→ drawing the same pose over and over again and feels cringe

→ realizes that these drawings are simply pre-ref drawings to figure out one's design so I can Draw Them

→ no longer feels cringe

Morri!!! first of all, how are you???

I wanted to tell you that I started for the first time playing a solo ttprg with like the whole deal (well this one uses 2 d10 and a d6 but I added a d12 to make a scale yes/no/maybe answers bc sometimes you just gotta ask fate no?) and I look up to you a lot for all your DnD ocs so the moment I started I was like "damn, gotta tell Morri!"

anywayyyy I am playing Iron Valley which is basically a big what if Stardew Valley were a solo (or +2 people! but idk anyone irl to play ttrpgs with so I'm going solo) ttrpg?? Is not DND cause... I need friends for that I think. And it intimidated me. BUT I am having so much fun???? And since is solo there's a lot of writing down and journaling involved so is SUCH an amazing wiring exercise?? (← hasn't written her wip since uhhhh April? yeah more or less)

would you mind if I asked you about your ocs?? I am so curious!

@ink-fireplace-coffee

CARMEN! HI!!!!!!!!

Congrats on your first ttrpg!! I've never actually played a solo one before, but that's mostly because I kind of need other people to keep me focused. (I get distracted way too easily, adkjasd.) But Iron Valley sounds so cool!! I love that you're adding your own mechanics!

And yeah!!! Playing ttrpgs is GREAT for your creativity!! My DnD characters are my current biggest source of inspiration, and they're the focus of most of my creative output right now.

(I also haven't written anything in MONTHS, so don't worry. You're not alone there. <3)

As for asking about my ocs, of COURSE you are welcome to ask!!! I'm obsessed with these ridiculous people in my head!!!!

(putting discussion about OCs under the cut, because I talk too much.)

My two current characters are Rook (half-elf swashbuckler rogue) and Asola (aasimar oath of vengeance paladin). And I adore both of them SO MUCH.

I'm obsessed with Rook to an unhealthy degree, lmao. He's the love of my life, and a complete disaster of a man. (You can find all the stuff I've posted about him on my personal blog here.) Me and my DM are currently plotting on how to absolutely ruin his life.

Our current plans include forcing him to face his intense trauma from Captain Wolf (the woman who held him prisoner for two years and tortured him), and also dealing with cursed nightmares sent by a literal demon lord. My boy is NOT going to be having a good time soon.

Asola is a little less developed, but she's growing with every session!! Just last session I realized that her oath of vengeance isn't against just one person or group, but rather against the unfairness and shittyness of life as a whole. Specifically, she takes anything that hurts the people she cares about personally.

The most recent example of this is our party's 16-year-old bard, who has a very fucked up past. At the end of last session, he was abandoned by his only real friend (who he's known for 11 years). None of the rest of the party even knew this "friend" existed, since he communicated with / lived inside Val's head. But when Sola finds out, she is going to be FURIOUS. (But not at Vallamir.)

(Sola's tag is here.)

I'm also eagerly awaiting the moment I get to use my Grand Fuck You. (Screenshots to follow.) The way I have it flavored is that Sola doesn't know she's an aasimar, and she has no control over her Radiant Consumption. Instead, it activates in times of extreme emotion, usually anger or grief. The only time it's happened in her life to date was when she found out her family had been killed. So I'm just waiting for the day that the DM does something that will break her enough for me to use this. (Also, as a fun bonus, none of the other characters know she's an aasimar either, since even she doesn't know. So it will be fun for them to find out. Especially since they might be trying to help her, but she will be burning them if they get close.)

(if you do the math, and assume I was level 20, and only rolled exactly half on the dice, that one hit would do 70 points of damage, not accounting for any weapon bonuses.)

I have another character, who I'm going to use after Rook's campaign is done. We're going to be playing Pathfinder (which I don't like, but I will survive), and my character is a fetchling witch named Morana Novak. (Her tag on my personal blog is here.)

As for other DnD ocs, I have about 20 more that are in varying stages of development, but talking about them all would require me to write a novel, lmao.

I wish I could tell someone about it. I don't really have friends. I don't maintain the relationships, so it's no wonder. I hope that at least people don't outright dislike me. I'm kind of annoying, so I wouldn't blame them. It takes a lot of patience to be my friend. I think I'm friends with my coworker, but he's amiable with everyone. So he could just be nice, and I'm just enjoying someone being nice for the sake of niceness, or getting through the shift, or whatever reason. But I feel guilty about diminishing what could be a genuine attempt to be my friend. I've always been awkward, I've had a hard time with friendships. There have been very few relationships that haven't ended because of something I did or a mutual decision. Even if I was just mean once, I promise it won't happen again. Because I'm too upset with myself over such a stupid cruel blunder that I ghost. I disappear, and I don't reach out, and maybe I'm so embarrassed I outright block them. And sometimes the overstep is just feeling like I'm over sharing and I decide that won't do and I leave because no one wants to have me there and I'm an idiot and I can't believe I told you something so personal why am I such a naive child you don't care that's ok I just think talking to you is fun but I shouldn't read so much into it that you'd actually enjoy my company there's a reason no one wants to be my friend BUT. People do want to be my friend, I think, but I'm so scared of being friends because I do shit like this and when I'm alone I feel embarrassed I said anything even if you didn't mind it or enjoyed our conversation I just CAN'T. It'll keep me up at night and I'll overanalyse every little bit and the very possibility you could remember even SOMETHING so minute and insignificant that I wish I hadn't said, it drives me up the wall and makes me cry out of shame that I could have imposed on you like that, I really should just fade away and stop existing and maybe you'll forget and I won't have to worry because I'll dissappear and anything I did won't keep hurting you or annoying you. And I stepped away to blow my nose, read it all again, and I know it's shit like this that makes me afraid to make any friends even while I'm horribly lonely. I'm obsessive, to an unhealthy degree. I should be assessed for ocd. I don't know if that can even be applied because it's probably just an anxiety thing. And I have MS. So I can't really have any other mental illness without doctors immediately attributing it to the MS and how it's affected my brain chemistry because of the lesions. OH SHIT I FORGOT IM ON MY PERIOD. Everything is worse on my period. I should check to see how my thyroid levels are because I'm always emotionally unstable on my rag. Or I'm overexaggerating. It not that bad. I just get sad. And I've already been diagnosed with depression. Long before MS. Man, I'm gonna absolutely lose it when Milo is gone. He's my ESA. But he's 19. He's so old for a cat. But yeah. Friends. I need to unlearn my tendency to panic-ghost people. I'm gonna try. Just need to remember that it's not that deep. Relajate, respirate, y piénsalo. He's your coworker, not like you can avoid him. This was a pointless meltdown and stress paragraph. I'm done.

Can we have an updated take on your dark!claude headcanons. They don’t have to be extensive, just curious to see how your thoughts on him have evolved since the first set you wrote 💜

When I first wrote that I think I saw Claude as being more pragmatic than I do now. Actually, in general, I just had a very different take on him than I do now. Don’t get me wrong, Claude obviously isn’t acting out on ridiculous impulses solely based on emotional reactions and doing crazy things in the name of love solely for the sake of “love”, but I didn’t really take into consideration that he’s a deeply lonely and instinctually empathetic person who cares for the people around him to a potentially destructive degree. So it wouldn’t be as important about what you were to him as a king as much as it would who you were, and being “important” in a utilitarian sense wouldn’t matter at all if he had any reason to be worried that you were being messed with (he has plenty of experience with how catastrophically terrible that sort of thing can be) or that your position in his life was threatened in any way. If the stage was set correctly for him to already have a predisposition towards an unhealthily dependent or obsessive/possessive relationship with you, I think that those things would be the trigger for making him go all the way into doing messed up things for your sake. When rereading my past headcanons, that was the biggest thing I disagreed with. 

Claude’s process of reassuring himself that what he’s doing is fine through reason and half-truths and convincing you with a silver tongue and continuously pushing limits until you’re allowing even the most absurd of behavior all under the guise of a normal and happy and loving guy is still pretty much how I think Claude would deal with this. His preoccupation with you being somebody who sees the “real him” would also be important, as feeling seen and loved for who he is would be Claude’s dream and that would be a big component of the preexisting unhealthy dynamic. 

I didn’t note this before, but Claude would be exhausting. His main motivation for isolating, stalking, and “protecting” you being based primarily on emotion would mean that your emotional responses, the way you interacted with him, and the level of support he’d require would be far more intense than in a reasonable relationship without the same level of equal emotional repayment as he would be so heavily entrenched in his own lies and justifications for the abusive behaviors that he wouldn’t be able to drop the act for too long. As is so often the ironically tragic case of these dark personalities, his desperate need to cling to you in this way would make the relationship even more isolating in many ways. Worse, I’m sure he’d know this and have found a way to mentally loop his way around it. His awareness of the situation would be the part that really makes it exhausting, Claude wouldn’t be fooled by lipservice or be totally okay if you just weren't feeling it. Sure, if you were having an off day emotionally and needed his support, he’d give it. He’d listen to your problems and comfort you and do whatever to fix them because his love would be genuine, right? Don’t ever get that twisted. But if Claude knew your distance was because you were punishing him (and by punishing, I mean acting out against his treatment of you) in any way, he’d know. If you were trying to avoid your role in the relationship by faking it, he wouldn’t let it slide. Either by calling you on it bluntly or holding onto it until he could use it against you, and maybe even with punishment. Not anything fun like spanking, but messed up mental games of ~teasingly~ withholding affection or convincing you to let down your guard enough for him to figure out why you’re acting the way you are and then use that to convince you of how wrong you were, how it only proves that you need him, that you need to work together to be happy and have this relationship work, that he could get a sycophantic idiot anywhere and that he only wants you. 

The exhaustion would also come to the outward implications of his feelings. Full-on yandere-style killing is not his style at all, but if you were to get a little too cozy with people he didn’t approve of, there’s a chance they’d find themselves suddenly brought up on charges of an old crime or “needed to serve somewhere else” or things of that nature. Not illegal and not lies, but awfully convenient interpretations of the law and his position. Yeah, you can go out and do things that you want to do, but he’s going to have you guarded and, sorry, that’s not negotiable. He’d trust you, truly, but Claude would not ever trust the world. Not with you. If there was anything you wanted to do, why wouldn’t it be okay for him to tag along? Don’t you want to spend some quality time together? It sounds clingy, but he’d do it all in such a theatrically casual way that it could be pretty convincing and misleading.

And I really think these sorts of things, being driven to taking such extreme action in both your emotional interactions and in your safety, would make him mad. Claude would be angry that you’re doing things that make him feel like he needs to respond, yeah, but also be furious with himself for reacting in such a way and hurting you because he’d know that what he was doing wasn't okay. But Claude doesn’t express anger. And especially not to you, the person he loves the most in the world. His childhood taught him that anger was a tool, and so he uses it against you in other ways, which is why he feels the need to engage in the complicated emotional fuckery and getting rid of people he’s jealous of and keeping you safe to a ridiculous degree.

Codename Cupid: Chapter 16

Previous: How Cricket Got Her Name 

Pairing: Jeon Jungkook X Reader/OFC/You

Genre: Secret AgentAU, AgentAU, Government Agent AU

Rating: PG15

Word Count: 3.04K

Warnings: Swearing 

Summary: Our lovely P.I. goes on the search for Min Yoongi, and stumbles into the identity of the mystery man with Taehyung. 

(this is... rough? did not expect it to be so long...) 

Missing Min Yoongi

Present Day

           My sister always tells me she’s given me all she can, that she can’t help me past my one favor a year. It’s a ploy, a deception, a boldfaced lie she tells at work or anytime we’re in earshot of anyone else. Does she misuse her government clearance? Yes. Does she defy laws and challenge the ethical code? Yes. Has she ever gotten caught? No. You’d think the government would put more tabs on her, considering her sister is a registered and licensed PI, but no, no one seems to bat an eye.

           Min Yoongi, Park Yoongi, Yoongi, is nonexistent. I barely understand what he did at Lee Enterprises, let alone how he ended up bedding Euna. He supposedly comes from no money, no name to build off of, nothing. His grades were fine, his college experience came and went with nary a note of youthful rebellion. Now, now that he’s no longer at Enterprises, I cannot fucking find him. Nothing on the web, nothing in the statewide system, nothing in the national system. No death certificates, no marriage licenses, nothing.

           All I’ve got are his charges, well, Euna’s charges against him.

           Cheating in the 1st degree, no proof, no photos or receipts or basic evidence of his behavior. She had nothing but her recollection of the fight they had, and minimal information on what led to the break up. From her manifesto, it seems that Yoongi was pulling away and she clung to him, claws drawing blood, trying to get him to stay. He didn’t, clearly. With only that to go off of, it’s no wonder I can’t find Min Yoongi, and I’m beginning to think that just maybe, Min Yoongi doesn’t exist. He’s her Snuffleupagus, and I’m starting to not believe.

           While I’m unsure if Yoongi exists, I do know a person who does.

           The man with Taehyung.

           Spectacled and broad shouldered, quaffed hair and arms the size of tree trunks, this man exists. He goes to the gym regularly, religiously, makes his coffee at home, and frequents his local nursery. The man is obsessed with plants, it seems unhealthy. Multiple days a week he’s carrying one, or more, I have photos of him watering them, speaking to them… He tends to them with such care, such love, it’s mesmerizing. He goes to work, some corporation, and once a week meets Taehyung. They’re clearly pals, best friends, brothers. They laugh and eat and enjoy one another. It’s cute, their friendship date. Once in a while, Jimin joins them. The three laugh uproariously and often draw attention for their volume. The unidentified man doesn’t seem to understand how loud he is, his baritone resonating enough for me to hear.

           I haven’t intentionally bumped into the three of them, yet, but I’ve stationed myself near enough to hear bits and pieces of their conversations. They never discuss work, only music they’re listening to, books they’re reading, podcasts, plants, general culture. Have I written down a few of the artists and podcasts they listen to? Yes. Do I feel dirty about it? Yes.

           But it’s the job, and I tail them for a month before a package arrives. A package with my name on it, waiting outside my apartment door. It’s not addressed, no stamps or packing label. It’s new, not reused as a shipping box or gifted for the umpteenth time, no dingy tape sticking to its brown coating. The box is sitting, like it’s appeared out of thin air. A secure building is only as secure as the tenants make it, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the owner snuck in behind some dummy who didn’t see the harm in letting a potential rapist, stalker, murder, into the building. Taking the package inside, and as my blood continues to cool and chills run down my spine, I delicately open it.

           I know, it could be a bomb. However, the only thought calming me down is the knowledge that my life has never once been a Shonda Rhimes production and thus, I’m not really worried this package is a bomb. Frankly, that’s far more sophisticated than any of the people I’ve worked for and gives them too much credit.

           Inside, there are copious amounts of surveillance photos and a note, written in a script that I’ve seen before.

           “That was your last warning / The line has been drawn and you’re bleeding / Next time, face to face is how we’ll be meeting”  

           Whoever heard of a stalker rhyming?

           I bag the evidence to toss under my bed so Jungkook won’t find it and pull out my list of potential threats.

Check It Once, Check It Twice

William Daniels

Cheated on his wife of 5 years with a stewardess who flew almost exclusively on his flights (big shock)

Threatened to ban me from American Airlines -  Jokes on him, I don’t fly American

Photos in the act & audio recordings

Wife divorced him immediately

He has to pay alimony out the nose

Lives in the area

Allanah McMahon

Arrested and tried for insider trading and embezzlement

Discovered who I was when I was subpoenaed to testify

Still in jail

My testimony added a few years to her sentence … oops

Cassie Harrington

Set up a Multi-Level Marketing scheme

Tried to hide out in Hawaii – but changed her Instagram to private after I’d already followed her

Ordered to pay back all the money she stole

On parole

Adam Gregory

Tried to run an illegal adoption agency for homosexual, non binary couples

Paid a fine and on parole – forbidden from creating any LLC’s or Incorporating

Brian Welch

Pissed that I found evidence of his partner cheating but turned him in on charges of possession of child pornography

In jail for kiddy porn and for threatening my life

His husband got everything despite the infidelity

           You acquire quite detailed list of people who want to threaten your life on the daily, but then again, wasn’t it Audre Lorde who said “I’m deliberate and afraid of nothing?” I can’t be afraid. If I’m afraid, they have the power. They have the power to intimidate me, to run my life for me, to make my decisions. I will not back down because they got caught. But I will protect myself, I will keep my license for my gun up and go to the shooting range often. I will strengthen the locks and security of my apartment, and I will ask Jungkook to stay over more, or sleep at his.

           I will not back down, not when Lee Euna has paid me what seems like the cost of tuition at Princeton for a year and wants answers. We signed a contract, didn’t we?

           And who am I if my word is no longer worth anything?

           Instead of harping on the sickening feeling that I’m being watched 24/7, I run through my plans for bumping into Taehyung and his friends. In the weeks that I’ve continued to follow him, he’s solidified Wednesday’s as his night for dinner with friends, and Thursdays as his cultural exploration. He goes to museum openings, concerts, movies, plays, clubs, all on Thursdays. While those nights are fun for me to watch and put on my expense account, it’s Wednesdays that I adore. I love following him from his house to the restaurants and am excited each week to see what he and his friends have chosen.

          This week, it’s an authentic Mexican restaurant. Slipping my coat on, I give them a few minutes before following in.

           The sound of mariachi welcomes me into the yellow painted restaurant. The furniture, dark mahogany against the vibrant walls, is full of people. I note the variety of sombreros, the different colors and patterns, the meanings hidden within the stitchwork. It’s not a large restaurant, but big enough to fit a few large groups of 7-10 people, and plenty of space for smaller groups such as the three men. The hostess asks if I want to sit at the bar, and I request a table near the men. Sitting a few feet away, I’m able to pick up their conversation easily. Instead of jotting it down, I hit record and let the metaphorical tape play.

           “Oh, it wasn’t that bad!” The mystery man says.

           “It was awful, Taehyungie couldn’t stop laughing, every time he hit the ball it went flying in the wrong direction,” Jimin says.

           “I was trying so hard!” Taehyung laughed.

           “That’s the problem, you were trying too hard,” The man tells him. “You’re too pure of heart.”

           “I am not,” Taehyung shook his head.

           “I know, you’ve experienced a lot, Tae,” Jimin says.

           “Joon, here’s the question,” Taehyung says, and I’m momentarily distracted by the utterance of the name, Joon. “You get to pick next week, we heading back to that barbeque place?”

           Jimin erupts in another fit of laughter, Taehyung following suit. It’s cute, watching them interact. I wonder if Jungkook has friends he does things like this with… those nights we aren’t together, if he has friends to spend his time with.

           I wait until they’ve left to take a glance at the signed bill on their table, Taehyung Kim is scribbled, no evidence of the other men, and I’m about to bag evidence when I hear my name.

           “Y/N?” Taehyung asks.

           “Taehyung! That was you!” I smile.

           “Have you been here the whole time?” Taehyung’s eyebrows express more than anyone’s I’ve ever seen.

           “I, yeah. I wasn’t sure it was you and Jimin. I didn’t want to interrupt,” I tell him.

           “Oh, you could’ve! Don’t worry about them, we’ve been friends a long time,” Taehyung smiles, it’s boxy and wide, the edges curling as his eyes soften.

           I’ve already started my dance, a waltz to an even tempo and I’ve got the next five paces planned. “Who was that new guy?”

           “Why, you single?” Taehyung smirks, his lips no longer joyful but devious.

           “I just was curious,” I reply, “And no, I’m not single, remember?”

           “Oh yes, yes, Jungkook,” Taehyung recalls with a nod.

           “You, Jimin and that other guy, go way back?” I lead him, it’s easy to lead Taehyung, he’s pure of heart, the most honest intentions in his eyes.

           “Mm, yes,” He continues smiling at me.

           “Your dinner looked fun, I’ll definitely be coming back to this place,” I tell him. It’s true, maybe I will bring Jungkook by one night when I know these three men won’t be around.

           “Yeah, we like it. We try a new restaurant every week. It’s a fun no work zone,” His arms are relaxed at his sides, one hand slipping slowly into his pocket, his cardigan open and glasses pressed close to his ebony eyes.

           “I like that, no work zone,” I agree, I wish I had one of those.

           “Yes, it helps clear the mind,” Taehyung tells me.

           “Do the three of you work together?” I inquire.

           “Kind of, we have a lot of the same shared interests,” he sidesteps.

           I nod, the final step in our dance presenting itself. “Very cool, well I don’t want to keep you from Jimin and –

           “Joon, yeah, very considerate of you. Maybe I’ll see you at the dog park again?” He asks.

           “Oh god, I hope not, Maisie is a nightmare,” I laugh.

           “Well have a good night, Y/N, take care!” He says as he walks out the door. I stand, watching, pretending to not notice how he gets in the car swiftly, not looking back.

           Joon.

           Joon.

           Joon.

           What kind of a name is Joon? If Taehyung and Jimin, and Jungkook, and Seokjin… and Yoongi, are all Korean, must Joon be short for something Korean?

           Glancing at my phone, it’s only 8:30PM, if I hurry, I can get in another few hours of work before I’m overcome with exhaustion and anxiety. But what will I find?

Oh Joon

Kim Joon

Lee Joon

Joon-Ho

Joon-Hee

Joon-Hyuk

Joon-Ki

Joon-Tae

Joon-Young

Byung-Joon

Ha-Joon

Hee-Joon

Hyung-Joon

Jae-Joon

Kyung-Joon

Jae-Joon

Kyung-Joon

Yong-Joon

Nam-Joon

Joon-Su

Ye-Joon

           Not to mention add in the top 5 Korean last names, and I’ve got hundreds of possibilities. Luckily, I can run the name against the address of the apartment building Taehyung picked Joon up from. Being a PI means I have access to the state databases, which gives me names and addresses. In the building, there’s one Joon, a Namjoon, Kim Namjoon. I pull the information before digging into my search.

           Unlike the seemingly nonexistence of Min Yoongi, Kim Namjoon is present. Every search result yields a perfectly manicured article dating anywhere from the year of his birth to age sixteen, and then, much like everyone else on this case, the trail begins to run cold. Whatever happened to him during high school, still radiates through his file. Whether he’s shaken it or not, that’s the question.

           No known career or job at all, his status as a prodigy in math, linguistics and rhetoric is astonishing. One of the highest IQ’s of recent memory, he’d mastered calculus by the time he was 8, besting PhD’s by 13, and then in a blaze of glory, disappearing by 16. He was studied, written about, documented, photographed, and somehow managed to be nominated for a Nobel Prize… how he accomplished all of that during puberty is beyond me. Not only does he accomplish that, but then, disappears completely, without a trace. How?

I’m ready to pack it in when someone steps into my office.

           “I saw the light on,” She says.

           “Ms. Lee, what do I owe this surprise visit?” I ask. This is the exact opposite of what I wanted to do tonight.

           “I wanted to, to talk to you,” She takes a few steps forward, pausing to ask for unspoken permission.

           “Please, sit. What did you want to talk to me about?” I lean back, hoping she can’t see the bags forming under my eyes or the tears from the yawn I’m stifling.

           “I wanted to tell you about, about why I need you to find Min Yoongi,” Euna informs me. She’s dressed in what can only be described as winter white, and only as a cashmere sweatsuit. Never have I ever seen such glamor in my dingy office. I feel bad that she’s risking the integrity of her outfit by being here.

           “Oh, okay,” I sit up and reach for a notebook. “Do you want me to write this down?”

           “No, you don’t need to. We can just talk between women, between friends,” Euna’s voice is soft. The slack in her jaw, the demur manner in which her hands are placed on her lap, it’s evident she doesn’t know how to be girlfriends. Raised by her family, groomed to take over, friends was never a word in her vocabulary.

           “I wanted you to know that I really saw a future with Yoongi,” She starts. “You know that place in your heart where you hold all your hopes?”

           “Yes,” I say hesitantly.

           Her eyes narrow in warning, “Do you have someone, someone who’s beginning to fill that space?”

           “Um, yeah,” I reply.

           “I thought that’s what Yoongi was. I thought we were, we were building something. Jun-Seo had Jimin, they thought they were building an illustrious future together, but one day he disappeared too.” She pinches the slight bridge of her nose, inhaling slowly to steady her nerves. “I don’t know what changed in our relationship. Yoongi didn’t want me anymore, he didn’t want to be around me, or with me at all. A switch flipped, like one day he realized he didn’t love me in the first place. I don’t know what happened, I don’t know why, but when your entire future is destroyed, do you stand back and watch it burn?”

           “Do you want me to answer that?” I ask.

           “Sure, what I did after that was terrible, but it was within reason. Everything I did was within reason. I tried to hold onto him, I did what I thought was right to get him to stay and he just, ran. Bolted, broke up with me on the phone like I’m Taylor Swift in 2012. Maybe I am,” Euna rolls her eyes, the comparison both too true and too terrifying. “At least Seokjin had the kindness to break up with me in person. But Yoongi? The coward! He knew I loved him. He knew I would carry his child, would marry him, would love him eternally and then some. I would’ve done anything for him. Even after he refused to go family dinners or go on trips with Seo and Jimin, after he started lying and cheating and stealing. He broke my heart, shattered it. If anyone is to blame for what happened after our relationship, it’s him.”

           Interested peaked, I inquire “What happened?”

           “It’s in my document,” She snaps.

