where I'm at emotionally is. falling asleep to playthrus of the dead space remake.

CSI/GSR: Long vs. Short Term Arcs

Okay, this is very off the cuff and inspired to some degree by @addictedtostorytelling and the discussion of Morgan and Greg and Hodges. Some stray things:

We know that the only thing decided about Sara Sidle pre-show was that she was meant to be Grissom's love interest.

At some point, before CSI continued to be a ratings juggernaut that Zuiker figured Grissom would go deaf, and that would be how the show would end.

When Grissom turned Sara down in Play With Fire, TPTB had decided that was going to be the end of that.

Things no one could have predicted:

The overwhelming worldwide success of the show, necessitating a workable resolution to Grissom's deaf storyline.

That no matter what, whenever Grissom and Sara are onscreen together, there is "something" there.

Billy and Jorja both were invested in GSR.

It seems to me the combination of the above is what gave us Season 4. In terms of GSR, a case could be made that they were starting all over again in a serialized novel sort of way.

Now I confess to knowing absolutely nothing about the Harry Potter novels, but, in my youth, thanks to Masterpiece Theatre, I did read all of The Forsyte Saga and Trollope's Palliser novels. What serialized novels have in common is that, for the most part, each novel stands on its own, but the author feels the need to continue to explore aspects of his characters beyond the original scope of the original novel.

In that regard, I suppose we could see 1-3 as a kind of GSR entity on its own. Grissom gets promoted and brings the girl he loves to Vegas, only to discover he can't have both the job and the girl. Beginning in 2, Grissom has two simultaneous arcs: the fear of going deaf and his unresolved feelings for Sara, with the first further compounding the complications associated with the second. What he doesn't discover until season 3 is that his "push me/pull me" relationship with Sara drives her to another man, a fact which utterly devastates him to an extent he could never have imagined.

Still, it is the deaf arc that is of more overriding concern: if he can't hear, he not only loses his job but also his entire sense of self at that point in time. Resolving his feelings for Sara will have to be backburnered, so he decides not to punish her for getting a life, as, at that point, he has no life to offer her, since he's not even sure what his life will be.

Meanwhile, back in Saraland, she discovers Hank is a dog and ends the relationship. If GSR were bad soap opera, the fact that Sara was seeing Hank would have been seen as a primary impediment. The thing is it never was. To me it's just one more nail in the Sara low self-esteem coffin. Also, if it were soap, the lab explosion and Grissom's unconscious revelation of his feelings for her would have led to some kind of positive resolution. The problem is that Grissom's deaf arc is still in play, not to mention all of his other relationship with Sara fears.

Sara misreads the situation; she thinks, finally, he might be ready to take the plunge, but she's completely wrong. By bringing their relationship to an either/or position, she basically pushes him into outright rejecting her, thus ending this phase of their arc. Ironically, Grissom's deaf arc gets resolved in the very next episode, but, by then, he really thinks it is "too late."

The thing about 4, besides it being incredibly hard to watch Sara descend into the abyss, is that, for the first time, the show makes it unequivocally clear that Grissom is both sexually attracted to Sara and in love with her. (The first doesn't always imply the second, although we learn later, for Grissom, it does.)

While Homebodies explores Grissom's fears that he won't ever be able to keep his loved one (Sara) safe--perhaps foreshadowing--Invisible Evidence certainly spells it out that his attraction to her is as physical as it is intellectual and emotional. I doubt anyone could watch those "pin me down" seconds out of context and not think that was a man who was about to fuck the shit out of her. (Of course in context it can't happen, but the desire is certainly there.)

Overall, however, outside of that, Grissom goes out of his way to distance himself from Sara: that "too late" thing again. Then the show throws Butterflied at us (and him), wherein it is made abundantly clear he is in love with her and regrets turning her down. What he doesn't know is that she hears everything he says, which twists the knife. She wasn't wrong: he does have feelings for her, only those feelings aren't strong enough for him to risk it, to take a chance on love.

So what we have for the rest of 4 is Grissom continuing to distance himself from Sara under the misguided belief that he has killed any feelings she had for him, while she continues to sink into depression and alcohol dependence. Given his distancing, he seems unaware that something isn't right with her until late in the season, and then it hits him between the eyes and in the gut in Bloodlines.

In a weird way, 4-6 is the inverse of 1-3. If Season 1 begins with a lot of light-hearted flirtation (and off the charts sexual chemistry) and ends with a seemingly insurmountable rift between them, 4-6 begins with the rift and works its way to their becoming an actual committed couple in a seemingly stable relationship. Of course the frustrating part is that the show neglected to tell us when, where, and how, although it's pretty evident that, for Grissom, Bloodlines is the catalyst for him to try to rebuild their relationship. I do not think he did so thinking the end result would be a "beautiful life" with Sara. More than likely, the best he hoped for was for them to be friends again.

As an aside, in the middle of 1-3, we have Cassie James, Grissom's personal Cassandra, telling him "You don't know what you need until you find it." While Grissom's "need" for Sara is couched purely in work terms throughout 3, season 4 into 5 shows a man who has seemingly come to terms with the fact that he both loves and needs her. The first half of 5 shows him far more in tune with her, and they begin to be comfortable together again. While I think he is perhaps at a place where he might occasionally daydream about the possibility that someday they might be together, I also suspect he thinks that ship has sailed.

And that is why he is completely floored in Snakes. Seemingly out of nowhere, she more or less tells him she's still in love with him, although, unlike in Play With Fire, she has no expectations that he can ever reciprocate her feelings. She, too, thinks that ship has sailed, but, now, she is reconciled to that fact.

I suppose the question for me has always been whether or not he goes to her in Nesting Dolls and tells her that it matters to him, not as her boss but as a man, why she's so angry, if Snakes doesn't happen. A large part of a believable narrative is that one thing must naturally lead to another. As a narrative arc, from 4 to mid-5, we get the following:

Invisible Evidence makes it clear that these two people are still sexually attracted to one another, even though neither one would consider acting on it at this point.

Butterflied confirms Grissom is in love with Sara and regrets turning her down.

Early Rollout tells us Sara may have a serious drinking problem.

Bloodlines is Sara at her lowest point, having been pulled over for a DUI, which signals to Grissom just how miserable she is.

In early 5, they begin to rebuild their camaraderie, with Grissom occasionally kind of sort of flirting with her, in his fashion.

Snakes confirms that, despite everything, she's still in love with him.

After her meltdown in Nesting Dolls, Grissom goes to her and coaxes her to tell him her deepest secrets, after which he comforts her, although what transpires between them after he takes her hand, like so many things GSR, is left vague.

It's always been curious to me that after their conversation in Unbearable that the curtain is drawn on exactly what the nature of their relationship is. I have always read, from Big Middle on, that they act like a couple, albeit a couple in the workplace. We get very little entree into their private interactions, so when and how they became lovers is open to individual interpretation. It isn't until the final scene of 6 that the show bothers to tell us they are lovers, and, judging by their interactions in Way to Go, have been a couple for some time.

I don't know about anyone else, but I think they seem married in that scene: completely comfortable with each other in a way that more or less screams that scenes like the one we are finally privy to have been occurring for a while.

In any event, 4-6 is a pretty remarkable journey in GSR land, as the two characters move from barely being able to speak to one another into a full-fledged love affair.

The amazing thing to me is that both the 1-3 and the 4-6 segments follow a logical progression, with each small insight or revelation explaining both choice and behavior--and leading into the next arc in their relationship.

It really is good stuff.

two slow dancers | p.p

chapter 1: last ones out

summary: y/n stark has always hated peter parker but her hate is taken to a new level when she finds out he's the soul heir to her dad's legacy. sadly, its up to these two angsty teenagers to protect the world and they cant do that if they're fighting all the time.

or

y/n beats peter's ass and he likes it

enemies to lovers, slow burn

WORD COUNT: 2.8k

WARNINGS: mention of death, y/n is annoying so that's a warning...

(NOT MY GIF)

You couldn’t place the moment when you first realized syou hated Peter Parker.

Maybe it was when you saw your dad being more tender with him than he ever had been with you in your entire life. Maybe it was when he got invited on his first mission even though he had only been training for three months. Or maybe it was the way everyone seemed to like him, without him even having to try. Whenever it was, didn’t matter, because all you felt for him right now was unadulterated rage.

The Avengers was your dad’s team to lead. It was your dad’s idea in the first place and now he was the sole heir to everything concerning it. And now, as you sat across from your dad’s lawyer in his large Upper East Side office with Pepper lightly squeezing your hand, you couldn’t contain your rage. “What the fuck do you mean “it belongs to Peter Parker”?”

“Language,” Pepper sighed from her seat.

