially like the scene where Roy chooses not to transmute humans even if it means Riza will most likely die. As a matter of fact, despite it all, that act is not framed as a betrayal of Riza, but rather as the only thing he can do not to betray her. I love both relationships where a character fixated on an ideal lets go of it because of people and relationships which make a person realize the importance of an ideal. They are both beautiful when well written. Here we are in front of a bond where both aspects are present. On one hand Roy must let go of his desire of vengeance not to lose Riza. On the other hand Roy must let go of Riza not to betray the ideals they share.

In the end theirs is a very tragic and strict relationship, but also a very warm and human one.

7) Kokomi Teruhashi and Saiki Kusuo (Saiki Q):

They are not properly canon since they are not together by the end. However, I think there is enough in the series to support the ship. Anyway, it is still a ship I enjoy a lot (and it is one of the few I feel strongly for, so I am adding it to the list no matter what).

I love their dynamic because it is hilarious, but it could also be surprisingly deep if the narrative wanted to explore it more. Teruhashi is my favourite character of the series because she is a nice subversion of both the yamato nadeshiko trope and of the alpha bitch one. She presents herself as an incredibly beautiful and yet innocent girl, but she is actually very aware of her looks and of others’ reactions. Despite this, she comes along as likeable mostly because she often genuinelly means well despite her being self-centered. Saiki instead projects the image of an average person, but he is actually the most powerful being of the world. In short, Teruhashi and Saiki are both opposite and the same.

They are the same because they both wear a carefully crafted mask. They are opposite because the masks they were are opposite. On one hand Teruhashi’s mask of the perfect girl attracts attention. On the other hand Saiki’s mask of the average guy is meant to make him invisible.

The difference between their two personas is the reason why Saiki wants to avoid Teruhashi at all costs. He wants to be average, so he can’t stay close to a person who attracts so much attention. At the same time, it is clear that Saiki grows to admire Teruhashi specifically because of her ability to always keep her mask up. He knows how difficult it is to realize such a feat and he recognizes Teruhashi’s dedication. Basically Saiki is the only person who knows the real Teruhashi and appreciates her for who she is and not for who she pretends to be.

In short, the series could have done a lot with them if it had wanted to go deeper in their dynamic. Saiki ends up coming to the spotlight multiple times to help Teruhashi, while Teruhashi breaks up her image of perfect girl when close to Saiki.

Unluckily this is the end of the list :’‘‘) I tried to think of other canon couples I enjoy, but even if there are some, I would not call them proper faves. At the same time, there are some ships I enjoy, but they are not properly canon/confirmed to be romantic, so I am not adding them.

Thank you for the ask!

#baccano!#baccano #clairexchane #hxh #komugixmeruem #bf #asheji #trollhunters #clairexjim #royai #fma #chidi x eleanor #the good place #saiki x teruhashi #saiki q #asksfullofsugar #eurekapendragon

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yes-these-obsessions-are-healthy · 4 years

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Late-to-the-party disorganized reflection of Jessica Jones Season 1, sue me

One of the biggest things that bugs me about Jessica Jones Season 1 is... and this isn’t me attacking the writers.. but it’s the fact that Jessica is so dismissive of other peoples’ trauma at the hands of Kilgrave when she’s asked to include herself in the group therapy sessions. It’s a deep character flaw that I dislike but I’m still somewhat glad exists. It makes her more believable, but in exchange it makes me dislike her more than if she were to say nothing. She refers to them as “whiney”, which..no offense Jessica, but if what they’re doing is whining, then what are you doing when you bring up your trauma to Kilgrave?

To him, she’s whining just the same as them, only being far more unreasonable, and she uses that sentiment as an excuse to not go to the talks. She says to Malcolm at one point the equivalent of “Someone will always have it worse, so why should I air my dirty laundry out when I probably had it better than someone else”, as if it’s a suffering contest. The nature of victimization, the quality of it, the quantity of it, is what Kilgrave, and ultimately Jessica, are overly-fixated on.

For Kilgrave, the suffering of another person is fine by him because he doesn’t give a shit, but at the same time he thought he was being a great lover to Jessica by taking her all over the world and letting her wear fancy clothes and eating in the finest restaurants. What girl wouldn’t be happy about that? She’s just being ungrateful, she’s just being hysterical, he could have been so much worse to her. It’s a chilling thought process. “I COULD, but I won’t, and you should be thankful.” It’s the threat of a bad time that gives him power, and it is his frequent demonstration of how much of a bad time he could give someone that keeps him powerful.

The very character of Kilgrave is someone who is preoccupied with his wants and needs, like any psychopathic man-child who is desperate for a hit of serotonin that comes from having his whims met or doing what he feels like doing in the moment. His perception of things is the truth, his opinion of someone is how it actually is, and anything to the contrary is just a way for people to try to cage him in and control him. Everything is semantics, negligible, unimportant. The man can feel bad, but it’s self-pity or shallow concern. I think he does tiptoe close to feeling remorse for what he’s done to Jessica, but he stopped just at the ledge, looked down, saw the words “Accountability” and “Responsibility” emblazoned on the trampoline, and went “lol nope”. Because that would mean feeling bad, that would mean changing his self-serving behavior, and that shit is lame. Why would he make himself feel bad? He felt bad in the past, he felt tortured and traumatized by his parents (whether a psychopath or not, the experiments forced upon him would have made any child his age feel like a lab rat, I think, especially since they were so painful-looking..).

Where am I going with this...Kilgrave hits that sweet spot of 1% tragic villain and 99% horrible. He’s a nutter, he may have always been a nutter, or the experiments messed up his head. Whatever the case, his obsession with Jessica is the first time he’s ever felt infatuation for another person. He could list off all the things that fascinate him about her, and in the police station he tries to explain why he can’t stop thinking about her. She represents a challenge that half of him hopes to conquer, and the other half doesn’t. An eternal struggle between them to keep him entertained as he floats through life getting everything he wants. She can be his fiery woman, but she is his woman. She is a weapon he uses as he likes. And somewhere down the road he decided he was genuinely fond of her, but fondness does not translate to kindness and compassion when it comes to guys like Kilgrave, it just means you are too valuable to murder. Most of the time.

What strikes me the most though, is that I don’t know where the manipulation ends and where the self-delusion starts.

The manipulative explanation: Kilgrave is genre-savvy and knows what to say to make him out to be a psycho with a crush--i.e., oh he can’t comprehend what he’s doing is wrong! he didn’t choose to be crazy! He's only just now realized that this thing he feels is love and it may be the thing that he needs to help him become a better person! He wants to love someone and this is how he thinks he should go about it! Jessica, why would you give up on a chance on rehabilitating someone by teaching him the error of his ways? uwu. And he’ll pounce on those doubts and reel her in the first chance he gets. If he has to, he’ll use any innocent bystander as a way of getting her to go along with his bullshit. Maybe he’ll ease up on the criminal bullshit just to get her off his back, but...

The self-delusion explanation: He didn’t mean to hurt Jessica. Well, he did mean to hurt her on numerous occasions, but he didn’t want her to get mad or upset over it. He just wanted her to obey him and do what he said. Everything would be better if she just did what he wanted. Granted, he might have been a bit too harsh on her, but he never did it out of hatred! He has no concept of the depths of pain someone might feel; he’s quite skeptical of the idea that someone could be suffering so much under the surface while displaying the opposite sentiment on the outside. His psychopathy fuels, informs, and reinforces his powers, and vice versa. He doesn’t care about empathizing with others, so he will freely use his powers in a way that disregards them. He will go so far as to use his powers to make someone do something because he knows they don’t want to do it. With Jessica, I think he used his powers to force her to be someone he wanted her to be, but because the very nature of his powers are so pervasive, it truly is difficult for him to determine if someone is doing something against their will because he ordered them to, or if they are doing something because they were willing to do so anyway/agreed with him.

At some point Kilgrave, for whatever reason, came to believe Jessica was following his orders but had also internalized them. He probably thought Stockholm Syndrome had set in and she was happy. He saw what he wanted to see, because the alternative was ugly--someone he was really keen on didn’t truly like him back, and that revelation would’ve broken his underdeveloped heart. Yes, she was being controlled but she wanted to be controlled, she was fine with being compelled to do things because it was him giving the order. In his sad little head, he thought he had a chance to “Win” her back, and his efforts to not be a horrible human being in her presence for a day-and-a-half should have been enough for Jessica to realize he was serious. If anything else, he would try to ape the behavior of a “normal” human being for as long as he thought he would get rewarded for it in the end. He genuinely thought he was doing what she wanted while they were living in her house. He thought that he was truly on the path to redemption in her eyes, that his crimes could be forgiven or overwritten if he did enough good things (regardless if he did them for altruistic reasons). That was why he was so distraught and felt so betrayed. He didn’t understand that that is not how it works. Even if Jessica did forgive him, that still doesn’t change the fact that he hurt scores and scores of people throughout his life. The fact that he most certainly wouldn’t care says enough about how screwed up he is.

On a single, tissue-paper thin level I can empathize with Kilgrave when it comes to not understanding why people are making such a big deal about things like “peoples’ feelings”. When you are not in touch with your sense of compassion, or you do not know how to empathize with people, people berating you about your insensitivity and callous nature is like being berated in a foreign language. You hear the upset tone in their voice, but the points being made don’t make sense. While anyone who disregards someone’s bodily autonomy and displays a lack of remorse for their crimes (or fails to see why something is a crime) is repugnant, it’s a testament to the writers and David Tennant’s portrayal of Kilgrave that actually made me feel bad for the bastard for a few minutes. He’s so twisted, he’s done so much wrong, but he wouldn’t have done any of these things if he hadn’t been granted powers. He terrorized his parents until they abandoned him. If he had been a normal boy there might have been hope for putting him in an institution or something, but no, not with his powers of compulsion/persuasion. If you took either one of those features away--Psychopathy or Persuasion Virus--he would have not gone down the path he had. It was a perfect storm, it was inevitable he would have become a fully-fledged criminal after being abandoned by his parents before he even hit puberty. I truly believe that. You can pull up the “well not every psychopath is a criminal” but how many psychopaths have this sort of superpower IRL? I’m not talking the glib charm and persuasion, I mean forcing people to do things they don’t want to do as if they’re robots and he has a remote control.

His self-entitlement is off the charts, but it’s someone who didn’t choose to be crazy or choose his power but has come to be this way for whatever reason and I really, REALLY don’t want to use the word “gaslighting” because that word is overused to shit on the Internet to just mean “trying to lie your way out of a situation”, but I think that Kilgrave was trying to delude himself. He’s good at doing that, since it is impossible to talk to him without him being able to shut you up and make you cut your tongue out with scissors for angering him. Jessica was potentially the only person in the world who could maybe possibly get through to him, or at least deflate his bubble a bit. I know that Kilgrave would only allow it if he thought it would lead to Jessica giving him “another chance”, and when it didn’t happen he would accuse her of lying and trying to lead him on, as if she owed him forgiveness. That’s the kind of man he is. Quid pro quo and all that.