           “The handwritten one?” I clarify.

           Rolling her delicate ebony irises, “Yes, of course.”

           “The abortion, the embezzlement, insider trading?” I try to rattle off the accusations she’d detailed. Somewhere I had a list and had sorted them by man, but damn, there were a lot of them.

           “Yes,” She snips.

           “That’s all true?” I ask again. The look she gives me is unwarranted, this is the first time in months, nearly a year, that she has sat down with me and discussed the charges. I am well within my right as her Private Investigator to ask clarifying questions.

           “Do you make a conscious decision to not believe your clients? Am I not paying you enough Y/N?” Euna snaps.

           “I’m sorry,” I respond.

           “I should go, I expect next week at our meeting you will have an update on the mystery man,” She stands.

           “Yes, yes, I will,”

           “Good, oh, there was a note under your door. I didn’t pick it up,” She turns and walks, stepping gingerly over the note. Scrambling behind her, I pick up the folded paper, and scrawled in crystal clear letters it reads:

           Cricket, was driving past when I saw the light on. Why are you working? Come to mine when you’re done, it’s been three restless nights without you.

          XO – Bunny 

           Fuck me, I love him.

Next: Cricket & Bunny Pt. 1 

!!!!!!!!!! I AM VERY HAPPY AND EXCITED THAT YOU ARE SO HAPPY AND SO EXCITED

But first off, I am perfectly happy being Rabbit. (Is it because I'm obsessed with bunnies? Certainly not.) I'm a little honoured that I've got a whole, like, pseudonym now. :P

It does, of course, feel a little absurd at this point to still be on anon when you have two separate names for me (Pretty Woman Anon, Rabbit [Anon]) and I am now a frequenter of your askbox, but it is Against Protocol for a living soul to know both my main Tumblr account and my AO3 so anonymous I shall remain. (I do apologise to your followers for having to see me freak out about one thing or another for paragraphs at a time though since you have to answer these publicly LOL.)

Anyway, you said you're okay with long asks so--

Why do we have the, like, exact same taste in Lizzington fics skdgjskgs. I mean, my enjoying Liz Whump was kind of inevitable given my track record of...a possibly unhealthy inclination to inflict pain on literally any character I love. But hey! If you like reading that stuff, perfect, 'cause whump and H/C are my specialties. :)

You will certainly be seeing more Lizzington fics from me. I usually keep my head down in fandom and rarely put forth content (because the social aspect of it all gives me *anxiety*), and this hesitancy has been especially true with TBL despite my love for the show and the many ideas I have had for it because working with that canon is quite the daunting task. There is...a lot to keep track of. After that finale though, I was kinda like nope I don't care (...as much) anymore hsdjfhsdjfh. So I've started actually letting myself write/post stuff! And I am so, so glad you enjoyed my first foray. I was very nervous about posting it; I think I Googled Aram four separate times because it was of utmost importance that I spell his surname correctly. (Which I did the first time. :|)

I regret to inform you, however, that the Pretty Woman AU will not have a lot of whump. The half AU to come could have more because, I mean,,, guns. But yeah, there's not a whole lot of room with the full AU since I'm really sticking to the movie's plot with that one. There is, of course, that one Stuckey scene (no spoilers but if you're familiar with the movie, you know what I'm talking about :]), which I 100% plan on absolutely milking for all of its whumpy goodness and Ruthlessly Protective Raymond Reddington potential, but beyond that... I'm sorry. :(

Also! You are so valid about your 1). I read fanfic on my phone's private browser so I can't bookmark pages on the actual device, but yeah... Efficient. Very nice.

HHHHH WOW OKAY I know you told me not to apologise for long asks but this is a hECkING LEtTER, I am so sorry. My inability to write anything short is really showing.

1) It's nice to see you again in my inbox, Rabbit!! (also glad that you're happy with being Rabbit!!)

2) So sorry it took me a while to respond. Since this message was on the longer side (which, again, I not only don't mind, but welcome!) I wanted to reply when I had the time to reply to everything

3) I totally understand your want/need for a certain degree of anonymity! This is the internet, after all lolll

4) I'm excited to have found another fellow shipper with whom I share these... proclivities

I love reading Liz whump. I love writing Liz whump.

As long as she doesn't die - and as long as events do not permanently damage her - .......... I will have fun

5) oh god, I deal with so much anxiety in RL, I'm glad to have this outlet where I'm just a pumpkin who virtually rambles about my love for two fictional characters

6) I personally don't find canon daunting because I'm perfectly happy to ignore about 75% of it lmao

7) Hey, I get you! Aram deserves to have his name spelled correctly!!

8) No worries at all, Rabbit!! As much as I love whump, I also love fluffy fics!! (any fics, really, as long as it's lizzington, and no one DIES)

9) Your "inability to write anything short" just makes me more excited to read your fics!! The more content there is, the happier I am!! (no pressure hehe)

10) I feel like we are virtual pen-pals. Please update me again when you can/before I leave Tumblr indefinitely (which I still don't have an exact date for because I'm waiting to see if the anon whose prompt I couldn't fulfill saw my post to them! PLEASE SEE THIS, ANON!!) :D

Much love to you, Rabbit! I hope your fic(s) is progressing nicely!

Survey #336

"get back, you’re never gonna leave him  /  get back, you’re always gonna please him”

What were your favorite things to draw when you were a lil kid? When I was a very little kid, idk. But once I got into meerkats... I drew them like crazy. Do you think there is something with or around you, like a spirit, angel, ghost or something else? How does this make you feel? No. Imagine you’re a stranger looking at yourself. What things would immediately catch your eye? Ugh, let's not. When did you feel the most confident in your life? Probably my senior year of high school. I was happy with Jason with plans for the future together, I was doing excellently in school... I thought I was really going to go somewhere. Do you think love is needed to have good sex? For some people, no. For me, loving one another is an absolute must. Do you think, or want to, die in the city you currently live in? Fuuuuuuuck no, I hate it here. What is the strangest thing you have ever encountered? Probably when I was otw home from my doctor appointment and we passed a random guy in drag walking on the side of the street... That guy is an icon. Favourite soft drink? It's really strawberry Sunkist, but I love it to a degree I don't even allow myself to drink it, because I will fucking destroy that shit so quick. So I tend to just say Mountain Dew Voltage is my fave. What do you like to put gravy on? I hate gravy, period. Have you ever gone canoeing/kayaking? No, but it sounds fun. What is one thing you know about your family history you’re proud of? Uhhhh idk. Who depends on you the most? My snake. Are you related to anyone famous or historical, if so who? Yes; William Clark and Queen Victoria or Queen Elizabeth, idr which. Would you ever donate a kidney to anyone, and who? Mom. She only has one kidney, so, y'know. She kinda needs at least one. I wouldn't even hesitate. What is the main quality you think makes a great parent? Unconditional love. What three things do you think of most of each day? My weight is #1. Every second of every day, it, as well as Jason, are somewhere towards the front of my mind. The final is financial and job-oriented stuff. Does/did your high school have pop machines? It did. Do you know anyone who’s won the lottery? No. Have you ever slept in a water bed? Yeah. How often do you use Flickr? I pretty much abandoned my account; nowadays I only occasional check my friend's profile who works at the Kalahari Meerkat Project because she uploads wonderful pictures of the 'kats as well as gives interesting info about them! Who is the last child that you took a photo with? Mom took a picture of me holding my youngest niece Emerson because it surprised everyone; I NEVER hold babies. She crawled over to me and reached up though, so of course I was going to pick her up. How often do you wear hats? Never. Would you ever get a nature tattoo? Sure! Idk what, but I'm rather sure I'll get at leaast one. Is anyone in your family sick at the moment? No. Where do your siblings work, if anywhere? My older sister is a mammographer, and my younger sis is a social worker. Where is your favorite place to buy groceries? Wal-Mart, I guess. Who do you generally talk to the most? My mom. Is anyone saved in your phone under a nickname? Mom is "Mama Bear," and then my siblings are "Little Sister" and "Big Sister." Whose birthday is coming up? My lil sister has her birthday in April. Have you ever ordered from an informercial? No. When, where, and why did a needle last pierce your skin? I needed to get blood drawn for some testing. It was drawn from my inner elbow, obviously at the doctor. Have you been to an escape room? Was it a success? I never have, but it'd be fun. I enjoy puzzles. How many followers do you have on Instagram? I don't feel like checking. What’s the most recent music video you watched? Thoughts? "Mutter" by Rammstein. I picked a screenshot from it to draw, so I rewatched it to select one. It's a beautiful video, but also strange, which Rammstein is great at. Have you ever recorded a cover of a song? No. What makeup products are your go-tos? If I wear makeup, the bare minimum is black eyeliner. Are you going to school this year? No. I gave college as many shots as I could handle both sanity-wise and with finances in mind. I do NOT want to even ATTEMPT to imagine the debt I have after going to three different colleges and dropping out each time. What is your favorite water activity? I enjoy just kinda swimming around aimlessly, relaxing. What are your favorite video games? Okay, I talk about SH2 and SotC enough on questions like this, so I'll mention some others I really enjoy as well: the Silent Hill franchise in general, Spyro games, The Last Guardian, both The Evil Withins, The Last of Us, some Resident Evil games (the 4th in particular), etc. etc. I just love video games. Do you like jello? I enjoy the flavor, but the texture makes me squirm. When was the last time you gave someone "the finger?" Probably while riding in the car with Mom when a dumb motherfucker swerved into our lane. Or something like that, idr the exact occasion. Have you ever held a snake? Yesssss, I want to hold all the snakes. ;_; Most unique place you’ve ever been to? Uh. I guess maybe the Whirligig Park/"Acid Park" nearby us? It's just this large expanse of unique architecture that are mostly, as you guessed it, extravagant whirligigs. You've got to see it if you come to the town. I have some pictures on my deviantART if you wanna see a few pieces. If you were a superhero, what color would your cape be? NO CAPES! Have you ever slept out on your porch all night? Oh fuck no. I'd feel way, way too unsafe. Do you like horror movies? Yeah! What’s your favorite Coke product? Just normal Coke. Watergun or water-balloon war? Watergun. I don't like being hit with stuff. Do you know anyone that’s afraid of elevators? I kind of am. Is there anything in your room that belongs to a boyfriend, or a friend of the opposite sex? I have three plushies from Jason, Tyler, and Girt. My Marilyn Manson poster is also from Juan. Who’s your favorite Beatle? I don't know; I was never a big fan, so I don't know any of them as people well at all. Have you ever texted an ex whilst drunk? How’d that go? I've never been drunk, but no, I've never texted an ex because I was drinking. Do you have to stand on your tip-toes to kiss your boyfriend? I don't have one. The only instance where I had to do that was with Girt. Tall motherfucker. Have you ever been tackle-hugged? Yes. Those are the best. Have you ever rejected someone’s kiss before? Girt once tried to make out with me and I noped the fuck outta that situation. It was so fucking awkward. Is your mood or the overall tone of your day often affected by the dreams you had the night before? My nightmares definitely can. Do you think that there are any positive aspects or outcomes of suffering from a mental illness? If you have a mental illness, do you think it has changed you for the better in any way? I definitely believe my mental illnesses forced me to mature faster and also instilled a great sense of empathy in me. And don't forget emotional endurance. What is your opinion on celebrity culture and celebrity worship? Have you ever been guilty of putting a celebrity on a pedestal? Do you think it’s somehow more acceptable/understandable to obsess over certain types of celebrities (musicians over YouTubers, say) than others? At what point do you think an obsession like that crosses the line? It's dangerous and can be very blinding. An outsider could say I put Mark on a pedestal, but I've always been very aware that he's not perfect and really just another human, I just happen to love him a lot for the human he is, haha. As time's passed, my vision of him has become healthier though (not to say it ever reached the "unhealthy" threshold); it's gotten easier for me to judge him and stuff like that. I think an obsession crosses the line when you put on rose-tinted glasses to look upon someone and entirely ignore their flaws, or if you try to invade their personal lives, ex. being one of those creeps that loiter outside their houses and stuff. If you were to pursue a career in photography and had the opportunity and means to photograph whatever you wanted, what would most like to photograph? Ah, livin' the dream. If I had to choice and would be paid well regardless of focus, I would absolutely travel and photograph the local nature/wildlife. Is there a certain type of clothing (outerwear, activewear, loungewear, etc.) that you enjoy shopping for more than others? Shirts, 100%. Are you ever afraid to post your ideas, artwork, photography, etc. online for fear that they will get stolen or not credited? When it comes to OCs, yes, given that things have been stolen from me before. Photography doesn't worry me much because I don't think I'm good enough for someone to possibly want to steal it (and besides, I use a watermark), and I do the same for drawings. It's the unique characters I make I worry about being stolen if I share them. When is the last time you did something sexual? A few years back. Who is the last person you showered with, if anyone? I haven't showered with someone since I was a little kid and my younger sister and I would to conserve water. What do you think when you see roadkill on the side of the road? It really makes me genuinely sad, and I always wonder if it could have been avoided if the driver was more alert, slower, and thinking about more than the damage it could cause to their car... I enjoy photographing roadkill, brutal as it may be, out of respect for them and the desire to make their individual stories known and just kind of like, raise awareness of it. Too many people are just annoyed by hitting an animal versus more concerned. "Stupid deer," stuff like that. I sometimes worry that doing so can be interpreted as disrespect, to photograph and publish pictures of their corpses online, but I sure hope not. It's the least of my intentions. I just want people to see and care. Have you ever had an ex that just didn’t understand that it was over? Biiiitch I was that ex, 120%. But besides my situation with Jason, this was how Tyler was. I had to tell him about five thousand times to stop texting me. Are your fingernails currently short or long? They're always pretty short. Would you rather have big or small dogs? I like medium-sized dogs most. I'd have to pick large dogs between the two, though. What is your favorite sports drink? I'm not a fan of sports drinks. What was the last compliment you gave a guy? Yesterday, a guy in PHP shared two poems he wrote while hospitalized, and they were wonderful, so full of passion and emotion. I sure as hell told him they were amazing. He's going for his Master's for poetry, so he knows what he's doing for real. Does your jaw ever crack, pop, or lock? It's popped on very, very few occasions. Have you ever thought of how you would give your kids “the talk”? I don't want kids, so no, I've never thought of this. I certainly wouldn't wait for sex ed in school, though. I feel like it's a bit late. I feel children need to know what it's about at a younger age with how disgusting some people are... I want them to be informed on what consent and molestation are so they know to let Mama know so I can punch someone's face into a whole new galaxy if they're ever violated. Do you ever feel like you’re missing out on something? Oh, always. Do you ever write/draw on windows that are fogged up? I did as a kid, sure. Not so much now. If you were married, and your spouse’s parents became ill, would you let them move into your home? If they were truly sick enough to need assistance but not actual hospitalization, yes. I'd want my spouse to do the same for me. Have you screamed in a pillow before? Yyyyep. What do you like more, acoustic or electric? Electric. Did you actually have a cookie jar? We have a Santa one, though I don't even know if we ever used it versus just having it as a decoration. What’s worse, having someone mad or disappointed in you? Disappointed. What do you bite on more, your tongue, lip, or nails? Bottom lip. Do you think that knowing when and how you’re going to die would ruin your life? "Ruin" it seems a bit extreme, but I definitely wouldn't like it. Do you have a favorite bromance? From TV or a movie. Not really, if we're only talking those two options. Do you find flea markets and thrift stores enjoyable? Yeah, you really can find the coolest shit for great prices. What color is your wallet? Mostly red and white; it's a Harley Quinn design. Have you ever been somebody's photography subject? No. Nicki Minaj fan? I believe she's a very talented rapper, but I don't enjoy her actual music. I just don't like rap. Have you ever seen the Niagara Falls? No, I wish tho.

honestly i don't think i am a yandere because i am too emotionally detached and closed off from others to form a meaningful relationship, but man, isn't the very idea of an obsessive or at least utterly devoted, till death do us apart love, appealing?

Well, Obsessiveness (or devotion/loyalty, outside of Yandere-Oriented circles) would be an appealing trait, if it wasn’t so often taken to a suffocating degree. Checking in on your partner is alright, but when they’re dreading checking their phone just in case you’ve sent them hundreds of messages again, it’s unhealthy. Being worried about whether or not your partner loves you is acceptable (not great, but acceptable), but when you’re willing to hold a knife to their throat just to hear the words ‘I love you’, it’s unhealthy. If your partner feels like you’d kill them if they ever tried to break-up with you, it’s unhealthy.

So… yeah, the idea of utter devotion is nice, but only in a theoretical way. Obsessiveness, in reality, is just… kinda really bad.

Adrienette Drabble Twenty: Impulse

(Sorry I didn’t realize that I didn’t post this!)

“Plagg?” Adrien called as he returned to his bedroom. “Wanna go for a run? I’ll give you extra cheese.”

His proposal was met with metaphorical chirping crickets.

“Plagg?” Adrien checked under Plagg’s pillow and pulled open the sock drawer. “Plagg?”

With a frown, Adrien sank onto his bed. “Maybe he’s with Dad?”

Gabriel and Plagg has been spending an inordinate amount of time together recently. Adrien was kind of worried that they were becoming friends.

“Guess I’m not going on a run,” Adrien grumbled, grabbing his phone off of the nightstand and texting Gabriel: “Is Plagg with you?”

Within ten seconds, he had a reply: “Yes. Do you need him?”

Adrien contemplated his response. If Adrien said yes, Gabriel would be concerned because he would worry his son was either planning on sneaking out to go run on rooftops or because Adrien needed Plagg to fight an akuma. There hadn’t been any attacks since Gabriel had learned Adrien’s secret identity, so they had yet to deal with the reality that Adrien would sometimes be in danger for the safety of Paris (read as: Marinette).

Adrien sighed exaggeratedly as he typed, “No. Thanks!”

“Nope. Definitely not going for a run right now,” he pouted, staring up at his phone.

He pursed his lips.

His fingers were itching to text Marinette even though he knew it was a bad idea.

He called Nino instead, but Nino didn’t pick up.

With a frustrated growl, Adrien sent Nino a text: “Hey. Just wanted to let you know I got my phone back. Talk to you later!”

Adrien chewed on the inside of his cheek, reminding himself that he had promised Marinette he wouldn’t text her.

“You don’t want to look like a desperate stalker, do you?” his inner voice warned. “You’re lucky you got away with that stunt you pulled today going to the photoshoot.”

With another sigh, Adrien tapped into a prior string of texts between himself and Marinette and read through some of the old messages. While some of the exchanges brought a smile to his face, they simultaneously inspired melancholy as they reminded him of what he had lost, the intimacy he and Marinette had shared that his revelation had ruined.

Adrien dropped the phone on the bed and threw an arm over his eyes. “This sucks.”

He allowed himself a moment to wallow before he grabbed the phone and tried Nino again.

Nino did not pick up.

Adrien rolled over onto his stomach to more efficiently glare down at his screen.

The phone lit up with a text from Nino: “u need me mec”.

Adrien momentarily considered responding, “Yes, I’m bored”, but he knew better. Nino hadn’t answered Adrien’s calls because he was in the middle of something, but he had sent a text to check in, and if Adrien said that he needed Nino, Nino would drop everything and be there for Adrien. Adrien knew better than to abuse the privilege that Nino had given him.

“Nope. Just bored,” Adrien answered. “Thanks!”

“w alya” Nino lied. “talk later?”

“Later!” Adrien confirmed and then began scrolling down through old text conversations with other friends. The options were fairly limited as there were only seven or eight people whom Adrien texted, and two of those people were Nathalie and Gabriel.

He spotted a brief text exchange with Chloé from May when he’d wished her a happy birthday.

He called her on an impulse, thinking, “Marinette wants me to spend time with other friends? I’ll spend time with other friends.”

“Adri-chou, did you call me by mistake, or did you want something?” Chloé snorted into the receiver as soon as she picked up.

Adrien bit his lip. “Hey, Chlo,” he chuckled awkwardly.

“I’d assumed you’d forgotten that I was alive. I haven’t heard from you in over a month,” she accused.

“Yeah,” Adrien muttered. “Listen, Chloé. I’m really sorry that I dropped off the face of the earth on you. I’ve kind of been going through some things.”

“You mean girlfriends?” she sniffed, sounding personally offended.

Adrien winced. “Yeah. Okay. That’s fair.”

“…What happened?” Chloé inquired, voice softening as the edge came off her resentment. “A couple months ago it seemed like you were imploding, but then you started dating that redhead for a while and were stable again until you broke up with her a month ago, and then you went back to spiraling out of control. And this past week you kept disappearing. Like, even more than usual. What the heck is going on with you?”

Adrien took a deep breath and sighed. “I was in love with someone. I am in love with someone. To an unhealthy degree. I mean, to the point where I can’t be happy without her and whatever she does is fine, even if what she does is rip my beating heart out of my chest and stomp on it. I got a therapist, and she said that, basically, I need to tone it down and live for myself instead of for the girl I love, so…it’s pretty bad.”

“Wait,” Chloé demanded. “We’ll come back to the girl in a minute, but you got a therapist? Since when does your father allow you to see a therapist? Your father loathes therapists. He thinks they’re scam artists. I mean, that’s what he told Daddy when I started seeing my therapist. Are you sneaking out of the house and getting counseling on the sly, or how does that work?” Chloé scoffed incredulously.

“My Dad has actually been changing the past month. He’s really putting an effort into parenting. I told him I was concerned about possibly becoming suicidal and wanted to see somebody to help me get better, and he made it happen. I don’t think his opinions about therapy have changed, but we’ve kind of got our backs up against the wall as far as my mental health goes, so he’s willing to try anything at this point,” Adrien explained.

Chloé silently attempted to digest the information she had been given. “…You’re not actually thinking about killing yourself…are you?” she finally asked in a small, scared voice.

“No. We’re not at that point yet,” Adrien assured. “Well…I mean…okay. So last Saturday was really rough, and I may have briefly thought, ‘She’s never going to be with me, and I’m not able to love anyone else; I’m going to be alone the rest of my life. I’d rather be dead than live like that’, but I wasn’t seriously planning to do anything with that thought, so…”

Adrien fleetingly noted that this was the most honest, deep conversation he’d had with Chloé in years…since they were fifteen and her parents officially divorced. It felt bizarre and yet comfortable. Before Marinette and Alya and Nino, there had been Chloé for the longest time, and it felt good to go back to that familiarity.

“…Who’s this girl that messed you up?” Chloé seethed. “What did she do to you?”

“Nothing,” Adrien stressed. “It’s complicated. She’s liked me for as long as I’ve liked her, but we’ve kind of bungled things over the past four years.”

“—Four years?!” Chloé interrupted. “God! Why didn’t you say anything?!”

“You don’t like her, and I wanted to keep my feelings secret so they didn’t mess up the friendship because I thought she was in love with someone else,” Adrien fibbed, reframing the situation from being in love with Ladybug to being in love with Marinette all along.

“I like her less now,” Chloé hissed. “Keep talking.”

“So, I loved her,” Adrien resumed, “and she loved me, but we didn’t know how the other felt, so…we were a mess. We accidentally hurt each other a lot…but then, four months ago, I decided I needed to get over her. She suggested I date other people casually, not realizing that she was the one I loved, so I tried to do what she said…only I messed it up and only managed to fall even deeper in love with her. So…yeah….”

Adrien threw an arm over his eyes again and sighed. “Last week I told her I loved her, and things blew up. She said once I get my mental health under control and stop worshipping her, maybe we can try dating.”

Chloé pursed her lips and thought very, very hard. “…I’m going to arrange for Marinette Dupain-Cheng to be assassinated.”

“Chloé!” Adrien scolded. “I didn’t say it was Marinette. Please don’t hurt her. She didn’t do anything wrong. She’s not obligated to date me, even if we are destined to end up together. This isn’t her fault.”

“So it is Marinette,” Chloé growled. “The little twit. Seducing you and then playing with you like a yoyo for years. She has some nerve.”

“Please don’t say anything,” Adrien begged. “I’m working really hard to fix things with her. Things might still work out fine. I just have to hang in there and work on getting better so that I’m in good enough shape to be with her.”

“I don’t think I want you with that spazzy, obsessive klepto,” Chloé countered. “Adrien, I know you love her, but she is literally insane. Totally one of those stalker fans. She’s been obsessed with you for years.”

“…Really?” Adrien blinked, sitting up.

“Yes,” Chloé insisted. “I know she puts on that Little Miss Perfect act out in public, but, trust me. I’ve known her since we were little. She’s a walking train wreck.”

“So am I,” Adrien whispered. “…I still want to be with her, even if she isn’t perfect.”

Chloé groaned. “She’s not just not perfect, Adrien. She’s crazy.”

“So am I,” Adrien reiterated.

Chloé threw up her hands, collapsing onto her bed in defeat. “Fine…. Fine. You love her. Whatever. Just be prepared to be disappointed, and make sure she signs a prenup. I’ll hold your hand through the divorce, but you better believe that I’m going to be screaming, ‘I told you so’ the whole time.”

Adrien had to chuckle at that as he got up to lean against his window and look out at the city. “You really think she’ll agree to marry me?”

“Oh my God,” Chloé screeched. “You are hopeless! I can’t do anything with you.”

