Can I ask how do you deal with suicidality? I never thought I'd still be here by this age. As a child I wanted to kill myself and attempted and as a teen and I never thought I'd become an adult. I don't want life. I'm incapable of coping. I just don't know how to deal with my belief that I was born to kill myself and that it's a failure the fact that I'm alive. I'm not proud. It feels shameful and like a failure.

I wanted to kill myself pretty consistently until about age 25 which was when my last attempt happened. Several overdoses before then, including one on a psych ward.

25 is when I accepted that I had schizophrenia/schizoaffective. I thought people were trying to kill me. I thought I was going to die. & it gave me a reason to live, the world wanting me dead or institutionalized gave me a reason to live. Not that the world hadn't already made that clear but with the terror of hearing strangers (aka voices) speak it aloud it became so much more real.

Not to say numbness itself can't be a problem. I had to relearn it was okay to feel via therapy and most of my attempts were made without emotion. I felt nothing when I made them, and I felt nothing when they failed.

& my mom telling me about how she told me it was okay to let go if it hurt too much while I was unconscious after my last attempt at 25 gave me a major reason to put off anything/everything until after she passes. I don't want to put her through that again. For years, I'd tear up whenever I thought of it, her utter selflessness and understanding in that moment.

I still passively wish for death. I still deal with wanting to attempt and came close to attempting after that fucked up phone call with ---- but now I have people I feel okay with waking up if I'm that close to the edge. I feel okay with taking enough Ativan to numb me and someone holding my hand until I fall asleep. I take some over the counter pills daily to take the edge off my near constant anxiety though I know I could get something prescription but I worry about more meds. My psych is okay with that.

Nobody thought I'd make it to age 21 and I've made it far past that.

You don’t realize how much of a workaholic you are and how difficult of a time you have relaxing until you go on vacation

Like goddamn, i have mental issues

I can’t just sleep in like a normal person, there is literally 3 people awake on this island right now and two of them are people who are having to set up shop and work- and the other is an old guy taking a brisk walk on the beach.

But yeah, i wake up at 5am and shoot of bed, walk around the island with nothing to do, and there is literally no one awake. It felt good for 15 minutes but then i lost interest, mainly due to loneliness? And so i just started hanging up my clothes and trying not to have circular thoughts that will make me worse (as if i have any control at this point)

Ruminating about the future, ruminating about my own happiness, ruminating about things i don’t like about myself and my uncertainties and insecurities

You’d think goddamn just take a Xanax or Ativan or whatever the fuck and chill out and shut up right but nothing makes my head truly go silent

I wanted to say good bye to my obsessions but i said good bye to my obsessions 80 times in my head, 180 times maybe, maybe 900 times, i couldn’t stop saying it to myself because i want to say good bye to my obsessions

But i can’t stop, as it feels intangible out of reach something to do just for the sake of doing it, I’m always seeking, despite trying my best to fill myself up with gratitude and contentment and blah blah blah

It just never ceases, hypo manic energy almost overtakes me, and no one else seems to understand why i seem so un calm

I can’t stop, so i do things that no one else does. And pride myself on, the external validation of my own perfectionism and productivity like it’s a drug i get high off of or need to survive

Meanwhile in the background there is this burning self hatred and pointlessness, and feelings of isolation, and being trapped

Like a wounded child, and a wild animal in a cage biting to get out and scream, and tear into the flesh of those who deserve to be torn apart

Simply because i felt like it, and want to destroy and control whats inside of me but i can’t, so i lose myself to these waves of mentally ill thoughts and manic rage lashing out at everyone

While i psychotically hang my clothes perfectly in a row, everything is perfectly fine, all the time….

In my little world, all alone…. Nothing could cure this kind of emptiness and discontent

It’s the loudest when i go to places like this, because i really have no one and nothing else around to blame but myself, or the things greater than me which i don’t understand and could be figments of someone else’s imagination for all i know

What do i know, i know nothing, i rely on feeling and reaction, and trust none of it, as I flim and flam about no where to the next no where for no real reason

It all gets so boring sometimes, i can hardly come up with something i care to entertain, saving the world or watching it burn neither is satisfying,

I simply, don’t care, and i think oh, maybe if someone else cares maybe if someone else loves me maybe if i belong to something …. But i don’t connect. Despite claiming its all i want, i run from that the most of anything

I am tied up inside endless conundrums and unsolvable riddles that make no sense, lose ends that never meet, a maze you can never escape

The only hope I have is feeling of catharsis and relief, whether its from, losing consciousness, a shameful amount of sleep- drug induced, or overdosing

I had the best intentions but there is so much pain i carry around, and shame, and insecurity, its hard to let go of it all so easily…. And not care what other people think,

So i turn to poetry and music for release, and a few other things not as satisfying- my dopamine deprived brain, broken from the inside, i want a perfect body

They judge me, and say how could she be so selfish

I hate it too. I hate it too, but i can’t make it stop, i can’t fix myself, i need help.

Most people tell me to shut up and everything will be fine. It never really is though, i don’t know when it ever will be so i gave up waiting for the feeling and accepted the brutal fact of my experience here in life

Unfortunately isn’t the happiest experience, despite having everything you could of ever wanted.

And everybody hates me because I’m Gay. Narcissist…. Deluded, insane, psychotic, obsessive, neurotic,…. I have no character, no backbone, no work ethic, no cares. I am amoral, depraved, baseless, empty inside.

Drowning in a river of my very own device….. happiness is my own self destruction and demise

So at least it’s the path of least resistance, with least collateral damage, remove myself from the equation, quietly, slowly,

Floating down the river, giving up, suicide.

The only other choice i have is to hold onto hoping, despite all odds not being the best, bravely facing death, a martyr to what, my own ignorance

I can’t get past my own self, much less, ascend beyond that,

I wish i could, as if that would, fantastically heal the raw reality and aching wounds, festering with maggots that rot in my very core, my soul, and my most vulnerable, private places,

You, put them there, i blame you and take out fire on you with branded steel steering on your skin

Hating all men

I should know better than this, but its hard to pretend you can always control all your emotions

Wipe them out like they aren’t there, take a pill and pretend to be happy like everyone else, smile for the cameras

Don’t be such, a drag, get up and light someone else’s path, get off your knees

Feed the begging man, ask god for forgiveness as he strikes you down and plagues you, a leper with decaying skin, painful diseases, and sicknesses

Leaving you to rot like filth on the scum soaked sidewalks like the vermin you are

Worthless beguiled rotten …. You turned all of gods golden light inside your innocent baby body

And made a mockery of him. So he strikes me down, again, and again, and again. Flogging us senseless.

And i still hope for redemption. Purity, forgiveness. As if i can ever quit. My mind a dirty dumpster dive of imperfection and sin.

I’ll never be good enough for him……

Today wasn't too bad I suppose. It didn't start very well because I slept through all 20 of my alarms. It's kind of ridiculous that I have to set that many as it is but I have a bad habit of hitting the snooze button. I usually get up around 4:30 or 5 but today I didn't get up until 6:15 and that's when I normally have to leave on Wednesdays.

I stayed up way too late last night but I wouldn't have been able to sleep even if I had tried because it was too loud. The neighbors down the street were lighting off super loud fireworks until almost 1 in the morning. I was so pissed and I really wanted to go over there and tell them they were being rude but I'm not a confrontational person. I don't even remember falling asleep but I don't think I got more than 4 hours. I guess having 2 days off messed me up too and I also forgot I had to be there earlier. I work at 7 on Mondays and Tuesdays and 6:30 on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Luckily I still had time to get everything set up and get breakfast before cases started at 7:30. I had 24 today but I got done with them by 3:00. I had time to sit down and eat my lunch too. It definitely was better than last Wednesday. I had 31 cases that day due to add-ons and there was also an hour delay because one of the surgeries took longer than usual so I ended up having to stay late and I was already exhausted. I was so grumpy after that and Thursday sucked.

I also got mad last week because that creepy guy I work with that won't leave me alone tried hitting on me again in front of a bunch of people and I basically had to tell had to tell him to fuck off. It was embarrassing. After that incident, he left the department for a while and when he came back he was clearly in a bad mood and was banging stuff around. It felt like he was trying to be intimidating or something and he also kept trying to find reasons to talk to me. I told him previously that I thought it was weird that he kept calling me beautiful and amazing and I tried to make it clear that it made me uncomfortable. I haven't shown any interest whatsoever so I don't understand why he keeps trying. I don't trust him. He doesn't seem to show a lot of respect for women. He's very desperate for a relationship and I'm not the only girl he acts that way towards. He cornered another girl in the stairwell to get her phone number. I'm not sure why she gave it to him since she said that she doesn't like him either. I would never give him any of my information. Most of the girls are uneasy around him and he likes to go around trying to get hugs. If he tries to say or do anything else to me like that I'm going to HR. He says he's planning on working there a long time and I can't wait to get away from him. At least I don't have to see him at all this week since he's out of town. I don't want him to come back but I'm happy that I haven't had to see him since he did that.

I got to leave work a couple minutes early so that was nice. I went to the store to get cat food and more snacks for myself. I have been eating so much junk food. I think I have actually gained a couple pounds which is good news. Some of my clothes are fitting better. I hope I can continue gaining weight but I also need to eat a little healthier sometimes. I don't even know how much I weigh right now since I don't have a scale so I guess I will find out when I go to the doctor on Friday. I'm also still planning on asking for her to increase my dosage of lamotrigine to 175mg a day since I've been taking 150mg for a while now. I am going to see if she will give me ativan or something for my anxiety. I have taken anxiety meds before and I don't really like them but lately I'm having a really hard time managing it. I haven't had blood work done in a while so I should probably ask to have that done too.

I'm going to make some dinner soon and get ready for bed. I'm sure I will sleep a lot better tonight and hopefully I actually wake up on time in the morning. I'm glad I only have to work one more day this week and tomorrow shouldn't be too busy. I'm going to do my best to make it a good day.

Hotch and Derek break up after Emily dies.

(bear with me)

Derek excuses Hotch’s distance for exactly what he thinks it is – grief. His best friend has died and he’s here arranging his second funeral in no less than two years. Long nights away (waiting at Emily’s bedside to see if she’ll make it through the night), not sleeping (the lies just keep getting bigger and there are too many to keep track of), and he’s pulling away from Derek. But Derek calls it. It’s too much. All of it. Emily’s dead. Reid’s a mess. Garcia can’t sleep. No one has seen Rossi since the funeral. Seaver has to go somewhere but at the same time they don’t want to lose whatever little piece of Emily she might have. So, they just need a break. A few months to grieve. To get things normal.

Only it lines up astronomically awful.

Hotch comes home from a meeting with Strauss where he spent hours defending himself (he can keep lying, he really can. He loves his team but he understands at this point if he cracks and tells them, her death is on his hands). Emily is has only just left the United States (a departure he wasn't there for — looked at his phone during a brief pause in his meeting with Strauss to see the message “black bird in the sky” and knew she was gone). He comes home to Derek suggesting they take a break. He wants to fight him, to do something anything to beg him to reconsider but agrees.