Going back to the very first paragraph, though...I don’t cite this writing as a mistake, but rather a deliberate effort to write her as someone whose response to trauma is not nearly as often seen in media. The pervasive image of a victim that has suffered what Jessica has suffered is someone blubbering in a corner and essentially wrecked, afraid of men, afraid of people, afraid of life in its entirety. ‘Someone who cries is exposing weakness.’ is the underlying message. Jessica nearly cries on many occasions after suffering a flashback or a nightmare, but she centers herself and shakes herself out of it because doing so comes more naturally to her than it may for others. I don’t really know how to explain it, but it’s not that people who “allow” their trauma to affect them are weak, but rather some people are able to mentally shake themselves out of its hold if given the proper tools to do so at a steadier clip than others. Predisposed skill level at processing trauma, and it’s a skill you learn and develop as time goes on, hopefully. Not all minds react to trauma the same way. Jessica fears Kilgrave, but she also hates him, she hates him in a way that translates to “I would lay my hands on you to remove you from my presence”, i.e. physical, verbal confrontation and rebuffs, whereas other forms of hatred that stem from trauma seem to be “I would do everything in my power to remove myself from your presence”, i.e. avoidance, hiding. Season 1 to me felt like a war between both instincts, and ultimately Jessica chose the former.

This isn’t to say that one must always choose to directly confront the source of their trauma and terminate it, since I think people can recover Jessica has shades of that, and it is a battle throughout the season of “Do I avoid him or do I confront him?”

She is a very shut-off person, really compartmentalizes everything while trying to make it seem like what happened to her doesn’t affect her, but only in front of strangers. When she is with Kilgrave she goes out of her way to remind him “Hey, you fucked me up, did you know that? YOUR CRIMES AGAINST MY PERSON FUCKED ME UP.” And he doesn’t know how to comprehend that. He expresses his disgust for the word “rape” because he believes the myth that rapists are the kind of people that hide in dark alleyways or skulk around skeevy dive bars. They’re cowardly, pathetic little men that resort to force because they can’t seduce a woman properly. But he! He is a suave well-dressed man with refined tastes! Women fall head over heels for him (until they realize he’s a horrible person, then they try to leave only to find they can’t). How many rapists attract the number of women he does? How many rapists are able to get a woman to say ‘yes’ without laying a hand on her? How many rapists shower their victims with expensive gifts and attention? How many rapists love their victims?

Zero! So that means he’s not a rapist, obviously! To be accused of rape is a big existential threat to him. It would mean challenging the nature of the relationship that he has created in his mind between him and Jessica. He came to think there was genuine love between them and he somehow lost her, or he failed to pick up on something and she ran away. He blames her for breaking his heart, but at the same time he comes close to admitting that maybe he did something wrong and it made her angry, so he should at least try to fix it to make her happy, as if she got fed up with him coming home late from the office one too many times. You know, something objectively minor but still considered important in her overdramatic female mind. I should note that Kilgrave does not come off as a man who thinks less of women for being women, but believes they are a bit different from men ala “Women are from Venus, Men are from Mars”. Women require different handling; they don’t always say what they want because they don’t want to admit that they want things. That ties into Jessica’s statement that she doesn’t flirt, she states what she wants. But Kilgrave demonstrates that even when a woman states in plain terms what she wants, men assume the woman is lying, in denial, means the opposite, or she can be persuaded...

It’s the discounting and downplaying of Jessica’s claims that really sell how far up his own ass Kilgrave really is.

So in short:

Psychopathy + male chauvinism + Unfettered infatuation + Persuasion virus = The Biggest Recipe for Disaster in the History of Gender Relations Ever

#this is basically just a bunch of thoughts written down with some coherency #these points have likely been touched on before but if I want to get this bastard out of my system I need to write them down #kilgrave #jessica jones #character analysis

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admiralty-xfd · 5 years

Text

the whole truth

Diana makes a decision. Mulder's final confrontation with Diana (if only in his mind). Scully returns from Africa to make an unspoken declaration of her own.

This is chapter 15, to go back to the beginning click here.

Chapter 15: The Transfer

GEORGETOWN MEMORIAL HOSPITAL

PSYCHIATRIC UNIT

JULY 1999

He was trapped in a padded cell, all alone.

It wasn’t the first time he’d been dismissed as crazy, although as death seemed to be closing in on him, it could very well be the last. And as he glanced desperately around this prison like a trapped animal in a cage, when he tried to call for help only one sound would come out.

“Scully!”

It was the only word he could summon.

His brain pounded and ached, and it was an unusual situation to be in; completely coherent but unable to make his own body respond. The cacophony of voices were dimly carrying on in the background of his mind, presumably from outside his cell; an almost soothing, reliable presence. It troubled him that he could not hear her anywhere.

Mulder was used to being alone; he was alone most of the time, had felt alone most of his life. The only time he didn’t feel alone was when Scully was near. And her absence now was more palpable than it had ever been before.

He screamed for her; pleaded, begged.

Scully will come, she has to come.

But she didn’t come. Maybe she couldn’t.

After a while he stopped screaming. What was the point? He sat still, back straight against the wall of the cell, staring at the door, waiting for her.

He sat this way for thirty-six hours.

***

Mulder heard the door unlock and hoped beyond hope it was Scully but, instead, Skinner came in.

When he’d heard voices in Skinner’s office, it had been just a jumble of confusing words and phrases, not enough to know what was really going on. But now as his boss entered the cell, he could hear the truth: Skinner had been compromised by Krycek, and his life was in jeopardy.

Mulder wasn’t sure how much he could trust Skinner. But in the quiet calm of the cell what he heard above everything else in the other man’s mind was genuine concern for his well-being.

He was here, after all, and he wanted to help.

Grateful it hadn’t been Diana coming in, at least, Mulder assessed his situation. The message he’d written had been intended for Scully but she wasn’t here.

Help me.

He didn’t know where she was, how long she would be, and he could be running out of time. Skinner might be the only person who could help him right now.

He put on a show to get the message into Skinner’s pocket, to get the ball rolling, to get the truth to the surface; the truth of what he’d become, of what was inside him.

He hoped he’d live to see Scully again. This time she would have to believe.

***

Diana stood at Fox’s bedside, watching him. He was fully unconscious, finally, and she was uncertain what kinds of drugs were coursing through his veins to allow him to rest, but he looked peaceful. She was grateful for it.

“I know what you’re thinking, Diana,” came a voice followed closely by cigarette smoke.

C.G.B. Spender stood on the other side of the bed. She narrowed her eyes, unsure what to reveal. There was no way out for her anymore, no way back.

“You love my son,” he said. “Don’t you?”

She reached out to touch Fox’s cheek with her hand, and while she didn’t really feel like divulging her innermost desires to a man who surely had no reason to care, it felt like it mattered so little at this point.

“I do.”

“I can sense your conflict,” he nodded. “That although you know what must be done, although you know this is the right course, you can’t help but wish it could be different. That it could be someone else.”

She did wish it were someone else lying here, not Fox. And she wanted him to live, even if that meant he didn’t choose her in the end.

If Fox remained in this state, he would become the very thing he’d sought his entire adult life: alien. But this wasn’t like Gibson Praise, or even Cassandra Spender. This was different. What Fox had inside him was essentially killing him: it would turn him into someone, some thing she no longer recognized. And more quickly than anyone was prepared for.

She hadn’t expected this. She wanted to do everything she could to prevent that, but… the work.

“What we need is more time,” she said. “Time we don’t have because we’re losing him.”

Spender looked at her. “But if we were to remove what's killing him… perhaps Agent Mulder could survive.”

“You want to… take away parts of his brain?” The thought hadn’t occurred to her: that maybe it was possible to isolate those portions and remove them from Fox. Maybe that would save him. “The parts… that are alien?”

Spender looked at her meaningfully. “And perhaps… if someone else were willing to carry the burden… take on his suffering. Someone who knows what this gift could mean…?”

Was he suggesting…?

“Do you mean…?” she trailed off, not wanting to say it, not even wanting to put the ludicrous idea out into the open. It seemed Spender was volunteering.

Spender eyed her carefully. “You could have him back,” he said. “Maybe this will be my final purpose. To carry this immunity so that everyone can survive.” He reached out and touched her hand, that cold contact she wasn’t used to. “So my son will survive.”

He pinned her with his standard intense gaze, a signature curl of smoke rising from the smoldering white stick between his forefingers. She honestly couldn’t tell if he’d just thought of this to spare his son for her sake or if he’d been planning to do this all along; become the ‘savior’ regardless of who he had to carve up. But if he was offering, and if it could truly save Fox’s life… did it matter?

She looked down at Fox, lying asleep in his hospital bed. He looked so helpless. Maybe this was a viable alternative?

“What you’re suggesting could kill him anyway,” she pointed out, the reasonable part of her brain taking over. “Damage his memory, his motor functions. This is his brain we’re talking about. The slightest mistake…”

She knew as much as anyone how dangerous this could be. But what choice did they have? Shooting him full of drugs could only last for so long.

She thought of Fox all those months ago, how he’d travelled halfway around the globe to Antarctica to rescue his partner.

She thought of Agent Scully, whom Skinner had told her was in Africa searching for a cure to save him.

And she thought of herself, standing here doing virtually nothing to help him.

This, she could do.

She nodded her acquiescence. “What do you need from me?

***

“Fox…Fox…”

He’d never hated the sound of his own name more.

Upon hearing her voice again, he only felt anger and betrayal. Foolishness. Part of him wanted to let her explain; and if she could not, to let her mind explain for her.

The other part of him never wanted to see her again.

Diana entered his room and approached his bedside. There was pain etched into her face. He hoped she at least had the good grace to know it was over between them.

“I know what’s happened to you. I know what you’re suffering from. I’ve been sitting back and watching.”

He couldn’t understand the look in her eyes, how unfamiliar she suddenly was. This was a stranger, this wasn’t Diana. Not the Diana he thought he knew.

“A decade, I’ve been lying to you for a decade. I’ve been lying since we met.”

“I know you know,” she continued, her spoken words interweaving with those flying around her brain. He tried desperately to comprehend it all. “I know you know about me… that my loyalties aren’t just to you but to a man you’ve grown to despise.”

“Your father. This entire time… how did we end up here?”

His father? What was she talking about?

