#anxiety to the point of appetite loss is something else
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PAC ⋆ meeting your future spouses family for the first time!
reminder that this is a general reading and messages found here may not apply to everyone. take what resonates, leave what doesn't, and don't force anything if it does not fit.
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GROUP ONE
cards · eight of boons, six of spells, keeper of spells, keeper of challenges (reversed), the faery wind, child of boons, the grace fool: be graceful.
channelled songs · famous by taemin. end transmission by fire from the gods. identity by taemin. bad friend by rina sawayama.
hey there group one ♡ you will be fairly anxious before the meeting. for some, to the point of nausea or loss of appetite. you will think that you’ll have to go above and beyond, work three times as hard, just to be liked. this will not be the case at all as your future spouse’s family will be enamoured by immediately.
because of your anxiety, and because you want to make the best impression possible, you will put a lot of effort into your look, into bringing a home-cooked meal or a freshly made dish. all which will be appreciated but unnecessary -- and your partner may tell you as such time and again, but you will disregard it.
you might be your future spouse’s first partner or, more likely, the first partner that your future spouse has brought home. because of this, your future spouse’s family will already know that you are special; that there is something special about you and about the relationship you and your future spouse share.
while meeting your future spouse’s family, you may feel like you’ve taken centre stage. it may only be your future spouse’s parents that you’re meeting here rather than a whole family, or a mother and a grandmother. they will be jovial and full of smiles -- genuine, radiant smiles. they will ask you lots of questions about yourself and pay you a lot of attention, so much so you won’t have a moment alone. a moment of quiet. or a moment to just sit.
but i don’t think you’ll even want it. you’ll love talking to your future spouse’s family, and will get along with them so well and so easily that you will wonder why you were ever scared in the first place. your future spouse will whisper a loving, “i told you so,” when you share this sentiment with them.
there may be an obvious difference between you and your future spouse's family. they may be visibly and obviously rich -- though they are the kind of family that says they are "well-off" or "comfortable", not a family that ever describes themselves as rich or wealthy. or they may just be richer than you and your family ever were (they have a house in the suburbs when you only ever lived in small apartments for example). for some, they may be a famous or renowned family.
this will make you feel uncomfortable at first but their genuine warmth and excitement to meet you will quickly get rid of any discomfort.
for some of you, your future spouse’s family may even try to rope you into the family business. or into joining them as vendors at a weekend market.
GROUP TWO
cards · the oldest one, eight of boons, five of spells, six of visions, child of visions, the enchanter’s wheel, the sentimental fool: make life happen now.
channelled songs · nobody gets me by sza. goosebumps by travis scott. ms mural by lupe fiasco. ave maria by beyoncé.
hey there group two ♡ it is more important for you to meet your future spouse’s family that consists of their child or children rather than meeting your future spouse’s family that consists of their parents or anyone else.
you may have never dated a parent before, so this will be particularly stressful -- as with all things that are new to a person. you want them to not just like you but approve of you, and you'll wonder if this is even possible or if they'll hate you at first sight.
you will bring gifts for the children -- something which you would have done regardless, but which is more important as this first meeting is taking place at this child's (or one of their children's) birthday party. you'll ask your future spouse for advice or grill them about what this child likes so that you can get them the perfect, the absolute best present -- but all this without looking like you're trying too hard. this energy of being careful not to seem like you're trying too hard will also come through in the way you dress and carry yourself. you want to come across as laidback and as someone this child -- or these children -- can connect with.
you have such a gentle, ethereal energy that this child will immediately be drawn to you. you seem like an angelina jolie figure in my mind, as someone who is beautiful and who just has this absolutely lovely spirit. and the child will be enamoured by you. if the child is young, they will think that you are a fairy or a prince/princess.
at first, this child may not even realise that you and their parent are in a relationship. they just think that you’re a guest at their party, a friend of their parent or something similar. i’m thinking of the scene from one of the despicable me movies where gru dresses up in a fairy costume for one of his kid’s birthday’s, so this may be a similar situation you find yourself in; volunteering to be the entertainment or to dress according to a certain theme. maybe even as a party clown, for some.
when the party dies down, your future spouse introduces you officially to their child as their partner. once they find out, this child will be shy at first but will then almost immediately get excited and drag you to their pile of birthday presents.
GROUP THREE
cards · six of spells, the huntsman, the wisewoman, ten of boons, weaver of boons, keeper of spells, the doubt fool: doubt appearances, as they can be misleading.
channelled songs · i belong to you by whitney houston. suck my dick by lil kim. favorite (vampire) by nct 127. dead man walking by brent faiyaz.
hey there group three ♡ there is an aura of falseness around your first meeting with your future spouse's family. they may be kind to you and very sweet, almost too sweet, as if, if you were to peek beneath the shiny veneer of familial love and openness you would see a coldness. a distinct disapproval.
this is likely because of some major difference or divide between you and your future spouse and their family -- especially when it comes to how you look. there may be a racial divide here, or you may be plus size, or transgender, or just any major difference here that makes your future spouse’s family disapprove of you. even if they do not voice their disapproval to you. the only reason they do not voice their disapproval to you is because of your future spouse and any conversation they had or warning they gave ahead of time.
your future spouse’s family may spend the whole time judging you; sizing you up. and while they may not say anything outright, it may at many points become obvious the true feelings they harbour towards you. through subtle remarks and snide comments that could be brushed off as nothing if you were to bring them any attention. this may come most of all from your future spouse’s mother, as well as from an older sister.
they may grill you and at times it may feel like you’re being interviewed -- especially by your future spouse’s father who may be more reserved but more unnerving to speak to.
you may try to convince yourself that they liked you, even though you get the feeling that they hate you and don’t want anything more to do with you. that they, more than anything, don’t want your future spouse to have anything more to do with you. they’ll think you’re fine enough. they’ll think you’re nice enough. they’ll think that you’re okay, but that you’re not someone who your future spouse should marry.
once you and your future spouse leave, they'll likely gossip about you; about the way you do your makeup, the way that you look, the way that you carry yourself. they make find problems where there aren't any.
GROUP FOUR
cards · five of challenges, two of visions, ace of spells, the faery wind, six of boons, four of spells, the faith fool: have faith.
channelled songs · all the man that i need by whitney houston. so beautiful by dpr ian. heavyweight champion of the year by nilufer yanya. blinking game by jonghyun.
hey there group four ♡ this is the most interesting group by far… when you meet your future spouse’s family for the first time, you may meet someone they are related to with whom you have an instant connection with. this may be love at first sight, but a love you only acknowledge over time. years and years down the line, when you and your future spouse have already been married for some time and things are much too complicated. especially as this may be your future spouse’s sibling, or your future spouse’s very close cousin.
the first time you meet your future spouse’s family might be at a party, dinner or family gathering. your future spouse will go off to run an errand for another family member or to speak to someone before they leave, leaving you alone. in this time is when this person will come to talk to you. they will make you feel safe, welcome, and comfortable. amongst this sea of people you do not know, they will make you feel at ease. absolute ease.
this person will chat with you. they'll make you laugh. they'll flirt with you, but in a way that you don't take it seriously at all and rather see it as something fun -- and actually quite refreshing. the way that they speak to you immediately makes you feel like less of an outsider.
once your future spouse is back by your side, they take you around and introduce you to everyone. and while your future spouse’s family likes you and you like everyone, no one will make quite the first impression that this particular person does.
#**#tarot#pac#pick a card#pick a pile#pick a picture#tarotonline#tarotblr#tarotcreator#tarotcommunity#love reading#future spouse#future spouse reading#divination#spirituality#spiritualism#channelled message#channeled message#channeled songs
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AITA for talking about how happy I am that I switched medications and discussing side effects I had?
CW for mention of eating disorders and vomiting
Sorry if that question is phrased weirdly.
I (F24) am in a fandom Discord server with about 50 or so people in it. I'm friends with a few of the people in the server, but the rest are just sort of acquaintances that I sometimes talk to.
We have the usual non-fandom areas for talking, sharing pictures, a vent channel, etc. There's also a sort-of vent channel that's more for discussing life stuff and getting advice.
We were talking about medications for depression/anxiety and I basically said "Yeah I used to be on SSRI's but stopped because of a few specific side effects, and then when I finally switched to a non-SSRI and realized that it was MASSIVELY fucking with my appetite to the point of causing severe binge eating issues."
The person (who was asking if we had experience with any meds) asked what I meant, so I told them how obsessed with food I was, how I would wait until my parents went to bed (I live with them because fuck this economy) and then go around the house looking for candy, I could eat an entire bag of chips in one night, and one night ate so much candy to the point I got sick and vomited.
I told them that once I started Vyvance for my ADHD the issue improved quite a bit (turns out it's used to treat binge eating disorders), but now that I'm not on a SSRI my appetite and relationship with food is actually normal.
I'm not constantly thinking about food 24/7, I would actually feel full after eating a meal, and I'm no longer having extreme cravings for sugar and salty stuff. I don't have an obsession with taking all the candy in the house and eating it in one sitting, I can just... Leave it there and have some the next day.
I also mentioned that because of that, I've lost 50lbs and I no longer get out of breath just from going up the stairs, and my chronic ankle pain is SO much better to the point I barely notice it (I fucked it up when I was younger). I also no longer have high cholesterol, and when I go outside in the summer I don't feel like I'm going to die.
All of this was put under a cut, with a CW for eating disorders. The person I was talking to basically said "Holy shit thank you so much for letting me know"
I sort of forgot about it afterwards, but a few days later I went onto Discord and saw that the server was gone. I thought Discord was glitching out, but eventually messaged a friend (F20s) who's also in the server and asked her what was going on and if something happened to the server.
She said no, and was confused as to why I wasn't in it anymore. I didn't leave it on accident, it was just... Not there. She sent me an invite link, but it said the link was expired.
She messaged one of the mods (NB28) and asked them if anyone else was having problems joining the server/it disappearing, and they told her that I was permanently banned from the server.
She asked them why, and they said that I was banned for fatphobia and promoting an eating disorder.
She asked them how I was promoting an eating disorder (since I literally talked about recovering from one), and they said that it was because I was discussing weight loss as something positive, which I guess to them automatically = anorexia???
My friend, without me asking to, told me that she tore the mod a new one and called them a dumbfuck for thinking me no longer having binge eating issues and feeling healthier after losing weight is even close to promoting an eating disorder.
Context: My friend literally has anorexia, so she's familiar with how eating disorders work.
The mod then told her she and I are both fatphobic pieces of shit, and banned HER too. The mod in question has posted multiple selfies before, and they're not even fat. I'm like twice the size they are, even after losing weight.
AWTA or is the mod just on some kind of weird savior-complex powertrip?
What are these acronyms?
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Work Stress- Adam Stanheight x gn! reader
ALLLLLLL RIGHT, welcome to the monthly "my mental health is shit" fic that I bestow upon the people whenever my mental health isn't as great as it could be, which--in fairness--is nearly all the fucking time.
Two of these might be coming out this month, though! I have not had the greatest streak of days without anxiety lately and I write fics whenever it gets really bad. The day I finished this one, I was like "I am going to write something. for chainshipping (again)" so a chainshipping fic will probably be out by the end of the week
On some other notes, A: while it's not explicitly stated, the reader is what's traditionally considered midsized as that's what I am and I wanted to write a fic with my body type. As per usual with me, the reader is generally gn but as I know the anatomy best, they're AFAB. B: requests are starting to get looked at! I have one waiting to be finished, edited and posted sitting in my drafts but otherwise will have probably looked through and decided which requests I will do vs which ones I won't by the time this has been posted. Things will probably start coming out at the end of this week and keep coming out into next.
Fic type- this jumps into a lot of differing areas, but the main genres are quite possibly the oddest combination I've ever written--smut and angst.
Warnings- as this fic contains smut it caters to an audience of people 18+, so minors, DO NOT INTERACT. There is A LOT here--p in v, oral (both recieve, even if on Adams end the oral is only mentioned), doggy style, fingering, petplay kind of (I was trying to think of a gender neutral petname and puppy was the only thing my brain could think of at first. It's literally just used as a petname and gets overshadowed by 'baby' after a point bc I remembered that that word existed--I wrote a lot of this while tired, pls take some of the stuff in it with a grain of salt), as for sfw warnings: there's a mention of loss of appetite in relation to extreme stress
It's no secret to Adam that you've been having a very, very rough year.
You've been living together since just a couple weeks after he'd escaped the trap--he was taken from his apartment and found it too anxiety inducing to stay there so you let him move into yours.
You'd been dating since you were twenty one and at twenty six, moving in was bound to happen eventually, but getting out of his lease was taking a hell of a lot more time than Adam had originally anticipated.
He noticed every rough day in the bags that you'd begun to sport underneath your eyes, how late you came to bed and your reluctancy to be very affectionate with him--whenever things got bad, be it at work or with stuff going on in your head, you withdrew and pushed him away--and in the fact that you weren't eating as much, in that you always looked like your mind was somewhere else, wandering off completely.
So, one day near the middle of November--where he'd started to notice your bad days in very early March--he joins you in the kitchen while you speak to one of your bosses via phone call.
He presses a kiss to your forehead, grabs your hand, gives it a squeeze. He wants to cheer you up--you're prone to bad days due to insecurity and because of a long-standing not so great track record where your mental health is concerned--and, in that particular moment, finds himself willing to do anything.
You give your best go at grinning back at him, but it comes out looking like more of a grimace. You let Adams hand go to run a stressed hand through your hair, returning your hand to Adams and letting him interlace your fingers thereafter.
"Yes," you whisper. "I understand that things are always tough in the last quarter, but--" you sigh dejectedly as your boss cuts you off, and Adam presses another kiss to your forehead, letting his lips linger for a minute.
"Yes, Earle--but you're not seeing the point here. I'm eligible for the raise because I've kept the teams afloat! The only reason you're not also eligible for the raise is because you took an eight month vacation with PTO that you quite literally stole from other employees, myself included, and just because Monica isn't willing to fire you over that doesn't mean your actions didn't warrant alternative punishments," you lean forward, press a kiss to Adams shoulder. Adams grin widens slightly as he notices that you're visibly relaxing from his touches.
A solid two minutes of shouting pass by on the other end. Adam gives your hand a supportive squeeze whenever Earles voice raises another octave in his shouting, pressing kisses against your temple when you let him pull you into a half hug. He keeps hold of your hand when the position changes, your torso pressing against the counter as Adam stands in front of you.
"Earle--I am eligible for the raise because you took six weeks of PTO from me, which I only get thanks to our companies union," You snap. "Now, because I had to spend so much time doing my fucking job, unlike you, I'm eligible for enough of a raise to make me capable of buying a home by '06, and if you're pissed off at me for that, I genuinely cannot help you any further. I have a boyfriend who I would much rather be talking to over your sorry arse, so I'm going to hang up now and if you call me back, I will ignore it. Have the day you deserve, asshat."
You hang up the phone and sigh, gaze meeting Adams in an instant.
"'M sorry," you whisper, biting your top lip for a few seconds as you look at him. "Work has been a fuckin' mess since like, the end of February. I just--damn it all."
"Eh, Earle sounds like a dickhead," Adam laughs. "How does one even get away with--eight full months? Of PTO? How?"
"Per the union agreement we have, we get six weeks a year," you start. "It's why I'm always off in December--I like staying home when it gets cold, gives me an excuse to read and drink more tea than I should--but we've moved to digitizing off time recently. Took the six weeks I'd planned to pace between the end of this month and all of next and switched them up for himself. Did that with five other employees and still, Monica doesn't fire him. Just makes me eligible for a raise of fifteen dollars on company dime because the off time I lost out on forced me to do more while I was there. Our company has one hundred and eighty-six employees in the Jersey branch and a bunch of 'em like taking spaces in the last six months of the year off, so it was me managing two teams of eighty people. Not easy work at all."
Adam blinks. "Did Monica even offer to give you the PTO back?"
"She gave me hers," you shrug. "Earle can have a lot of fuckin' fun managing one hundred and sixty people by himself. I'll find out if I get the raise tomorrow morning and my PTO will kick in then, too. He can eat shit as far as I'm concerned, I have a long list of books and two boxes of my favorite tea to drink my way through as of tomorrow."
You let Adam lead you into your shared bedroom, humming as you lay down on your bed and close your eyes.
"Are you okay?" Adam asks.
"Been a very, very stressful eight months," you laugh. "Trying to think of what I need and only one thing continually comes to mind."
"What's that?" You can hear the eagerness behind the teasing tone in Adams voice.
"I need--uh--" You laugh, suddenly feeling a little awkward. Propositioning Adam for sex was not typically done with words but kisses and your hands on his chest, relishing in the way that he looked when he lead you to your bedroom and fucked you senseless.
"Go on, baby," Adam whispers, his lips suddenly near your ear. "Gonna say it?"