Somehow, it’s much harder to sleep in separate beds that night than it ever had been before.

Derek shows up to the office with coffee for both of them and a blueberry muffin (bc he feels bad and he doesn’t want to change anything but he knows what’s happening right now isn’t right and he has no idea how to fix it). But Hotch isn’t there.

He’s already on a plane – legs cramped up and fist curled around the armrest despite the Ativan in his system.

He doesn’t think Strauss was right, he wouldn’t crack and tell them. He does know he can’t stay. Not now.

We can skim over all the nitty-gritty that plays out after Emily comes back.

Because then Derek’s still dealing with his stuff. He’s spending a lot of time couch surfing between Reid and Garcia’s apartments – not because he doesn’t have his own apartment but because they need him close (and neither will admit it but they just can’t settle down, not when they see Hotch or JJ or Emily and remember what they did). Derek tries not to blame them. He knows. He does. But that doesn’t stop the thoughts entirely.

Until he realizes he’s pushed Hotch away too. Until he sees that they’ve all done it.

Completely isolated Hotch. Derek hasn’t been to see him since he came home – he’s just as afraid to confront his anger as he is to see what all those months away have done to Hotch. He hasn’t talked to him. Barely manages a polite head nod in the hall. The other’s certainly aren’t trying. Reid will worm his way out of any room JJ is in. Garcia stays within the confines of her lair. He’s aware that Dave has tried to get Hotch and Emily out again, just to sit and drunk like they used to, but they’re pushing each other away in an effort to… hurt themselves or protect themselves (those lines always get so complicated).

Until Derek realizes he’s been protecting, loving, and comforting everyone but the one person who could use it the most.

And Hotch would just fall apart. There’s minimal resistance at first. He’s nearly too far gone to even let Derek near him. But he hasn’t had a single chance to work through the last few months. Not been able to grieve. To talk with Jessica or Derek. He’s just held it in. And when he falls, he falls hard

Okay. So I just wrote a story about all of this ON SUNDAY, and...this is better than a single fucking trash word I wrote WHAT THE HELL. I don't even know what to say except WHAT. THE. HELL.

"Until Derek realizes he’s been protecting, loving, and comforting everyone but the one person who could use it the most." This completely broke my brain, the simplicity of this statement alone.

out of context life update….

still taking a tumblr/fandom break cos my dopamine receptors are all messed up and i need a detox………still love 🥰 bibbie 🥰

trying to overcome my fear of intimacy…..i’m SEEN……and it’s okay………

drinking too much and my body feels like SHIT…..cos, like…..i’ve been really social the past couple months……and idk that’s just how you hang out w ppl in your 20’s i guess

STILL TRYING TO GET A FUCKING XANAX PRESCRIPTION…..my ex druggie klepto roommate was speedballing every fucking day and i should have asked her how she got both a vyvanse script and an ativan script…….

Feel free not to answer this since it’s not writing related but I just thought I would ask. I think at some point you said you are a paramedic. I was just wondering what your favorite part of your job is? And if you had any advice for someone looking at EMS as a career. I hope you are well and I really love your writing!

Hello!

Yup, I’m a paramedic by day. Or at least I play one on TV. Tw for discussion of PTSD, alcoholism, general bad people, death

holy fuck this got long

I’d say my favorite part of the job is when I get to make deep emotional connections with people and make them feel safe during a crisis. Granted, most of my job is not that. Most of my job is the same as any first responder: handling people who cannot handle their own shit. It’s glorified babysitting with needles. It’s exhausting.

One of my favorite memories (that never fails to make me tear up) was maybe a year and a half ago. We got called to an auto parts store for difficulty breathing. When I got there, there was an employee outside having a full-blown panic attack, with all the people already on scene crowding him and making it worse. When I got to him, I tried to figure out what was going on, but at that point he was completely nonverbal. So I leaned in and asked him if he was nonverbal because of a panic attack. He nodded. I said I wanted to give him something to break it. Not to knock him out, just a little bump of ativan to help break the attack. He nodded and I gave him the shot and got him into the ambulance. The ativan took about 5 mins to take effect but once it did, the attack broke, and he was able to talk to me. 

He told me he was a firefighter in Albuquerque. (For those who don’t know, Albuquerque is one of the few places in the country where people shoot at the fire trucks, not just the ambulances and police cars. It’s a rough place to be a first responder and honestly you could not pay me enough, and they probably wouldn’t try to pay me enough anyway.) I asked him if he had PTSD, and he did, from, ya know, the being shot at and stuff. And just the usual first responder stuff that I won’t go into here. He said he didn’t know what set him off, but that he was really embarrassed and sorry it happened. I passed him off to the nurse at the hospital and made very fucking sure she understood what he was going through. He shook my hand and told me he thought I was his angel that day, because I made him feel safe and cared for. Then I went to the ambulance and bawled like a kid. 

If you’re looking to go into EMS as a career, prepare for it to not fulfill you. I’m serious. Find something else that makes you happy, too. I was depressed for *checks watch* oh, say about four years because my made my life EMS. I worked hospital transfers. I went to school. I volunteered 911 in Commerce City, the glorified slum just north of Denver. I went to medic school. I picked up overtime. I joined their Spec Ops and Rescue Team. The only people I saw were my partner, and my coworkers. 

It’s no life. It’s a job. Yes, there are parts of it that are unlike anything else, so much so that I have no idea what I’m going to do when my body gives out and I can’t be on the street anymore. There’s nothing in the world like it. But those moments only happen maybe a few times a month, and I’m in one hell of a dry spell. 

In between those moments are the drunk assholes who are out of jail after their fifth assault on a woman, who want a ride to the hospital so they don’t have to wipe their own ass. There are the people who literally just don’t feel like making an appointment with their doctor for the sniffles. There are the old ladies who fell and just need a hand up. There are the parents who call because their kid fell off the couch and landed on their feet, but they just need the kid “checked out” because they’re a first time parent and don’t know any better. There are the accidents where people fake neck pain for an insurance payout. There are the people who are lonely because their spouse of 60 years just died and they’d rather go to the hospital with you than spend one more night in an empty bed. There are dead people who shouldn’t have died, of every age. There are people who call you for help, but try to punch you in the face for not giving them dilaudid. There are months where no matter what you do, your patients just keep dying and you have to wonder if you’ll ever get better at telling people their loved ones are gone. Then there are the people who call right after that to bitch about their sore toe that’s been hurting for a week.

(Yes, I’ve had every single one of these calls. Most of them way more than once.)

Find something else that fuels you. Otherwise you’ll depend on that validation from your job. And when it doesn’t come, you’ll resent it. You’ll burn out. 

But in the actual job, learn as much as you can. Be curious. Look up medications. Ask people about their scars. If something doesn’t feel right, investigate, or else you’ll have one pissed-off nurse asking you why the hell you didn’t think to ask why the patient woke up with narcan when you swear they haven’t done drugs. Be humble. 

Remember, it’s not your emergency. 

Don’t be scared of it. It’s a job. I can tell you with confidence that I was a shit EMT with shit training in a shit system when I first started out. I became a pretty decent medic. Find people who are successful and compassionate, and study them. Take the pearls of wisdom that suit you. Forget the rest. Learn your protocols. 

Don’t fucking trust your leadership until you’ve watched them take a risk for you. EMS leadership is notoriously, hilariously ineffective and they will stab you in the back with a smile on their face while you’re getting paid $13/hr. 

Thank you so much for asking this. I’m feeling good about my job for the first time in literal years and I’m grateful to have the opportunity to share it. And bless you for not asking me what the worst thing I’ve ever seen is. It makes me want to throttle someone.

moving your mouth to pull out all your miracles

April 2021 - Gamzee Makara

You don’t like the way your thoughts proceed on halo, helldog, or haloperidol, or whatever Karbro calls it. After you take it, the world feels blunt, impersonal, and grayscale, like you’re a motherfucking puppet with a head full of straw. Your brother used to love a poem about that, about some guys with straw heads, but mostly about the world ending.

Kurloz liked a lot of motherfucking things before he did nine months in Rikers for cocaine distribution. Originally it was only supposed to be six months, but he got into a fight and got three months added on. When he got out, he was thoughtful and quiet, even a word of acknowledgment seemingly beyond him. You’ll be damned if that ever happens to you, if you let the system hollow you out until you can’t express the simplest serendipity.

Right now you’re sketching your friends, quick sketches with the charcoal set Dr. Levin brought you. One of Karkat having a rare smile for June, one of Sollux and Roxy talking about programming, one of Dr. V addressing the group about healthy coping mechanisms, and one of Porrim braiding Calliope’s hair. You always feel more like yourself when you’re sketching or painting. Fewer thoughts in your head to get jangle-tangled together and create nonsense. You can keep your miracles straight this way.

You’re cool. You’re easy. You’re loose. No snapped strings, heads full of straw, or blasphemies here, no motherfucking way. The ativan caravan marches through your head, sings your sharp edges to sleep. Nurse Dolores knows what’s up, she only makes you take the medications you want to take. Your cognition flies free, like birds in a breeze, a calm going on between your ears.

Roxy turns and grins at you, her face pale as the moon against her dark hoodie and darker lipstick. She has a smile all her own, a knowing smile like the two of you are in on the greatest secret in the world. You wish you knew precisely what that was about, but everyone has their own internal workings. You can’t know and fix everything about everyone all the time. That’s what you were trying to explain to Sollux last night.

He’s a good guy, but he takes too much on. Same for Karkat. They take on everyone’s issues and make them their own. Only the mirthful messiahs should be able to do so much; humans like trying that hard is a minor sacrilege. If the pair of them would just stick to themselves, maybe they wouldn’t be so sick. You’ll fold more flowers for them - paper flowers that banish repetitive, ruminating thoughts.

You like Roxy a lot, though. She dances through each emotion in its totality, riding the waves of her feelings without fear. Okay, maybe not fearlessly, but with more abandon than you would expect. When she looks at you, you feel warmth all the way to your core, the way you are when you’re about to fall asleep all curled up in your sheets.

Speaking of sleep, Dr. V says that if you keep sleeping through the night, and keep what he calls “disruptive outbursts” about the Dark Carnival to a minimum, maybe you’ll get discharged in a couple of weeks. You’re not exactly in any rush to go home. Home means having to fend for yourself, and fewer friends to keep you in good spirits. Besides, Kurloz is home, and for all that he may be your brother, he gives off bad motherfucking vibes. You wish he’d be easy, like old times, but those days are a long way off.

You remember when you used to be able to relax at home. Relax, smoke a joint, sell an eighth or two, and have dinner without having to fend off your brother’s brooding.

Karkat takes the seat next to you, and you clap him on the back. Physical contact may be discouraged here, but there’re no narcs around to encourage law and order at the moment. You think a support team got dispatched to address Feferi wandering around with no clothes on again.

“What’s up?” Karkat asks.

He nevertheless looks preoccupied and far away. That’s unfortunate.

You take another folded flower out of your pocket and hand it to him.