“It means any business regarding the Avengers and money set aside for them, belongs to Peter Parker.” Legal started. “This include the compound, the technology inside of it, and the rights to anything Mr. Stark was working on before his unfortunate passing.” He picked a piece of lint from the sleeve from his shirt and leaned back in his comically large chair, only infuriating you more.

“Isn’t he like a toddler? How is it legal to even give him that much money or power?” You snarled, ripping your hand from Pepper’s to throw up in the air. You knew you got worked up way too quickly, and you were aware how silly you looked flailing your arms around in anger, but sometimes you couldn’t contain yourself. Your dad’s legacy was being handed to an overgrown pre-teen who cuts his own hair and you couldn’t do anything about it. You might have been next in line to be the CEO of Stark Industries, but the Avengers always had a soft spot in your heart and now that was being ripped away from you from none other than Peter Parker.

The first time you met him you were glassy-eyed and naive and wanted nothing more than your dad’s acceptance, so you tried. You tried hard to like him and to not clench your fists every-time he got a pat on the back from your father. You tried to laugh at his corny jokes and boyish charm and not feel the urge to rip his eyes from his sockets every time you caught your dad looking at him a little too lovingly. You tried hard not to curse him for the fact that you weren’t a boy or that you were never quite enough for your dad, but you couldn’t. Every time you saw him you saw everything you weren’t and it took just too much effort to pretend that it didn’t bother you.

So you did everything in your power to avoid him. You trained on days you knew he had robotics, ducked behind counters, and ran into random rooms whenever you heard his voice, just so you didn’t have to be an absolute asshole to him, but it never worked out quite that well. Whenever you heard his sweet innocent voice mumble a “Thank you, Mr. Stark.” you couldn’t help but reveal yourself just to mock him, or poke fun at how starry-eyed he looked when he was admiring your father. You and him were a recipe for disaster and it upset your dad, so you couldn’t help but try for his sake but he wasn’t here and you had just one more reason than ever to let out your rage against Peter Parker.

“You’re right, however, the minute he turns eighteen, it’s all his.” Legal leaned forward, folding his hands in front of him on his desk, a look of almost pity on his face and you could tell he was trying to make you feel better. “Your dad wrote it in his will, so it’s legally Mr. Parker’s, but if Mr. Parker wanted to hand it over to you when he turned eighteen, then it could be all yours. For now, the team will be led by no other than Steve Rogers and on the day of Mr. Parker’s eighteenth birthday, we will meet in order to hand it off to him.”

You could feel your eyes swelling and your chest getting heavier as you sat there and listened to his words but you stayed glued to your seat. You never thought it would come to this, you sitting in some lawyers office on the verge of tears while your inheritance was being handed off to some pretty boy from Queens. You’ve had your moments with your dad before where you felt like just punching him straight in the face, but this was different. You wanted to hate him but he was dead and that would do no one any good. And more than anything, you wished he was here, so you could yell at him or attempt to hurt him in any way but he wasn’t, and you couldn’t, and just the thought of it made you feel more guilty than you ever imagined. Your dad had sacrificed his life for the entirety of the world and you were sat here upset about his will and you never felt more like a spoiled brat in your life.

But this wasn’t about money. This was about the fact that if you wanted to stay in touch with the Avengers or go on missions, you would have to do so through Peter. This was your dad’s sick way of linking you to Peter for the rest of your life and you hated it. Peter wasn’t family, he was barely a friend and now your dad’s legacy rested in his lanky, fragile hands. The worst part was that you knew Peter didn’t deserve it. He hadn’t lived long enough to disappoint your dad or see the face he makes when you really upset him, or endure the insane amount of pressure that was put on you the minute you turned ten. He didn’t have to deal with half the shit that came with being a Stark and yet a huge part of that legacy was given to him with not even half the work done on his part.

What hurts the most is your dad not even trusting you enough to lead the Avengers. If you had any suspicion that he didn’t believe in you before, they were all confirmed now and you could feel it chipping away at your self-esteem. There was something about Tony Stark that made you want him to love you. Maybe it was his unearned confidence, or how he practically moved through every room like he was the one who owned it (in most cases he was), but whatever the reason, you weren’t immune to it. You wanted him to love you as much as he loved his suit, or the Avengers, or Peter, really anything he took his time with, but he didn’t. You didn’t get the loving side of Tony Stark, you got the cold, unforgiving, and expecting side of Tony Stark and it killed you. Everytime you got knocked down in a fight or a bad grade on your test it killed you knowing you would have to defend yourself to your dad. Yet here you were again, defending yourself to him from beyond the grave.

You inhaled a shaky breath, standing up quickly and grabbing your bag that was loosely thrown over the side of the chair. “Thank you, Legal. If I have any more questions, I guess I’ll contact you.” You tried to make your voice sound as firm as possible, but you knew you didn’t have the confidence you came in there with, so all you did was turn on your heel and make a beeline for the exit, hoping Pepper would get the hint and follow.

You practically fell into the hallway but quickly gathered yourself as you began to stare up at the glimmering ceiling. Legal’s hallway was beautiful and littered with ivory columns and paintings that looked like Van Gough painted them himself. If you stare long enough at one you could see the places where the paint gathered together at one spot and didn’t quite blend in with the other colors or where little parts of the paintbrush hair got lost in the painting. They were beautiful and raw and for a moment took you out of whatever episode you were having. Your hand reached out to touch one, slowly and unsure, before a voice broke you out of your trance. “Y/N,” Pepper put a soft hand on your shoulder. “you ready?”

You nodded gently, both of your heels clicking on the marble floor as you left the building as your heart sat firmly in your throat. What you liked about Pepper was that she didn’t ask questions. She didn’t ask about your biological mom, she didn’t ask how you felt about your dad’s passing, and she didn’t ask you how you were feeling at the moment. She knew. She knew how you felt about most things and did her best to be there for you in ways she knew you would receive well. She invited you to watch a movie with her every night and would buy you your favorite candy if she knew you were feeling particularly worse that day. She allowed you to sit close to her and share the fluffy blanket that you both adored so much, and just recently you two started watching Gilmore Girls together. But what you liked most about Pepper is that she stood up for you in a way a mom would. She would kiss your cuts and bruises after a particularly long fight and scold Tony for yelling at you in the way that he did. She would sit by you when you cried, not saying a word or touching you too much because she knew you didn’t like that all that much. She made your lunch and bought cooking classes for the two of you so you could make dinner together. Overall, Pepper was perfect and she was always there for you in the way she was now.

That night Morgan came waddling into your room with her stuffed pig in her little arms and you couldn’t help but smile. She reached out for you with her free arm and you helped her into your bed, cuddling up to her and pushing wet strands of hair from her face. She was entirely too young to have to go through what she went through, but you were happy that her last memories of your dad were good ones. You might not have been around to see the way your dad was with Morgan, but Pepper told you all about it and got teary-eyed every time. You also couldn’t bring yourself to be jealous of the love she received from your father because she was truly every good thing about him in the tiniest body. You may have both lost him, but you both gained a new pathway towards him and that was probably why she was in your bed every night. Sometimes you wonder if she’s sleeping with you to make you feel better or if you’re sleeping with her to make her feel better. Regardless, every night you and her share your king bed and somehow still end up tangled in each other.

The one and only thing, however, that annoyed you about Morgan, was her undying love for Peter. Since you came back, she wouldn’t stop asking for him, and that was after meeting him one time. At breakfast it would be “Where’s Peter?” and at dinner it would be “Is Peter joining us?” and the answer would always be, “He’s not coming, Morgan, stop.” Which she would reply to with a pout or just a loud cry and it was getting on your nerves. It was yet another Stark that Peter had won over and you were absolutely on the verge of losing it, and the last person you wanted to snap at, was your little sister who still believed everyone was good. She still had a good and innocent heart and you owe that to the version of your dad she got, and you couldn’t help but think that if maybe you got that version, you wouldn’t be as messed up as you are.

Tonight, however, she was extremely cuddly and you wondered if she could tell that you had a bad day. As Tangled played in the background, you could sense her giant eyes looking up at you, so you turned to look at her and she gave you a soft smile that told you that everything was alright. So you placed a gentle kiss on her nose and avoided her giggles as you pulled her closer to your side.

“I don’t like you sad,” She mumbled, her little breath getting more faint as she grew tired. “Daddy didn’t like you sad either, he said he was sorry.” She never talked about your father and you assumed it was because the wound was still fresh but now she was telling you that your dad felt some type of remorse and you didn’t know how you felt about that. So you pushed her hair back and attempted to fall back asleep in hopes that you could forget that she said that all together.

The next morning you woke up with Morgan’s entire body on top of yours and your neck in immense pain. It was your first day of school and although you were done with your education in general, your instincts were not about to allow you to be late to your first day of senior year. You really dreaded going to school now, especially since you knew you would see Peter and the last time you saw him practically attacked him. Well, you did attack him, and had to be pulled off by Steve who had a hard time matching your strength. You really didn’t know how you would react to seeing him, especially after the meeting yesterday, but there are some things you can’t escape, and the hardships of high school are one of them.