“I’m glad you still want to try,” Adrien replied softly, regret seeping into his voice. “…It hasn’t just been the past few months that I’ve been MIA on you, Chlo. I think I’ve been slowly drifting away from you for the past few years. I made new friends and fell in love with Marinette, and I didn’t put the effort into making time for you anymore. I’m really sorry for that.”

Chloé shifted uncomfortably. “Oh, stop. No mushy stuff. I don’t do mushy.”

“But I really am sorry for neglecting you,” Adrien whispered. “I know we don’t have as much in common as we used to, but I should have kept working at our friendship. I shouldn’t have given it up so easily.”

“Stooop,” Chloé sighed in frustration.

“I miss you.”

Chloé bit her lip.

His tone was so sweet and tender and full of longing for her. Finally. But too late. She’d loved this boy for so long…. Three years prior, his words would have sent her to the moon. Now…they just made her nostalgic with a touch of wistfulness.

“Yeah,” Chloé sighed. “I miss you too, you dope.”

“Are you doing anything tomorrow?” Adrien held his breath.

“I’m free. Why?” She could always cancel with Sabrina.

“I want to take you to lunch and then shopping,” Adrien proposed. “It’s been forever since we went shopping.”

“Oooh!” Chloé squealed. “I could definitely go shopping. Let’s take my car. I’ll pick you up at twelve-thirty?”

“Perfect,” Adrien agreed. “I’m excited to see you.”

“Yeah,” Chloé chuckled. “Yeah…I’m excited to see you too.”

They said their goodbyes and rang off.

The euphoric feeling of making up with Chloé and having plans for the next day only lasted a few minutes, however, and then Adrien was back to thoughts of Marinette.

He chewed on his lip as he looked down at his phone and scrolled through his contacts. He paused, his finger hovering over the number for a minute before pushing the button.

“Hey. Wayem? This is Adrien Agreste. How have you been?” Adrien greeted cheerfully and then pulled the phone away from his ear at the enthusiastic reply.

“Good, good. Thanks. So, I was wondering if you were available to grab dinner together one night this week. My treat. I have doctor’s appointments Tuesday and Thursday, but the rest of the week is wide open.”

Adrien arranged to meet with Wayem for dinner on Wednesday, exchanged a few more of the usual pleasantries, and wrapped up the call.

And then it was back to missing Marinette. She’d looked tired at the photoshoot—still ravishing and radiant…but tired. From what little Elise would say, it seemed like Marinette was having a hard time with the situation between herself and Adrien too.

Adrien wanted to call and comfort her. He wanted to suit up and go to her balcony to tell jokes and throw popcorn at one another and try to cheer her up…but his hands were tied. As the source of her torment, he was powerless to help.

And yet his fingers burned to text her.

He scrolled down to the Ts in his contacts and called Kagami instead.

“Adrien Agreste,” she greeted neutrally, on her guard.

“Hi, Kagami. How are you?” Adrien began tentatively.

“I am well. And you?” she inquired perfunctorily.

“I’m…hanging in there,” he replied sheepishly, unwilling to lie despite the fact that he knew she was only asking because she felt obliged to.

“Did you need something, Adrien?” she asked to move the conversation along. Her tone was polite, but Adrien could guess that that was only for the sake of preserving the relationship between their families.

“I need to apologize to you,” Adrien admitted with a sigh.

“A-Apologize?” He’d thrown her off balance. “Whatever for?”

“For disappointing you. I’m sorry if I hurt you, Kagami. I know that probably doesn’t mean much, especially four months after the fact, but I wanted you to know that I am sorry,” Adrien informed penitently.

Kagami didn’t respond right away. “…Thank you,” she eventually mumbled. “I suppose there is that expression ‘better late than never’.”

“I’m sorry,” Adrien repeated. “I haven’t really been myself these past few months. I decided to try to give up on the girl I’ve been in love with for the past few years and kind of ended up having a quarter-life crisis over it. When I was dating all those girls, I was so desperate to try to get rid of my feelings for the girl I love that I wasn’t thinking about how my actions might affect the people who cared about me…. I’m sorry I didn’t consider your feelings, Kagami.”

“…Honestly? I’ve known about your feelings for Marinette Dupain-Cheng for two or three years now,” Kagami sighed. “I don’t know why I kept hanging onto the hope that you’d change your mind…. I’m the one who chose to keep giving you the power to hurt me…. I’m glad that you are sorry that you hurt me, though.”

“I had kind of hoped that maybe we could be friends going forward,” Adrien proposed but then hastily added, “I completely understand if you don’t want to have anything more to do with me than you have to, though.”

Kagami considered silently for a long while before posing a question. “Answer me this. When you were on your serial dating streak, why did you never ask me to go out with you? Am I not pretty enough? Too severe? Boring? Why not me when pretty much anyone else seemed to do?”

Adrien laughed sharply at the ludicrous idea. “Kagami, I respect you too much to casually date you. You’re very attractive, and you’re witty, and I enjoy spending time with you, but I would never fool around with you like that…especially when I know you have genuine feelings for me. I respect you too much to treat your feelings lightly.”

Kagami pursed her lips and breathed deeply. “…That’s…a very good answer. So…the real problem isn’t that there’s something about me that’s lacking. The problem is that you already love Marinette.”

“Yes,” Adrien confirmed.

Kagami hummed thoughtfully. “Obviously, I’m not happy about that fact…but it is a fact I can live with…. Very well. Let’s be friends.”

“Awesome,” Adrien trilled. “Thank you, Kagami. Hey. Monday after school are you free? I feel like it’s been forever since you kicked my butt up and down the piste. Would you be interested?”

“I would be delighted to put you through your paces,” Kagami snickered. “I’m free after six.”

“Perfect. I’ll pick you up then. …Maybe afterwards I could take you to dinner?”

“Yes to dinner so long as I pay for myself,” Kagami haggled. “I don’t want there to be any confusion about this friendship; you can pay when dinner is a date.”

“Got it,” Adrien chuckled awkwardly. “I’ll see you then.”

“I’ll look forward to it,” Kagami assured.

The call ended with a triple beep.

“Well,” Adrien sighed. “That’s Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday taken care of. Tuesday and Thursday are counseling. That leaves Friday and next weekend for Nino and Alya…and maybe Marinette.”

He shook his head, trying to get that line of thought out.

Maybe he could even do something with Elise or his father and Nathalie after counseling…or take Chat Noir on a date. There were plenty of things to do that were not ‘wallow in self-pity over Marinette’.

“That would make her happy,” he reasoned. “She’d be proud that I’m trying.”

He stared down at his phone, wondering how upset she’d be if he texted her.

With a groan of annoyance and frustration, Adrien marched out of his room in his bare feet and made his way to his father’s atelier.

“Come in,” Gabriel called.

Plagg looked up from where he was comfortably curled atop Gabriel’s shoulder. “Everything all right, Kid?”

Adrien smiled disarmingly as he made his way over to lean against the table, facing his father at the podium. “Yeah. I’m fine. Thanks. What are you two up to? Plotting to take over the world?”

Plagg snickered but did not comment.

Gabriel rolled his eyes. “No, Adrien. We are not plotting world domination…. That was last month. This month we’re attempting to build a time machine. Do try to keep up, Kitten.”

Adrien had to clap a hand over his mouth to hold in the resulting chortle. “I didn’t know you had a sense of humor, Dad. I like the snark.”

“Glad I could amuse you,” Gabriel chuckled. “…Did you need something, Adrien?”

Adrien held up his mobile as if it were the woman caught in the act of adultery, exposing the phone to ridicule, shame, and judgment.

“This,” Adrien intoned. “needs to be taken away from me. I have a problem, and this phone is enabling me. I need you to take it away before I do something stupid like text or call Marinette.”

Gabriel stepped down from his dais and held out his hand for the phone.

Adrien reluctantly relinquished the device with a sigh. “Thanks. Sorry.”

Gabriel gave Adrien a comforting pat on the head. “There’s nothing to be sorry for,” he assured. “I’m proud of you. It’s very mature of you to identify a problem and take steps to resolve it. You’re doing very well, Adrien.”

“Thank you,” Adrien breathed. “Because I feel like a failure. It’s like I can’t even do simple, common sense things right that everyone else knows how to do instinctively.”

“Nah.” Plagg flew down to rub against Adrien’s cheek. “You’re all right, Kid. You’re doing fine.”

“It’s as Plagg says,” Gabriel confirmed. “…What have you been up to since Elise left?”

Adrien shrugged. “Today—I’m assuming Plagg already told you all about today.”

Gabriel nodded.

Adrien sighed. “Marinette apparently needs more space than I had originally anticipated. Today she said that it might be a couple weeks still before she’s ready to hang out again.” 

Adrien shrank in misery as he relived that moment: the pain on Marinette’s face as she had to keep telling him no. The sharp explosion in his chest as she brought the knife of “no” down over and over.

“Marinette said that I should hang out with other friends instead, and, as you and I determined this afternoon, that means Nino and Alya.”

Gabriel nodded, wondering if there was some way, magical or otherwise, to get Marinette to want to be with Adrien sooner. His better judgment, informed by the stack of parenting guidebooks he’d been reading, told him not to meddle.

“But I was thinking about how you said I should get some more friends,” Adrien continued, oblivious to Gabriel’s mental tangent. “So I called some people and made plans with them for the coming week. I hope that was okay,” Adrien added, suddenly questioning himself. “I knew Nathalie had cleared my schedule for this week besides the counseling appointments, so I thought…”

“No, that’s wonderful, Adrien,” Gabriel stressed. “That’s fantastic that you took the initiative to reach out to people. …With whom did you make plans?”

Adrien brightened a little at the praise. “Well, tomorrow I’m having lunch with Chloé, and then I’m taking her shopping. Monday after school I’m fencing with Kagami, and then we’re going to have dinner together. Wednesday, I’m meeting Wayem for dinner—you remember Wayem?”

Gabriel frowned and made an educated guess. “Your rather enthusiastic fanboy?”

Adrien nodded.

“You’ve been very industrious in making plans,” Gabriel observed.

A sheepish smile broke out on Adrien’s face. “Well, I was trying to keep from calling Marinette, so I called other people.”

Plagg settled on top of Adrien’s head. “You must have been pretty desperate.”

“Yeah?” Adrien bashfully admitted. “That’s kind of why I came to enlist aid.” He turned to his father. “I’ll need that back tomorrow morning, by the way. You know, in case Chloé or someone texts me about plans. And Nino said he would touch base with me too.”

“You can have the phone back at breakfast,” Gabriel promised.

“Okay,” Adrien sighed, not knowing if he’d be able to handle having the phone and not contacting Marinette. “Thank you, Dad.”

Gabriel gave Adrien a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

“…And thank you for allowing me to have Elise over today,” Adrien added.

“You’re welcome,” Gabriel replied cordially, pleased that he and his son were finally communicating successfully after so many years of Gabriel feeling at a loss when he spoke with Adrien.

“I had a lot of fun hanging out with her, and she had some really great advice,” Adrien continued. “Unfortunately, she’s an expert at dealing with breakups and self-esteem issues, so…” Adrien bit his lip, hesitating. “…Do you think I could have her over again sometime?”

Gabriel took a moment to consider. “Yes, I don’t see why not. Elise seems like an acceptable friend. I’m glad that things went so well with her today.”

Adrien drew a breath. “Do you think…maybe I could have other friends over sometime?”

“You mean like Monsieur Lahiffe.” Gabriel sighed.

“And others. Once I make more friends.” Adrien smiled uncertainly.

Gabriel frowned. His gut reaction was to say no, but he had a feeling that the parenting guidebooks would encourage him to say yes and allow his eighteen-year-old some autonomy.

Gabriel hated the concept of autonomy.

With another sigh, Gabriel offered a compromise. “We’ll take it on a case-by-case basis. Ask me first, and then I’ll try to say yes.”

“Thank you, Dad!” Adrien cheered as he wrapped Gabriel in a hug.

Gabriel gave a start in surprise at first, but his arms quickly returned the embrace. They were slowly but surely growing accustomed to the action.

“You’re welcome…. I’m trying,” he added in a small, humbled voice.

“Thank you for trying,” Adrien whispered into Gabriel’s shoulder.

“Thank you for giving me another chance.”

Reflections on 131 Flesh

I want to start off by admitting that this episode is a clear 180 from what I was expecting.  The last few have been divebombing into what felt like a spiral (badum CHING) of despair, and while there’s a bit of awkward painful bits at the beginning here, I actually found this to be one of the most POSITIVE in a lot of ways.  And a damn good sign, in the larger episode run, for what is to come.

Starting, of course, with Melanie.

There were three major things that I got from this discussion with Melanie.  The first is a sinking suspicion that Melanie could very well live where Tim, the other character who was clearly motivated by rage and anger, ended up falling.  And that isn’t a slight on Tim but as much as I love him, Tim died still bitter and still angry.  Tim died alone, in every single possible sense, and as we recall the importance of anchors, as we look back on Georgie’s words, and as we think on Literally The Most Important Horror Trope There is...

Never Split Up.

Melanie here has chosen not to go it alone.  Even when it’s hard, even when she’s livid at both of the other people here, even when her alternatives to solitude basically include at least two monsters... Melanie has decided to move forward.  Melanie approached Jon, after Jon gave her the necessary space, and while she said her piece to him and vented her spleen over what he’d done and how she felt about it, she nevertheless moved to help him and offered him the first bit of actual genuine hospitality and concern that we’ve seen to Jon all season since Georgie walked out.

The second thing I got was that this is when we’re really going to delve into the monsters a little, what it means to be a monster, how ‘human’ they are and how monstrous and where the truly terrifying bits are.  Melanie wanted the bullet, Melanie wanted her anger and the power and strength it gave her (supernaturally and normally) but she also became very well aware only after it was removed that the anger and the ‘strength’ it gave her was a double edged sword.  The anger ‘powered’ her to make Ghost Hunt UK but it was also anger that destroyed it in the end.  Her anger was the perfect tool until it ‘slipped out and hurt someone’ and now she’s ACKNOWLEDGING it.  She acknowledges what the bullet gave her but she ALSO acknowledges that it was a crutch.  She was USING it just as it was using her.  And while it was helpful and it felt good, that doesn’t make it a good thing.  (I’m reminded just a little of one of my favorite TV shows, Crazy Ex-Girlfrlend, and how they used the phrase ‘like glitter exploding inside of me’ as a sign that a character had an unhealthy obsession).

And, of course, the third is that Melanie is kind of done with the blame game.  Last season, any chance Melanie got, she threw her presence into Jon’s face, and just at the beginning of this season, she was more than willing to use Tim’s death as a weapon against him.  But whenever Jon tried to start ‘fixing’ things or seeing a bright side, she shut him up.  She didn’t want his comfort but she also wasn’t letting him take any blame or guilt from it.  When he tried to assume THAT, she was just as quick to snap back at him.  YES, Jon made a choice and YES, it had consequences.  But the most important thing came back around to where it left them then and what they were going to do and the fact that right down to it, all they have is each other.

I absolutely loved her and Helen as well.  And just, Helen in general.  Which brings me to my next point.

Namely that Helen refuses the dichotomy of human vs. monster that’s been terrifying Jon for the last season or so.  She is Helen and she is different from the Helen who she was, but she’s also still Helen.  She’s making her choice to help the Archives, making choices about what she wants to do and who she wants to be and clearly who to make friends with.  She won’t allow Jon to put her in a box or a category and she won’t let Jon do that to himself either because They Are Lies. Instead of the breezy reassurances of Elias asking ‘what is human, really?’ we got instead the cold hard fact that backs up Jon’s own words: he feels different but he doesn’t know where the differences begin or end.

But that’s true of ANYONE.  Every day, we’re constantly changing and growing and our experiences make us different people.  We’re NOT the same person who went to sleep the night before and we’re not supposed to be.  Jon’s so worried about losing who he is if he becomes a monster without realizing that one might not be the result of the other so much as Some People Are Willing To Take Any Excuse.  And even for those needs that are part of their purpose (like Michael mentioned in earlier seasons) is it scarier or less scary when monsters have very human, very understandable grudges?

Jude killed a man and ruined his life while she was still human.  HUMANS kill people and ruin their lives.  And she spared Jon’s life because she felt indebted to Elias over a very HUMAN love for Agnes and a visceral appreciation for the fact that Elias killed Gertrude.  

We’ve just had three pieces of information recently drop on us to make us SERIOUSLY consider what kind of person Gertrude was (willing to kill an innocent woman and victim who might have seen her?  Jan Kilbride?) and she even seemed to delight in it a little even though who knows how many of the Flesh’s ‘assistants’ were there willingly or not.  Gertrude was practically giggling about her explosives and making smirky comments about Lucia’s nightmares no longer bothering her, meanwhile the one person we know (confirmed) that Helen’s ever tried to kill she felt awful about.  We don’t know if she’s tried to eat anyone else OTHER than Jared.  Who’s to say she has? 

What is a monster?  What ISN’T a monster?  And how easy is it to look at what fears (literally) can make us into and use them to excuse monstrous behavior.  How easy is it to look at the world and say ‘well, I did it because that’s just what I am?’ as opposed to acknowledging that you’ve always got something of a choice.  Being different than you started, having powers, being 90 degrees from normal... is that really what makes a ‘monster’ or is it just an easier excuse?

This was backed up by Jared “Fuck your Ritual” Hopworth who likes the world as it is.  Who had no interest in changing things, and who’s even found some less horrific ways to practice his craft (look, the gym was terrifying, but the people there WERE actually happy, like, it’s fucked up no lie but he Wasn’t Actually Murdering People).  Who yeah, is a violent serial killer, no excuses here, but he’s a violent serial killer in the sort of almost mundane way that makes him bizarrely more interesting.  

There’s a lot of interesting lore things going on here, the rib bit definitely making me curious as to what our Archivist is going to end up looped into, and we’re probably going into the coffin next week because apparently 12 episodes is when a new season decides to throw us a curveball but I also think this episode had a lot of interesting shit to say about monsters and people and a reminder that these things aren’t pure ‘evil’ so much as about ‘fear’ and how that context can make for some interesting changes in the understanding of how they interact with human beings as the plot progresses.

first ever les mis fic!! no title because I used up all my cleverness trying to write this before barricade day ended (and didn’t manage, like 15 minutes late) but special shoutout to @thelittleredheadedmusician and @jemsjadependant who dragged me into this fandom kicking and screaming.

enj/r, modern au

They’d been on the road for a week, making their way from D.C. to… Well, they didn’t really have an endgame in mind, if he thought about it. R had convinced him to take some time off (something Enjolras hadn’t done in… ever) and they’d hit the road on their bikes.

They were in Oklahoma now, stopping at a couple of little stops on Route 66. Grantaire hadn’t gotten much out of the Round Barn, other than the novelty of it being, well, round, but loved the soda flavors at Pop’s.

“Maple syrup and bacon?” Enj was barely able to keep the wince off his face. “Why?”

“Isn’t that the whole point of the cross-country thing? Trying new things?”

“Pointless road trips don’t have points,” he pointed out, taking a sip from his sensible—R called it “boring”—Grape Nehi.

R threw a fry at his face. “Ah, Apollo. It’s just driving you crazy, not having a set schedule, isn’t it?”

“I don’t… always need a plan,” Enj said—unconvincingly, if Grantaire’s smirk was anything to go by. “Hey, half our rallies never go as planned.”

“Yeah, because ‘spontaneity’ to you means getting arrested. We’re not out to get arrested.”

Enj rolled his eyes in mock exasperation. “Well if you’d told me that, I never would’ve agreed to vacation.”

~*~

“You’re going to kill yourself on that thing,” Enjolras said once the engine had been cut off and he could be heard.

R rolled his eyes, glad for the visor shielding his face. “Of all the ways I could die, the motorcycle won’t be one of them,” he deadpanned.

“Oh, and you’re so sure?

“Why’re you giving me the third degree anyway? You invited me to this meeting, I’m just showing up.” R took his helmet off, shaking out his hair.

“The meeting ended ten minutes ago.” Enj said, crossing his arms over his chest.

R knew that. He’d circled the block a couple dozen times trying to convince himself to pull into a parking spot. Which he didn’t do until he saw Apollo himself leave the restaurant. “Well, then maybe I’m just here for a drink.”

Blue eyes flashed under dirty blonde fringe. “And then getting on that death trap? Like hell you are.”

“Again with the death thing.” He rolled his eyes as he dismounted his bike. “Why are you so obsessed with that? I took the course, I wear the helmet, I know how to ride the damn thing. The bike won’t kill me.”

“How will you die, then, if you know everything?” Enj demanded.

“Probably next to you, Apollo, on some mission for ‘the cause’. If you’d even allow it, of course. Now,” Tucking helmet under his arm, R gave him a lazy smirk. “Drink with me, or get out of the way.”

~*~

It wasn’t the nicest hotel he’d ever been in, but it wasn’t the worst, as Grantaire proclaimed when they dropped their bags inside the door.

But Enj was too tired to complain. As long as there was a mattress and hot water in the shower, he didn’t care.

At least Oklahoma was flat; there wasn’t too many hills and curves to slow them down on the bikes.

R grunted as he stretched, cracking his back. “God, glad we’re staying a couple days. I know we’re officially halfway, but too many days like today and it’s gonna kill me.”

Enj tried not to flinch at his words, at least not visibly. “Yeah, how did you talk me into this, again?”

“Talk you into it?” Grantaire laughed as he flopped backwards on the bed, slinging an arm over his eyes. “After the first ride I gave you, you made me teach you how to ride. Stole my spare helmet and everything.”

Tossing his bright red helmet so it landed next to R on the bed, Enj smirked. “I thought you said you bought it for me because red with my hair made me look like ‘the breaking of a new day’.”

Without looking at him, R pointed an accusing finger at him. “A, your fault for dating an artist, and B, I was drunk, you can’t hold that on me. Wouldn’t hold up in the court, I know my rights.”

Enj raised an eyebrow at him, even though Grantaire couldn’t see him. “How---?”

“I listen to Courf,” R grunted. “Sometimes.”

~*~

Enj stopped suddenly, looking around the little café where they’d held their meeting. “Where’s Ferre?”

Grantaire took a sip of his coffee, shrugging. “I do not see him here or there, I do not see him anywhere. I do not see him by the clock, my best guess is he’s 'round the block.”

“Why are you talking like that?” 

“Hey, you started the rhyming thing, I just kept it up. Everyone’s gone. Just little old me left.”

“Dammit,” Enjolras said under his breath.

“What’s up, Apollo?”

“Ferre was my ride home. And the subway’s not running. I can’t believe he left me.”

R shrugged again. “Maybe he forgot.”

“Not like Combeferre to forget something like that.” He made a frustrated noise, pulling out his phone. “I’ll just get an Uber back, the House’s too far to walk.”

Before he could even think about the words he was saying, R heard himself say, “Save your money, I got my bike.”

Enj gave him an odd look. “Your... bike?”

R stood, tossing his cup in the trash. “Yeah, I have a spare helmet in the saddle bag. C’mon, I’ll give you a ride.”

He made for the door of the cafe, not really watching to see if Enj was following. The bell rang behind him as the other man did follow him out, and R suppressed a thrill that went up his spine.

Unzipping the saddle bag, Grantaire handed him the bright red helmet before he fit his own over his head, swinging a leg over to mount the bike. 

Looking back over his shoulder, Enj was still standing next to the bike, holding the helmet and looking uncertain. “You waiting for an invitation or what?”

Squaring his shoulders, Enjolras strapped the helmet on and climbed on behind R.

He felt Enj sit stiffly behind him a moment before placing his hands lightly on his shoulders—so light, R could barely feel his hands through his jacket. Rolling his eyes a little, he reached back and plucked Enj’s hands from his shoulders and pulled them tight around his waist before reaching forward to grip the handlebars.

“Gotta hold on tight. Don’t want you flying off and ruining that pretty face of yours.” R bit his lip, finding it suddenly difficult to think about anything other than Enj’s chest pressed against his back and his arms tight around him. 

~*~

“No,” Enj murmured into R’s shoulder, late that night, when they were wrapped up in soft moonlight and a cheap comforter. Grantaire breathed evenly, his chest moving steadily up and down under his cheek, but Enj could tell he was still awake.

His arm came up around Enj’s shoulders. “‘No’ what? Wasn’t talking.”

Sighing, Enj settled a little further into R. “Just thinking about something you said to me, oh, about a year ago.”

“Look, if this is about your haircut, I’m just saying, I got used to it being long, I didn’t mean it---”

Enj shoved his shoulder as best he could without actually putting distance between them. “Not that. The dying for the cause thing you said after you got the bike.”

Grantaire huffed a soft laugh. “You’re still on me dying? It’s getting to be an unhealthy obsession with you, Enj, should I be worried? Got a hit out on me?”

“No, nothing like that---”

“Do you know something?” R said over him. “Someone else has a hit out on me. Courf? I never did return that book I borrowed. Or is it Ep? She’s got a lifetime of shit on me, not to mention enough rage to actually pull something like that---”

Enj pushed himself up so he was hovering over R. “No,” he said, cutting him off. “I mean, I’m not letting you die. Not if I have anything to say about it.”

It was as close to... well, any kind of confession he’d made to R, besides the first one, when he told him he liked him more than a friend.

The faux-musing look on R’s face faded into something softer, realizing this, before it shifted into teasing once more---if Enj hadn’t become so intuned with the many expressions of Grantaire, he would’ve missed it.

