ok real talk. should i ask for my old job back.

pros:

they would very likely hire me back

i would one again have a steady income, cheaper benefits, etc

cons:

this place literally caused me to develop a panic disorder

I Dont Have Much Pride As A Person Except In This Case And I'd Hate Asking

The Megxit Drama pt. 2

Since I already went through Meghan Markle’s chart in light of the Megxit Drama, I’m going to get into Prince Harry’s as well, considering that they’re both very much part of this demonstrative break with tradition and authority. However, for Harry, it’s not only a break with a work environment and in laws, it’s a break with his family, his up-bringing and his roots in an attempt to rid himself from outdated and harmful beliefs and thought-systems imbedded in fabric of the institution.  

As stated in my previous post, Harry and Meghan has been far from applauded in their break with the Royal Family, especially after the Oprah interview in March where they made public accusations of being treated unfairly in various ways. Meghan felt attacked by the media, left out in the cold and denied protection, deprived of support when she felt suicidal and even encountering racism. Aside from Harry’s motivation to help his wife, he admittedly also felt like Meghan’s situation gave him the opportunity to cut ties for good with a way of life that apparently had affected him more negatively and positively throughout his childhood and into his adulthood.

It’s certainly bold for Prince Harry to make complaints seeing as the public tends to not appreciate when wealthy and privileged people come out whining and wimping about their “difficult life”. However, the world is not as straight forward as rich equals happy and poor equals sad. Starvation and difficulty can be encountered on many levels of existence and just because one is born a prince doesn’t mean that one is incapable of experiencing legitimate lack. Life doesn’t spare any of us, which is why there should be compassion for all people – there’s no group or individual that is exclusively entitled to have their suffering be acknowledged. In a sense, Harry being able to look at his own struggles and prioritize his own and his wife’s well-being is a good thing. The message and spirit behind their action is good, at least if they’re honest and genuine (which people still doubt). Regardless, when the status quo is disrupted, there will be friction and unpleasantries.

(Chart of Prince Harry on astrotheme.com)

Although Harry’s chart reflects a predominantly earthy influence, which is speaking to the need for structure, permanence and routine, his planets in Sagittarius and Scorpio, gives him a free spirit and emotional endurance. Ever since Harry was little he was notably more impulsive and risk-taking than his brother William. Harry’s Mars (which marks his physical energy and drive) is suitably placed in the restless fire sign of Sagittarius, conjunct Uranus, which gives him a non-conformist and individualistic streak – especially in the context of friends and groups. Apparently, he was a wild teenager, drinking a lot, letting lose in “inappropriate ways”, being aggressively competitive on the polo court and so on. He seems to be quite the mellow type at first glance, his Capricorn Ascendant gives him an outward persona of seriousness and his Scorpio MC gives him a public image of being a bit “in the background” not wanting to attract too much attention or reveal too much. As I mentioned in the previous post, Harry acted passive in the interview, coming off as a troubled man not knowing what he’d gotten himself into – which is quite characteristic of the Scorpio MC and Saturn conjunct. Astrology is a very useful tool when analyzing a person, because sometimes, the public image is only a tiny speck of what really goes on. Harry’s chart shows that he comes off as more cold and guarded than he actually is, and quite understandably so considering growing up with the media on constant watch for slip-ups. Opposite the MC, in the 4th house he has his Taurus Moon, pointing out that his sensitivity and vulnerability only comes out in private with his own family in his own home. It’s a deeply loyal placement that is resistant to change and it might not have been that easy to uproot for him, if he hadn’t had his own family with Meghan to provide some safety and emotional containment.

It has become evident that Harry seems to be a troubled soul that is haunted by past traumas and experiences. His Sun (which marks his individuality, his will and sense of significance) is in the 8thhouse, suggesting that his identity is based on other people’s values. There would be a feeling of having one’s identity and significance being in the hands of other people – of having one’s individuality being owned and controlled. When being part of the Royal Family, one is subjected to rules and values imposed from the outside. Significance is granted based on the opinions and approval of others – it’s given if one succeeds in appealing to their psychology. The 8th house is the house of death, regeneration and traumatic events. The Sun usually signifies the father image and it’s obvious that Harry is very disappointed of his father. He pities him for being trapped, undoubtedly resents him for being a “bad” husband to his late mother and not caring enough to make a change to alleviate his children’s suffering (typical 8th house themes). Even though his father was present during his childhood and inevitably involved, at least physically, he probably wasn’t able to be there as an effective role model and supporter of Harry in the way he needed emotionally. The Sun in Virgo squares Mars and Neptune in Sagittarius, which describes Charles’s disapproval of his son’s recklessness and marked individualism.

Harry’s Sun in the 8th house also points to someone who derives a sense of self from his troubles and tribulations in life. Since the big break with his family he has gained a sense confidence and has undertaken a kind of hero-journey through opening up about his mental health struggles and destructive coping mechanisms used in the past to numb out his emotions directly or indirectly related to his mother’s death. Sun square Mars and Neptune describes someone who struggles to act on his own will as well as finding and pursuing his own ideals and dreams. He is probably struggling and has been struggling with undermined sense of importance his whole life, perhaps naturally given the circumstances of always being the unruly sidekick to his older brother growing up. His 3rd house of siblings is ruled by Aries, which points to competitiveness and head butting, not to mention a strong need to be the best. I’m sure this competitiveness isn’t and wasn’t all bad – it likely kept them alert and motivated to improve their skills and abilities. Another sibling signifier is Mercury, sitting in the 8th house. Harry has admitted that he views his brother to be as stuck as his father, that he is trapped within the system upheld by other people’s values. Charles and William presumably don’t like being reduced to “victims” by their family member in a public statement. It must feel like being stabbed in the back by someone who’s supposed to show loyalty, to only for the sake of the monarchy but for the sake of personal feelings involved. Harry stated in the Oprah interview that he has great respect for all members of his family, but it was done in a business type manner, like an employee respects his employer “in theory”. The true feelings of Harry are obviously more complicated and seep through the carefully portrayed civilized sentiments. His public image being that of Scorpio, it certainly appears to the public like he’s take pains in order to get revenge through strategic moves involving relating secrets to the public of the power dynamics going on behind closed doors. Saturn in Scorpio conjunct the MC is especially prone to build a career by getting to the bottom of shady events. He’s now putting an emphasis in his work on mental health, raising awareness and exploring his own psyche as a way of enlightening the world, which is his Saturn in Scorpio in the 9thacting out. He has collaborated with Oprah on the on the documentary “The Me You Can’t See”, in which several well-known celebrities open up about their own mental and emotional difficulties. As a 9th house Saturn and Pluto in Scorpio person that Harry is, it’s not surprising that he wants to share these things. The 9th house is about sharing and distributing knowledge and Scorpio is about that which is hidden and taboo. Pluto sits in this house as well, putting an even stronger emphasis on highlighting uncomfortable issues hidden underneath the surface.

Sun and Fun (S2, E12)

I can’t believe FOX has cancelled this absolute masterpiece of a show. I’m devastated. I’d like to think we’ll get picked up by another network for season 3 but I’m a pessimist and I don’t want to get my hopes up. I’ll be hanging around the fandom either way though. 

My time-stamped thoughts for this episode are below. As always I reference Malcolm’s mental health. A lot. So if that’s going to be a trigger for you, don’t keep reading.

SPOILERS AHEAD:

0:20 - Malcolm losing it in Martin’s cell? *chef’s kiss*. 1) excellent performance by Tom. 2) This is the Malcolm mental health content I subscribed for. This is Malcolm feeling overwhelmed, helpless, worthless, and frustrated all at the same time. This. Is. Wonderful. And. Realistic. This is what overwhelming anxiety (especially if you have an anxiety disorder) can feel like. It builds and builds until all of a sudden you’re consumed with all this nervous energy and frustration and it all turns to rage in an instant. But you’re not angry at other people. You don’t want to hurt anyone. That rage is just self hatred because you hate that you feel this broken and your stupid brain won’t function normally. 

0:33 - annnnd then when the excess nervous energy is spent but that feeling of self-hatred, despair, and fear still remains - you’re physically exhausted and 7/10. times you cry. Again, crying because of how stupid you feel for your little rage outburst, for how stupid you feel for feeling this terrible all the time. Malcolm is depicting a severe anxiety episode perfectly (in my experience) and THIS is why FOX is moronic for cancelling the show. The gorgeous and accurate depictions of mental health in Prodigal Son is unprecedented, truthful, and heartbreaking. It’s like nothing else on television. 

0:50 - This kind of hurts. Look at how cautiously Dani enters the room. Almost as if Malcolm is a wild animal she doesn’t want to scare. It makes sense given the state of the room she just entered and how completely openly and uncharacteristically vulnerable Malcolm is. I will say this though, despite how cautious she is, it’s obvious that she cares about Malcolm more than whatever happened before she walked into the room.

 1:03 - “So all eyes are on his head case son right?” This line is a direct quote from Malcolm’s anxiety disorder and depression. This is how you feel about yourself when in the middle of an anxiety episode when you’re also depressed. BUT OUR GIRL DANI!!! <3 This girl looks confused and concerned to hear Malcolm diss himself like that. The fact that she tries to comfort him when he’s in this state, makes her an absolutely A++ friend. 

1:11 - “No one cares about that.” “I CARE. I can’t live like this.” This scene resonates with me so so so much. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been 100% aware of how irrational my anxieties are and simultaneously 100% unable to do a damn thing about it because I’m too scared of who I’d be without the fear. Because I’ve defined myself by my anxieties for so long that it’s become the only definable element of my personality visible to me. I’m getting that vibe from Malcolm. I’m sure that’s exactly how he’s feeling right now.

1:30 - “That’s not what scares you. What scares you is living the rest of your life without your father in it.” Dani knows and I felt personally called out. THIS EMOTIONAL WHUMP IS GIVING ME LIFE. <3

1:39 - Look at our floppy haired, devastated boy. :( <3 I’m genuinely shook that he didn’t have a full mental breakdown this episode (but it’s coming....it’s inevitable at this point :) ). ALSO the look of absolute love and concern Dani is shooting towards Malcolm? Absolutely perfect. <3

1:51 - I genuinely find it so interesting that Malcolm keeps referring to “The Surgeon” as “Martin”. If you read my thoughts on 2x11 you know I think it’s because Malcolm has separated ‘Martin Whitly’ into three separate people in his head. “The Surgeon” = the serial killer who traumatized him and ruined his childhood. “Dad/Father” = the man who loved and cared for baby!Malcolm. But “Martin” = unknown. Malcolm doesn’t know who Martin is yet and it scares him. 

1:58 - “For once in your life slow down and acknowledge what this is doing to you.” !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love this line. So. So. SO. MUCH. <3 <3 This is the kind of comfort Malcolm needs. SOMEONE needs to tell him that he’s breaking, it’s not his fault, and he doesn’t deserve to suffer for Martin.

2:07 - annnnnnd Malcolm has gone full crazy-person string murder board. He’s right but he’s still acting like a manic crazy person. Like, a real one. Not his usual manic behaviour. This is straight up - this boy needs medication, a nap, therapy, and a doctor. Now.

2:34 - Ugh. This whole cop/Vivian scene made my skin crawl. So gross. So creepy. I hate Capshaw. So much. This woman is manipulative, evil, and so so creepy. The cop was also gross. But I 100% thought she was going to kill the cop because this felt like an opening scene to Criminal Minds. 

4:38 - “THEY WERE HAVING SEX.” hhahahahahahaha holy shit. This is both hilarious and really upsetting (not just because Martin/Capshaw is NASTY). Malcolm is manically, yelling about his theories in a room full of people who love him. He sounds crazy. He’s acting crazy and Dani, JT, and Gil are just staring at him with a mixture of disbelief, concern, and sympathy. <3 It’s heartbreaking. Malcolm is an inch away from a mental breakdown. I’m here for it. 

4:49 - “TMI bro.” <3

 5:05 - Ugh. This breaks my heart. The team doesn’t think Malcolm is crazy. They just know he’s at the end of his rope. The looks they’re exchanging aren’t based in anger, contempt, or a lack of trust. They’re based in concern and I LOVE IT. 

5:21 - LOOK AT OUR BABY. He’s breaking. He’s so close. :( Look at how desperate he is to find Martin. 

5:35 - “That’s exactly what it means.” “Gil, please. You know how much I need this.” THIS HURTS. Gil isn’t angry here - he’s frustrated and scared for Malcolm. And Malcolm? This boy is toeing the line of a full breakdown in front of 3 of his favourite people - that’s out of character for him. Despite the shaking hand and general mania - Malcolm usually refrains from raising his voice in front of Dani and JT. He tries to stay calm-ish so he doesn’t get labelled as ‘violent’ like his serial killer father. 

 5:39 - “StOp. I am scared.” Dani knew exactly how to diffuse the situation. Malcolm can be manipulative and dysfunctional but he never wants to scare people (at least, not unless they’re suspects or obstructing justice). 

5:46 - “I’m not ordering you this time. I’m begging you.” Papa!Gil’s seen Malcolm like this before. SO WHY IS NO ONE HUGGING MALCOLM?!?! The boy is clearly coming apart at the seams. 

5:48 - Malcolm’s reaction to Gil sending him home is gorgeous. He looks sad, betrayed, and resigned. It’s as though he’s convinced himself that the team doesn’t trust him or care about him anymore. He doesn’t walk out angry. He walks out sad and determined. Head held high but eyes full of grief. 

5:54 - I’d give anything to have heard the conversation between Dani, JT, and Gil after Malcolm left the room. ANYTHING.

6:02 - “He thinks I’m a liability.” No. Not exactly. He thinks Malcolm is in the throws of a mental health crisis and that he shouldn’t be responsible for catching his serial killer father. Again. 

6:15 - “I support Gil’s decision. That does not mean I want your father dead.” #coparenting but also, true. I honestly don’t think Jessica wants Martin dead. I think she wants Ainsley and Malcolm to be happy and free from Martin but not dead. She knows that Malcolm might never recover from Martin’s death with all of his unanswered questions and suppressed childhood trauma. She also knows that Ainsley would always resent being prevented from bonding with her father. I think Jessica still loves Martin - well, the man she thought she married. Jessica doesn’t care for Martin Whitly. But she loves the man he pretended to be and even though she knows he wasn’t real - she doesn’t want him to die. I think she wants him to disappear (maybe get transferred to a prison in a different state?) but she doesn’t want him dead. That would make her no better than the serial killer (in Jessica’s mind anyways).

6:25 - “You have become consumed by this Malcolm.” Check out the side eyed look Ainsley gives Malcolm. She’s jealous. Her brother is on the verge of a mental breakdown but she’s jealous of the attention he’s getting from Jessica. I get it - Jessica hasn’t been the best mom to Ainsley. BUT GIRL, gain some perspective. Don’t you care about your brother?!?! That should trump the jealousy for a few minutes at least. 