“You have your reasons, but as you look inside me now you know that I have mine.”

“The work. The greater good. The truth. That’s what it’s always been about for me, and he gave me that opportunity.”

Mulder was still unsure what to make of everything. She was trying to tell him the truth, but the thoughts he could now hear whirring through her mind betrayed further truths: she didn’t believe it was over. After everything, all of this, what she’d done, she still held onto hope that they could be together.

“There’s still a chance for us, Fox.”

“Fox… Fox, I love you,” she said. “I’ve loved you for so long,” And her thoughts mirrored this sentiment. “You know that, too.”

She believed it utterly, that she loved him… but he didn’t understand. Why would she betray him this way if she loved him? How could she allow this?

Did she even know what love was?

Did he?

Diana’s declaration felt hollow and empty, meaningless; he couldn’t help but think instantly of Scully and how it was she from whom he wanted to hear these words, how it was she from whom he wanted a declaration. Right words… wrong person.

Scully would never, ever have let this happen to him.

“...I won’t let you die to prove what you are, to prove what’s inside you,” Diana was saying.

“Fox… you have to understand… what you have can save so many lives…”

“There’s no need to prove it. It’s been known for so long.”

“I’ve known it for so long. Knowing the things I know has come at a great cost… but now I won’t hide anything from you ever again.”

He couldn’t help but notice she had no choice in that particular matter, not anymore.

“Now we can be together,” she said.

He marveled at her delusion in this moment, that she could possibly think there was a future for the two of them after what she’d done. But he found himself thinking of Samantha, of his belief in aliens, even his feelings for Scully, and quickly realized there was indeed a fine line between hope and delusion. Love apparently made all the difference.

“I’m going to help you, Fox… I’m going to save your life… maybe then you’ll forgive me...”

It had certainly taken him long enough, but he finally knew the truth. He didn’t want her help.

She leaned down and kissed his forehead and her lips were cold, distant. He only wanted Scully. Even in the bitter cold of Antarctica, her nearly-comatose lips had been somehow warmer, more welcoming; entirely devoid of what he now saw were Diana’s ever-present agendas.

His eyes welled up as he lay motionless and wondered where Scully was, why she hadn’t come to see him. And he felt incredible guilt over the fact that he’d doubted her, even for a second. Why had he fought so hard for Diana all this time? Why, when all he needed was to see Scully?

He’d told her he always wanted her around to prove him wrong and when she’d tried to do just that where Diana was concerned he’d rejected that proof, even though she had been completely justified in her distrust. Now he was suffering the consequences.

How would Scully react when she learned of Diana’s treachery? He knew this was vindication she’d earned but an outcome she’d never desired.

Would he die here without ever seeing her again? His heart ached at the notion.

He heard relief in Diana’s thoughts as she turned to leave, knowing she’d said her piece, but he felt none of his own. He only felt the harsh sting of betrayal.

IVORY COAST

WEST AFRICA

JULY 1999

The air hung heavily in the tent, sticky and oppressive. Waves crashed onto the shore outside and Scully hoped beyond hope they were simply waves of saltwater this time, and not blood.

She lay awake on her cot, wanting to sleep, but unable to. Her mind was alive with thoughts of the craft, and she didn’t miss the irony of what was going on in Mulder’s own beautiful mind thousands of miles away from her.

She missed him terribly; the tightness in her gut paired with the ache in her heart was longing she could barely contain anymore.

Her fear for his condition was unfortunately familiar, but worse than ever. They hadn’t spoken since she’d heard that familiar smirk on his face before he hung up the phone.

Then go ahead and prove me wrong, Scully.

But she couldn’t; she wouldn’t prove him wrong, not this time. Not when proving him wrong meant accepting he was actually dying.

She was in Africa to prove him right, for once.

Mulder wasn’t technically dying, though; she knew that now. He was more alive than he’d ever been because of what was inside him. And what was inside him was extraterrestrial after all. But she knew soon enough his body would no longer be able to withstand it. She wasn’t used to accepting such a thing so freely and willingly but here and now, in this place, with time working against her, she had to believe to find the cure. Skepticism was a luxury she couldn’t afford in this particular fight.

She’d spent the last several days and nights toiling over the symbols on the surface of the craft, looking for connections she knew only Mulder could make.

In Antarctica, he had arrived for her just in time, armed with a cure, armed with the means to save her life.

She’d arrived here with nothing.

It isn’t nothing, she told herself. It can’t be. It just wasn’t anything she could understand. She wanted to believe but what she needed was Mulder to help her make sense of it.

Although his death felt impossibly imminent and she knew everything else was secondary, she couldn’t help but wonder, again, what might have been if they’d only finished that kiss. If they’d only been rewarded for their momentary bravery rather than continually punished for it.

If perhaps Diana Fowley’s perpetual, insufferable, nauseating presence in their lives could have been entirely avoided.

Or maybe it all would have been for nothing.

No, she told herself. It isn’t nothing.

It can’t be.

GEORGETOWN MEMORIAL HOSPITAL

PSYCHIATRIC UNIT

Pain.

First and foremost, he only registered the pain. He heard Scully’s voice, sensed her worry. He used every single bit of his very limited strength and agency to try and tilt his head towards her, to no avail.

He had no idea where she’d been. He had no idea how long she’d been gone.

But she was here. She was here, now.

“Mulder, it's me.”

The three words that could bring him back to life had finally arrived.

“Scully… I knew you’d come,” he said, but she could not hear his words.

“I know that you can hear me. If you can just give me some sign…”

He tried. He wanted to, badly. But he was so tired. His body couldn’t react.

“I’m here, Scully. I can hear you,” he said. But again, she couldn’t hear him.

“I want you to know where I've been-- what I found.” She looked down at him, and it was difficult to see her from his angle, frozen in place. But he saw when her lips were moving; when they weren’t. “Africa, the Ivory Coast,” her thoughts came. “I’ve been halfway around the world, Mulder.” She spoke again. “I think that if you know... that you could find a way to hold on. I need you to hold on,” she pleaded, her voice breaking. Scully’s voice never broke.

He listened, the only thing he was able to do, and heard her desperate fear for him wrapped up within a multitude of medical jargon he couldn’t quite understand. Her presence in the room soothed him; and in this moment he could think of a million things he wanted to say to her that he couldn’t.

“Don’t give up,” her mind revealed. “Please stay with me, Mulder. Fight. I can’t do this without you. Please hold on.”

“I found a key- the key- to every question that has ever been asked,” she continued. “It's a puzzle. But the pieces are there for us to put together and I know that they can save you if you can just hold on…”

“I can’t do this alone.”

“Mulder…” at that moment, her voice broke again. He felt her hand take his, squeeze it, the first contact they’d had in days. Her hand was warm and full of life, and he felt grounded for the first time in what must have been days.

But then he heard something he didn’t expect.

“I saw it, Mulder… I saw… The truth you’ve searched for is out there, it’s within our grasp. But I need you to help me understand it.”

“Please… hold on,” she said.

“Help me…” she thought.

He wanted to tell her she didn’t need his help; that she’d always been able to see. She only needed to want it badly enough. Maybe now she could.

Maybe now she could help him.

She stayed by his bedside for a long time, her hope and determination giving him the strength to hold on like she wanted him to. He heard her turning the intricacies of the puzzle over and over in her own mind, desperate to find the answer, to find the cure to save him. She took every possibility into account; every alien influence was considered, as if she had taken over his role in their dynamic, if only for the time being.

And in the blink of an eye he knew that to do this, to find the answer, to put the puzzle together, it had to be the two of them. Him and her, together. He needed her, and she needed him. One could not exist without the other.

“I have to go now,” she whispered, her lip trembling. “I don’t want to, but I have to.” She stood and looked down at him, into his frozen eyes, and smoothed his sweaty hair away from his brow.

And then he heard it, clear as a bell, as if she’d spoken the words with her lips.

“I love you, Mulder.”

She leaned down and pressed her lips to his forehead. Warm, giving, selfless; so unlike Diana’s kiss.

He suddenly remembered the Padgett case a few weeks back; how he had wondered, hoped, believed that Padgett had been talking about him.

Agent Scully is already in love.

For just a moment, thoughts of his impending death were insignificant, because Scully loved him.

I love you, Mulder.

Now he knew for sure, and his heart soared.

“Don’t give up,” she said firmly and audibly, then turned to leave. He watched her walk away, trusting her completely to do whatever she could to save him. He knew she wouldn’t give up on him.

He would not give up on her, either.

***

Michael Kritschgau was the last person Diana had expected to see helping AD Skinner. She’d been certain he had been silenced properly years ago. She didn’t know him, not really, but she knew of him; had recognized him from her work at Roush. And she was pretty sure from the look on his face he’d recognized her as well.

Now, it seemed even he was aware of how valuable Fox was, and was willing to go to extreme lengths to obtain such proof.

Diana had been clinging desperately to the hope that this could all still turn out okay: that Spender could save Fox, and the work could be completed. Optimism had never been her strongest personality trait but, with nothing left to lose, she clung to it now like a seahorse gripping a frond of seaweed in a riptide.

When she saw Spender and Fox’s mother talking across the room, however, things began to unravel. She couldn’t help but envision a young Fox Mulder: where he’d come from, the events that had transpired to make him into such a broken man.

Diana had been numb to her guilt for so long that lying to Fox and everyone else around her had become second nature. But over time the numbness was wearing thin, as if the longer the truth of her betrayal was known to him the more the guilt could seep through.

Perhaps Mrs. Mulder truly believed Spender planned to help her son. Or more likely, she simply knew questioning the man was pointless in any case. Spender did what he wanted, and the mother of his son surely knew as much.

After Spender had administered Fox with one more injection that Diana truly hoped would be his last for a good while, Fox’s eyes had closed, and he’d drifted into a state of unconsciousness that she knew would last for some time.

She watched Mrs. Mulder sign Fox out of the hospital against medical advice, and she watched the older woman gently dab a handkerchief to her eyes as her son was wheeled away by a stranger.

Diana practically sleep walked through the transfer from the hospital that could do nothing to the underground Department of Defense facility where they would certainly do something. She wasn’t entirely sure if that "something" was the right thing, anymore. What she did know was that the control she thought she’d had over this situation was rapidly dissolving with every passing minute.

Everything was moving so fast, like a dream, and soon she was staring at Fox, laid out across an operating table with his arms splayed to either side, like Christ on the cross. Her own personal Jesus.

How did we get here?

An apparatus was placed on his head. It was a device she knew well- she herself had helped develop it. It would scan his brain, helping locate and retain the irretrievable information inside so that the operation could go as smoothly as possible without altering his memories too much. It wasn’t perfect, however: it read dreams and fantasies, but also had the capability to plant them as well, be it purposefully or inadvertently.