You hum, suddenly embarrassed at yourself, and Adam laughs.
"Use your words, puppy," He whispers, pressing a kiss against your earlobe. "How am I supposed to know what you want me to do if you don't use your words?"
You moan helplessly in response.
"You really are cute," Adam says. "Tough while at work, one phone call later and now you're helpless that you can't even speak. Can't even say one word."
"Adam," you breathe, both because it's the one word that's coming to mind and also because you know he loves the way you say his name when all you want is for him to fuck you.
"Good puppy," Adam presses a kiss to your cheek. "Tell me what you want me to do, mm? I'll do whatever you want, but if you want me to fuck you, know that you'll be in bed for a long time once we go to sleep. You're going to come a lot tonight, puppy. You deserve it."
You moan in response. "Please," you whisper.
"You want me to fuck you, puppy?"
"Yeah," you nod. "Adam--I need you to. Don't wanna think anymore. In eight months, I've thought enough for eight lifetimes. Fuck me senseless, please."
"Whatever you want," Adam says, pulling you into a long kiss that has your head spinning.
You spend the next few minutes like that, in a kiss that's so intense, so loving and so fucking good that you wonder how you've been able to go so long being fine with quick kisses and self gratification.
The first kiss reminds you of how amazing it is to be kissed by Adam whenever the more dominant side of him comes out for a bit of fun, the way that his hands anchor themselves on your hips before one slides up your torso to cup your face, the sureness of his tongue in your mouth--everything feels amazing, and it's almost like it's too good to be true.
And then Adam pulls away for air and your eyes are opening and his lips are against your clothed shoulder, breathing in deeply with a smile on his face.
"I'm sorry we've not been--well--" you start. Adam tilts your chin upward and presses a kiss on the underside of your jaw. "I've been a terrible--"
"I've missed this, sure," Adam says, pressing another kiss against the underside of your jaw. "Yeah. Of course I've missed it, Y/N, but I absolutely understand that you've been busy. Work has kept me busy, too, so I'm just glad we can have tonight. I've missed you so much and I just wanna make you forget about how shitty the past months have been. Wanna make sure the only word you remember how to stay is my name, and that's what I'm going to do tonight, puppy. Sounds good?"
You nod eagerly, which makes Adam laugh as the hand that's on your hip gives it a squeeze.
Your gaze becomes affixed to a random point on the ceiling as Adams kisses rove across the scope of your neck, one hand on your jaw to move your head whenever he wants better access.
After a point, you start to realize that his kisses are getting longer and not too long thereafter you realize that Adam is carefully laying hickeys over your neck and is taking his time with doing it.
You want to murmur a quip, do something to jab at the possessiveness hickeys usually carry, but right as you go to do so his lips and tongue find a home on the pulse point on the right side of your neck and all you can do is moan softly, one hand finding his hair.
"Adam," you whisper. "Fucking hell, Adam--you're going to drive me insane. Please don't stop."
You hear Adams laugh, slow, amused, a little sadistic. "Well, if I'm the one who drives you to insanity, I think that means I'm the one who has to pull you out of it, doesn't it, puppy?"
With the use of that one, silly nickname, you're reduced to what is basically a human shaped puddle, and Adam knows it. Whenever he calls you his puppy in a slightly dominant tone, your knees are at risk of giving out and the look you give him is tantamount to torture if he intends to tease you until you're begging.
"Mhm," you hum, moaning as Adams lips press in a peck against your pulse point. "Also means the same if you put me into subspace with all this foreplay, Adam."
Adam grins, and you let him tilt your chin so that your head turns to meet his gaze.
"Of course," he says. "I'm basically an aftercare god, despite the fact that Scott dunked on me for it while believing a cigarette afterwards is anything less than the bare minimum--I'll take good care of you once the session is done, puppy. I promise."
Your shoulders relax at the reassurance, and you grin as Adams lips press against your forehead.
You nod after a second. "Okay," you say. "I--thank you, for this. Pre-emptively."
Deep enough into subspace and you'll borderline on mute, only able to focus on how Adams ministrations feel. You have no doubt he intends to take you there tonight, so you feel the need to thank him before you slink that far in and have to wait for it to wear off to speak a coherent sentence to him again.
"We both need it, so it's my pleasure," Adam says, starting to undo the buttons of the black long sleeved button up you'd worn to work and had yet to take off that day. "And yours--it's both of us. I promise I'll start getting more dominant in a sec, these buttons hate me."
You laugh a little, helping him undo the rest of the buttons. "They're square. They hate everybody, me included. Getting this shirt on was a nightmare this morning and I've been reminded as to why I never wear the damn thing."
Adam uses the small of your back to guide you off the bed just enough to be able to completely take the shirt off, following it by the oddly quick--Adam is very, very good at undoing the pesky little hooks that hold bras together, oddly--removal of your bra.
His lips are on yours again, one hand on your bare hip while the other finds itself cupping your face, tongue gliding across your lip in asking for entrance which you grant as your arms wrap around his shoulders.
Kissing Adam in moments like that is always amazing--kissing him has been one of your favorite things since your romance started, even quick and chaste kisses that don't last more than a few seconds. Kissing Adam has never ceased to be an absolute delight, whether it led to sex or was used as an alternative form of "hello" "goodbye" "good night" or "good morning."
And then his lips start traversing down your neck once more, and then they go further.
Adam starts draping kiss after kiss across your torso, lips pressing against you in a way that allows his tongue to poke through his teeth as he kisses you with his mouth slightly open. Every single touch of his cold tongue against your warm skin makes you clench around nothing, quickens your heart rate and feels so impossibly delightful. Adam is kissing you in a way that damn near drives you insane, and you feel yourself sinking into how good his lips and tongue feel against you as he delivers praise between kisses.
"Such a good puppy for me, mm?" Adam murmurs when he's close to your belly button. "Taking all of this so well even though you probably just want me inside you already. Such a good cumdump for me, puppy. Perfect."
You hum in response, eyes drifting down to meet his gaze as he looks up at you. He smiles, briefly, before continuing with his kisses, letting himself spend a lot of time on your hips before his kisses rove across your stomach.
He kisses along your v-line slowly and in a way that makes you want to start begging, hands roving up from your hips to your biceps.
He glances at you for a second in the asking, waiting for you to nod. You do so and Adams hands move to your pants, taking them off along with your underwear before laughing at himself.
"I've got you here, lookin' fucking perfect," he says, kissing your bicep. "And yet I'm still clothed."
Your hands go to the hem of his shirt and he lets you pull it off, kissing the side of your shoulder as he watches you toss it near the laundry hamper in the far left corner of the room. Next come his pants and his boxers, which Adam takes off in a manner that's somehow effortless despite his continued kisses to your biceps throughout the process.
"I forget how much I love your arms until I'm kissing your biceps again," Adam says, laughing a little. "Fuck, baby. Your arms are fucking gorgeous."
You hum, pressing your head into the pillow behind you as Adams kisses start up again and his hands start wandering. One settles against your face, cupping it softly, and the other goes wandering delightfully down your torso, not stopping until his fingers are millimeters above your clit.
He pauses, gaze meeting yours in a way that feels almost a little sadistic.
"Gonna make you come so many times tonight, baby," he says. "Safe word?"
"Hibiscus," you whisper. It's a precaution for when you get really kinky, a word you came up with but, five years into your relationship, have yet to actually use.
Adams lips press against the center of your collarbone, "good puppy," he whispers against the skin.
His fingers start making slow, tantalizing circles around your clit, and his kisses continue, roving down your torso and staying in the general area of your hips and stomach.
A few minutes pass you by, and right when Adam has picked up the speed and is bringing you to the edge of an orgasm, he stops.
When he notices the disappointment in the way your head falls back onto the pillow, he wastes no time in licking his fingers clean of the wetness spread across them.
"Didn't think I'd let you come so soon, did you, puppy?" Adam moves up, lips near your ear. "I did say I'd make you come multiple times tonight, but I said nothing of letting you do so without a little edging first. Gonna edge you until the sun goes down, at least, and then make you cum until at least one or two in the morning. Gonna call in sick tomorrow, too, so that I'm not worrying about waking up and going into work."
"How much more time until the sunset?" You ask. It's four--the sunset can't really be so far off, can it?
"An hour," Adam says. "But--to be fair, a lot more can be done in an hour than one might think. Also--eight hours between five and one am. Assuming that the session exhausts you, you'll probably wake up close to noon tomorrow, but there's snow in the forecast and I'll probably make you a cup of tea if I wake up before you do."
You hum. "Thank you, Adam," you whisper. He kisses you deeply, and you can still taste yourself on his tongue.
"Don't thank me," he says when he's pulled away. "It's what good partners do, especially when I'll have practically rearranged your guts and it'll be a reward for doing good anyway."
You laugh. Adam presses a kiss to your forehead as his hands once again ground themselves on your hips and yours find his shoulders, holding him close.
"I love you, baby," he says. "Sorry that work has been shit."
"I love you too," you respond. "And--that's not your fault. Please don't blame yourself for mistakes that aren't yours, Adam. Please, just kiss me. Wanna forget about work and stupid fucking Earle--just wanna think about how good it feels to be touched and kissed by you. Please."
Adams lips press against your forehead again, his hands cupping your face.
"Gonna make sure you do," he says. His lips move to your biceps again, and you shudder an intake of breath as he leaves a hickey in the wake of one of his kisses.
You have a thought to call him a hickey fiend but don't--the risk of joking with him when Adam is in dom mode is not worth the reward even slightly.
His kisses trail down your face to your neck, and from your neck to your chest. You moan a little when his lips find your nipples, biting gently as his hands give your hips a contented squeeze.
Your head falls back onto the pillow beneath it, and you smile slightly as you hear Adams contented hum as he kisses along your chest from one nipple to the other.
The next several minutes are spent in pretty much the same state. Adam kisses your chest and neck with an open mouth, tongue all too eager to leave a trail of saliva behind his kisses. He's mostly quiet as he goes about it, but every time he does something to make you moan his hands squeeze your hips in acknowledgement.
And then his lips move to your stomach, spending an absurd amount of time leaving hickeys in the less obvious places. He spends more time on your hips which tells you you'll have dark hickeys to look forward to once you have the time to investigate the state of your body in a mirror, but he's not always the dominant one when you two are having sex--you'll find your moment where he's in a particularly submissive mood and douse his body with light-ish hickeys in some very obvious spots.
His lips move down to your thighs, and his gaze meets yours.
"You're feeling all right?" He asks, lips pressing gloriously against the top of your right thigh. "Need you to make space for me, puppy. Haven't paid your thighs attention in so fucking long--'nother minute of waiting and I will go insane."
You laugh as you spread your legs and Adam positions himself in between them, lips moving across your thighs as his arms slip under them and his hands find your hips.
The amount of attention he devotes to your legs alone is almost a little excessive--it takes him ten minutes before he's content to move from your right leg to your left, and then he's focusing on that leg just as long.
Then again--Adam has always loved your thighs. You've had moments of insecurity that they were too big to handle but he's always met your insecurity with reassurance, promised that he'd tell you if he was having trouble breathing whenever he asked you to sit on his face. He loves your thighs and your biceps, which are two of the areas where you find most of your insecurity.
And then you feel his breath against your folds, and you breathe in deeply while clenching around nothing.
"Wanna taste you, puppy," Adam says. You're nodding eagerly before he can even finish the sentence, wondering how it was that you managed to go eight months without feeling Adams mouth over your folds, his lips on your clit.
Adam is good at giving oral--he is fucking amazing at it, and as his tongue presses flat against your folds, his gaze holding yours, you find that it seems he's still as good as he was eight months ago.
His tongue runs through your folds for a very long few seconds before it presses against your clit. You moan at the contact, eyes nearly rolling into the back of your head as his tongue moves in circles around the bundle of nerves.
His tongue moves back to your folds, and your hand goes to his hair. You don't hold him in a tight grip or anything, just enough to ground yourself and keep yourself from slipping away.
It's hard not to slip into it, though. The grip that Adam has on your hips, the way he's eating you out like a man starved and that goddamned nickname he always uses whenever he's domming. All of it is so much combined, so much after eight months, and all you want to do is slip into subspace and just let Adam use you however he wants.
He keeps going until you're so close--teetering on the edge, nearly ready to come on his face--and then he stops, pulling away with a glistening mouth to take a breath.
And then he's lifting himself off of you, pulling himself up to press kiss after kiss after kiss to the spot where your neck meets your shoulder, and his hand is cupping your face.
"Please, puppy," he says. "Don't wanna go eight months without this ever again. Missed it."
It takes everything in you to drum up a response, still working through the second almost-orgasm of the evening.
"Never," you manage to mumble as your head turns, seeking Adams lips. He kisses you slowly, meaningfully, and you have a moment--just a moment--where you hate yourself for letting sex get away from you for such a long time.
Work has been eight months of never ending stress, eight months of managing one hundred and sixty people, dealing with a boss who claims to care about the team but only offers a raise to the five people from whom a guy stole off time rather than firing the idiot. You feel bad--work has taken the majority of your head space since March, and that doesn't feel fair in the fucking slightest.
"Adam," you whisper. He presses a peck to your lower lip and darts his tongue out to wet his own.
"Yeah, puppy?"
"Missed you," you respond. "'M sorry about work. I promise I didn't mean to get so busy, it's just--Earle and his fucking scheme, and Monica refusing to fire his sorry ass while he has the time of his goddamned life in Monaco, and--ugh. I don't mean to ruin the mood but it's just not leaving my head."
Adam laughs, presses a kiss to your forehead. "I know how you get, Y/N," he says. "I'm too drunk on the thought of your thighs around my head to even get slightly turned off right now but that's not the point."
He laughs again, thumb gliding across your bottom lip. "I've been worried about you but I knew work was probably the reason for your late nights, baby. I promise, it just made me cherish our lazy mornings even more. If you don't like working there, you can always quit, too--you've got your rainy day savings, and my job lets me cover the rent and have money left for groceries if you don't get something right away. Has anything else been bugging you or is it just work?"
"Just been in a funk," you respond. "The sex is helping a lot, but I've always found that being with you helps me like nothing else can. Needed this, Adam. Even if you've kept me from orgasming twice so far."
"Fifteen more minutes til sundown," Adam says. "You'll be so sick of coming when I finally start letting you, baby. I think I have it in me to last eight hours, but that's because I'll be giving myself a reprieve. You, however, might not get one. Dunno--it depends on if you'll want one, really."
"You'll know I do if I use the safe word," you respond. "Just--be soft with me, mm? I don't think I can handle being degraded too much, if at all. I'm scared that if you call me a slut with a mean tone I'll just fall to pieces and start crying."
Adam laughs, presses a kiss to your temple. "Think I've done enough edging," he says. "Kind of just wanna kiss you until you're begging me for more, baby. Sound okay?"
You nod, arms wrapping around his shoulders. "You really wouldn't be mad if I quit my job?"
"I would be the opposite of angry at you if you just announced it and didn't even give your two weeks," Adam says. "You've spent the majority of the last year giving them an arm and both of your legs in the effort it's taken to keep things afloat. You're up for a significant raise which I would wait to see if you got, but there are places that pay the amount you'd be getting after your raise as the starting salary, which only goes up after the first six months. I'd start applying to those places if I were in your shoes and I didn't get the raise I fuckin' deserved."
Adams lips drop to your collarbone. "'M so in love with you," he says. "And I'm sorry that work has been such a shitstorm lately. If you want, you can switch from a marketing job to working for a salary that covers rent and groceries with me at the bookshop? They're hiring all the fucking time and it means I can basically just...spend the entirety of my break just kissing you relentlessly if you do decide to join up."
You laugh, pulling a hand through his hair. "Maybe," you say. "If I don't get the raise."
Adam laughs, gently biting against your collarbone as his hands find your hips again.
"Love your hips, puppy," he says. "Will probably have to put lotion on the hickeys I left on 'em. Got a little carried away."
"I'll get my revenge somehow," you respond. "If you ever find yourself in a submissive mood, I will absolutely cover your neck in them."
"I like hickeys in obvious places, so long as you keep them light,"
"Oh, they will be. Everywhere but your pulse point--I happen to like your pulse point, Adam. Might get carried away worse than you did with my hips."
Adam bites your collarbone again, kissing up the center of it to the underside of your jaw before his lips are once again against yours.
"I love you so fucking much," Adam says into the kiss, giving your hips a hard squeeze. "Fuck, Y/N. Gonna make sure all of your stress is gone from your mind completely. Just want you to be thinking about me, puppy."
All you can do in response is moan into Adams mouth, closing your eyes and moaning once more as he uses your moaning to slip his tongue into your mouth, one hand coming up to cup your face.
You spend the next little eternity kissing, moaning whenever Adams hands squeeze whichever part of your body they've ended up near or on--typically your ass, just below it on your thigh, your hips, or your tits--and occasionally tugging at the hairs near the nape of his neck, where one of your hands rests.