 6:35 - “I love you.” <3 <3 <3 I’m going to cry. This might be my favourite Jessica+Malcolm moment to date. So precious. 

6:43 - THIS. “I love you. Both of you. More than I hate him.” This is why Jessica doesn’t want Martin dead.....but she also doesn’t care if he lives. I know that sounds like a contradiction but it’s a real thing and if you’ve never felt that way about someone - I pray you never have to. 

7:06 - “Then she’s a victim.” .....I disagree. Capshaw had a (weird and manipulative) consensual relationship with Martin. She has as much of an agenda as Martin (although, Jessica didn’t know that here). Capshaw isn’t a victim. She’s not being compliant with Martin as a form of self-preservation or fear. She’s doing it because she’s a manipulative crazy person who is in love with a convicted serial killer. 

7:45 - I’ve never felt this unsettled while watching Prodigal Son. Capshaw showing her true colours is so so so disturbing. This woman is insane (with all the stigma). The dress. The martini (Jessica’s favourite drink?). The fact that she dressed Martin up in a suit. The music. The weirdly elegant wheelchair. The lovey way she’s talking. It all makes my skin crawl. 

8:33 - OMG. What’s wrong with me? Why do I feel bad for Martin Whitly?!?!?! 

9:55 - JESSICA AND MALCOLM doing a rich person ambush tag-team IS AMAZING. <3 

9:57- How sad is this? 23 years and Jessica still can’t walk into a room without people whispering and judging her behind her back. :( This woman keeps her head held high - despite the pain she must be in - she’s a superhero. Change my mind. 

10:30 - "Malcolm Whitly? You're.." I have this headcanon that the general public assumes Malcolm is dead. He changed his last name and fell off the grid. People treat Jessica like a social pariah so she wouldn't be able to tell them otherwise. And sure, Ainsley referred to Malcolm in the present tense during her Surgeon interview but how many people actually watched it actually paid attention to that little tidbit after Martin went full blown psychopath on camera? Plus, no one really cares about the Surgeon's son enough to look him up 23 years later. At least, no one who matters.

11:25 - Like mother, like son. You can't change my mind. They have the same manipulation style. It's justice based and determined. Ainsley and Martin's style? Vindictive and self-serving. 

11:30 - Oh look. ANOTHER CONTINUITY ERROR. WHO PROOFREADS THESE SCRIPTS?!? I CAN’T KEEP OVERLOOKING THESE. For God’s sake. Send copies of the script to fans who sign NDAs or something. At least we know what happened in previous episodes. 

12:33 - "Gross." I'm with Ainsley on this one.

12:45 - "My assistant." "Long suffering". hahahha omg. I love this for two reasons: 1) it's hilarious 2) it's true. Malcolm literally disposed of a body for Ainsley. He's her assistant and he's suffered for it.

13:05 - Yo. This dude is whack. Like this is some serious Stockholm's syndrome going on here. Vivian is his hero?!? .........I can't.

13:55 - Why do the gifts Vivian sends Zeiger look like human bones? Damn this is twisted. This is like some sort of twisted serial killer pseudo-trophy situation?

14:52 - "I don't think Vivian is the victim here. I think our father is." Yikes. This is not going to help Malcolm's mental stability. At all. He's been trying to fully accept that his father is a serial killing monster who was literally never capable of loving him for the past 23 years. BUT NOW our boy has taken the role of 'good son' (prodigal son is you will) and has returned to his 10 year old mentality "I love dad. Dad loves me." and 'dad' is in trouble. Malcolm is trying to save his serial killer father and the emotional and mental hoops he's jumping through are terrifying, complex, and hauntingly realistic. <3 It's gorgeous.

15:04 - "I'm not used to this type of confinement." I love this line because of how deeply it rings true. Martin isn't used to confinement. Sure, he's been chained to a wall for 23 years but he's been relatively happy about it. He's been able to manipulate Malcolm and the other inmates. He's been given TV time, phone time, consultations, books, music, free food, and a massive private cell (seriously that cell is as big as the bachelor's suite I rent for $900 CAD a month). The man has been living a life of luxury (given his crimes). His only 'punishment'? He's stuck inside his cell and he's not allowed to kill anymore. THIS is Martin truly suffering. I kind of feel bad for him (which I never thought I'd say).

15:20 - Damn. Michael Sheen is incredible. He's genuinely making me feel concerned and scared for Martin.

15:32 - Something tells me a man hurt Capshaw in some way throughout her life. This has to be deeper than the whole "I didn't fit into the 'boys club' of surgery". Her issues with men are aggressive and alarming. This woman is nuts. This woman is why I hesitate to call myself a feminist (I generally think we should drop the titles of feminist/misogynist/racist/homophobe... and just treat people with respect. I think the titles and groups just further divide people.)

15:50 - "You're finally free." Yep. Capshaw is a nutcase. She actually believes that she's committed a perfect crime. 

16:09 - This place has virtually no furniture but I’m expected to believe someone is paying the phone bill?!?! Nah. 

17:08 - That. Smile. This woman is a devil. Like, I think I hate her as much as I hate Umbridge. But unlike Umbridge, Capshaw is downright terrifying. 

17:12 - Was anyone else kind of surprised that Martin called Jessica? I mean, I guess she was a safer choice than the cops but still...

17:20 - As creepy and this whole ‘Martin is a victim’ thing is - it’s kind of nice? Like - I just keep thinking “How does it feel Martin?!?! This is how you made your victims feel. Do you like it?” and then I realize I’m a terrible person. 

17:55 - Ainsley’s in on this. I swear, she’s somehow involved with either Capshaw or Martin. 

18:18 - Oh look. Martin is shackled to the bed. Just like Malcolm shackles himself to bed so he can sleep every night. .....I keep oscillating between being vindictive toward Martin and feeling bad for him. That’s what makes this show incredible. The ‘villain’ is human and 3 dimensional. 

18:44 - Oh God. The psychopath is jealous. This woman is UNSTABLE. How has no one locked her up yet?!?

19:43 - She’s crying. She’s actually crying. Even the rewatch of this scene is painful. I just feel so uncomfortable (which was probably the intent) and I hate both characters. They’re both actively trying to manipulate each other and it’s so creepy. Damn. 

20:15 - Holy. Shit. This woman is by far the scariest villain Prodigal Son has given us. 

21:17 - ..............I have nothing to say. My brain has short circuited. I can’t get past how horrifying this scene is. She’s a maniac.

21:57 - No one will make eye contact with Malcolm. :( They all think he’s losing it but they’re not scared of him. They’re scared for him. 

22:10 - “A trusted member of my team has a theory I run it down.” THANK YOU GIL. SUBTLY TELL MALCOLM THAT YOU TRUST HIM. That’s what he needed to hear. He was doubting that anyone cared. :( 

22:45 - “Do you HeAr yourself?!?” Ouch. Gil’s right - Malcolm sounds nuts. Unfortunately, Malcolm’s also right (more or less). Look at how sad Malcolm is - he honestly looks like he’s on the verge of a panic attack. :( Malcolm thinks Gil doesn’t trust him anymore. Malcolm thinks Gil thinks he’s crazy. It’s heartbreaking. SOMEONE HUG THIS LITTLE CINNAMON ROLL.

22:54 - JT, buddy. Not the time. You’re making this worse. :( Malcolm is two breaths away from crying. 

23:40 - “Dani, you up for this? Cause he sure isn’t.” Gil is losing it. Look at him. Gil is watching the boy he considers as his son unravel and Gil can’t do anything about it. 

23:45 - “Either way, he’s going there. I’ll keep an eye on him.” I love Dani for this. Brightwell or not - the fact that she’s willing to chase smoke in an attempt to keep Malcolm from having a full mental breakdown makes her a hero. 

23:48 - JT, hug Gil! He needs a hug! 

24:16 - Martin is screaming while shackled to a bed.....where have I seen this before? 

25:39 - “I did this for you because you needed it.”....”Dani, I respect you.” Excuse me while I go sob in the corner. Malcolm just uttered the words “I respect you.” and my heart exploded. 

26:11 - “You don’t care. None of you care if my father lives or dies.” No, Malcolm, you’re wrong. They care. They all care so so much. Not about the life of the Martin Whitly though. They care about how Martin Whitly will continue to torment you if he’s caught alive. They care about how badly you’ll grieve if he ends up dying. They care about how this will affect YOU. because they love you. 

26:22 - “You would be free.” SAY IT LOUDER DANI! He’d be in enormous pain for a while, but Malcolm would heal. 

26:56 - “Let him go, Malcolm.” <3 <3 Malcolm is listening to Dani. He’s opening up about his fears. This is good (for Malcolm’s mental health). I am happy. 

27:04 - WOW BABY! That kiss was......passionate? I mean, we all knew they were going to kiss (thanks previews) but I honestly didn’t expect a kiss this long or passionate? They’ve both been clearly denying their feelings for each other for a while though so I guess it makes sense?

27:20 - We all know Dani was going to talk about how they could make a relationship work for them and/or how she loves Malcolm but thinks he should focus on his mental health before they start dating. BUT MALCOLM? That boy thinks he just ruined his friendship with Dani and I’m heartbroken. Look at his sad little face. :( 

28:31 - sooooo when exactly did Malcolm’s phone call drop? I feel like Ainsley had more access to the conversation that just what she shares with Dani in a couple of minutes.

29:08 - Look at this sad, scared little boy. He genuinely thinks that saving Martin will earn Martin’s love. I’m heartbroken. 

29:22 - THIS. Malcolm is so desperate for Martin’s love that he essentially consented to being kidnapped, tortured, and potentially murdered. :( This is bad. 

30:06 - Malcolm took unknown drugs from a crazy person. UGH. The stress of loving this unstable man-child is going to kill me. I’m so worried for him. ALSO WHO THE HELL CHEWS PILLS?!?! That’s disgusting. 

30:24 - Dani thinks Malcolm is being a typical guy - terrified of relationships/talking about his feelings. She’s hurt. The Brightwell ship has encountered another storm. 

30:35 - Anyone else get major flashbacks to 1x11 when Gil shows up to the townhouse to tell Jessica that Malcolm’s been kidnapped? You know, when he walks past all the reporters?!

30:50 - Ugh. :( Poor Jessica. That call from Capshaw gave her quite the emotional dilemma. As she said earlier, she loves her children more than she hates Martin. Soooo does she tell someone about the call, save Martin, and let Martin continue to torment her children? Or does she let Capshaw kill Martin, compromise her morals, let her children grieve for a while - but ultimately heal? It’s an impossible choice. 

31:13 - “I know why you’re anxious Jess.” UGH. Get yourself a man you looks at you the way Gil look at Jessica. So much love. So much concern. If Gil wasn’t fictional and I wasn’t asexual (and 24) I would marry that man. 

31:23 - “He has become convinced that his father is a victim in all of this.” Gil is so upset. He’s angry - at Martin for having this much power over Malcolm so many years later. He’s angry that Malcolm is still suffering so much because of his father. He’s upset because Martin is still hurting the people Gil loves 23 years after he was initially arrested. 

31:33 - “There’s no good outcome here Jess.” Thank you. Gil is a man with awareness into Malcolm’s psyche. He knows this is going to hurt Malcolm no matter what happens. He’s scared and he’s bracing himself for impact. I love him. I want more people in the world who love people this deeply. 

31:50 - “It’s okay to hope for that you know.” THANK YOU GIL. THANK YOU. Someone needed to tell Jessica that she’s not a monster for wanting the reason her children continue to suffer to disappear (even if tha means he dies). It’s not a malicious, evil thought toward Martin. It’s a hope for her children’s wellbeing. 

32:04 - “And in my weaker moments, I want him dead too.” <3 I’m imagining Gil praying that Martin is killed by an inmate after he comforts a teenage Malcolm from a nightmare. I’m imagining Gil praying Riker’s finally kills Martin as he watched Malcolm spiral into Martin’s grasp again last year. I’m imagining Gil crying himself to sleep because he’s so damn tired of watching Jessica and Malcolm suffer because of Martin. I love him for it. <3

32:15 - “Maybe things could be different.” .....I’m sorry. Does this mean Gillica is off again?! The flirting and dancing from 2x9 meant nothing?!? It was a hoax?!? I’m furious. 

32:35 - “It’s the actions that matter.” Damn. Gil is too good for the nonsense that is the Whitly family. Doesn’t he know that life isn’t always that simple?

32:46 - Annnnnd now Jessica will convince herself that she’s a bad person because she didn’t tell anyone about Capshaw’s call. She will also convince herself that she’s not good enought for Gil. AND I will cry myself to sleep.

32:55 - That hug <3 Sooooo Gillica is still on? I’m hella confused. 

33:05 - There it is. Dani is still upset with Malcolm. The Brightwell ship is taking in water my dudes. 

33:52 - Wow. He looks pretty in that makeshift hospital bed. Sleeves rolled up. Shirt half unbuttoned. Glazed, disoriented look about him as he wakes from a drugged sleep. <3 I’m in heaven.

34:30 - This is why Malcolm can never let Martin go. There are moments when Martin absolutely convinces Malcolm that he loves him. 

34:50 - “Because he also happens to be my father.” THIS. IS. THE. MOST. REALISTIC. PORTRAYAL. OF. ABUSIVE. DADDY. ISSUES. Take from someone who lived through an abusive Dad. You hate him. You know he’s messed up. You don’t like or respect him. But a part of you will always love him. Even though you hate that part of yourself. 

35:12 - “I want all of you.” .....I’m terrified. This woman is crazy. Crazier than the Surgeon. Is that possible?

36:05 - “You want him to love you. But he can’t.” Have you said that to yourself Malcolm? You know that logically but you don’t feel that in your heart. ....and the writers don’t know that because we’ve seen that Martin loves Malcolm? Sort of? Unless the writers are playing some sort of weird long con on us. 

36:50 - This is whump content I signed up for. This crazy bitch just killed Malcolm. We saw the terror in his eyes. BUT HE LIVES. So. I’m. Here. For. It.

36:58 - Martin’s devotion to Malcolm is so so interesting to me. Martin is a psychopath - he’s not supposed to be capable of love. But he clearly loves Malcolm. How? Why? It makes no sense but I love it?

37:47 - Malcolm’s little wheeze when Vivian starts mitigating the embolism. <3 So cute. 

37:53 - “I can do without the mansplaining.” I’m getting PTSD. There are too many real women who are this crazy about feminism and mansplaining (this is coming from a woman). Martin isn’t trying to ‘mansplain’ he’s scared and he’s trying to save his son. That’s not mansplaining. He’s not explaining something because he thinks Vivian doesn’t know it. He’s explaining something in a desperate attempt to remind her of the severity of the situation. 