“Aw, vacation’s making you soft, Apollo. Knew it’d be good for you get you out here and relaxed.”

Rolling his eyes, Enj huffed out a breath before rolling over so his back was to R. “Goodnight, Grantaire.”

“No, no, wait. Come back, Enj!” He heard shuffling around behind him, and R was pressing to his back, arm coming around him. “Got it,” he said, pressing a kiss through the fabric of Enj’s tshirt to his shoulder. “No dying. One condition.”

Enj grunted in reply, still play-acting at being annoyed, even as his own hand came up to grip R’s softly.

“Gonna take that non-answer as an answer. Condition is you can’t die either.” R’s chin dug slightly into Enj’s shoulder. “Got that, Apollo?”

Enjolras shook his head a little, his hair rustling against the pillowcase. “No dying. Think we can manage that.”

The Weighing of the Heart by Paul Tudor Owen - New York book launch

Lyndsey Rodrigues interviews Paul Tudor Owen at the Clover Club

On 12 August 2019, I launched my novel The Weighing of the Heart in the US with a party at the Clover Club in Brooklyn. It was fantastic to see so many old friends from my time in New York. 

TV host and writer Lyndsey Rodrigues interviewed me. You can watch a video of the launch below, and I’ve also posted a rough transcript.

Full details on the book from Obliterati Press here - or buy a copy from:

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Foyles 

Waterstones 

The Weighing of the Heart is set in New York - but the timeframe is before you moved here in 2015. How did you go about researching a New York that ‘pre-dates’ you, so to speak? The book starts in 2011, right? What made you decide to set the book in that timeframe?

So for those who don't know, The Weighing of the Heart is about a young British guy living in New York called Nick Braeburn, who moves in with a couple of rich older ladies as a lodger in their opulent apartment on the Upper East Side. He gets together with their other tenant, Lydia, who lives next door, and the two of them steal a priceless work of art from the study wall.

The work of art that Nick and Lydia take is an Ancient Egyptian scene, and as the stress of the theft starts to work on them, the imagery of Ancient Egypt, the imagery in the painting, starts to come to life around them, and it’s intended to be unclear whether this is something that is really happening or whether it’s all in Nick’s head.

And as most of you know my wife Eleanor and I have just come back from living in New York, where I was working for the Guardian newspaper.

But actually I started this book a long time before we moved here.

I’d had this longtime fantasy about living in New York, and in some ways the book was a way of living out that fantasy in fiction. I’d loved New York since I was a teenager reading The Great Gatsby and watching Mean Streets, and I’d first visited when I was 20 and studying at the University of Pittsburgh.

It just so happened that towards the end of writing the book I got the chance to move over here and life imitated art.

Suddenly I was walking the same streets my characters walked and especially in the first few weeks I did sometimes wonder if this was really happening. I don’t know if anyone remembers the 90s British sci-fi comedy series Red Dwarf, but there’s one episode where the main character, Lister, gets hooked on this computer game called Better Than Life, it’s like a fully immersive VR game, almost like The Matrix, and in the game he thinks he is living in Bedford Falls, the town from It’s a Wonderful Life, and he is loving it, he doesn’t want to leave – it’s better than life.

And sometimes when I first got here I got a bit worried that I was in Better Than Life, that I’d wake up and I’d be still a teenager in Manchester reading The Catcher in the Rye and The Great Gatsby, fantasising about living in New York.

In terms of depicting the city before I got here, I visited New York many times after first coming here in 2000, but there were definitely things that I got wrong.

I think generally before I moved here to me New York was Manhattan. And the earlier drafts of the book don't really mention the other boroughs at all.

And one thing I realised straight away when I moved here was that the cultural centre of gravity had quite a while ago moved to Brooklyn.

So the main location in the book is on the Upper East Side, and I didn’t change that. I thought that was still right for an apartment owned by a couple of wealthy sisters.

But a lot of the other Manhattan locations – like people’s apartments, artists’ studios, art galleries – in a lot of cases I just realised that the characters in the book wouldn’t be able to afford those places, so I moved them further afield, often across the river to Brooklyn.

Another example was the Peacocks’ second home. In the book the Peacocks, the elderly ladies Nick moves in with, have another home on Long Island that they live in most of the week. For ages I had it that this place was in Montauk, but eventually we actually went to visit Montauk, and it just didn’t seem suitable… As we were driving in, I had this old guide book that was about 10 or 15 years old, and Eleanor was reading it as we drove in, and it said something like: ‘Montauk is a quiet, deserted spot that receives few visitors,’ and we were just driving past all these 40-storey hotels and golf resorts, and it just didn’t feel right at all. On top of all the tourism, it was just too weatherbeaten and remote for the Peacocks.

And then some friends of ours bought a place in Water Mill and I looked the town up and it just seemed like a great fit for the Peacocks, great location, perfect distance from Manhattan, so I moved them from Montauk to Water Mill, and they seemed much happier there immediately.

One of the first lines of the book is: ‘Sooner or later, everybody comes to New York...’ How important are the themes of reinvention and redemption to the book? Did reinvention play a part for you in your decision to move to NYC?

I like that first line of Nick’s narration because at first glance it sounds like he’s saying something reasonable and unremarkable but actually it sort of establishes his solipsism and self-obsession early on. Nick is obsessed with reinventing himself and using New York as a vehicle for that and he assumes everybody else feels the same way.

I’ve moved to the US twice – the first time was when I was 20 and I came over to study for a year at the University of Pittsburgh. Moving over then, at that age, I definitely felt like this was a place where I could reinvent myself. That was a big part of the attraction. And I met people who wanted to be writers and actors and musicians and I definitely felt that instead of those things seeming somewhat out of reach, as they had back home in the UK, these were actually real and achievable goals here, and I found that really inspiring. It had a big impact on me. And a lot of those people did go on to achieve those goals.

And when I moved back to the US in 2015 I definitely felt excited again about this prospect of reinventing myself. But I think there’s a real difference doing that at age 35 to doing it at age 20. At age 20 you’re still something of a blank slate. At 35, to a certain extent you’ve reached a point where you’re more confident about who you want to be and how you want other people to see you. And over a process of years you’ve reached a point where you know how to project that – to a certain extent anyway. And I think something I underestimated was that it’s quite a tough job to start from scratch with all new people in a new country and start to try to create that impression again.

With Nick, in the book, this is an example of me taking one of my own characteristics and really taking it to an extreme with Nick. Nick has a much more extreme attitude towards reinvention than me. He’s taken it to an unhealthy degree. He hasn’t just left England – he’s completely abandoned it and never goes back. He says at one point it’s hard to imagine England even still exists. He never speaks to his parents. And when he gets the chance to live in this opulent apartment on the Upper East Side and gets together with Lydia, he very quickly abandons his old life in Greenpoint, and the friends that he mentions in the first couple of chapters gradually drop out of the story. He takes it to a real extreme.

Let's talk about the Ancient Egyptian theme that runs through the book and particularly the actual ceremony of the weighing of the heart – what drew you to this as the perfect anchoring point of the book?

So, yeah, the other big theme of the book, as well as New York, is Ancient Egypt. The work of art that Nick and Lydia steal is an Ancient Egyptian scene, and this imagery comes to life around them.

But originally the artwork wasn’t an Ancient Egyptian scene at all; it was a 1960s pop art work. But not long after I had started the book I went to a fascinating exhibition at the British Museum called The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, which told the story of what the Ancient Egyptians believed happened to you when you die.

As I learnt from the exhibition, the Ancient Egyptians believed in a ceremony called ‘the weighing of the heart’, something in some ways similar to the Christian idea of St Peter standing at the gates of Heaven, deciding whether or not you have lived a worthy enough life to come in.

In the Ancient Egyptian version, Anubis, the god of embalming, presides over a set of weighing scales, with the heart of the dead person on one side and a feather on the other.

If the heart is in balance with the feather, you get to go to Heaven, which they called the Field of Reeds.

But if your heart is heavier than the feather, you get eaten by an appalling monster called the Devourer, who has the head of a crocodile, the body of a lion, and the back legs of a hippopotamus – three of the most dangerous creatures that Ancient Egyptians could encounter.

To the Ancient Egyptians, the heart, rather than the brain, was the home of a person’s mind and conscience and memory, which was why it was the heart they were weighing.

The Ancient Egyptian ceremony of the weighing of the heart

And, intriguingly, one thing they were afraid of was that the heart would actually try to rat you out during this ceremony – sometimes the heart would speak up and reveal your worst sins to Anubis at this crucial moment. You could prevent this from happening by keeping hold of a little ‘heart scarab’.

And I suddenly realised that the painting Nick and Lydia should steal should be an image of this ceremony, the weighing of the heart. It was so fitting, because the book is essentially about guilt and innocence; it’s about you weighing up as a reader how much you trust Nick as a narrator, and it’s about Nick himself and the people around him weighing up how much they trust him, what they think of him, what they know about him and his character. And without spoiling it for anyone who hasn’t read it, I hope that I found a way to knit all that imagery into the book effectively, especially towards the end.

Once I’d settled on this, there was another strange example of life imitating art.

At one point in The Weighing of the Heart Nick recalls a school trip to the British Museum, and it is suggested he might have stolen one of these heart scarabs that could protect you during the ceremony. I had written this scene but I wanted to get the details right, so I looked through the British Museum’s collection of scarabs on their website and identified the one that best fit the bill, and then I went down to the museum to take a look at it in person.

But when I got there and found the case where this scarab was supposed to be, the space for this scarab was empty. Instead of the object itself there was just a note on the wall that said: ‘Heart scarab (lost).’ It was gone.

Paul Tudor Owen reading from his novel The Weighing of the Heart

There is a reference in the book about 9/11 and that being what Nick can pinpoint as transition from a Brit to a New Yorker – what was that moment for you?

I think one of the things London and New York have in common is that you can become a Londoner and you can become a New Yorker. I’m from Manchester – I don’t think you can really become a Mancunian. My parents have lived there for over 40 years but neither of them were born there and I don’t think they would say they were Mancunians.

But I think London and New York, because they are these melting-pot cities that people come to from all over the world, and all over the country, I feel like you can become a Londoner and you can become a New Yorker.

When I moved to London in the early 2000s I immediately felt very much at home there and excited by it for some of the same reasons I love New York – this mix of ambitious, exciting creative people, the feeling that you are right at the heart of things. And I felt like I quickly became a Londoner as well as a Mancunian. I was both.

And I thought when we moved to New York that might happen here – that I might start to become a New Yorker. But it didn’t really happen. And I was thinking about that and about my obsession with New York and wanting to write about it and depict it. And maybe what I want from New York is really to be an observer of it, rather than to truly become part of it.  

I want to touch on a particular paragraph from the book that really spoke to me. Nick says: ‘If I carried on reaching out to this city, if I carried on giving so much, eventually it would give something back. But it never did.’ How much of your own feelings about NYC are reflected in these words?

I think I wrote that line before moving here, but it does ring true. I had an amazing few years here personally and professionally but I definitely felt like I didn’t break America, you know. You can count the number of people who do on one hand – it’s like the Beatles, One Direction and James Corden. Ed Sheeran.

I think moving to New York and living and working in New York for three years – from a British perspective that’s a very interesting thing to do. But from a New York perspective, it’s like: so what, who cares, big whoop. So you came to New York – who didn’t?

One of the first things that happened when I moved here was a building actually blew up on my block – it was completely levelled. I could see the fire burning from my fire escape. It was like: “Welcome to New York.”

There’s an artwork I really like by Raymond Pettibon that shows a silhouette of the New York skyline, and underneath it Pettibon has written: “Gotham City – the city that does not care.” There’s something in that. It’s a tough city. But that’s why we like it. It’s as hard as nails.

Tell us about the process of getting this book published. How many places did you pitch it to before Obliterati picked it up?

I had been writing fiction and trying to get published since my early 20s, when I managed to get an agent and finished a draft of a novel. He was very encouraging and sent it out to publishers, but none of them took it up.  

So I kept on writing and working on ideas, and eventually around 2011 I started what was going to eventually become The Weighing of the Heart.

I think once I’d written the first couple of chapters I quickly felt quite confident that what I was writing now was much better than anything that I’d written before. I was particularly pleased with the set-up, which I thought was quite gripping immediately.

So I went back to my agent with what I’d written, but by this time, because of the unenthusiastic previous responses, he had more or less lost interest.

So I was faced with a choice. You’re usually told as an author – especially when you’re starting out – that you will never get anywhere without an agent, and that if you have managed to get one you should do everything you can to keep them.

I’m sure there is a lot of truth in that. But I felt that if I stayed with this agent, that was not going to result in this book getting published.

So I amicably cut ties with him and set about trying to find someone new. And luckily that turned out to be a much easier process than it had been in my early 20s. In those days agents had all expected manuscripts to be delivered by post, and I remember every weekend printing out page after page of my chapters, stapling these bundles together, taking them to the post office... It was so time-consuming.

But by the time I came to find a new agent, email had vastly simplified the whole system. I finished work one day and went to a secluded spot in the office, and started working my way from A to Z through The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook, which lists all the agents in the UK, sending out my first two chapters to as many agents as I could. I think that first night I got about half way through the alphabet, to about M, and by the next morning, or the morning after that, I was already getting some interest, which was really heartening.

And I eventually started working with a brilliant agent called Maggie Hanbury, who I’m still working with now, and I finished a workable draft of The Weighing of the Heart and we started sending it out.

But at that point I had a stroke of bad luck. Another book about art theft in New York – The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt – had just come out, and it was a massive hit. It was everywhere. Again and again I heard from publishers: “We really like your book, but it’s just too similar to The Goldfinch.”

And shortly after that I moved to New York and started a new job and life had become extremely busy and complicated, and I don’t think I did any work on the novel or on trying to get it published for the next year or so.

When things started to settle down a bit, I went back to my agent, but she said she didn’t feel that she could send it out to anyone else because a number of publishers had turned it down already.

So again I was faced with a choice. I could just leave the manuscript in my metaphorical desk drawer and get on with something else. But I knew that it was a good book and it felt frustrating that it was sitting there, unread.

So I decided to send it out to small publishers myself. And again I went through The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook and the US equivalent, Writers’ Market, starting at A and sending out the first two chapters to as many publishers as I could.

And the response was very positive. The received wisdom in the literary world is that publishers will only talk to you if you’ve gone through an agent, and that may well be true for the big publishing houses. But many smaller presses seemed happy to consider my book without an agent being involved.

I had a really productive discussion with Obliterati Press, a small publishing house in the UK set up by two writers whose whole purpose is to get books out there that they feel enthusiastic about, which otherwise might not see the light of day. They agreed to publish it, and it was a great process working with them.

My publication date ended up roughly coinciding with our return to London from New York – and it felt very exciting to be coming back to the UK ready to achieve this ambition that I had been working towards for so long.

What is your process for overcoming the dreaded writers’ block?

I think because of my journalistic background I find that if I get stuck on a plot point or a bit of the writing I’m not sure about, I am usually able to just get on with it and get from A to B in a pretty straightforward, basic fashion, and then go back and return to it and finesse it at a later date. I think that comes from working to constant deadlines and strict deadlines in my day job. I can sort of get on with it.

My usual way of working is, I usually work at the kitchen table with a cup of tea and a glass of squash… This isn’t a Charles Bukowski-type situation where I’m downing shots of whiskey and then furiously tapping out whatever drunken visions come to me.

But I am very easily distracted and it’s not always great trying to work at home. I’ll go and water the plants or tidy something up or sort my books out… There’s a cliché about writers’ homes, that they are very tidy because the writer who claims that they were spending the day writing has actually been pottering about tidying everything up. I’m sure Charles Bukowski had that problem too.

When we were in New York I couldn’t really work at home because we only had a small apartment, so I needed to find somewhere else to go.

The Guardian’s office was in a WeWork co-working space, so that meant I could book rooms in any WeWork around the city and I used to do that on a Saturday or a Sunday and go and write there.  

And I would go to a different WeWork each time, which was great because I really got to explore the city and work in lots of different places, and it was brilliant to feel immersed in New York and to be seeing the sights of the city out of the window as I was working. I would try to find WeWorks that were as high up as possible with the best views. There was one office in Midtown that I really liked with a great view right down into the forest of skyscrapers. At another one in Tribeca, I came downstairs once at about 5pm and the other WeWorkers were having a rave on the ground floor, all like scooting around on hoverboards or those one-wheel motorised unicycles – you know what they’re like. Drinking beer from red plastic cups. And like a couple of guys would be asleep on the sofas, snoring. Whenever you go to a WeWork there’s always some guy asleep. He’s paying like $400 a month for his membership and he’s fast asleep.

The view from one of the WeWorks where Paul would go to write 

What are you planning to write next?

I’ve just finished the first draft of my next book but it still needs a lot of work. It’s set in New York again but it’s going to be set in the 1970s when New York was a sort of crime-plagued hellhole. And I think that that was the kind of New York that I first fell in love with through films like Taxi Driver and Mean Streets.

To me that was a time when New York felt so exciting but also so gritty and I really wanted to sort of conjure up that New York in my writing. It’s about a failing newspaper journalist in New York who starts looking into conspiracy theories about the moon landings and he starts meeting these conspiracy theorists who believe the moon landings were faked and as he gets drawn into deeper into the world he sort of finds himself against his better judgment starting to believe some of their paranoia.

first chapter of the first book i ever tried to write

When Galaxies Collide

11:39 AM, November 29th

As I tapped my no. 2 against the side of my desk, I could tell others around me were becoming annoyed. But, that didn't seem to bother me much. The ticking of each second passing by echoed throughout my eardrums. The day was going slower than normal.

It was torture.

I'd usually be scribbling something on the corner of my notebook by now, but the inspiration I needed wasn't present at the moment. I was just waiting for it to walk through the door.

11:43 AM

The classrooms' temperature caused my hands to numb and drift asleep.The dull environment, dry with boredom, painted the students' faces with clear disinterest. Blank sheets of paper sat on each desk, patiently awaiting to be written on, alas no one could find the strength to lift their fingers.

The teachers here refer to us as a lazy generation, concluding we only spend our time watching 'screens' all day and don't know how to socialize, on account of being caught up in our make-believe worlds. They also believe that the public school system is a well established institute for education...and our school's sports teams don't suck. So who's the real loser?

My yawning began to fog the glasses now resting on the tip of my nose. I gently removed the specs, carefully wiping them off with the knit sleeve of my sweater. I'd occasionally wear contacts but I was usually too lazy to deal with carefully shoving plastic underneath my eyelids.

I had sat in the back of the classroom, three rows to the left, giving me a perfect view of my fellow peers, the white board and the lovely scenery of the school's totally non-crappy parking lot, outside the window.

A faint sound began to tickle my ears. As it grew louder I was able to make out my name. Don't worry, I thought. Hearing your name being called is the sign of a healthy mind. Either that or I was becoming schizophrenic. But, unfortunately this wasn't a figment of my imagination, let alone a psychotic voice in my head.

"Jackson."

I snapped my head up towards the front of the classroom, like being resurrected with a sudden jolt. My eyes met the shiny forehead, wrinkled with distress of The Professor. He was a World History teacher at Oakwood High. No one seemed to refer to him by his real name, honestly, I think most of us had forgotten it.

The Professor had always made a huge deal about universities, how hard it is to get in and statistically most of us will end up at a dead-end community college with a degree in flipping burnt burgers. To make matters worse, he constantly bragged about his past employment at Harvard.

The big question he hadn't answered however was 'how he got from Harvard to a low budget public school in Forest Grove, Oregon.' Bigger question, 'how he was removed from Harvard's distinguished faculty?.'

Never once did he object to this sarcastic nickname which was used to describe his unhealthy obsession. As a matter-of-fact he took pride in it. Probably because it reminded him of the times he once had a bigger paycheck, respectful students and a school with an IQ average larger than 60. Or partly because he was an arrogant asshole, who enjoys dwelling on the past.

"Daydreaming again, I see," he said expressionless. His specialty.

"No s-s-ir," my voice cracked.

I heard snickers from multiple students around the room.

Damn you puberty.

"I was just looking for a bit of inspiration."

"Inspiration," he smirked. "How is that related to the lesson?"

My eyes darted across the whiteboard, searching for the title of today's topic, written in it's general bold letters.

The Age of Enlightenment.

"Well sir, during the Enlightenment period, inspiration was what all people were searching for."

"And have you found any inspiration?"

"Not yet, it hasn't seemed to arrive."

He squinted his eyes as if trying to read to me. Scanning my body language, then absorbing the information obtained. I knew I was about to be asked to explain to the class something complex, that I obviously don't know about the Enlightenment. It was his typical routine for making me look like an idiot, not like he had to try.

11:47 AM

As soon as he opened his mouth to speak, the words on the tip of his tongue, the door swung open. Inspiration had arrived.

"Hi sorry...you would not believe the hallway traffic."

She was on her usual time. Not too late to be counted absent, but late enough to piss of The Professor.

"Pass?" The tone in his voice was dripping with frustration.

She walked up with a certain confidence in her stride. Not the prideful, vain kind. The bold kind. Too bold. So bold it was a cover up for something dark lying within.

She pushed the hair out of her face, and flashed a smile, a fake, phony, I-hate-you smile, proceeding to hand over a crumpled up hall pass.

The Professor snatched the piece of paper out of her hand, quickly analyzed it and sighed,

"Just go sit down."

"Gladly," she'd snap back without missing a beat.

I watched as she made her way to her desk dropping the bag to the floor and whipping her classic black and white chucks up onto the empty seat in front of her, then continued to twist the stained silver ring on her finger.

Some days were better than others. She never truly disrupted class. She just threw on a show whenever she came in.

Never once did she acknowledge my presence this entire year. I doubt she even vaguely remembered me.

She had changed so much since the four-foot-three Serene Easton from elementary school.

No longer did she wear that burgundy ribbon in her hair, candy bracelets or fuzzy scrunchies on her wrists. She moved away one summer just as we were about to start the seventh grade. I don't know where or why, but I do know I bawled my eyes out for a month straight.

I just couldn't bare the thought of her not being there for me when I needed her most. I don't even really remember much of the time we spent together. It was mostly Halo dragging me along her wild goose chases, getting busted with Halo for tagging along those wild goose chases, and brief moments with Noel during those wild goose chases, probably only lasting half a second, that had been sown in my being.

I told her to write. She didn't. I told her to call. No calls received. I told her to send a damn email. No emails sent.

Her response to each of my requests was a half smile, followed by a nod and sincere look in her eyes. I was like a puppy being left at the local Humane Society, thinking, surely their owner will be back for them.

But, they never were.

Oddly enough, my parents thought it was good, healthy even, that the only friend I had was leaving. My mother was afraid I would become too dependent on Halo if our friendship sustained. And I'm fairly certain my father was becoming worried about my sexuality.

Being a young boy, who wasn't quite as athletically gifted as others and only able to maintain one friend who happened to be female, caused him to raise some suspicions. Also, my incriminating actions might have come into play. Such as, not being able to change in front of other boys or perhaps stumbling upon gay porn on their computer, but I swear, it was already there when I went to use the laptop.

Nevertheless, my family supported me through thick and thin, but at the same time, had awkward conversations about how they accept me for who I am and will always love me not matter what.

Despite my parents' 'words of wisdom,' I will never forget Halo's last words she said to me before she left.

"The story continues."

She said it cryptically, like it was my job to decode the message behind it. The mystery bouncing within the light of her eyes.

Halo had never found pleasure in saying goodbyes, as a result she would say things like 'see ya later' or 'until next time.' In her own words; goodbye is too permanent. But, this time, this saying was different. What did she mean by 'the story continues'? What was the story? Was it her life? Was I just a mere chapter or an adventure to move on from? Or was the story both of us? How we have future journeys lying ahead, just waiting to be ventured upon. Maybe her moving away was just an example of the plot thickening.

I might never realize what she truly meant, however, it gives me hope.

Lunch at Oakwood was pretty much what you would expect for your customary high school. Freshman sitting with freshman, sophomores with sophomores...yeah, you get the gist. Girls on one side, guys on the other, then a couple of mixed tables scattered across the sea of pubescent bodies.

It's a small school. Our last graduating class contained about 136 students. Out of a total population of 584.

Everyone had a place and if you didn't it's because you chose not to have one. That was just my theory at least. I'd always been that shy, quiet guy.

I had become a master of blending in, being overlooked by almost everyone was my speciality.

"Jackson, mah brotha from anotha motha!" Ravon announced as he approached the table. His feign, early 2000's, ghetto slang caused me to cringe. The buttons on the back pockets of his acid wash jeans scraped against the seat next to Aditi, as he began to sit down, creating a group of three. He advanced to unraveling his brown, paper, lunch bag, revealing his masterpiece of a PB&J.

"Hey," he pointed. "Check out that spicy chocolate mama."

Ravon drew Aditi and I's attention over towards Jasmine Baker, senior class president. We watched as she made her way over to her pretentious, intellectually gifted friends. Her hips swayed with each step followed by the sound of her high heeled boots clicking against the marble floor.

"Bow-chicka-wow-wow," Aditi exclaimed.

His thick Indian accent made it hard not to burst into laughter. I snorted.

Aditi was a foreign exchange student from India. He didn't know much English, so he would say words completely irrelevant to the topic, however, I was surprised to hear how much he had improved.

"M-m-mmm," Ravon drooled. "That's one stone cold fox."