There was also no guarantee this procedure wouldn’t damage his brain permanently if he did survive.

After the prep was finished and the surgical team had been notified to begin, Diana and Spender were alone with Fox.

“A father has high hopes for his son, but he never dreams his boy is going to change the world,” Spender said from behind her as she watched Fox lying there. “I’m so proud of this man… the depth of his capacity for suffering.”

Diana turned to him, placating. “Like father, like son.” Regardless of what was going on in her mind, her emotional turmoil and confusion, she couldn’t let Spender reconsider.

“They think what he has is killing him, but in actuality he’s never been more alive,” Spender said.

He looked at Fox like prey, and Diana found it interesting that Spender seemed to be rewriting history even as they stood here. Lies upon lies, upon more lies. Now that Spender was poised to receive what was inside his son, what had previously been a death sentence seemed now to be a blessing.

He wanted whatever it was that Fox had inside him; he wanted it badly. And it seemed at this point he’d say just about anything to get it.

She tried to decipher his riddles but she felt herself weakening with every moment that passed. He couldn’t know she was onto him, not yet. Not until she figured out what to do.

“Do you think he dreams?” she asked. The apparatus attached to Fox’s head was far from perfect; there was really no way to know what state he was in.

“Oh, I’m sure he dreams,” Spender assured her.

“About what, I wonder?”

“Dreams all men who are owned by the world have, a simple life full of simple pleasures,” Spender pontificated. “Extraordinary men are always tempted by the most ordinary things.”

She wondered about this; about whether or not it was true for Fox. Whether or not it was true for Spender. She thought of her own life and whether it was even true for her: ordinary things had never been what she sought. She’d always wanted to be extraordinary.

What was she now?

She looked down at the sleeping fox, completely helpless, at the mercy of whatever his mind and the apparatus concocted. His eyes twitched ever so slightly and she wondered if he could hear them. Whatever he dreamed of, she hoped it brought him comfort.

“Dreams are all he has now,” Spender said, and for a moment she thought perhaps he’d slipped up; revealed something he hadn’t intended.

“What did you say?” she asked, turning around to face him.

Spender appeared slightly chagrined; at least, as chagrined as he allowed himself to appear.

“-For the time being, of course,” he clarified. “We all have such places— borne of memory and desire,” he continued. “Dreaming of the things we once had, or perhaps the things we’ve forsaken. Hundreds of little joys…” he looked reflective, “to open a door and have a woman beckon you in… to have her make a fire and lay the table for you… and when it’s late, to feel her take you into her arms.”

His gaze had turned towards her, and she felt incredibly uncomfortable. She wasn’t sure if he was trying to distract her from his misstep, or if he’d actually once had those things, or if it was even some poor attempt at seduction. Whatever it was, she was tired of listening to him.

“Wherever he is, I’m certain he’s at peace,” he concluded, or at least she hoped.

She didn’t believe him anymore, any of it. He expected Fox to die, and soon. But she wasn’t surprised. She’d known from the start this endeavor would be a long shot.

Was there anything she could do to stop this? Everything was already in motion. If she attempted to get Fox out of here, she would certainly be apprehended… and for what? What would it matter? Without removing the brain matter that was killing him, he’d die anyway.

She looked around as the surgeons began to file in, a dozen of them at least, flanking Fox like greedy, starving vultures. She thought of poor Gibson Praise lying on a slab, his brain exposed, and how she’d allowed it. She’d just… allowed that.

What had she become, truly?

She thought of the book she had back at her apartment, nestled into the top drawer of her nightstand; how it was the only thing she’d had over the past several months, the only thing that had kept her going. The only thing that she could use to possibly justify any of this, if only to herself. If she did seek assistance to get Fox out of here, how would she explain why she’d gone along with any of it? Would anyone help her? Would anyone believe her?

Would anyone care?

She went over her ever-dwindling options in her mind: AD Skinner. Michael Kritschgau. Even Alex, for fuck’s sake. And she knew none of them could help Fox.

None of them would help him.

But in an instant, she knew who would. She knew the only person who could. And it was the last person she wanted to involve.

It occurred to her she’d driven a fox-shaped wedge between herself and her only option over the past several months that there was no hope of dislodging now. The irony struck her; that the only person in a position to help her was the only person who would never, ever trust her.

She had to find a way of getting Agent Scully to understand what was going on, and what needed to be done, without directly asking her.

The answer came to her in an instant. The book. It could help. She had to try.

Diana turned to face Spender, her attention back on the task at hand: making him believe nothing had changed. “What would your place be like?” she asked him.

“Pardon?” He looked confused, as if the mere notion that anyone would ask him about his personal life was absurd.

“The place you’d go to in your mind,” she said. “What would be there?”

He looked pensive, and for the first and only occasion in the entire time she’d known him, she thought she saw a faint glimmer of regret.

“Ordinary things,” he said simply.

He gave her a weak smile, but she saw a glint in his eyes as he left to prepare himself for surgery.

#txf #msr #the x files #sixth extinction #diana fowley #the whole truth #my fic

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this-is-freeridge · 4 years

Text

The Air Between Us

Chapter Fifteen: Mari gets some news that turns her life upside-down.

Warning: this fic deals with dark themes, including but not limited to teen pregnancy, rape, drug abuse, murder, abortion, underage drinking and underage sex. Read at your own risk.

Find all other chapters here.

Read the better version here!

Thinking back on it, Mari realised that she may have overreacted a little by running off on Oscar the other night. There was a certain softness in his eyes when he had looked at her, a genuineness when he had asked her to stay that she had been too ashamed (and maybe a little too scared of rejection) to let herself notice at the time. It hadn’t been for very long, and it hadn’t been anything real, sh had Oscar that night on Halloween; for the time they were together, he had been hers, all of him.

Now she was back where she started, with a head full of what-ifs. What if she had never moved to Freeridge? What if Oscar hadn’t come to her rescue when the Prophet$ rolled up on her? What if Geny hadn’t closed the door and Oscar hadn’t had to rescue her then, too? What if she hadn’t snuck out on her birthday? What if Trey hadn’t interrupted them at the hospital? What if she hadn’t fallen in love with someone who seemed intent on not loving her back?

What if she hadn’t left the other night?

Even though she knew it was no use dwelling on things like that, she couldn’t seem to stop it. The thoughts were crashing in like a tidal wave, flooding her mind with every waking moment and she was powerless to stop it.

It was all quickly becoming too much. She was drowning, but up until now, she had been holding her breath, desperate to fight it and get her head above water. Up until now, she hadn’t questioned whether the struggle was worth it. Now she wondered if maybe it would be easier to just let go and take a breath.

It certainly didn’t help that time seemed to be mocking her. Each second that ticked by added a little more weight to her chest until she felt like she couldn’t breathe like she was inching closer and closer to a bomb that would go off at any second. She had been waiting in the reception room of the medical clinic for almost an hour - she had even arrived early so not to miss her appointment but they had yet to call her name.

The waiting was the worst part. All she wanted was to know what was wrong with her (though she’d bet they needed more than just a blood test to figure that out). She wanted to know why she had passed out and why she was constantly feeling so rundown, even when things were looking up.

She didn’t want to come off as impatient but her nerves were getting the better of her as her fingers tapped against the arm of the small plastic chair. The place wasn’t even busy. Aside from her, there were only three other people in the waiting room; an older man with greying hair who was leaning on his walker, and a young mother with dark curls that resembled Mari’s who was bouncing a fussing baby on her knee.

The baby was crying, screaming like he had it worse than Mari. The young woman offered a bottle that the baby didn’t want and shushed him under her breath but it went unnoticed as the baby continued to cry. She was so young yet she had so much responsibility - Mari wondered how she did it, how she coped with it all. She definitely didn’t envy her.

She almost envied the baby though. A part of her wished she could just open her mouth and scream, but she knew it wouldn’t do any good. She had to be positive and every single day she had to do her best with the life she was given.

“Mariana Martinez?” The doctor finally called.

“Uh, yeah,” Mari responded as she fumbled out of her seat, “that’s me,”

The doctor was a middle-aged white lady - a lady who looked a little too like her mother for comfort. Although they looked eerily alike, the subtle differences were striking; where her mother’s hair was dark blonde and matted, the doctor’s hair was light and neatly styled, her cheekbones were high but her face was less sunken and she had sharp lips that were pulled into a kind smile instead of an unamused pout. This woman was happy, healthy.

The woman smiled and nodded her head in a “follow me” sort of gesture. The clipboard in her hand was setting Mari even further on edge. A clipboard meant bad news, right? If it were good news they would have told her over the phone.

Despite the desperate need for something to ease her tension, they didn’t say anything until they had reached the office.

“Sorry about the wait,” the doctor said as she closed the door behind them. Mari sank into the armchair across from the desk, relishing in the way the cushions felt against her exhausted muscles. She had a feeling that this moment of comfort would be the last one she’d get to have for a while, so she was going to enjoy it while she could. “I’m doctor Judy O’Connor. I’m sorry it took so long to get your labs back, unfortunately, we don’t have a pathologist here in Freeridge,”

“That’s okay,” Mari responded, sinking into the chair as doctor O’Connor sat on the other side of the desk.

“How are you feeling?”

The tightness in Mari’s chest vanished as she let out a quick laugh. How was she feeling? That was a loaded question, so she settled on the simplest answer.

“I mean, I’m a little scared,” she admitted, “there’s obviously something wrong for me to be sitting here right now,”

Doctor O’Connor shook her head, looking down at the clipboard that held Mari’s test results.

“I don’t believe there’s anything to be scared of, however, I did notice something in the results that wasn’t mentioned to me by the nurse, or in any of the hospital reports,” she set the clipboard down on her desk and folded her hands. The way she leaned in ever so slightly set Mari on edge, like she was gauging the younger girl’s reaction, ready to jump in if things went south. “I don’t think there’s an easy way to say this, so I apologise. Mariana, do you know that you’re pregnant?”

No.

No, she wasn’t.

She had taken a test and it was negative, right? She hadn’t had her period for a few months, and she had been feeling a little bloated lately, but those were just side effects of the pill. She wasn’t pregnant, she couldn’t be.

“It’s possible the test was a false negative,” the doctor told her. Mari hadn’t even realised she’d said those things aloud. Clenching her hands into fists until her nails pierced the skin of her palms, Mari tried to focus on the woman before her. “And you’re right, those are side effects of the pill, but judging by these test results I’d say you’re almost six months along,”

It couldn’t be true, she told herself. It couldn’t be true because if it were, that would mean that she was pregnant the whole time she was drinking and getting high. It would mean she was pregnant the whole time she wasn’t sleeping or eating.