38:16 - HOW THE HELL did Ainsley and Dani know where Martin, Capshaw, and Malcolm were? Either 1) Ainsley is somehow working with Capshaw, or 2) they were able to trace Malcolm’s cell (assuming Capshaw didn’t trash it), or 3) Ainsley knew her mom was lying about that phone call and they had it traced?, or 4) this is a convenient plot thing.

38:34 - This bitch is devious and I hate her. 

39:30 - Martin Whitly is the hero of the episode. What alternate reality are we living in?

41:15 - Malcolm struggling for breath. <3 The whumpers are being FED.

41:17 - “Run.” This is 23 years of guilt for turning his own father into the police surfacing. 

41:31 - “Where’s my family?” I honestly don’t know how I feel about this line. It bothers me but I can’t figure out why.

41:43 - This ending sequence is a work of ART. Malcolm is in physical and emotional pain. Dani (without backup) trying to save Malcolm from Martin. The epic music. The shot of Dani seeing the blood-filled syringe next to the makeshift hospital bed+restraints. Martin Whitly. Driving. A. Boat. And. Laughing - completely elated - with Malcolm passed out (and looking adorable) in the aft seating. The fact that the ONLY house you can see on the shoreline is the house the just escaped from. 

THIS EPISODE WAS EXCITING, STRESSFUL, AND WONDERFUL. I’m excited for the SEASON finale and I pray we get a season 3 from a network other than FOX.

The story so far

One month after graduating high school in 2015 I was finally able to move away from my family. I was 18 and moved to California for college. Fortunately one of the scholarships I earned was accompanied by a summer program that started in the middle of the summer before fall semester. Shortly after settling in a safe, stable environment for the first time in my life I started to get better. A lot better at first. Then life happened, as it does, and 18 years of repressed trauma and abuse broke me. My nervous breakdown ruined my fall semester, I couldn't go to classes or take exams or function as a student anymore. Until this point, being an exceptional student was all I had and basically how I survived. My safe and stable environment now was dependant on maintaining a certain GPA, among other requirements I could no longer meet. I failed one of my main courses because I had a 0 on 2 exams, including the final. When I went home I was put on antipsychotics. Returning to campus for the 2016 spring semester, I attempted to seek more therapy. I wasn't successful in finding a good therapist (for me, therapy is a personal thing. Just because someone isn't a good therapist for me doesn't necessarily mean they are a bad therapist). I did continue to see my 2 psychiatrists (emergency and regular) often as they attempted to adjust my medication to find something that work. My agoraphobia worsened, I stopped sleeping, I could barely eat, I was manic one moment and dissociative the next, SH and suicidal ideation worsened. I was a burden to my friends and loved ones. I made it through this because I had a beautiful support system that I will forever be grateful for, but I ended up taking a leave of absence academically for my second semester, earning no credits and putting my scholarships at further jeopardy. I was allowed to stay on campus because it was clear I was dangerously unstable with no safe environment to return to and because I had incredible advocates looking out for me. I had realized that I wasn't going to get better in time to salvage my academic career and my life, and was mostly clueless as to how I would survive. I had had an internship in my field since I started college, but I earned basically no money. STEM internships aren't really made to be livable for undergrads, so I had mostly been working for experience in a field I would no longer be able to progress in. Bummer. My physical health had taken a huge dive for all of 2016. I basically always knew I was chronically ill, but I had been abused and gaslit my entire life to believe and act like I was fine, I was just a weak baby, I didn't know what real pain or suffering was, seizures were to be ignored, no I didn't have migraines or pinched nerves (um hello SCOLIOSIS), etc etc. And 2016 was the year my body finally started to break, so I knew "regular" jobs weren't going to be a viable option for me, at least not for long.

And thus I became a survival SW. I stayed in college for a final semester, because I didn't want to miss my friends, I loved my campus and didn't know where else to live, I still needed a lot of campus resources. I also kept my internship as long as I could, because I knew I would miss it for the rest of my life. I didn't really go to classes, again, because as much as a desperately wanted to and as much as my advisors moved heaven and earth to try to make it work for me, I couldn't handle it. I was finally able to find 2 great therapists who I started seeing regularly who actually knew how to diagnose and treat me, one at school and one outside. This is also when I met Daddy (Jace) online. After talking for what is probably a stupidly short time, we fell in love and started dating. This is honestly my first real relationship and time actually catching genuine feelings for someone, something that I hadn't thought I was capable of. Despite being happier than I had ever been in so many ways, my mental and physical health was still steadily declining. My migraines and pain were getting worse, I hadn't been able to eat normally in months and relied entirely on medication to eat or sleep at all. Many people recommended mmj at this point in my life, but I was afraid of how it would interact with my other meds. I only smoked occasionally at parties at this point (because no way was I spending my super duper limited money on weed). I wonder if medicating with something that actually worked well for me, like weed, would have allowed me to finish college. Oh well I guess. Because of my inability to attend classes, I had to take another leave for the fall semester 2016. I worked at a strip club briefly, but my health couldn't handle it for long.

I didn't want to go home for the first winter break in 2015, but campus closed and I had nowhere else to go. It was turbulent. When summer 2016 came, I still didn't go home despite having no place to stay. Until a month or so later, it was revealed to me a relative had terminal cancer. I had to go home again. It was worse than turbulent. When winter 2016 came, my relative was in much worse condition. They only had a few months left, and this was probably my last chance to say goodbye. This visit was by far the most traumatic, and more because of my parents than watching a loved one die. At least Jace was able to come meet me for the first time in person. He also got to meet my relative before they passed 🖤

Freshly fucked up by family, I retuned to California at the beginning of 2017. I was mostly taking a break from SW because of my health and was working vanilla jobs as I could (so not much). I had a pretty decent job that I was really good at and had been promoted, but then my relative passed. I started losing consciousness again ( I had many seizures and fainting spells in my childhood and during high school) and had to quit my job. the funeral was in spring 2017, I flew to Jersey to be with Daddy for a few days and then he drove me several states over for the memorial. That was the last time I saw my family. I wanted to transition to online/content creating, but I had no tech knowledge or equipment (even my phone was a potato). In high school I wasn't allowed to have a smartphone, most social media other than what was heavily monitored (and still had 0 experience with platforms sw is popular on besides Tumblr I guess), I didn't really know much about cameras. Way too sheltered and broken to feel like I could start anything. I was now seeing my outside, or I guess regular and only, therapist twice a week and doing treatments that while working for me were insanely (literally) hard. I had been able to get an apartment with roommates at a super discount in return for taking care of their crazy dog, which was a win win for me (he was a good boi just crazy from a bad past and had the worst separation anxiety). The agreement was that I would live with them until the lease was up in September, and then we would reevaluate the situation. Then they both got promoted at their mega corporation jobs. And after their wedding found a really gorgeous apartment in a much fancier part of the city, and paid to break our lease early in June leaving me homeless. I had been fired from my last 2 jobs (probably for being disabled because California is at will employment but who knows I might have been fired from the nanny job because the husband wanted to fuck me). I had no money or anywhere to go. All of my friends were almost as broke as me, so while I had offers to couchsurf at a few of their places they had other roommates who would have been pissed and in a few months they would be going back to school anyways. Daddy and I had been trying to save up to move in together for months, but he was going to move to California. We didn't have any money for that, so instead he asked me to move in with him in New Jersey. Leaving meant I lost my health insurance and my therapist. It was supposed to be much more temporary and we were supposed to move back to California much sooner than we were able to. I try not to be mad at those roommates because being angry doesn't change anything, but it really sucked.

Moving in with Daddy meant we could start our blog! And I was super happy at first, the happiest I could ever remember. But the years had been too hard and my health started to get worse than ever before. Without treatment and so traumatized, my brain and body were constantly at war. I would wake with splitting migraines, throwing up, my chronic pain became completely unmanageable. I started to need weed all the time because it was the only thing that stopped my cyclical vomiting episodes and kept me out of the hospital. My antipsychotics and other meds had been high-key fucking me up (probably shouldn't have been on them in the first place, thank you doctor who also ignored my seizures even when I had one in front of you) and were almost impossible to come off of because the withdrawals. (Seriously, kicking xanax was easier for me than my antipsychotics.) I'm not anti medication or anything, I just know the ones I was on were not good for me anymore. I'd actually like to be on something again, I just need a doctor who actually understands PTSD and DID.

My health continued to be shit for most of 2018, with several ER visits for severe dehydration from vomiting for days on end. We started to make videos and do snapchat and online sessions to be able to make ends meet. Despite being in the worst situation and thus everything being a trizillion times harder, we really loved (and still love 😇) doing SW and creating content. Our fans and clients have been there in some of our darkest moments, just being lovely or pulling through for us when we needed it most. During 2018 and 2019 I became actively suicidal for the first time since I was 13. I struggled with self harm again. I have gotten worse than I ever thought possible. But I wouldn't have made it at all if it wasn't for SW, this community and our supporters.

At the beginning of 2020 we were finally able to move back to California. Obviously, the pandemic severely disrupted many of our plans, especially regarding my recovery. Despite things being delayed or shifted, we are in a much better place currently. I have what I need to get better and I can build a support system again. I will get better.

Talking about things is hard for me. Being open and honest is hard for me. For 18 years I was trained and abused to not be sad or show negative feelings, or talk about upsetting things, and it has been killing me slowly my entire life. I genuinely don't want pity or to make others feel bad, but I do want to give you the chance to get to know me. I don't always talk about things so much. But I'm trying to get better at it.

Do you think that if Shredder!Raph will occur in rottmnt, the aftermath might result in Raph inheriting some of Shredder’s rage even after saved? Maybe that is how the crew is going to implement Raph’s trademark temper throughout previous generations and maybe even make him have to step down due to it, making Leo the new leader?

Short answer: “Inheriting the rage of a centuries-old demon" is a dope-ass idea, so if you’re a writer I would definitely encourage you to use that in your own stuff. But I think that if Raph’s temper worsens throughout the show, it should be because of his own character development and not a magical effect. However, a Shredder!Raph scenario could contribute to said worsening temper by inflicting emotional/psychological damage instead. :)

Long answer ahoy!

Looking at “Many Unhappy Returns” from the Shredder’s perspective makes it very clear why he does what he does. Like, he’s been dead for five hundred years, and then something went wrong with his resurrection. He’s waking up with no idea where he is or what’s going on and oh shit those guys are pointing weapons at him, that’s a threat!

Note that he doesn’t even bolt for them immediately, he does a warning stomp and screech (back off!) before starting to approach.

Those other guys are yelling, that’s also a threat,

and they’re closer so he’s gonna attack them first, actually. (None of the Foot wind up even comically injured, suggesting that flailing them around was an intimidation tactic rather than genuine Murderous Intent.)

And then the first group attacks, so of course he’s going to retaliate.

And then suddenly he’s somewhere else, with other threats (the animatronics), and then the first group that attacked him is back, so he’s gonna fight them again.

And these jerks just keep following him? He’s not going to ignore that. And WOW that’s a lot of bright lights and loud noises, which are also threats, what the fuck is going on?!

And then this tiny human girl chucks a giant metal box at him, holy SHIT?! Sure, the Shredder is a dangerous antagonist, but at this point I wouldn’t call him a “bad guy”, he’s literally just responding to what’s happening to him.

In summary, the Shredder was stressed tf out because he didn’t know where he was or what was happening, he retaliated against perceived threats, and quite possibly wouldn’t have attacked the turtles in the first place if they hadn’t just rushed in without understanding the situation.

Gosh, doesn’t that sound familiar?

So yeah, I’m waiting for Rise to give us that good good Shredder!Raph content.

As for the possibility of Leo taking over afterwards... no, but also yes, sort of? On the one hand, we know that Leo does have leadership capabilities, and it would be a waste for the narrative to not explore that. On the other hand, Rise has broken from the status quo in many ways, and it would also be a waste for the show to do a complete 180 and return to Leo Being The Leader™.

Consider how the “leader” role has influenced Leo in past iterations: his perfectionism wears on him and his brothers, any failure tanks his self-esteem, he feels isolated from the rest due to taking on such a large share of responsibility, being an authority figure grinds everyone’s gears, etc. It’s just bad for his mental health.

No doubt all this responsibility will also wear on Rise!Raph as the story progresses and the stakes get higher. It will be bad for him as well. But if Raph steps down, Leo will once again suffer from the weight of this role. So if neither option is quite correct, if neither brother can shoulder the burden of leadership alone, then the solution is just... for neither of them to shoulder the burden of leadership alone. Sure, Raph will probably remain leader in title and in spirit, but Leo taking on a sort of “deputy” role makes sense from a strategic standpoint, and would be good for his character development.

Here’s how I think it could go down:

The Shredder!Raph scenario will be different from the Shredder!Draxum scenario. The Shredder was starved for mystic energy the first time around, so he immediately chewed Draxum up and spit him out. But Raph could be compared more to a battery than a meal; it will take a while for the Shredder to drain him. And at this point the Shredder could be back in “evil samurai” mode, and thus will understand the value of holding Raph hostage.

Y’all who have followed my blog for a bit know about my “Raph is a system” theory; that when he was little, he got separated from his family and pursued by some cryptid hunter. This trauma formed Savage Raph, who is able to handle “being lost/alone/threatened” when Host Raph cannot. “Pizza Puffs” didn’t give us a lot of info about who I’m calling “Red Raph”, but he made his presence known when Host Raph was sort of... "emotionally alone”? In that his brothers were dying a little bit and too stoned to care.

So if Raph is trapped inside a living cage, scared and helpless and hurt and exhausted, his family unable to help him... he’s not going to be able to handle it.

Or, rather, Host Raph isn’t going to be able to handle it.

These two can, though.

I’m imagining a scene in the mindscape where the Shredder says something like “Your pathetic family cannot bear to strike you down, and so there is nothing that can stand in m- wait, why are there three of you OW FUCK-” Red and Savage will mentally kick his ass long enough for the other turtles to rip off a chunk of the armor so Leo can portal it into another dimension or something. Shredder gets K.O.’d since he’s not whole anymore, and the battle is won.

Since the armor didn’t drain Raph as severely as it did Draxum, he won’t become as weak as Draxum did. However, it will still take him some time to recover. Raph trusts Leo in serious moments as of “Many Unhappy Returns”, and he already took charge when Raph wasn’t available back in “Man vs. Sewer”. So Raph will be like, “Hey Leo, can you handle the Mad Dogs for a bit? Just long enough for me to get back on my feet.” And Leo will be like, “Sure bro, I’ve got this.”