“There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray, love, remember; and there is pansies, that’s for thoughts,” you recall from a play you had to read in AP English a couple years ago. You can’t exactly remember what the play’s about, but stray lines here and there stick out to you like a sore thumb. Except neither of your actual thumbs are sore.

“That’s from Hamlet, isn’t it?” Karkat asks, shaking his head at you. “What’re you, the bard of 3 East?”

Now you’re not certain about that, but you’ll take it.

“Someone’s gotta be, ain’t they? I got more poetry if you want it.”

Karkat sighs. “Yeah, lay it on me, Makara. Dr. Vandayar told me I’m not getting discharged next week so I’m not feeling great at the moment.”

Poor Karbro looks like he’s full of thunderstorms. Maybe a calm vista will quiet him down. You pull a few lines of poetry free from your memory.

“I shall wear white flannel trousers and walk upon the beach... I have heard the mermaids singing each to each... I do not think that they will sing to me.”

“Go on,” Karkat says, looking all at once pensive and a little sad.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves... Combing the white hair of the waves blown back... When the wind blows the water white and black,” you recite. Now, Roxy, Calliope, and Porrim have stopped to listen to you. You go on, establishing a proper rhythm.

“We have lingered in the chambers of the sea... by sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown... ‘till human voices wake us, and we drown.” When no one says anything, you interject, “That’s the end of the fuckin’ poem, y’all.”

“It’s beautiful,” Porrim whispers. “Did you write that?”

You shake your head in the negative. “Naw, that’s some other motherfucker’s ideas outta my mouth. I wrote a couple of my own lines last night if you wanna hear ‘em, though.”

“Sure,” Calliope says, smiling and clapping her hands once.

“My muse distills my melancholy, pins it to the corkboard with a tack. She presses down upon the pigments, bleeds my blues into the boldest black.”

Even Karkat looks surprised. He narrows his eyes at you.

“If you don’t go study art or literature, or something along that line, I’ll fucking kill you.”

“Ain’t no need to resort to murder, brother,” you reply. “And while I’d like to go sit in a motherfucking college somewhere, I ain’t got shit for tuition.”

“If I have to take up a goddamn collection, I am sending your ass to college. Tout-suite.”

You guess now is not the time to inform him that you straight up flunked outta college after you kept forgetting to go to class. You sat in the grass memorizing poetry and sketching the first dandelions of March, which got in the way of your learning anything or taking your exams, or any of the shit college students are supposed to do. You didn’t mean to forget, but you’ve never been great at any routine shit.

And you’ve always had a knack for going where your thoughts take you. When you were a kid, you would leave the house and walk up and down the streets of Harlem unattended. Your grandmother used to read you the riot act for doing something so reckless and nonsensical. Later, during your hospitalizations, you learned that the way your thoughts stuttered and tangled was called schizophrenia, and doctors medicated you accordingly. They called your prophecies delusion, and you beg(ged) to differ.

The medications ground your thought process to a stuttering halt. You hated it. You hated being cut off from yourself. So you stopped taking your meds. And here you are again, with your strange thoughts and remembrances.

“Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio,” Karkat murmurs.

You grin at him. He understands more than he lets on.

June winks at you, and then walks away to the women’s side of the unit, presumably to call her father. She calls him every day at 8 am and 3 pm, like clockwork. Karkat gazes at her as she walks away, the back of her short dress fluttering behind her.

“June looks nice today,” you say to him.

 He stops staring and glances at you for a moment.

“Yeah, um, she looks nice every day,” he replies. “Not that I make it my business to notice.”

You point to the delicate paper flower he has in his hand. “Sometimes the most miraculous thing you can fuckin’ do is give another person a taste of serendipity.”

Roxy smiles her cheshire cat smile from her seat by the television.

“That’s right, Crabby. Dontcha think June deserves her very own miracle?”

Karkat reddens, looks at the flower in his hand, and takes off for the women’s side.

“Hey, Egbert!” he shouts. “I have something for you.”

By the time you see June again, she’s wearing the small red flower in her hair. Roxy gives you a satisfied little nod, then asks you if you’d like her to put your hair in braids.

“I’m not as good as Pomary with hair, but I’m alright, I guess. Your hair looks like some birds took up residence in it, dude.”

“Why, thank you,” you reply. You take a seat at her feet, after she grabs her comb, brush, hair grease, and spray bottle out of sharps.

She’s right. She’s not a thing like Pomary when it comes to braiding. You’re used to the gentle motions of Porrim’s hands as she manipulates flowers into your hair, but Roxy tugs great fistfuls of your hair into twists. It feels nice, like she’s tethering you to the present, to the here and now.

You tell her that, thank her for bringing you back, and she blushes crimson.

“Aw, I’m not tryna do all of that,” she responds. “Just tryna work through my anxiety. Dolores gave me an ativan an hour ago, and I don’t feel it yet.”

Roxy bends low, and plants a kiss on your forehead, right where your skin meets your greasepaint. Her lips are the softest thing you’ve ever felt.

She keeps braiding, manipulating your hair into cornrows. With Roxy near you, you don’t necessarily have to be a prophet or an apostate of the mirthful messiahs. You don’t have to deliver special messages to special people. You can just be Gamzee Motherfucking Makara, doing you as per usual.

to tell your therapist:

you thought you were Too Spacey To Eat and built a strategy around that,

whereupon you learned that the underlying food problem here is that “you are So Anxious About Eating that you built up some sort of aggressive disassociation system that kept you from experiencing anxiety and also from eating. also, you could blame the disassociation for just a shit-ton of problems that are also caused by terrible garbage nutrition.”

good trick you played on yourself, buddy.

so! slightly different order of operations now that we know the problem is less “forgets to eat, generally spaced out” and more “trying to eat gives you panic attacks now” with a side order of “humans require calories to live, actually”

not entirely sure what the new strategy is, here! probably we should test tomorrow whether, if we try taking an Ativan pre-food, we can eat a thing without getting so agitated that we puke.

-sidebar “trying just so fucking hard to take in nutrients and then puking up everything you heroically managed to eat” just sucks so much

-they probably won’t and also shouldn’t give you enough Ativan to just take one every day at meals, so that’s not a for real solution, but it might be a stopgap that gets enough food in your body that your organs work again.

also, wow, I bet also having gastroparesis is going to be so good and helpful here.

not entirely sure how we got here, because last time I checked we were at “intermittent moderate food anxiety that can be acknowledged and pushed through” and it feels like we jumped to “living full-time in a mind palace designed to keep us from eating” like really, really fast.

aren’t there usually middle gears on this thing?

also it feels like so much of myself is on the other side of a wall and I can see it there, but can’t get to it, which is a bummer.

Life Update since I hadn't been on here in forever

The pandemic was/is wild! Lockdowns started literally around the time we were going to the fertility specialist to get her pregnant. I lost my job to COVID in March shortly before we did the procedure, but we decided there's never really a good time to have a kid. Why not during a global pandemic when one of us in unemployed? (BTW, I don't recommend having a kid during a pandemic. Not being able to go to all of the appointments and having to sit in the parking lot was brutal.)

Let's talk about May friends...it was rough. (TW for mention of suicide btw. I'll post a gif where it's safe to start again if you wanna skip over it.)

So May 1st is the anniversary of my father's suicide. It had been 4 years. I found his body and since he wasn't married, I had to handle his affairs and arrange his funeral. May 1st, 2020 my wife and I had a Zoom game night with our friends and I got drunk because everyone was drinking (except my wife because she was pregnant). After our game night at like 2am, I had a psychotic break. I threatened to kill myself numerous times. My wife tried to talk me down, but eventually called the cops to take me. I thank her for that because looking back, that was the moment I knew something needed to change. I was convinced the cops were gonna kill me because I'm a trans dude in rural West Texas. I legit took the phone out of my wife's hand, hung up on 911, and yeeted her phone across the backyard and tried to hop the fence. Eventually the cops came and talked me down. They took me to the hospital an hour away in handcuffs (for their protection I did nothing wrong). They took me to the religious hospital that I was born in. So when they looked up my info by my name and date of birth from my driver's license (I only changed my middle name) literally all my paperwork and my bracelet had my deadname and wrong gender despite all of my legal stuff saying male with my new middle name. I mentioned it to them and they didn't care. They misgendered me the entire time I was there. I had hit my head hella hard on the bath tub when my wife was trying to snap me out of it, did the hospital even check me for concussion? Nope. I had punched so many things and my hand and wrist were swollen and discolored. Did they check out my hand and wrist? Nope. I was there for over 10 hours before I was able to convince them I was okay and that it was just the alcohol. Did I mention during that 10 hours I was literally out in the hall on a gurney with no mask and this was when COVID was running rampant in Texas (the first time)? I heard people die that night. I had nothing to distract me because they took away all of my personal items and clothes. My wife picked me up and we went home and I have been sober ever since. It's not the first psychotic break I've had with alcohol in my system. Alcohol just doesn't agree with me, but I'm finding new things to replace it with.

TW has been lifted...it's safe now.

A couple of weeks after that I began teletherapy because I had been on the same mood stabilizer and anti-depressant for almost a decade. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense that I felt like it hadn't been working for at least a year. This is a reminder to check in with your doctor if you feel like your meds aren't working. You may just need a different dose or a new med. There's no shame in that. I bounced around on various medications trying to find the right combo, some side effects scarier than others, but we got there. Before this, I had been diagnosed with ADHD, Major Depressive Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. My therapist threw out my Borderline diagnosis and said it was CPTSD instead, which made sense.

Fast forward to December because my wife was pregnant, I was unemployed still, and we did absolutely fuck-all because the global panini was still raging.

Our son was born on December 3, 2020. He weighed 5lbs 9oz and scared the ever loving shit out of us. He wasn't breathing when he was born so they called NICU in ASAP. I'm freaking out because I can hear and see what's going on while my wife was asking if he was okay as they put her guts back in place to sew her up. 5 or so minutes pass and a nurse asks if I want her to take some pictures. I'm like is he okay, he still hasn't cried. She's like "oh yeah, he's chillin." This goon was being held by a nurse and was just looking around not crying or anything. Chillest baby ever (he still is btw). I held him next to my wife's head until it was time to go back to the room. Little dude did have to spend 4 nights in the NICU because he couldn't keep his sugars or temperature regulated, but he was healthy otherwise. He's now 4 months old and is starting to sit up on his own a little bit and he's OBSESSED with standing. He's still a little guy, but very healthy and growing like a weed. He saves my life daily.

So after being unemployed for over 9 months, I started a new job working in a call center. I absolutely hate talking on the phone. It gives me anxiety and throws me into panic attacks, but I had been putting out hundreds of job applications since I lost my last job and this was the first offer I got. I wasn't really in a position to turn it down since my unemployment had ran out 2 months prior. It was 2 months of training, then we'd be on our own. I got thru the training and thought I could handle it...until they started putting us on live calls with someone helping us if we got stuck. My mental health hit the lowest point it had in a few years and my wife was terrified she was going to lose me. She convinced me to quit on February 28th (not because I didn't want to, but because I'm a stubborn ass who felt guilty). My meds got tweaked a little bit more dosage wise during this mess.