When you got to school you could tell that your dad was probably laughing at you from heaven above because the very first thing that happened to you was Peter Parker’s solid but firm body ramming into you at full speed and nearly knocking the life out of you. He landed on top of you and you struggled from underneath him to push him off, trying to gather your things as you stood.

“Y-Y/N, I am so so sorry.” He shook, avoiding eye contact and moving to pick up the rest of your papers from the ground. You wanted to smile because it was you who made him that scared, but you were also pissed because not only did he take your inheritance, but he also knocked the living shit out of you within the first minute of the first day of school and you knew you would bruise. You were shorter than him but somehow he looked so small as he stood in front of you. He was more tan than when you saw him earlier in the summer and his hair was longer but more curly. He still had that panic in his eyes that he always had when he saw you but he was more confident in himself. You could tell by the way he stood up straight and reluctantly met your eyes. He almost offered you a small smile, but stopped himself when he realized that you wouldn’t receive that quite well.

“Watch where you’re going, Parker.” You practically spit at him, your eyes never leaving his. “You made me drop all my shit and I’ll be damned if I lose another thing because of you.” You grabbed your book out of his hands and held it close to your chest as you watched his mouth fall open at your statement.

“W-what does that mean?” He questioned with a hint of sadness behind his eyes and something else you couldn’t just place. “Cause i-it’s not my fault o-or wasn’-”

“Save it, Parker.” you cut him off and you knew you were maybe being too harsh because it wasn’t his fault your dad handed so much to him, but that couldn’t stop your words from being laced with venom. “You’ve done enough, and I am sick of you ruining my life.” You turned and left because you said what you needed to and didn’t feel the need to explain yourself to your dead dad’s ex lap dog and you weren’t about to start hearing him out.

But you felt bad, you really did, as you turned to get one more glance of the sad boy standing stunned in the hallway. He looked as if he saw a ghost and any confidence he had, was surely drained after your tiny altercation with him. You watched as he picked up the rest of the stuff that was his and made his exit through the front door of the school, and even you knew you had to make this right.

authors note: hi! omg my first chapter!!! i hope you like it and can give me feedback even if u hated the shit out of it like let me know u hated it idc,,, love peter but i need this enemies to lovers slow burn i know they deserve so stick it out with me and Maybe i don't know be my mutual!!

i didn’t get diagnosed w add until like, 6 months ago so i literally did just think i was a lazy piece of shit for no good reason. i mean the depression partly explained it but idk i guess part of me felt like no matter how hard i pushed myself i would never stack up? like i’d always have to work harder than everyone else to get by. idk. does having add even count as an actual attention deficit thing for me at this point i mean i’m 20 i feel like even without knowing i should’ve been able to figure out better ways of coping. though to be fair, it’s definitely not a major major thing that gets in the way of everyday life like my depression does. idk like. i have this thing w my mental health where idk if i really “count” as being mentally ill. like am i depressed enough to call myself depressed? do i take enough medications to call myself medicated? what if i just made up my depression in my head when i was 6 and it’s been so long now i started believing it was real at some point so i’ve just been lying to everyone and making excuses for my shit behavior when actually i’m a grumpy, rude, lazy person for no good reason?

the worst years of my depression were definitely partially fueled bc i thought i was bad at coping with life. part of the problem w developing it so young is that i literally didn’t realize my brain was fucked up until middle school like i thought everyone lived like that and i was just weak. and so at the lowest points i always felt like i was making it all up in my head or overexaggerating and bitching about stuff i should be able to handle like everyone else. and i still feel like that to an extent but since i got lucky and found a med combo that works for me i feel like that less. but then when i go through periods of feeling good or great or even just okay i feel like well maybe i don’t count as depressed anymore. even though i know logically i’m gonna be medicated for the rest of my life and i’m gonna have longer and more pronounced downs than ups it feels like when i’m on one of those upswings my depression is no longer valid. it doesn’t make any sense writing it out like this but it’s how i feel. idk.

i feel so bad for my irls bc all i ever do is bitch and moan and whine about how much i hate myself and how i’m terrible and worthless and whatever and it must be so annoying and exhausting to constantly reassure me about shit that i should be finding peace for within myself. it gets to the point where i don’t wanna hang out w my best friends, the ppl i love most, bc i feel like i’m such a fucking drag for no reason and i don’t want to be there bringing them down with me. like y’all can tell i talk so fucking much and if i talk to them i’m gonna end up coming around to how shit i feel all the time, which then leads to me feeling like i don’t have a right to feel like shit all the time bc idk if i’m depressed enough at any given moment to count as “depressed” and it all compounds and it’s such a hellish cycle. like i have a bad habit of flaking on people or not wanting to hang out or call or talk or whatever and it’s mostly bc i don’t want ppl to hate me for being selfish bc i must be the most selfish person to them to always talk about myself and need reassurance in my worth as a human being. and i don’t want them to feel like i’m fishing for compliments or attention bc that’s not it at all it’s just i need people to tell me that they like me or love me or think i’m nice or whatever bc if ppl don’t say it explicitly my brain cannot process it and sometimes even if someone does say smth like that explicitly my brain still won’t let me accept it. not to mention the fact i feel like everyone who loves me or is close to me actually hates me but is too nice to say it so whenever i hear a nice thing i do that annoying shit where i go “no no no” and deny it like a stupid bitch bc i feel like my friends are too kind to tell me the truth about myself

and i know that my self esteem is my own responsibility and shit and i’ve been working on it for years but most of the time i cannot feel positive about myself or any aspect of myself as a human person existing without someone telling me that i do have good qualities like ik its pathetic but i need people to tell me nice things about myself so i can internalize them and repeat them in my brain over and over and over again. bc im an attention whore i guess idk. i’ve always been like this, i’ve always loved teacher comments and yearbook signings and generally hearing what other ppl think abt me it makes me feel so happy and i obsess over those little things for years and years and years. like there’s a little book of compliments i got from classmates in 5th grade and i still think about it all the time bc those little things still make me feel good and it’s partially bc i still can’t believe those things on my own so seeing them in writing or hearing them from someone else makes such a big difference. i think i’m insane

some (very long) Hiro metas and a Kisa-n-Tohru tangent

seeing the "Hiro is a brat!" "Hiro just has trauma!" debate has made me ponder…

Like, not to compare trauma and argue who had what worse and invalidate suffering, but my immediate reaction was kind of, "Wait, what? I mean, okay, I guess Hiro did just have some trauma re: Kisa, but like, overall…???"

So it's time for some scrutiny!

I’mma talk myself through this in a post.

Here we have Hiro. He's a Souma, which is pretty damn traumatic in its own right, and possessed by a Zodiac spirit, which is even worse. He's part of an elite inner circle, privileged with status and wealth; but on the flip side, there's still people in the family who look down on the Zodiac, and Hiro's looking at a future of isolation (afraid of looking like a monster, afraid to betray the family secret, not properly free to pick his own job, may or may not be able to live outside the estate, love life is gonna be a disaster when puberty hits). And Akito, whom the possessed part of him loves deeply and desperately, tends to weaponize his own love and withhold it when someone displeases him, or turn hurtful when someone needs punishment.

Okay, so that's bad. But Hiro shares that with all of the Zodiac members, that's just the baseline trauma, and there's some compounding issues at play that Hiro lacks:

- Hiro, as the Sheep, isn't especially hated. Kyou, for instance, has a bad attitude that's partly due to the entire clan ragging on him for being a horrible abomination of a monster, comparing him unfavorably to Idealized Yuki, and telling him he's gonna be locked up in a one-room house on the estate to suffer out his life--and that's not even counting how being the Cat affected how his immediate family treated him. Haru, as the Ox, got ~harmlessly teased~ about being a big dumb slow stupid ox by the family so much that he started flipping over to a Black personality to violently vent his feelings.

- Hiro's family life is, as far as I can tell, actually ideal. His parents didn't reject him (Momiji, Kyou re: his sperm donor, Rin), split up over him (I suspect this is what happened for Kagura, because her parents argued a lot when she was young, and I wonder about the fact that Ritsu's dad isn't at the onsen? And there's no mention of Kisa's dad? But then again, we're told repeatedly that Yuki and Ayame have a father and he lives in the same house as their mother and I've never seen proof of this man's existence), be coolly indifferent to him (Ayame after Yuki was born and he got off the hook but honestly I think that was a blessing to him, Yuki, Hatori), or get extremely overprotective (Kyou re: his mom, I'd argue this is partly why Ritsu's mom is so stressed out, and also I'd argue this may be why Kisa's mom hits her limit). In fact, Hiro's the only one who we can definitely say has two parents, who live together, and have a good relationship, and actively enjoy nurturing their child. Also Satsuki's completely adorkable. (This puts strain on Hiro in other ways, lol, but at least he shares that feeling with his dad.)