He does not, in fact, “got this”. Leo’s ego has caused trouble before (”Shell in a Cell”, “Minotaur Maze”), and being in charge will no doubt go to his head. This has the potential for both comedy and seriousness, leading to wacky mishaps and genuine danger. Being the leader is hard work and it’s not always fun, but someone has to do it and Leo will have to put the others before himself for it to get done. Once Leo realizes this, he could bond with Raph by asking for his advice on leadership. Sometimes Leo will follow the advice and sometimes he won’t, sometimes that will work out and sometimes it won’t, laying the foundation for the idea that there are situations where it will be better for one or the other to lead, rather than having one lead all the time. But that will only happen for a few episodes, because Raph will heal quickly and he’ll be the leader again and everything will be fine!

Everything will not, in fact, be fine. Raph is the strongest in the family, the tank, the one who can take a hit so the smaller ones don’t have to... the idea of being hurt, of being weak, scares him because his family is also in danger if he’s unwell. So I don’t think he’ll acknowledge to anyone, not even himself, that getting possessed hurt him emotionally as well as physically. And when a wound isn’t acknowledged, it doesn’t get tended to, and when a wound isn’t tended to, it gets worse.

That he’s a system will add another layer of complexity to this. The Shredder!Raph incident would make all the alters aware of each other via mindscape shenanigans, but it would also leave them with the fear of not being in control, so I think they’ll come in conflict with each other for a bit. They’ll argue with themselves, switch, and lose time more often, enough that it impedes their ability to function and the other characters start to notice something is wrong.

Host Raph will convince himself that Everything Is Fine and try to get things “back to normal”, which probably means he’s just straight-up not going to acknowledge that he's a system. He’ll rationalize that he’s always “gotten weird” from time to time, so it’s nothing to think too hard about... right?

Savage Raph will be on high alert because they just survived a near-death (a near soul-destroying) experience. He’ll probably take the front and go overboard fighting some villains that Host Raph could have ordinarily fought on his own. It might also take a while to convince Savage Raph that these “sewer monsters” who keep following him around really don’t mean him any harm.

Red Raph will get snappy (pardon the pun) about the more social aspect of “not being in control”; that Host Raph asked Leo to be in charge and then Leo started being an egotistical dumbass. And when Leo does make the right decisions, Donnie and Mikey might side with him over Raph, and that will also grind his gears.

Mix all that together and you have a recipe for a capital b Breakdown.

So yeah, I can definitely see how the Shredder!Raph incident and its aftermath would worsen all three of their tempers, trauma will fuck up your emotions real bad. Perhaps Host Raph loses faith in himself and tries to step down and get Leo to replace him as leader... only for Leo to be like “Bro I cannot do this full time I will one hundred percent have my own Breakdown if that happens.”

The life lessons here are that Leo learns to offer support by sometimes taking the leader role; not to benefit his own ego, but because he wants to help Raph. And Raph learns to accept support by letting Leo be in charge sometimes; not because he’s weak or incapable, but because he can’t always be a Staunch Immovable Rock and he needs to let himself rest by trusting Leo.

And then the Raphs can work on communicating, cooperating, letting their allies know about them, digging into their trauma, etc. now that they have some breathing room.

(Do you think the Hidden City has therapists? Steven Universe and Mao Mao both have therapists can we BLEASE get one for Raph.)

Hi! I'm kinda freaking out over how I'm going to manage everything when I start college. I'm kinda on the fence about whether or not I should inform my professors right off the bat about my mental health issues/ if that would even be helpful? I struggle a lot with depression and anxiety so my grades kinda weren't the best, I got lucky that I test really well so my SAT scores were high. I hope I'm not over stepping anything, but sense you're a professor yourself I thought it wouldn't hurt to try.

Phew! First, take a big deep breath, because I totally agree that starting college can be super overwhelming, but I know you can do it and I’m cheering for you!

First I just want to say that, while I can give my own answer to this question, I can’t guarantee every professor you meet will view this situation the exact same way as I will--professors are people and run the gamut from super supportive and kind to, unfortunately(!!), very unkind towards students. I recommend waiting until after your first or second class with each professor before speaking with them about personal topics--give yourself a day or two to get a feel for them and how they might respond, and hopefully you’ll be able to quickly spot the ones who won’t be supportive and that’s when you change classes ASAP and I’m only partly kidding.

Now, on to the actual answer to this question:

Yes, I definitely think you should inform your professors about your concerns and how your mental health might affect your ability in each class; however, there are actually a couple steps I’d take first to both protect yourself and increase your chances of success at college.

1) Before speaking to your professors, get in contact with your college’s Disabilities, Accessibility, or Counseling Office. The name of this office will vary by college, but most will use one of those first two words in their name, or will be named Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS). Even if you contact the wrong office, they can always transfer you. Most colleges offer counseling to their students for free, which can be an incredibly helpful resource when you reach midterm exams and really get hit with that feeling of being in over your head! You want to have this office on speed dial for those days where you get out of class and just want to cry because the work is piling up. Those days happen to everyone, unfortunately, and knowing in advance where on campus you can go to get help is vital.

However, even more important than the direct counseling is the powerful tool in this office’s arsenal called “Accommodations.” By law, to protect students from unreasonable demands from professors, students with documented physical or mental health disabilities are eligible for special accommodations to make completing their classes more manageable. These accommodations vary by student, but they often include things like extra time to complete quizzes and exams, permission to deliver oral presentations in private instead of in front of a class, access to a private, quiet room to complete work, or a dedicated note-taker to assist you with note-taking in class.

When a student qualifies for accommodations, each one of the student’s professors receives a contract they have to sign, and the professors will be legally bound to honor the accommodations listed on the contract. You can probably see how it would be useful to have this contract in advance when you go to talk to a professor about your mental health concerns--that way, even if you encounter a professor who isn’t super supportive, they will be legally obligated to make the class easier for you to manage. Going through the disabilities office protects you and ensures you getting access to all the great resources your university has for people with mental health challenges!

2) Next, make sure you know about all the tutoring and homework support your university offers. Many schools have a wide range of services designed specifically to help students get through difficult classes; if you’re able to complete your school work easily and keep your grades up, college will be much less stressful and anxiety-inducing. Most colleges offer math, science, and writing labs where you can meet with dedicated peer tutors to review your work and go over hard concepts; many schools also have research librarians who can help you find sources for essays or reports, career services offices to help connect you with opportunities like internships or volunteering that will really build out your resume, private study rooms you can rent to get work done, technology like laptops and cameras you can rent for assignments, and even offices that arrange events specifically to help keep students feeling mentally fit--one office at my old campus used to bring puppies for students to play with during finals week!

Before speaking to your professors, take the time to familiarize yourself with the resources your school offers, and even though it might be scary at first, ease yourself into the idea of using these services. You will have an infinitely, INFINITELY easier time in college if you really take advantage of every single tool the school is offering you--student tuition goes to cover these services, so you should definitely use them. You can rid yourself of a lot of the anxiety related to homework and understanding class concepts by regularly visiting the free campus tutors.

3) Finally, speak to your professors--but come with questions already planned! Most--again, unfortunately I can’t speak for all professors, but--most professors will be more than willing to work with you and will be understanding of your mental health concerns if you alert them in advance. When students disappear for half the semester with no warning and then come back in the last week of class begging for make-up work because they were too depressed to come to class, that oftentimes comes across as making excuses, rather than being genuine. But if you let your professors know at the beginning of the semester that you’re new to college and concerned about your ability to succeed, your professors should be willing to accommodate your needs and help you throughout the semester.

The best way to secure a professor’s cooperation is to show that you’re dedicated to doing your best and that you want to fully understand their class expectations. In turn, the best way to show this dedication to ask some specific questions and try to formulate a plan with your professor.

After you explain your mental health concerns, some questions you might want to consider asking would be:

1) If my anxiety affects my ability to speak up in class, will I lose points? Are there ways I can contribute in class without being in the spotlight?

2) If my depression begins to affect my attendance, will there be chances to make up for absences? What are your policies for attendance in our class? If I am absent, should I come to you to ask what I missed, or should I ask another student in class?

3) If I’m struggling with assignments for our class, can I come to you for help with them? I noticed your office hours (on the syllabus, your office door, etc.) but I realized that none of your office hours fit my schedule. Are you available for appointments outside of your regular office hours? 

4) I’ve already looked into the tutoring services at our school, but are there any other resources you’d recommend like useful websites, other books, or online tutoring that would help me learn the class material?

5) Do you have any advice for students who struggle with anxiety or depression when it comes to succeeding in your classes?

Aim to create a sort of plan with your professors--make sure you know how attendance will affect your grade, whether you need to prepare to be called on in class, what you should do if you’re struggling with the class assignments, and whether the professor will work with you if you begin to suffer from your mental health concerns during the semester.

This sort of response shows your professors that you’re motivated to succeed despite any additional challenges you might face, and encourages them to view you as a student who needs additional support, rather than someone just faking mental health issues to avoid work.

Most professors want every single one of their students to succeed and fully recognize that some students need accommodations and an understanding response in order to thrive at college. You can increase your chances of doing great (while also decreasing college anxiety), by mustering up the strength to grab hold of every single resource your school offers.

Sorry for the long answer, but I hope that helps!

A 4-Part Meta on Good Omens Part 2: Crowley’s Abuse and Trauma

This is 100% going to be a longer series on Goom Omens because I have ALLLL the thoughts on this, #Sorrynotsorry to my followers who didn’t sign up for my blog to turn into a 24/7 Good Omens one.

In Part 1 I wrote about how Aziraphale is constantly being emotionally, physically, and verbally abused by Heaven and the TLDR conclusion is that Crowley’s love for Aziraphale helps heal him from the abuses of Heaven.

Crowley, just like Aziraphale, is also dealing with the consequences of Heaven’s abuse, but it’s being compounded with the abuse, neglect, and trauma he suffers at the hands of Hell and >spoiler< presumed death of Aziraphale.  Neither have straight forward reactions to their abuse but ARE on the road to recovery.

In the beginning, there was a garden, a wily snake, an angel on apple tree duty, and a “parental” God. But, before then, before the beginning, there is a fall, a “purge” of angels who ask too many questions and cause too much trouble for Heaven to control through their intimidation and dogmatism. And here, we have the first abuse -- the fall.

Crowley is inquisitive by nature. Before Noah’s flood, we see him investigate the situation and interrogate Aziraphale with a barrage of questions. He knows right from wrong and craves answers for moral questions -- he needs to know what’s going on to protect others.  Although we don’t know what specific question caused his fall, we do know that asking questions threatens the authoritative nature of Heaven. No one is allowed to question the “great plan”, as evident by the hostile nature the angels respond to Crowley’s and Aziraphale’s attempts to save the Earth. Stringent, cold, and distant behavior punishes independent thought and, since Crowley needs answers, needs to know how to help, he’s a liability to their hierarchy.  

We also know that by the time we meet him, he’s already banished from grace and discarded like yesterday’s trash. He’s already fallen before tempting Eve into knowing the difference between right and wrong. He’s already fallen and already disowned by the almighty and her all her creations. He’s functionally alone, no unconditional love, no support, no reason for WHY what he’s done is bad or not. He’s neglected and isolated. 

We’re told several times that Crowley doesn’t really consider himself really fallen, or rather, that he’s sauntered vaguely downward. But, the truth of the matter is that he IS fallen, and we’re told explicitly it’s because he was asking questions, that “[asking questions] was all it took [to fall] before”.  And, we can see that 6000 years later, it’s still wreaking immeasurable damage to his emotional and mental health. 

Just look at his face when he’s begging to an unbending God who cast him out. He’s not spiteful (although given his treatment, he’s well within his rights to be) but desperate. He’s questioning why everything has to end, why he has to drop his home, his car, his best friend. He’s not mourning his fall (in this gif) but he’s not quite over the implications of being unloved. 

When Aziraphale says he hopes Crowley is forgiven, Azi still has faith that the angels are “good” and that forgiving Crowley would allow them to still be together, fighting for the greater good. Crowley’s immediate response though is that that’s his whole deal as a demon. He says he’s “unforgivable”.  The lack of self-esteem is symptomatic of the abandonment he’s experienced. It’s not just that he doesn’t want Heaven’s forgiveness (quite honestly he doesn’t need their forgiveness because it’s not his fault he’s been abandoned, it’s theirs), it that he doesn’t feel like he’s worthy of anyone’s forgiveness. This consequently adds to the importance of Aziraphale’s later forgiveness. It’s not that Aziraphale has been wronged, it’s cementing the idea that Crowley has worth in his eyes. That, with no strings attached, Crowley is loved and cared for, even if Aziraphale’s unwilling to run away with him.  

This is further cemented in how he responds to Aziraphale’s “nice” compliment. Unlike the genuine anger he shows the other demons, he ‘s careful with Aziraphale. Now, is it a “nice” thing to do? No. But, he’s not trying to be. Despite this, he’s careful not to hit Azi’s head against the wall, and as the gif below shows, Aziraphale’s got enough time to put a hand back behind him and brace himself against the wall. There are no defensive movements, no attempts to push back or talk his way out of the assault.  Although Azi does do that when the Angel’s confront him about working with Crowley, he knows that in this instance, Crowley is reacting to a traumatic trigger.  Crowley knows that being nice didn’t save him from falling or trauma after the fact. He’s yet to fully cope with his trauma. 

Shoutout to @greenbergsays for their excellent deep dive into this scene and being the first I can find pointing out Aziraphale’s lack of reaction.  

Hell is no better. After being cast out, there is no such thing as unity or support. Despite Crowley being great at his job, getting awards left and right, there is no trust. Hastur explicitly says as much because Crowley acts differently, and once again he’s punished for deviating from the limited acceptable behavior. Beyond the issue of trust, there is no respect and (in the series at least) Crowley’s actual work is not recognized (no, he can’t get a wahoo though he deserves one)

His “side” who he’s meant to be loyal to, meant to help win “the great war” ultimately does not care about him either. He is as disposable to them as he is/was to Heaven. 

Which is why he cares so damn much about Aziraphale. THIS is why he works so damn hard to be Aziraphale’s side. Crowley NEEDS a side that cares about him, and he knows that throughout the last 6 millennia, Aziraphale is the only one to see the world like he does; who is as strange and rebellious as he is; who has fallen in love with humanity like he has. Aziraphale loves hard, but also honestly. Unlike Heaven, Hell, or God, there are no strings attached to the love they share. Crowley isn’t secretly trying to manipulate Aziraphale into “falling”, Crowley knows just how important Azi’s identity as an angel is to him and Crowley goes out of his way to affirm and reaffirm Aziraphale’s identity.  