And then, Adam pulls away. You gaze at him as he holds himself up by his elbows, a handsome smirk on his face.
"You're all right?" He asks.
The truth is, all you can think about is the memory of his cock inside you and you're convinced it's slowly driving you nuts, but by all other accounts, yeah.
You nod. "I'm amazing, Adam," you say. "Need to feel you."
As you speak the words, Adam is already reaching for his night stand on his side of the bed, grabbing a condom.
You roll it onto his length, one of your hands overlapping the hand he places on your hip as you lie back down.
Adam positions himself at your entrance, pushing into you slowly even despite how wet you are--you're more than ready to feel him, but Adam still goes slow to be cautious.
When he bottoms out, both of you moan. Your lips are almost right next to Adams ear, his forehead pressing against your shoulder, so the sound of you moaning just makes Adam want you more. One of his hands is on your breast, and he squeezes it, rolling the nipple between his first finger and thumb as you clench around his length.
After a minute, you're telling Adam he can start moving and his thrusts come to a slow start as Adam figures out the pace he wants to start with.
His lips have dipped close to your ear when he whispers, "you're so wet for me," and he kisses the side of your head before adding "such a good puppy. Fuck--you're amazing."
And you're moaning in response, starting to get cockdrunk as Adam moves in calculated thrusts, one hand propping himself up by the elbow and the other against your hip.
Your thighs wrap around his waist to keep him in place, and Adam laughs as he lifts the hand on your hip to cup your face.
"You like this, baby?" He asks. You moan, nodding slightly as your eyes close, giving his shoulder a squeeze.
"Such a good puppy for me," he says. "So good, baby. You're doing so good."
And then you moan again, and Adam presses a kiss to the corner of your lips. He quickens the pace of his thrusts, lips moving to your neck as the hand that was on your face moves to your clit, rubbing circles around it and delighting in the moans it brings from your throat.
Your release spurs his on, and while you moan and release around him Adam releases into the condom, thrusting his way through the aftershocks and the way that your legs start shaking with them.
He pulls out and discards the condom, heading back to you quickly and peppering your face with kisses.
You find yourself in a state of complete and total relaxation and euphoria. Adams hands on you make you sink further in, and Adam laughs a little--you're looking at him like he's the love of your life while you're practically drowning in post-orgasm bliss, which is a delightful and meaningful addition to the times in which you've looked at him like that, particularly whenever he's decided to surprise you with breakfast or when you wake up to find him admiring you as he'd woken up before you had.
"You're feeling all right?" The orgasm had been a little intense.
You nod, and Adam presses his nose against the apple of your cheek, pressing a quick kiss there as his hands find your face.
"Going quiet?" He presses his lips to your forehead. "Not for long, baby. I have at least seven more hours with you, yeah?"
You nod, and Adams lips are on yours again.
A lot of the time, you start to realize, will be passed with Adams lips against yours, his hands going somewhere on your body as you moan and whine at his touches.
You don't hate the idea, though--Adam is a damn good kisser and absolutely knows what he's doing with his lips and tongue. You've proven yourself capable of lazily making out with Adam for hours several times, though that was when the two of you were kiss fiends in the honeymoon phase and couldn't go more than twenty minutes without it.
But then, Adams lips trail from your lips to your chest, paying attention to it as his hands move from your face to your hips. Once he's paid satisfactory attention to your chest, he moves to your stomach, where, per the presence of your hips close by, he stays for a long ten minutes.
Then his lips are on your inner thighs and your hand is in his hair and all you can do is moan, one word waiting and ready at the tip of your tongue but not falling off of it.
You watch through half lidded eyes as Adams eyes lock on your cunt, nod fervently when his gaze meets yours and his head tilts in the asking.
His tongue finds your clit and he moves one finger, slowly, into your hole as his lips follow his tongue. You turn your head and moan into the pillow in an effort to silence yourself, but the noise level at which the moan sits is still so obscene that Adam chuckles, shaking his head as his left arm slips under your thigh and his hand finds purchase at your chest.
Adams tongue moves around your clit in evenly paced circles, finger moving at a calculated pace as he adds another. Adams fingers curl around your g-spot once every fifteen-ish seconds, and every time your moans get louder because of the action, Adam laughs a little and presses his tongue flat against your clit.
Adam has you pushed to your orgasm in fifteen minutes. You barely have time to warn him before you're coming over his mouth, chin, and his hand, but Adam hardly cares. He only licks his fingers to clean them and juts his tongue out to run it over his lips, all while holding your gaze.
And then he's kissing you and you're tasting yourself, humming into the kiss as Adam reaches one arm out and fumbles for the nightstand in search of another condom.
Adam gets it and rips it open, sliding it onto his length and motioning for you to get on your knees and turn around. You do as he says and Adam slowly slides into you, the both of you moaning slightly as he bottoms out.
Adam waits a minute for you to adjust to him, and once you have he starts thrusting. He sets an even, quick pace and moves a hand to your clit, moaning as you lean back and press your back against his front.
Adams lips find a spot in the space between your neck and shoulder, and every last one of the sounds you make spurs him on. His moans are low, typically comorbid with yours, and they come in between the praise he manages to mumble out as he moves and you start moving back onto him.
"So good," he mutters, biting gently against your shoulder. "Fuck--"
You moan in response, unable to form any coherent thought other than Adams name.
"Adam," you whisper as the pace at which Adams finger touches your clit increases. "Adam--"
You feel him smile against your skin, a cocky grin taking up his face.
"Yes, baby?" He asks, moaning as you clench around him. "Gonna use your words for me, mm?"
"Adam," it's the only word that comes to mind right now, though it'll be one of ten, at best, once he's pushed you to orgasm again.
"Adam, oh--" You moan as he snaps his hips up into you.
Adam keeps the pace he's set and it's not long before you're moaning loudly as Adams lips and tongue suck a hickey into the space where your neck meets your shoulder, your release occurring just seconds before his own, before he's a moaning mess as he thrusts into you through the aftershocks.
Adam pulls out and lays you back onto the bed before rolling the condom off and tossing it into the trash.
The cycle continues that way until you find yourselves nearing one in the morning. Your lips are wet with your own saliva after you've pulled off of Adams length and he's being sweet, your face in his hands as you start moving to sit on the bed.
"One more for me, baby," he says. In eight hours, you've come more than eight times, your legs are basically jelly, and all you have on your mind is Adam. "Just one more, mm? Then I'll run us a bath and we can just relax, I promise. Aftercare god, remember?" He laughs a little at the tail end of his sentence, cringing at himself a little bit.
And you're nodding, smiling at Adam as his lips find your inner thighs and you're blissed out on post-orgasm euphoria--Adam had let you touch yourself while sucking his dick, and you'd come over your hand as he shot his load into your mouth, which you'd agreed to let him do--and it's fifteen minutes til one and Adams lips against your thighs is absolutely amazing.
And then his lips and tongue go to your cunt, and you're moaning as your thighs wrap around his head, which leads to him laughing and squeezing your hips.
And Adam eats you out carefully, slowly, moaning as he does so. He's taking his time with you because you're blissed out and will definitively need to be easy on yourself in terms of walking after all that's been done. He's moaning, tongue moving through your folds in a way that feels incredible to both you and him, and his lips find your clit as he moves to start fingering you.
Adam sets a good pace, quick but not too quick, and curls his fingers at your g-spot with every thrust. You're moaning loudly despite the time and Adam is loving it, and then you're coming on his lips and his tongue and Adam is licking it off your cunt and his lips with a focused precision.
Then Adam is getting up, pressing a kiss to your forehead and telling you he'll be back in a few minutes. He tells you he loves you but doesn't expect a response--you're absolutely too blissed out to say much of anything, and he loves it because it's the first time in eight months where you've looked so relaxed, the first time in eight months where you've felt it.
Your eyes close as Adam leaves your shared bedroom, and you hear him starting up a bath. You smile to yourself, pressing your cheek against the pillow, having a brief, floaty thought of I am so lucky before Adam comes into the room again, smile on his clean face.
He kisses your eyelids, hands finding and interlacing themselves with yours.
"C'mon," he says. "I've run us a bath, baby. Gonna relax your legs, which are definitely sore by this point."
And then your eyes are opening and he's helping you stand as he tells you how much he loves you and how amazing you were during the session, and his lips are against your forehead in a kiss.
You're mostly quiet as Adam leads you to the bathroom, humming as you get into the tub with him.
You press your chin against Adams shoulder and in the next few minutes, you're still tired but the water is still hot and you're starting to form coherent thoughts again.
"Thank you," you whisper, pressing a kiss to Adams wet shoulder. He hums, pressing a kiss to your forehead.
"For what?" Adam asks.
"For the last nine hours," you say. "For making me forget about work stress and for the sex."
Adam laughs, pressing another kiss to your forehead. "The sex was enjoyable for both parties, then," he says. "And--you're welcome, but you don't need to thank me. Just wanted to help you de-stress a little, and I'm glad I could do that."
You're in the bath together for thirty-ish minutes after that, and you let Adam wash your hair as he peppers your hickied neck with kisses and his hands run along your biceps. You wash his, and you spend the time waiting for the conditioner to set talking about your plans for the day as the day has turned.
Adam intends to let you sleep in and to make breakfast, and you intend to at least move from the bedroom to the living room after you've woken up so that you can read from the comfort of your couch.
You get out of the bath and, because your legs are still pretty sore, have barely any choice but to let Adam help you back to your room and sit on the bed as Adam gets dressed and grabs you clothes.
You get dressed into a pair of black boxers--they, Adam decides, will be comfier than sweatpants--and a hoodie Adam had during his baggy clothes phase that's baggy on you, too, and covers two thirds of your thigh before your knee amidst laughter and kisses that you share in the relative dark.
You and Adam end up going to sleep on the couch anyway so as to avoid halfhearted fighting about who sleeps on the wet spot on the bed from the sweat emitted during sex, curled up in each others arms with a thick, warm and fuzzy blanket covering you both up to your shoulders.
#adam stanheight#adam faulkner-stanheight#adam stanheight x reader#adam faulkner-stanheight x reader#saw 2004
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I have this HC that after Billy is out of recovery/therapy, he starts smoking weed basically every day, becoming a bit of a coping mechanism for him.
Have this Billy pov sad whumpy thing I typed out while you guessed it, high.
~~~~~Billy Narrator~~~~~
It helps with pain, it helps with anxiety and depression, it helps with social situations and can help with appetite. All things he's now dealing with after his brush with the upside down.
Pain from losing parts of himself, literally, to a monster who used him like a walking meat puppet, sending him into his own personal hell he couldn't escape from and had no way of expressing his experience to anyone else.
With every person he encountered, he had hoped somehow, someone would see what was happening, that somehow someone might have gotten to know him well enough in this hick fucking town to have given a shit about how weird he was acting.
No one did.
It wasn't until El with her mind powers and his stupid fucking sister deciding to peep on him. It was pure luck they had even found out, he had basically avoided everyone in the house as much as he could leaving no real opportunities for the rest of his household to notice.
Max fucked off with her friends, Susan avoided the house just as much as he did and if Niel wasn't working, then he was watching TV or out with his new buddies from work.
No one was ever home if they couldn't help it, and when they were everyone stuck to their own rooms more often than not. No one *wanted* to see each other and Billy had liked it that way.
Now Billy can't stand being alone in rooms, but he also can't handle going out around too many people at the same time.
Then there's the pain, the soreness, the twinges and the burning nerve pain that feels like needles stabbing his skin. The accidental skin tugs as he doesn't move cautiously enough are enough to stop Billy from playing sports or even to work out, already lowering his completely decimated self esteem.
He hates himself and he hates everyone else. He hates Niel who's dropped out of his life about as thoroughly as he tried to keep Billy in his.
He hates Max for being just as stubborn as he was, he hates Susan for never sticking up for him, he hates how his life has been one big series of battles, thinking he would win eventually and end up on his own where he could choose his own life from that moment on and now he's fucking stuck in a 8x8 trailer bedroom.
He used to live near the beach.
It was gorgeous, it was fun, he had friends and even though he never really got along with Niel, things had been okay. But even that wasn't great, looking back now he can see the things he didn't see before; his mom's sad smiles, the occasional dinner that felt tense for no reason, the times when his mother would turn up the volume of her music to drown out the arguments they were having.
Billy's never really had a good life by normal standards and now it feels like he won't get it ever.
He's reliant. He's in pain all the time, he can't be around people and the thought of being naked in public has him shaking with anxiety.
The weed helps a little, loosens him up socially, dulls some of the more sharper pain and helps him to forget about his past for a little while.
Helps him eat too, not having had enough of an appetite to stomach more than water and maybe a fruit or two. There's a lot of things he can't eat now and it's all the monsters fault.
He hates himself because everything's different and a large portion of his life is now inaccessible to him, he *has* to change if he's going to live through this life, there's either only moving forward or...nothing, he couldn't imagine himself hiding for the rest of his life.
He hates the idea of that, the engrained need to have something important about himself, some skill he could show off or talent to use as a social weapon to gain social points.
Can't even give himself time to grieve the loss of his old way of life. He just, doesn't want to think about it.
The weed helps that too. Billy doesn't do much thinking anymore, not the deep kind, opting to fill his entire day with some form of stimulus, TV, music, walking, reading, cooking, cleaning, the list goes on.
The dull in pain helps him keep active but he always regrets it when he eventually comes down, feeling the ache in his body hit him like a ton of bricks all over again because he pushed himself too hard.
So yea, he's high a lot, he doesn't want to deal with his issues sober. Munson had tried to bring it up once, made a joke about selling most of his stuff to Billy but he didn't give him an answer, changing the subject.
He knew people could see something was up but no one knew how he'd react if they asked. He'd probably get upset at them and he knows it, he knows that if someone tries to get him to talk about it now that he won't be ready to explain it.
He's tired, and the freshness of it all is too much to handle just yet all at once, he needs time and he'll deal with it bit by bit.
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tbh i really like how swimmers are built. i was only good at cheer and fencing. i was a flier in cheer and ive put on SO much weight since i quit, like its so embarrassing. like 25 pounds. i was 14 and not eating but still its a bummer yk
TW: weight issues and eating problems
Growing up from 6th grade all the way till 12th grade which is ages 11 to 18 (I was year older than my peers not as socially developed as a child) I weighed 120 the entire time. Didn't gain nor lose and it's really messed me up a bit I guess.
When I was swimming I rarely ate, and when I did I inhaled everything around me. I was burning well over 100,000 calories a week and not replenishing them properly. When it came to the swim meets which were every other weekend from Friday to Sunday I refused to eat.
I was wearing something called vaskins which are basically skin suits that are waterproof for swimmer, and my anxiety refused me to eat. Didn't help either I was on ADD medicine that caused me to suffer from loss of appetite.
Now, that I've quite swimming I still have issues eating due to my medicine. When I stopped swimming I was either eating everything or refusing to eat at all.
Now I've gained about 29 pounds and couldn't be happier. Now the weight gain is from not exercising which my body isn't used to but let me tell you the whole point of this
While I miss how small I was, it wasn't healthy for me and honestly haven't felt better. Don't ever think wright gain is a bad thing, sometimes it's just your body getting itself back to normal
Now if you're worried about your weight gain, talk to someone. It's always better to talk to someone than hold it in before it gets worse.
There are all different bodies shapes in the world and each one is gorgeous, don't let yourself or anyone else tell you it's not. You're gorgeous baby, be proud of it. No one tears yourself down more than you, don't let you be the one to cause harm.
Kick ass, love yourself, love your skin and body, and you'll feel better. It's not easy, but sometimes just some simple sayings help. 💕💕💕
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Psychiatrist appointment kept getting rebooked on both our ends and was cutting close to the 6-month mark (when I'd be officially considered discharged if I didn't come back) but it finally happened yesterday
Last time I saw him, he said my main problem was psychosis, which is true and that probably was my biggest problem at that point
This time, he said he doesn't think I have psychosis at all
I asked if we could try a depot, because I'm having issues taking my meds as part of my relapse and a depot would make it a little bit easier
He says he can't do that because I don't have a diagnosis for something an antipsychotic would be used for
I have a diagnosis for something that an antipsychotic would be used for and have had this diagnosis for the last 9 years
I ask why I need a diagnosis of something specific in order to receive a depot
He tells me "I need to tell them why you're taking it"
Who the fuck is "them"?