Starting about mid-February, I was experiencing severe shakiness, tremors, and spasms. I've always been a shaky person and never really thought too much about it, but at some points I could barely feed myself, or get a drink, or hold my son. On March 7th, I tried to make an appointment with my doctor about the weird symptoms I was experiencing, but she was out of town and her next opening wasn't until the 31st. My body said that won't work and my wife rushed me to the ER on the 9th...I had begun having seizures that day. I had no previous history of seizures. Got to the ER and had a seizure literally as I was walking thru the door, so they rushed me straight back. They took some blood and that was literally it. No MRI. No CT. They pumped me full of Ativan and said it was just a panic attack and to go home and chill.

Spoiler Alert: It wasn't just anxiety. I was having 20+ seizures a day. On the 10th, my wife rushed me to a different hospital...the good hospital over an hour away. First we had to drop off our gremlin with my mom to make things a little easier. Yet again, I had a seizure as I walked in the door and was taken back immediately. I don't really remember much because they kept pumping me full of Ativan and morphine because I had been in excruciating pain from the number of seizures I'd had. I do remember them doing a CT pretty quickly after I got there. Then they weren't happy with the results of the CT, so they took me to get an MRI, which showed possible signs of Multiple Sclerosis (but I didn't find that out until AFTER the notes showed up in my patient portal after being home a few days, so I raised hell...more on that later.) They did a 24 hour EEG on me and it showed nothing abnormal. Also, EEG glue is a bitch on your hair and scalp. After looking at everything and given my previous mental health history, they diagnosed me with Psychogenic Non-Epileptic Seizures, or PNES. It is a subset of Functional Neurologic Disorder, or FND. I couldn't walk well anymore and had to use a walker when I was discharged. I was in the hospital for 3 days.

When I had my follow-up appointment on the 23rd, I asked why the possibility of MS was never mentioned to me since it was very clearly in the notes. The doctor didn't have an explanation. He called in a referral to neurology so I could get a 2nd MRI to confirm MS and marked it as high priority. He also didn't take my pain seriously. My pain levels had been at a 5 or higher every single minute since they took me off of the morphine in the hospital. He told me to keep taking prescription strength doses of ibuprofen and Tylenol, which I had been. I let him know I had been and it didn't even take the edge off the pain. He ignored me. Leading up to this appointment, I had also added urinary incontinence to my growing list of symptoms and was forced to wear diapers so I didn't have to do laundry all the time. The doctor also took me off my ADHD meds because they were lowering my seizure threshold. He also took me off of my sleeping meds and nightmare meds for the same reason I'm assuming.

I kept my appointment on the 31st with my primary doctor because she's been my doctor for 5 years now and I knew she'd take my pain seriously. She did. She immediately wrote me prescriptions for a muscle relaxer and Tylenol 4. She also told me that my referral had been rejected by neuro. She said my case wasn't a good one for what she called a "wallet biopsy" and the doctors in neurology could be real assholes. She immediately sent the referral to other locations to get an approval. I am still waiting on that despite it being marked as high priority. She wrote me a prescription for a wheelchair because we both agreed my wheelchair was not enough for particular days.

Yesterday my wheelchair was finally ready for pickup, so my wife drove me to go get it. I'm still unable to drive due to my seizures and my tremors and twitches as it's predominantly in my legs and arms. I am an ambulatory wheelchair user now. Some days I can go short distances without my walker, some days I can't go without my walker, some days I can't even get out of bed, and some days I will be using my wheelchair. Don't judge a book by its cover, not all disabilities are visible. I have managed to keep my daily seizure count down in single digits and have even had a few seizure free days. They are still incredibly taxing on my body. I feel like I can't ever replenish my spoons fast enough to keep up with anything in my life.

So all in all, life has been chaotic. We are moving from Texas to New Mexico in the next few weeks, which should be interesting considering I can't overdo it without throwing myself into seizures. We will be closer to my mother-in-law so she can help us with our son and I can start resting a bit more on the more difficult days. Being a stay-at-home dad with an invisible illness has been one of the most challenging things I've done in my life, but I wouldn't change it for the world.

Sorry this is so long. I just wanted to update my followers since it's been over a year since I posted before a few days ago.

Accident | 4 mg Ativan

Nosdecember day 9 | @neworleansspecial

Anxious!ava; Ava oversteps by accident and Connor’s reaction causes problems

CW: fighting, panic attacks, cognitive distortions

Repost because I’m a clown who accidentally deleted the original post

***

"Ava," Connor was mad, Ava could hear it in his voice even before she saw his face. She was just trying to make coffee, back turned to the door as she fought with the machine that wouldn’t cooperate. The way the door closed less than gently and the footsteps coming up behind her made her stomach drop a little. She hated that tone, hated the way her name sounded when someone said it with hostility. It made her want to run, but this was real life and she couldn’t do that.

"Connor," Ava tried to keep her tone level, pretending her voice wasn’t trembling a little as she turned to look at him.

He was mad, tablet in hand as he glared daggers at her. Ava hated that look, when his ego was clearly seeping through and one little thing that didn’t go his way made him act like this. He was about to throw a tantrum, she was sure, and usually that would make her more annoyed than anything. However, the way he had her borderline backed up against the counter made her feel more intimidated than she liked.

"Why was my surgery postponed and my patient allowed to break her fast?"

Ava raised an eyebrow, "Latham asked me to cover your pre-ops since you didn’t bother to show up for rounds this morning."

"That doesn’t answer my question, Ava."

"I’m not here for you to demand things of me, Connor," she retorted as she forced herself to stand her ground, "She’s diabetic."

"So?"

"So her white count and blood sugar were low," Ava rolled her eyes, "A bloody med student would be able to tell me why we had to postpone her surgery."

"We didn’t do anything! You ruined my operating schedule."

"She would have gone into hypoglycaemic shock, Connor. She definitely wouldn’t have made it off that operating table and if she did her risk of post-op infection was too high!"

"That’s not the point, Ava!" He spat and the anger in his voice made her jump a little. He was overreacting, she knew that, but this was getting to be too much. She had been overwhelmed all morning, after sleeping through her alarm and having to rush through her routine to get to work on time. This was proving to be yet another change in her schedule that was only stressing Ava out more.

"Then what’s the fucking problem, Connor?"

“You are,” he was clearly referencing more than just her meddling with one surgery, even if she had good reason. He was mad at her, for whatever reason, and was using this as an excuse to lash out at her. Ava just stared at him, both because she was waiting for him to elaborate and because she did not know how to respond. Usually an argument with Connor was no big deal, since they argued on the daily, but since she was already overwhelmed this was way too much already. She wanted to run, to leave and go find Sarah because she would be able to keep her calm, but she couldn’t. Ava never backed down from a fight, especially not when Connor and her job were concerned, and she definitely was not going to let him win now.

“All you ever do is get in the way,” Connor spat, “I have a system and this was an important surgery, now you’ve gone and messed it up. You meddle too much, Ava, and it’s getting ridiculous.”

“Excuse me?” her tone was incredulous because, really, he was making no sense, “Since when do you have a system? You’re the most erratic and trigger-happy surgeon I have had the displeasure of meeting.”

He didn’t validate that with a response, choosing instead to glare at her more, which only made Ava more upset. Him and his goddamn “holier-than-thou” attitude would drive her crazy one day. He was being entirely unfair too, since she had, in this case, done just was what required for the patient’s safety.

“Why are you on my ass about this all of a sudden? Last time I checked you were the one on Latham’s bad side today because you didn’t show for your pre-ops. Besides, I was thinking about the patient here.”

“Were you, Ava?”

The accusatory tone did not sit right with the other surgeon at all, “What are you insinuating now?”

“Were you thinking about the patient?” his question must have been rhetorical because he didn't let her answer, “Or where you just trying to get me back in the doghouse with Latham?”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“Connor, what the hell? Why would you even accuse me of that?”

He just scoffed, as if her shock was ridiculous to him, “I wouldn’t put anything past you, Ava.”

Ava stared at him in confusion, honestly hurt that he thought that lowly of her. They may have their differences but they have worked together long enough to know when the other was joking or just being difficult. Connor was serious now and it was so frustrating, he knew Ava would not put a patient in danger like that just to mess with his surgery.

“Just stay out of my way, Ava,” he turned to leave and only looked back at her dismissively, “Don’t mess with my surgeries.”

When the door to the CT lounge slammed shut again, Ava found herself shakily letting out a breath she didn't know she had been holding. She set her coffee cup on the counter again, realizing her knuckles had turned white from how tightly she was gripping the mug. Her head was reeling, trying to take in everything that had just happened. Connor’s accusations were ringing in her head, making her question where the hell this thought that she would sabotage him like that for no reason even came from.

Before she was even completely aware, Ava found herself sliding down the cabinet and landing less than gently on the floor. The ugly hospital linoleum was cold through the thighs of her scrubs, making her shiver both out of anxiety and the temperature drop. Her mind was racing, all of Connor’s words hitting her way too hard all of a sudden. She could usually brush off his comments with an eye roll and a reminder that he was just being egotistical, but this time they stung.

Maybe it was because she was already overwhelmed, the morning had been too stimulating and too many things were out of place. Whatever the reason, Ava’s anxiety decided to hit full force the second she was alone. She couldn’t breathe, it was all too much and guilt was hurting her like a rolling wave.

Why was she even guilty? There was no reason for her to feel this way, because she had absolutely done the right thing. She even clarified with Latham afterwards and he agreed that he would have done the same. Ava did what was in the patient’s best interest, Connor’s accusation was completely misplaced and ridiculous.

So why was this hurting her so much?

It was his anger, the way he yelled at her and had her cornered like that. Connor wouldn’t hurt her physically, she knew that for certain, but it still scared her. Her anxiety was never rational but when it came to conflict it was inconsolable. She could only hold on to her façade for so long before she broke, which is what this was. She didn’t mean to upset him, didn’t mean to make him angry. It was all an accident; she didn’t mean to.

“S-stupid Connor,” she muttered, “S-stu...stupid God co-complex.”

Her breath was coming out in ragged gasps by this point, short nails digging into her arms to ground herself. Mind racing, she tried so hard to focus on something, anything, but she couldn’t. His words were ringing in her head like a shrill shriek, not letting her ignore them. They began morphing too, into other distortions her brain insisted were real.

All you ever do is get in the way.

You meddle too much, Ava.

You’re the problem.

You.

You’re not worth it.

You’re selfish.

You did this.

Fraud.

Nuisance.

Disappointment.

Her hands clapped over her ears like she could block out the intrusive thoughts from the outside. She was shaking like a leaf, panic overtaking her completely. Stomach rolling, Ava felt like she was going to be sick with how overwhelmed she was. The fluorescent lighting made her feel way too hot and brought tears to her eyes along with the panic. Her head was reeling, too much going on and no Sarah or Ativan or any of her comfort objects to calm her down.