   The relationship he’s developed with Aziraphale makes walking in on his burning home the worse traumatization post-fall. Look at the pain and anger on his face when he realizes his best friend to be dead.  Crowley KNOWS running into that building that the only way for his Angel’s bookstore to be on fire is if Aziraphale is dead or dying.  Without Aziraphale, Crowley is alone. Unquestionably, undeniably, permanently alone.  Just like when he was in Heaven. Just like after the fall. Just like in heaven. 

You can call it what you like, romantic, platonic, best friend, lover, or queer, but the grief at this moment consumes him. His loss triggers the neglect and isolation given to him by God during his original trauma. Once he’s realized, fully realized, that he’s alone without anyone left on his side, he has nothing left to fight for. Look at the grief on his face, he’s mourning, and resigned to the end of the world, because there’s no world without his support system, without his family. He has no one left to help him cope.

 Although, one of the ways Crowley DOES try to come is through his alcoholism. Although both Aziraphale and Crowly drink often, Crowley is more prone to excess and is more frequently getting drunk as a way to deal with tragedy. Although alcoholism has a heavy genetic component, his first response is to any stress is to drink. And, there are several studies linking alcoholism to trauma.  

Also, Crowley is retraumatized the same day by the loss of his car, compounding all of the different struggles of the day (the “loss” of Azi, the rejection of Heaven and Hell, the end of the world, his apartment being invaded by murderous demons). Losing his car, his only other reliable companion, his comfort zone, leaves him at rock bottom. 

It is only Aziraphale who can help him cope with the losses and redirect on their impending doom. 

It is only Aziraphale who can help him focus through the panic of seeing his car burning before him, of ending Apocalypse before it starts,  and facing his worst fear -- Satan himself.  

It is only Aziraphale, who, despite Crowley’s overpowering resignment to death via Satan, Crowley trusts enough to refocus and come up with a plan to help Adam cause Armaggedon’t.  

Which brings me to the final trauma -- his torture. Crowley is aware of the abusive behavior in Heaven, and while he couldn’t have known he would have gotten a trial in Hell (albeit an unfair one), he does not witness it. Instead, he poses as Aziraphale and endures some of the specific psychological torture intended for his best friend. Although he knows he can survive Hellfire, there is trauma in KNOWING his best friend wouldn’t have. There is trauma in being told to shut his face and die. There is trauma in not receiving a trial.  (I’ll unpack this more in part 3)

The only thing that enables Crowley to survive, to work through this trauma, is his relationship with Aziraphale.  He goes out of his way to inspect the resurrect the book shop, to “tempt” Aziraphale to lunch, to indulge and maintain his best friend.  He does things that make the Angel comfortable and does not once lie or violate his trust. Always, he’s on their side. Although he storms out 3 times in the show, he always uses it as breathing room, before once again seeking Aziraphale out, willing to drop everything to run away together. 

Since Heaven and Hell have disregarded him, treated him as less than dirt, he approached Aziraphale AS EQUALS. Their dynamic (Which I’ll go into more later) is not on uneven footing, and both parties treat the other with a kindness neither of them is offered by their respective worlds.  

TLDR:  Aziraphale's love helps Crowley cope with his trauma and their no-strings-attached relationship enables him to begin healthier healing processes despite the abuses of Heaven and Hell.  

Thanks for coming to my Ted talk

Hayato Yamagata x Reader - Soulmate AU {Haikyuu!!}

[Soulmate AU: Wherein you have the first words your soulmate ever speak to you, written on your wrist].

Trigger Warning: Self-Harm.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Although the day was long, the evening seemed longer - significantly so.

Volleyball practice had ended a while earlier, yet here he was, remaining in the building to run some errands. The dormitories weren't far, so it wasn't as if actually minded. Glancing down at his wrist, a solemn sigh passed his lips. Gentle fingers traced the inscription: the first words his soulmate would ever orate to him, the words fated to spark an inevitable romance, which would blossom and blossom. Despite currently being unfamiliar with his predestined partner, his heart soared at the very thought of them. He knew, instinctively, that no matter their appearance, to him, they would present the most beautiful divinity.

Their aura would be unmatched in compassion towards himself and others - this was Hayato's sole expectation. Besides that, he couldn't care less. His heart thundered with the determination to shower them the utmost love and affection. He would treat them as a god, a goddess, a mixture of the two, or some genderless celestial. Whatever their manifestation, he would love them, both passionately and unconditionally.

However, the phrase engraved into his wrist was quite unsettling.

'No, please don't touch that!'

Without context, it sent insuppressible shivers all the way down his spine. Obviously, worry consumed him - it always did. He couldn't comprehend the truth of the message. Yet...an ache tugged so violently at his heartstrings. Those words bled pain, desperation. If they, his future, needed help in any way, then with his fiercest conviction, he wished to bestow it upon them. He wanted to find them, to cradle their frame tightly, close to his chest, so that his raging heartbeat could echo in their ears, acting as the proof of his love. He desired nothing more than this, and to witness the majesty of their smile. It made him giddy, like a young child arresting its parents' attention.

...Until his mind played back the phrase, droning on in miserable notes, as an amalgamation of all the world's depressing songs.

His yearning for the information of what agonised you so greatly was causing slight mishaps in his daily life. You had yet to physically enter the scrapbook of his life, but he could almost feel your energy...fragments of your pain. It was suffocating, sometimes. But still, he didn't completely understand. Meeting you, at this point, was absolutely imperative; he figured that it could potentially be the difference between life and death. Another abysmal thought began to plague his already-throbbing mind - what could you be referring to? What would cause such wretched words to tumble from your lips, and would they be in retaliation to a forceful act on his end? He really hoped that wasn't so. If he traumatised you to the extent at which your very vocals trembled, then, soulmate or no, surely your heart wouldn't ever allow itself to love him.

That imagining was a cursed reel, and he vowed never to replay it. Besides, there couldn't have been any point to worrying so tirelessly, when you were still yet-to-be-discovered. Hayato could hazard a guess that, at the least, you weren't in his class, and, perhaps some mystical connection might have compelled you towards each other, if you ever passed in the halls. Therefore, he decided that either you simply didn't occupy a space in the third year, or you didn't attend Shiratorizawa, period.

Although his brain favoured the latter, his heart pounded for the former, since it would obviously make finding you so much easier. Hayato had been raised to place faith in his gut instinct, and right now, his gut seemed to produce two words: foreign and danger. He was unsure whether this meant that you were of a different lineage, or that you attended another school, and consequently would be alien to him.

But, danger...

...There was no doubt - you were in a precarious situation, or on the losing side of a violent, bloody battle. He prayed for your eternal safety, day in and day out. You would forever arrest his unconditional support, no matter the circumstance.

Shaking off these depressing pictures was difficult, but necessary, because torturing himself over them during your omission from his life, would only affect his health and grades on a greater scale. Hayato trudged around the building, finding the papers and other things he needed, and prepared to head back to his dormitory. So much of his mental energy had been wiped out already, and he was exhausted. Lying down on his lovely, soft bed sounded blissful.

Instead, mere moments after falling, he registered that what he was kneeling atop wasn't a bed, but in fact...a girl?

Embarrassment permeated his very core. He never achieved much with women, mainly due to his sharp glares (yes, the unintentional ones - perhaps he had the masculine equivalent of resting bitch face), but this was just...oh my lord, why? He refrained from punching himself, only since terror had gripped your features, and he didn't wish to disturb you any further. He scrambled to his feet, apologising profusely, and reaching out a hand, to help you up. Those almost-feral, chocolate eyes ghosted over you, and in an instant, he was transfixed. You adorned the regular, Shiratorizawa uniform, but it appeared to be slightly larger than you needed. Your sleeves were very long, he noted, and he couldn't see your wrists at all. Luscious, (h/c) locks swept across your face, partially shielding your (e/c) orbs from view.

"Eh...are you alright? Can you stand?" His genuine concern captivated you, but you were panicked, tears welling up amongst the glittering constellations.

When you failed to respond, he started rubbing his neck, in an effort to soothe his nerves. This was a situation unlike any other (he was often a lot more careful of his surroundings), but his aid seemed to offend you, for some reason, so what could he actually do? The waterfall, which dripped from your eyes, was something he desired to wipe away. He detested this - watching you suffer in relative silence. Why weren't you letting him help? Couldn't you speak? Was something about his actions, his words, so wrong? After a minute or two of deliberation, he decided to perch himself on the floor, in front of you.

"Do you need somebody to talk to? Should I go and find a teacher?"

The words remained lodged in your throat, slowly suffocating you.

You squirmed uncomfortably, every movement revealing slightly more skin, although you didn't appear to notice. Hayato's eyes travelled to your wrists, now exposed, and his blood ran cold. His compassionate nature kicked into overdrive, and he immediately locked on to your arm. Meek sounds of discomfort rolled off your tongue, as the knife-inflicted wounds seared with pain. He was speechless, left gawking at your arms, specifically the one he had grabbed. Despite his concern, he proceeded to squeeze your wrist (albeit, absentmindedly - he was far too focused on the actual cuts). His fingers moved closer to them, as his mind scrambled desperately for any trace of logic.

Fear widened your eyes, causing you to whisper-yell, "No, please don't touch that!"

Hayato's mind ceased its constant rotations.

His eyes graced your own, partly in astonishment, partly in worry. He remembered all his previous musings with great sobriety - he was right to be concerned for your safety. Although, it hadn't ever truly crossed his thoughts, that you could have been your own arch-nemesis. That was just...it was awful, the fact that you felt such hopelessness, to rely upon a knife to release the agony. The deadly war in which you were engaged...it was against yourself, and that knowledge hurt immensely. He wished to place gentle kisses along all those beautiful, yet disheartening battle scars.

They were beautiful, he affirmed, because they were a part of you. They had been carved on to your flesh, and in spite of their secrecy, you owned them. With enough time and care, they could be removed, but they were a testament to your survival. You had lived, through everything which tried to kill you, and that made you strong - stronger than him, by far.

With determination, he maintained the eye-contact.

"You can talk to me, about anything. I'm not going to judge you. Everyone feels pain - people just cope differently."

"You - You're not disgusted? Scared?" Your voice quivered, emotions spilling to the surface.

"No, of course not. Those scars are yours, and you're beautiful. I'm not scared of them - I love them, like I love you."

This boy, he was honestly too sweet. Someone of your position, your weak constitution, didn't deserve he who behaved so admirably. He possessed a strength with which you could never compete. He was everything you had ever wished for in life. But...you couldn't keep him, and he couldn't keep you.

Not in this lifetime.

Before the illusion vanished, before it was too late and regret began to fester, you smiled, as brightly as possible. You wanted to leave him with something positive, if only for a mere second. Hayato mirrored your expression, ears burning crimson with the inclusion of your little "I love you too.". A question danced on the tip of his tongue, but he was never allowed to pose it.

"Hey, Hayato! What're you doing over here?" Said male turned, meeting the perplexed gaze of a certain, infamous red-head.

"Tendou?" He muttered, equally as confused. "I'm helping someone I bumped into."

A strange look came upon the boy's face.

"Well, did she run away before I got here? I didn't see anyone!"

The chocolate-orbed one paused, asking, "No...she's right her-"

Although, when he tried to glimpse your divinity once more, he found nothing but an empty spot. There was no indication that you had ever been in the general area, but he hadn't noticed you leave. Tendou surely would have seen you...?

Was madness consuming him?

...

my symptoms fluctuate so much that it’s really exhausting to even try to keep track of. i still haven’t slept very much and can only sleep in blocks of maybe 4 hours at a time, which I don’t like at all. and it’s not like 4 hours on/off, it’s like 4 hours and then up for 18, and then 2 hours here, then up for 6 more hours, then grab another 4 hours... it’s a mess

i’m trying to find ways to calm down and get rest but my mind still feels incredibly vigilant before it just gives way to fatigue, rather than becoming drowsy and falling asleep and becoming rested. 

i was previously up for about 24 hours before taking a nap for maybe 3 hours, then falling asleep again around 2 or 3am. today i woke up around 5 or 6am (so just a few hours of sleep) and took half of a xanax, then started reading a book to avoid looking at screens. my right eye has been bothering me as a whole and i think worrying about scheduling an eye appointment is the next thing on my mind. i’m sure everything is fine and it’s just me really getting down to the wire on getting a new pair of glasses/prescription but things like the migraines, the pressure behind my eyes, the throbbing, and the light/rainbow flashes when my eyes are closed makes me nervous. i just don’t want to lose my vision or do permanent damage.

i have to keep telling myself that it’s not the worst case scenario because the roadblock of time is becoming inevitable. and now i feel terrible because both of my parents have terrible colds and my mom has been having to ferry me back n forth to the hospital because i dont feel coordinated enough in my own body to drive, and i haven’t been active enough to know if i might have dizzy spells. so the more appointments i need to make, the more i have to be driven back n forth. i mean i could lyft but like. i dont really wanna get into the car w a stranger after something like a MRI lol

ultimately, it goes like this:

1. wait for spinal MRI results 2. once MRI results are in, discuss with both PCP and neurologist and go from there. 3. regardless of results, I still need new glasses and should see an ophthalmologist to check out my eyes, and then an optometrist to check out my vision. i got my vision checked last year but i honestly do not trust that facility anymore lmao. but if the MRI results have any bearing on vision issues that’s good to know before going in. 4. somewhere amidst all of this, i need to keep tabs with the mental health people and beat the shit out of them until i get assigned a therapist. the stress of everything is slowly taking over me and, if my physical state is any testament, is crumbling me to bits. i would definitely say i’m having a mental health crisis right now and i sincerely need to get some fucking care already. and, if i had to be forthcoming, i’d refer to my experiences at the county facility to be genuine malpractice and in fact harmful, and therefore only increasing the severity of my situation. that is, their “care” was so mismanaged and poor that it was a further hazard to my mental health. i would say it was the breaking point that resulted in my current crisis. bluntly, they fucked up so bad that shit put me in the fucking ER. 5. i also need to call the dentist sometime this week and schedule an appt with the primary dentist. the last 3 major fillings i got are unbearably sensitive, which makes it hard to eat, drink water, or even suck in air, so i dont want that other dentist working on me anymore. i want all my procedures to be done by the primary dentist from now on. my teeth are too fucked up to be guinea pigs or suffer any more shoddy work.

goals:

1. physical therapy 2. reduce anxiety through therapy and exercise (after physical therapy) 3. new glasses 4. fix teeth. again. forever 5. get back to baseline. ive fallen beyond rock bottom and i need to focus on physical and mental stability before i get wrapped up in trying to get a job again or moving out or anything else like that. right now i can barely stand upright or see clearly out of both eyes; i cant keep compounding my guilt and anxiety about my lack of independence when it’s physically incapacitating me like this. 

complaining here because i cant put it anywhere else. i’m not even 30 yet and i’m already falling apart.