He wants to increase my Seroquel to 100mg
Even 75mg of Seroquel is too much for me to take on a daily basis and I have to cycle my dose throughout the week between 75mg and 50mg
He wants to change my antidepressant from Wellbutrin to Prozac
I give him the heads-up that Wellbutrin doesn't do anything for my MDD but works for my ADHD, so taking me off it would leave my ADHD unmedicated, but this doesn't seem to bother him
I've taken other antidepressants similar to Prozac in the past and they didn't do anything for my anxiety, sometimes made my anxiety worse, usually didn't do anything for my depression, and were not worth the stuff that would happen to me like hair loss, hallucinations, rapid mood swings, dissociation, etc., but this is fine to him
He wants to give me the liquid form of Prozac because it's easier to control the dose, but oral suspensions have been the hardest medications for me to take right now and I'd fare better with a pill
I just finished taking 28 doses of a liquid medication in 7 days, please give me time to breathe before starting a new one
He wants to change my antidepressant because I'm in a bit of a relapse and one of the potential side effects of Wellbutrin is reduced appetite
One of the potential side effects of Prozac is reduced appetite
The increased hunger caused by my Seroquel outweighs any possible reduced hunger from my Wellbutrin
He says my main issue right now is anxiety and that's another reason why he wants me on Prozac
I ask him what had led him to say anxiety is my main problem so I can clear up any possible misunderstandings, since I don't feel like that's my main issue at the moment and I don't know what I've said or done to make him believe that
He says "Because that's my opinion"
I ask if it's my body language, my tone of voice, my word choices, etc. leading him to that conclusion
He says "None of those things"
I ask, if not one of the things I listed, what else could it be?
He says "Because that's the impression I get"
I ask why he gets that impression
He says "I just do"
I can see that he apparently gives prescriptions based on vibes rather than actual symptoms
After going around in that conversational loop at least 5 times, I say "Okay" and disconnect the video call
I talk to a social worker at CMHA who doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about when he says I need a diagnosis to get a depot and she convinces me to reconsider whether I want to give up on this doctor already
I call his receptionist the next day and she says that he meant he would need to tell my diagnosis to the drug manufacturer
The receptionist also says I'm already officially discharged less than 24 hours after speaking to him, so I guess the decision of whether to go back has already been made for me
I talk to a nurse at CMHA, a pharmacist at my pharmacy, and a receptionist at my GP's office, and none of them know why he would have to tell my diagnosis to the manufacturer
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Finding Family: Part Five: Epilogue
Summary: When America begins universe-hopping again to try and find her moms, she realizes that’s too much scope for her. She looks for smaller scope, and instead she finds Wanda.
AO3
Common symptoms of depression, as defined by the Mayo Clinic in the years leading up to the Snap:
· “Feelings of sadness, tearfulness, emptiness or hopelessness
· Angry outbursts, irritability or frustration, even over small matters
· Loss of interest or pleasure in most or all normal activities…
· Sleep disturbances, including insomnia or sleeping too much
· Tiredness and lack of energy…
· Reduced appetite and weight loss or increased cravings for food
· Anxiety, agitation or restlessness
· Slowed thinking, speaking or body movements
· Feelings of worthlessness or guilt…
· Trouble thinking, concentrating, making decisions and remembering things
· Frequent or recurrent thoughts of death, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts or suicide
· Unexplained physical problems, such as back pain or headaches”
Scarlet never needed the list to tell her that she was depressed. She’d known the first time she’d seen the word, known that it labeled something intrinsic deep within her, known that if she checked yes next to that box on her volunteer form Hydra would shuffle her off somewhere else and so had never checked it, known that admitting it to anyone wasn’t a weakness – she wasn’t weak for being depressed, and she still isn’t – but that it was a vulnerability, a dressing down of walls she’d put into place to keep herself from getting hurt.
Pietro knew because she told him. Vision knew because he guessed, although they never discussed it because she’d been better with him. Nat knew because she told her – the only one of the Avengers she’d even told – and Clint knew because he’d seen some of the same signs in her that he’d seen in himself. Tony….
Maybe, if he’d been around, they might have been able to discuss some of their commonalities, but he was never around.
Funny, how many of the Avengers had been—
Scarlet has only ever brought her depression up with two people. It’s gone largely undiagnosed because she’d never had the money for therapy before becoming an Avenger, never really felt like reaching out when she was one and dealing with her grief over Pietro, and never really considered the possibility after Westview, although perhaps she should have.
It is strange to her, then, when it comes up with Agatha early one morning, while it is still dark outside of her window, stars just peeking through a thin cover of clouds.
~
It’s been bothering Scarlet, actually, since she brought Agatha back, although she’s never made a point of asking before. “Why is it,” she murmurs as she slides from atop her and rolls onto her back, “that you don’t call me Scarlet?” She pushes her hair back from where it’s fallen messily into her face. “Everyone else does.”
“Oh, so this is going to be the post-sex talk. Riveting topic you’ve chosen there, hon.” One corner of Agatha’s lips curves in something akin to a smirk. She curls onto her side and props her head up on one hand. “Being petty at first, I suppose.” Her eyes stare off to the upper left as she considers, not really focusing on anything. “But it never really fit for you, dear.” She shrugs. “Why Scarlet anyway? You had the whole realm of names and you picked, well, that.” That same corner of her lips turns upward in disgust. “You could have chosen so much better, babe.”
Scarlet gives her a look of disbelief. “Oh, really?” she says. “You mean like Agnes?” She catches the way Agatha flinches but continues anyway, “I would have been Wandoff. Or Maxida. Or—”
“Stop,” Agatha interrupts. “You’re killing me, Smalls.” She rolls her eyes, but the look she gives Scarlet is exceptionally fond. “Not everyone has a perfectly combinable name like Agatha Harkness. Although I suppose I could have used Hartha, hm?”
Scarlet snorts. “I would never have believed you. Never. Not in one million years. That is a horrible name.”
“Good thing I didn’t use it then.”
It would be nice, in this moment, for Agatha to kiss her. Vision would have, and that would have been the end of the conversation. In another universe, Agatha must kiss her. That’s how it is with the multiverse.
But in this universe, Agatha doesn’t kiss her, as she must know that Scarlet wants, doesn’t begin a gentle return to what they were doing only moments earlier. Instead, she asks again, “Why Scarlet? It’s not a particularly appealing name, hon.”
“I’m the Scarlet Witch,” Scarlet says, looking away from Agatha and situating her covers a little more warmly around her. “It felt apt. And….” She hesitates and curls her lips together before continuing. “After we saved Ash, Kate – you know Kate—”
“Yes, yes, Wendy’s little friend with the arrows.” Agatha turns one finger in the air, beckoning Scarlet to continue. “Keep going.”
Scarlet takes a breath in, steels herself. “She told me, before the Snap, that there were…that she was part of a group of kids who were obsessed with us. With the Avengers. They got all of the information they could on us. Tried to track us down when there were fights. Collected tidbits. Stuff like that.” She sighs. “Kate was obsessed with Clint, obviously, but her friend Scarlet was obsessed with me, and when I disappeared after the Sokovian Accords….” Her voice trails off, and her brow furrows as her eyes seem to search the empty air in front of her. “There was a fight going on – something with Scott – and she went down to try and find me, even though I wasn’t there, and she….” She bites her lower lip. “She died. But she never should have been there in the first place,” she continues immediately after saying it, rambling, as though to cover it up. “Children shouldn’t run into war zones looking for heroes and expecting that they’ll just be there to save them all the time. It ends up getting people hurt. It ends up getting people killed.” Her gaze moves, slow, to Agatha. “You understand that, don’t you?”
“I understand that you named yourself with guilt and self-hatred and not with an adorable pun, like you should have.” Agatha sighs. “Scarlet could have been a good pun, but no, just—” She gestures with her free hand at Scarlet. “—this.” With a little huff, she leans against the pillows and tenderly brushes her fingers through Scarlet’s hair. “Depression doesn’t look good on you, hon.”
Scarlet flinches, avoids Agatha’s gaze. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course, you don’t.” Agatha lifts a strand of Scarlet’s hair, smoothes it between her fingertips. “You wouldn’t know anything about being tired or trying to get multiple people to kill you or carrying around your guilt like it’s some huge burden that makes you, oh, I don’t know, worthless.” She sits up a little straighter. “Makes you not good enough. Deserving of infinite punishment. Hon.”
“Agatha,” Scarlet begins, glancing up at her, “I believe you were there when I put a whole town under mind control. You’ve no doubt heard what I did under the Darkhold’s influence—”
Agatha gives her a very pointed look. “Your worst decision there was reading the book, babe. Half of that stuff you – I – wouldn’t have done without—”
“How do you not feel guilty?” Scarlet interrupts, staring at her. “How do you not feel like you should be punished? Like you should die?”
For a moment, Agatha doesn’t say anything. The silence lingers, and as it does, Scarlet begins to grow uncomfortable, although she doesn’t take her questions back. Besides, the avoidance is answer enough. Maybe that’s what’s really making her unsettled.
Then Agatha lets out a breath and smiles, wistful. “I was like you once, dear,” she says, finally. “Couple hundred years ago or so. And I thought….” She chuckles darkly. “It doesn’t matter what I thought. What does matter is that someone a few hundred years older than I was decided to be kind enough to step in and save me.”
Scarlet scowls and crosses her arms. “I don’t need you to save me.”
“No, Wanda, you don’t.” Agatha snorts lightly. Her eyes search Scarlet’s. “No, hon, you want me for something else entirely.” Now she does lean down, gently pressing an unchaste kiss to her lips. “I don’t mind being used for this,” she murmurs, “but I’m not going to call you Scarlet, hon. Don’t think anyone else should either, since it’s just part of your guilt complex, but—”
Scarlet doesn’t let her finish, instead leaning up to silence her with another kiss, curling her fingers on the nape of her neck. “Wanda’s fine,” she murmurs. “Let’s not talk about it again.”
~
Three days later, Scarlet wakes up to find that Agatha isn’t there.
She stretches out her hand to the space behind her, expecting Agatha to be curled up and just facing the other direction, but there’s nothing, not even the warmth she would have left behind if she’d only gotten up a few moments earlier. This isn’t completely unusual; Agatha is restless and has a tendency to wake long before Scarlet does, although most of the time she returns to bed within a matter of moments, with a book or a cup of tea – or two cups of tea, idling keeping Scarlet’s warm with a twisting of her fingers while her mind is preoccupied with something else. It is unusual for her to be gone so long.
Scarlet sits up in bed, and before she can turn to see where Agatha might have gone, she notices her outside, standing in the apple orchard, a familiar mulberry carpetbag covered with muted gold paisley resting in one hand. Almost as though feeling her gaze, Agatha turns back to her and lifts one hand in a little wave.
Then she disappears in a cloud of purple smoke, laced through with tendrils of charcoal.
Immediately, Scarlet gets out of bed, shifts clothes onto herself – she’s not really paying attention to what clothes, so they’re a little mismatched, jeans are fine, cream-colored sweater is fine, two different tennis shoes are less fine – and rushes down the stairs. No one else is awake, or if they are, they aren’t in the living room and they certainly haven’t talked to Agatha (unfortunate for her that Agnes and Ash left, because usually one or both of them had been up first thing in the morning, setting breakfast or just talking with each other over mugs of something warm while they waited on everyone else to wake), which means no one else knows 1) that she’s gone or 2) where she might possibly be going. She pushes through the front door, hears it slam shut behind her, and then notices something out of the corner of her eye: Agatha, sitting at the rickety old table where she once met with America, sipping at a lavender-colored mug of coffee, one hand resting on that same mulberry carpetbag where it rests on the table.
“Good of you to join me, dear,” Agatha says as she meets Scarlet’s eyes. She pats the seat next to her, where a rosy-colored mug rests just on the table in front of it. “We should have a little talk.”
Scarlet raises an eyebrow, notices that her shoes are two different sorts, and subtly fixes them before sliding into the other chair. She wraps her hands around the mug, warming them with it. “You scared me,” she spits out, still staring at Agatha. “I thought you were gone—”
“Well, that was the point, wasn’t it, hon?” Agatha’s glance drops, and she takes another sip of her coffee before calmly saying, “I think it’s time that I leave. Take a vacation, if you will.”
Scarlet splutters on the sip she’d attempted of her chamomile tea. “Leave?” she echoes. Then she laughs. “No, no, no, you’re not going anywhere—”
“You’ll find, dear, that I will be going whether you like it or not.” There’s something firm underlying Agatha’s voice – not bitter, not angry, not even menacing, though it sets Scarlet’s heart to racing. Just there all the same. “You’ve kept me locked up for long enough now, and I....” She sighs, gazing out at the orchard in front of them, the apple trees that are just beginning to blossom. “It’s beautiful here, hon, it really is, but I was not made to be cooped up in one place for so long.”
Instinctively, Scarlet pulls an orb of chaotic magic into her free hand. “Agatha, I can’t trust that you’ll—” She cuts herself off as Agatha glances over to her. It’s the first time she’s seen something dead there, something dying, hopeless. She taes a deep breath in. “If you hurt someone, then I’ll be responsible.”
Agatha snorts, and her accompanying smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “Hon, you’d never even heard of me before Westview, and you only did then because I took pity on you and introduced myself.”
“You have a funny way of showing pity—”
“My point,” Agatha continues, cutting Scarlet off, “is that you didn’t hear about me before, so you wouldn’t hear about me now.” She glances over to her. “Or is there another reason you don’t want me to leave?”
“No.” The word is through Scarlet’s lips before she can consider any other option, and she crosses her arms, leans back against the chair, and refuses to meet Agatha’s eyes. “No other reason.”
Agatha nods. Then she stands, leans over and kisses Scarlet’s cheek gently. “Don’t worry, starlight. I’ll be back before you know it.” She grabs her carpetbag.
Scarlet’s eyes widen, and she looks up. “Back?”
“Of course. I wasn’t planning on going away forever, babe. You clearly need someone of my unique capabilities here to take care of you.” Agatha gingerly reaches over, cards her fingers gentle through Scarlet’s hair. “Someone to remind you that Wanda is a much better name than Scarlet—”
“Hey—”
Agatha smiles with the barest tinge of regret. “Unless, of course, you don’t want me to come back. I wouldn’t want to outstay my welcome, hon.”
Scarlet sits up a little straighter, takes Agatha’s hand out of her hair, and kisses her knuckles. “You will always have a home here, Agatha. You’re family now. The kids would miss you if you never came back.” She scowls. “They think you’re the best history teacher they’ve ever seen. And without Ash here to teach Billy magic….” Her voice trails off. “You’d better come back, Agatha Harkness.”
At first, it seems like Agatha will reach down and kiss her again or pull her up and kiss her or something and kiss her, but she doesn’t. Instead, she lets Scarlet’s hand drop from hers, barely taking the time to rub her thumb along her knuckles before doing so, and then smiles. “I wouldn’t dream of staying away too long, Wanda.”
Then, as before, the violet cloud threaded through with black, and Agatha is gone.
~
Evenings at Scarlet’s house are, in her unprofessional opinion, the best part of the day.
Wendy still spends most of her days as she did before, curled up somewhere and quietly reading, although every now and again she will pull out a journal and write something in it. Sometimes it’s a new bedtime story she is crafting for Billy and Tommy, and sometimes it’s a spell that she’s still trying to figure out the best runes or incantations for – not that she needs them, as a fellow Scarlet Witch, but because she likes to have them, to fiddle with parts of witchcraft that give a better foundation for the magic she can so easily call forth.
Oftentimes, America is with Wendy, sitting close enough that Wendy can idly stroke her hands along America’s hair as she reads, close enough that, if she feels the need, she can stretch up and press an easy kiss to Wendy’s cheek. But more often than not, America spends her days elsewhere, traversing the multiverse just to see the different versions and varieties of things she can find. She always brings something back from her journeys – a trinket, a bag, a toy – to share with everyone, although she makes a point to stay with her family for Shabbat. Every Wednesday evening, she pulls out different recipes from the universes she’s traveled and creates new foods (or old foods with a new twist) for them to enjoy together, even if sometimes they all agree that what she’s created is actually pretty horrible. The jury is always out on whether that’s a fault with that universe or with America’s cooking.
Billy and Tommy settle into their new home as though it is no different than the one they have left. Billy doesn’t just love Scarlet, he adores her with a passion unmatched by his twin. Tommy starts off a little more in his shell; the loss of Vision hits him harder than it does Billy, and it is only when Scarlet discusses her own memories of her husband that Tommy begins to open up to her. Scarlet isn’t the best teacher, but she often teaches by example.
Every evening, the entire family finally comes together for dinner – each and every one of them, even America, back from her travels. Sometimes they talk about their day, and sometimes they talk about nothing at all. The important thing is that they are together and that, even when they aren’t speaking, they enjoy one another’s company. After dinner, they curl up together in the living room and, as Scarlet remembers doing when she was younger, they pick a television show and enjoy it together. America often pulls in various versions of things from other universes, but Scarlet goes for the old classics – shows she’d mimicked in Westview that, for some reason, don’t hurt as much as they once did. After the show, Wendy tells them all a bedtime story, by the end of which the boys are usually nodding off. Scarlet takes them upstairs, tucks them in, and kisses each of their foreheads gently, and more often than not, she lingers in the doorway, staring at them, surprised at how lucky she has gotten to be blessed with them again.