- Hiro, as the Sheep, probably doesn't particularly stand out. I'm guessing his hair color isn't particularly notable? So he probably hasn't been singled out for teasing from people who don't even know about the curse, like Kyou and Haru and Kisa. (No one's not-thirsty enough to have teased Ayame or Yuki for their looks, I'm pretty sure, and Momiji can pull the biracial card, even if that wouldn't stop people, and went to international school, where people probably found other ways to pick on you.)

So where, for Hiro, does his particular extremely combative, condescending, scathing, sarcastic attitude come from?

That's not to say none of those things above could be factors. It's extremely possible that the family found dumb things to say to him because, y'know, clearly it's impossible to hurt a kid's feelings if you're arrogant enough about it. And like Kyouko says, you can't really judge someone's family situation based on their behavior, and vice versa. I'd expect Hiro to be super well-adjusted, coming from a loving nuclear family, but kids are people and they will turn out how they turn out both because of and in spite of how they're raised. And maybe Hiro's experienced some bullying about whatever, and his instant sharp-tongued retorts became the default in response to that. Hiro didn't tell us any of this, but who knows!

Or maybe Hiro's difficult phase is just a phase. Maybe that's how all his classmates talk to each other?? I can easily see that being a thing, especially with boys, both friendly with friends or aggressive with people you want to treat badly, and maybe Hiro's so much in the habit of it that he doesn't think first (and doesn't care enough about Tohru and her feelings to exercise a little self-control). Like this post that points out how it's a Definite Thing that part of Hiro's lording-little-brat arrogance is because he's in his final year of elementary school and he's everyone's senpai and that sort of thing is indulged because adults know he'll get cruelly humbled next year when he's a baby kouhai.

But I think maybe, what's most relevant with Hiro, is that because of his lack of obvious outside factors to fight against for personal growth, his growing pains as a character are internal. He's fighting against himself. AKA, it's only logical that he's a tiny little shit and his character arc is about growing into someone who isn't a jerkface. Which can be just as difficult and traumatic as standing up to your parents, or Akito, or society, or your classmates. Hiro has to assert himself against himself, and himself won't punch him in the face or lock him in his room but it's so easy to just put the blame elsewhere and let himself get away with it and give him a pass and stop trying to improve.

Now I wanna analyze the timeline!

Aside from a few select Zodiac members, Akito hasn't really done anything super terrible that we've heard about until Hiro's in 3rd grade. That's when Hatori and Kana ask to get married, and Hatori gets injured. Akito has been a jerk before, and Akito is very clearly in favor of a hierarchy that puts God at the top getting all the love. But Shigure and Ayame have talked about their sexcapades with no issue, and Kagura's always going on about her undying love for and future marriage with Kyou, and this is the first incident that says those things aren't allowed.

Sometime not terribly long after that, Shigure gets kicked out of the Main House. This ramps up Akito's hatred of women, though Hiro wouldn't know the betrayal behind it and might not have a clue about Akito's vendetta.

Right about the time Hiro starts 6th grade, he feels compelled to tell Akito that he has feelings for Kisa. (I'm pulling this from the Collector's Edition timeline. In the actual story I keep seeing the English being like "I always thought Hiro hated me / I thought Hiro hated me for a long time" with Kisa then immediately turning around and saying "We were bffs all through my elementary school years / Hiro always played with me until this year", so I heavily suspect the translators keep getting a modifier in the wrong place or something because wtf.) Akito kicks Kisa's ass and Kisa takes two weeks to heal. (This isn't Akito's fault. It's also not Kisa's fault, obviously, because Hiro didn't even tell her yet that he liked her. So that means it's all Hiro's fault.) Hiro's horrified, because he could have had an idea this would be bad but he probably didn't expect it to all be taken out on Kisa. After all, Hatori got hurt, not Kana, and Rin hasn't been pushed out a window yet.

Hiro abruptly cuts off his interaction with Kisa, to protect her from getting punished by Akito again. Kisa goes back to 7th grade, where she's just transitioned from Top Of The Heap Senpai and Just A Child So We Can Let Things Slide to Lowly Kouhai Who Needs To Learn Proper Social Behaviors, and she's being bullied, and her bff won't talk to her, and her Talking Things Out skills are having zero effect, so she just stops talking, and now her mom is upset, and then she starts skipping school, and now her mom is really upset. And Hiro was probably unaware of a lot of this, until it got really bad several months in, since he stopped seeing his bff.

And Hiro's agonizing and worrying about it, when suddenly Tohru swoops in and magically saves the day, bringing hope where there was none and erasing suffering, right when Hiro was probably nerving himself up to try to help somehow without bringing Akito's wrath back down on Kisa.

Oh I wanna have a tangent about Kisa!

Timeline again, but from Kisa's point of view:

Kisa and Hiro are only a year apart, so they've always been super close. Hiro is her bff.

Now Kisa is starting 7th grade.

Kisa does something Bad. It's not clear what, but it's Bad Enough to make Akito hate her and also seriously beat her up, so that's Pretty Bad.

Actually it's Really Very Bad, because after that Hiro hates her too.

Anyway Kisa's starting 7th grade! Yay! New school, new girls, new pressures. In my personal experience, middle school is when girls are at their nastiest (after they hit high school, they start to chill out. Obviously you still get jerks, because people, but there was a little more "live and let live" attitude), so I always assume this is part of the problem. Kisa's classmates start to bully her. Kisa tries out her conflict resolution skills, like the adult she's expected to be becoming, and it only causes the situation to escalate. Her self-esteem has already had the crap kicked out of it, and hasn't healed in 2+ weeks. Her bff hates her and won't talk to her.

And then Kisa just gives up without telling anyone why.

Tohru's got a very valid point, that it's hard to talk about the things that actually bother you. It's hard to ask for help. I can complain all day long about little things, but I can't put big issues into words without spontaneously bawling? Which is really fricken embarrassing???

But I think the reason Tohru strikes such a chord with Kisa, and is able to instantly win her over, is because she talks with such quiet feeling about being scared her mom wouldn't love her anymore. Because that feeling was very, very real for Tohru--grounded in the fact that Kyouko actually did abandon her once.

And Kisa recognized that, and realized that Tohru--unlike everyone else--actually got it, because that's exactly what Kisa's feeling. Because Kisa's gotten along with her mother very well all her life, if what we see of her with Hiro is any indication. Except that suddenly Akito hates her. Suddenly Hiro hates her. It's a very real fear, once Kisa's mom starts getting stressed about the not-talking, that Kisa's mom is going to stop loving her just like everyone else is suddenly doing. Because that's literally what's happening to Kisa.

Tohru's not just a warm, loving, accepting, motherly presence. Tohru's someone who can very viscerally relate to Kisa's terror. Of course Kisa clings to her.

Back to Hiro though!

I think we could also stand to apply to Hiro the tried-and-true, "The things you hate most in other people are the things you hate most about yourself," because it is both true in general and a definite thing Fruits Basket does (for a quick example, see Yuki saying he hates dependent people [while Kyou's like "that's you tho"] and Rin hating Yuki [because he's dependent on Haru the way she is guiltly dependent on Haru]).

I went to rewatch the episode to look at all the specific things Hiro says about Tohru and other people, only to realize the obvious flaw that like everything he says is an insult and there's too much there for me to unpack here, so I chose just a few statements that were really specifically phrased (I can't stand people who X).

I can't stand people who let themselves be pushed around so easily

Hiro also talks a couple times about Tohru having no sense of identity or agency, or not having thoughts of her own. So this reveals Hiro's inner struggle with his own complacency. He's got that bond with Akito, he's got a life that's at least partly set in stone already for him, and he's not doing anything to fight it. He didn't hide his feelings for Kisa from Akito, and then when Kisa got hurt Hiro never told her why ("It's my fault because I told Akito I like you and that made him mad, it's nothing you did") and never called Akito out on it (he can't blame Akito but when he talks about it you can tell he also knows he should blame Akito because Hiro can figure out that that was wrong. Maybe because, unlike so many others of the Zodiac, he was raised in a sensible and loving family and he knows that Akito's behavior isn't normal, isn't right, isn't acceptable).

This is probably why, even while using "I'm just a kid" to get away with his behavior, he's so frustrated with not being an adult. Because, to him, an adult wouldn't just let these things happen. He's wrong, on one hand, but on the other hand the maturity that will come with his personal growth will let him be the kind of adult he envisions.

I can't stand inconsiderate people

Hiro knows he's a jerk. He knows his snappy retorts piss people off--he enjoys that. He's super jealous about Tohru and doesn't care about her feelings, and him taking his anger out on Tohru has been hurting Kisa's feelings and that hasn't caused Hiro to check himself yet either.