SH 316: Stay With Me

This episode was one hell of an emotional rollercoaster and I think that it is one of the best episodes of 3B; packed with emotion, fantastically shot scenes and progressing storylines. It was very well written and directed, so much of the dialogue and visuals enhanced the scenes and were really emotionally provocative. Malec, especially Alec, absolutely destroyed me; I think this is was one of Matt’s best performances of the show, the amount of emotion he continuously put out and the vulnerability of Alec was astounding.

I am already crying because we know that the dance scene happens in Magnus’ mind, and while I was slightly disappointed that it wasn’t happening in reality the scene its self is so beautiful. I love the little moment of them eating breakfast together too, and their discussion of dancing in Havana; Aisha, who wrote the episode, confirmed on Twitter that Magnus and Alec did actually go dancing in Havana which is awesome.

The actual dance scene was perfection. The choreography, Matt and Harry’s performances (not just the dance, but the acting, them looking at each other), the song, the lighting and the way it was shot. It was amazing. We also learned via Twitter that the dance was based on the dance a gay couple performed at their wedding, it was taught to Matt and Harry via Skype and then they had a choreographer on hand in Toronto to help. The whole process is amazing. Plus, Matt has never really danced before, he was very nervous and was scared we wouldn’t like it; he was fantastic. I don’t think we could have wished for a better dance scene. (Hopefully we will be getting another one, which happens in reality, when they get married).

The last moments of the scene are heartbreaking, Magnus becoming limp, Alec’s ‘stay with me’ and their twirling getting faster. The slipping of their hands, Magnus in the dark and Alec in the light; it was soul crushingly beautiful. The symbolism of the dark and light was incredible; the duality of Heaven and Hell, Angel and Demon, but also Magnus’ slipping away into darkness and Alec being the light trying to bring him back. The entire scene was just too incredible to accurately describe in words.

My heart breaks even more when the scene changes back to reality and we see Alec desperately talking to and giving Magnus CPR, he is trying everything he can to keep Magnus alive. He then watches as Catarina uses magic to save Magnus, he is talking to Magnus the entire time. I am crying so much at this point because Alec’s constant stream of reassurances and begging to Magnus is ripping my heart out, you can hear his fear in his voice.

The infirmary scene is so heartbreaking, Matt’s acting in this scene is impeccable; the absolute fear, guilt, desperation and despair he is able to convey is amazing. Alec blames himself because he didn’t look deeper to see the truth of how Magnus was feeling, he feels selfish because he was happy that they might grow old together. In their relationship, Magnus’ immortality has been a hurdle for them and mostly for Alec to come to terms with ageing while Magnus’ doesn’t. To be faced with the reality that they may grow old together, it is understandable that Alec was happy about that future, for them to be each other’s future and last love.

He is pinching the skin on his hands and I love how much attention to detail and consistency Matt keeps with Alec, whenever Alec feels guilt for anything he tends to injure his hands. When Jace left he was using punching bags, after he was possessed he used his bow until his hands bled; he has this tendency of self harm and I like that they are keeping it consistent. However I do wish that they would properly address Alec’s mental health because this consistent self harming behaviour just shows that, especially in times of stress, he is still struggling.

He hates that he didn’t see how much Magnus was suffering; he blames himself for not being able to see through the mask and be a full support for Magnus during this time. He thinks that if he had known then this might not have happened. The line ‘Magnus I love you, more than anyone in the world’ absolutely breaks me, Alec never thought he would have romantic love but now he loves this man with his entire being and cannot begin to imagine a life without him. I also love that Alec holds Magnus’ hand in his, needing that physical reassurance that Magnus is still there and to have the comfort of his touch, while trying to give Magnus comfort too.

Alec is furious at Lorenzo, believing that he did the transfusion with the hope of causing Magnus harm; I absolutely do not blame Alec for thinking this. Lorenzo has proven time and again that he hates Magnus and will do anything to hurt him whenever the opportunity presents itself. Unfortunately, only the warlock who gave the magic can take it back. Alec’s anger is completely understandable, Magnus’ life is in danger because of the same man who took credit for his actions, depraved him of help from others and took his apartment; Alec feels nothing but contempt towards this person who persistently tries to hurt Magnus.

My heart hurts for Clary, to see someone she thought of as invincible look so vulnerable is unnerving and to realise that she almost lost him and she didn’t know must be upsetting. I am not fond of the wording of the line ‘first Luke goes to prison and now this’ because it came of very self centred, making Magnus’ situation about herself; I know that it was not intended this way, it was just intended to show how much Clary feels like the world is falling apart, but I can’t help how it sounded to me.

I understand why she lashed out at Simon, she was full of negative emotion which was fuelled by the rune; however I wished she had apologised because it was completely uncalled for to lash out at someone trying to offer you comfort. Even more so because Simon is upset and suffering too, Luke is his father figure and Magnus is his friend too.

I really did not like that they asked Catarina to summon Lilith; I know that she is there and that they trust her but really?! I hate that they disturbed her, asked her to expend a lot of energy summoning a dangerous greater demon, trying to take her away from Magnus’ bedside when she was trying to care for him after he just almost died!

I hate seeing Lorenzo’s stuff in Magnus apartment, and Lorenzo is drinking a martini (which is much more a Magnus drink, I don’t think we have ever seen Lorenzo drink one before) and to me this comes off very much that Lorenzo wants to be Magnus, wants to have what he has. I love that Alec is having none of Lorenzo’s nonsense and turns off his music, and the disgruntled look on his face as Lorenzo helps himself to Magnus’ drink cart.

We finally learn that Lorenzo’s vendetta against Magnus is purely fuelled by jealousy; I did suspect this because Magnus is not the type of person to have caused someone enough grievances to hold a grudge. He is clearly jealous of Magnus’ power that is a result of his parentage and the fact that other warlocks genuinely care for him, he speaks as though Magnus has never experiences hardship and it becomes clear that he has built up Magnus in his head as a villain who has had an easy life with everything handed to him, which could not be further from the truth.

Lorenzo shows absolutely no remorse or sympathy towards Alec and even sounds glad that Magnus is in such as position, and possibly even looks forward to his possible death; it seems that to him, if Magnus dies the other warlocks will shift their love to him, but of course that is ridiculous. His blasé behaviour understandable angers Alec, to hear Lorenzo implicate Magnus’ death enrages him.

Lorenzo’s magical attack snaps him out of his anger and all he feels in that moment is desperation, the need to do whatever it takes to save Magnus; so he changes his approach. He allows himself to become emotional and try to appeal to Lorenzo’s humanity, to get Lorenzo to forget that it’s Magnus and just see someone trying to save the life of someone they love. The line ‘Magnus, he is my world’ makes me cry, Magnus had become the centre of Alec’s world and to lose him would destroy him.

Matt’s acting and body language really sells this scene; you can see Alec’s entire posture change from aggressive and forceful to vulnerable and submissive, it really shows Alec warring emotions. You can see a moment of humanity from Lorenzo upon seeing Alec’s breakdown, you can see that he can identify with the fear of losing someone and that he may feel sympathy for Alec in that moment.

I enjoyed the scene between the Seelie Queen and Jonathan, it had this tension running through it and this undercurrent that I can’t put my finger on, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. The Seelie Queen once again shows her cunning and willingness to quickly change direction when it suits her and when she will get something out of it, this makes her more dangerous because she doesn’t always stick to one idea, and as soon as she spots a new opportunity she will change her mind.

Kimberly was great and I am excited to see more of her, I think that to take on the role of the adult Seelie Queen is made more of a challenge because it has been played by two other actress. You have to be able to carry over some of their posture, mannerisms and speech to convey that even though their appearances changes they are all the same character.

I love that Maryse is visiting Luke; I really hope that we continue to see their relationship progress and I cannot wait to see Alec, Izzy, Jace, Clary and Simon to find out about their kiss. She is concerned about him turning while he is in prison, she knows how much stress he is bound to be under and she doesn’t want him to endanger himself further by shifting. Luke reassures her, he knew what he was getting into and has good control over his emotions, and he believes he will be able to cope.

I really like that Maryse has bought the book shop, it enables her to stay part of the Shadow World in a small way because Elliot was bound to have many Shadow World artefacts and customers. It gives her purpose and it is a job she can do that doesn’t require any mundane skills or education like many other jobs. I am happy that she is finding her way.

Luke doesn’t want her to visit because he doesn’t want to hold her back from creating a new life, he wants her to move forward and be happy; he believes that she cannot do that while she is still visiting and holding onto him. He is pushing away everyone he cares about, whether this is because he wants them to move on or because he believes that he doesn’t deserve their love I’m not sure. Maryse refuses to be pushed away, she is going to be there to support him; she feels guilty for shunning him after he turned and she is not going to turn her back on him a second time.

I really like the Sizzy scene, they have always had a great bond and friendship; offering support without judgement through some of their darkest times. For Izzy it was her addiction and for Simon it was the situation between Heidi and his family. I think that this friendship and their bonding through these moments are going to be the foundation for a beautiful relationship to bloom.

I understand why they both feel like they want to abstain from romantic relationships; for Simon both his relationships have ended because there wasn’t enough romantic love or connection, while they still care about each other the love they felt fizzled out. For Izzy, the first person she felt a genuine connection with was also a toxic relationship for both of them because of their addictions, and in the end it only caused her pain. The pinky promise was just adorable.

Cain is terrified to face Lilith, she was able to manipulate him once and the consequences were disastrous; as a result he has spent his entire, centuries, of life hiding away. He is so full of guilt, fear and self doubt; I am so happy that we are seeing more of Cain and Pasha who plays him, he is such a great actor, the emotion he portrays is so genuine and raw.

Simon identifies with Cain because he understands the guilt of hurting the ones you love in the worst ways, he also sees what his future could have been if he had not have been able to remove the mark. He feels sympathy and a kinship with Cain, he wants him to know that he is not alone and that Simon will help him in any way he can.

I really like Simon’s line about facing your demons, he knows from experience that you can’t hide forever and if you don’t face your fears they will control you. He wants to free Cain from this paralysing fear, he wants him to have the strength to face the woman who took everything from him.

I love the little moment of Magnus waking up, Alec saying ‘There you are’ and gently turning Magnus’ head to face him wanting to look him in the eyes. Magnus’ then saying ‘There you are’ and touching Alec’s face, reassuring them both; I love Alec’s soft smile and closing his eyes to bask in Magnus’ touch. You can see how happy and relieved Alec is that Magnus is finally awake because even though Catarina said he would wake up it was hard to believe until it actually happened.

Alec is so attentive, adjusting Magnus’ pillows and helping him to sit up to make sure he is comfortable and doesn’t hurt himself. You can see the fear on his face when Magnus motions to do a spell; he knows what the consequences could be and he couldn’t cope with watching Magnus collapse again; especially when he knows that next time he might lose him for good. Magnus is in denial about how serious his condition is, he is so desperate to have magic that he wants to ignore what is happening.

I love the way the next scene is shot; using Magnus’ reflection to show that Magnus is only able to see his flaws and is blinded by how he sees himself. He is also trying to hide from Alec by not facing him directly, but he is unable to hide how he feels and the reflection is used to show this because Alec can see his expression in his reflection. He is able to see how Magnus’ sees himself, can see the pain and suffering that Magnus can no longer hide.

I also love that the camera angles allow the two halos of light to hover over both Alec and Magnus; and it also moves so that early in the conversation the edge of the glass creates a wall between Alec and Magnus, symbolising the walls Magnus is trying to put up. These decisions on how to shot the scene really do make an impact on the emotion and how it is perceived. I definitely think Amanda Row is one of my favourite directors for this specific reason; she is amazing at using camera angles and shots to capture the emotion and undercurrent of the scene and characters emotions.

Alec wants to impress the seriousness of the situation on Magnus because he had to watch as Magnus stopped breathing, he thought Magnus was dead and he is not willing to experience that again if it can be prevented. He is frustrated that Magnus is trying to brush off his concerns and doesn’t seem to be taking the threat seriously. He is devastated when Magnus says that magic may be worth dying for, he is taken aback by his conviction. He understands that magic was important but this drives home just how integral it is to how Magnus identifies.

Magnus feels so estranged from himself without his magic and doesn’t know how to live without it, to have to face giving it up a second time is ripping him apart. He knows how dangerous it is but he doesn’t want to have to face it because he is desperate to keep hold of the magic and himself; he finds it hard to believe that Alec could still love him because he feels like a completely different person without his magic.

I really start sobbing when Magnus turns to confront Alec; Harry actually added the line ‘Look at me! Can you honestly say you like this?!’ it really elevates the scene emotionally and really gives you a sense of just how different Magnus feels without magic. He doesn’t understand how Alec could love him when he doesn’t see himself as lovable.

Alec’s immediate answer is ‘Yes.’; he is so in love with Magnus that it isn’t even a question for him; he loves all parts of Magnus and nothing is going to changes that. I am openly sobbing at Alec speech of all the reason why he fell in love with Magnus, he is trying to get Magnus to understand and see all the things Alec sees in him that have nothing to do with his magic and everything to do with his personality. There is no situation where he would not love Magnus or find him less desirable, he is desperately trying to convince Magnus of this; his line ‘I won’t lose you, I can’t’ breaks me, seeing Magnus almost die has really made Alec realise that he can’t live without Magnus. Magnus has become such an integral part of his life, the love of his life that he doesn’t know how he would survive without him and doesn’t want to.

While Lilith is happy to see Jonathan she is clearly disappointed and annoyed that he didn’t come for her sooner, and we learn that Asmodeus used the magic he took for Magnus to imprison her and take over as the ruler of Edom. This is very interesting because you wonder if the Edom storyline is going to involve Lilith too, maybe she takes Magnus as leverage against Asmodeus or offers to help Magnus get his magic back as to weaken Asmodeus.

Lilith is angry that Clary is the reason Jonathan didn’t come for her sooner, Jonathan is her priority and she doesn’t understand why she isn’t his; and she hates Clary for capturing Jonathan’s attention and affection. She doesn’t trust him after his outburst and can tell that he is not being honest with her but she is blinded when he says that he loves her, she has wanted a child and the love of that child for so long that it eclipses everything else. We also see where Jonathan gets his incestuous tendencies from.

Did anyone else find it hilarious that when she was summoned she was just pulled backwards into the portal? For some reason it just really made me laugh how it happened, I’m not sure if I expected them to go through the ground (as they do when going to Edom) or if they would be pulled upwards but I did not expect that. I just find it hilarious that a demon could be going about their business and is then just pulled into a portal without warning.