Sometimes, Scarlet goes to join Wendy and America in the living room afterwards. They talk or they see another episode of something (or a movie, although Scarlet is less inclined to the ones that Wendy and America want to see) or they play video games that Scarlet doesn’t want the boys to play (Mario Kart, Mario Party, and Super Smash Bros are one thing; Call of Duty, Halo, and Modern Warfare are entirely different. Not that Scarlet particularly likes those games either; she’s more into Dark Souls and the like, but Wendy says they remind her too much of Neverland, which always makes Scarlet wonder what Neverland had actually been like). The specifics matter less than the time spent comfortably together, that they can spend time comfortably together, and sometimes, Scarlet glances over to America and meets her eyes in the quiet acknowledgment of that fact.
But every now and again, Scarlet goes to her room by herself, sits in the middle of her bed, lets out a deep breath and thinks of all of the things that went wrong – and all of the things that went right – to get her to this moment. There are still things she would change – of course, there are – but she wouldn’t change the end result in the slightest.
~
One evening, Wong shows up, looking for the book she’d stolen from him, and Scarlet hands it back easily enough. “We don’t need it anymore.”
Wong doesn’t raise an eyebrow. He just nods with an unreadable expression. “I’m glad you made good use of it,” he says, “but please don’t steal from Kamar-Taj again. It makes me look bad.”
“And you wouldn’t want that.” Scarlet smirks, and for a moment, it feels…good. Like they have hit an acceptance of each other more than either of them ever would have thought possible after her attack barely more than a year ago.
Of course, that acceptance is interrupted by a pounding at the door and a sheepish look from Wong. Scarlet thinks that, like she had with Wong, like she had with other unexpected visitors, she should phase through the wall in pure Scarlet Witch costume, just to frighten them away, to intimidate them, but she realizes that she doesn’t feel that way anymore.
When she makes it to the door, Billy is standing there, waiting on her. “I don’t think he’s very happy, Mom,” he says.
“Who isn’t happy?” Scarlet asks, turning and opening the door to none other than Stephen Strange. “Ah.”
Stephen looks as though he is half-dressed for an altercation and half not – he’s in jeans and the same blue jacket he’d worn the last time he visited her in Sokovia, but his red cloak hovers at his neck. It’s a little mismatched – the cloak with the jacket – but Scarlet knows better than to even attempt the little laugh that is trying to claw its way up her throat. Instead, her hand moves instinctively to Billy’s shoulder, pulling him to her.
There are a lot of things Scarlet could say to Stephen at this point – You’re not taking my boys or I haven’t done anything this time or It took you long enough – but she steps back, holds the door open, and says, “Stephen. Why don’t you come in?”
Stephen glances inside the house and then steps across the threshold. He glances up, notes the runes in the mantelpiece, and nods. “Ah. Those are new, aren’t they?” He scuffs his feet on the welcome mat, though the snow is long since gone, and keeps his hands shoved into his jacket pockets. “Wong said America is staying here now?”
Wendy glances up from where she’s curled up on the couch with a book in one hand. “She’s upstairs, actually.” Her gaze flicks to Scarlet. “She said something about wanting to add something to my room from some other universe, and I thought—” Her words are quickly interrupted by a pounding of feet on the stairs.
“Wendy, it’s done! You can come—” America makes it halfway down the stairs before seeing Stephen standing just inside the front door. Her eyes widen. “Oh. Uh. Hey? It’s been…it’s been a while?”
Scarlet gently closes the door behind her. “Stephen, why don’t you and Wong join us for supper? Whatever you have to say, you can tell us then.”
“Wanda, I don’t think that’s a good—”
“Scarlet,” Wendy interrupts immediately, correcting him. “She goes by Scarlet now. It isn’t very nice if you don’t use people’s proper names.”
Scarlet doesn’t glance over to Wendy, but instead she glances up and meets Stephen’s eyes. It’s surprising, sometimes, how much they look like Agatha’s, and a part of her regrets that the older witch isn’t here with her. For some strange reason, she feels like she would be safer if Agatha was here. Not that Stephen is dangerous or that she and her family are in any danger. If it comes down to it, she and Wendy could easily overpower him. That isn’t the problem.
She’s not quite sure what the problem is.
“It’s alright,” Wanda says, thinking of Agatha, agreeing with her. “I think it’s time for me to be Wanda again.”
~
Wanda doesn’t need to make extra chairs for the table, nor does she need to make it any bigger than it already is. After all, it had been large enough to hold Ash, Agnes, and Agatha before, so even with Wong and Stephen joining them, there is an extra chair off to one side, empty of any occupant.
Dinner isn’t anything extravagant, nothing that America’s made from other universes, just something simple – goulash in the tradition that Wanda has known it in, not the skimpy version she’d had in the Avengers compound so long ago (how could they even call that goulash? It was nothing of the sort), but a thick beef stew full of hearty vegetables with chunks of bread to sop up the juice. It isn’t like normal – there is no comfort to this dinner, only the underlying tension of Stephen suddenly showing up after being gone for all of this time.
Eventually, Stephen finishes, clasps his hands together, and starts, “America, I need your help with some multiverse shattering events.” There’s an awkwardness to his words, despite the firm manner he presents them with. “We could really use you on this—”
“Absolutely not,” Wanda says before he can even finish. Stephen gives her a look, but she continues anyway. “You can’t just show up just because you need someone and expect they’ll come help you save the world—”
Wong and America both kick her under the table, likely both remembering the trip across the multiverse to save Ash and her boys, and she gives them both a withering stare. “First off,” she says, turning to Wong, “you asked me for help—”
Stephen looks to Wong. “Really?”
Wong shrugs. “You weren’t available.”
“—and second,” Wanda turns to America, “I told you that you didn’t have to come if you didn’t want to, Wong was the one who insisted that we needed you, and you were the one who came in after us—”
“Hey, hey!” America holds her hands up in a defensive position. “You needed me and Kate! If it weren’t for us, then Mordo would have—”
“Mordo?” Stephen repeats.
Wong hides his hands within the folds of his robe. “It is a long story, Stephen. Best for another time.”
“And,” Wanda continues, “you were coming over here just to sit and have hot chocolate with me, even when I expressly did not want you here, so I wasn’t just jumping in out of the blue after over a year of no contact—”
Stephen rubs his forehead with one hand. “I was a little busy—”
“Too busy to see Starlight?” Wendy interjects, her voice soft. Her head tilts to the side, and she offers him a soft smile. “At least Pixie knew to—”
“Who is Pixie?”
Wanda takes a deep breath and places her hands on the table, hands now covered with soft scarlet chaos magic. “The point is, Stephen, that you don’t just get to come in here, interrupt my family, and—”
“Actually,” Stephen interrupts, “I could use your help, too—”
“Mom?”
Tommy interrupts them all, and at his words, the magic immediately fades from Wanda’s hands. She glances down to him and Billy, who have begun to huddle together, shivering. “You’re not…you don’t have to go fight anyone anymore, do you?” His voice is so soft and thin, and she can feel how his thoughts have turned to their version of Westview, to the Wanda they had first known, who had sent them away with Dottie while she and Peggy unsuccessfully fought an Agatha who would succeed.
“No,” Wanda says. She reaches over and pushes his hair back from his face fondly. “No one’s going anywhere, boys. We’re all going to stay right—”
“Actually.” America presses her lips together. “If it’s all the same to you, I think I want to help.” She bites her lower lip and looks up. “My moms…I think they would want me to be a hero, and if there’s something dangerous happening here, something dangerous that could hurt the multiverse, then we can’t…. I don’t think it would be right to sit here and do nothing about it when I can do something about it. Especially now that I can…that I can control my power.” She glances over to Stephen. “You have no idea.”
Stephen gives her a quiet nod and then turns to Wanda. “I’m sure someone can look after your—”
“No, Stephen.” Wanda shoots him a strong look. “I’m not leaving my boys. Scarlet Witch or not, I’m staying right. here.”
Wendy clears her throat. “If Starlight is going, then I’m going with her,” she says, and when America turns to her, she meets her eyes. “We come together or not at all.”
“Yeah,” America echoes, giving Wendy a soft smile. “Together or not at all.”
Stephen looks at Wendy. “Who are you?”
“Oh, I’m Wendy.” She gives him her most toothiest grin, more like baring her teeth than any real pleasure. “You remind me an awful lot of my Pixie.”
“I don’t know who that is.” Stephen gives her a look and crosses his arms. “Show me what you can do, kid.”
Wendy just grins. “Try to say that again.”
Stephen makes a startled noise, but he makes no words. In a move much more reminiscent of Wanda herself, Wendy has taken Stephen’s mouth.
Wanda gives Wendy a little smile and then settles back into her chair. “Wendy here is another Scarlet Witch. She comes to us from Neverland, and she’s quite powerful. Perhaps even more powerful than me.”
“No, I’m not.” Wendy shakes her head. “I’m just better at making people.”
“Touche.”
Stephen struggles again, and Wanda lifts a hand, giving him his mouth back. “If you want a Scarlet Witch, Wendy is your best option. She’s quite capable.” She glances over to Wendy and America again. “I won’t stand in your way if you want to go, girls. I know that you’ll take care of yourselves, and I expect that you’ll come right back when you’re done.”
America grumbles. “Yes, Mother.”
It’s a moment.
Wanda hears it, and her eyes widen, and America glances up to her with a little look that says she knows exactly what that means, and she doesn’t take it back. The words make Wanda pause, stutter, splutter, and then she swallows past that. “Stephen,” she turns to him, “if anything happens to my girls, I will find you, and I will kill you. Do you understand me?”
“Right, right, fair.” Stephen glances over to the girls. “Do well enough, and you might be made Avengers.”
“I think they are a bit young for that title.” Wong stands, brushes his knees as though to brush crumbs away from them, and then begins to move away from the table. “Kamar-Taj is empty, and I must be getting back. The three of you are coming with me, aren’t you?”
Stephen nods, and America only hesitates once before she nods, too.
~
Before they go, America wraps her arms around Wanda and holds her close. “I’ll be back,” she says. “Real soon.”
Wanda hesitates, just as she always did, and then wraps her arms around America, too. “Don’t be gone too long,” she mutters. “I’ll be staying up, worrying about you.”
“You’re such a mom,” America says as she pulls away. She sticks her tongue out at her. “I’ll be fine. Wendy’s not going to let anything happen to me again.” She winces. “Actually, I don’t want to see what she’ll do if something happens to me. I don’t think it would be really good.”
“Then don’t let anything happen to you.” Wanda cups America’s face and then presses a kiss to her forehead. “Be safe.”
America nods. “I will.”
Then they, too, are gone.
~
The thing of it is that Wanda’s house is never quiet for long.
Her boys are there, of course, and they are a wonderful, blessed constant.
Agatha pops in every now and again, usually staying for a long stint before leaving again, unable to satisfy her own wanderlust otherwise.
And America and Wendy use the house as their home base, a place they can return to and relax in-between missions or whenever they desperately need the time off.
None of them are ever really gone, not for too long, and they always come back.
They’re family now, and neither time nor distance will ever change that.
#bandit fic#finding family with wanda and america#wanda maximoff#scarlet witch#america chavez#agatha harkness#wong#mcu wong#wong mcu#stephen strange#mcu#it is DONE#COMPLETE#DONE!
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So hey
I haven't posted in a while, for reasons. Well, haven't posted anything ORIGINAL recently. But that's because I've been Going Through It™.
And this last weekend, has been incredibly rough for me.
So, to start off, about mid last week, I went to donate plasma. It's something I've been doing for a while, supports a good cause, and I make a little bit on the side too. ...Well, I say a little bit, but it's actually incredibly nice in terms of earning some money off a side-hustle.
But, last week I went in thinking I was gonna donate, because it had been a little while. And then they took a SPE for a "protein test" that they needed. Standard procedure, nothing bad. And now I have to wait for about 7-10 days to hear back on that. Which means I can't donate until I do, and only if I get effectively a "green light" go-ahead.
At the same time, while talking with the family, specifically my loving mother, I got another quick talk about how "we're not gonna be here forever" "You need to get a proper job" "You should do something about your career" and that sort.
And that did something. That opened some kind of floodgate in my head, kicked down some kind of repressive dam that had been holding me together with confidence and relaxation for the last SEVERAL years now.
Suffice to say, I have become so riddled with severe anxiety and depression in the last weekend or so that I am experiencing physical feedback complications from my mind and my subconscious butting heads. Things like shakes, hunger that fades into a loss of appetite, lack of motivation, abdominal aches, random pains and aches in my joints and limbs, sweating of the palms and feet, a MASSIVE UPTICK in negative intrusive thoughts, tiredness that does not wane when I lay down to try and nap, heart palpitations, inconsistent bowel movements...
There's probably more that I can't identify, but I think "the desire to stop, drop, and scream as loud as I can for several minutes" doesn't constitute a spot on any medical terminology.
My imagination is shattered, retreating to my usual comforts doesn't comfort me anymore, and I have been on the fringe of what feels like mania for some time now. The only solace is that my family does still support me enough to help me keep pushing towards surviving in this hellshitfuck country of the US of goddamn A.
I've put in a few applications to some nearby places, and coasted on social interactions to help put me at ease, but I can't keep covering up how I'm feeling any longer to the wider internet. I'm McFuckingLosingIt over here.
Worst of all is, I keep saying I'm an amateur voice-actor, but in reality, I haven't auditioned for anything in the last four years. I've practiced, I've recited memes, but nothing is recorded or posted. I don't have a booth - the alternative in my room is a pair of blackout curtains hung from a wire across the middle and a whole corner covered in studio foam (Which does VIRTUALLY NOTHING FOR THE REST OF THE REVERBERATION IN MY ROOM BY THE WAY).
Meanwhile, everyone else has their desired directions and their pursuits well in motion - they have jobs, careers, contracts, they're getting married, moving in together, picking out CARS to DRIVE. (Driving scares me to my core, but I got my learner's permit because everyone in the family was basically pushing me to learn so that we have another driver in the house in case something happens - yeah, like THAT'S a comfort.)
In short ; everyone else has their shit together. And I don't.
Don't believe me? I had to fucking ask my mother if we have a Primary Care Provider while filling out forms for psychiatric help. They're on my fucking insurance card, that's the Primary Care right there.
There are so many things that I just don't know, because they were never taught to me at any point in my education growing up. I was never informed of what was actually going to be important going into becoming an adult. There were no classes on finances or accounting, or insurance or ANYTHING LIKE THAT AT ALL AND I'M ON THE BORDERLINE OF HAVING A COMPLETE AND TOTAL BREAKDOWN.
Life was supposed to become so much easier growing up. We were supposed to work together towards a better earth, or at least a better country. To be better humans, with better advances that would make everyone's lives easier. To cut down on having to notarize and remember everything, to just have info stored digitally and accessed readily and immediately when required via AI. To automate the difficult procedures and dangerous tasks and allow humans to find reprieve and unity doing hobbies and constructive activities.
Instead, we've been robbing eachother, kicking eachother while we're down, taking the pleasantries and hobbies and automating THOSE instead, while demanding the hard work gets harder with fewer people to do it, and all of this AFTER a planet-shaking pandemic that we were supposed to logically defend ourselves and eachother from, and yet instead, WE STARTED TRYING ASININE AND ILLOGICAL REMEDIES AND DENYING ITS EXISTENCE ENTIRELY, WHICH LED TO A NEAR BACKSLIDE MEDICINE-WISE.
And as if that wasn't bad enough the cost of everything keeps going up while what we pay for keeps going down - either in quality, or quantity, or even horrifically, sometimes BOTH. The people in charge who could FIX THAT are too busy picking fights with eachother and hyping up a doomsday-scenario for the country and beyond, and the people with the money that could bounce us back and out of this problem would rather sit on their money, squander it, or waste it on the absolute-stupidest projects, bills, and stunts that they can imagine.
EVERYONE that could FIX the US, is doing their DAMNDEST to drag out the DEATH of its GOVERNMENT, because it wasn't BUILT TO LAST, and they KNOW IT, and so instead they just wanna see THEIR NUMBERS GO UP, uncaring that we CAN'T SURVIVE THAT WAY.
I don't mean "we" as in just the government, I mean the whole-ass country. What THEY do, affects ALL of us. What they've DONE, has affected ALL of us, FOR A LONG FUCKING TIME NOW. And they just brush it aside because that was the older generation, not knowing better, this is the new age, with new people, who definitely won't repeat the mistakes of those that came before.
BUT THEY HAVE. AND THEY KEEP DOING IT. AND NOW WE'RE SERIOUSLY CONSIDERING PUTTING ONE SUCH INDIVIDUAL BACK INTO POWER SO THAT HE CAN COMPLETELY RIP APART WHAT'S LEFT BECAUSE HE USED TO BE A SUPERSTAR AND A BILLIONAIRE AND NOW HE'S SUPPOSED TO BE AN OUTLAW AND A PARIAH AND EVERYONE SHOULD HATE HIM FOR WHAT HE DID TO OUR WAY OF LIFE.