If it were true it would mean she was already a bad mother, before she ever got the chance to try and be a good one. Maybe things like this were genetic.

“But I’m not- I don’t even look pregnant!” Mari stammered, grasping at straws for any shred of doubt, any hope that the results could be wrong.

“That’s actually more common than it seems. There are several reasons that you may not show during pregnancy, but it’s most likely the baby is in a posterior position, meaning their spine is against yours. We’ll need an ultrasound to know any more,”

Sure, it was the kind of thing that was common enough to have a reality show about it but sure as hell not so common that you ever plan for it to happen. It had happened though, and she had to move on and live with it, but how? She was sure she couldn’t keep working, god forbid she tell Geny and Ruben, they surely wouldn’t allow her to bring something like this into her home. She had enough money for a motel for a few nights but beyond that would be touch and go.

Not to mention she didn’t even know what she wanted to do. Would she keep it? The alternative was terrifying. Either way, she knew she had to choose, and either way, she knew she would never be the same.

Mari wished she had any delusions about who the father was, but if she really was almost six months along then there was only one person who it could be.

“Now, Mariana,” Doctor O’Connor continued, saving Mari the pain of having to even think his name, “I think we need to discuss your options,”

. : ♱ : .

Two lines.

Two small, pink lines. That’s all it took for the crushing weight of reality to squander what little doubt, what little hope, Mari had left. Doctor O’Connor had given Mari a pregnancy test, along with letting her keep a copy of the official blood test results, hoping that it would help Mari come to accept the truth.

The truth was that none of this was her fault; the whole situation was outside of her control, but she was the one who had to live with the consequences. The truth was that she was pregnant and stuck in Freeridge, the baby’s father completely out of the picture. Mari saw the truth for what it was; she was just like her mother at this age.

Panic tightened around her like an invisible corset, squeezing and squeezing until she couldn’t breathe. Discarding the god-forsaken stick in the trashcan beside her, Mari dropped to her knees and let all her pain and anger leave her body as she retched into the toilet bowl. Bile burned the back of her throat, sweat covered her forehead catching strands of hair like a spider’s web and she held the test results in her clenched fist. She held on so tight her knuckles started to pale. It was as though she just couldn’t let go, as if letting go would mean acceptance and she just wasn’t ready for that quite yet.

Mari didn’t pick herself up off the floor until she heard the others come home. As noiselessly as possible, she washed her face as Olivia, Monse and Jasmine headed to hers and Olivia’s shared room. Desperate not to make a sound, she rinsed the foul taste from her mouth as Ruby pitched his new business idea to Jamal.

As an avid reader of magazines (although she usually skipped right to the horoscopes) it was hard not to see all the pregnancy horror stories; how people never quite lost the weight, their bodies were never quite the same, the way the post-natal depression brought them down despite their months of excitement. No matter what she chose, to keep it or not, she would be irrevocably changed, mind and body.

Maybe it was shallow to even think it, but she was just eighteen and she was only starting to feel confident in her body. She thanked Oscar for that, but now that confidence was being taken from her, too.

She wasn’t ready for this, any of this. Here she was, hiding in a bathroom too afraid to step outside and face her friends and family just in case they figured it out. If other people knew then she had to face it and she couldn’t do that, so she sat and she waited and she didn’t even care if she looked ridiculous later on when everyone was home and wondering where she had been. She just needed more time to be alone.

Well, as alone as she could be right now.

Before she had any time to process, a few things happened in rapid succession. First, only separated by a few walls, Mari heard the front door slam. The sound made her jump, but when she heard police sirens blaring, followed by Jasmine screaming, her heart began to race. Had something happened to someone while she was in here wallowing in self-pity?

And then, lastly, she heard it. The deep, rough voice that she knew too well, the voice that haunted all of her favourite daydreams. The voice that, right now, made her want to disappear. What was Oscar doing here?

Instinctively, her body stilled. If he knew she was here…she wasn’t ready to face him, not like this. Her eyes were red from crying all morning, she still felt nauseous (and she was sure her breath was terrible), and her shoulders were slumped like she just didn’t have the energy to try anymore.

This wasn’t how she wanted to see him. He was sure to see the test results, if not he definitely couldn’t miss the pregnancy test. He would know in an instant. Not to mention she would have to explain why she didn’t wait for him on Halloween. She would have to tell him, again, that she just couldn’t take the rejection, that she wanted more. And then she would have to stand there and take the rejection anyway and she just couldn’t do that.

What she hadn’t realised was that while she was here, hoping to any god that would listen that she wouldn’t have to see him, she had stopped trying to listen to what was going on outside. But by the time she had realised it, it was already too late.

She heard that gruff voice ask “where can I take this?”

“There’s no one in the bathroom,” Ruby responded.

Shit, she thought, wondering if there was any possible way for her to get out of this.

But there wasn’t, and the gods were not on her side as the bathroom door opened and Oscar stepped inside.

Mari’s heart caught in her throat as she pushed back against the anxiety that was flooding her veins and held her breath. Her heard was hammering so hard and fast against her ribcage she wondered if he could hear it, but he didn’t seem to notice her immediately.

“Sí, sí, me ocuparé de eso. Estaré allí,” he said into the phone. Mari used his brief moment of distraction as an opportunity to just…look at him. Thick, tanned arms glistened with sweat, his brow furrowed and his dimples were still visible, even when he wasn’t smiling. This man was beautiful and, like the naive girl she had always been, Mari was falling in love with him.

And then, like he could sense her thoughts, he turned around and he saw her. He kept the phone pressed to his ear but the way his features softened as he saw her said he was no longer listening. All Oscar cared about right now was the state that she was in; her eyes were red from crying, her hair was a mess and she looked far too pale. Still, he was happy to see her.

“Let me call you back,” he said to whoever was on the other line and promptly hung up the phone, not bothering to wait for a response. Turning his body to fully face her, he took a couple of tentative steps toward her; enough to be closer, but not enough to penetrate her personal space, just in case she didn’t want him there.

A beat passed between them, as though the universe was giving them a moment to breathe before the whirlwind started again.

Breaking the silence, Oscar murmured a small “hey,”

Mari looked up at him beneath her thick, tear-dampened lashes and uttered a small “hi,” in response. She cursed the way her voice broke, she hated looking weak in front of Oscar. But she wasn’t ready for him to talk yet - if he talked he was going to ask questions and she would have to answer them, so she asked first. “What are you doing here?”

Oscar gestured to the door and said, as though it was supposed to answer anything, “lockdown,”

“And you just ended up locked in my house?”

“One of the homies were shot. Cesar wasn’t answering his phone, thought he might be here,” he glanced down at the floor and added, “and I hoped I’d run into you,”

Her heart stopped beating for just a moment. Did he just say that? Did Oscar Diaz, feared Santo, just admit that he came here, at least partially, to see her? What on earth was this man trying to do to her?

“You weren’t there” he continued, “the other night, when I got back,”

She sighed, “I…”

She what? She was scared of her feelings, ashamed that she had cheated on Trey, guilty that she didn’t feel guilty about it. There was nothing she could say that would make the situation any better, so she did what she was best at and deflected the question.

“What would you have said if I had stayed?” She asked, her voice growing louder as she feigned defence while desperately hoping he would be honest and just tell her.

He took another step closer.

“I’ll tell you when you answer me,” he countered. It was times like these that Mari wished he didn’t know her so well.

She slumped and ran a hand through her hair, avoiding his gaze. “I was scared, okay? Shocking, I know. But I had just cheated on a really, really good guy with someone who has made it clear he doesn’t want anything more and I…Oscar, I still want more, okay? I was in a bad place and I just couldn’t deal with you telling me no again,”

“What if I wasn’t gonna say no this time?” He said it so soft she thought she was hearing things, but when she looked up into those sparkling brown eyes she knew he was telling the truth. “I was gonna say that I want you. That I hated seeing you cry over some douchebag who doesn’t deserve to touch you and that I liked being the one to make you feel good again. I don’t care what your family or the cholos have to say about it; I want the same thing you do, mami,”

She couldn’t believe her ears. Any other day she would’ve been over the moon to hear this but today…today it felt like one more thing she couldn’t have. It wouldn’t be fair to bring him into this, so she couldn’t accept what he was telling her. For one, she had to be the one to break his heart.

“I can’t,” she didn’t look at him as she stood, “I’m sorry but I can’t be with you,”

Oscar’s fist clenched at his side and he squeezed his eyes shut as though wishing it away would undo the words she had just said. He couldn’t be hearing this, not when he just let her in for the first time.

“Mariana,” he breathed, his voice almost pleading, “if this is because of how I-”

“Trust me, Oscar, this isn’t about you,” she made for the door but a pair of hands on her waist stopped her. He pulled her into him and wrapped his arms around her, holding her there even if it was only for one last time.

Mari couldn’t do it. She couldn’t stand here and let him hold her like everything was the same because it wasn’t. Her life was about to change and she wasn’t the same girl she was yesterday. So, mustering all of her strength and willpower, she placed her fists on his chest and pushed - forgetting all about the test results that were still in her hand.

Oscar frowned at the paper she was holding, noting the name of a medical clinic on the header.

“What’s that?” He asked with a nod. Mari shot away from him and hid the results behind her back, like that would erase them from his mind.

It didn’t, and Oscar wasn’t having it. He lunged forward and reached behind her, snatching the paper from her hands before she could even think to stop him.

“Oscar!” She cried, reaching out for him, but it was no use. The moment his soft features contorted into a look of shock and hurt and anger, Mari knew it was too late.

And then the lights went out.

She was almost grateful that she couldn’t see the look on his face because that look had cut deep into her soul and she felt like she was bleeding out. He was angry. Her life was being flipped upside down, and he was angry.

“Fuck, Mari,” he hissed in the darkness, “were you even going to tell me about this?”

Oh, that's why he was angry. Of course, he thought he got her pregnant and then had the nerve to be pissed about it.

Why did things like this keep happening to her? Why was it that she was always having to bear the consequences of other people’s actions? Anxiety at the hands of her mother’s abuse, starvation due to her mother’s addiction, and now this. She was sick of it.

With a bitter laugh, Mari fought back tears.

“Well you don’t have to worry, Spooky,” she spat, “the baby isn’t yours,”

All of a sudden he was standing barely an inch from her, she felt the warmth of his body, could smell the cigar on his breath. Mari didn’t need to see his face to know how it looked, she could tell from the way his shoulders tensed and his breath came out in short puffs. If she could see him, she’d say that his brow was probably knitted together, his nostrils flared and his lips pressed together in a tight line.