I awkwardly shrugged, picking at the glutinous macaroni and cheese, now glued to the paper tray.

"Aw, hell nah."

Ravon stared at me with an almost how-dare-you expression slapped across his face.

"What?" I asked.

He moved closer to my face. So close, I could smell the potent peanut butter aroma permeating the air from his mouth."Did you just diss the chocolate mamas?"

"No, I just don't find Jasmine very appealing."

Which was true. I didn't find girls who covered up their insecurities with false confidence very attractive. Girls who lived for themselves instead were more my type.

I finally looked from my pathetic excuse for a meal and up at Ravon. His dark skin in piercing contrast with his coral polo shirt. He blinked twice. I couldn't tell if he was about explode into a full-fledged rant about how dissing the 'chocolate mamas' was like sucker punching his future love child Tyron. And nobody touches little Tyron. Or laugh it off, pat my back and put this insignificant feud behind us.

Ravon was an interesting character. For example, using words which were televised in the late 90's and dressing in similar fashion to a cast member from a Fresh Prince rerun.

The tension in the air was becoming too thick to breathe. Luckily Aditi broke the ice.

"Bay-gull," He exclaimed in his way of saying the word bagel. At least, so we think..

"Yes, Aditi," Ravon hesitated. "Bagel indeed."

There was something uneasy about the way he spoke, nonetheless, I disregarded it..

Out of the corner of my eye, I captured a glimpse of Halo eagerly walking towards the outdoor lunch patio. I guess I made it obvious as to what I was staring at, because I received unnecessary commentary to my vision.

"Hellooo," Ravon flirtatiously said, lifting both of his eyebrows. "Vanilla mama."

"You're obsession with comparing women to pieces of candy is becoming disturbing," I mumbled while burying my face into my palms. Through the cracks of my fingers, I spotted the back of Halo vanishing behind the corner of school, racing to the usual spot where her group of 'juvenile delinquents' sat. Gone, once again.

I spent the rest of the period listening to Ravon ramble about getting to second-base with a girl waiting in line at the mall. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure I saw him there the other day groping a mannequin.

It was relatively easy pretending to pay attention to Ravon. All you had to do was nod and half smile occasionally. He was that type of person who lived in a false reality. Choosing not to believe the fact that the only people he had to speak to included someone who obviously couldn't care less and someone who didn't understand half of what he was saying.

The problem with me was that it became so hard to connect, to feel any emotion whatsoever. It's better when it's just me. My mind and I, we go well together. We agree about everything. It's really all I need. Friends come and go, leading to grief. Why waste all that energy on the expected? So yes, I'm not actually friends with Aditi or Ravon. They just happen to be people in this specific chapter of my life. By the time I'm thirty, I probably won't even remember them. Sad, but true.

I just prefer thinking realistically.

With a hop, skip and jump in my step, I was dumped on the side of the road, attempting to avoid slamming into the bright, red stop sign. I was possibly the only junior at Oakwood who still road the bus to school instead of driving their own 'set of wheels.' The stop was half a mile away from my house, which was far, but not too far to walk home. It happened to be very calm and reflective. I don't know why, but there is something about walking alone that just helps you forget all of the pesky problems in life. Cars passed by me leaving a gust of wind to be remembered by. Puddles were dispersed across the road, which wasn't quite unusual when living in Oregon. The trees were almost bare, only few Amber and ruby colored leaves attached to the claws of their branches. Every now and then I'd see someone I recognize from school, but I don't think I'd look as familiar to them as they do to me.

About a quarter of a mile away from my destination I'd pass a small white house. Its curtains closed, concealing secrets to the curious eye. It looked like your average suburban home. A welcome mat by the front door, wind chimes hanging from over its porch, and a lawn in slight need of a good mow. It definitely did not appear to be the type of home you'd expect Halo Easton to be living in.

I wasn't quite sure if she was home at the moment, there appeared to be no activity coming from within, except for the slight flickering of a light, most likely from a television screen, piercing through the closed blinds. Then again, Halo was the type of person that never seemed to be at home.

By the time I had arrived, my mother was in the front yard hauling what had the appearance of tacky couch from the 70's, from our family pickup truck. One end of the abomination was tilted against the driveway, the other leaning against the tailgate of the vehicle.

"Oh! Jackson, honey, could you come help me with this?"

Sweat poured from the top of her head, as she wiped her face with the white apron she normally used for cleaning.

I made my way over towards the hideous piece of furniture, it's yellowish piss coloring, velvet fabric, with brown and white stripes outlining it's unflattering frame.

"Mom, did you buy this?" I asked while trying to hide my horrified expression.

"No, sweetheart you know me better than that," She paused, catching her breath.

"I found it in of one of our neighbors front yards! Can you believe someone was just giving it away!?"

My mother was a hoarder. As hard as she wanted to admit it, she was. She liked collecting junk, adding to her insatiable collection of stuff she will most likely never use. I guess she thought she would sometime, in the near distant future, fix her junk up or put it to some sort of benefit, unfortunately she never did. So, now we had achieved a garage filled from bicycles missing wheels, to the largest world collection of disfigured beanie babies. Even though she was a bit crazy, I sort of admired her for it in a way. She was able to see a beauty, that no one else did, in the things she found. After all, I had to get my artistic side from somewhere.

"Ok, one, two, three, lift."

The nonexistent muscles I had in my arms, were straining. I was unprepared for the amount of weight I was now lifting. I felt my heart beating twice as fast, almost as if screaming, 'Shouldn't have skipped gym you weak bitch.'

Somehow we managed to tilt the 'couch from hell' rightside up. Mostly because I let it fall to the ground at the last second.

"Good, now help me move it into the garage."

I might've started screaming bloody murder, if my little sister Gracie hadn't opened the front door and shouted, "Daddy's home!"

Slowly, my father's blue minivan rolled up the driveway. Gracie, with a sheet of notebook paper covered with multicolored scribbles in her hands, ran towards the door of the car, excitedly tapping on its window.

My father calmly walked out, but I could tell by his constant glances over towards the new piece of furniture we now owned, which he now had to help move, was ready to burn mother's garage full of trinkets.

"Daddy look." Gracie held up her art, stained with a bit of 100% grape juicy juice.

"Aren't I just as good as Jackson? It's abstract. Just like the one drawing you guys really liked that he did, except mine has color!"

"It's beautiful," my father faintly smiled, but the reassurance in his voice wasn't very prominent.

I smirked at her jealousy of the talents I possessed. She always looked up to her big brother Landon, but he had been away at college for the past few months, so I guess I was her backup plan. However, she didn't hold the same sort of honor she had for me as she had for Landon. It was that 'middle child honor.' The type of honor that truly does look up to you, just doesn't like showing it. The type of honor that likes to bring up embarrassing moments that will haunt you for the rest of your life, steal your towel and clothes while taking a shower and eat the last bite of your favorite cereal.

Luckily, I had my revenge planned. When she really pisses me off I can finally tell her the truth about her unplanned conception.

"How was work dad?" I never usually acted this interested in my father's occupation, mostly because it involved unclogging the shit out of people's toilets, but I was trying to avoid carrying the monstrosity of a sofa to the garage.

"Eh," his common response. He wasn't the most emotional person, especially on days when he was in one of his 'moods.' This was one of those days.

He made his way towards mother, despite her stockpile-syndrome, you could tell he loved her more than life itself.

"Hey hon," he said, softly pecking her on the lips.

It was like her insanity was a part of him that he adored. The part that kept him young, helping him remember their early blossoming romance. They were complete opposites, yet each mirrored the other. Each bringing out the other's character.

As I see it, everything needs it's opposing pair. It wouldn't be whole without it.

What would the moon be without the sun, the light without darkness, bitter without sweet, grief without joy, love without hate? These forces balance each other out. My parents are like that.

My mother smiled, then began, "Hey! Oooo, do you think you could help me move thi-" mother began but was cut off.

"I'm already on it," my father laughed, lifting one side of the couch, clearly exhausted.

I started to walk into the house, the straps of my backpack now chaffing my shoulders. We had lived in this house for about 18 years. Apparently after mom found out she was pregnant once again, they figured it was best to start searching for a place other than the one bedroom condo they were already living in. They found our home thinking it would be a proper family home. Instead, it turned out to be infested with termites, gnawing away at the wooden beams supporting our ceilings. Of course, an exterminator was hired. After that slight bump in the road, a paint job and serious cleaning, it turned out to be the domicile we would spend the rest of our childhood in. All of our precious memories, which we held dear, lied within it's walls.

I raced up the stairway to my room. The house, unlike our garage, was rather neat. My Father and I had always shared a passion for order. I guess I wasn't quite as uptight as he was, although I did become slightly OCD about a backwards roll of toilet paper.

My bedroom was whitewashed with well. . .white. Colorless and bland.

It's not that I was a boring stick-in-the-mud, I just didn't want to ruin the elegance my room pertained. It was like an empty canvas, a blank sheet of paper. Having so much potential. Potential that could easily be destroyed.

My fear was screwing things up.

As an aspiring artist, you might find it odd how I'm exceptionally organized, rather dull and basic. Not all artists have to be these messy slobs, using vibrant colors, seeing things differently than others.

I saw things for the way they were.

I laid my backpack down by the side of my bed, it's zipper clanking against the metal frame. It was time for my daily procrastination. I rolled open the drawer to my drafting table. Its polished wooden frame, still held the freshly cut pine scent, regardless of how old it was. Delicately choosing a pencil from my collection. It needed to be ideal. It's lead not too stubby, so I didn't have to find the energy to choose a new tool, yet not too sharp so it wouldn't break during the process. I tried taking a few short breaths. Attempting to clear my mind.

I liked playing a game with myself. The first thought which popped into my head, I would draw. I counted to four. Not three. Not five. Four. It was the number in between, commonly overlooked as a number to count to.

Just like me.

One....Two....Three...Four.

The gears in my brain started turning, sorting through the files of my mind, seeking for the perfect thought. It scanned through the alphabet.

A...B...C...D....E...STOP!

Yes, E.

The word became clear, its letters floating about.

Emptiness.

Beginning is always the hardest part. It is the foundation for everything. All the work you do from that point on stands upon the structure you created.

The first thing that came to mind when picturing the word was someone hiding behind a mask. Disguising their pain.

I proceeded to sketch a young girl, probably around Gracie's age. Her hair, hiding half her face. Each strand, unkempt, and untamed. She was smiling, yet the crinkles near her eyes told another story. A vacant heart.

A label was printed across her forehead. Numbers, like an ID.

18, 5, 10, 5, 3, 20, 5, 4.

Each number representing a letter. Each letter forming a word. A word that was the root cause of all emptiness. Being rejected.

She could fool anyone who was gullible enough to believe her false sense of contentment. Only those who looked close enough were able to see the agony beneath her facade.

Later that evening, while shading the striking features of the girl's face, darkening her glassy, tear-filled eyes, I was called down for dinner. My creative flow now interrupted, I made my way downstairs. My family each in their traditional seats. We use to have a big fancy dinner table, for guests, but I guess after the first awkward dinner with the Peterson's, and the fact we rarely ever had guests over, we sold it and bought a table much more accustomed to the size of our family. We only had one extra seat, of course in the garage, which was for Landon when he returned from (insert school name here). I plopped into the last available chair, my nose meeting the delicious fragrance of chinese take-out.

Egg rolls, white rice with baby shrimp, teriyaki chicken and those oh-so-sweet stargoons. I guess mom was too lazy to cook tonight. Again.

But, I wasn't complaining.

It was at that moment when I realized just how starving I was. I had forgotten I didn't eat my lunch.

I commenced to quietly dip my egg roll into a small packet of 'duck sauce' or whatever the hell it was and continued to stuff my face with a bite far too large for my mouth.

"So, Jackson, Gracie, you're father and I have some news."

I raised my head, my cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk trying to store his precious supply of nuts. Haha, nuts.

Dad just sat idly by while my mother eagerly took his hand. He seemed clueless. As if he was a random passerby who had just won a lifetime supply of pastries for buying the millionth funnel cake.

"Landon's coming home for the weekend," she exclaimed.

Gracie enthusiastically shrieked like a mating dolphin from the top of her lungs.

"Not inside the house Grace," Dad grimaced.

"Jackson, honey, isn't that great?"

I guess the lack of emotion on my face and the fact I had said not a word might have given the impression I wasn't thrilled to be reuniting with my dear brother, who I had profoundly missed, or was taking his trip home for granted. No, it wasn't either of those things, I was only slightly busy attempting not to choke on the rather sizeable amount of egg roll I had just consumed. The lump in my throat felt as if it was the size of golf ball. The shells' sharp edges slowly slid down my throat.

Amazingly I was able to swallow the choking hazard.

"Yeah mom, that's awesome."

Lately my parents had been acting more attentive towards my needs, assuming I'm depressed or unhappy with my circumstances. I suppose they have noticed my increase in afternoon naps, deadpan smiles and most of my life being spent in my room.

Perhaps they thought bringing Landon back home for a little while, might help recover the 'old Jackson' whose absence had been accounted for.

Yes, I admit it. Landon leaving did make things difficult. But, it was my fault for getting so hung up on the situation. I knew he was leaving. I couldn't help but also feeling slight resentment towards Landon.

He left me. However, Landon wasn't to blame. This was a step he had to take in life. I never expected for him to stay home to tend to his emotional brothers' needs. It just gave me a taste of the truth. Even family will not always be there for you.

Although, I did begin acting unlike my common self around the time when Landon left, he wasn't the only factor that had come into play of my mysterious change in personality. I guess his disappearance was just the gateway to all of the crap I had been storing in my heart for years.

Think of it like Jenga, the more blocks you pile up, the more come tumbling down.

I was never the type of person to talk about their issues and receive perceptive insight, causing my life to magically become picture perfect, solving every single one of my problems, then rolling the credits with the Friends theme song.

Because life just wasn't that simple.

That night was probably like most. Laying in bed staring at my ceiling, weary yet unable to let loose and drift away. All that was left for me to do was think. Think about the inevitable fact that I would soon fall asleep, unfortunately I would have to spend the next few minutes, before that happens, and suffer. I guess this was mother nature's way of letting you reflect on your actions, those humiliating moments we regret, causing us the gut-wrenching feeling of condemnation.

But, there were no moments belonging to me I had to ponder. I could only ask myself, what the hell happened to her?

Halo was a mission impossible movie. There was always something exciting and adventurous just around the corner. Her motto once was there would be no rules without rebellion. She'd then emphasize the statement saying how technically she was enforcing the rules by breaking them. She was one of those people who would have an idea, not take a second longer to think about what had just entered her mind and do it. From what it seemed, her impulsiveness had not changed much or her thirst for an adrenaline rush. No, what had changed was the wholesome tone she use to have in her voice. Each word was now filled with no meaning and each action was driven from a burning desire to fill the void in her soul, only enlarging.

If only I could just find enough courage to talk to her.

But, what would I say?

"Hey, uh, remember me? Jackson Novak. We use to hang out when were like ten, and I've noticed you recently moved back into the neighborhood this past year. Sorry if you ever caught me stalkerishly staring at your house, I was just wondering if you were home and what you might've doing."

Oh yeah, she'd probably just fall right into my arms after that glorious soliloquy.

Actually she might just jackslap me in the face for even considering speaking to her. After all, she had made it very clear she either never wanted to talk to me again, or suffered a terrible case of amnesia, causing her to lose about four years worth of her memory.

In all fairness, we were young.

We have matured quite a bit since our last rendezvous. She definitely wasn't that flat chested little girl from the fifth grade anymore. So, maybe it's possible she didn't recognize me?

That's ridiculous, I hadn't changed that much. I was still rather freckled face, sustaining your basic non-aerobic physique, just a foot and a half taller and different pair of glasses. I couldn't have changed to a certain degree making me unrecognizable.

Yes, it had been about five years, I'll give her that, but wouldn't she find me the slightest bit familiar?

Maybe, her life just didn't have enough room for me at the moment. She was already busy with her other friends, she just hadn't found the words to say to me yet.

Or maybe, my special gift of blending into the crowd was becoming better than I intended.

"Yeah, that was it," I tried telling myself, sinking into denial. Even though I hadn't chosen a possible theory to which I agreed with.

It was sometimes easier to deceive yourself than accepting the facts.

But, what's the point? She's moved on.

I wanted to hate her. To hate her for planting seeds of hope. For making me wish she would look at me and smile, reminiscing on a moment we once shared. She left me in suspense, on the edge of my seat, eagerly waiting to see what her next move would be.

But, I didn't hate her. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't.

Tag Game

Thank you @eden-winchester for the tag!

The questions are a bit unusual, but I had so much fun answering them! So here it goes!

LAST

1) Drink: Coca-Cola (Because I’m a caffeine addict)

2) Phone Call: My mom

3) Text Message: “Just send gibberish. I’ll know what it means lol” (sent to a friend because she was going to see Logan)

4) Song Listened To: And The World Was Gone by Snow Ghosts

5) Time I Cried: Two nights ago while watching Season 2 of Daredevil again (it was the graveyard scene with The Punisher, and I just couldn’t stop crying)

HAVE YOU EVER

6) Dated Somebody Twice: No, because the relationship usually ended for a reason (I have remained friends with most of my exes though)

7) Been Cheated On: Not to my knowledge

8) Been Kissed By Someone And Regretted It: No

9) Lost Someone Special: Yes (close friends and several family members)

10) Been Depressed: Yes (see above answer to help understand why)

11) Gotten Drunk And Puked: Yes (say no to jaeger-bombs, kids)

THREE FAVORITE COLORS

12) Green (pretty much all shades except for pea soup green)

13) Pink (except for that shade that makes my eyes hurt)

14) Purple (I prefer pale purple but love all shades)

IN THE LAST YEAR

15) Made New Friends: Yes

16) Fallen Out Of Love: No

17) Laughed Until You Cried: Yes

18) Found Out Someone Was Gossiping About You: No

19) Met Someone Who Changed Your Life: Yes

20) Found Out Who Your True Friends Are: Yes

21) Kissed Someone On Your Facebook List: No

HOW MANY/MUCH

22) Facebook Friends: 175 (which I’m calling impressive since I avoid FB as much as literally possible)

23) Pets: 1 (Chihuahua)

24) Want To Change Your Name: Nah, I like my name

WHAT

25) Did I Get For My Birthday: My birthday is Christmas Eve, so all of my (few) presents kind of blend together. My favorite presents were an owl sweater with my initials and a pair of giant fuzzy dice for my car

26) Time I Woke Up: Around 7-ish

27) Were You Doing At Midnight: Writing (fanfiction)

28) Can’t You Wait For: Guardians of the Galaxy 2

29) Was The Last Time You Saw Your Mom: About an hour ago

30) Was Something You Wish You Could Change About Your Life: Not worrying about how to pay the bills each month

31) Are You Listening To Right Now: An Unhealthy Obsession by The Blake Robinson Synthetic Orchestra

32) Gets On Your Nerves: Not all that much, actually. I’m a very laidback and non-controversial personal, unless I’m driving. Then I get really bad road rage.

33) Talked To A Person Named Tom: Nope

34) Is Your Most Visited Website: Probably YouTube

35) Elementary School: Some small school in the middle of nowhere

36) High School: An even smaller school in the middle of nowhere

37) College: A four-year university that keeps advertising about the “warrior spirit”

38) Hair Color: Brown (kinda dark at the moment)

39) Long/Short Hair: Short, just past my chin now

40) Crush: Like on a real-life person? Not at the moment

41) Do You Like About Yourself: My ability to stay calm during the weirdest of times

42) Piercings: My tongue and nothing else

43) Blood Type: O-Negative

44) Nickname: No nicknames (my name is too short to be shortened into a nickname)

45) Relationship Status: Single

46) Zodiac: Capricorn

47) Pronouns: She/Her

48) Favorite Show: Let’s just now go down this road, okay? It’d be like choosing my favorite child

49) Tattoos: Eight, currently, with more planned

50) Left/Right Handed: Right

FIRST

51) Surgery: I don’t personally think I’ve had surgery, but I went through three laser surgeries to bust up some kidney stones

52) Piercing: My ears at 13 (which then got infected and closed up so I got my tongue pierced at 14)

53) Best Friend: I’m going to say my bestest tumblr friend, @deathscytheevee

54) Sport: Cheerleading

55) Vacation: Texas (but I was so young that I don’t really remember the roadtrip)

56) Pair Of Shoes: These cute little white leather shoes that my mom held onto for years (there were buckles and tassles)

RIGHT NOW

57) Eating: Candycane

58) Drinking: Water

59) I Am About To: Go to sleep

60) Listening To: The Pugilist by Keaton Henson

61) Waiting For: Someone to swoop in and save me (kidding, I’m just waiting to get my own life together)

62) Want To See: The Batman Lego Movie

63) Want To Get Married: Yeah, eventually

64) Career: I’ve got a degree in psychology and minored in criminal justice, so I’d like to be a juvenile counselor at some point

WHICH IS BETTER

65) Hugs/Kisses: Hugs (they usually lead to cuddles)

66) Lips/Eyes: Eyes (windows to the soul and all that)

67) Taller/Shorter: I like being short, but I like being around taller people so that they can reach the high shelves

68) Younger/Older: Uh, neither? It doesn’t really matter to me. Old people can act like children, and the younger generation can sometimes be much more mature

69) Romantic/Spontaneous: I’m a hopeless romantic at heart, but bring on the spontaneity!

70) Nice Arms/Nice Stomach: Arms, definitely

71) Sensitive/Loud: A good balance of the two is better, in my opinion

72) Hookup/Relationship: Hookups are fun but the connection is empty, so I’m gonna go with Relationship on this one

73) Troublemaker/Hesitant: Either/Both have their pros and cons

HAVE YOU EVER

74) Kissed A Stranger: Yes (I was young and dumb, please don’t judge me)

75) Drank Hard Liquor: I’m from the Deep South, we make our own Hard Liquor and give it out for Christmas

76) Lost Glasses/Contact Lenses: Yes, I’m constantly losing my glasses

77) Turned Someone Down: Yes

78) Canoodling On A First Date: Yes

79) Broken Someone’s Heart: Unfortunately, yes

80) Had Your Own Heart Broken: Yes

81) Been Arrested: No

82) Cried When Someone Died: Yes

83) Fallen For A Friend: Yes

DO YOU BELIEVE IN

84) Yourself: Yeah, most days

85) Miracles: I try to

86) Santa Claus: No

87) Kisses On A First Date: Yes

88) Angels: Yes (even though most people are surprised that I’m religious…maybe it’s the pentagram tattoo on my foot?)

89) Love At First Sight: No (I believe in LUST at first sight, but I think it takes time for something as deep as love to develop)

OTHER

90) Best Friend’s Name: Eevee!

91) Eye Color: Hazel (sometimes a little blue, sometimes partly brown, but my eyes usually prefer green)

92) Favorite Movie: Mulan (I love so many movies, Marvel has its own category and rating system, but Mulan is my go-to movie whenever I need cheering up)

TAGGING

@deathscytheeevee

@br3ak-my-fall

@thecheyisalie

@and-we-can-be-heroes

@thoughtsaremydrug

@rose-for-dead-alice

@spoondragon

@ruinsrebuilt

@aces-low

@loufworld

 And, of course, any of my mutual that want to do this! I know it’s long, but it’s a lot of fun!

Inside Schizophrenia: Comorbidity with Schizophrenia

Comorbidity is the presence of one or more additional conditions co-occurring with a primary condition. In this episode, host schizophrenic Rachel Star Withers with her cohost Gabe Howard will be discussing comorbidity with schizophrenia. Comorbidity is associated with worse health outcomes, more complex clinical management and increased health care costs.

Occupational therapist and host of the podcast Occupied, Brock Cook, will be joining us to discuss ways that he works with people with schizophrenia to manage multiple health issues. 

Highlights from “Comorbidity with Schizophrenia” Episode

[01:28] What is comorbidity

[03:37] Antipsychotic medication side effects leading to comorbidity

[05:00] Obesity with schizophrenia

[08:30] Medication side effect of weight gain

[11:08] Lifestyle factors of people with schizophrenia

[14:00] Obstacles to getting treatment

[16:19] How loved ones react

[19:00] Doctors not wanting to treat other comorbidities

[20:50] Tracking your symptoms

[25:00] Everyone needs to be on the same page

[27:00] Guest Interview with Occupational Therapist Brock Cook

[29:00] Smoking unhealthy/healthy?

[33:00] Learning new coping mechanisms

[36:00] Set small goals

[43:30] What is Rachel’s small goal?

About Our Guest

Brock Cook is an Occupational Therapist in Australia and host of the podcast “Occupied”.

His podcast explores all things Occupation, Occupational Science, and Occupational Therapy.

www.brockcook.com

Computer Generated Transcript of “Comorbidity with Schizophrenia” Episode

Announcer: Welcome to Inside Schizophrenia, a look in to better understanding and living well with schizophrenia. Hosted by renowned advocate and influencer Rachel Star Withers and featuring Gabe Howard.

Sponsor: Listeners, could a change in your schizophrenia treatment plan make a difference?  There are options out there you might not know about. Visit OnceMonthlyDifference.com to find out more about once monthly injections for adults with schizophrenia.