AND YET SOMEHOW, PEOPLE LOVE HIM INSTEAD??????? AN ALARMINGLY LARGE AMOUNT OF PEOPLE WITH TOO MANY WEAPONS AND NOT ENOUGH BRAINCELLS??????????????? ARE YOU ACTUALLY MENTALLY RETARDED AND INBRED????????? YOU'VE WITNESSED WHAT HE'S CHANGED IN OUR GOVERNMENT, EVERY LITTLE DETAIL, FROM BILL TO BILL, ACROSS SEVERAL STATES, WHERE EVEN HIS SUBTLEST ACTIONS HAVE HAD REPERCUSSIONS VIEWED BY THE REST OF THE POWERS OF THE GLOBE AS "CONCERNING" "DISQUIETING" AND "DANGEROUS". AND THAT'S WHO YOU WANT BACK IN CHARGE OF EVERYTHING???????????????????????????????
Does thinking you're the last sane man on the face of the Earth make you crazy? Because if it does, maybe I am.
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The Longest Sleepover: Ch 14
Summary: The first year of school did not go as planned for Harv and he’s never felt more alone. That is, until a loud kid from the saga studies course decides they’re best friends now.
(Year 1 AU, Harv deals with homophobia, Finn is oblivious.)
Series: Warrior U
Pairing: HarvFinn
Rating: T
Ao3 Link
That morning, Finn trudged downstairs for breakfast with a headache and a guilty conscience. He'd really hoped to shield Harv from his hysterical behavior, especially after trying so hard to fight it. However, seeing Harv kiss someone else had blasted a hole in his heart he hadn't anticipated. He was used to things like jealousy and envy, what he wasn't used to was a feeling of loss that was physically painful. He had called up the only person he knew who had close friendships with other men only to be told quite bluntly what he already knew. Friends didn't feel this volatile seeing each other be happy with a significant other. The only upside that came from last night was Beatus and Shad finally apologizing for saying he was weird before for not 'liking' anyone, since clearly, he liked someone quite a lot. Enough to spiral into an emotional meltdown that made Finn feel borderline psychotic and fear he wouldn't be able to put himself back together again.
At least now he felt he could talk to someone without lurching to an extreme emotion.
His appetite had come back a little, enough he could busy his hands and hide his shame in pointed silence. He never wanted Harv to see him like that. Especially when he'd felt so out of control. It was scary and embarrassing all the same. He still hadn't heard how Harv's date went. Finn begrudgingly set aside his toast, the anxiety and feeling of rejection treating to steal his appetite once more.
"Hey..." Harv said as he entered the kitchen. Finn glanced up and nodded, unable to force a smile. Harv plated his own breakfast in silence before taking a seat across from Finn. "Are you... okay?"
"No." Finn said.
"What happened?" Harv asked. "Everything seemed fine when I left."
"I was fine... kind of..." Finn sighed. "But then I saw you kiss him and- I should have been happy for you and I couldn't do it. I felt like a terrible friend and all I wanted was for that date to have never happened; which isn't fair to you. No matter what I do I can't make it go away." He gestured to himself. "It's not your fault. I mean, it kind of is, you let me become so attached to you it's really quite ridiculous looking back on it. You've had other friends before, you should have... I guess you did, I just didn't want to hear it." Finn looked down at his toast and bit his lip. "I'm sorry for saying you were lucky you had someone you liked, this feels awful."
"...you like me?" He had noticed Finn wasn't as affectionate with his other friends; but he had chalked that up to Finn barely being friends with them at all. He had done his best to squash any thought of Finn wanting to hold onto him this badly. Watching the guilt and shame take over Finn's features was oddly like staring into a window to the past. Even if the reasons were different, it was quite clear, Finn felt like he liked someone more than he should.
"As much as I possibly can, yes." Finn said quietly. "At least that's what everyone else seems to think. Which is very confusing, because these were the same people that thought I'd never like anyone, so maybe they're wrong. But if they are wrong, then I really have lost my mind." Harv reached across the table, and took one of Finn's hands, the bard stilled. "I know it's selfish, but I want to be the most important person in your world, and I want you to be happy... I don't think I can have both."
"Selfish how?"
"You should have seen the things people were doing on that hayride, and that was in public!" Finn took his hand back. "I might never want to do something like that. I'd feel like... like I'd be making you give something up. It doesn't seem fair."
"You know, next time I see Shad, I might punch him in the face for you."
"Don't do that." Finn said, though there was a small glimmer in his eye.
"I'm barely comfortable going on dates in public, and now that I've been on one, I can tell you the biggest difference was you're more..." Harv's face lit up. "You want to be touched plenty by what I've seen. Don't go throwing your weird bard friend's definition of relationships into it."
"You're just saying that."
"I'm not. It's a fact and furthermore, you've never asked if I liked you back." Harv pretended to be indignant, watching as Finn realized what direction Harv was pulling the conversation.
"I thought you liked Trevor."
"I do, but he... He's just not ready for the kind of relationship I want to have." He wasn't sure he could wait around for someone who might change their mind with Finn staring at him all starry-eyed across the table.
"Just how many people do you find attractive?" Finn gaped.
"...Do you mean physically or-" He cut himself off, laughing at Finn's dawning horror. "I'm not emotionally invested in all of them, I just have eyes. I've just known Trevor for a long time, we used to be best friends. I'm not sure he'll want to talk to me for a while."
"Well where do I fall on this list?" Finn crossed his arms and waited.
"It's not a list!" Harv said. "You've always been very cute, but very unavailable; so I didn't do anything about it."
"Well now I'm attractive and available, so what are you going to do about it?"
"I... I'm kind of out of sorts myself. I know it's silly to be upset when I'm the one who broke it off..." Trevor still hadn't called him back. The longer things went, the more certain he was that there'd be no second date regardless of the other boy's answer. It still stung. "I need time to fully deal with all of that. That means no more going on dates."
"That bad?" Finn cringed, his tone a little too hopeful to come off as fully sympathetic.
"We just wanted different things..." Harv said. "Right now, I'm very committed to my job."
"Yes, of course, your job." Finn took a bite of toast. "Well, I'd like to go to the speak easy today. It's been a very turbulent weekend for me and I'd like to spend time somewhere quiet and private."
"Alright, well I'm drinking water then. Those drinks are expensive."
-v-
The day of the duel arrived. Harv was dressed up in a particularly ridiculously decorated set of armor, but Finn insisted he looked dashing in it. Finn talked him into wearing a lot of things that way, like Darren's sword he'd accidentally stolen. An intimidation tactic supposedly, though it was probably just another way Finn could indirectly insult the noble.
He showed up to find the training grounds flanked by spectators eagerly awaiting the match. It seemed there was no way to handle things quietly like men, but rather make an utter spectacle of the other's defeat. Not that he was terribly worried, a week's worth of training was not enough to surpass his pure brute strength. It was a little nerve wracking being the center of attention again, catching quite a few familiar faces in the crowd.
"Wipe the floor with him Harv!" Emet cheered from the sidelines. She leaned back pointing to the clothes he was wearing, willing to tell anyone who'd listen who made them and how to order them. He might as well have been a walking billboard for her designs. However, her cheers had caused a ripple effect as other warriors from his class whooped and hollered as if nothing had changed. He offered a shy wave to his fellow barbarians, even Trevor was there to show support despite everything. Though seeing him did sting a still healing wound.
"Harvey, wait!" Finn waved him over toward the stands. Harv came in close as Finn pulled out a lavender handkerchief. "You are doing this to defend my honor in a way, so..." Finn clumsily tied the handkerchief around Harv's belt, a rosey blush dusting his face. "Knock him dead, Harv."
"I'm not going to kill him."
"Maybe just a little." Finn looked at Harv through a small gap between his fingers.
"Not gonna kill him."
"Fine." Finn sighed. "Could you at the very least maim him for me."
"I will humiliate him publicly, isn't that enough?"
"I guess." Finn pouted, and tried not to smile. "Good luck."
Harv pulled himself away from the stands to face his very angry opponent. He tossed Darren's glove back to him, who snatched it midair. Darren then dropped it to the side with a sneer.
"I will be taking my sword back." Darren said dryly. Harv casually stretched his arm in a performative attempt to warm up.
"You already have a sword." Harv said. "You can barely hold one up, let alone two." Darren clenched his sword and growled, while Harv patiently waited for the neutral party to announce the fight. While Harv was willing to try talking it out, Darren insisted the duel continued as planned. The arbitrator dropped a red cloth and instantly Darren lunged.
He was quicker this time, not underestimating Harv's strength like he had before. His technique was a little sharper too now that his mind was strictly on the fight. Harv deflected each blow lazily. The one disadvantage to thinner swords was he had a habit of breaking them on accident. This was supposed to be a fair fight after all, he didn't want Darren getting injured over some flying shrapnel.
"Could you at least pretend to take this seriously!?" Darren took a few steps back, having been the only one on the offensive.
"I am." Harv said. "I haven't had the chance to fight anyone in a while. I'm trying to keep it going." A few years back, he would have died for a chance to see a real knight in combat. So of course he wanted to have a little fun while in the ring, especially if this knight was as big a deal as he claimed to be. His sincerity fell on deaf ears, coming off more as a cat toying with a mouse than a fellow swordsman. "Isn't the point of having an audience to give a good show?"
Darren shot towards him again, his strikes clumsier than before. It was harder to predict which place Darren would try to strike next and he almost nicked Harv's arm. Harv dove out of the way, and flipped the sword around so he could grab it by the blade. Darren faltered, seeing Harv wield his sword more like a mace than a blade, and knocked Darren's sword out of his hands. Harv tossed his weapon up in the air, catching it by the handle and pointed it at Darren.
"Come on, pick it up." Harv tapped his foot. "I'll wait."
"That technique is for armored opponents." Darren spat. He collected his weapon, resenting the fact Harv continued to wait until he was back on his feet.
"Well, yeah, but I've always wanted to try it." Harv bounced a little on his toes. This time, he swung his sword overhead. When Darren, effortlessly blocked, Harv grabbed Darren's right elbow. The angle of his sword slipped, and Harv was able to break through his defense and gently tapped Darren's shoulder before letting go. "If only we were wearing helmets. There was one where you grab the visor and pull them toward the blade." He side stepped away from Darren's strike. "And then there's one-"
"I know!" Darren shouted. "I've been studying sword fighting since before you could walk. I don't need a lesson from some barbarian drop out!" Harv's smile fell. As Darren ran toward him again, he grabbed the tip of Darren's blade, pulling it to his side. He had the sense of mind to drop his own weapon, not wanting to seriously injure the knight. So instead of running into the hilt of Harv's sword, he got punched in the face. Darren stumbled backwards, the beginnings of two black eyes starting to bruise.
"I thought you knew that one." Harv said as Darren dropped to the ground. Harv picked up both swords and pointed both blades at Darren's heart. The noble moaned weakly in the dirt as a small trickle of blood streamed down from his nose to his chin. "I win." He sighed, sheathing one blade and burying the other one in the dirt. There was a roar of cheers from people who were happy to witness violence, though some booed at the lack of real bloodshed. Finn crawled over the stands to the battlefield and ran to Harv with open arms.
"You did it!" Finn cheered. Harv scooped him up, swinging him around to keep the bard from accidentally strangling him. Finn went to kiss his cheek only to be met halfway. The bard's grip slipped a little from the shock. It wasn't either of their first kisses, but it was the first time Finn had been kissed in public. The crowd was just noise to him, he couldn't tell if it was good or bad. "Oh..." When they separated, Harv gently helped Finn find his footing once more.
"Sorry, that was really petty of me." Harv mumbled. "I shouldn't have-" Finn kissed him again, then his cheek, and the bruises forming on his knuckles.
"Please, use me to be petty more often." Finn said, blushing in spite of his false confidence. "Make everyone jealous. We could actually make them a little more jealous." Finn leaned in again and Harv bashfully turned aside.
"Come on Finn, they get the idea."
"He likes to kiss me, on the mouth!" Finn half shouted, half cackled. "Not you, not you, ew definitely not you. ME!"
"Finn, now you're just embarrassing me." Harv started to lead Finn away from the crowd. He'd never consider Finn's obnoxious habit of showing off his favorite things might trickle down into relationships. Which was silly, Emet had warned him about this from the start. He couldn't help but feel a little rush every time Finn made eye contact to taunt another passerby that he just so happened to be attached at the hip of the strongest fighter in all of Cailburry. His words of course, not Harv's.
The whole walk home Finn was bombarding him with questions he didn't quite have the answers to yet. He had meant what he said about taking a break from dating, especially with him working for Finn's mother, but he also couldn't deny wanting to kiss Finn or openly stare at him. He also couldn't shake the slowly rising panic at the realization of what such a public display of affection might actually affect later down the line.
"Harvey, you just beat up Cailburry's star swordsman and my mother kidnaps people who insult her for fun. You're fine." Finn shrugged. "The worst thing that's going to happen is people might have new things to whisper about behind your back. But they'll be too scared to say anything to your face!" Finn winked, shooting a few finger gun's Harv's way. "It'll be fine. If anyone so much as looks at you funny, I'll give them the old 'if looks could kill'. That always shuts them up."
"That's true." Harv sighed. They entered the front hall, and Harv paused while hanging up his cloak. There was a cake in the trash.
"Harvey?"
"My mom was here." Harv quickly put his cloak back on.
"Harvey, wait, think about this!" Finn chased after him out into the street. "You can't just go running back there without a plan."
"It's my mom Finn, what do you-" Harv slowed down. He could see the concern in Finn's eyes. "I kept waiting for them to try and talk to me, and now she finally has. I have to at least try."
"But what if he's there too." Finn said. Harv's shoulders sagged, knowing deep down Finn had a valid concern. "Let's at least tell mother what's going on before going back there. She can keep an eye on us. I'm sure they'd rather talk to you alone, but..." He tugged Harv towards him by the arm. "I don't like the idea of you going there by yourself."
"Okay..." Harv tried to calm his racing thoughts. "No, you're right. It's just, if either of them will understand, it's my mom."
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Reasons Why Your Dog Won’t Lay Down and Keeps Pacing
New Post has been published on https://www.petculiars.com/reasons-why-your-dog-wont-lay-down-and-keeps-pacing/
Reasons Why Your Dog Won’t Lay Down and Keeps Pacing
If you’re a dog owner for a while, you’ve surely come across times in which your dog didn’t want to lay down and kept pacing, and depending on your knowledge of how dogs behave, this might or might not be a reason for concern for you. Although stress-related issues and anxiety are among the most common causes of this particular behavior, there are other reasons you should consider as well. It’s very important to get to the root of the problem, to make sure you fix the issue so that the dog can finally relax and lay down to rest.
Something is causing the pet to be anxious
Anxiety is often the cause for dogs not laying down and pacing all around, but anxiety isn’t something that pops up all by itself and is usually just a symptom of deeper issues. When dealing with anxiety, the dog will look for a way in which he can release all of the negative energy and nervousness, and the easiest way to do so is by pacing around. This anxiety can be caused by you ignoring your dog or leaving him alone for a longer period of time, or even from a storm that is coming and making noise outside.
You might also like my articles on why is a dog shaking, acting weird, and licking his lips, and whether he knows you’ve rescued him.
In fact, there are quite a few different things that might make your dog experience anxiety but out of them, separation anxiety is the most common one. As long as you figure out the exact reason behind your dog’s anxiety, you can take the necessary steps to calm him down.
The lack of exercise is stressing your dog out
Your dog can also start to pace around and refuse to lay down if he’s getting frustrated by the lack of exercise. Having a dog means being available at least 30 minutes to an hour a day, in which you can play with your dog and put him through physical exercise. This exercise can be anything from making your pet chase a ball in your yard or taking him to the dog park for socialization and playtime. You’ll notice that as long as your dog is exercising and playing enough, he will be content and tired to the point where he would just lay down and rest.
Physical distress, pain, or discomfort
Your dog might refuse to lay down due to physical distress, discomfort, or even pain. Although physical distress could be due to your pet being injured, eating something wrong might also cause him to feel unwell. If you have a dog of a bigger breed and especially if the pet is older, then pacing might be due to the pet trying to get over the pains caused by arthritis. If arthritis is to blame, then you should know that there are some over-the-counter options to make your dog feel better. A comfortable bed in which the pet can sleep might also help.
When it comes to the physical distress caused by the pet ingesting something wrong should usually disappear by itself and you shouldn’t have to do anything about it. What you can do to help with his recovery, is to avoid giving him any food for a little while. YOu should also keep your dog under observation and look for symptoms like intestinal blockage, or other signals that the dog is facing a more severe medical problem. Call a veterinarian if you also notice symptoms like irregular bowel movements, a lack of appetite, and lethargy.