“See that don’t make no sense to me, Mariana, because I know you didn’t fuck Trey,” his voice was deep and thick with refrained anger. Her body shook; not because she was scared of him but because she knew was going to be forced to tell the truth, to face her past and let someone else in on it. “And you said I was the first guy that...”

He looked away, his words trailing off as though the mere thought of someone else touching her rendered him unable to speak.

And then, with as much strength and bravado, as she could muster despite her hammering heart and icy veins, Mari spoke for him.

“My mother’s boyfriend,” she said, her voice much smaller than she had hoped it would be, “He raped me. That’s why I left, why I came here. I’m sorry if I wanted to convince myself that that didn’t count,”

Once again she found herself glad that he couldn’t see her because her chest constricted and tears sprung to her eyes. She said it.

She said it.

It was real.

It happened and she couldn’t repress those memories anymore.

Her lungs burned as she gasped for air. A small light came from somewhere beside her but she barely registered it as her vision blurred. And then she was in Oscar’s arms again, but this time she didn’t fight it. This time, she let her arms wind around his middle and she sobbed into his chest.

Oscar’s hand gently ran through her hair. He wanted to say something, anything to make her hurting stop, but he knew there was nothing he could say. All he could do was hold her, and he was more than happy to do that.

They stood like that for a while, silently wrapped up in each other with only the light of the flashlight from Oscar’s phone. Eventually, Mari stopped crying. When she had calmed down a little more, she sat atop the closed toilet lid, Oscar only leaving the bathroom to get her a glass of water.

“You gonna keep it?” He asked, well aware that it was none of his business, but wanting to be there for her regardless. He knew her better than she thought he did, better than anyone knew her, and she wouldn’t tell anyone if she wasn’t pushed to it. And if she didn’t tell anyone, it would destroy her.

Mari shrugged. “I don’t know. I made an appointment anyway, for two weeks. Doc said that’s as much time as I have to decide,”

“You know,” he said, resting his hands atop hers as he crouched to her level. The last thing he wanted to do was intimidate her, and though she wasn’t usually scared of him, she was vulnerable right now and he didn’t want to trigger any alarms that may be lying dormant in the back of her mind. “I’m still in this, Mari,”

Lifting her chin, Mari looked up to meet his deep brown eyes. Her gaze trained on his, she searched for the lie she had convinced herself he was telling. He couldn’t mean it, could he? And if he did, she couldn’t let him. Just because her own life was ruined didn’t mean she had to drag him down with her.

Releasing a shaky breath and a shake of her head, she said “I never wanted any of this. I never wanted you caught up in my mess,”

The corner of his lips twitched up into a smirk (the kind that was teasing yet genuine and never failed to make her insides melt) and he gave a half-shrug.

“Too bad, I’m caught. I’m gonna be here for you every step of the way, okay? I’m not about to let you deal with this alone,”

No, she refused to burden him with this. “Oscar, as much as I appreciate it, I can take care of myself,”

“No doubt, mami, I know you can,” his smirk grew to a wide, exuberant grin. “But you aren’t just looking out for yourself anymore; now you gotta take care of someone else. I have a little experience with that. And I meant what I said before, I want in, nena. It’s gonna take more than a kid to scare me off, Mariana,”

And he meant every word.

Oscar had spent so long being afraid of the things she made him feel. He wasn’t about to waste any more time that he could be spending with her; Mariana Martinez was the one thing in this damned world that made him feel truly happy, he wasn’t willing to lose that feeling.

Slowly, Mari broke into a smile as his words sunk in - Oscar wanted this, wanted her. Without a second thought, she leaned in and captured his lips. Her hands found the back of his neck while his arms snaked around her waist. He pulled her closer into him and allowed her legs to wind around his torso as he grabbed her by the thighs.

Oscar stood, lips still on hers, Mari still wrapped around him without even an inch of space between them. This. This was that happy feeling he was thinking about earlier - the taste of cherry lipgloss and the weight of being a Santo lifted from his shoulders and her curls falling around his face and just, for once, he wasn’t Spooky. With her, he was just Oscar.

And then the lights came back on.

Breaking the kiss, Mari smiled up at him. Oscar smiled back and ran the tip of his nose softly against the bridge of hers.

And then his phone buzzed and it was back to reality, but the dream wasn’t over - they both knew this was far from the end.

With an almost inaudible sigh, Oscar checked his phone.

“It’s Santos stuff,” he said, “I gotta head out,”

Mari nodded. She understood that she couldn’t always be his priority, but it still felt good to know she was one.

“Go,” she offered a smile as she gestured to the door. Oscar couldn’t seem to control his smile as he pressed another kiss to her cheek. It wasn’t often that Mari had the chance to see this side of him, the side that was pure joy, but she loved it.

As she watched him turn his back to leave, all her old insecurities crept back up to the surface. They had been in this position before - happy and kissing and seemingly on the same page, and then he leaves and all of a sudden they’re in completely different books. She couldn’t let this end the same.

“Wait, Oscar,” she called. Without hesitation, Oscar turned back at the sound of her voice. “We’re together, right? I mean, I…it sounds stupid, I know, I just kinda gotta hear it,”

Oscar smiled once more, that deep, dimpled smile, and he nodded. “Yeah, mami. You my girl,”

Her face lit up in a smile that rivalled his own and she crossed the room to kiss him just one more time.

“Just do me one favor; don’t mention it yet. I want the Martinezes to hear it from me first,”

“You got it, nena,”

With one last kiss to her forehead, he was gone. But Mari didn’t mind, because he was hers, and he would be back.

Mari snickered as she heard Spooky yell “y’all messed up!” There was a certain amusement in his tone, a light to his voice that Mari loved being the cause of.

She waited a few more minutes until all the commotion died down before she finally left the bathroom. As she did, she felt like some of the fog that’d been blurring her mind finally cleared. In all honesty, she didn’t know exactly where she was going from here but she wasn’t feeling as lost as she was before.

Maybe it was the rose-coloured glasses she was seeing the world from at the moment, maybe he was just always on her mind, but for whatever reason, when a knock sounded at the front door Mari was sure that it would be Oscar. After all, who else could it be?

Boy, was she wrong.

Because standing there, on the other side of the door, was her mother and the man that haunted all of her nightmares.

Taglist: @robinsdolan @lostgirl219@kseniainneverland @ravengreystone@weediskindabad @moistdollerbills @javoqetal@kenzie44469 @goddessate@blackdepressoexpresso @classyputa @babygirl-htx @wonderlandlovelove @cacapoodlepoo @agent-femmefatale @elliesshitofablog@daydreamer0307 @lucyfuh @harduy @elizabeth-santana-98 @lonelyyblues

#on my block #on my block fanfiction #Oscar diaz #Oscar diaz imagine #spooky #spooky diaz

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benperorsolo · 7 years

Note

Guide to Admitting you Love Her/Letters ofc

thanks, doll

let’s tackle the big one first (probably do Guide in a separate post):

Letters from an Apologist:

What inspired you to write the fic this way?

I started thinking about the basic scenario for Letters literally the second I stepped out of the theater after watching TFA. I started writing it on Christmas Eve 2015, so a little under a week after that. (What I’m saying is that Letters is my receipts that I’ve been a Ben Solo redemption ho since it was possible for me to be one.) I started the fic because I’d been fantasizing about Ben and Leia repairing their relationship after the war, and imagining various scenes between them. The formative one that actually got me to start writing was just a single image of Ben and Leia walking together in the forests of D’Qar, and I worked backwards from there to imagine how I could take Ben from Point A as he was in TFA to Point B, my forest vision, in a realistic way.

What scene did you first put down?

Like you, I write in order, so the first scene I wrote is the first scene in the fic— the one where Kylo is in his quarters on the Finalizer, and Han’s ghost is mercilessly haunting him a la Macbeth and Banquo.

What’s your favorite line of narration?

Probably from Chapter 16, after Ben makes the choice to be Ben again and the name is used for the first time in reference to him in the narration:

Ben —and this name is not painless either, but it is a different sort of pain, and Ben thinks the question might always have been not how to be free of it but how to choose the kind he could best live with, the kind he could not live without— freezes, breathing hard.

4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue?

Any between Ben and Leia is usually up there, but this exchange from Chapter 11:

“What should I say?” Kylo says. He wants to push her hands away, and ruin something. Someone’s belongings, someone’s life. “That if I’d never been born, you might have been happy?”

It’s as though he’s slapped her.

“You are my happiness,” she says, and her voice is choked. Her fingers splay against his collarbones; so near his heart. Not quite touching. Never quite there. “You’re my boy.”

A suffocating sound rumbles deep in his throat.

“I killed your husband,“ he tries to shout. His voice cracks into a whisper, a hiss. “I cannot be your happiness.”

Her face grows pale. “You did,” she says softly. “You took away the only man I’d ever loved. You did.”

He can feel her pulse points through her fingertips, slow in its sorrow, deep in its grief. It was always Leia who stayed behind. Leia, who did not run, who did not cower, but left the wellspring of her heartache in her innermost secret place, where she could visit its still waters and choose when to be consumed.

Such a quiet sufferer, she. Such a gift.

“I don’t know if I can forgive you for that,” she says quietly. It washes over Kylo like a balm. “I am…trying.”

“Don’t,” Kylo says. He swallows. “Don’t forgive me.”

Leia smiles weakly, cups his cheek in her free hand. He hasn’t been touched so often since he was a small boy. “My pup,” she says. “That isn’t how this galaxy works.”

What part was hardest to write?

Writing Ben’s POV in general. I don’t mean to say he’s a difficult character to write, per se, because I love writing Ben-POV, but in a fic of this nature there’s the issue that Ben is so deeply clung to his delusions that it’s difficult trying to get some point across in my writing if Ben himself would not admit to it. This was harder when Ben was still written as Kylo, because at least with Ben-as-Ben there’s a certain level of clearheadedness about his own motivations that comes with stripping away the entire artifice that the Kylo Ren persona is. But at the same time, whereas Ben-as-Kylo overestimates his righteousness, Ben-as-Ben underestimates it, and is just constantly beating himself up over everything, even things that weren’t his fault.

What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

It’s the longest fic (or any piece of writing) I’ve ever written, for one.

Where did the title come from?

It’s a pun on the dual meaning of the word ‘apologist’. The first definition is of one who defends a faith, a cause, or an institution, especially when it is under attack or criticism. This first definition applies to Kylo as he is in the first part of the story, when he is still under the thrall of the First Order and the Dark Side and so acts as his own apologist for his evil deeds in the face of his family’s desperate attempts to sway him from his cause.