All of her coping mechanisms went out the window in that moment, slumped over knees and breathing rapidly. Her hands were over her ears or on her neck, nails digging in deep because it was the only way she could ground herself. Pain stims aren’t healthy, she knew that, but in that moment all she knew was she felt like she was suffocating. She deserved this, her brain insisted, the pain was the least she deserved in that moment.

All you ever do is get in the way, Ava.

Manipulation

A plain wall, slathered with a semi-gloss of mediocrity, bore the brunt of my crystal stare, not even the sound of a door opening nearby bringing my attention around. Controlling substances, uppers occasionally, downers mostly, made me slow in mind and body, my eyes practically creaking in my skull as I finally turned my gaze in the direction of my new company.

It was a woman, the white of her lab coat making my eyes ache and I blinked slowly, my dry, parched lips pulling back from my teeth with an exhale of greeting. No words found their way out of my mouth and lips slowly slid back into place, producing a somber line of red. Just the effort of holding my gaze up was trying and I dropped it quickly, my chin meeting my chest in a welcomed embrace of support.

The woman, another doctor probably sent to make me all spic and span, stopped before me, greeting me in an informal way, a finger twitching at my thigh in response.

“Joker?” She leaned in, ignorant as all hell, bringing her face too close to my own. I could feel my muscles, relaxed and pliable, just begging and wanting to spring into action, but the chemicals in my system kept them at bay, even my own head too fucking heavy to look up into the cunt’s face as I put on my best show and invited her to take up residence around my pinkie.

“Please…” I never said the word and meant it, only in show, a ruse, a way to play her emotions. 

She came closer, a smile wanting to spread across my face, but the muscles remained useless behind my skin. Instead, I worked up a sound, something pitiful, something unsettling, and she responded beautifully. I felt hands at my neck and then on each side of my face as she lifted my head upright, my eyes lazily working their way up to meet hers. She was swearing, producing a penlight and shining it into my pupils, the next sound I made a genuine one as the light sent bursts of pain through my foggy skull.