Things you can actually do when the dog is restless
Before anything else, try talking with your vet and find out if your pet is dealing with some kind of medical problem that would be causing the pacing and restlessness. Keep your dog under observation and also look for other symptoms of a more severe medical issue, like loss of appetite, lethargy, whimpering, or vomiting.
Considering that most of the time, restlessness is caused by a lack of mental and physical challenge, make sure your dog is getting enough of both. Physical exercises shouldn’t be all that complex. Actually, you should let your dog do any type of playing that involves running, for the best results. YOu should aim for a full 30-minute workout, but if this is too much for you, make sure you give your dog as much running as possible.
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July 07 - 10:37pm
Today wasn’t so great. The whole “Who do I want to be today” thing kinda fell apart. I had a not so great time in the bathroom right before I was going to attempt breakfast and it ruined my chance of eating a solid meal. I also felt pretty hopeless in general so I just laid in bed and snacked until I felt better. I never really do that and it was kind of nice, I did end up feeling better. My tummy recuperated better than it did yesterday and I think I ate okay. I need to eat something else before bed though, I really haven’t been eating enough. Its starting to get concerning because I finally weighed under 140 today/yesterday. At the beginning of June I was 145, so not a huge loss. But a loss I’ve been deliberately trying to avoid. Its hard when every morning my bowels empty absolutely everything out of my body and make me feel ill. Its hard to get an appetite after that. As for the anxiety, I hit a sort of breaking point earlier. I literally hit 0 mental HP and brute forced some relaxation. I was too tired to feel afraid of anything. I sat in the shower and let the water drown me until it got cold. There were some storm threats but I stayed relatively calm, still am. Tomorrow has the potential to be worse but fuck it. I’m learning that just like people, the world in general is fucking insane and you have to take it as it is. I always have the ability to curl up in a ball for awhile if I have to.
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Glacial Heart. Yan Kaeya x Reader [COMM]
Warnings: Yandere themes, unhealthy relationships, general anxiety, and manipulation.
Word count: 2.1k.
You’re not nervous.
No, nervousness would imply guilt or wrongdoing on your behalf — neither of which should apply. Your conscience is clear. The way your hands are trembling must be attributed to something else. It wouldn’t make any sense otherwise, would it? This loss of appetite, nonstop churning in your stomach, and overall inability to sit still could be a premonition of illness. Perhaps the flu or a cold is on its way. Or winter’s chill has seeped through the windows, they’re not insulated the best, which could explain your shaking…
You’re not nervous because of him. You’re not nervous, you’re not—
“There’s no need to glare at the plate, I promise. That chicken’s not coming back from the dead to haunt you.”
Kaeya’s lighthearted assessment of your current condition has your face warming up. Were your thoughts bleeding into your facial expressions that much? If that’s the case, then he must be the polar opposite of you; every expression the Cavalry Captain wears wouldn’t be there had he not wanted it to be. You wish he was easier to read, or possible to read at all. Instead, you’re left to decipher his closed-mouth smile and seemingly omnipotent eye.
“I wasn’t glaring at it.”
“Mhm,” he doesn't bother sounding like he believes you. He leans forward and rests his chin atop his hand. “Glaring, scowling, call it what you will. I could debate semantics with you all evening. What isn’t up for debate, however…”
His voice drops, as does your racing heart into your stomach.
“... Is that there is something you want to tell me. Am I right, sweetheart?”
You swallow a growing lump in your throat. He’s just teasing you, is all. That’s how he’s always been. Poking and prodding at you, but always in good fun, never with malicious intent. The dining room goes deathly silent. You’d thought over the different ways to broach this subject, and each time, you could never settle on the least offensive way.
You decide to come right out and say it, exhausted from beating around the bush for weeks. “I think I’d like to move out.”
He raises an eyebrow. “You think?”
“Ah, I mean, I know,” you correct yourself. Why are you trying to soften the blow to a statement that shouldn’t be hurtful? “It isn’t that I don’t enjoy our current arrangement. I’m immensely grateful for all that you’ve done for me, while I’ve been down on my luck.”
Down on your luck might be an understatement, but you carry on, half-convinced that stopping now would render you permanently paralyzed. “I found a job opportunity at the marketplace. A promising one. I think that it’ll work out, so I won’t have to keep mooching off you.”
“Getting ready to leave the nest, I see,” Kaeya nods. Hopefulness rises in your chest, and for a blissful moment, you think you may have gotten your point across sufficiently. Until he speaks again. “You really aren’t a bother, [First]. Did I somehow give you that impression?”
The lack of humor in his voice takes you back, and you rush to defend yourself. “Oh, no, it’s nothing like that!”
“There’s no harm in staying then. If I hadn’t made it obvious, I quite enjoy your company. It’d be lonely without you around,” he sighs to add his classic dramatic flair. The tension in the air ebbs and flows at his command, and with the pendulum swinging back from serious to casual, you’re tempted to leave it at that. He’s offering you an unspoken out from this unpleasant topic.
The you from a few weeks ago may have gratefully accepted this chance. Joked that you were being unreasonable, maybe felt embarrassed about his admission of being lonely without you, and that would be that. How tempting it is to fall back into your familiar routine. That’d lead you back to where you started, staring at a crossroad with one path easier to traverse than the one you need to take.
You need to not have almost all aspects of your life reliant on him. You need your independence back.
“I already scheduled the job interview,” you admit, further proving your concrete stance on the issue. “I’m more than happy to repay you for everything, of course. Lodging, extra groceries, or any other inconvenience I may have posed.”
“You’re breaking my heart here. Do I strike you as the type to hold debts over others?”
He chuckles lightly at your loud silence. “I suppose I might for anyone else. You’re admittedly a rare case. That should make you feel all the more special, shouldn’t it?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Then I don’t see the problem,” his dismissal both perplexes and frustrates you. He’s adding sentiments that don’t need to be there, weaving webs to keep you stuck in place the more you struggle. Various arguments flare up and then dissipate in your head. You shouldn’t need to make a case for going back into the real world on your own, you’re not on trial and defending yourself.
For the rest of dinner, you remain quiet. Kaeya regales you with tales of his knightly exploits, ranging from Dragonspine expeditions to hiding Klee from the Acting Grand Master. You offer halfhearted responses in return and pick at your plate. Your appetite is nowhere to be seen, even after you worked hard on preparing this meal yourself. The goal was to put Kaeya in a good enough mood to hear your request out, but that didn’t end as you intended.
If Kaeya notices your crestfallen attitude, he’s made a point of not mentioning it.
“I can handle the dishes tonight,” you tell him, plucking up the silverware you’d barely used. “It sounds like you had a long day.”
He hums but doesn’t say anything more than that. You start the cleaning up process on your own, wiping down various pots and pans by the sink with a rag. The window in front of you gives an overview of Mondstadt’s lively city. The warm glow of the street lanterns that you’d walk under after a hard yet fulfilling day’s work, the vendors who’d greet you by name and offer discounts on baked goods that didn’t sell well, winding cobblestone paths whose various dips you knew to avoid by heart.
You miss it.
It’s his musky cologne that you notice first, mixed with the faint scent of whisky that he must’ve indulged in before returning home. He smells so good, so familiar, that you can’t help but take in a deep breath. Kaeya’s lithe arms snake around your waist and pull you against his warm chest. His grip is never tight on you, always lax and almost lazy. It gave the illusion that you could get away if you ever decided to try.
“Are you mad at me, sweetheart?” His warm breath tickles your ears and you shiver, “C’mon, be honest. Lay it all out, I can handle it, I promise.”
Can you, though? A part of you wonders.
“I’m not mad,” you shake your head at the word in question. Anxious, mad, these descriptions don’t do justice to your unknown feelings. He didn’t do anything diabolical, you suppose. You mentioned getting a job and he assured you it wasn’t necessary. On paper, this doesn’t sound bad, not even close.
Kaeya blows on your ear playfully. “Hm, is that so? I think someone is being a little dishonest.”
“Can you of all people find fault with that?”
“You’ve got me there,” he chuckles, his chest rumbling as he does so. “Allow me to impart some advice then, as a senior in the art of deception. You’ve got lots of room to improve. For one, you wear your heart on your sleeve. And your lovely, lovely eyes…”
His voice drops an octave.
“They give you away each and every time.”
“Maybe I’ll just keep them closed when you’re around then,” you huff, not wanting to give his words more thought than necessary. He doesn’t need to point out your inability to lie — at least not how you can’t with him. Lying to yourself, however…
“It’s not a big deal. If the timing isn't right, I’ll just try again in the future. You’d probably waste away without me here to take care of you.”
… Is something you’re growing more proficient at by the day.
He settles his chin on your shoulder. “How’d I ever survive without you around, I wonder?”
You’d like to know that as well.
This arrangement could be mutually beneficial if observed from the right angle. He goes and does his work for the Knights while you handle chores and occasional errands. Without having to worry about paying rent or how you’ll afford your next meal, you can dedicate more effort to your hobbies, or picking up new ones that you never had the time for.
Upon Kaeya first opening his doors for you, you were met with a clean if not unlived in space. The furnishings were the bare minimum to qualify for a home. It was a combination of boredom and wanting to express your gratitude for him allowing you to stay here that had you sprucing up the place. Calla lilies in vases on the windowsill, drapes that complement the wallpaper, canvas paintings in areas of the room that felt bland. Little flourishes that left your mark and seemed to amuse Kaeya.
You remember a comment he made while you tended to the flowers that have long wilted by now. “You’re almost like my spouse at this point.”
It made you smile and roll your eyes then. As you are now, you’re not sure what to make of it. There may have been more truth to those words than you initially noticed.
“Kaeya?”
“Mhm?”
A pause. “You do know that I can’t stay here forever, right?”
The faucet drips into the basin at an unsteady rhythm. You complained about it to him once, something about the water bill being worse than it needs to be with a leak. He laughed and promised to do something about it. You’re grateful for the pesky drops now, reverberating in an otherwise hushed room.
“If I didn’t know any better,” his fingers dance up and down the sides of your waist, “I’d say it sounded like you wanted to get away from me.”
Your breath hitches, and you laugh, breathless and forced.
“You’re imagining things.”
Those fingers of his engage further in their dangerous waltz, roaming where they please, going everywhere and nowhere at once. You wonder if he can feel the rush of your pulse and each thump of your heart through your flesh and bone. Kaeya’s faint reflection shows in the window’s sheen. While your stiff head looks straight ahead, he gazes at nothing but you, fondness mixed with something else etched onto his handsome features. He was right, you think, your grip on the plate tightening until your knuckles hurt. My eyes do give me away.
Glossiness has begun to form on your lower lash line and your pupils have dilated to the fullest extent.
You’re not nervous.
Kaeya brushes his lips against your goosebump-ridden neck, then deeply inhales, savoring your distinct scent. He makes the same wistful expression after taking the first sip of his Death After Noon on a Friday night, or when you welcome him home with open arms. It betrays his enjoyment over this situation. He might try to hide it, but when you’re like this, trembling as if you were a newborn doe, he’s truly content with the world.
“I am, aren’t I?” He presses a chaste kiss to the conjunction between your neck and jaw, “Right. That’s my bad. About your interview tomorrow — don’t worry your pretty little head over it, I’ll handle the details myself.”
The most you can bring yourself to do is nod.
“I’m glad that we’re in agreement then. Thank you for dinner, by the way, it was delectable. I thoroughly enjoyed every second of it.”
He sets his plate down on the counter and saunters off. For the first time in ages, you’re able to finally breathe again, air rushing into your greedy lungs like you’d just been freed from a corset after an evening dancing at a ball.
You take a long look at the reflection staring back at you, which resembles your features just enough to be recognizable. For the first time, you manage to identify the otherwise unknown emotion that’s reared its ugly head recently.
That’s right — you’re not nervous, or even mad, as he so tastefully proposed minutes prior.
You’re horrified.
#kaeya x reader#kaeya alberich x reader#yandere kaeya x reader#genshin impact x reader#yandere genshin impact x reader#yandere genshin impact#yandere#yandere x reader#reader insert#my stuff#commissions
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harmful eating disorder representation
[@/moonlit_sunflower_books on ig]
TW: eating disorders, starvation, throwing up, death
so often, in literature and media, eating disorders are portrayed as easy weight loss hacks, attention-gaining scams, or as purely physical disorders rather than psychological ones. unless you've had an eating disorder or know someone who has, you probably shouldn't be writing about them. i wanted to address this in a post because it's something really important to me, and i hope it helps!
also THIS IS NOT A COMPLETE GUIDE AND PLEASE DO NOT TREAT IT AS ONE!!
disclaimer: i'm not a health professional or writing professional, and everything here is based on research and personal experience. please don't hesitate to point out if something is wrong or if there’s something else you would add!
eating disorders are psychological
many eating disorders revolve around a fear of weight loss or weight gain, and start as mere doubts that then become thought patters that are very difficult to break out of. often, eating disorders are portrayed as something purely physical in terms of very slow or fast metabolisms, weight fluctuation, or a small appetite. but a lot of the time, they're about how one perceives food and perceives the self, anxiety surrounding food, and constant fear and stress. this also contributes to weight fluctuation, but one doesn't exist without the other, and the mental strain of an eating disorder is often completely brushed over!
what is it like?
the psychological aspect of eating disorders can often be in the form of obsessing over food, hoarding food, and associating it with guilt and restriction. there’s also a perceived sense of control over one’s body that can be very obsessive, in terms of restricting food groups and over-exercising.
physically there can be many changes to the body. there’s not always weight loss, however, because that isn’t how eating disorders work. one thing among afab people is that over exercising and minimal eating can cause someone to lose their period, which is never mentioned. there can also be brittle hair, infertility, weight fluctuation, and more long-term effects i’ll talk about later.
people with eating disorders aren't always skinny
anorexia is not the only eating disorder that exists, and you don't have to be thin to have an eating disorder. you also don't have to be overweight to have body dysmorphia.
people with eating disorders can be fat, thin, muscular, or anything else under the sun, and people don’t have to “look sick” to have an eating disorder. it’s also really harmful when you say something like “i never thought you would have one” or “you’re so skinny, you shouldn’t worry about stuff like that” because it reinforces harmful ideas and low self-esteem surrounding eating disorders.
types of eating disorders
there are many types of eating disorders, including anorexia, bulimia, pica, binge eating, and more. there are also plenty of borderline eating disorders that there aren’t always names for, but come coupled with over exercising and intense body dysmorphia.
long-term effects
when media depicts eating disorders as quick-fixes for weight loss, it’s really harmful for multiple reasons. a) it’s not healthy weight loss. b) it doesn’t work like that. c) you’re glorifying something that has a massive mental and physical toll on the body. d) the long term effects are incredibly harmful and completely brushed over.
the effects will be different for different types of eating disorders, but they can lead to general gut irritation, acid reflux, and tooth decay, and in the long term things like cancer, organ failure, and stunted growth.
the effects vary and this is not a complete list at all, but media never keeps in mind the ugly side of eating disorders - only the sense of control and the belief that one is doing something good to lose weight, which is entirely false.
treatment
if eating disorders are really bad, the person may have to be hospitalised in order to maintain a healthy weight. often dieticians may help to improve food intake and reach a consistent weight.
psychologically, different types of therapy are recommended to change one’s relationship with food and with the self. but it’s an uphill battle and no single conversation can heal it.
tl;dr the movies were wrong.
#writing#writers on tumblr#writers#writer#writing tips#eating disorder#eating disorders#writings#writing life#mental health
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Flowers?
All I have to say is; I’m sorry.
Kudos to @soft-bois-make-me-simp for assisting with the idea. Don’t worry man, we can collab on another story!
Please listen to this while you read this!
There were only three times that Harvey would remember enjoying flowers. He usually wasn’t one for them, not because he was allergic or anything, he just didn’t find the reason to desire them.
Roses are red
The day he first knew he had feelings for you. He always said it was the best day of his life. He will never forget that day; the day you brought him wine on his birthday. You two had occasionally spoken from time to time, but it was really nothing super deep. You had opened up to him about a few things that you hadn’t told anyone else but not super personal. Mostly just little quirks you hated about yourself. He remembered blushing every time as everything you named seemed to be things he liked.
“So, how about a birthday dinner tonight Harv? I’m sure you can’t remember the last time you had a real meal.” You offered.
He was reluctant to answer at first, not wanting to be a bother, but he did hate his current diet and knew he needed to change it up a bit, even if his stomach might not agree with the sudden change from pre-packaged meals to home cooking.
“That...Sounds nice. Thank you.”
And boy was it nice. It was quite obvious you knew that he needed real food because you made more than enough for him just to make sure he had leftovers. He almost felt bad but you had insisted he needed it. You both knew it would be gone tomorrow. You secretly knew, he -- as a man -- had quite the appetite and had held back eating as much as he could with you around.