He knows this, he hates this, he's not ready to deal with it yet and exercise self-control, so he's the niceness police about other people being rude.

(I think it's interesting that, when Hiro starts maturing, even though he still has that tendency to rudeness, there's also a hint that it will one day turn into a frankness that isn't just "a blunt insult is the same as honesty right?" That time when Hiro realizes that Kyou and Tohru have Feelings and he's like "Um, wait, is that okay? Are we just not going to talk about the fact that Kyou is going to be locked up alone in a room for the rest of his life???" He asks the tough questions lol. I won't give him credit for bringing up Tohru's dad issues because he was just doing that to be a dick, there was zero maturity there. In another world, though, he would've been the only other person besides Kyou [who already knew the details] to think to question Tohru about it.)

People who whine about their situation while accepting no responsibility are so irritating

Again...Hiro hates the whole situation that happened with Kisa, and hates his part in it, and didn't do anything to fix it before Tohru came along. And even then, he still hasn't fessed up to Kisa about the real circumstances. He knows he owes Kisa that, and he hasn't taken responsibility yet.

This ties into the complacency issue, but with the added fact that Hiro's said it's shitty and unfair but still is going along with it without trying to stop it. So he's an extra jerk, but he still hasn't stepped up yet.

I think maybe this is why Tohru's speech touches him, even after he just called her out on magical Mary Sue emotional healing powers. He's been nothing but his worst self around Tohru--bad enough that it's not only just Tohru but Kisa he's been upsetting as well--he's been bratty and insulting and pushed Tohru around and stolen her property and treated her like shit and--

And instead of rolling her eyes, or getting fed up and firing back, or any other response that show her low expectations for Hiro…

Tohru just stands there and says it's brave, to admit you have flaws, and that she has faith that he can and will make good on his responsibilities. Even though nothing at all that Hiro's done--and he's very well aware of this--gives any indication that he would even try. Let alone succeed.

The way that Hiro, when people call him a brat, tends to then embrace it and get even brattier--this makes me think he's the kind of kid who lives down to people's expectations, rather than trying to prove them wrong. So when Tohru without hesitation sets the bar high like that, and it pisses Hiro off--

He's gonna show you, stupid woman. You think he's a prince? You're gonna be floored at the kind of prince he'll be.

(Eventually. Much later.)

Part 2 of 4: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Part II:

Moving on, I feel compelled to share this next short piece, because it concerns a topic that is near and dear to my heart: depression and low self-esteem.

This essay of sorts was actually written to a friend of a friend who has been struggling with his own depression, low confidence, and feeling "stuck" for lack of a better word.

Also, this man, Chris, is not exactly dealing with the best of circumstances.

He is a young, 18-year-old man just out of high school, coming from a single-family home in gang-heavy Camden, NJ (one of the deadliest and most under-served cities in the U.S.)

The good thing is he is on the right path and has entered college as of September 2013. And from what my friend tells me (she was his high school mentor), he is a very smart, kind, and caring young man.

Chris wrote my friend, Melissa, an email telling her how life has been very tough, he's sad all the time, has trouble finding true friends at school, and that he feels like he's stuck with "no way out".

My friend then asked for some guidance from me, as I've dealt with many of the same exact issues myself in the past.

Here's what I said, and here's what I think anyone can apply to their life, whether depressed, just feeling down, out of luck, or feeling "not good enough" or "not worthy" or "defeated" or who think it's "too hard", or whatever it is keeping them from their goals, desires, and dreams:

 "I know how you must feel, but it's not true that things won't get better. They always do. It just takes longer for some.

But that's never a reason to give up.

And I know it's hard to see now, but there's a good side to this, as there is with everything in life.

In this case, the good side is you're getting stronger every single day that you push through the struggles, hard feelings and negative thoughts.

You get so strong that by the time you overcome this (it always happens), you're a machine and nothing fazes you.

You will see amazing things come into your life and you will start doing amazing things.

And while everyone else is doubting themselves when the going gets tough...you'll laugh and get through difficulties like a walk in the park.

Because you've already done the hard work. You've seen the living hell on the bottom and you still fought it and made it out.

You've developed a massive level of inner strength and confidence, whether you realize it or not.

And when you bring this strength to anything in life, whether its writing music, starting a business, getting lean, or doing whatever you want in life...you'll see that it's much easier for you than anyone else.

You've already done the much harder work of battling depression, and you're winning. Keep this with you when your mind keeps filling with negativity and self-hatred. As real as it feels, every single second you fight it, you get better, smarter and stronger.

Here's a fun little exercise: think about anything and everything you want, no matter how insane it sounds. And write it down. If you want ten million dollars or a threesome with some gorgeous models or you want to buy your own island, or be famous, or have a 3 car garage with a Mercedes, Ferrari, and Aston Martin...or if all you want is to be happy every day, write it all down.

And understand that you can have it ALL. And you will.

When the time comes that you realize your true strength and potential, you'll see a miraculous transformation where you go after all your goals and desires...without letting anything stop you.

You'll rip shit up and destroy the competition, and you'll do it better and faster than anyone else.

So as bad as it looks now, just keep looking up. Keep on searching and striving for more.

A lot of people are stuck in depressive, hellish situations, and it definitely sucks, but there is ALWAYS a way out. Don't give up.

Also, there are little things you can do every day to start feeling better.

You see, every day is a chance to have an amazing life and do amazing things. Even more so, every day is a chance to help someone else or do a simple little thing to brighten someone's day.

The thing about life that most people don't tell you is...to build self-esteem and to feel better, you have to:

1) Do esteem-able things

2) "Fake it til you make it"

Remember that you're the shit and you have an amazing personality. You have so much to give to others.

So much so that it'll make them smile and laugh and love their life...and after you do this, you'll see the rewards and happiness come back to you tenfold.

To be clear, you don't have to anything above and beyond to reap the benefits.

A simple smile or hello or just holding open the door could mean the world to someone.

While you're in your own dark spot, someone else could be in the same spot too. And you never know if you saying "hi" or smiling to them was the 1st nice thing someone said to them all week.

That simple little gesture could make someone's day, week or month. You just never know. So give a little bit back whenever you can. And when you see the joy it brings them, you'll slowly but surely feel better too."

Moral of the story: NEVER give up. Keep pushing, keep working, and keeping reaching to be the best you can be. And one day you'll get it. And then you'll move on to even bigger and better things. Most importantly, keep helping others. Give all that you can through love and kindness, and you will reap the rewards tenfold. Challenge yourself and greatness will come. It isn't always easy, that's for sure, but it is definitely worth it.

 Interested in losing weight? Then click below to see the exact steps I took to lose weight and keep it off for good...

Read the previous article about "Part 1 of 4: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality"

Read the next article about "Part 3 of 4: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality"

Moving forward, there are several other articles/topics I'll share so you can lose weight even faster, and feel great doing it.

Below is a list of these topics and you can use this Table of Contents to jump to the part that interests you the most.

Topic 1: How I Lost 30 Pounds In 90 Days - And How You Can Too

Topic 2: How I Lost Weight By Not Following The Mainstream Media And Health Guru's Advice - Why The Health Industry Is Broken And How We Can Fix It

Topic 3: The #1 Ridiculous Diet Myth Pushed By 95% Of Doctors And "experts" That Is Keeping You From The Body Of Your Dreams

Topic 4: The Dangers of Low-Carb and Other "No Calorie Counting" Diets

Topic 5: Why Red Meat May Be Good For You And Eggs Won't Kill You

Topic 6: Two Critical Hormones That Are Quietly Making Americans Sicker and Heavier Than Ever Before

Topic 7: Everything Popular Is Wrong: The Real Key To Long-Term Weight Loss

Topic 8: Why That New Miracle Diet Isn't So Much of a Miracle After All (And Why You're Guaranteed To Hate Yourself On It Sooner or Later)

Topic 9: A Nutrition Crash Course To Build A Healthy Body and Happy Mind

Topic 10: How Much You Really Need To Eat For Steady Fat Loss (The Truth About Calories and Macronutrients)

Topic 11: The Easy Way To Determining Your Calorie Intake

Topic 12: Calculating A Weight Loss Deficit

Topic 13: How To Determine Your Optimal "Macros" (And How The Skinny On The 3-Phase Extreme Fat Loss Formula)

Topic 14: Two Dangerous "Invisible Thorn" Foods Masquerading as "Heart Healthy Super Nutrients"

Topic 15: The Truth About Whole Grains And Beans: What Traditional Cultures Know About These So-called "Healthy Foods" That Most Americans Don't

Topic 16: The Inflammation-Reducing, Immune-Fortifying Secret of All Long-Living Cultures (This 3-Step Process Can Reduce Chronic Pain and Heal Your Gut in Less Than 24 Hours)