“Too much. Much too much.” She was mumbling under her breath, letting my head fall back down onto my chest. There it remained, the doctor saying very little else as she stormed from the room, leaving me to myself, my eyes rolling up as the corner of my mouth twitched.

~~~

Days passed, each delivered cup of sedatives getting smaller and less effective, my head remaining at a cramped and purposeful angle, my chin digging into my chest. I could feel control and strength returning to my previously useless body, but I remained as if I were the poster boy of what not to do with a handful of Xanax and Ativan swallowed down with an entire bottle of tequila.

The doctor visited frequently, her face always pinched in concern, her fingers touching me with purpose other than to examine. A newly manicured nail tucked a runaway strand of hair back into place, and I couldn’t stop the purr from rising in my chest, her ears perking.

“Joker,” That informal name making me grit my teeth. “You purr like one of my cats.”

I made the sound again, feeling her nails drag into my scalp as they expanded to the crown of my skull.

“I’ll take care of you. I promise.” I nodded, the purr deepening to a borderline growl, and a perfume took over my attention as she shifted closer, the starch that kept her lab coat pristine and smooth unable to hide the scent of her expensive bottled desperation to impress me.

I said her first name, her real name, the one she’d whispered at my ear recently, the sound coming out hoarse and croaked. It was her simple undoing, legs shifting, fabric rustling as she perched herself upon my lap, the heat from her eager body sinking into my thighs. I wanted to move right then and there, but I remained still, coiled and ready, my eyes watching as her deep red, pointed nails met at my chest, pressing into the thick fabric of my straitjacket, the slight tremor there undeniable. They traveled around, seeking out buckles, straps sliding from clasps, more and more eagerness going into her efforts as the jacket loosened and my tattooed skin was revealed underneath, the issued scrub top too large and bulky on my frame.

“Joker.” She moaned as the metal and stiff cotton hit the floor with a muffled sound, no guards nearby to hear it, her visit unplanned and extremely late.

It was perfect.

I slowly unfurled like a budding flower, although wilted and starving for sustenance, her eyes watching me with unmasked giddiness and stupidity.

She thought I was still too drugged to act. She thought she had the upper hand, her legs shifting and bringing her astride me completely. She thought the roll of her hips into my suddenly revived and rigid cock would go unnoticed.

She was wrong.

I lunged, arms coming to lift, renewed strength coursing in my veins and muscles, allowing my fingers to grasp her, hauling her face close to mine.

“Doctor.” I let the word drag out, the two syllables like nails in her coffin, and her eyes widened as she felt the strength and power pressed against her. I could see her struggling, indecision in her eyes, and her body began to tense as her gut instinct kicked in and adrenaline began to pump through her system.

I kissed her, halting her conflict, the heat of her mouth flooding mine, and her body turned to putty, her hips picking up a rhythm that brought a growl from deep in my chest. She heard the sound, the first one to break the contact, and I prepared to act, not going to let her escape for a second. A smile spread across my face as she reached for my lap, easily flipping my heavy cock from inside my pants, gasping as her shaking hand gripped it, eyes taking in the details.

I brought my hand to the small of her back, coaxing her, fingers grabbing the elastic band and bunching it so that the fabric at her thighs moved, lifting to reveal more of her skin. Straps and lace were now known to my gaze, a transparent and slick panel of sheer black giving me knowledge that she wanted me and was ready.

A thumb swiped up the front, a quick pass, making her flinch, and the digit hooked around the only thing keeping us apart, a rush of her scent invading my senses and distracting me momentarily.

She acted first, her hand tightening around my shaft as she arched up and over me, my tip grazing at the wet and puffy folds of her, her hand angling and controlling.

We both gasped as she sat back, taking me deep, her pussy eager and pliable to my invasion, not stopping until she sat completely upon me, a pulse from within her making my own escalate.

“Fuck!” The word was loud, followed by the creak of the small cot beneath us as she began to ride me, my hands sliding up to hold any part of her that I could, my own adrenaline increasing until I almost felt light headed.

This was going to be quick and dirty and she was close, so close, her pussy throbbing and tightening around me. My hands shifted higher, one gathering hair, the other her throat, and they tightened, the doctor too distracted by her own pleasure to notice.

I struck, lashing out, feeling her cum, my teeth seeking into her throat, and her scream of pleasure turned to one of pain and fear. A splash of blood geysered out from the wound I had produced at her throat, her hands leaving their anchored place to grasp desperately at what I’d done.

She yelped as I flung her over onto the thin mattress, covering her with my body, my teeth unrelenting as they sank into more flesh, my hands joining in and choking the waning life from her.

I was no longer inside her, but wave after wave of pleasure rolled off of me as she bled and struggled beneath me, my release impending as she clawed and scratched at my wrists and forearms, each go at me getting weaker and weaker.

I came, growling over her like a feral animal above its kill, and my shoulders hunched and tensed, my head dipping down to lazily lick at her stained and quickly cooling skin, a red, bloody hand stroking until I’d had enough and pulled away, collapsing against the nearby wall.

The doctor was dead and I was sated, a laugh building in my chest, working its way out until the small cell was full of its rich and unaltered sound. It was the sound of fear and power, those close enough to hear it shivering in response.

“I’m back.”

S1E8 - Fromage

Oh no it’s THIS episode

Again, appropriately titled. Cheese, pure and simple

Can we take a moment to appreciate Will Graham, neurodivergent icon, who starts this episode drunk on his bedroom floor, taking apart a boat motor, surrounded by his half-dozen rescued dogs? If you’re not in love with him after this, you’re wrong.

Oh Franklin. 

Imagine being Lecter’s patient and realizing you have a lifelong psychopath fetish and that all the men you’re attracted to don’t just enjoy killing people, but they do it in spectacularly extra ways. Oh, this poor idiot man

This whole..... dead man instrument thing is TOO MUCH

Will. Stop, DONT. do NOT play the dead man. He’s gonna do it, he’s picking up the bow. WILL NO

That is NOT how string instruments work this is NOT happening 

this show needs to drink some chamomile and go the fuck to SLEEP

Tobias really gives absolutely zero fucks and I for one support him

Hannibal plays the theremin and harpsichord. Wow. Okay.

Will, you need some Ativan. Put the sledgehammer down and step away from the chimney... oh no.

And here comes some compulsory heterosexuality 👍 I like Alana... I really do. I do not like THIS. At least it was brief, at least she was smart enough to be like “listen......... um no”

Cut to Tobias and Hannibal having an awkward murderer date. I guess romance is not in the air.

Tobias really gives ZERO FUCKS WHATSOEVER. He’s like Ima kill everybody in this state just to be dramatic I don’t even care

Will: I’m very heterosexual but I drove all the way to Hannibal’s house to work off my excess sexual tension. I don’t know why but I presume my intentions are very Straight and Not Gay.

Hannibal: why did u kiss her? I thought you and I were working our way up to a serious makeout session and I don’t appreciate- Will: in my defense I was hallucinating at the time Hannibal: (stops stirring) 

“Oh honey no.”

I still can’t figure out why Hannibal sent Will to Tobias. I guess to see if he was clever enough to not get killed????? Maybe to see if Will would murder him??? Kinda risky bro??? Especially since Will isn’t saved by his wits but by his gorram fever hallucinations. 

tbh this is pretty on-brand for TV series Hannibal, who just seems to like, do things for the fuck of it. don’t question him, he’s making tomatoes in a blood plasma suspension and power-clashing his wardrobe

WHY IS TOBIAS A NINJA. What part of learning the violin involves elaborate fight moves??? I mean, okay, but obviously I missed out as a cellist/viola player

I really enjoy watching Hannibal get beat up. Truly it is one of life’s great pleasures

Oh boy, when Will shows up, decidedly not dead, Hannibal’s crush visibly solidifies into True Love. 

look at this mess

sigh

(opens AO3, searches AU: Canon Divergence)

Body Count

Tobias: 1 set of violin strings (presumably many more offscreen), 1 repurposed trombone player, 2 police

Hannibal: 1 patient, 1 potential boyfriend

Stoned vampire one-liners:

“Like music, we are finite events, unique arrangements, sometimes harmonious, sometimes dissonant.”

“Are you still hearing this killer’s serenade behind your eyes?” "Well, It’s our song.”

# Fred Watches Hannibal

Survey #404

“death doesn’t answer when i cried for help”

The person you had the strongest feelings for dies, do you care? I'd be fucking devastated. It wouldn't feel real. Is there something you’re happy about at the moment? A few things. I'm still on that high of my APAP mask working, like I'm actually getting some fucking quality sleep, and I think I'm noticing the effects of my TMS therapy finally, too. My PTSD has most notably been much more bearable, and my interests are beginning to spread again. Do you want someone dead? No. Do you ever wonder what your ex is up to? I mean yeah, I think that's pretty normal, even for someone without my issues. Have you ever fed or taken care of a stray animal? Oh, many times. What is something you tend to worry about? My health and future. What is something you do that is unhealthy? Sit at the computer for way too long. I'm absolutely certain my vision is as poor as it is partially because of me endlessly staring at screens. What is something you do that is good for you? I'm not afraid to prioritize my mental health. What last caused you to force a smile? I was watching a Mark video for the first time in a while and was just reminded of how much I love and appreciate that moron. What was the last video game you played? Was it fun? Because you said "video" game, I guess I'll exclude computer ones, in which case I'm pretty sure it was Silent Hill 2. Given it's one of my all-time favorite games, of course I think it's fun. It's one hell of an emotional ride. What is something not many people know about you? The fact I was a dancer for many years would probably surprise people once they have a good idea of me and what I like. What word describes your basic style? Lazy, honestly. I dress for comfort, and given that's usually just pj pants and a tank top... yeah, I don't put much effort into my clothing when I'm going most places. Have you ever been told you were going to Hell? She kinda beat around the bush, but yes. Have you ever wanted to kill yourself? On more than one occasion. If yes, what convinced you not to go through with it? Well, I did OD once, but on the other occasions, it was the fear of the unknown that deterred me. Have you ever rejected a guy, only to have him push the issue by asking “why?” and insisting that you just need to get to know him better? Omg no, thank god. I would NOT handle that well. Is there something that you believe everyone should do and you can’t believe that some people don’t do it (e.g., recycle or go to the dentist regularly)? I didn't know 'til a survey question asked it that there are people who don't brush their tongue when brushing their teeth. Like holy shit dude, there are SO many germs on your tongue, clean that shit. Regarding the last good choice (healthy choice, kind choice, selfless choice, etc.) you made, what was your real motivation behind it? Ummmm the nearest that comes to mind is I guess taking my meds? I mean I do that every single day, but it's still a healthy choice for me. The motivation was because I am very serious about doing what I can for my mental wellbeing. What is something that you have had to practice at to get the hang of it? If you can’t think of anything, that’s okay, what’s something you are currently practicing at and trying to master? I really can't think of something for the first half of the question, but I can tell you that right now I'm attempting to force a routine of applying a therapy technique called "opposite action" into my daily life, where you, well, do the exact opposite of what your depression tells you to not do. It is WAY harder than it sounds, but I'm doing it with reading 30 minutes a day! Have you ever gone to the store to buy something, like a video game, when it came out at midnight? Not to my recollection, no. Regarding the last novel you read, was there a romance included? If so, was it central to the plot? The last novel I finished, yes. It wasn't central to the plot. Have you ever done relaxation meditations or listened to relaxation guides or positive-thinking/healing recordings? No, except in therapy when different therapists wanted me to experiment with it during a session. They just don't work for me. Do you have any interests that are also often shared by children? Yeah. Those are the one I'm especially self-conscious about. there something that could be a solitary activity but you really only like to do it with other people (e.g., watching movies, playing video games, etc.)? Watching movies or TV. Are you satisfied with the interior design or decoration in your home? Or do you think it needs a total home makeover? A makeover would be nice... Is there something that you’d like to own but you can’t find it anywhere? If not, can you a remember a time when you wanted something? Did you ever end up finding it or did you eventually stop wanting it? OKAY SO I actually have seen this custom-made once long after deciding I wanted it, but it was RIDICULOUSLY expensive. There's a location in the Silent Hill games called Heaven's Night, and I'd love love LOVE to commission someone to duplicate the neon pink sign of it to hang in my room. Hopefully one day I could still do it. Who makes you smile the most? Probably my cat, honestly. What piercings do you want/have? I've talked about the piercings I have, but I'll talk about those I want. My #1 is absolutely collarbone dermals, but as I've explained a billion times, I want to lose weight so the bones are more prominent for the sake of contrast; you can't really see my collarbones now, so I just think it'd look pretty dumb and random to just have random piercings somewhere around there with no dimension. I also want way more in my ears, dermals in my back dimples also once I've lost weight, my right nostril for the dozenth time (but this time I'll wear a hoop), and while I'd absolutely adore an undereye microdermal as well, it'd be pointless with glasses. :/ What's your favorite website? KM is my pride and joy and really feels like my online home, so despite using sites like YouTube more, that 'ole RP site has to be my fave. Do you own a fish tank with fish? No. I had fish bowls (AWFUL idea) as a kid, but never tanks Do you like the movie 300? Never seen it. Do you pop your knuckles? NOOOOOOOOOOO. I absolutely hate the sound. It makes me cringe and shiver. Do you have Photoshop? Yes. It comes in the Adobe CC photography bundle I have. Do you use tinypic or photobucket? I used Photobucket back in the day. Now I just upload to imgur. What’s your favourite song from the 1980s? You're talking to someone who adores classic rock/metal, haha. How about the 1990s? There are way too many songs to choose from. Have you won anything recently? No. How often do you make Excel tables? What for? Never. What was the last baby animal you saw in the wild? There was a poor fawn as roadkill on the highway recently. :/ Are you always available or online? Preeeetty much. Do you have dietary restrictions? Or do you just eat what you like? I can eat whatever. Do you prefer gold, silver or steel jewelry? Or no jewelry at all? Steel. I'm allergic to silver, and I think steel is more subtle than gold. Have you been binge-watching any shows lately? If so, what? No. If you dye your hair, do you do it yourself or go to a salon? I do it at a salon. If you have any, do you like your in-laws? I don’t have any. Would it bother you, if your partner had cut contact with their parents? If they had a good reason, no. Have you ever wondered whether you were adopted? As a kid I did because I thought Mom was meaner to me than my siblings, lol. What’s the best physical feeling in the entire universe? ........... This question is a setup lmfao. Have you ever grown a berry bush? No. Have you done something new to your hair recently? No. It's been the same for quite a while. I wanna dye it badly. Do you have bad anxiety? If so, do you take any kind of medication for it? I'm diagnosed with generalized and social anxiety, so yeah. I take Klonopin once and day and Ativan as needed for attacks. One thing you’ve experienced that you thought you never would have? HA, the first thing to come to mind was being noticed by Mark by making a viral (in the community, anyway) gif of he and his doggy. I shit you not, I couldn't sleep for three days lmfao. What was the last thing someone said to you that kept repeating over & over in your head? That I gained fucking seven pounds in two months at my last doctor appointment. I wanted to scream. How often do you have late nights out? Never. I'm a homebody. If you could, would you work from home? Do you think that would make you more or less productive? No. It would absolutely make me less productive. If you had the ability to change the weather, what would you change it to right now? Cool with a nice breeze, mostly clear skies, crisp air... That'd be nice right now. Is there something that you really need to do, but can’t seem to get motivated to do it? I say it all the time: finish decorating my room. It's funny, because I KNOW I'll feel more at home and cozy with my bedroom more personalized. Most disturbing movie you have ever seen? Paranormal Entity. The ending was... a lot. Has a life goal or dream ever come true for you yet? If yes, what is it? If no, do you think you’ll achieve it? Not that I can think of. .