The second definition of ‘apologist’ is, of course, someone who apologizes. This is Ben in the second half of the story, after he’s renounced his cause and must begin the painstaking path of reconciliation with those he’s wronged, as well as his family and, ultimately, himself.

So, he goes from being an apologist to an apologist.

Did any real people or events inspire any part of it?

Not explicitly, but I’ve based large amounts of Ben’s mentality on my friends who have suffered from mental illness and abuse, as well as Ben’s family’s attempts at reaching him on my own interactions with those friends.

Were there any alternate versions of this fic?

Nope. It’s like the kitchen sink fic for all my general redemption headcanons.

Why did you choose this pairing for this particular story?

No pairings. The reason why I went with no pairings is due to my absolute hatred of redemption arcs which have romantic love as their impetus. Rephrasing slightly– I think it’s too easy to write redemption arcs wrong when they involve romantic love. The impetus of a true redemption must always be the person in need of redemption themselves. Other people can and indeed should help them, but at the end of the day it must be an internal decision. Romantic love makes it too easy for x character to ‘reform’ just because they like the warm fuzzy feeling y character gives them, or, even worse, solely because character y told them to, making character y their sole reason for goodness. It’s really gross, and I hate it, and if you’re going to look at stories which did romantic redemptive love right (say Pride and Prejudice and Beauty and the Beast) the love ultimately displayed is not romantic love but agape love– selfless love in which they expect nothing in return. And that makes all the difference.

What do you like best about this fic?

I’m really pleased with the overwhelming positive response I’ve gotten to this fic. It’s the first multichapter fic I’ve ever written. I’ve gotten so many incredible comments from readers who identify with Ben and his struggles with guilt, mental illness, and family dysfunction– and I’ve in general been glad to have represented these things in such a way that those who have struggled with those issues have been able to use my fic as some small form of solace and catharsis. And then of course there are the general readers who are pleased with my handling of Ben and an attempts at a realistic redemption arc. Since that was what I set out to do, that’s the greatest compliment.

What do you like least about this fic?

As with all of my writing, I know I get a little (a lot) purple prosey sometimes. I semiregularly go through published chapters on ao3 and try to weed out whatever bullshit I thought was a good idea when the chapter was first published. There’s also the fact that Letters is more or less an unplanned fic, so I feel like some chapters are more extraneous than others and could have been cut– yet there’s just enough character development in them that I feel unable to just take them out altogether. This is the part I regret about fanfiction being largely a post-as-you-write process instead of being able to finish it and edit it as a whole.

What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story? Or if you didn’t listen to anything, what do you think readers should listen to to accompany us while reading?

As of now, my apologist playlist on Spotify has 78 songs. I plan to actually put the playlist up on playmoss after Letters is done. Anything by Radical Face, The Oh Hellos, Mumford & Sons, or Bastille tends to get me in the mood. Regretful banjos, yo.

When actually writing, I love listening to the soundtrack of The Village (yes, that M Knight Shyamalan movie). The Gravel Road and the appropriately titled Will You Help Me? are some of the best from that soundtrack. Anything with aggressive violin and sorrowful piano is so Ben to me.

Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from reading this fic?

There is no such thing as having gone too far. Becoming a person again is hard, but other people want to help you. Let them. There is courage in kindness. There is bravery in compassion.

What did you learn from writing this fic?

A lot. As I jokingly said to a friend today, I love Star Wars because it basically allows me to grapple with Christianity IN SPAAACE. I’m endlessly fascinated by the concepts of sin, grace, and redemption, and the practical implications of believing in them. They’re the cornerstone of the Christian faith, after all. I’ve read a lot of books that handle these themes due to my desire to wrestle with them in Letters: Mere Christianity, A Grief Observed, Silence, The Power of Myth, etc etc.

#lfaa #asks #kida to my milo

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jakeandwords-blog · 6 years

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Am I the only one who lived this? I’m sure I’m not alone. A world created by doctors and disorders, ideas and mistakes, it all blends into one from the outside perspective. When someone says they support you but hardly understands where to begin. Here’s my story where you might have it wrong about me.

It started off at a young age being prescribed to medicine mild doses of Ritalin, at the time everyone was taking it, for me personally i wasnt old enough to realize that I was having a tough time dealing with the young children and their anger and it distracted me a lot from my school work. I would get upset like them, as if I was an actor pursuaded by an incredible script. It might but I’m not sure of my stress having some contribution to me being adopted. By already dealing with stress at a young age it overwhelmed me, I was tense and shut my eyes to escape school and disorder. I remember vividly never knowing my truest emotions and telling the doctor plenty of “I cant’s.” Most of them were me trying to identify exactly what I was dealing with. I ended up giving them excuses, different ideas I think they might be interested in but not enough for medication. I gave them reasons to think medicine could help me. I never saw a change that would help me succeed in the areas that I was medicated for only the highs and lows from the medicine. This was a first for me and never knowing I wasn’t demanded to take these pills or forced I should’ve walked away from the chemicals than let them control me.

Things at a later age was difficult for me, I was still trying to identify what I could need to help me in school, by this time I have gone to the doctor hundreds of times and have tried a very long list of medicine to see what works for me. it was so absurd to me a pill could change what I was dealing with, but never adding now to the troubles I faced in school I couldn’t also shake the subconscious idea of loss and upset. plus the kids never grew out of their mean habits so it became exhausting as ever to balance my school work, which I never took seriously. I had moved from a rough part of Cape Cod then and was having a tough time adapting. A few times I gave up and did the bare minimum, this was because the drugs became to drain my will power and exhaust me. I wasn’t really good at communicating how I really felt so it make it really difficult to find something that really impacted me enough, for me, so I tried my best to ignore it all.

With that said ignoring it became a basis of my long tales I would eventually tell the doctor. I was an honest kid but i was so frustrated with how I was being treated I started to make a habit of fibbing. never really needing medicine but a change of environment and maybe some friends could’ve changed everything to me. I did have a few friend made a small popularity list in high school but fell short when it came to school work. When the doctors became a joke to me I abused their help and possibly ruined the image I was building for myself.

I understand it can be difficult at a young age, between new emotions, growing up, puberty, all of it but I never got lucky enough for my life to change.

The doctors so easily persuaded, with my parents and different things I would say to get what I wanted, it must have been i was purposely acted certain ways to get the attention. It wasn’t like I was a bad person I just wasn’t into their logic because all of it at this point was because of false stories i would tell them. I thought it was helping me with my different ways to stretch the truth. Not many people knew this about me but it was my own fun. It was the only way I could escape and still deal with the pressure of this image of perfection my parents expected.

I guess Karma is real because the worse began to happen to me in my 20s. I was struggling for money struggling for work and in some pretty bad Influencing relationships, it effected my home, my attitude and the good relationships I had. I got a therapist and was talking with her and told her an embellishment of a fight I was in how frustrated I was and how I let might happen again. nothing serious because I’m not really a fighter but she was worried about me because she didn’t know me and hospitalized me. Since this point I’ve been going through hell. This one sentence of me being so upset and telling these embellishments finally caught up to me, plus I was on a bad dose of medicine that heightened my emotions. I think that’s why I was so honest with her. They act like your friend until they believe the worst can happen. In the hospital they rushed me into a new drug thinking I was suffering from delusions or something. I never had delt with any obscure problems so this was new to me and to this day I have to explain this among other things to make my point clear.

The hospital made it much worse, confined to a room and forced out by loud patients and the ever so often fire alarm. the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong but I was so worked up, they put me on a heavy medicine called respiritol that was for delusions. I was sick from it gained weight and it probably was the worse thing to do to me. I needed freedom and happiness, this helplessness that no one could help me tore me apart. I want to say I lost trust in everyone and everything, but my heart still cared about everyone and everything. Plus I was scared I couldnt escape. I couldn’t believe this simple mistake turned into me being diagnosed this and being forced into a enclosed environment, I couldn’t go for a long walk, I couldn’t exersize. I was trying to keep my cool and explain to them my situation, after the first month of being in-treatment they began to realize their mistake, I admitted to all of it but It was the first time I’ll hear someone talk about what I was first medicated for adhd symptoms as something different.

No one tells you this but if you go to a hospital for treatment then leave and then try to get clean and shape up your life your still identified for it and by not being on medicine your become an at risk patient. I was feeling awesome my days off of the drugs and tried to find support through my parents but never could, my days were perfect I was in good health. After an argument and over reacting I was put me again in the hospital and that’s when all my fun started to turn into fear. I thought I could get away from my past have a good future but myself becoming my own worse enemy began to unfold before me.

I made a couple mistake later in life and they saw it as more and more of a disorder but never considered my point of view, maybe because I never really explain to them anymore because it takes so long to explain.

I think later in life I’ll get out of he system and get a lawyer to professionally defend me, but for right now I’m sorta stuck with this obstacle.

I’m saying this because I understand that things can be difficult and that we have things to deal with that we don’t want to, we all grow from stupidity and fun to mature and being able to reason. this is something I’ve been dealing with for many years and since I was a young child. the ideas of others and their ideas about us can’t be true until we open them up to the truth. Not everything is easy and you might have everyone you know believing a lie. It may not be easy until you let go, and release yourself of their control and teach them something new to understand.

I’ve had a great life but my fun became my pain, I never really healed from all of it because the longer I search for alternatives and natural diagnosis and naturalists that could help detox me from the medicine, stress and this lifestyle, the longer I think I have to prove myself, so I ignore it. Plus it’s been tough to reason with my parents when they see it from a completely different perspective. They have yet to take seriously how upset it has made me, communication needs to become the next important part of my life to live free. So biting down on the beliefs of others and deal with their ideas is something Ill deal with until I find something that can change it. Remember though you choose this life and the way you handle it, may it be by mistake you go down the wrong path but it’s okay. you can change and prove them that they can’t move you and change you.

There’s a little more to this but that’s really the meat of it. I kinda still live with regret but I think by being honest I’m doing the right thing. I’ve become really insightful about it and have stayed positive. If you have a similar experience or are experiencing the same thing I wouldn’t mind talking about it and seeing if I can help. If you also have any questions about hospitals or thinking about going it wouldn’t hurt to hear my side of it and how I feel about it.

#diagnosis #doctors #depression #adhd #thetruth #mystory #stronger #hospital #illbeyourfriendtocarryyouthrough

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ourhealthyfoodblog-blog · 7 years

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New Post has been published on Healthy Food and Remedies

New Post has been published on http://healthyfoodandremedies.com/2017/03/25/top-10-mental-illnesses-myths/

Top 10 Mental Illnesses And Their Myths

We’ve had several fascinating lists about bizarre mental disorders on this site, but no lists have been posted of mental illness myths. Mental illnesses, disorders and differences tend to be very misunderstood by the general public. This is a list of mental illnesses and a widely believed myth or two about each one. I’m sure there are other mental disorders with myths so widespread that I believe in them, too. Of course, you can tell me about those in the comments.