Magnus has agreed for Lorenzo to take the magic back but you can tell from his expression that he is unhappy and is only doing it because he loves Alec. He knows how much Alec loves him, and he loves Alec too, he doesn’t want to cause Alec any more pain and deep down staying alive to live and love with Alec is more important than magic.

Lorenzo’s humanity promptly disappears as he informs them that he is keeping Magnus’ apartment. For me, at the moment there is still no redemption for Lorenzo; with everything he has done before this episode coupled with the fact that his only grievance with Magnus is jealousy of him and the refusal to give up the apartment. His moment of humanity and agreeing to take the magic back is negated by his jealousy and greed.

What I don’t understand is that the High Warlock is voted in right? And if the New York warlocks love and respect Magnus so much why have the not complained about Lorenzo yet, either to his face or to the Warlock Council (that’s a thing right, I haven’t read the books but I’m pretty sure I read that this is their sort of governing body. Please correct me if I’m wrong). Even if they don’t know everything Lorenzo has done they know that he has barred them from helping Magnus for anything with no good reason, surely this should have set off alarm bells for them. I would have expected at least Catarina to have done something because she knows most if not all of what Lorenzo has done. I know that story wise Lorenzo needs to be there but it just doesn’t make sense that they keep mentioning how beloved Magnus is but no one seems to be doing anything about Lorenzo’s treatment of him.

Magnus says he has everything he needs right there, gesturing to Alec; he knows that even without everything else he still has Alec and he is enough to keep him alive. Deep down he knows that the only things he truly needs if Alec but he cannot help how he feels without his magic; it is such a major part of who he is and he feels lost. Everything he is feeling is completely understandable.

I am glad that we got a Malec hug but it was a little disappointing because it felt a little stilted, but it is kinda understandable with how adrift Magnus is feeling right now. You can see in his expression how devastated and despondent he feels right now; I know that we are in for a lot of Magnus and Malec angst in the next few episodes. I am a little excited though because Harry always performs emotion and Magnus’ vulnerability brilliantly and usually makes me cry.

You can already see Lilith working out how to make this situation play to her benefit, she is angry that Jonathan tried to kill her and I’m pretty sure that she has disowned him; which while I understand why Jonathan hates her he has just lost his most powerful ally. She tells them that there is only one way to break the bond, to use Michael’s sword Glorious to stab Jonathan because it is imbued with Heavenly Fire which purifies demonic energy and nullifies the bond.

Izzy picks up on Heavenly Fire as it is the name of the Clave program and I am very interested to see where this storyline is going and it is looking more and more likely that my theory about it is close to being right. In case you haven’t read my 3x11 or 3x14 reviews, my loose theory is that they are somehow trying to purify the demon blood in Downworlders.

Jonathan appears with the intention of getting to Lilith, I don’t really like the fight scene and I think it might be one of the weakest ones the show has done. It felt very disjointed and there was too much slow motion for me, plus Jonathan producing that shock wave with his sword was strange because although you presume it was because of his demonic strength it felt out of place as we hadn’t seen him do anything like that before. Plus, Jace and Izzy spent too much time rolling around on the floor for my taste when it has been established many times that the simple use of an Iratze is an instant cure. It seems so odd that they weren’t immediately healing themselves and instead just lying there.

I feel real sympathy for Cain because yet again Lilith is able to manipulate him, promising to return his brother to him if he helps and protects her. She uses his grief and guilt against him, knowing that he will cave. He genuine seems apologetic to Simon because he knows how much trust Simon was putting in him and he hates letting him down, but for him getting his brother back is more important.

I was very confused at Luke getting a visitor outside of visiting hours because we are expecting his situation to get worse, as soon as the man said his name was Scott I knew he was Praetor Lupus because I remember Jordan talking about a Praetor Scott at the beginning of 3x13.

It feels very unsettling to learn that they have been watching him for a long time without his knowledge and the fact that they have enough influence to dismiss not only Luke’s murder charge but also everything to do with Ollie and the demonic murders. We know very little about the Praetor Lupus but it is very clear that they hold a lot of power in ways that we don’t expect. I think that this will be a very interesting new turn for Luke and I am excited to see where it goes.

Jonathan is in chains and I cannot help but laugh because my mum said ‘quack’ and I now cannot look at him without picturing him as a duck. But it also gives me Hannibal Lector vibes, which I presume was there actual intention.

Clary feels more confident in her ability to fight the rune’s influence with Jace by her side because he keeps her grounded. Each time she has felt close to the edge knowing he is there has prevented her from falling over it, she is hoping that together they can prevent her from succumbing to the rune. It is a very sweet scene between them and definitely feels like a parallel to Jace’s Owl situation in 3A.

I am crying right now just thinking about writing about this last scene. I totally was not expecting it, especially given the sober feel of all the Malec scenes in this episode. Oh my god.

Alec goes to Maryse and explains Magnus’ health issues, I am crying when he says ‘I can’t live without him’; Alec who never thought he would find someone to love now has the love of his life. Maryse is so happy for him; she can see how happy Magnus makes Alec and how much of a difference having Magnus in his life has made for Alec. She is overjoyed that her son has genuine love in his life, that he found someone who loves him just as much.

I am literally screaming when he asks for the family ring, the family ring has so much sentimentality to them; especially Alec whose world revolves around his family. The fact that he is requesting the ring shows how certain he is about Magnus and the significance of giving a Downworlder a Nephilim family ring is completely mind blowing. I think it will mean a lot to Magnus because he probably knows this tradition with family rings and he knows the significance of them; to be given such an important Shadowhunter object and to be included in this tradition will mean a lot, especially after a life full of being made to feel inferior to Shadowhunters.

I know that some people are saying that it is too soon for Malec to be getting married, they have only been together for about three months, and I understand where they are coming from. But the decision of when you are ready to propose is a completely individual thing, plus they have almost lost each other so many times that it makes them realise that time is precious and they shouldn’t waste a moment just because other may find it fast. Plus, Shadowhunters only have one true love and for Alec its Magnus, there will never be another for him so why should he wait when he feels ready now. There is nothing wrong with Alec wanting to propose to the man that he loves, he wants to spend the rest of his life with him and to show Magnus the extent of his commitment and love.

Now, that doesn’t mean Magnus will say yes right now and that is his decision. He is going through a lot right now and he may not feel like he can make such a big decision, especially when he doesn’t even feel like himself. Even if Magnus does say no to Alec’s proposal it doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to marry him, it just means he is not ready to say yes yet.

I did wonder if it will play out like Alec asking to move in; Alec will ask Magnus to marry him and Magnus will say no, not yet. Then they will experience a life endangering situation (the whole Edom thing) Alec will ask again and Magnus will say yes; or Magnus will ask Alec to marry him.

I have no idea how this is going to pan out, something may happen to cause Alec to wait a little before asking, or maybe he is prevented from asking. I have no idea but I know that it is probably going to be painful, in the end it will lead to so much happiness and I am excited for every excruciating moment of it.

This was an amazing episode full of emotion and beautiful camera angles, every scene felt like it has a purpose and were driving the plots. Matt absolutely destroyed me with his acting and Malec took me on one huge rollercoaster of emotions.

I’m so excited for 317 even though I’m scared about how the proposal is going to pan out, Simon is going under cover at the Gard and Clary confronts her brother. I am not prepared for the pain that is coming.

My whole school career, despite how short it may be thus far, I have always been complimented and received positive remarks about how smart I was and how talented I was. They all find it strange that these are not traits I am proud of.

I grew up with depression, anxiety, and insomnia. My three original traits that have come to rule my life. I inherited mild depression from my mother, and anxiety and insomnia from my father. In all of my years in school except for the last I have been bullied mercilessly for everything about my being. It would vary from my hair, my style of clothing, my physical being, calling me ugly, exclusion, death threats, abandonment, being called names and excessively pointing out my mistakes (surprise! I'm human unlike most bastards I meet). I also had chronic nose bleeds, so from the beginning everyone was always grossed out by me for bleeding from my face nearly every day (most of my clothes are stained with my own blood because of this and I'm honestly too broke to afford new clothes very often). Even teachers and my own parents would put me down for nearly everything I did for one reason or the other; nothing I ever did was right. And to add more I'm often put after my sisters' needs and wants. I've never been prioritized.

I was, and still am, a sickly child. I've technically had my heart stopped and been dead twice before and I had a handful of major surgeries before my sophmore year in highschool. My doctors don't ever listen to me and they think I'm dramatic when I bring up actual chronic symptoms I suffer from.

As a child, we moved around a lot and so I switched schools often and was never able to make or keep friends. I come from a long line of verbally and emotionally abusive teachers who went on without consequence whilst I get in trouble for trying to fix myself. In grade school alone I had all but two of my teachers quit their jobs and/or be replaced after that year, if not during the middle.

Children are highly impressionable, and so these kinds of events did lead up to me thinking it was somehow my fault. Logically I know this not to be true, but impressions and mental illnesses are not logical.

In seventh grade alone, I had gone through 12 different prescriptions for pain and different types of birth control to regulate my period and my chronic cramps. It's highly likely that I had, and still have, endometriosis, yet my doctors are always reluctant to perform any blood tests on me simply because I am young, as if being young makes it entirely impossible for me to have health issues.

My periods were unstable to a point that I'd end up having one for thirteen days, or months apart. Given, young girls with periods often experience irregular cycles, but mine kept landing me in the hospital which is never a good sign.

I was bullied that year to a point that I tried to kill myself and failed, and I managed to avoid my parents finding out. This was the beginning of my incredibly high drug tolerance. At the end of that year, my favorite teacher was killed in a car accident.

The following year, it was found out I had massive ovarian cysts that were increasing my insomnia and put me in agonizing pain nearly every moment of my life. But my doctors refused to take action because I was young. That year I was further emotionally abused by a handful of my teachers. One of them, worse than others, was fired during the beginning of the third trimester of the school year. Her replacement, a long term substitute, was even worse. She had bullied and abused the class so hard that kids had killed themselves and I ended up getting conversion disorder.

Conversion disorder is a mental disorder in where my body cannot handle stress. My brain doesn't know how to function and deal with high stress situations, so instead it shuts off my physical body. Symptoms vary from person to person, but mine are on more of the extreme end. It varies from extreme memory loss, seizures, not breathing, choking on white foam produced by my body, screaming unconsciously, blacking out, temporary amnesia, and paralysis. This is a condition that I cannot control under any circumstances, and it truly dictates my life.

Now my mom had gone to the principal (the school cycles through five in a single school year because of a whole lot of drama) to report this teacher and get a new one. And instead of acting reasonably, the principal quite literally told us she wouldn't look into a replacement because it wouldn't change anything.

And, oh, how wrong she was.

I had previously had mild anxiety and depression from previous life experiences, but this year pushed me to be anxious to a fault (granting me a new stutter, hours long panic and anxiety attacks, migraines, etc), and pushed me into such a strong depression I became highly suicidal and went into an emotional shock. And because of this I also gained PTSD, which is a whole trip within itself.

Freshman year was a wreck. Another one of my middle school teachers had died; she died from cancer and was one of very few people who were ever nice to me. I was being bullied on a whole new level of horrid, and I was flunking every class I had been in. My conversion disorder episodes became do frequent and so severe that the school actually kicked me out illegally for about two months before they continued my education on independent study. That year my dog was put down. And normally that wouldn't be such a big deal except for the part she was quite literally my only friend for three years.

Even worse; I was in recovery after one of my more major surgeries to get my ovarian cysts removed to help with my pain and sleeping problems. I was fragile and under the influence of strong drugs when I decided to take my dog on a walk around my property for the first time in a month because I had been on bed rest. She had seen my neighbor, and gotten freaked out by him (he radiates massive pedophile vibes) and so she jumped on him. Now this over privileged scumbag thought the appropriate response was to threaten to shoot my dog if he ever saw her again no matter the circumstance, and proceeded to curse me out profusely all while I tried to apologise and make it right.

My dog had become a liability because of this man and we had to put her down. Take in mind she was an amazing dog, and had never disobeyed me. She was protective of me as she had been since we adopted her and was genuinely the best thing that has ever happened to me. She'd check on me when I cried and lay with me when I was sick, and was there for me more often that my actual parents were.

The next year, I was bullied slightly less, but I had a great ordeal of friend drama and my fair amount of fights with the office staff. One of my friends, who I thought was close to me, had threatened to kill me after I offended her exactly once. I had a bad day after another episode and she had built this reputation of not feeling and being unattached to the real world. I wasn't in the mood to deal with people and when she asked me if I was okay I questioned why she cared. That was it. Later I had apologized because I had come to terms that I was in the wrong for dismantling her emotions, but she decided to take it too far.

One of my teachers was permanently removed from the school for having nudes on a school device, and they brought in a long term substitute. This was about when my PTSD really started to kick me in the nuts, so I went back on independent study to complete the year. My only other friends moved away and my significant other had killed himself after killing himself shortly after telling me he loved me.

I don't expect people to understand the kind of psychological damage this causes to a person, but I can tell you that it hurts.

I was referred to a continuation school in my area for flunking both years of highschool, and this continuation school had a bad reputation of being troubled kids and violent beings.

I get there, I spend my year being amazed by how nice people are to me. This is the first year of my life I have ever been treated like a human, and it was by the people society had deemed misfits. I had a great year; I made friends and built connections to people. And then my friends left me, and my favorite teacher was fired simply for being a first year. My other teacher left the school year early for maternity leave, and, guess what, was replaced by a long term substitute. I don't think I've ever panicked as hard as I did in those months. Similar timing, same school subject, similar classroom. All of the stressors were right and I nearly fell apart at the seams. I had more frequent and severe migraines and anxiety attacks. My hands would shake in fear so hard I couldn't write, which was bad because the classes I had with that teacher were exclusively note taking and online courses. This substitute wasn't a bad person. He was competent and polite and was always helpful, but my mental illnesses and brain blocks caused me to lose the opportunity to work with them successfully. In the last trimester I tried to kill myself three times, and I accidentally overdosed on drugs about 14 times over the whole year. I almost died a lot by my own doing and it was horrible.

Children need stability to survive and develop normally and I had been deprived of both, as well as emotional stability and positive reinforcement.

Now, during these times I had coping methods. I draw and write professionally to distract myself from the physical pain in my being if not just stress plain and simple. I watched documentaries and studied nearly every subject during my sleepless nights. My coping method was learning, practicing, evolving, and then teaching. My IQ had beat the range of average and I've had a reading level ranked at post college since I was in middle school. And this fall I'm a senior and I've only been ranked higher and higher each year. I've always gotten extra credit on every individual assignment and I've always been too of my class. My teachers love my art, and I had exceeded my professional art teacher within weeks of knowing her. I see, I practice, I perfect, I personalize every trait and skill I want and find intriguing. I study and develop to keep myself from remembering the agony I'm in.