Topic 17: The Foolproof Immune-enhancing Plan That Cleanses And Purifies Your Body, While "patching Up" Holes, Gaps, And Inefficiencies In Your Digestive System (And How To Do It Without Wasting $10+ Per "meal" On Ridiculous Juice Cleanses)

Topic 18: The Great Soy Myth (and The Truth About Soy in Eastern Asia)

Topic 19: How Chemicals In Food Make Us Fat (Plus 10 Banned Chemicals Still in the U.S. Food Supply)

Topic 20: 10 Banned Chemicals Still in the U.S. Food Supply

Topic 21: How To Protect Yourself Against Chronic Inflammation (What Time Magazine Calls A "Secret Killer")

Topic 22: The Truth About Buying Organic: Secrets The Health Food Industry Doesn't Want You To Know

Topic 23: Choosing High Quality Foods

Topic 24: A Recipe For Rapid Aging: The "Hidden" Compounds Stealing Your Youth, Minute by Minute

Topic 25: 7 Steps To Reduce AGEs and Slow Aging

Topic 26: The 10-second Trick That Can Slash Your Risk Of Cardiovascular Mortality By 37% (Most Traditional Cultures Have Done This For Centuries, But The Pharmaceutical Industry Would Be Up In Arms If More Modern-day Americans Knew About It)

Topic 27: How To Clean Up Your Liver and Vital Organs

Topic 28: The Simple Detox 'Cheat Sheet': How To Easily and Properly Cleanse, Nourish, and Rid Your Body of Dangerous Toxins (and Build a Lean Well-Oiled "Machine" in the Process)

Topic 29: How To Deal With the "Stress Hormone" Before It Deals With You

Topic 30: 7 Common Sense Ways to Have Uncommon Peace of Mind (or How To Stop Your "Stress Hormone" In Its Tracks)

Topic 31: How To Sleep Like A Baby (And Wake Up Feeling Like A Boss)

Topic 32: The 8-step Formula That Finally "fixes" Years Of Poor Sleep, Including Trouble Falling Asleep, Staying Asleep, And Waking Up Rested (If You Ever Find Yourself Hitting The Snooze Every Morning Or Dozing Off At Work, These Steps Will Change Your Life Forever)

Topic 33: For Even Better Leg Up And/or See Faster Results In Fixing Years Of Poor Sleep, Including Trouble Falling Asleep, Staying Asleep, And Waking Up Rested, Do The Following:

Topic 34: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 35: Part 1 of 4: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 36: Part 2 of 4: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 37: Part 3 of 4: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 38: Part 4 of 4: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 39: How To Beat Your Mental Roadblocks And Why It Can Be The Difference Between A Happy, Satisfying Life And A Sad, Fearful Existence (These Strategies Will Reduce Stress, Increase Productivity And Show You How To Fulfill All Your Dreams)

Topic 40: Maximum Fat Loss in Minimum Time: The Body Type Solution To Quick, Lasting Results

Topic 41: If You Want Maximum Results In Minimum Time You're Going To Have To Work Out (And Workout Hard, At That)

Topic 42: Food Planning For Maximum Fat Loss In Minimum Time

Topic 43: How To Lose Weight Fast If You're in Chronic Pain

Topic 44: Nutrition Basics for Fast Pain Relief (and Weight Loss)

Topic 45: How To Track Results (And Not Fall Into the Trap That Ruins 95% of Well-Thought Out Diets)

Topic 46: Advanced Fat Loss - Calorie Cycling, Carb Cycling and Intermittent Fasting

Topic 47: Advanced Fat Loss - Part I: Calorie Cycling

Topic 48: Advanced Fat Loss - Part II: Carb Cycling

Topic 49: Advanced Fat Loss - Part III: Intermittent Fasting

Topic 50: Putting It All Together

Learn more by visiting our website here: invigoratenow.com

1/30/19 (cw: transphobia, homophobia, mental illness, bullying, trauma)

(tldr: ive lived a fairly self-imposed sheltered life and only recently have i started living and socializing. my past experiences with all sorts of bullying and other traumas have made it hard for me to have any type of lasting/healthy relationship. i am still learning. i dont ever mean to offend or hurt anybody. if i do will you please call me out on it and help me? thank you! i love you!!)

i wanted to talk to all my friends and family and whoever else might read this.

as most of you probably know i have borderline personality disorder, ptsd, adhd, anxiety, depression, and gender dysphpria. all of this has made it exceedingly difficult for me to make and keep friends and relationships of all kinds.

one of the hallmarks of bpd is "trying everything to avoid real or perceived abandonment". that means that im scared everyone will reject me or abandon me. if i think someone is going to abandon me i usually go into overdrive and try to apologize to them and try to fix the situation, but most of the time there is nothing to fix or apologize for. most of the time its just my paranoia. but in doing this i usually end up pushing them away. like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

i am clingy and needy and desperate for attention and affection. growing up i never really made lasting friendships/relationships. my first best friend moved away in 6th grade. i never knew my father. my cousin/best friend died when i was sixteen. and a multitude of other "abandonments".

in elementary school i think i developed the coping mechanism of being the class clown in order to get attention and to be liked. but in doing so i never really got to know anyone as more than an acquaintance or school/work friend.

and i guess i started being open and honest about myself to everyone in hopes of reciprocation? i dont know.

but add in gender dysphoria to that and things get more complicated. i grew up being bullied and told i was gay, girlie, a faggot, feminine, and all sorts of shit. so i grew up getting taught that the way i felt was wrong. i was a boy not a girl. and i could never be one. so i pushed those feelings down and tried to ignore them best i could.

in doing that i think that started the heightening of my depression/anxiety. i was depressed because i was ignoring who i am. i was anxious because i was afraid to do or say the "wrong" thing and make people hate me and disown me.

adhd made it hard to concentrate in school and work. it got much worse as i got older. in my school days i used multiple coping mechanisms to help the adhd, like be alone to be able to focus better.

because of the bullying and some assault as i got older i also have ptsd. which i think just compounds the fears of rejection/abandonment. im afraid of it happening again.

and you cant get hurt by others if you dont associate with anyone. so ive isolated and avoided most of my life. which made the depression/anxiety worse too.

all of my disorders and illnesses combined to make me what i am today: a grown woman whos really only three years old and whos super clingy and needy but doesnt know how to really go about correct or healthy ways of getting the attention/affection i need. i give myself to everybody and get hurt most of the time because of that.

and i sometimes say/do things that hurt others. unknowingly of course. because i never really learned how to socialize properly. ive basically only just started living my life around 2016. so thats only three years of friendships and relationships. and even then, before now, ive only had two real relationships. and both ended badly.

i always try my best but sometimes i fall short. sometimes i misunderstand people or dont understand them at all. sometimes i feel really stupid because of this.

pretty much all of my friends and family have a better understanding on how to live. theyve been social much longer than i have. everybody else seems to have much more experience with peopling.

i make mistakes often, but i always try to learn from them. im always trying to better myself. ive been in mental health treatment for about 13 years or so? its just really hard for me to instill all of that knowledge into myself. i try as hard as i can to implement all of the coping mechanisms ive learned over the years, but i tend to fall back on the unhealthy ones. like overeating, isolating/avoiding, sharing too much, etc...

so i guess what im trying to get at here is: im very sorry to all those i have hurt with my words/actions. i would never in a million years wish to do that to anybody regardless of who they are or what kind of person they are. i always try to be a good, respectful, trusting, kind person. but i fail sometimes. as we all do. it just takes me failing the same thing multiple times to fully understand where i went wrong.

i am trying. i am trying so hard. please be patient with me. and if you can, please help me figure my way out in this complicated world. i need you all and sometimes its hard to ask for help. so heres me asking: help me be the person i know i can be, the person you all need.

thank you. i love you all.

-Rebecca Philippa Ann Tollingworth

ps. if you need me to clarify or expand on any of this ill be happy to. or if you have tips/advice, etc... just shoot me a private message.

pps. i forgot to talk about my weight. along with the homophobic/transphobic bullying i received there was also fatphobia. i was always called fat and chubby and ugly. so this definitely played a role in my aforementioned hesitance to socialize.

my self-esteem was so low for so long for so many reasons. and because of that i had a hard time actually getting close to people. its one thing to be near a person and spew your story but its a whole entirely different thing to actually first trust them enough to share, and know they actually care and want to listen.

if you scream into the void its unlikely to scream back. if it does then youre probably in some eldritch horror nightmare realm and you should fucking run my dude.

I’m Grateful For What I Learned About Self-Love from ‘The Other Woman’

  The year I turned 40 my husband left me for a woman twenty years younger than me.

My god, it hit hard. Not just the fact that I was left (that was excruciating enough) – but that it was for someone so much younger, brighter and more glamorous than me. How did I know that this stranger was younger, brighter and more dazzling than me? Well, I stalked her online of course.