Rachel Star Withers: Welcome to Inside Schizophrenia, a Psych Central podcast. I’m Rachel Star Withers here with my co-host, Gabe Howard. In this episode, we will be exploring co-morbidity, having another health condition in addition to schizophrenia. Co-morbidity is associated with worse health outcomes, more complex clinical management and increased health care costs. Occupational therapist and host of the podcast Occupied, Brock Cook, will be joining us to discuss ways that he works with people with schizophrenia to manage multiple health issues.

Gabe Howard: Rachel, co-morbidity is one of those things that it happens in all illnesses. But specifically, we’re talking about how it relates to managing, living with, and acknowledging schizophrenia. Can you give us a little more background on co-morbidity?

Rachel Star Withers: Co-morbidity is the presence of one or more additional conditions co-occurring with a primary condition, and for our show, the primary condition we are focusing on is schizophrenia. How co-morbidity is classified in mental health, though, it’s like really confusing. So, if you have schizophrenia and depression, is that two different things? Or is that schizophrenia with a negative symptom of depression? Or is that schizoaffective disorder? That’s where things start to get like a little bit hairy as to what’s a whole separate disorder and then what’s a side effect? Others are like anxiety, panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive compulsive. It’s estimated that depression occurs in 50 percent of patients with schizophrenia. I personally have the diagnosis of schizophrenia and depression.

Gabe Howard: It’s important to understand while we move through this episode that there is a difference between a symptom of an illness like, for example, you can have a cold and a symptom of having a cold is a runny nose. So, you don’t have the co-morbid disorder of a cold with a runny nose. And that’s a very bad example. And I know that every general practitioner who listens to our show is like, Gabe. No. Full disclosure, didn’t go to medical school, but we’re really trying to talk about the things that are vastly different from schizophrenia. We’re not even necessarily talking about schizophrenia and depression or schizophrenia and anxiety. We’re also talking about schizophrenia and physical health traits and trends that people with schizophrenia more often than not have higher rates than the general population.

Rachel Star Withers: Schizophrenia has been described as the life shortening disease. Physical co-morbidity accounts for 60 percent of premature deaths that are not related to suicide in people with schizophrenia. We have an increased rate of developing glucose regulation abnormalities, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes. And of course, now some of that’s going to be attributed to lifestyle factors, which we’ll come back to. But a big part is the side effects of antipsychotic medications. If you’ve ever been on different medications, you’ve definitely learned weight gain, even with diet and exercise, is really hard to avoid. My weight’s gone up and down throughout the years and I’ve always been active to some degree. Whether it was fighting, doing mud runs, or like I’ve always just been a very active person. And I mean, I weighed 70 pounds more than I do right now at one point.

Gabe Howard: And it’s important to point out that for your career as a stuntwoman, being physically in shape is a requirement. So, when you say that you have always been active, you have been active at a level different from the majority of the population. You’re not talking about a planet fitness membership here. This is part of your career to earn a living and to be paid to do the stunts that you have been so successful at doing.

Rachel Star Withers: And it’s not so much just even stunts, just being on camera for different things. Unfortunately, my looks kind of matter. And you set yourself up whenever you’re doing Internet things for horrible comments. And that’s been rough, just hearing the things people will send like, oh, this fat, you know, and on and on has been definitely really hard just dealing with other people’s responses.

Gabe Howard: And while we’re certainly not saying that it’s more reasonable to have your weight commented on if you, quote, deserve it, it’s important to point out that your lifestyle didn’t change. Your medication did. You were still eating the same, working out the same, exercising the same. You were still just as active. The only thing that changed is your medication, but your weight shot up. And again, I want to be very, very clear. It’s not OK to insult people’s looks or weight if they gained weight because they eat cake. But we do want to point it out. Right? Your level of activity did not change. You made no lifestyle changes. You made a medication change to manage schizophrenia and as you stated, gained 70 pounds, even though that’s the only change that you made.

Rachel Star Withers: Patients with schizophrenia are more likely to be obese than the normal population. And if you have long term schizophrenia, you are three times more likely to develop diabetes than the general population. That’s a lot. Three times more. I was like, oh, wow, when I read that. And it makes sense because like I said, there was so much of it was out of my control. Like I was doing everything I could and I was still packing on weight. And that did not help the depression part.

Gabe Howard: One of the things that I thought was interesting, Rachel, was you talked about whenever you were given a new medication, the very first thing that you Googled was the name of the drug and weight gain. That was your primary concern. Well, why is that? Why is that your primary concern? Because there seems to be a lot more important things to worry about.

Rachel Star Withers: Yeah, you would assume that I should care more about my mental state, but at the same time I felt, and I still feel, that I can only fight so many battles. You know, I’m trying to maintain a mental state of being able to go to work and live a life. At the same time, I don’t want to be like gaining and gaining and gaining weight because that affects those exact things. Me trying to live life. Me trying to, I don’t want to say make friends and date and things, but it does. It does. It changes different things. And it’s like I can only fight so many battles to the point that it just becomes overwhelming.

Gabe Howard: And of course, because your physical health is important, you gain the weight because of the psychiatric medications. Direct cause, it’s co morbid obesity, schizophrenia. You end up in a doctor’s office. And the first thing that a doctor tells you is, oh, you’re overweight, your morbidly obese, you have obesity issues, you need to lose weight, and you’re thinking to yourself, this isn’t my fault. And the doctor is just looking at the chart and saying, oh, you’re 5′ 7″, and you have this weight. You need to be at this weight. So, make better choices. Because they’re trying to avoid all of the things you mentioned earlier, diabetes and joint pain, etc. So, Rachel, you know that the weight gain is a side effect of your medication. It’s the side effect of your treatment of schizophrenia. But the doctor is treating you like, hey, you just need to join a gym. That’s got to hurt. That’s got to rub you the wrong way. That’s got to feel bad.

Rachel Star Withers: Yeah, it’s just beyond frustrating and it kind of makes you just be like, well, I don’t even want to try. I just, I don’t, I don’t even want to try. And for me, whenever I’ve had a doctor prescribe an antidepressant or antipsychotic, none – none – have ever warned me about weight gain. And I get it because their job is to help me mentally. And I guess maybe it’s deal with the mental; the physical stuff we can deal with later. But it’s so interconnected. I feel like they just play off of each other. And I will sometimes actually tell my psychiatrist, like, is there a better option? Because this says quite a few people online are complaining about weight gain. And they’ll be like, well, maybe you shouldn’t look at that. Nope. Nope, looking it up right now and just literally sitting there with my phone in my hand as we’re discussing options like, oh, okay. Okay. Hold on.

Gabe Howard: I think it’s important to sidebar here in point that this is a tough choice for people with schizophrenia. They’ve got to decide if they want to be mentally healthy, but have some physical consequences or be mentally unwell. It’s important to point out that while that is a difficult decision, it’s kind of not right. I mean, having full control of our faculties, of our brains, of our bodies, it is very, very important. But I do want to provide hope. There’s new research and there’s new medications and there’s new drug trials. And thankfully, the medical community is aware that people are struggling with this decision and in many cases not taking psychiatric medications because the side effects are just so difficult.

Rachel Star Withers: And it’s not just weight gain. It’s a lot of things like cholesterol levels. The insulin resistance. It’s not just, oh, well, I’m going to gain a lot of weight. There are like other health issues. One that I haven’t really ever talked about is my cholesterol. I have to follow a very strict, strict diet because my cholesterol is insane. And they’ve warned me about it so many times. They are like you can’t have fast food. And I’m like, I haven’t had fast food in like five years. And they’ll be like, you can’t eat red meat. I almost never eat red meat or anything like that. I’m on such a strict diet. But my cholesterol is still abnormally high and they think that it is due to some past medications that I’ve been on kind of changed some chemistry. So, it isn’t just for my people listening out there like, oh, you shouldn’t worry about weight gain. It’s a whole physical situation going on sometimes.

Gabe Howard: One of the things that you’re trying to point out, Rachel, is that people living with schizophrenia and managing their schizophrenia well are often seen to be lazy because of this excess weight or because of the physical health conditions that they’re having. It’s kind of like a combination punch. You know, first you have schizophrenia. And that’s difficult to manage. And then everybody is like, why are you overweight? You should go for a walk. And then on top of that, you have accelerated rates of osteoporosis. You have higher incidences of irritable bowel syndrome and you have so many stats to deliver. And people are just looking at you like, hey, why don’t you make better choices? And the reality is, is you are making excellent choices for your situation as a person who’s living with schizophrenia.

Rachel Star Withers: And we can’t blame everything on medication, though. Tobacco smoking rates in people with schizophrenia are actually twice that of the general population. That’s interesting. I’ve always found that people with mental disorders do tend to smoke a lot more. The times that I’ve been at different mental health facilities, it’ll be crazy how many people there smoke. It’s like everybody smokes. And I’m someone, I never grew up smoking. I just I really didn’t grow up around it. No one I knew smoked. My parents don’t smoke. But whenever I meet other schizophrenics, you know, nine times out of ten, most of them smoke.

Gabe Howard: Obviously, the individual reasons that people choose to smoke are just that, their individual reasons. But if when we’re looking at people with schizophrenia as a whole, it’s somewhat easy to understand why decisions are made, like smoking. Cigarettes are easy to get. They are somewhat of a social activity. They provide a bump. When you’re smoking, you are feeling better. None of these are good reasons to smoke, but they are understandable reasons. And later on in the show, when we hear from Mr. Cook, he’s going to explain why it is a coping mechanism. It’s not a good coping mechanism. But in that moment, people with schizophrenia are trying to make a decision that makes them feel better. In his job, he helps people make decisions that provide the same feel better without the negative consequences of smoking. And I hope that people with schizophrenia hear that because it like you said, it is a choice that they’re making, which gives them the power to make a different choice.

Rachel Star Withers: And we’re not putting down anybody who smokes. Please don’t be upset. Because I also think about other issues, like when you look at things like smoking, alcohol, weed in some areas, if it’s legal and you’re like, OK, I’m already dealing with this major mental disorder and now you’re telling me I can’t even have a legal vice? It’s not like I’m doing anything bad, Rachel. But unfortunately, yeah, there are some things that having schizophrenia, we’re setting ourselves up to fail in some ways by doing stuff, even if it is legal. It’s one reason I never, ever drink alcohol. It affects medications. And I can’t actively be saying, oh, I’m working really hard to maintain my mental state if I’m drinking because I know that messes with the medications and is just going to continue to make things worse. Am I legally totally fine? I’m far, far above age 21 to drink. Yes, but it is something that I have to, like, take into consideration. It’s like an extra thing that I have to do to manage my schizophrenia is to not drink.

Gabe Howard: We also have to consider that one of the reasons that people living with schizophrenia don’t get help for their physical co-morbidities is because of their circumstances, their living situations, homelessness, money situation. It’s expensive to go to the doctor. And if you don’t have a good payer source, if you don’t have good health care, if you’re on government assistance, if you don’t have a ride. If you live in an area that doesn’t have good public transportation, you may be thinking to yourself, look, it’s going to cost $20 to see the doctor. It’s going to take all day to go to the free clinic. I’m going to have to sit on the bus. I don’t have the time, resources, money, or even the psychological wherewithal to deal with this for the next nine hours. So, I’m gonna go ahead and let it pass. We have to remember that many people living with schizophrenia, they’re not living with the same resources as your average middle-class American. It’s just important to understand that this is a barrier to their treatment and it may well be a barrier to your treatment as well.

Rachel Star Withers: And people with schizophrenia, we are 63 percent more likely to suffer a serious infection. And I think so many times it’s probably a small infection, but someone’s like, oh, well, if I can decide between going to my psychiatrist this month or going to like a normal doctor over an infection like, come on, I’m sure my infection will be fine. And it does. It escalates from there. Or like you said, we’re looking at a homelessness situation or just generally not being able to afford to take care of ourselves that well, that small infection can escalate very, very quickly in people with schizophrenia.

Gabe Howard: And it’s that escalation that leads to the very serious co-morbidities, the co-morbidities that we’re talking about here. Obviously living with schizophrenia is tough enough and I don’t mean to harp on it, but so often we look at people who are managing schizophrenia, and in many cases very, very well, and then we start to pick on the physical issues that they’re having. Nobody is saying not to pay attention to your physical health. In fact, we very much encourage people to pay attention to their physical health. But I think a lot of times the advice that we give to our friends, to our loved ones is the same advice that we would give to our friends and loved ones who are not managing schizophrenia. And I think that we need to meet people where they’re at. And we just really, really, really want to get across that a lot of these issues that people with schizophrenia are going through are not their fault. They’re just their responsibility. Rachel, the specific question that I want to ask you as a person living with schizophrenia is how does it feel to know that you’re managing your schizophrenia very well, but when your friends or your loved ones approach you on the physical side, they don’t pay attention to that at all? They treat you as somebody that just has a physical condition. And they don’t acknowledge that you have managed your schizophrenia and they’re just like, hey, you need to do x y, z. How does that feel?

Rachel Star Withers: It just adds to, especially for me, the depression of it and the feeling of hopelessness that okay, even if I feel like man, I have done so good this past week. But no one else notices. What was the point? Or if someone is constantly like on me about my diet like, hey, Rachel, you know, you’re not supposed to have that. Rachel, you’re not supposed to do that. And then I’m like, OK, I’ve actually been really, really good. And I’m just like, come on. All of it, it’s very frustrating. And it makes me want to push back and be like, well, fine, I’m not even going to try.

Gabe Howard: Obviously, people want to get credit for what they’ve done. That’s not a schizophrenia thing, that’s not a mental health thing. That’s just a life thing. And when you’re trying to encourage somebody to get help for something and you don’t acknowledge the great strides that they’ve made. And I think that this is one of the reasons that separating out mental health and physical health is just so incredibly foolish. Right? Because you’re not acknowledging somebody’s mental health, because you’re worried about their physical health, or you’re worried about something with his physical health, and you’re not acknowledging your mental health. We have one body and we have one life. And that’s where comorbid disorders really come in. Right? Because all of these disorders, all of these issues are happening to one person.

Rachel Star Withers: And to my caretakers, my friends, my family out there who are like, okay, well, I’ll be more careful about saying things like that. But also notice when someone is doing good, even if it’s like a little bit of doing good, like, hey, you know what, you are looking so much more awake this week or you know what? You’ve been looking a lot happier since you started walking. You know, whatever the thing is. Don’t lie and be like you look like you’ve lost 30 pounds and you’re like, no, I haven’t. But just like little things go a long way. I’d just be like, you know, since you’ve switched over to such and such you it seems like you’re a lot more upbeat. Do notice, like, those little tiny achievements because they are a big deal.

Gabe Howard: Here, here, Rachel. Getting back to stats for a moment. I was really shocked to learn that in the United States, about 80 percent of Medicare spending is devoted to patients with four or more chronic conditions. So, co-morbidity is not something that only people with schizophrenia have to deal with and have to live with. It’s actually very common. And schizophrenia is a very serious illness. So, it’s not surprising that a very serious illness would have co-morbidities.

Rachel Star Withers: Yes. And I do believe that people with schizophrenia, when we’re having multiple issues, that doctors sometimes deal with it differently than they would someone who is just dealing with multiple physical issues. A lot of time doctors who are not psychiatrists, they don’t feel comfortable just treating someone with schizophrenia with their normal things, just kind of like, oh, I just I mean, you have schizophrenia and I’m like, right, but this is a cold. And he’s like, yeah, but you know, I don’t really know. You know, it’s like they’re afraid to treat you, that they might do something wrong. And then, of course, if I go to a psychiatrist about a cold, they’re like, OK, well, Rachel, you need to go to your general practitioner. That’s not what we do here. And it can be frustrating because I’m getting bounced around doctor to doctor. And then, of course, there’s the fear of me going to a normal doctor that they’ll think that it’s psychosomatic. Oh, well, you know, you think you’re in pain. It’s probably your schizophrenia. That’s frustrating alone, because if you have schizophrenia, not only can you have a difficulty in communicating what’s going on sometimes, trying to describe it, and then people aren’t believing you or just kind of brushing off what you say. That’s really great if you have the friends and family who can go with you to the doctor and almost kind of be your backup, you know, to make you, this is gonna sound bad, but not seem crazy. My mom, usually, it’s gotten to the point that she’ll go with me to most of my doctor’s appointments because she’ll be like, yes, she has been dealing with this specifically for two months.

Gabe Howard: Rachel, in your opinion, how do we fix this? Because we do have trouble in America looking at a whole person. They want to pay attention to your mental health or they want to pay attention to your physical health. But Rachel Star Withers, isn’t two people. Rachel Star Withers is one person. You’ve been managing schizophrenia for a long time and you’ve managed many comorbid disorders, again for a long time. How can you help people get to the other side?

Rachel Star Withers: With having schizophrenia, you do have to take a lot of the responsibility on yourself. Which is like, you’re like, well, Rachel, I mean, come on, I’m already having to deal with my mental state. Yeah. Every night I have a little app that I write down any physical issues I had during the day. That way it could kind of like be tracked over time. So, if something is coming up, hey, you could actually look through my little app and be like, oh, well, this started two months ago or this started back at the same time you went on this medication. It helps me to have that because, it almost kinda backs up what I’m saying, instead of me just going to the doctor and be like, oh, my gosh, I’ve gained 10 pounds. I can be like, look, when I started this, a week later, I had gained two pounds. And it does, it just backs up what you’re saying when you go to the doctor’s. But you kind of have to step up to the plate and be like, all right, if my psychiatrist isn’t requiring that I have physicals or checking that my physical health is OK, that might be something you need to do. Whether you’re doing them every few months, whether it’s once or twice a year, tracking weight changes, your blood pressure, your blood sugar. If you’re having sleeping problems, all those kinds of things. And yeah, a lot of it does fall on the patient’s responsibility.

Gabe Howard: And honestly, it’s not a bad thing that it falls on the patient because that’s very empowering, right? You can take control of your health care; you can take control of your health. And I’m fond of saying that it doesn’t matter if you have schizophrenia or not, the physical rules of the world still apply to you. And in fact, as we’ve learned throughout this episode, they really, really apply to you. You have to worry about managing schizophrenia. You have to worry about managing your physical health. And you have to worry about managing the co-morbidities between the two. While it is a tough road, it’s your road. And I think it’s very, very empowering to be able to walk that road with as much agency as humanly possible. But don’t be afraid to ask for help. Part of agency is asking for that help. As Rachel said, she utilizes her family. And I’ve never seen a better team. There are very, very good team. And I think that’s important to point out. Rachel, that’s what I’ve always been impressed with. It’s not your family taking care of you. It’s not you demanding things from your family. Your family has formed a team to manage your schizophrenia, your co-morbidities and your physical health together. I feel that’s a very good system because it gives you, as the person living with schizophrenia, a lot of agency. And I think that’s very, very powerful, because ultimately it is your life.

Rachel Star Withers: Gabe, I totally agree. My parents are awesome. And this is something that we’ve worked out over many years. It wasn’t just like they decided one day, okay, this is how we’re gonna work out with Rachel and everything’s gonna be great. It has definitely taken a while for us to kind of find a groove that worked. And I helped them with things, also. The really good thing about me having to be so strict on my diet is that it makes my dad also be kind of strict on his diet. Me having to exercise, I can have my mom exercise with me. I don’t want it to sound like, oh, everyone’s doing all this stuff for poor Rachel. I would like to think that it’s a whole team effort and everyone is benefiting. You know, we are helping each other in different areas, I think all of us across the board. Exercise is important, eating right is important. Whether you have a health issue or not, it’s just that’s good stuff to do.

Gabe: We’ll be right back after this message from our sponsor.

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Gabe: We’re back discussing co-morbidities and schizophrenia. 

Rachel: When it comes to going to your psychiatrist and your different doctors, one thing you need to make sure is that they are on the same page, that your general practitioner knows the medications that your psychiatrist has you on and vice versa. And any other doctors, do not assume that they are talking. Do not assume that they double checked that one medication doesn’t affect a different one. That’s something I’ve had to learn the hard way. I listed it on the paper, the medications I was on, but that doctor almost didn’t pay attention to it and the medication they were gonna prescribe for a completely different health issue, it raised blood pressure while the other one did the same thing. And it would potentially be very bad. And I literally was the one on my phone again. And I was like, well, it says on this little app here, and they don’t like when you do that, but it’s very important that you do that. Yeah, I’ve had quite a few run-ins where they’re like, oh, wow, yeah, no, we can’t have you on both of these because they didn’t realize my other treatment plans fully with other doctors. So do make sure you speak up when it comes to things like that. Family, friends, if you’re going to the doctor with them, my mom loves to make sure I have my whole little tote bag of medications. I’m like, Mom, I got them written down. I don’t need the actual bottles. She says, just to be safe. Okay, we’ll bring the bottles also. But they are on this piece of paper, which I’m sure they’d rather have the piece of paper that’s, you know, organized than a bag of bottles but whatever. Though, yeah, don’t just assume that doctors know 100 percent what’s going on in different areas of your health.

Gabe Howard: Rachel, you had the opportunity to interview a gentleman named Brock Cook. He’s an occupational therapist out of Australia and he works specifically to help people with schizophrenia manage their comorbid conditions and lead the best life possible. I’m excited to hear this interview. So, we’re gonna go ahead and roll it now.

Rachel Star Withers: We are here talking with Brock Cook, who is an occupational therapist out of Australia. And he’s also the host of the podcast Occupied. So welcome, Brock. Thank you so much for being on our show.

Brock Cook: Thank you very much for inviting me.

Rachel Star Withers: You get to work with a lot of different people and we know each other from me having schizophrenia and talking to you about it on your podcast. How would you describe what you do?

Brock Cook: I have worked pretty much my whole career in the mental health service here in my local state, and I’ve worked in all different areas of mental health, everything from acute inpatient to community rehab to intensive rehab to pretty much, you name it, I’ve worked there. In terms of what OT does with people with mental health conditions, an occupational therapist works with the things that people want and need to do. When we talk about occupation, we talk about the things that people occupy their time with. So for people with mental health conditions, it’s the things that they would normally do at a set age to occupy their time. So it might be anything from learning how to maintain a house to learning how to get a job, to supporting them in navigating relationship transitions like pretty much you name it, we have the skills and capacity to support people to lead a fuller life as they possibly can.

Rachel Star Withers: And when dealing with mental disorders, what have you seen to be the main physical co-morbidities affecting people with schizophrenia?

Brock Cook: A lot of people who have schizophrenia tend to end up with co-morbidities due to what health would deem as lifestyle disease. So things like smoking and drugs and that kind of stuff. We also would work with people a lot who have issues with weight. A lot of the people I work with had co-morbidities to do with different types of self-medicating, whether it was illicit substances, marijuana. I know it’s legal in some places in the states. It’s not legal here. But so illicit substances and marijuana. Alcohol is another one in particular. Cigarette smoking is really, really common with people who have a diagnosis of schizophrenia. I can’t remember the exact statistic, but the percentage of people who smoke co-morbidly with a diagnosis of schizophrenia is phenomenally larger than just the general population who smoke. It’s often used as a coping mechanism. It unfortunately does work quite well for some people, whether it’s just having some time out. Even the the act of, I guess, regulated breathing that happens when people smoke tends to work. There’s actually some documented benefits that people do get from it, which makes it really hard as a health therapists of any kind really to try because they’re actually getting some some benefit from what is often deemed as a very unhealthy behavior

Rachel Star Withers: When it comes to things like cigarettes, alcohol, that are legal and that people use as a coping mechanism, how do you address this with people’s schizophrenia?

Brock Cook: So that’s one of the things I think it is important that we do take note of, I guess, why people are using different measures. For instance, if we are going to use cigarette smoking, why are people using? What are they actually getting out of it? Is it that they’re just having some time out and it gives them time to think? Is it that the regulated breathing? Is it that they smoke with friends and it’s a bit more of a social outlet? We need to really understand why people are doing it. Because what we’re able to do then and this is something that I think OTs are good at, because this is pretty much what we do as a profession, is once we understand why, we understand what that need is that, say, cigarettes is filling, we’re able to then explore healthier options that can also fill that same need. Because what will generally happen to anyone trying to quit smoking who tries to do it cold turkey. I think the success rate of cold turkey quitting smoking is about 5 percent, meaning that 95 percent of people who try to quit smoking cold turkey don’t succeed. The reason for that is we kind of almost build up like a habit of these coping mechanisms.

Brock Cook: And what tends to happen is if we just take those coping mechanisms away, eventually the stress, the anxiety that comes along with that change gets a little bit too much. And your brain’s default mechanism is to just switch to what knows. And for most people, if you’re cold turkey and you’re really, really craving a cigarette, what it knows is I can get rid of this feeling by having a smoke. The same thing happens when we’re working with people with schizophrenia or any other mental illness. If we are looking at understanding why they’re smoking, then we can put in healthier mechanisms. Might be things like meditation. I’ve worked with people where their thing to relieve that craving was just to put their hand in a bucket of ice just for a couple of minutes, just almost like a tactile thing. I’ve worked with people where it was that social outing and that’s how they felt they could make that social link was by smoking cigarettes with the people in that building complex. So, we worked on some ways where they could still meet that social need, but without the cigarettes.

Rachel Star Withers: What about medication side effects that play a huge part in the development of physical co-morbidities like diabetes? When it comes to weight gain and stuff and that’s something that, you don’t have as much control over. If I have to take these antipsychotics and they are causing my metabolism to slow down or whatever to happen inside of me to make me gain weight, how do you address that?