Antisocial Personality Disorder

The Myth: Somebody who avoids social interaction is “antisocial”.

This is mostly a semantic error, which is why I put it in tenth place. Many people refer to someone who is reluctant to participate in social situations as “antisocial”. In fact, these people are often pro-social, even unusually so.

Antisocial Personality Disorder is diagnosed in adults who consistently ignore the rights of others by behaving violently, lying, stealing, or generally acting recklessly with no concern for the safety of themselves or others. They are often extroverted and very much the opposite of the type of people who are so often called “antisocial”, who usually care very much about other people’s feelings. These people are usually just shy or have some form of autism, depression, social anxiety disorder, or avoidant personality disorder (AvPD). AvPD, which is diagnosed in people who avoid social interaction because of an intense fear of being rejected, is probably part of the reason for this confusion. The two personality disorders, after all, have pretty similar names, even if they are entirely different things.

Multiple Personality Disorder

The Myth: People with Dissociative Identity Disorder radically change their behavior and lose their memory of what has just been happening when they switch personalities.

Some people would say that DID itself is the myth, since it’s, suspiciously, much more commonly diagnosed in North America than anywhere else, but let’s assume for today that it does exist.

People with DID have anywhere from two to over a hundred different personalities that alternately take over their bodies. These alternate personalities (“alters”) usually, but not always, form due to childhood trauma. The alters don’t always cause huge, noticeable changes in appearance or behavior, so observers might not even notice their existence. Many people with DID (“multiples”) realize that various alters are present and know who those people are, even before therapy, which wouldn’t work very well if they had no memory of switching. It’s possible that one personality has no knowledge of what happened while one of their alters was in charge, causing a sense of amnesia, but they might be entirely aware of what is happening and just not actively involved. The group of alters can usually communicate to some degree, and might even work together to hide the fact that they are multiple. Some multiples prefer not to have therapy to choose one personality and stop switching, because they are perfectly fine living as a team.

Dyslexia

The Myth: All people with dyslexia are unable to read because they see letters in the wrong order.

This is actually two myths in one, but still only two of many myths about dyslexia. The first is that dyslexic people can’t read. Actually, most do learn to read, but if they don’t get appropriate help, they often learn slowly and stay well below their grade level in speed and comprehension. But even that’s not always true: many dyslexic children figure out how to cover up their difficulty reading until third or fourth grade or even longer. And if they are taught by someone who understands dyslexia, they can learn to read perfectly well.

The other half of this myth is that the problem dyslexics have with reading is because they see words backwards or out of order. This can seem to be the case because, in their confusion while they try to figure out a word, they mix up letters or sounds, and some dyslexic people confuse left and right or have a lot of trouble spelling. However, this is not the cause of their problem. Dyslexia is much more to do with a unique way of thinking than a problem with processing visual information.

Schizophrenia

The Myth: Schizophrenic people hear voices in their heads.

We all know about schizophrenia, and we’ve all read jokes about “the voices in my head”. But, contrary to what a lot of people believe, not all people with schizophrenia hear voices in their heads. Auditory hallucinations are very common in schizophrenic people, but they are more likely to hear voices coming from some object outside of their body than inside their mind. Plus, not everyone with schizophrenia experiences the same symptoms. They may have hallucinations (actually seeing or hearing things that don’t exist), delusions (believing unrealistic ideas), disordered thoughts, lack of affect (no appearance of emotions), or, in catatonic schizophrenia, even a lack of desire to move at all. Schizophrenia is a complicated disorder with a wide range of possible symptoms. (Note that alternate personalities is not one of the symptoms. We already covered that disorder.)

Autism Spectrum Disorders

The Myth: Autism is a devastating disorder that will stop someone from ever being able to function in society.

There are many myths and even more potential/disputed myths about autism, but this seems to be one of the most common. Many people hear “autism” and imagine children who are permanently in their own world where they can’t talk or interact with anyone else, who throw tantrums for no apparent reason, and who will never be part of normal society. However, autism is called a spectrum disorder for a reason: autistics range from people who are unable to communicate in any way with others, all the way to people who live ordinary, productive lives and just seem a bit eccentric to the rest of us.

Severe autism is not a life sentence, either. Even very low-functioning autistics can lead a perfectly happy life. There are also stories of low-functioning autistic children improving with therapy and almost entirely recovering from any autism-related problems they had, and many people and organizations are searching for a cure for autism. Unfortunately, those organizations pushing for a cure are usually the ones who spread this particular myth by only focusing on issues related to low-functioning autism, and almost entirely ignoring the existence of high-functioning autism and autistic people who would never want to be “cured”.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

The Myth: People with ADHD are unable to pay attention to anything.

ADHD is a disorder that has been becoming pretty famous in recent years, so I’m sure you all know what it is. For those of you who aren’t sure, people with ADHD have trouble concentrating on tasks and can be hyperactive or impulsive. But it isn’t true, as it sometimes seems, that people with ADHD just can’t pay attention. Many of them can pay attention to something that they find genuinely interesting, the same way all of us are much more willing to be distracted from a dull task than an enjoyable one. And, in fact, some people have trouble focusing because they actually pay too much attention. They think about all the sights, sounds, and smells around them, not just the task at hand. They have to learn to deal with all the other interesting stimuli and keep most of their attention on what is important.

Selective Mutism

The Myth: Somebody with selective mutism is either refusing to speak, or has been abused or traumatized in the past.

This is the only disorder on the list that you may have never heard of by name before, though I’m willing to bet you’ve heard of it and its myths. I don’t know of another disorder with myths more commonly believed, not just by society as a whole but actually by professionals.

Selective Mutism (formerly Elective Mutism) is a disorder that almost always first appears in early childhood. Someone with selective mutism can, and often does, speak perfectly well, but doesn’t speak, and sometimes doesn’t even communicate in other ways, in specific situations. A very large number of parents, teachers and psychologists who work with selectively mute people believe that these people are choosing not to speak, maybe in an attempt to control other people. However, it turns out that most selectively mute people do want to talk, but don’t because they’re actually afraid to. An overwhelming majority of selectively mute people also suffer from social anxiety disorder, and silence seems to be one way that they cope with stressful situations. Punishing a child for not speaking, as many people who believe in this myth do, paradoxically makes the child even more anxious and therefore even less likely to speak.

But if you don’t know someone with selective mutism, chances are you still believe in a myth very common in the media: some children and teenagers stop talking entirely, or to everyone but one or two people, because they were traumatized or repeatedly abused. While some people do become mute after trauma, this usually lasts a few weeks, not months or years. Most people do not develop selective mutism in later childhood or because of any kind of trauma or abuse.

Self-Harm/Self-Injury

The Myth: People who intentionally cut, burn, or otherwise injure themselves are either trying to kill themselves or looking for attention.

Many people, particularly teenagers, who suffer from a variety of mental disorders cope with their inner pain by physically harming themselves, most commonly by cutting. Self-injury seems to be becoming more common and well-known these days, but myths about the self-injurer’s intentions have not gone away.

No matter what it looks like, self-injury is not a failed suicide attempt. Some self-injurers harm themselves over and over for years without having a single injury that would threaten their life, which would be an amazing record of failure if they were actually trying to die. Many people who self-injure are actually trying to avoid suicide by letting out their feelings in a (somewhat) safer way.

Many people also believe that self-injurers are just seeking attention. This is true of a few people, especially since self-injury is becoming more well-known and almost popular, but most self-injurers actively try to hide their injuries by wearing long sleeves or pants, or by cutting in a place that is usually covered by clothing, like their upper thighs or stomach. Some self-injurers desperately want someone to find out about their behavior so they can get the help they need, but even many of them are too frightened of another person’s reactions, and ashamed of themselves, to actually point out their injuries. Besides, even if someone decided to injure themselves to get attention, shouldn’t you be very concerned about be what problem could be causing them to need attention so badly that they harm themselves to get it?

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

The Myth: People with OCD are always obsessed with the danger of germs, and usually are very particular about neatness.

I can’t count how many times I’ve heard people say that they’re OCD because they’re very neat or careful about cleanliness. Most people seem to think that people with OCD are neat freaks and/or germophobes, not realizing that it’s a lot more complicated than that.

OCD is an anxiety disorder with two characteristics. First, people with OCD have recurring unwanted thoughts (obsessions), usually of something they find disturbing or not at all in their character. It’s common to have an obsession about germs or contamination, or of not having properly locked their doors so burglars can’t get in, but it’s also common to have thoughts about something terrible happening to their families, about hurting or even killing someone, doing something forbidden in a religion they strongly believe in, or any other undesirable idea. Second, these people think that doing some certain ritual will get rid of the danger. It could be washing hands, keeping their house in perfect order, checking that the door is locked, thinking certain words, avoiding odd numbers, or just about anything imaginable. Doing this compulsion doesn’t make the thoughts go away for very long, so the ritual is repeated.

Not everyone who has OCD cares about germs, or does the rituals that we usually hear about. Not everyone even has compulsions an observer would actually notice, since a lot of them are mental. And perfectionism or neatness? While some people with OCD are perfectionists, this is more associated with another disorder. If you liked the first entry, you’ll love this: the disorder is called Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder, and it’s actually a different thing. One major distinction is that people with OCPD consider their habits to be part of themselves and desirable, while people with OCD are often very disturbed by their disorder.

All Mental Disorders

The Myth: Mental disorders and illnesses are all in your head, and you can just get over them if you really want to.

This earned the number one spot, not only because it’s general, but because it’s probably the most damaging myth on this list, since it can stop people from getting the support they need. Some people still believe that mental illnesses are all imagined by their sufferers, or that people who suffer from mental illness can’t really be having that much trouble and/or just don’t care enough about getting over it. People are especially likely to be dismissive if the illness isn’t well-known, and so many of them, even common ones, are not.

The fact that the same symptoms have been experienced by so many different people should prove that are real — they can’t all be independently inventing the same symptoms. Any mental disorder, by definition, seriously affects the lives of the people who suffer from it, usually for the worse, or it would not be considered a disorder. And they are certainly not easy to get over. Most mental disorders are caused at least in part by a difference in the brain or an imbalance of chemicals. Even when it comes to the non-physical reasons, it’s very difficult to un-learn a thought pattern or habit — just choose any habit and try it. Plus, the disorder itself may stop someone from trying to get help: people with depression might think no therapist will be able to help them, and be too tired to try to find one, anyway. If we could overcome mental illnesses just by wanting to, the world would be full of much happier and more productive people.

#Mental Illnesses

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