I found out who she was after she inadvertently sent me a friend request through Facebook. I already knew her first name and I guess she knew mine. The friend request was promptly retracted by her, but not before I caught sight of her full name.

So armed with the newfound knowledge of who the other woman was, on to good old Facebook I went. What I saw there only compounded the pain that was already threatening to overtake me. She was gorgeous. She was young (obviously) and fit and beautiful with a mane of long blonde hair that fell effortlessly over one of her perfect, bronzed shoulders.

The image of her tormented me. I soon started dreaming of her. I dreamed of her and my husband together, tucked away in his new bed, at his new place. In my waking hours, I questioned and criticized myself relentlessly. I questioned what it was about me that was so horrible and unbearable that he felt the need to upgrade. I criticized my looks, my thighs, and my stretchy wobbly stomach.

I left my dignity at the door and bombarded him with questions – I asked him if he loved her, if he was planning on building a future with her, if he was planning on introducing our kids to her. I all but convinced myself that she would soon be pregnant with his child and claiming a stake of the marital house. I thought I was going crazy. I was actually knee-deep in grief.

I assumed that I would never feel normal or ‘right’ again.

Yet time passed, as it does, and the grief that I was certain would eat me alive slowly began to ease its grip. Winter became spring. I met new people and gained new perspectives. I spent a lot of time alone and read a lot of self-help. I learned to accept that my marriage was over and that there was no hope of reconciliation. The day I realized that I no longer wanted reconciliation was one of the most liberating days of my life.

The thing between my husband and the other woman eventually came to an end, as I guess it was always going to. A relationship with a twenty-five year age gap was, in all likelihood, eventually going to end. And by the time it did, I no longer cared. The day I realized that my hate had turned to indifference was the day I knew that I’d healed.

And the healed me saw things a whole lot clearer than the broken me:

I no longer felt paralyzed by jealousy and anger. It occurred to me that, in all likelihood, the other woman – girl – also struggled with self-love and esteem. Maybe she had a shit childhood. Maybe latching on to middle-aged married men made her feel better about herself. (I somehow have the feeling that my husband was not the first, nor the last).

Yet, I don’t judge her. Especially not now, four years on. Not now that at the age of forty-four I finally know and understand my worth. Not now that I’ve finally learned how to be alone, how to self-partner and self-soothe. Not now that I have a partner who tells me regularly that he has ‘waited his whole life for me’.

What I Learned About Self-Love from ‘The Other Woman’

I now know that it was never about her. It was about me. It was about my fears and insecurities and long-buried wounds. She (very unwittingly I’m sure) made me confront my wounds. She put her hands deep inside of me and pulled them from me. For all to see. For me to see. For me to examine, dissect and ultimately and eventually heal.

Without her – without the idea of her and what she represented – I would still be a self-doubting woman living a half-life. A life consumed by the fear that she was not ‘good’ or ‘lovable’ enough, a life in which she was too afraid to live as her authentic self.

I now know that the other woman was not necessarily more desirable or lovable than me. I also know that she was not necessarily an evil villain. I know now that most of us are doing our best to feel wanted, accepted and desirable to others. Some of us go about it in the wrong way; some of us are able to find what we need within ourselves.

Those of us who are willing to do the deep inner work – to spend time alone, to learn how to self-soothe and self-partner, to face our heartbreak and sit with the pain and the shitty feelings without constantly looking for distractions to make ourselves feel better – knowing that the pain and shitty feelings will not last forever – will probably fare better than those of us who never teach ourselves to do this.

It may surprise some to know that today, I am friends with my ex-husband. He is on his own journey, and I hope that he someday finds what it is he’s looking for. I’m grateful for the lessons he and ‘the other woman’ delivered me. How could I not be? I wouldn’t be half the woman I am today without them.

I now know how to love me.

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Having anxiety and depression is like being scared and tired at the same time. The fear of failure, and having no motivation to do anything productive at the same time. Wanting friends but not wanting to socialize, wanting to be alone but not wanting to be lonely, it's like feeling everything at once but also feeling numb. Depression is insidious, it compounds daily, and makes it feel impossible to see light at the end. It's like being trapped in a cage without a key. Some days I have no pleasure or joy, and cant seem to even find something to give me a slight feeling of that. Concentration and focus are difficult, everything feels hopeless and I feel worthless because I'm not getting better. Self esteem is absent most days, sleeping is an issue, my energy levels are either low or non existent, I barely eat because food is unappetizing a lot of the time, but other days is a coping mechanism. It's not the same as being sad. It's so much worse. The smallest actions that are normal to you, I get excited about, because I did something. I got out of bed? Fuck ya, I'm happy about that, now for another "milestone of the day". Life isnt fucking easy with this shit. I didnt ask for it, and I sure as hell didnt ask for anything that I've been through. So I dont need you telling me life is simple, or to be happy because I'm trying but its fucking hard.

Work

Until very recently I’ve been utterly paralyzed by the prospect of getting a job. I couldn’t explain the feeling that it was impossible in some mental sense, so most just assumed I was being lazy and manipulative. Now though, I have the emotional intelligence and insight to recognize what went wrong. I’ve even made posts in the past talking about it, albeit incompletely:

Where am I going? Living to work Traditional work Job? Purpose?

So what was my deal? It’s... complicated. At any given point there was more than a couple subconscious aversions that I know of now. Some of the ones off the top of my head:

I overexert myself when I work out of fear of not being useful enough, lending an expectation of misery

I’ve had severe trauma from past jobs (yes they hit me hard despite being mundane to anyone sane)

For non-tech jobs, for a while I didn’t want to admit to having given up/ruined my life 

Grew up with adults hating their jobs

The core of all of it though, was my personality. I’m extremely adaptive, even to my detriment, so I can tolerate just about any circumstance. I generally lack initiative or ambition now, having given up on any measure of success by modern standards, so I had no goal to work towards. But most importantly of all, I have what’s called an “avoidant personality”, meaning my go-to reaction to fear is to avoid the source at all costs. Take that and layer up a number of near phobias made worse by shame and depression and you have an impassable mental barrier:

Fear of both success and failure

Consequently, a fear of expectation, which is to say others having any positive expectations whatsoever of you

Fear of loss of what I had

Fear of change when I was at my most pessimistic

Shame of having the mental barrier (I hated myself and how worthless I was)

Shame of being dependent when by all accounts I should be independent

Shame from having nothing I recognized as any achievement, and not for lack of trying

To explain the pathology of these fears is actually surprisingly straightforward if you look at my history. As a child, I was seen as a wunderkind and felt inspired by supergenius characters in cartoons. Everything came easily to me, and that was a source of pride. Everyone “knew” I’d go on to do great things. Then, come High School, multiple stressors (the divorce, moving to NM, power struggles with dad, etc) plus an increased academic load made it increasingly difficult to maintain good grades. Coming from a middle school career where I saw a B as a failure of my own identity, this was devastating, but I opted to hide and ignore it at all costs so as to preserve the illusion. Depression set in, my self-confidence was shot, and unluckily another kid inadvertently became a bully when he intended to be an academic rival.

I’d been doing decently well in college up to this point (via dual enrollment), even having accepted that I can’t get an A in everything, so I hoped that the decline would stop when I went full time. It did not. The work was as hard if not harder, and my drive to keep up faded drastically. I ended the semester crying at the foot of the Dane Smith Hall staircase, having failed nearly every class, my identity ripped to shreds and thrown up as confetti. The next semester I was despondent, and so failed again.

At this point I moved back in with my dad, hoping things would smooth over. He expected this to be a semester break to recover from depression, but it ended up lasting indefinitely. My toxic nature eventually drove him to kick me out, and I continued my despondency at a friend’s house. A year pases, no better, but I recognized that my friend’s dad was an almost sadomasochistic character, seemingly finding every source of stress that he could in order to make his own life miserable, and realized he was “using” me as another stressor. I couldn’t take that kind of shame, but I also couldn’t face my dad, so I went back to college to serve as a kind of daycare. Surprisingly, the first semester went well because I had a core group of friends who were closer than any other I’d had. That eventually ended when my lynchpin told me that we shouldn’t be friends because he noticed that their style of humor (playful shit-talking) hurt my self-esteem. I spent the rest of that semester avoiding everyone from that group, even going so far as to enter from different doors and adjust my schedule.

The next semester I was near comatose. I went to the first week of class, and thereafter stopped attending. I only left my room for food and the bathroom. I stopped showering almost completely, and my room looked like a trash dump. I stored as much of my food as physically possible in my room to avoid food thieves. Reportedly the smell was so bad that a roommate yelled at me to “shut your goddamned door” because when I left it open during a bathroom trip, it stunk up the house (afterwards I opted to leave the window open 24/7 with the AC off and maintained a strict policy of opening the door as little as possible and keeping it shut at all other times. Mind you this was the tail end of Fall). By the end of the semester, I started panicking and tried to cancel as many courses as I could and hide as much of it from my dad as I could, but he naturally figured out almost immediately. The rest bleeds into the last 10 months, my recovery.