Brock Cook: There’s a few ways, and I think it’s going to be dependent on the individual and their lifestyle in a lot of cases, but I think we treat it the same way we would treat it for anyone. If someone is worried about weight gain, then we can have a look at developing some healthy lifestyle type options. So might be getting into exercise or trying a different type of exercise, or if it is about diabetes and it might be learning about diabetes management, whether it’s insulin dependent or not, which again, a lot of the time comes down to diet as well as a big management thing for diabetes. It could be a matter of either supporting them themselves or linking them in with services that can already help them with those. And it might be through their GP, it might be through a specialist dietician. It might be, I know here I’m not sure over there, but here we have specific diabetes educators, which are quite often nurses by trade, but they’ve done a lot of training specific to diabetes management. So, we can link them in with services like that. There’s not a lot that we can do specifically for the medication. If we know that there are other options, we can advocate to the psychiatrist on the person’s behalf. Quite often if the advocacy for that is coming from a health professional for some reason, I hate that it happens that way, but it seems to almost carry more weight than when it comes from the person itself, which is ridiculous. But as a health professional, that’s part of what we sign up for. Like most people got into those sorts of professions because they want to help people and advocacy happens to be a big part of that. We can either try and develop some healthy habits around countering whatever the side effect is, as well as advocating for potential medication changes or at least review it with their doctors.

Rachel Star Withers: Dealing with schizophrenia, it’s definitely exhausting. Between, let’s say, me having a vice that causes something else or just me developing something else due to treating my schizophrenia. What advice do you have for people just to not be overwhelmed?

Brock Cook: One of the biggest things is to try and have a little bit of an understanding of how motivation works. But more importantly, how it doesn’t work, which is often how a lot of health professionals try and promote it. And what I mean by that is a lot of health professionals look at motivation like it’s a cup. You either have some, you have a little bit, you have a lot, you don’t have any, that kind of thing. Well, it doesn’t actually work like that. Everyone has motivation, you just have to find what they’re actually motivated by. So, for example, if someone is having issues with their weight, they want to exercise. I think most people can vouch that actually starting to get into exercise, that’s something that is really hard. It’s a difficult habit to form. What we need to do is not just go, okay, you’re having issues with weight. You should try walking every day. Because that person might not give two hoots about walking. But there might be a team sport. They might want to play tennis. They played tennis when they were kids. That’s something that they can do. They can engage in that. They’re going to get their exercise in. So, it’s a matter of not just sticking to one option is one thing. You try and find something that you’re motivated to do as opposed to trying to find the motivation to do something, kind of flip it on its head. Start with the obvious in terms of your goal setting. When you’re trying to start a new habit, start with the smallest thing you can 100 percent guarantee you can do.

Brock Cook: So if it’s I can do a five minute walk at some point during this week, if that’s all that you can 100 percent guarantee that you can do. Done. That’s it. Start with that. The next week you can go, well, I did five minutes once last week. I’m going to do it twice this week. Start with that. And I think that’s one of the big things. And that’s not just for people with schizophrenia. That’s a big thing for everyone when it comes to goal setting is they start with I’m going to lose 20 kilos, or 20 pounds depending on where you’re from. It’s almost too big and it becomes overwhelming and it feels like, how am I going to do this? And it’s been two weeks and I’ve only lost half a pound and that kind of thing. It sounds really hard. And a lot of people after a few weeks or even less than that, usually after a week, they lose motivation. They lose interest because they don’t see they’re making any progress. Whereas if you’re essentially setting yourself up for success because you’re hitting the tiniest little goal. It could literally, I’ve heard of a guy who his goal was to go to the gym. So, for two months, literally, all he did was get dressed, get in his car, walk into the gym, get back in his car, go home. That was it. But that was how he was. And then he started off like two days and three days a week, etc. It started off for the smallest possible thing that he could guarantee that he could do. And then built on that. And that’s how you start building a sustainable habit change.

Rachel Star Withers: I absolutely love that. Like the whole time you were talking, in my head, I was like, okay, let me read them and all of my goals, all of the ones I haven’t done. Let me let me rethink about some things.

Brock Cook: It works.

Rachel Star Withers: Yeah. I seriously I’m like, ready to just bust out my little goal sheet and scratch ’em all out and be like, let’s reexamine my situations. Family, friends, caretakers of people with schizophrenia, what kind of signs should they look for? That a physical co-morbidity might be on the horizon?

Brock Cook: The main things I guess that you’re going to notice are behavior changes. All of a sudden they’ve gone from smoking one or two cigarettes to smoking a pack a day. All of a sudden, you’ve noticed that clothes aren’t fitting properly or well or they don’t feel comfortable. A lot of the I guess, the negative symptoms, isolation and that kind of stuff, because people might not feel comfortable going out. They don’t feel like they’ve got anything to wear. They feel like they’re going to be judged for whatever it is, whether it’s weight or smoking or that kind of thing. It’ll be a behavior change of some variation. The biggest thing friends and family can do is to try and maintain open communication with their loved ones. The person themselves is going to know if anything’s happening before anyone else notices anything. And if you’ve got that open communication, you’ve got at least someone that you have that open communication with, then hopefully you’ve developed that enough where they can feel comfortable to tell you like, oh, you know, my pants aren’t fitting.

Brock Cook: I just feel really uncomfortable. Don’t really want to go to this this work do on Friday night. I just don’t feel like I’ve got nothing to wear. I’ve been struggling to get through a workday without itching for a cigarette like any of those kind of changes. It’s open communication with anything like that is probably the key thing. Try and take it at their speed. It sounds like a weird thing to say, but people will when they do express their concerns about it, you’ll be able to pick up how they express it, how urgent an issue it is to that person, and if it is something that they’re feeling is really urgent, then take urgent steps. And if it’s something they’re like kind of like, oh, don’t like, oh my God, we have to change everything because you just mentioned this tiny thing because you’re gonna scare ’em. You’ll scare people and they’re probably not going to open up to you anymore.

Rachel Star Withers: Thank you so much, Brock, for coming and talking with us about this. I absolutely loved especially the goals part. Our listeners can find you at BrockCook.com and you are the host of Occupied. Tell us about your podcast.

Brock Cook: It’s a podcast generally for occupational therapists. And what I’m trying to do for therapists is just open their eyes up to one, the range of different things that OTs can do. But I’ve also done quite a series of podcasts now, one of which you yourself was on, where I get people with a lived experience of something in your instance, schizophrenia, and have a chat about your story and your experience with it. To one, educate OTs and other therapists that listen about people’s experience of some of the conditions that we generally would work with. But also, it’s a resource there for people who may have schizophrenia or I’ve done other ones on alcohol abuse, borderline personality disorder, those kinds of things. But it’s a resource for those people to, I guess, almost the other way to try to get an understanding of this is how specifically an occupational therapist might work with someone presenting with those sort of symptoms or with that diagnosis. So, BrockCook.com or Occupied can be found pretty much anywhere you can find a podcast. So yeah, if anyone’s interested in checking it out, feel free.

Rachel Star Withers: Well, thank you so much, Brock.

Brock Cook: No, thank you. Absolute pleasure.

Gabe: Rachel, that was incredible. It was interesting for me because I always tend to think of occupational therapy in terms of you got in a car accident and you’re having trouble walking, I think of occupational therapy as arthritis or it never occurred to me that occupational therapy could exist in the mental health field. For example, he said that it’s easy to let schizophrenia overshadow other health issues and that that’s a very bad idea.

Rachel Star Withers: Oh, absolutely. And I loved how many like practical answers he had and he didn’t just kind of harp on, oh, you’re doing all these bad things, you’ve got to stop doing these bad things. It was, we need to learn how to control some of these bad habits. Not so much get rid of them all. We need to kind of learn to control to make it healthy across the board just for you to live life, to do the things that you want to do. And I don’t, I loved his approach with all that. It was very upbeat. And I didn’t feel like he was fussing at me or anyone else over like life decisions.

Gabe Howard: My biggest takeaway and the thing that is most important is he said these are coping mechanisms. They are bad habits. They aren’t in your best interest. They do have long term effects and they are impacting your physical health, but you’ve chosen them for a reason. So, he helps you figure out what that reason is and choose a better option. I think that that is a very, very valuable takeaway for two reasons. One, I think that people with schizophrenia are often beat up on for making bad decisions with no care given to why they made that decision. And two, I think that it is important to make better decisions. As we’ve learned throughout this episode with the stats of people dying younger simply because they have schizophrenia, simply for managing schizophrenia, simply for doing all of the right things. We want people to live longer. Rachel, I want you to live to be 85. And he understands that’s the goal. But he also understands that the goal is to manage your life in the here and now. That really spoke to me in a very big way.

Rachel Star Withers: I agree 100 percent with that. I said in the interview, one of my favorite things was when he was like, OK, what’s the baby goal you could absolutely do? What’s the tiniest thing that you can totally do? And I’ve been thinking about that. Something that I’ve been struggling with for a while is waking up. I have such a hard time getting out of bed for when I don’t sleep well. I usually have to be on like sleeping pills, so I might end up being in bed for twelve hours, but not ever actually going to like a really deep sleep. Just kind of coming in and out of this kind of confusion. So, I’m always exhausted and if I have work or something, I can make myself get out of bed. That’s not a problem. But most days I don’t. Oh, I only work twelve hours a week, so most days I do not have any real reason to get up. And so, I was thinking, yeah, over and over, I set the goal, oh, I’m gonna be up and out of bed by 8 a.m. 9:00 a.m. Today. It’s just crazy because I keep missing the goal and I get so frustrated and I beat myself up and I was thinking, OK, what was like the smallest thing? Because I know I can get up when I have to.

Rachel Star Withers: And I was like, I’m going to pick at least one day a week, where I do not have to be up for any reason, that I will force myself to get up and be up and moving around at least for two hours, I was like, oh, yeah, I can totally do that. So guess what, Gabe? Tomorrow morning my alarm’s already set. Tomorrow morning, I got it set for, I have like actually 10 alarms set for 8:00, but I have them all set to end at 8:00 hopefully. And that’s my goal is to wake up, at least be up moving around, doing things till 10:00. And then if I’m still exhausted, tired, and need to lay back down, then I will. I’m not going to beat myself up over that. But, you know, we’ll see what happens. Maybe I’ll be able to stay awake the whole time and be as refreshed as I normally am.

Gabe Howard: Well, Rachel, I hope so, too, because as you’ve said a million times, you need to be proactive with your health because you’re worth it and you need to speak up and make sure that you’re on the same page with your doctor. This is all good advice for everybody. Forget about managing or living with schizophrenia. This is just good advice, and the rules don’t change because you live with schizophrenia.

Rachel Star Withers: Yes, it is so easy to let schizophrenia overshadow everything else in your life. However, it is just a part of you and every other part is just as important, including your physical health. Be knowledgeable of the medications that you’re on and their side effects so you know what to expect. All right. So, you know, okay, this could happen. And when it does, what’s going to be my plan? Who am I going to let know? What lifestyle changes might I have to take? Speak up. Make sure that everybody is on the same page for your treatment because it is your treatment. Be proactive. Take care of yourself, because like Gabe and L’Oreal says, you’re worth it. Thank you so much for listening. Like, share, subscribe, to this podcast and share it widely with your friends and family. We’ll see you next month here on Inside Schizophrenia.

Announcer: Inside Schizophrenia is presented by PsychCentral.com, America’s largest and longest operating independent mental health website. Your host, Rachel Star Withers, can be found online at RachelStarLive.com. Co-host Gabe Howard can be found online at gabehoward.com. For questions, or to provide feedback, please e-mail [email protected]. The official website for Inside Schizophrenia is PsychCentral.com/IS. Thank you for listening, and please, share widely.

Inside Schizophrenia: Comorbidity with Schizophrenia syndicated from

Inside Schizophrenia: Comorbidity with Schizophrenia

Comorbidity is the presence of one or more additional conditions co-occurring with a primary condition. In this episode, host schizophrenic Rachel Star Withers with her cohost Gabe Howard will be discussing comorbidity with schizophrenia. Comorbidity is associated with worse health outcomes, more complex clinical management and increased health care costs.

Occupational therapist and host of the podcast Occupied, Brock Cook, will be joining us to discuss ways that he works with people with schizophrenia to manage multiple health issues. 

Highlights from “Comorbidity with Schizophrenia” Episode

[01:28] What is comorbidity

[03:37] Antipsychotic medication side effects leading to comorbidity

[05:00] Obesity with schizophrenia

[08:30] Medication side effect of weight gain

[11:08] Lifestyle factors of people with schizophrenia

[14:00] Obstacles to getting treatment

[16:19] How loved ones react

[19:00] Doctors not wanting to treat other comorbidities

[20:50] Tracking your symptoms

[25:00] Everyone needs to be on the same page

[27:00] Guest Interview with Occupational Therapist Brock Cook

[29:00] Smoking unhealthy/healthy?

[33:00] Learning new coping mechanisms

[36:00] Set small goals

[43:30] What is Rachel’s small goal?

About Our Guest

Brock Cook is an Occupational Therapist in Australia and host of the podcast “Occupied”.

His podcast explores all things Occupation, Occupational Science, and Occupational Therapy.

www.brockcook.com

Computer Generated Transcript of “Comorbidity with Schizophrenia” Episode

Announcer: Welcome to Inside Schizophrenia, a look in to better understanding and living well with schizophrenia. Hosted by renowned advocate and influencer Rachel Star Withers and featuring Gabe Howard.

Sponsor: Listeners, could a change in your schizophrenia treatment plan make a difference?  There are options out there you might not know about. Visit OnceMonthlyDifference.com to find out more about once monthly injections for adults with schizophrenia.

Rachel Star Withers: Welcome to Inside Schizophrenia, a Psych Central podcast. I’m Rachel Star Withers here with my co-host, Gabe Howard. In this episode, we will be exploring co-morbidity, having another health condition in addition to schizophrenia. Co-morbidity is associated with worse health outcomes, more complex clinical management and increased health care costs. Occupational therapist and host of the podcast Occupied, Brock Cook, will be joining us to discuss ways that he works with people with schizophrenia to manage multiple health issues.

Gabe Howard: Rachel, co-morbidity is one of those things that it happens in all illnesses. But specifically, we’re talking about how it relates to managing, living with, and acknowledging schizophrenia. Can you give us a little more background on co-morbidity?

Rachel Star Withers: Co-morbidity is the presence of one or more additional conditions co-occurring with a primary condition, and for our show, the primary condition we are focusing on is schizophrenia. How co-morbidity is classified in mental health, though, it’s like really confusing. So, if you have schizophrenia and depression, is that two different things? Or is that schizophrenia with a negative symptom of depression? Or is that schizoaffective disorder? That’s where things start to get like a little bit hairy as to what’s a whole separate disorder and then what’s a side effect? Others are like anxiety, panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive compulsive. It’s estimated that depression occurs in 50 percent of patients with schizophrenia. I personally have the diagnosis of schizophrenia and depression.

Gabe Howard: It’s important to understand while we move through this episode that there is a difference between a symptom of an illness like, for example, you can have a cold and a symptom of having a cold is a runny nose. So, you don’t have the co-morbid disorder of a cold with a runny nose. And that’s a very bad example. And I know that every general practitioner who listens to our show is like, Gabe. No. Full disclosure, didn’t go to medical school, but we’re really trying to talk about the things that are vastly different from schizophrenia. We’re not even necessarily talking about schizophrenia and depression or schizophrenia and anxiety. We’re also talking about schizophrenia and physical health traits and trends that people with schizophrenia more often than not have higher rates than the general population.

Rachel Star Withers: Schizophrenia has been described as the life shortening disease. Physical co-morbidity accounts for 60 percent of premature deaths that are not related to suicide in people with schizophrenia. We have an increased rate of developing glucose regulation abnormalities, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes. And of course, now some of that’s going to be attributed to lifestyle factors, which we’ll come back to. But a big part is the side effects of antipsychotic medications. If you’ve ever been on different medications, you’ve definitely learned weight gain, even with diet and exercise, is really hard to avoid. My weight’s gone up and down throughout the years and I’ve always been active to some degree. Whether it was fighting, doing mud runs, or like I’ve always just been a very active person. And I mean, I weighed 70 pounds more than I do right now at one point.

Gabe Howard: And it’s important to point out that for your career as a stuntwoman, being physically in shape is a requirement. So, when you say that you have always been active, you have been active at a level different from the majority of the population. You’re not talking about a planet fitness membership here. This is part of your career to earn a living and to be paid to do the stunts that you have been so successful at doing.

Rachel Star Withers: And it’s not so much just even stunts, just being on camera for different things. Unfortunately, my looks kind of matter. And you set yourself up whenever you’re doing Internet things for horrible comments. And that’s been rough, just hearing the things people will send like, oh, this fat, you know, and on and on has been definitely really hard just dealing with other people’s responses.

Gabe Howard: And while we’re certainly not saying that it’s more reasonable to have your weight commented on if you, quote, deserve it, it’s important to point out that your lifestyle didn’t change. Your medication did. You were still eating the same, working out the same, exercising the same. You were still just as active. The only thing that changed is your medication, but your weight shot up. And again, I want to be very, very clear. It’s not OK to insult people’s looks or weight if they gained weight because they eat cake. But we do want to point it out. Right? Your level of activity did not change. You made no lifestyle changes. You made a medication change to manage schizophrenia and as you stated, gained 70 pounds, even though that’s the only change that you made.

Rachel Star Withers: Patients with schizophrenia are more likely to be obese than the normal population. And if you have long term schizophrenia, you are three times more likely to develop diabetes than the general population. That’s a lot. Three times more. I was like, oh, wow, when I read that. And it makes sense because like I said, there was so much of it was out of my control. Like I was doing everything I could and I was still packing on weight. And that did not help the depression part.

Gabe Howard: One of the things that I thought was interesting, Rachel, was you talked about whenever you were given a new medication, the very first thing that you Googled was the name of the drug and weight gain. That was your primary concern. Well, why is that? Why is that your primary concern? Because there seems to be a lot more important things to worry about.

Rachel Star Withers: Yeah, you would assume that I should care more about my mental state, but at the same time I felt, and I still feel, that I can only fight so many battles. You know, I’m trying to maintain a mental state of being able to go to work and live a life. At the same time, I don’t want to be like gaining and gaining and gaining weight because that affects those exact things. Me trying to live life. Me trying to, I don’t want to say make friends and date and things, but it does. It does. It changes different things. And it’s like I can only fight so many battles to the point that it just becomes overwhelming.

Gabe Howard: And of course, because your physical health is important, you gain the weight because of the psychiatric medications. Direct cause, it’s co morbid obesity, schizophrenia. You end up in a doctor’s office. And the first thing that a doctor tells you is, oh, you’re overweight, your morbidly obese, you have obesity issues, you need to lose weight, and you’re thinking to yourself, this isn’t my fault. And the doctor is just looking at the chart and saying, oh, you’re 5′ 7″, and you have this weight. You need to be at this weight. So, make better choices. Because they’re trying to avoid all of the things you mentioned earlier, diabetes and joint pain, etc. So, Rachel, you know that the weight gain is a side effect of your medication. It’s the side effect of your treatment of schizophrenia. But the doctor is treating you like, hey, you just need to join a gym. That’s got to hurt. That’s got to rub you the wrong way. That’s got to feel bad.

Rachel Star Withers: Yeah, it’s just beyond frustrating and it kind of makes you just be like, well, I don’t even want to try. I just, I don’t, I don’t even want to try. And for me, whenever I’ve had a doctor prescribe an antidepressant or antipsychotic, none – none – have ever warned me about weight gain. And I get it because their job is to help me mentally. And I guess maybe it’s deal with the mental; the physical stuff we can deal with later. But it’s so interconnected. I feel like they just play off of each other. And I will sometimes actually tell my psychiatrist, like, is there a better option? Because this says quite a few people online are complaining about weight gain. And they’ll be like, well, maybe you shouldn’t look at that. Nope. Nope, looking it up right now and just literally sitting there with my phone in my hand as we’re discussing options like, oh, okay. Okay. Hold on.

Gabe Howard: I think it’s important to sidebar here in point that this is a tough choice for people with schizophrenia. They’ve got to decide if they want to be mentally healthy, but have some physical consequences or be mentally unwell. It’s important to point out that while that is a difficult decision, it’s kind of not right. I mean, having full control of our faculties, of our brains, of our bodies, it is very, very important. But I do want to provide hope. There’s new research and there’s new medications and there’s new drug trials. And thankfully, the medical community is aware that people are struggling with this decision and in many cases not taking psychiatric medications because the side effects are just so difficult.

Rachel Star Withers: And it’s not just weight gain. It’s a lot of things like cholesterol levels. The insulin resistance. It’s not just, oh, well, I’m going to gain a lot of weight. There are like other health issues. One that I haven’t really ever talked about is my cholesterol. I have to follow a very strict, strict diet because my cholesterol is insane. And they’ve warned me about it so many times. They are like you can’t have fast food. And I’m like, I haven’t had fast food in like five years. And they’ll be like, you can’t eat red meat. I almost never eat red meat or anything like that. I’m on such a strict diet. But my cholesterol is still abnormally high and they think that it is due to some past medications that I’ve been on kind of changed some chemistry. So, it isn’t just for my people listening out there like, oh, you shouldn’t worry about weight gain. It’s a whole physical situation going on sometimes.

Gabe Howard: One of the things that you’re trying to point out, Rachel, is that people living with schizophrenia and managing their schizophrenia well are often seen to be lazy because of this excess weight or because of the physical health conditions that they’re having. It’s kind of like a combination punch. You know, first you have schizophrenia. And that’s difficult to manage. And then everybody is like, why are you overweight? You should go for a walk. And then on top of that, you have accelerated rates of osteoporosis. You have higher incidences of irritable bowel syndrome and you have so many stats to deliver. And people are just looking at you like, hey, why don’t you make better choices? And the reality is, is you are making excellent choices for your situation as a person who’s living with schizophrenia.

Rachel Star Withers: And we can’t blame everything on medication, though. Tobacco smoking rates in people with schizophrenia are actually twice that of the general population. That’s interesting. I’ve always found that people with mental disorders do tend to smoke a lot more. The times that I’ve been at different mental health facilities, it’ll be crazy how many people there smoke. It’s like everybody smokes. And I’m someone, I never grew up smoking. I just I really didn’t grow up around it. No one I knew smoked. My parents don’t smoke. But whenever I meet other schizophrenics, you know, nine times out of ten, most of them smoke.

Gabe Howard: Obviously, the individual reasons that people choose to smoke are just that, their individual reasons. But if when we’re looking at people with schizophrenia as a whole, it’s somewhat easy to understand why decisions are made, like smoking. Cigarettes are easy to get. They are somewhat of a social activity. They provide a bump. When you’re smoking, you are feeling better. None of these are good reasons to smoke, but they are understandable reasons. And later on in the show, when we hear from Mr. Cook, he’s going to explain why it is a coping mechanism. It’s not a good coping mechanism. But in that moment, people with schizophrenia are trying to make a decision that makes them feel better. In his job, he helps people make decisions that provide the same feel better without the negative consequences of smoking. And I hope that people with schizophrenia hear that because it like you said, it is a choice that they’re making, which gives them the power to make a different choice.

Rachel Star Withers: And we’re not putting down anybody who smokes. Please don’t be upset. Because I also think about other issues, like when you look at things like smoking, alcohol, weed in some areas, if it’s legal and you’re like, OK, I’m already dealing with this major mental disorder and now you’re telling me I can’t even have a legal vice? It’s not like I’m doing anything bad, Rachel. But unfortunately, yeah, there are some things that having schizophrenia, we’re setting ourselves up to fail in some ways by doing stuff, even if it is legal. It’s one reason I never, ever drink alcohol. It affects medications. And I can’t actively be saying, oh, I’m working really hard to maintain my mental state if I’m drinking because I know that messes with the medications and is just going to continue to make things worse. Am I legally totally fine? I’m far, far above age 21 to drink. Yes, but it is something that I have to, like, take into consideration. It’s like an extra thing that I have to do to manage my schizophrenia is to not drink.

Gabe Howard: We also have to consider that one of the reasons that people living with schizophrenia don’t get help for their physical co-morbidities is because of their circumstances, their living situations, homelessness, money situation. It’s expensive to go to the doctor. And if you don’t have a good payer source, if you don’t have good health care, if you’re on government assistance, if you don’t have a ride. If you live in an area that doesn’t have good public transportation, you may be thinking to yourself, look, it’s going to cost $20 to see the doctor. It’s going to take all day to go to the free clinic. I’m going to have to sit on the bus. I don’t have the time, resources, money, or even the psychological wherewithal to deal with this for the next nine hours. So, I’m gonna go ahead and let it pass. We have to remember that many people living with schizophrenia, they’re not living with the same resources as your average middle-class American. It’s just important to understand that this is a barrier to their treatment and it may well be a barrier to your treatment as well.

Rachel Star Withers: And people with schizophrenia, we are 63 percent more likely to suffer a serious infection. And I think so many times it’s probably a small infection, but someone’s like, oh, well, if I can decide between going to my psychiatrist this month or going to like a normal doctor over an infection like, come on, I’m sure my infection will be fine. And it does. It escalates from there. Or like you said, we’re looking at a homelessness situation or just generally not being able to afford to take care of ourselves that well, that small infection can escalate very, very quickly in people with schizophrenia.