You left late that night, but left behind some flowers you had grown on the farm. They sat in a vase on the table, right next to his radio equipment.
“Feel free to get a hold of me if you need anything Harvey. Doctors deserve to be taken care of as well.”
Those words never left him. “Doctor’s deserve to be taken care of as well.” You cared about him and actually wanted to make sure he was doing okay. As suspected, you two grew closer after that. He started to become a lot more anxious but never made a move.
What if you only wanted to be friends? That would be super awkward…
Violets are blue
The day you gave him the bouquet, he cried. Never had he felt so relieved and excited at the same time. You like him. No, you loved him. You. The precious farmer.
“A-are you sure? I’m so much older a-and there’s so many oth-”
“Harvey. I’ve made my choice.” You kissed his cheek. “I don’t want anyone else. They just aren’t my type.”
Fifty shades of red his face was. There was no denying that for sure. He was a tomato and a strawberry at the same time.
He’s never hugged you so tight either. Even when you brought the pendant to him (he was more gentle then). He just wished the flowers in the bouquet didn’t wilt. Joys of having live flowers though.
That and every month, you brought him a new bouquet. Not the exact same one, but you had started growing flowers specifically to make bouquets on your monthly anniversaries.
My heart is dead
The bouquets continued, even after marriage. Now, you just added an extra day and made sure the bouquets on your wedding anniversary were extra colorful. It was how you showed him how much you loved him.
He adored this. A lot. It always made his day, even if the day was actual garbage. Coming home to you was always enough to make him happy, but coming home to a bouquet on the table, dinner being cooked, and the sound of you humming...Oh it just made his heart melt. Even after almost five years of it.
They always reminded him of the wedding -- the last time he recalled loving flowers. You had made sure your bouquet was the brightest thing in existence, jokingly saying you wanted the attention to be on that instead of your face. He still scolds you for that. Playfully of course.
I'm such a fool
He couldn’t recall when things started to go downhill. Things had been okay for so long that he didn’t see it at first. He knew you were busy so he never thought much of it when you would come home late.
Until you started coming home drunk.
There were times he would wonder where you were or why you were drinking...But for a while, he didn’t think to ask who you were drinking with. When he found out you and Shane had been growing closer, he got jealous. He knew you wouldn’t leave him, but the anxiety started to build. You were starting to pass out drunk on the way home or you and Shane would fall asleep at the bar.
Of course, he had to confront you about it. Not in a mean way, at least he thought he didn’t.
“It’s not okay for you to be doing that? Do you know how bad that is for you and how bad of an influence he is?”
Wrong answer.
“You don’t even know him. You just cared about making ends meet and didn’t really listen to him.”
Why did I fall for you?
He was grateful you had started to listen to him after that. You came home at night sober, but you began to distance yourself. In fact, you had begun to hang out with everyone but him. You stopped making the bouquets. You stopped giving him gifts. It soon came to a point where he felt like you wanted nothing to do with him. He felt empty and felt he had to make it up to you.
He messed up right? He could fix this...He had to.
I gave it all for you
Dinner every night was a pain, but he did it. He always made sure yours was hot, even when you came home at 1 am. He would be there, taking it out of the microwave. Dishes were always done. The house was always clean and very tidy. Farm was always taken care of. He really worked his ass off to make sure you were happy.
But it wasn’t enough.
You kept pushing yourself further and further from him. It eventually got to the point where you slept on the couch just to avoid him.
It was when he found the letter on your nightstand that he knew there was no fixing this.
So, knowing he wasn’t welcome, he packed his stuff and went back to his apartment above the clinic. Maru, who Harvey had been talking to about everything when things started to go south, helped him get settled back into his old home. She was the one who held him when he cried that night and she was the one who made sure he ate something before bed. She even told him to let her know if she needed to work more at the clinic, not wanting him to be pushed too much.
He was appreciative, but knew his work would be the only thing that would take his mind off of you.
Love around my neck starting to feel like the noose
The words lingered in his head for days. Every sentence filled him with hurt. What had he done wrong? Was he really that boring and unattractive? Should he have just given up at the beginning? Did you ever really love him?
Why did this happen to him?
He lost weight from his loss of appetite. He knew it was unhealthy, especially when people began to notice, but he always said he had started to work a bit harder to get physically fit and the results were starting to show. He didn’t want anyone to know how hurt he really was. Maru knew, and if it weren’t for her, he wouldn’t have eaten.
He numbed himself to relationships of any kind. He once was very close with his patients, now he just saw them as his next visit. Even with Maru. He only saw her as an employee.
All of the lies starting to feel like the truth
He began to drink. He knew it would hurt him more, but his heart hurt all the time. He had no one to turn to when he really needed to talk, as everyone was asleep by then...But not you. You were always awake. He would hear you stumble out of the bar, laughing with at least one other person. You were drunk too, but you got to enjoy your time. He didn’t.
“Why me?”
At the end of the day, bitch, I'm not feeling you
After so long, he began to get used to the sound of you going home drunk. In fact, it worried him when you didn’t.
It started as just one night, no big deal. But then two...three...seven...twelve…
People began to look worried. No one had seen or heard from the town’s dear farmer in nearly two weeks.
The search parties started. Being himself, Harvey made sure to go. Yes, you hurt him, but by God what he would give for you to just run back into his arms and say how much you love him.
You playing with my heart, you made me look like a fool
He hated that he had been the one to find you. There was no doubt in his mind that you were gone; your skin a gray/blue color and flies around you. What killed you, he didn’t know. Only an autopsy would tell him.
At least until he further examined you.
A rather large wound on your abdomen. It was much too big to be treated on your own, but by the looks of it, you had tried to stitch it closed.
...You died because you refused to go to him for help and bled out...
This, a tragedy, it may end up on the news
The funeral was a sad one. It rained that day. Hard. Everyone in town was there too. Everyone. You had grown so close to everyone in your time away from Harvey. They all cared so much about you and our death hit hard.
It was also at the funeral where he realized how bad he had messed up. You hadn’t just been getting closer to Shane, you were getting closer to everyone. They all said a little bit of the stuff you did for them, mostly just helping out with tasks and small favors. You had started staying with Shane at the bar because he talked more when he was drunk and you had started getting drunk with him because it helped him open up. You were just trying to help him.
And Sam. You were helping him learn how to play cooler songs on the guitar and even showed him a couple cool tricks on the skateboard.
Abigail and Pierre had finally begun to form a bit of a stronger bond because you had been helping them talk through their differences.
You had been doing so much and he basically said you were cheating on him.
So, there he stood, watching the casket be lowered into the hole, and then buried. Many tears were shed. Many. Everyone knew the town wouldn’t be the same without you there. Especially Harvey.
At the end of the day, I don't wanna be with you
It rained today too.
“You still looked beautiful that day.” Harvey said softly, arranging the bouquet in his hand. All the flowers were brightly colored. Not as bright as you would have wished, but he was trying his best. “The flowers just enhanced your beauty.”
He stood in front of the tombstone, a large frown on his face. It had been even years since you had passed now, and he wasn’t doing any better. He still cried a lot, but now, it was more just a feeling. He couldn’t bring himself to get over you.
He slowly set the bouquet down against the silver tombstone, making sure you would be able to see it from the heavens.
“Happy Anniversary (y/n). I’m sorry I wasn’t a better husband to you and I’m sorry I wasn’t there to save you.” He slipped his glasses off his face and fell to his knees, letting the tears fall. “I-I’m sorry! I’m sorry I didn’t believe you! I’m sorry I let my feelings take over! I’m sorry I couldn’t trust you! I love you so much!”
Loud sobs left his mouth, his tears blending with the rain as they fell to the ground. His heart, for the millionth time, shattered before him.
“Harvey?” A soft voice asked.
The doctor wiped his eyes and turned his head slightly. At this point, everyone had seen him like this. He didn’t care anymore.
It was none other than Abigail behind him, an umbrella above her head and a spare one at her side.
“Hey, it’s okay. We all miss her.” She said and handed him her spare umbrella. “We’re all worried about you too. You aren’t the same.” She sat beside him. “We all arranged something to help you. Come to the saloon so we can tell you, please.”
Harvey looked to Abigail, and then back to the bouquet. You wouldn't want him to be sad. You hated seeing him cry. Maybe this was a sign from you.
“...O-okay...Thank you...Just, give me another moment. I-I’ll be there.” He mumbled, trying to hold back sobs.
Abigail nodded and stood, letting him have a moment while she told everyone what was going on. Harvey sat there a moment longer, wiping his eyes to rid them of the tears. He sniffed once more before saying the same thing he did every year. The poem you had written for him. Part of it at least. It was a reminder to the both of you that he knew he messed up.
“Roses are red...Violets are blue...My heart is...is dead...I...I’m such a fool…”
The tears came back.
“I’m such a fool.”
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What is Jealousy?
By Sarah Sheppard | Published on June 28, 2021
What Is Jealousy?
Jealousy is a complex emotion. It occurs when there’s a real or perceived threat to an interpersonal relationship. An individual may resent a third person for taking away or appearing to take away the affections of their loved one.
Feelings that typically accompany the emotion include resentment, anger, hostility, and bitterness.
Everyone experiences jealousy at some point in their lives, but the emotion can become unhealthy and negatively impact your relationships. It can range in intensity. When it’s severe, irrational jealousy can lead to distrust, paranoia, abuse, or even physical violence.
Characteristics
While it’s typically perceived as a negative emotion, it is natural to experience jealousy in a close relationship. You may feel suspicious jealousy or reactive jealousy. The former is based on perception and is often tied to low self-esteem and insecurity and the latter is based on situations that actually threaten the relationship, and is often tied to actions or situations that lead to or cause the betrayal of trust.
Jealousy can lead to other emotions or feelings. Psychiatrist Nereida Gonzalez-Berrios, MD, explains how jealousy can manifest in relationships:
Criticizing
Fault finding
Blaming
Feeling distrust
Being overprotective or suspicious
Acting obsessive
Experiencing a quick temper
Verbally abusing
Complications
In healthy doses, jealousy can serve as a reminder to cherish or prioritize a relationship. High degrees of jealousy, however, can impact the overall quality of a relationship.
When you’re experiencing jealousy, it can cause changes to your body. According to Dr. Gonzalez-Berrios, the following physical symptoms may occur when jealousy arises:
Stomach aches
Headaches
Chest pain
High blood pressure
Palpitation in extreme anxiety
Weight gain or loss
Insomnia or disturbances in sleep
Poor appetite
Weakened immunity
Jealousy can occur at any time, especially in situations that feel threatening, but the emotion can also build up over time, too.
Identifying Jealousy
Jealousy can be difficult to understand and process. Depending on the situation, you may feel embarrassed, threatened, insecure, or abandoned. You may choose to say something to your loved one, notifying them of your feelings, concerns or fears, or you may react more irrationally by yelling, taking away their phone, making demands, placing blame, accusing them of something that didn’t happen, or storming off.
Even if a real threat presents itself, jealousy can lead to extreme behaviors, especially if you’re feeling insecure about yourself or the relationship. For your own mental health, you’ll want to find healthy ways to handle your jealousy.
Causes
Various psychological and socioeconomic factors can contribute to jealousy. Depending on your personality and attachment style, you may be more prone to experiencing the emotion. High levels of interdependence in a relationship may increase your risk of jealousy, for instance.
Many situations can make you feel jealous. Some common ones include:
A partner spending significant time engaging with someone who feels threatening to the relationship
A new baby joins the family or a parent puts their attention on a sibling instead of you
A competitor (such as a sibling or coworker) appears to get ahead
You could feel jealous when a loved one spends a lot of their time hanging with a particular friend or talking at length with a coworker in front of you, or you could feel jealous when a partner acknowledges someone else's accomplishments but not yours, or a coworker gets a promotion and you don’t.
Types
While there are many forms of jealousy, there are two main categories: normal and abnormal jealousy. The six main types, described by Dr. Gonzalez-Berrios, are:
Rational Jealousy: When there is genuine, reasonable doubt, especially when you love a partner and fear losing them, rational jealousy can occur.
Family Jealousy: This typically occurs between family members, such as siblings. When a new baby is born, a sibling may feel jealous as the attention of the parents shifts to the new baby, for example.
Pathological Jealousy: This type of jealousy is irrational. Unhealthy feelings may result from an underlying mental health disorder such as anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or schizophrenia. Signs of pathological jealousy can include extreme insecurity, as well as a desire to control and manipulate.
Sexual Jealousy: When there is fear that a partner has been unfaithful and has engaged in physical infidelity, you may become suspicious.
Romantic Jealousy: This can result from a real or imagined threat to a romantic relationship, resulting in jealous thoughts or reactions.
Power Jealousy: This type of jealousy stems from personal insecurity. You may be jealous of someone who has what you want. When a coworker receives a promotion or a reward that you wish to receive, for example, you may become jealous.
Studies conducted on heterosexual romantic relationships found that men tend to feel jealous over a third party’s dominance and are more concerned about sexual infidelity, whereas women tend to feel jealous from a third party’s attractiveness and are more concerned about emotional infidelity.
Treatment
Jealousy is a normal human emotion, but abnormal jealousy can put you or others in danger. If you’re experiencing morbid jealousy, in which your thoughts, emotions, behaviors are irrational, extreme, or obsessive, then you may need treatment.
The most common treatment options include:
Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT)
Cognitive-analytic therapy (CAT)
Antipsychotics
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)
Treatment will vary depending on the type of jealousy you’re experiencing and how it’s manifesting. Unaddressed abnormal jealousy can lead to distrust, paranoia, or abuse.
If you’re experiencing another underlying mental health condition, such as an anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or schizophrenia, then you’ll want to consult with a mental health professional to discuss tailored treatment options.
Coping
If you don’t learn to cope with jealousy, it can strain or hurt your relationships. If your jealousy is negatively impacting your mental health or your relationships, you should use Dr. Gonzalez-Berrios’s recommended coping mechanisms:
Confront your fears: Jealousy can stem from insecurity or poor self-image, which is why it’s so important to confront your fears. This could include fear of losing your partner or fear of failure. Once you recognize these fears, you can acknowledge and address them, as they are often the underlying cause of the jealousy.
Address your expectations: In any relationship, it’s important to develop a realistic expectation on how much time someone can spend with you. If they are unable to meet your expectations, try not to place blame. See if you can work together to set more reasonable expectations.
Practice gratitude: Remind yourself about all the beautiful things that life has given you, says Dr. Gonzalez-Berrios.
Be open and honest: Healthy relationships rely on strong communications. If jealousy is arising, Dr. Gonzalez-Berrios suggests having an open and honest conversation about how you’re feeling. “Try to resolve the misunderstandings with compassion and mutual trust."
Practice mindfulness: Negative emotions can affect your physical and mental health. When you’re feeling jealousy or another negative emotion, such as anger or resentment, try practicing mindfulness meditation.
To maintain healthy relationships, you’ll want to communicate your feelings, address expectations, and establish a foundation of mutual trust and understanding. If jealousy becomes a problem, then speaking with a mental health professional, such as a therapist can help.
READ THE ARTICLE HERE
#jealousy#jealous#envy#verywellmind#secondary emotions#dealing with jealousy#emotion regulation#emotion dysregulation#free therapy#mental health#mental illness#mental wellness#mood disorders#anxiety#depression#bpd#bipolar disorder#ocd#ptsd#trauma#you got this#you can do it#you matter#you're worthy#you're enough#keep going
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wip wednesday
because we all need Something Else to think about, a lil from the finally finished (!!) Betty POV of a revelation in the light of day, chapter 11:
While it is a small price for her own life, Betty can’t help feeling that the casualty of her olive green suit is a particularly cruel addition to the list of losses. It is not the clothing she wants to wear after being discharged from the hospital, but she mourns the loss from her bag of personal items.
Betty has to tie the laces on the joggers—five days of recovery have already left her a little gaunt. The combination of pain meds, anxiety, and terrible food has dulled her appetite. She stiffly lifts the oversized sweatshirt overhead, and feels a fraction more relaxed.
Emerging from the bathroom to Cricket—the one nurse who doesn’t hate her at this point—explaining her recovery plan once again. “Today, just focus on getting home and getting comfortable. Tomorrow you can shower, but don’t use any soap directly on your wound. Finish your antibiotics. And definitely no strenuous activity for another two weeks or so. Obviously, you know your body best, but I also know you aren’t exactly one to take it easy on yourself.”
Betty gives her best who me? smile that only Cricket seems to appreciate. “Someone is waiting for you,” she winks. Betty rolls her eyes good-naturedly, but she can’t hide the very real excitement she feels to get the hell out of here. After a second infection scare—a side effect of her ICU mission gone awry—her residency in Riverdale General has been far too prolonged.
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