So essentially, I integrated the praise and expectations of my family as being core to my identity, which exploded when it turned out to be unstable. My child self interpreted love as conditioned on success (because children internalize everything). When I failed to meet success, I thought I was unlovable and worthless. After the destruction of my identity, I became phobic of having any measure of success, which implies expectation for that to continue, which implies the same drastic emotional singularity when I inevitably fail because I wasn’t who I thought I was. Before, I felt no need to get a job and resented my dad for failing to match my definition of respect of personhood (power struggle). Now getting a job, which my whole life has been roughly equated to success and personal value, was like watching people try to push me into a meat grinder with the promise of hamburgers at the end.

The shame, which gradually layered over the years and reached its peak just before my recovery started while living with my grandparents (my own doing, they were saints), compounded this by giving me a powerful reason to shut out the world and ignore as much as I could by escaping into mindless indulgences, which I had long found to be excruciating much of the time but kept pursuing because I lacked any other method of self-medication.

I dragged my heels in recovery too as far as the job search goes, in part because of all the previous reasons, but I think I found yet another; I had finally recognized my parents unconditional love. Essentially, they were treating me better than ever (given the circumstances) despite being as utterly devoid of humanity as I was because by this point they realized the depth of my illness. I was like a kid being spoonfed chicken noodle soup because I had a fever. Obviously I didn’t put the thermometer under hot water, but I further subconsciously recognized (perhaps falsely) that were I to stop being sick in their eyes by getting a job, I would again be subject to the same expectations as before and the continued emotional support would cease to be vital. Thus my monkey brain had every reason to stall and rationalize not taking the initiative until I called it out.

Having accepted all of this, I was left empty of any purpose. There was no reason to do anything, so why would I? Doing something without purpose even while knowing it was purposeless is the definition of Sisyphean, almost betraying the integrity of purpose and emphasizing the hollowness. I was almost annoyed that I had to keep doing this “existence” thing, though by this point I’d long stopped being suicidal. Yet I knew that wasn’t the final answer and I kept thinking. Eventually I finally realized that the point is that there is no point. You don’t listen to music to get to the end, or composers would write nothing but finales. You don’t dance in order to end up at a certain spot or dancing would be a race. So, you don’t live in order to accomplish anything in particular; its value is in the thing itself. Somehow that unlocked the last padlock in my mind, and afterwards I found myself, for the first time, genuinely excited about the idea of getting a job.

Of course nothing can be so easy as 4+ years of living hell. Having spent all that time utterly terrified, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. What to others was common sense had long been burned out of my brain as witches, so I was utterly lost as to how to go about things. To top it off, I hated where I lived and didn’t want to be locked in place by a job which would be almost as terrifying to quit just to find a new location. So we’re at today, where I realized this feeling was homesickness and that I’d be perfectly content with any old job provided it was in an area I liked. That is, I just need to move home. I need at least one win.

Up next, I think I’ll chronicle the major milestones of my recovery.

1) As a ride or die BV fan, I never thought I'd enjoy reading your YamBul posts & rants but OMG, I do! You make me wish their relationship lasted a bit longer. Why couldn't YamBul still happen after Trunks was born? Vegeta had goals & none involved Bulma or Trunks. YamBul could've given their relationship another try. Yamcha would've tried so hard to be a good father figure to Trunks bc he loves Bulma so much. He &Bulma could've been happy... that is before Vegeta decided to pop in from whevever

& make VegeBul happen. Vegeta notice how his own blood is starting to consider another man to be his father &that pisses him off bc pride. He starts getting move involved in Trunks life. He &Bulma start spending more time together bc of their son, Yamcha isn't too happy about it but Bulma reassures him theres nothing between her and Vegeta beside Trunks. And she was telling the truth.. until she wasn't. She &Vegeta kissed after an argument involving Trunks development. They do have genuinechemistry beside sexual attraction at this point. Bulma freaks bc she really does love Yamcha &she just cheated on him. (BTW, I never believed Yam ever cheated. Flirted? Yes. But nothing beyond that. My girl Bulma tho... I love her to death but gotta it 100%.) Eventually Yamcha finds out, he's pissed, they fight &lots of hurtful things are being said. Yamcha throws "vegeta never wanted you in the first place. he left you pregnant" in her face... Bulma is so hurt bc she knows it's true.somewhere in the compound, Vegeta is listening &getting pissed off at Yamcha for bring up the past but also he's feeling guilty bc he also knows Yamcha is only stating facts. Yamcha leaves. Trunks is crying bc he loves Yam. That's his Yammy who takes him to the park; showed him how to hold a bat; throw a ball; watches cartoons with; make pillow castles in the living room; goes camping. All three of them are hurt. Yamcha doesn't come back to CC for like, 6-7 months but he still video calls. Bulma to talk to Trunks, who continues to ask him to come "home". Vegeta is obviously not happy but can't really say anything about it. He did leave. He tries little by little to make up for his mistakes, I say little bc he doesn't take long breaks from training. Trunks tries to ignore him at first but he's still a little boy in need of a male figure so gradually, he accept him. Bulma is torn bc she's so happy about Vegeta taking interest in their son &wishes she can share that info with someTrunks', Yamcha's... but it is what it is. She cares &maybe even love Vegeta at this point. Vegeta can read her like a book. He knows. But he doesn't push. He wants her to come to him only when she's ready. But he gets angsty a few times &says he's tired of waiting &more arguments occurs. Bulma calls up Yamcha to really talk one day to talk. He's not ready. VegeBul doesn't happen for a few more months/a year. Trunks now has 2 men looking out for him. Bulma has no men. Finally, one day Yamchaappeared at the CC mansion. He's to take Trunks out for bonding time. Bulma answers the door. She tries to get him to talk to her about "the time shit went down" but Yamcha isn't ready &she can't do anything but respect his wishes. She owes him that much. During their outing, Yamcha is trying not to show his anger (& hurt) when Trunks goes on &on about his parents &the silly things they say to each other &how sometimes they're really happy together &sometimes not so much. He talk about his mombeing super sad when she's alone. Or when his dad watches his mom when he thinks no one is watching. Trunks, who still doesn't really know why Yamcha left home in the first place, confides in Yamcha about how he knows his parents love each other but for some reason, pretend they don't. He doesn't understand &it makes him sad. Yamcha feels for him. He may be angry at Bulma &Vegeta but he cares so deeply for this little boy that he's willing to put aside his anger &hurt for Trunks. &maybe bcafter spending those first few years raising Trunks with Bulma, when they'd get so shitface &all Bulma could talk about was how much of an asshole Vegeta is, how she can't stand him, Vegeta this Vegeta that, Yamcha realizes that he knew she held something for Saiyan. But he ignored it bc Vegeta wasn't around... HE was &he loved Bulma so much that he would take whatever part of her she's giving him, even if her heart belong to someone else. Oh, Yamcha. You're too good for this world.Yamcha finally talks to Bulma. It was hard to find a place they could talk bc everywhere around west city had reminders of YamBul. Everything comes out. They're both crying, from feeling angry, hurt, betrayed. Yamcha almost left, he couldn't stand to look at her. But he thinks about Trunks. This innocent child who's hurting bc of all three of them. He finally tells Bulma to do whatever makes her happy. He wants to take it back as soon as he said it bc it hurts to say it. He feels like he'sthe only one hurting atm. That while his heart hasn't completely healed yet, Bulma will soon be happily in the arms of another man. It takes a toll on his self-esteem. It's not fair. He low-key wants them both to stay hurt. Bulma tells him she's sorry. She never meant to hurt him. She loves him. She still wants him in Trunks' life. They talk &cry some more. It's a long progress. Yamcha still doesn't visit everyday but its okay. Trunks knows he'll always come back.okay i'm gonna stop there bc I forgot where this was going after having to wait hours again just to spam you with messages haha. The point is, I really like Yambul &I really wish the ending of their relationship was handled better. I love your idea of Bulma &Yamcha being best friends. Idc at all for chichi &I think people just want them to be BFFs to keep Chichi relevant. Bulma was always friends with dudes, &I love that. I like to think she had bad experiences with girls in junior/high

//I’m glad I could convert you! I love YamBul so much, obviously! You should write this fic you’re clearly developing in your head, though! I don’t know how much of a fan I am of it, cuz I prefer thinking that Trunks only came along after Bulma and Yamcha had been broken up for a little bit and I can’t really imagine Yamcha wanting to be the father to a child that’s not his, but it’s still fun to think about stuff like this, isn’t it?