-. I hope I can achieve some... Have you ever had food poisoning? No, thank God. What are you listening to? "The Man Who Made a Monster" by Dance With the Dead. Do you think there will be a WWIII? I find it inevitable at some point down humanity's future. People are too hateful for it not to eventually. Has anyone ever asked you if you were emo? Yeah. Has someone ever liked you that you never thought would? Maybe? Idk. In all honesty, can a person be too nice? Yes, in some instances. Has one of your friend’s boyfriends ever tried to cheat on them with you? Yes, when I was around 12. And I let it happen. It's one of my biggest regrets. Is mental abuse really as bad as physical abuse? Of course it is. Emotional abuse can cut just as deep as some physical blows, or even deeper. Do you shop at Sephora for make-up? No. Zelda: Twilight Princess or Ocarina of Time? I'm actually not into TLoZ. Do you own a rosary? I did as a kid growing up in a Catholic Sunday school. If you were homeless, how would you cope? If I had no loved ones in my life and no sign of things getting better, I'm honestly preeetty sure I'd end my life.

sorrow that you keep

March 2021 - Sollux Captor

“Vitals!” Dirk announces, rapping on your door with his knuckles. “C’mon, let’s get this over with so I can serve breakfast!”

When you walk out of your room, there’s already a line leading out of the treatment room. The person in front of you, a dark-skinned kid with an Angela Davis-style afro - Karkat, you think his name is - curses up a blue streak while he waits in line.

“I don’t see why I had to get a prissy fucking bastard with insomnia as my goddamn roommate. I didn’t ask for any of this fucking shit. Fucking involuntary status, fucking dumbshit Eridan, I hope this fucking hospital burns down.”

It’s too early to put up with this guy, especially with the migraine you woke up with.

“Not tryna piss you off or anything but do you think you could keep it down with your tirade?”

If looks could kill, the glare Karkat shoots you would have rendered you to a pile of smoldering ash.

“I haven’t had a cigarette in six days, it’s seven oh fuck in the morning, my roommate wakes up seventeen times a night, and I might be losing my job because my shithead brother signed me into this fucking place, so you can go straight the fuck to hell,” Karkat replies.

“Are you this obnoxious later in the day, or did they just forget to give you your ativan last night?”

“I don’t even take ativan, dumbfuck.” He squares up. Maybe if he weren’t five foot one, you’d actually be afraid. “I’ll knock you out if you keep talking, though.”

Behind you, a guy with eyes so dark that they might be violet moves to plant a hand on Karkat’s shoulder. It’s your roommate, Gamzee Makara, who appears to sleep for fifteen hours a day. Karkat surprisingly refrains from flinching or scowling. You probably wouldn’t scowl at this guy if you had the opportunity either; he’s easily six foot four, his hair curling around his ears and sticking out worse than Karkat’s.

“Now there’s no reason to get up an’ motherfucking truculent with the new guy so early in the morning.”

Karkat rolls his eyes. “Makara, if you tell me to calm down and wait for the morning miracles, I’ll kill you too.”

“There’s no need to wait, Karbro. The sunrise is a miracle in and of itself. When I looked at the ceiling in my room, I saw miracles. Everywhere.”

“They need to put you on haldol, man.”

“I don’t need no helldogs telling me what to do. I just go with the flow.”

“Of course,” Karkat says, almost fondly. “You and your motherfucking miracles.”

When it’s nearly Karkat’s turn for vitals, Dirk escorts Roxy over to the nurses’ station. She blows a kiss at Karkat, who raises his hand in half-salute. Ignacio walks out of the charting room and takes a look at her.

“Miss Lalonde, I have medication for you. This’ll help with the shakes, hypertension, and sweating.”

Roxy puts her hands on her hips and winks at him. “Again, cutiepie?”

Ignacio rolls his eyes at her and shakes his head, his mohawk moving slightly with the motion. He hands her a medication cup and a paper cup of water. She swallows her medication down fluidly, without drinking any of the water. That has to be an xbox achievement.

During breakfast, as Eridan continues to scowl and bitch about his lack of breakfast (he has ECT today), and Karkat tells him to stop being an overdramatic fuckass before he stabs him with a fork, Dr. Vandayar pulls you aside for one of his “no big deal” discussions.

Otherwise known as morning check-in.

Truth be told, you rather like Dr. V, or Krishna, which is what he told you that you could call him, even though he has a doctorate.

He got you access to sharps, your body wash, and your clothes. He means well, and aside from when he checks in every morning, he doesn’t force you to talk if you don’t want to.

“How are you doing today, Mr. Captor?” he asks.

You shrug. “I’m okay, I guess. Pretty much the same as yesterday.”

Then come the “one to tens”, as you’ve come to think of them. Krishna has his little clipboard balanced on his thigh.

“Urges to hurt other people, one to ten?”

You think of Karkat Vantas and that smug fucking look on his face.

“Two.” It’s always less than three. Maybe that’s why he starts with it.

“Urges to hurt yourself, one to ten?”

You contemplate yesterday’s DBT handout, Roxy’s outburst about self-destruction, and its many varying connotations.

“Eight,” you reply.

“Suicidal thoughts, one to ten?”

“Nine.”

“Active or passive?”

“Passive, mostly. Fleetingly active. I don’t want to live if I’m going to burden people, the usual.”

“Do you have any plans to seriously harm yourself on the unit?”

“No. Not here,” you say. “Everything I’d want to do would require me to be outside.”

“I see,” Krishna says. “Have you been seeing or hearing things that aren’t really there?”

“No.”

“What about feeling like people are out to get you, or sending you special messages?”

“No. Nothing like that. I get enough of that shit at home.”

Dr. V does not laugh at your attempt to joke about your chaotic home life.

If you were to be completely honest, you’re wondering when your medications are going to start working, or if they’re going to start working. Talking to the other patients has been a double-edged sword. So many of them have been on a million different drugs without relief.

Logically, you know that it’ll probably take whatever you’re on more than a week to cure you, but… You’re scared. You’re not in full control and it scares you. There’s a reason you slit your throat. There’s a reason you’re here.

You’re scared the melancholy will wrap itself around you like a shroud, and never relinquish its hold. You’re scared you’ll hate yourself and this life forever.

“I thank you for your honesty, Sollux,” Dr. V says, once he makes his notes. “Any uses of target behaviors that I should be aware of?”

“I cut myself with a plastic knife on Friday evening. Not deep enough to need medical attention, though.”

You scan his expression for evidence of emotion, but he has the mother of all poker faces. All he does is write your answers down in his incomprehensible shorthand,

“How did that make you feel?” he asks. “Remember, it didn’t necessarily have to make you feel anything.”

You shrug. “It helped relieve the tension in the moment, I guess.”

“But it also made me feel disappointed later on,” you go on. “Disappointed at myself. I’m such a fucking idiot for relapsing.”

Dr. V jots this down as well, and shuffles through his papers.

“I wouldn’t use that language to describe yourself. Ridding yourself of maladaptive coping mechanisms can be quite difficult, especially if they have worked for you in the past,” he says. “Nevertheless, do you think you need to be on one-to-one for a few days? So that you stop hurting yourself while you’re here?"

You shake your head vehemently. “Absolutely not. I won’t do what I did again.”

“That is reassuring to hear. I’ll refrain from filling out the paperwork that would put you on constant observation for self-injury. That said, though, there is something you also need to do to prevent that.”

You roll your eyes a little. “You want me to contract for safety, don’t you? Like, filling out one of those sheets that says I’ll grab someone else before I decide to hurt myself. Otherwise I end up on one-to-one, right?”

Dr. V nods at you, before going on. “Yes, that is the general idea. You may either fill it out with me later on in the afternoon, or with a member of the staff with whom you are more comfortable.”

“I’d rather fill it out with you, to be perfectly honest. I trust you.”

He smiles. “I am very glad to hear that, Sollux. I don’t have any further questions for the moment.”’

You get out of your conference with Krishna, and walk into the dayroom.  

Gamzee sits there, watching Good Morning America. He’s got a small smile on his face, and a faraway look in his eye, like he’s both here and not. You call his name to get his attention. It works, his dark eyes trained on you.

“You mind if I sit down?” you ask.

He shakes his head. “Naw, it’s cool. You can even change the channel if that’s somethin’ you wanna do.”

He’s built like a linebacker, all broad shoulders and muscles. He could probably snap you in half if he wanted to. You take the seat next to him and he smiles serenely at you.

“So what’s up?” he asks.

“Nothing, man. Just got outta session with Dr. V. He wanted to make sure I didn’t want to hurt myself.”

Gamzee looks thoughtful. He pulls a red paper flower out of his shorts and hands it to you.

“I folded that a couple days ago. You can have it, if you want.”

“For what?”

“For when you need to up an fuckin’ remember the miracles. Like we talked about last night.”

Last night, Gamzee harangued you at length about the Mirthful Messiahs, and the Dark Carnival, and with a practiced skill you have learned from your sibling’s rants about the NYPD following them, you tuned him out utterly. You really hope he doesn’t count you as a believer in his weird ass faith, which seems like some kind of psychotic juggalo cult.

He’s a nice guy, though. You know he’s not utterly harmless, but he seems easygoing enough. You fiddle around with and tear at a piece of paper until you have a square, which you then use to make a paper crane.

“Hey, Gamzee,” you say. He glances up at you.

“Yeah?”

You hand him the paper crane. “You know, the Japanese believe if you fold a thousand of these, you get a wish. I’m not folding a thousand cranes, but this is for you.”

“I will cherish it every day of my motherfucking life.”

You think he means it, too.

Art group is at 11. Katya herds everyone who wants to show up into the art room. So far, that’s you, Roxy, Karkat, June, Gamzee, Calliope, and Porrim. Karkat nods his head at you, and then inclines it toward the door. He wants to talk to you one-on-one. Whatever the fuck about?

He looks like he’s swallowed a lemon before he deigns to speak to you, all pursed lips and narrowed eyes. You’re tempted to ask him what the fuck’s eating him, and then he speaks.

“Listen. I want to apologize about earlier this morning,” he says. “I was in a foul fucking mood, and I need to work on not taking that shit out on other people.”

Wait, seriously? He can’t actually think you’re still upset about that; you get cursed out worse by your sibling on a daily basis, and that’s when they’re in a good mood.

“Accepted,” you reply. “Don’t worry about it, man.”

Faint relief breaks out on Karkat’s features.

Katya has all of you gather around before she constructs a box out of a weirdly shaped piece of cardboard that looks as if it’s been cut so that a small briefcase sized box could be constructed.

“These are what I like to call coping boxes. You make the box, and then you decorate it. You can put anything in here. Things that make you feel good, or that make you think, or handouts you get during other groups. Whatefur you want!”

She hands a box to each of you, after she puts out tempera and acrylic paint, colored markers, gel pens, and colored pencils.

You weren’t planning to keep any of your distress tolerance handouts in the box, but maybe you should. Gamzee’s staring at you while he paints, and that’s kind of weird, at least until you get a good look at how he’s decorating his coping box.

He’s painting halfway decent pictures of you, Roxy, Karkat, Calliope and Eridan on the front part of the box, with the word “friends”, in purple cursive.

He counts you as a friend even though the only thing you’ve really had to do with him was vaguely listen while he spouted his weird theories about the mirthful messiahs?

You have to hand it to him, though. Kid’s a real artist, probably - no, definitely - good enough to paint portraits for money over in Washington Square Park or something. Karkat gets a decent look at what Gamzee’s painting and blushes.

“Oh, come on, you didn’t have to put me on the damn box,” he says.

“But you are my best friend in the whole wide motherfucking universe,” Gamzee replies.

Karkat splutters something and looks like he’d like to object, then just sighs, and tells him to make sure he gets Karkat’s good side. 

“Hey, Gamzee!” Roxy calls.

“Yes, Roxybro?”

“Does painting that mean you’re gonna paint me like one ‘a’ your French girls one of these days?”

Gamzee gives this a good half-minute of thought.

“I ain’t up an’ got any motherfuckin’ French girls.”

Meanwhile, you focus on your tree. It looks like a lollipop with antennae, but whatever, that’s going to be as good as it gets. You ask Katya if you can get a piece of paper to paint on, she “of course”s you and hands you a piece of printer paper.

What will you paint today, Sollux Captor? More trees?

Tears spring to your eyes, and just when you think the worst is over, they start trailing down your face. Roxy recoils and apologizes to you, thinking she’s done something, and all you do is cry harder, you fuckup. You can’t do a goddamn thing right. Only things you’re good for are fixing computers and having nervous breakdowns.

Katya looks up from praising Calliope and Gamzee’s collaboration, and walks up to you.

“Hey - no, it’s okay, mew don’t have to cover your face - what’s wrong?”

She crouches so that she’s eye level with you as you sit in your chair. It somehow makes you feel even worse, like you’re some small child that can’t control their emotional outbursts. Come to think of it, you were like this as a kid, too. Tuna was the outgoing twin who made all the friends, and you were the twin who would start crying if you accidentally colored outside the lines.