Gabe Howard: And it’s that escalation that leads to the very serious co-morbidities, the co-morbidities that we’re talking about here. Obviously living with schizophrenia is tough enough and I don’t mean to harp on it, but so often we look at people who are managing schizophrenia, and in many cases very, very well, and then we start to pick on the physical issues that they’re having. Nobody is saying not to pay attention to your physical health. In fact, we very much encourage people to pay attention to their physical health. But I think a lot of times the advice that we give to our friends, to our loved ones is the same advice that we would give to our friends and loved ones who are not managing schizophrenia. And I think that we need to meet people where they’re at. And we just really, really, really want to get across that a lot of these issues that people with schizophrenia are going through are not their fault. They’re just their responsibility. Rachel, the specific question that I want to ask you as a person living with schizophrenia is how does it feel to know that you’re managing your schizophrenia very well, but when your friends or your loved ones approach you on the physical side, they don’t pay attention to that at all? They treat you as somebody that just has a physical condition. And they don’t acknowledge that you have managed your schizophrenia and they’re just like, hey, you need to do x y, z. How does that feel?

Rachel Star Withers: It just adds to, especially for me, the depression of it and the feeling of hopelessness that okay, even if I feel like man, I have done so good this past week. But no one else notices. What was the point? Or if someone is constantly like on me about my diet like, hey, Rachel, you know, you’re not supposed to have that. Rachel, you’re not supposed to do that. And then I’m like, OK, I’ve actually been really, really good. And I’m just like, come on. All of it, it’s very frustrating. And it makes me want to push back and be like, well, fine, I’m not even going to try.

Gabe Howard: Obviously, people want to get credit for what they’ve done. That’s not a schizophrenia thing, that’s not a mental health thing. That’s just a life thing. And when you’re trying to encourage somebody to get help for something and you don’t acknowledge the great strides that they’ve made. And I think that this is one of the reasons that separating out mental health and physical health is just so incredibly foolish. Right? Because you’re not acknowledging somebody’s mental health, because you’re worried about their physical health, or you’re worried about something with his physical health, and you’re not acknowledging your mental health. We have one body and we have one life. And that’s where comorbid disorders really come in. Right? Because all of these disorders, all of these issues are happening to one person.

Rachel Star Withers: And to my caretakers, my friends, my family out there who are like, okay, well, I’ll be more careful about saying things like that. But also notice when someone is doing good, even if it’s like a little bit of doing good, like, hey, you know what, you are looking so much more awake this week or you know what? You’ve been looking a lot happier since you started walking. You know, whatever the thing is. Don’t lie and be like you look like you’ve lost 30 pounds and you’re like, no, I haven’t. But just like little things go a long way. I’d just be like, you know, since you’ve switched over to such and such you it seems like you’re a lot more upbeat. Do notice, like, those little tiny achievements because they are a big deal.

Gabe Howard: Here, here, Rachel. Getting back to stats for a moment. I was really shocked to learn that in the United States, about 80 percent of Medicare spending is devoted to patients with four or more chronic conditions. So, co-morbidity is not something that only people with schizophrenia have to deal with and have to live with. It’s actually very common. And schizophrenia is a very serious illness. So, it’s not surprising that a very serious illness would have co-morbidities.

Rachel Star Withers: Yes. And I do believe that people with schizophrenia, when we’re having multiple issues, that doctors sometimes deal with it differently than they would someone who is just dealing with multiple physical issues. A lot of time doctors who are not psychiatrists, they don’t feel comfortable just treating someone with schizophrenia with their normal things, just kind of like, oh, I just I mean, you have schizophrenia and I’m like, right, but this is a cold. And he’s like, yeah, but you know, I don’t really know. You know, it’s like they’re afraid to treat you, that they might do something wrong. And then, of course, if I go to a psychiatrist about a cold, they’re like, OK, well, Rachel, you need to go to your general practitioner. That’s not what we do here. And it can be frustrating because I’m getting bounced around doctor to doctor. And then, of course, there’s the fear of me going to a normal doctor that they’ll think that it’s psychosomatic. Oh, well, you know, you think you’re in pain. It’s probably your schizophrenia. That’s frustrating alone, because if you have schizophrenia, not only can you have a difficulty in communicating what’s going on sometimes, trying to describe it, and then people aren’t believing you or just kind of brushing off what you say. That’s really great if you have the friends and family who can go with you to the doctor and almost kind of be your backup, you know, to make you, this is gonna sound bad, but not seem crazy. My mom, usually, it’s gotten to the point that she’ll go with me to most of my doctor’s appointments because she’ll be like, yes, she has been dealing with this specifically for two months.

Gabe Howard: Rachel, in your opinion, how do we fix this? Because we do have trouble in America looking at a whole person. They want to pay attention to your mental health or they want to pay attention to your physical health. But Rachel Star Withers, isn’t two people. Rachel Star Withers is one person. You’ve been managing schizophrenia for a long time and you’ve managed many comorbid disorders, again for a long time. How can you help people get to the other side?

Rachel Star Withers: With having schizophrenia, you do have to take a lot of the responsibility on yourself. Which is like, you’re like, well, Rachel, I mean, come on, I’m already having to deal with my mental state. Yeah. Every night I have a little app that I write down any physical issues I had during the day. That way it could kind of like be tracked over time. So, if something is coming up, hey, you could actually look through my little app and be like, oh, well, this started two months ago or this started back at the same time you went on this medication. It helps me to have that because, it almost kinda backs up what I’m saying, instead of me just going to the doctor and be like, oh, my gosh, I’ve gained 10 pounds. I can be like, look, when I started this, a week later, I had gained two pounds. And it does, it just backs up what you’re saying when you go to the doctor’s. But you kind of have to step up to the plate and be like, all right, if my psychiatrist isn’t requiring that I have physicals or checking that my physical health is OK, that might be something you need to do. Whether you’re doing them every few months, whether it’s once or twice a year, tracking weight changes, your blood pressure, your blood sugar. If you’re having sleeping problems, all those kinds of things. And yeah, a lot of it does fall on the patient’s responsibility.

Gabe Howard: And honestly, it’s not a bad thing that it falls on the patient because that’s very empowering, right? You can take control of your health care; you can take control of your health. And I’m fond of saying that it doesn’t matter if you have schizophrenia or not, the physical rules of the world still apply to you. And in fact, as we’ve learned throughout this episode, they really, really apply to you. You have to worry about managing schizophrenia. You have to worry about managing your physical health. And you have to worry about managing the co-morbidities between the two. While it is a tough road, it’s your road. And I think it’s very, very empowering to be able to walk that road with as much agency as humanly possible. But don’t be afraid to ask for help. Part of agency is asking for that help. As Rachel said, she utilizes her family. And I’ve never seen a better team. There are very, very good team. And I think that’s important to point out. Rachel, that’s what I’ve always been impressed with. It’s not your family taking care of you. It’s not you demanding things from your family. Your family has formed a team to manage your schizophrenia, your co-morbidities and your physical health together. I feel that’s a very good system because it gives you, as the person living with schizophrenia, a lot of agency. And I think that’s very, very powerful, because ultimately it is your life.

Rachel Star Withers: Gabe, I totally agree. My parents are awesome. And this is something that we’ve worked out over many years. It wasn’t just like they decided one day, okay, this is how we’re gonna work out with Rachel and everything’s gonna be great. It has definitely taken a while for us to kind of find a groove that worked. And I helped them with things, also. The really good thing about me having to be so strict on my diet is that it makes my dad also be kind of strict on his diet. Me having to exercise, I can have my mom exercise with me. I don’t want it to sound like, oh, everyone’s doing all this stuff for poor Rachel. I would like to think that it’s a whole team effort and everyone is benefiting. You know, we are helping each other in different areas, I think all of us across the board. Exercise is important, eating right is important. Whether you have a health issue or not, it’s just that’s good stuff to do.

Gabe: We’ll be right back after this message from our sponsor.

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Gabe: We’re back discussing co-morbidities and schizophrenia. 

Rachel: When it comes to going to your psychiatrist and your different doctors, one thing you need to make sure is that they are on the same page, that your general practitioner knows the medications that your psychiatrist has you on and vice versa. And any other doctors, do not assume that they are talking. Do not assume that they double checked that one medication doesn’t affect a different one. That’s something I’ve had to learn the hard way. I listed it on the paper, the medications I was on, but that doctor almost didn’t pay attention to it and the medication they were gonna prescribe for a completely different health issue, it raised blood pressure while the other one did the same thing. And it would potentially be very bad. And I literally was the one on my phone again. And I was like, well, it says on this little app here, and they don’t like when you do that, but it’s very important that you do that. Yeah, I’ve had quite a few run-ins where they’re like, oh, wow, yeah, no, we can’t have you on both of these because they didn’t realize my other treatment plans fully with other doctors. So do make sure you speak up when it comes to things like that. Family, friends, if you’re going to the doctor with them, my mom loves to make sure I have my whole little tote bag of medications. I’m like, Mom, I got them written down. I don’t need the actual bottles. She says, just to be safe. Okay, we’ll bring the bottles also. But they are on this piece of paper, which I’m sure they’d rather have the piece of paper that’s, you know, organized than a bag of bottles but whatever. Though, yeah, don’t just assume that doctors know 100 percent what’s going on in different areas of your health.

Gabe Howard: Rachel, you had the opportunity to interview a gentleman named Brock Cook. He’s an occupational therapist out of Australia and he works specifically to help people with schizophrenia manage their comorbid conditions and lead the best life possible. I’m excited to hear this interview. So, we’re gonna go ahead and roll it now.

Rachel Star Withers: We are here talking with Brock Cook, who is an occupational therapist out of Australia. And he’s also the host of the podcast Occupied. So welcome, Brock. Thank you so much for being on our show.

Brock Cook: Thank you very much for inviting me.

Rachel Star Withers: You get to work with a lot of different people and we know each other from me having schizophrenia and talking to you about it on your podcast. How would you describe what you do?

Brock Cook: I have worked pretty much my whole career in the mental health service here in my local state, and I’ve worked in all different areas of mental health, everything from acute inpatient to community rehab to intensive rehab to pretty much, you name it, I’ve worked there. In terms of what OT does with people with mental health conditions, an occupational therapist works with the things that people want and need to do. When we talk about occupation, we talk about the things that people occupy their time with. So for people with mental health conditions, it’s the things that they would normally do at a set age to occupy their time. So it might be anything from learning how to maintain a house to learning how to get a job, to supporting them in navigating relationship transitions like pretty much you name it, we have the skills and capacity to support people to lead a fuller life as they possibly can.

Rachel Star Withers: And when dealing with mental disorders, what have you seen to be the main physical co-morbidities affecting people with schizophrenia?

Brock Cook: A lot of people who have schizophrenia tend to end up with co-morbidities due to what health would deem as lifestyle disease. So things like smoking and drugs and that kind of stuff. We also would work with people a lot who have issues with weight. A lot of the people I work with had co-morbidities to do with different types of self-medicating, whether it was illicit substances, marijuana. I know it’s legal in some places in the states. It’s not legal here. But so illicit substances and marijuana. Alcohol is another one in particular. Cigarette smoking is really, really common with people who have a diagnosis of schizophrenia. I can’t remember the exact statistic, but the percentage of people who smoke co-morbidly with a diagnosis of schizophrenia is phenomenally larger than just the general population who smoke. It’s often used as a coping mechanism. It unfortunately does work quite well for some people, whether it’s just having some time out. Even the the act of, I guess, regulated breathing that happens when people smoke tends to work. There’s actually some documented benefits that people do get from it, which makes it really hard as a health therapists of any kind really to try because they’re actually getting some some benefit from what is often deemed as a very unhealthy behavior

Rachel Star Withers: When it comes to things like cigarettes, alcohol, that are legal and that people use as a coping mechanism, how do you address this with people’s schizophrenia?

Brock Cook: So that’s one of the things I think it is important that we do take note of, I guess, why people are using different measures. For instance, if we are going to use cigarette smoking, why are people using? What are they actually getting out of it? Is it that they’re just having some time out and it gives them time to think? Is it that the regulated breathing? Is it that they smoke with friends and it’s a bit more of a social outlet? We need to really understand why people are doing it. Because what we’re able to do then and this is something that I think OTs are good at, because this is pretty much what we do as a profession, is once we understand why, we understand what that need is that, say, cigarettes is filling, we’re able to then explore healthier options that can also fill that same need. Because what will generally happen to anyone trying to quit smoking who tries to do it cold turkey. I think the success rate of cold turkey quitting smoking is about 5 percent, meaning that 95 percent of people who try to quit smoking cold turkey don’t succeed. The reason for that is we kind of almost build up like a habit of these coping mechanisms.

Brock Cook: And what tends to happen is if we just take those coping mechanisms away, eventually the stress, the anxiety that comes along with that change gets a little bit too much. And your brain’s default mechanism is to just switch to what knows. And for most people, if you’re cold turkey and you’re really, really craving a cigarette, what it knows is I can get rid of this feeling by having a smoke. The same thing happens when we’re working with people with schizophrenia or any other mental illness. If we are looking at understanding why they’re smoking, then we can put in healthier mechanisms. Might be things like meditation. I’ve worked with people where their thing to relieve that craving was just to put their hand in a bucket of ice just for a couple of minutes, just almost like a tactile thing. I’ve worked with people where it was that social outing and that’s how they felt they could make that social link was by smoking cigarettes with the people in that building complex. So, we worked on some ways where they could still meet that social need, but without the cigarettes.

Rachel Star Withers: What about medication side effects that play a huge part in the development of physical co-morbidities like diabetes? When it comes to weight gain and stuff and that’s something that, you don’t have as much control over. If I have to take these antipsychotics and they are causing my metabolism to slow down or whatever to happen inside of me to make me gain weight, how do you address that?

Brock Cook: There’s a few ways, and I think it’s going to be dependent on the individual and their lifestyle in a lot of cases, but I think we treat it the same way we would treat it for anyone. If someone is worried about weight gain, then we can have a look at developing some healthy lifestyle type options. So might be getting into exercise or trying a different type of exercise, or if it is about diabetes and it might be learning about diabetes management, whether it’s insulin dependent or not, which again, a lot of the time comes down to diet as well as a big management thing for diabetes. It could be a matter of either supporting them themselves or linking them in with services that can already help them with those. And it might be through their GP, it might be through a specialist dietician. It might be, I know here I’m not sure over there, but here we have specific diabetes educators, which are quite often nurses by trade, but they’ve done a lot of training specific to diabetes management. So, we can link them in with services like that. There’s not a lot that we can do specifically for the medication. If we know that there are other options, we can advocate to the psychiatrist on the person’s behalf. Quite often if the advocacy for that is coming from a health professional for some reason, I hate that it happens that way, but it seems to almost carry more weight than when it comes from the person itself, which is ridiculous. But as a health professional, that’s part of what we sign up for. Like most people got into those sorts of professions because they want to help people and advocacy happens to be a big part of that. We can either try and develop some healthy habits around countering whatever the side effect is, as well as advocating for potential medication changes or at least review it with their doctors.

Rachel Star Withers: Dealing with schizophrenia, it’s definitely exhausting. Between, let’s say, me having a vice that causes something else or just me developing something else due to treating my schizophrenia. What advice do you have for people just to not be overwhelmed?

Brock Cook: One of the biggest things is to try and have a little bit of an understanding of how motivation works. But more importantly, how it doesn’t work, which is often how a lot of health professionals try and promote it. And what I mean by that is a lot of health professionals look at motivation like it’s a cup. You either have some, you have a little bit, you have a lot, you don’t have any, that kind of thing. Well, it doesn’t actually work like that. Everyone has motivation, you just have to find what they’re actually motivated by. So, for example, if someone is having issues with their weight, they want to exercise. I think most people can vouch that actually starting to get into exercise, that’s something that is really hard. It’s a difficult habit to form. What we need to do is not just go, okay, you’re having issues with weight. You should try walking every day. Because that person might not give two hoots about walking. But there might be a team sport. They might want to play tennis. They played tennis when they were kids. That’s something that they can do. They can engage in that. They’re going to get their exercise in. So, it’s a matter of not just sticking to one option is one thing. You try and find something that you’re motivated to do as opposed to trying to find the motivation to do something, kind of flip it on its head. Start with the obvious in terms of your goal setting. When you’re trying to start a new habit, start with the smallest thing you can 100 percent guarantee you can do.

Brock Cook: So if it’s I can do a five minute walk at some point during this week, if that’s all that you can 100 percent guarantee that you can do. Done. That’s it. Start with that. The next week you can go, well, I did five minutes once last week. I’m going to do it twice this week. Start with that. And I think that’s one of the big things. And that’s not just for people with schizophrenia. That’s a big thing for everyone when it comes to goal setting is they start with I’m going to lose 20 kilos, or 20 pounds depending on where you’re from. It’s almost too big and it becomes overwhelming and it feels like, how am I going to do this? And it’s been two weeks and I’ve only lost half a pound and that kind of thing. It sounds really hard. And a lot of people after a few weeks or even less than that, usually after a week, they lose motivation. They lose interest because they don’t see they’re making any progress. Whereas if you’re essentially setting yourself up for success because you’re hitting the tiniest little goal. It could literally, I’ve heard of a guy who his goal was to go to the gym. So, for two months, literally, all he did was get dressed, get in his car, walk into the gym, get back in his car, go home. That was it. But that was how he was. And then he started off like two days and three days a week, etc. It started off for the smallest possible thing that he could guarantee that he could do. And then built on that. And that’s how you start building a sustainable habit change.

Rachel Star Withers: I absolutely love that. Like the whole time you were talking, in my head, I was like, okay, let me read them and all of my goals, all of the ones I haven’t done. Let me let me rethink about some things.

Brock Cook: It works.

Rachel Star Withers: Yeah. I seriously I’m like, ready to just bust out my little goal sheet and scratch ’em all out and be like, let’s reexamine my situations. Family, friends, caretakers of people with schizophrenia, what kind of signs should they look for? That a physical co-morbidity might be on the horizon?

Brock Cook: The main things I guess that you’re going to notice are behavior changes. All of a sudden they’ve gone from smoking one or two cigarettes to smoking a pack a day. All of a sudden, you’ve noticed that clothes aren’t fitting properly or well or they don’t feel comfortable. A lot of the I guess, the negative symptoms, isolation and that kind of stuff, because people might not feel comfortable going out. They don’t feel like they’ve got anything to wear. They feel like they’re going to be judged for whatever it is, whether it’s weight or smoking or that kind of thing. It’ll be a behavior change of some variation. The biggest thing friends and family can do is to try and maintain open communication with their loved ones. The person themselves is going to know if anything’s happening before anyone else notices anything. And if you’ve got that open communication, you’ve got at least someone that you have that open communication with, then hopefully you’ve developed that enough where they can feel comfortable to tell you like, oh, you know, my pants aren’t fitting.

Brock Cook: I just feel really uncomfortable. Don’t really want to go to this this work do on Friday night. I just don’t feel like I’ve got nothing to wear. I’ve been struggling to get through a workday without itching for a cigarette like any of those kind of changes. It’s open communication with anything like that is probably the key thing. Try and take it at their speed. It sounds like a weird thing to say, but people will when they do express their concerns about it, you’ll be able to pick up how they express it, how urgent an issue it is to that person, and if it is something that they’re feeling is really urgent, then take urgent steps. And if it’s something they’re like kind of like, oh, don’t like, oh my God, we have to change everything because you just mentioned this tiny thing because you’re gonna scare ’em. You’ll scare people and they’re probably not going to open up to you anymore.

Rachel Star Withers: Thank you so much, Brock, for coming and talking with us about this. I absolutely loved especially the goals part. Our listeners can find you at BrockCook.com and you are the host of Occupied. Tell us about your podcast.

Brock Cook: It’s a podcast generally for occupational therapists. And what I’m trying to do for therapists is just open their eyes up to one, the range of different things that OTs can do. But I’ve also done quite a series of podcasts now, one of which you yourself was on, where I get people with a lived experience of something in your instance, schizophrenia, and have a chat about your story and your experience with it. To one, educate OTs and other therapists that listen about people’s experience of some of the conditions that we generally would work with. But also, it’s a resource there for people who may have schizophrenia or I’ve done other ones on alcohol abuse, borderline personality disorder, those kinds of things. But it’s a resource for those people to, I guess, almost the other way to try to get an understanding of this is how specifically an occupational therapist might work with someone presenting with those sort of symptoms or with that diagnosis. So, BrockCook.com or Occupied can be found pretty much anywhere you can find a podcast. So yeah, if anyone’s interested in checking it out, feel free.

Rachel Star Withers: Well, thank you so much, Brock.

Brock Cook: No, thank you. Absolute pleasure.

Gabe: Rachel, that was incredible. It was interesting for me because I always tend to think of occupational therapy in terms of you got in a car accident and you’re having trouble walking, I think of occupational therapy as arthritis or it never occurred to me that occupational therapy could exist in the mental health field. For example, he said that it’s easy to let schizophrenia overshadow other health issues and that that’s a very bad idea.

Rachel Star Withers: Oh, absolutely. And I loved how many like practical answers he had and he didn’t just kind of harp on, oh, you’re doing all these bad things, you’ve got to stop doing these bad things. It was, we need to learn how to control some of these bad habits. Not so much get rid of them all. We need to kind of learn to control to make it healthy across the board just for you to live life, to do the things that you want to do. And I don’t, I loved his approach with all that. It was very upbeat. And I didn’t feel like he was fussing at me or anyone else over like life decisions.

Gabe Howard: My biggest takeaway and the thing that is most important is he said these are coping mechanisms. They are bad habits. They aren’t in your best interest. They do have long term effects and they are impacting your physical health, but you’ve chosen them for a reason. So, he helps you figure out what that reason is and choose a better option. I think that that is a very, very valuable takeaway for two reasons. One, I think that people with schizophrenia are often beat up on for making bad decisions with no care given to why they made that decision. And two, I think that it is important to make better decisions. As we’ve learned throughout this episode with the stats of people dying younger simply because they have schizophrenia, simply for managing schizophrenia, simply for doing all of the right things. We want people to live longer. Rachel, I want you to live to be 85. And he understands that’s the goal. But he also understands that the goal is to manage your life in the here and now. That really spoke to me in a very big way.

Rachel Star Withers: I agree 100 percent with that. I said in the interview, one of my favorite things was when he was like, OK, what’s the baby goal you could absolutely do? What’s the tiniest thing that you can totally do? And I’ve been thinking about that. Something that I’ve been struggling with for a while is waking up. I have such a hard time getting out of bed for when I don’t sleep well. I usually have to be on like sleeping pills, so I might end up being in bed for twelve hours, but not ever actually going to like a really deep sleep. Just kind of coming in and out of this kind of confusion. So, I’m always exhausted and if I have work or something, I can make myself get out of bed. That’s not a problem. But most days I don’t. Oh, I only work twelve hours a week, so most days I do not have any real reason to get up. And so, I was thinking, yeah, over and over, I set the goal, oh, I’m gonna be up and out of bed by 8 a.m. 9:00 a.m. Today. It’s just crazy because I keep missing the goal and I get so frustrated and I beat myself up and I was thinking, OK, what was like the smallest thing? Because I know I can get up when I have to.

Rachel Star Withers: And I was like, I’m going to pick at least one day a week, where I do not have to be up for any reason, that I will force myself to get up and be up and moving around at least for two hours, I was like, oh, yeah, I can totally do that. So guess what, Gabe? Tomorrow morning my alarm’s already set. Tomorrow morning, I got it set for, I have like actually 10 alarms set for 8:00, but I have them all set to end at 8:00 hopefully. And that’s my goal is to wake up, at least be up moving around, doing things till 10:00. And then if I’m still exhausted, tired, and need to lay back down, then I will. I’m not going to beat myself up over that. But, you know, we’ll see what happens. Maybe I’ll be able to stay awake the whole time and be as refreshed as I normally am.

Gabe Howard: Well, Rachel, I hope so, too, because as you’ve said a million times, you need to be proactive with your health because you’re worth it and you need to speak up and make sure that you’re on the same page with your doctor. This is all good advice for everybody. Forget about managing or living with schizophrenia. This is just good advice, and the rules don’t change because you live with schizophrenia.

Rachel Star Withers: Yes, it is so easy to let schizophrenia overshadow everything else in your life. However, it is just a part of you and every other part is just as important, including your physical health. Be knowledgeable of the medications that you’re on and their side effects so you know what to expect. All right. So, you know, okay, this could happen. And when it does, what’s going to be my plan? Who am I going to let know? What lifestyle changes might I have to take? Speak up. Make sure that everybody is on the same page for your treatment because it is your treatment. Be proactive. Take care of yourself, because like Gabe and L’Oreal says, you’re worth it. Thank you so much for listening. Like, share, subscribe, to this podcast and share it widely with your friends and family. We’ll see you next month here on Inside Schizophrenia.

Announcer: Inside Schizophrenia is presented by PsychCentral.com, America’s largest and longest operating independent mental health website. Your host, Rachel Star Withers, can be found online at RachelStarLive.com. Co-host Gabe Howard can be found online at gabehoward.com. For questions, or to provide feedback, please e-mail [email protected]. The official website for Inside Schizophrenia is PsychCentral.com/IS. Thank you for listening, and please, share widely.

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