“It’s alright. If you don’t want to paint, maybe you’d like to go for a walk?” she asks. You shake your head emphatically.

“I’m sorry,” you say. “It’s just that I’ve never really been good at artistic stuff. Sorry I suck so bad.”

“Art group is not about being good or bad stylistically,” Katya says. “It’s about expressing yourself. As long as you’re doing that, you’re fine. I like your tree. You and Roxy are both excellent at trees.”

Roxy, who has been sitting next to you, using highlighters to draw what looks either like a really bad tree or a neon colored mushroom cloud, gives you a small little smile.

“Wanna draw with me?” she asks.

At first, you assume she’s found some oblique way to hit on you the way she does everyone else, but then she hands you the bottle of black tempera paint and a couple of colored markers. You don’t know what she expects you to do with them. Your tree sucks way more than hers.

“If you can’t think of anything to draw, why not try making patterns?” Katya asks.

You guess you can do that. You start drawing red and blue circles on your piece of paper, clustering them closer and closer together. 

Apropos of nothing, you remember the time in undergrad where you and Ray couldn’t get back to campus in time to beat the blizzard. You and she slept overnight in your car, parked in a gas station. Outside, nothing but a vast, enveloping white, what you imagine death or infinity must look like. The whole world rendered down to the slope and curve of dunes and valleys.

If you think hard enough, you can feel the wind rocking the car, can imagine the sound of Ray’s teeth chattering, or the occasional slip of her hands as she does a tarot reading. Another one. Another one down, another one down, another one bites the dust, Queen playing through your radio speakers. She sits in the front passenger seat, one leg bent beneath her.

“You think we’re ever gonna get out of here?” she asks.

At this moment, you ask yourself that same question. It’s a little different, now.

You wish you could take your seven eighths of a computer engineering degree and come up with a way out of this, but you can’t. That’s your problem. You’re only you, and you’ve never been good at managing your emotions.

So my life has gone to shit.. I dont trust anybody anymore, and honest to god I cant help but keep thinking of ways to end it. My mom keeps telling me how to feel about this whole thing, that I should be grateful that i got in finally to see a specialist. Reality is I dont even trust those subhuman animals anymore, and frankly they're gonna have to earn my trust. After 4 fucking years, my life, my future being ruined. My mental health going downhill, all for the second time now. Add on to that, I dont get any meds for the pain so this has pushed me into addiction now for a second time. I've been dehumanized and humiliated, treated with nothing but the utmost disrespect while being stigmatized for being mentally ill, transgender and a recovering addict for most of it. They ignored me for 4 years, my body is damaged, and frankly help just might have came too little too late. I wont just suffer through the next one, the next time this happens I'm gonna end my life, my suffering on my own god damn terms. Atleast I still have control over that..

Fuck the canadian healthcare system. Some days I honestly just want to start selling drugs, and fly to a country where I can just pay to play and get the best care in the god damn world. Cause 4 years now I've been telling them to refer me to a specialist, I've been telling them that it's probably crohns or some other GI issue. They need to do a colonoscopy and a scope to find it, so that's what I would ask for. I would never get it, so i more or less gave up on the healthcare system. They would leave me on the floor thrashing in pain for hours. Treating me like a drug addict in withdrawal when I didnt even have any opioids in my system. I would be lucky if I got an IV for fluids, and even more lucky if they pumped me full of a bunch of over the counter drugs and others that didnt work like gravol, tauridol, buscopan, zofran, and haliperidol. I would tell them each time, that this was the hundredth time they tried gravol, and it doesnt help people when they're screaming in pain. They treat the nausea. Its bullshit because I am in so much pain that its making me nauseous and until they get rid of the pain, the vomiting is just gonna continue. They always treat me like I'm full of shit, and when I turn out to be right and continue puking, thrashing and screaming in pain, they just get angry at the fact they were wrong. Our doctors and nurses are a bunch of sociopathic, apathetic adult children who in my experience take pleasure in watching you suffer. The worse I get the more they smile. They are so stupid, blind almost because if their stupid fucking machine says I'm ok then I guess it's all in my head. They only think that theres nothing wrong with me because theyve only ever done a blood test or an xray. Never ever once have they done a single test that would have found the issue, crohns cant be found just on a blood test. The emergency room doctors think it can be, my family doctor and everybody else I've talked to says otherwise.

On January 1st I was having another flare up, and they shoved me in the psych observation room because they genuinely didnt want to deal with me. They ignore me, and I keep going in because I want help. I dont want to end up relapsing again cause I cant take the god damn pain! But nope, I get treated like a crazy person now.. they did it against my will. And they even tried to take my phone and my keys. I was puking constantly, I needed water to keep hydrated and they left me for 4 hours, locked in, no meds, no help or nothing. So I just cracked.. I had nothing to barf in, to wipe my nose with, or to wipe the cold sweat off me. So I puked in every corner of that room, I puked beside the bed especially because a mop wouldnt fit in there. I pissed in the corner, I would hack up some phlegm and spit it all over the floors and walls, I blew snot rockets on every surface too! After a while some nurse came in and gave me a barf bag. I threw it on the floor and just continued to puke over every hard surface in the place. I was puking every 5 seconds I swear, and the doctor finally came in at 3 hours and 15 minutes. At 3.5 hrs they give me two pills. I straight up tell them there is no point in even taking them. I couldnt even keep water down and these people are stupid enough to make me take pills? Come on. You need to hold it in for atleast an hour to see even the most minimal affects. I was puking every 5 seconds, to the point that I puked before I took the pills, and I puked them out the moment after I swallowed. They had given me a fucking gravol tab, and some Ativan, the latter of which I couldnt even hold under my tongue long enough. I barfed it onto the floor when it was half dissolved. They come back with this clear liquid shit in a shot glass. I swallowed it right after I puked. The liquid burned my insides, and i puked that shit out even quicker. I asked them to give me IV medications for that exact reason, I always ask for IV medications cause its literally a waste of your time and mine to just pump me full of pills when I can't keep them down and they hurt my tummy as they dissolve. They tell me to just "breathe deeply and relax" and to "just try jayden, you gotta try", so then I try, and when they end up being wrong, and I can't take shit. They end up saying that I'm manipulating, that I'm drug seeking or I'm not trying hard enough to make it work. Absolute bullshit, over the course of 4 years I have quite literally told them what to do. I have multiple family members with this disease, and my grandmother was ignored like this too. She told me to ask them for a colonoscopy and a scope, and to ask them to treat the pain, not the nausea cause the pain literally causes the nausea. The sooner the pain is gone the sooner I can be normal and tell them what's going on. Instead I'm left to suffer in the worst pain a human being can feel. I get treated like shit and told it's all in my head. I gave up on getting a diagnosis in year two. I just want to shoot dope whenever the pain comes. Dope atleast takes it away, after all they would be giving me some of the strongest shit they have at the hospital if I was some boomer with a sprained ankle. It would take the pain away. Thats for sure. Being a mentally ill, drug using, autistic tranny they just see that. I get nothing. No help, no answers, not even some relief when my screaming can be heard far and wide.

I want to die right now, and I keep trying to think of a painless way to do it.. buying $400 worth of street fentanyl and slipping into a nice, peaceful opioid coma seems like a wonderful idea right now.. that would end the fucking suffering atleast..

I wont be wearing a colostomy bag. Colostomy bags arent sexy, they are fucking disgusting and you cant just be body positive when you have a fucking bag full of your own shit hanging off you, and your only way of having penetrative sex sewed up permanently and taken away from me. Not like I could even be a decent fuck for anybody at this point anyways. Its painful to shit, let alone anything else. I dont want to give up food either. I love food, food is literally my life and the only way I have to bond with certain people! Like my family for example. Nothing makes me just want to slip.into that coma more then the worry of the future.

Will I be sitting at a family gathering eating bland gluten free, dairy free, all organic 100% vegan fair trade horse shit on a plate while my family actually gets to enjoy the food I used to be able to eat? Moms spaghetti, grandmas meat pies, the baked goods, fresh tomatoes out of my garden and others. A good fucking steak even? Cause honestly a birthday isnt a birthday if I dont have my birthday meal.

I know for a fact my body is damaged from 4 years of suffering. I used to bounce back, now it takes the wind out of my sails for a month.

Needless to say, I just want to fucking die more then anything else. Positivity and anything I love is gone, and all that I have left is knowing that Alberta health services, coast mountain health services, providence health services, and interior health services have all fucked me in the biggest way humanely possible. So thankful for free fucking healthcare!!

You get what you bloody well pay for!!

I have completely forgotten about this and my motivation to do anything creative, be it investing time to blog, painting, playing drums, has disappeared these first few months of 2021. I’ve been doing a lot of introspection, strengthening bonds with my friends, breaking down walls I had up for so long and learning to be vulnerable and worthy of love (still working on this one) which leads to my first update of 2021. Buckle up kids!

TW: SA, Death, SH, drugs

I started 2021 with a self harm relapse episode, and lots of crying that I think was lacking in 2020. I have been in therapy trying to work out my diagnoses, my prognosis along with *deep breath* dealing with my r*pe that happened in November of 2019. For the longest time, I couldn’t even talk about it, I only told my best friends months later. To this day I’m still dealing with it and kind of stuck in the “should’ve, could’ve, would’ve” phase, I still believe I could’ve done something different to change the outcome of that night. Nonetheless, I believe I’m in a place now where I can talk about it publicly(not so public, no one knows I have a blog.) I think writing it somewhere in the open will help me, to be able to return to this moment when I hit a depressive episode or am dealing with troubles in my life, it’ll be a moment where my courage came through and I wrote about it sans censorship.

It started out as a regular day, I had just finished work and went to meet up with a friend when we decided to hit up a bar for their trivia nights, fun right? At this point in my life I had just started abusing anti-anxiety medication and slowly going down a spiral I’m all too familiar with. That day I took 7 pills and then decided to go out drinking, I obviously didn’t have much value for my well-being but ironically I did later that night. Trivia night was fun, had a couple of drinks and we were heading back to my friend’s place to crash for the night. I ended up not wanting to stay as I remembered my mom was out of town and I had to watch her pets. It was late, I didn’t want to risk taking public transportation or an Uber in the state I was in (Ativan and vodka not a good mix) for fear that something would happening to me, so what did I do? Like any logical person, called a friend acquaintance to give me a lift home. Some details about this acquaintance, it was someone I had known for 3 years, someone my best friend dated and who never mistreated me in any way I can consider mistreatment, all to say it was someone I knew and could somewhat trust. Again someone I knew.

Anyway, he answered my text and was more than happy to come pick me up, he was genuinely worried something was wrong, oh the irony. Now we’re driving back to my moms and he jokingly tells me that I now own him a drink and then suggested we go have one right now on our way home. Fine, I agreed and that was probably stupid of me but hey! I didn’t care. We got to a bar I’m pretty familiar with and what was supposed to be one drink, ended up being a few more and I ended up grabbing the tab because he forgot his wallet *eyeroll*. It’s 3 am at this point and I work in 4 hours so I said okay time to go home and he asked if he can stay over since he drank too much to drive now and he was too tired, I was hesitant but agreed, seeing as I saw no red flags, and he did come pick me up in the middle of the night. I let take my bed since I’d be awake anyway and probably just watching TV while he slept.

Here I am, a good 30 minutes into my show and he was snoring so it was chill, until I felt him shifting and turning and then placing his hand on thigh, and making a comment that I was wearing boxers under my shorts and it was dumb. I should try to at least take one off, I’d be more comfortable.

Do you know how much it fucking sucks to be able to remember every tiny detail of a very traumatic night??? It sucks big time. I won’t delve into the specific details, it was just very violent, I still ask people to never startle me or grab me by my shoulders/arms from behind. I was hoping it would be over quickly but it felt like eternity. He finally finished and asked if he can go smoke. He left and I was left alone with a body I wanted to abandon and the feeling of I was the most filthiest person. I quickly got dressed and joined him on the balcony to smoke when I told him he had to leave. He tried to make excuses, jokes and even tried to forcefully get back into my house, I told him once more if he didn’t leave he was gonna leave by way of flight over the balcony banister. He proceeded to call me all the names under the sun and finally left when he saw I wasn’t playing around. I had the sense at that point that I needed to get to a pharmacy to take plan B. The experience at the pharmacy was anything but pleasant and the pharmacist was even a little judgemental when I asked for the pill, he told me that I should’ve been careful, while I was crying. Moving on, I ended up crying so much that I puked and I wasn’t sure if I puked up the pill or not. This led me to thinking I was pregnant for a month after that cause I was late (I wasn’t pregnant, test confirmed). Now since then, I’ve told my best friends and seemed therapy but can I say I’ve made any improvements, I don’t think so and I’m hoping writing this will help me make an improvement.

The other reason I chose to be public now, is with all that’s been happening in the world against women. The victim shaming and victim blaming has to stop. We need to stop saying protect your daughter, and instead say teach your sons. We need to stop asking about what they were wearing and if they said no, and how much they drank. We need to stop making excuses for men, oh he was just drunk, he’s her boyfriend. We need to stop making it so fucking difficult to press charges for rape. Please, for our future daughters, we need to stop and just listen for once.

I know this is very different than my regular content about my health but it’s been something I’ve wanted to do so I can try to heal.

Goodnight my babies 💙