I have a really wide and extensive knowledge on almost every subject and culture I've come across from, because being awake and learning for days on end beats being awake and in agony for days on end.

Along with my severe insomnia, it becomes apparent that I've seen more sunrises than the amount of years most adults have been alive. My walks under the starlight and the moon at odd hours? Amazing. Laying in a field at night and listening to all the little creatures and the coyotes howling in the distance? Perfect. Stargazing in my driveway on a clear night in the winter? Cold to my bones but I'd never trade the memory. Walking home in the rain at 11 a.m.? It's made me wiser. Taking a moment to breathe in and feel nature has sometimes saved me.

My bones definitely creak; mostly because I have juvenile arthritis, but I also feel ancient in my mind.

The wear and tear my body has faced for such a physically young being is unnatural. I can't describe the strange feelings of almost bleeding to death or stomach ulcers brought on by stress.

Those weird feelings of my bones cracking wrong or my knees suddenly giving out.

I've seen more of the Galaxy from here on earth than most adults have ever seen in a poster.

The meteor showers, the shooting stars, the solar flares, the cycles of the moon, the constellations? They accompany me on my walk down to my death.

Even better, looking up daily to love the clouds. I've seen amazing things and infinite days in mere minutes.

The feeling of cool streams and powerful rivers. Almost drowning in the ocean on multiple occasions, feeling the rain on my face. Those are the most powerful moments I've ever experienced.

Hearing the cry of infantile wildlife and mothering it feels like an old friend of mine. I cannot emphasize on how many creatures I've fostered back to health.

I've seen life and I've seen death, and quite too much of it for my age. The wars, the shootings, the stabbings and car accidents. People hanging themselves and people who die clear well before their body does. The births i e witnessed, the blooming of Meadows, the appearance of the new foxes.

Aiding things that normally need help and defending those who have lost their shields. Befriending things considered monsters. Providing a moment of peace for animals searching for the bridge of mortality.

The comfort I bring to people, the therapy I provide from listening and accepting, it was never something I had received myself.

My therapist diagnosed me a sociopath path as an ignorant response to seeing my lack of attachment to people. Technically she's not wrong, I'm a mild sociopath.

And before anyone gets weirded out, sociopaths do have feelings. They are simply harder to reach and read by strangers or common uninvolved people. Psychopaths pretend to care when they don't really. They are violent and unpredictable. Do not confuse us, do your research.

My English teacher this year had made a remark about me being an old soul, and oh, how right she was. I am ancient and people notice.

Life has been forever as I have been forever. My heart is still there, just ground to a fine sand and stored somewhere safer.

I'm tired, of course from my worrying for the human race and how much trouble people are creating these days. The people, they see me and tell me to smile, yet I have nothing to smile for.

My pain killers are border line overdose and all they do is make me a little dizzy. The last time I had pain relief was five years ago in a hospital. I had been in so much pain I hadn't slept in 17 days and they out me on morphine. I was only 12 years old and it was then it had become apparent I'd never be able to truly rest.

Somehow, I rest anyways. I find peace somewhere. Maybe in my hallucinations, maybe in my dreaming and dissociating, maybe in the way the trees speak. Listen to them, the trees, they can tell you more than a life time of science and precision.

I exist, not to overpower someone else's suffering, but instead to offer safety and support. I share so much to emphasize how much I understand. I'm not here as competition to see who can suffer more, but instead I am here to offer a helping hand to keep other people out of the pit of depression I often find myself in.

A bit about me, inspired by a friend

Shoutout to George, had this written beforehand but never thought about posting it anywhere until you did so, big thanks for that. This is gonna be a load of shite for the most part, just me rambling on because it makes me feel better and I don’t really know what else to do at this point because talking to people helps but, getting out of your own head is a battle only you can fight at times. Apologies in advance if anyone ends up reading this crap. So I’m 8, primary school is going great, I’m on the verge of getting into one of the best secondary schools               in the area, going to breeze my 11+ (A test that determines if you’re capable of grammar schools or not, for those who don’t know) and I’m loving life, I play football, always out with mates at the park and whatever, love my family and couldn’t be happier. Then one night, I’m at my aunts, upstairs in my cousin’s room watching tv, quiet night except there’s arguing and crying downstairs, I’m young and scared so I keep to myself, eventually my aunt comes up to the room, and asks me if I love her. I obviously love her, she’s my second mum basically, but I’m so scared and confused I don’t answer, I’m sat there in complete shock, so she sobs and leaves the room. I feel awful but don’t see it as anything more than another argument between her and my uncle. I wake up the next day to find out she’s been pulled out of the sea, dead. To this day we’re still not sure if it was suicide, some sort of attack or a freak accident, point is she was pushed out of that house by an abusive husband and a group of people her couldn’t save her before it was too late, I still feel a strange sense of guilt to this day, not that it was ‘my fault’, but if I had said something that night, just told her I loved her, maybe things might’ve been different. The family is torn apart, my aunts’ children all split up and go their own ways, some even side with the uncle because he’s rich and can provide them with housing etc, despite him robbing their mothers funeral fund, it’s a crazy world. I’ve stayed in my room for pretty much 5-6 months now, only leaving to go to the toilet. I fuck up my 11+, decide not to appeal it because I don’t particularly care for it all. Fast forward to year 9, I’m way overweight, paranoid to fuck because I can’t even trust my own family and underachieving because I can’t get my head, straight nor can I stay motivated. Start going out drinking more often in parks or at house parties because it’s fun, eventually sneaking out, getting into arguments with my mum and her new partner. Drinks lead to drugs and by the age of 16 I’ve already started using ketamine and a few other things to take the edge off of things, between the pressure to succeed because of my family, the stress from my family situation and my mums’ new partner being a piece of shit, and the insecurity, paranoia and mild depression that had started to set in. It went from being a fun thing to being a dependant, if I’m not drunk or high, I’m probably miserable. This continues for a few years, somehow, I do alright in my gcse’s and sixth form and end up in Coventry for uni, this is before I met most of you. Moving away was both liberating and fucking awful, its nice to have freedom, but it teaches you a lot about yourself, you learn that perhaps you’re not entirely cut out for things as you are. The first little while is nice, my housemates are really cool people, we go out, have a good relationship and structure, things are cool. Eventually things go pretty far south, the old habits that I had from previous years re-emerge and my mental health takes a turn for the worst. Second year I’m missing pretty much every lecture there is, missing assignments and spending all day locked up in a freezing cold room, in the dark, playing games or drinking or taking shit. Suicidal thoughts had been there but I’d never really taken it seriously, however one night, after some drinking and a little too much time alone, I eventually tried to take my own life. Thankfully it didn’t kill me, but it made me realise I’m fucked, and cannot make it alone, not for now. So I moved back home down south, never told anyone the genuine reason for why I came back, just stated homesickness. So that’s where these last few months begin. Things are better in some areas, and worse in others. Its nice having the support and general good feeling of family being around, on the other hand I find myself constantly dealing with drama and problems revolving around my littlest brother and his dad, who’s currently pushing for full custody and such, despite being an abusive sociopath, somehow he’s still got a decent case going, it’s a big thing on my mind and all I can do is hope for the best. My other little brother, Charlie, has been suffering from something I don’t even understand myself, he constantly has migraines, can’t really walk around properly without losing balance, and the pressure in his back was scarily high for a while, luckily things are a lot better, but its hard seeing someone helplessly suffer like that. Especially someone close. The substance and drinking stuff never really subsided however, neither did the depression. I’ve had moments where I’d just take walks at like 3am, hoping something would happen. I’ve been fortunate to meet some incredible people over the last few years too, and as of recent. One in particular who sadly I fell out with, you’ll likely never read this but, I’m sorry for everything, and you really do mean the world to me, one day I hope perhaps things go back to the way they were before. But I’ve always struggled to trust and take friendships seriously, never confided in people much, nor have I really ever been good with empathy, honestly I’m not the greatest person around when I take a deeper look at myself. As of recent, I have good friends and people around me, who some days I trust, sometimes I completely detest, I can’t explain why I feel such things, I wish I could. I’ve been clean from drugs for around 3 months now, been in therapy on and off for around 4. It helps a lot, but its hard to be honest and real with yourself when you’ve spent so long avoiding those kind of questions. There are a lot of good days where I feel like things are gonna be great in the future and maybe I’ll stop acting out and shit, there are other days I don’t get out of bed or bother to give anyone the time of day. I don’t think I’ll ever be permanently happy at all, and that’s okay, things are getting better, ish.  This summer is gonna be huge, planning to work on myself a lot, physically and mentally. Uni ends in a month and after that I have a lot of free time, its up to me to make sure its used well. Despite everything previously said, I’m extremely fortunate to be in the position I’m in now, and will never forget that. Still not sure what the point of this is entirely, but it felt good to just write a bunch of stuff for a bit, hopefully it’ll maybe help someone else. Like others talking about their own experiences has helped me. I know I don’t take myself too seriously at all, especially on social media or around others, because, so this might seem extremely weird, but hopefully if me, being the dumbass that I am, can be a little honest with myself and others, it might inspire some good somewhere else. Thanks for reading, Ben.

So in my story I have a multiple teenage characters who have unethical experiments performed on them to try and give them superpowers. I know that you’re quite hesitant with high tech torture and I understand completely. I don’t want to misrepresent anything but at the same time the torture is high tech to a degree because it’s sci-fi. (1/6)

I’m mainly focusingon one of my characters for this ask because the physical effects of thetorture are more dramatic for him because he’s allergic to the drug thescientists have been administering to him and my other protagonists. Theallergic reaction causes him to throw up so he’s kinda living with perpetualstomach flu and he loses dangerous amounts of weight. My other characters don’tface this same allergic reaction even though they’re being given the same drug.(2/6) Aside from the fact that the organizationexperimenting on them does so without their consent and abducted them to do ittheir conditions are “fine”. They’re fed three times a day and allowed tointeract with eachother at mealtimes. (3/6) Another aspect of the torture isthat the punishment for resisting is solitary confinement (not exceeding 24hours) and they’re pushed relentlessly to test the limits of their abilities,for example a girl with healing powers’ younger sister is shot in front of herto see how rapidly the healing power works on others . Back to my characterwith the allergy, after my protagonists escape I was wondering if it would bereasonable for me to include him developing an eating disorder. (4/6) I’ve already decided to have him develop emetophobia and anassociative phobia of needles, but I wanted to know if it would make sense forhim to develop binge eating disorder, or anorexia (I know those two are verydifferent but I can see reasons why either would develop. I’ve also consideredhaving him compulsively exercise because he doesn’t ever want to be “weak” andtaken advantage of again. (5/6) If I do go the route of compulsive exercise Iwill include other characters challenging his idea that he was weak because ofthe what happened to him. I was hoping you could also advise me on how toensure that I don’t misrepresent torture as being high tech or scientific.Thanks so much! (6/6)

I feel like I should start by saying I know virtually nothing abouteating disorders and I don’t have any personal experience of them. They can be a response to trauma in somecases: for more detail on that I’d suggest consulting @scripttraumasurvivors.

 I can tell you what it feels like to exercise when you’re suffering fromnausea and not eating properly though (because my medication disagreed with me for about a year). I had headaches pretty much all the timeand I usually felt light headed, dizzy and tired. Exercise involved a fairamount of falling over and over balancing. I felt clumsier and weaker, myreaction time seemed slower. I was constantly hungry and usually nauseous; Ialso had this strange hollow feeling and occasional abdominal pain.

 Prolonged exercise also causes muscle pain and increases the chances ofthe character collapsing or fainting. That can cause a whole host of injuriesdue to falling, some minor and some potentially fatal. Head injuries fromfalling can be lethal. However in these circumstances the character willprobably be able to act in some way to protect their head and break their fall,lethal injuries are less likely. Bruises and scrapes are extremely likely, moreserious injuries are also possible.

 I was lucky and never had any serious falling injuries. But it’s easy tosee how this character could get some if he continued to behave in this way-fainting or feeling weak at the top of the stairs for instance.

 You might want to consult theStarvation Masterpost for physical and psychological symptoms- these aren’tgoing to change if the starvation is voluntary.

 There are a couple of physical symptoms on there that I’d suggestemphasising. The behaviours you want your character to have- well you’re probablyaware that in Western cultures these are strongly culturally linked to strivingafter beauty/idealised bodies. I’d suggest trying to counteract that for aWestern audience by stressing the physical symptoms that are not seen as beautiful: the brittle hair,the drained waxy complexion, the fine coating of fur he’ll start to grow(lanugo is apparently the technical term, it can be dark or light).

 And I think I’ll leave that aspect there before I get out of my area ofexpertise. :)

 What you’re describing is a situation I tend to refer to as ‘unethicalexperimentation’. This isn’t legallydistinct from torture but I draw the distinction…basically because I think it’shelpful to authors to distinguish the two. Torture generally (even if it hasmedical or pseudo-scientific trappings) functions differently to an actualexperiment, however unethical and horrendous that experiment is.

 Usually when people come to me with asks like this I outline thedifferences and make suggestions for changes based on each scenario, leaving itup to them to decide whether they’d rather stress the torturous or experimentalaspects of the idea. Stressing the torture means losing anything scientific andstressing the experimental elements means treating it primarily as science and hence losing any elementsthat are cruelty without purpose.

 In this case it seems prettyclear to me that you want this to be genuinely scientific. So that’s what I’ll focuson.

 The main thing is to understand how experiments are conducted. Variablesneed to be rigorously identified, reduced and accounted for. There need to becontrols. There needs to be absolutely meticulous record keeping. And thereneeds to be a lot of work actually analysing the results.

 Something like shooting one of the character’s sisters to test a healingability seems really dramatic and emotive but it actually brings a hell of alot of variables into play. For instance: are these powers affected byemotional state? Are they effected by the relationship the powered person haswith someone else? And more importantly how would they reproduce thisexperiment? Hope the sister lives and try to shoot her again in exactly thesame way (ignoring the fact she’s been healed recently which is a variable)?Use a different sister/sibling (ignoring the fact she might have a differentrelationship or different feelings for different siblings)?

 My point is that that particular situation doesn't actually work as anexperiment. I can see why you came up with it: there's a lot of emotionalweight and narrative potential in having the bad guys try to manipulate siblingrelationships like this. But- that's not quite how experiments work and I thinkthe key to writing unethical experimentation is putting the experiments first.

 I think you could potentially still keep something like this, perhaps asa threatened punishment if the character doesn't cooperate with the experiment.(Which could then suggest her healing abilities are more powerful then theythought and lead to further experiments).

 But if you want to make this scientific and high tech- well I’d suggestfollowing through with that. Science is just a method: it’s the idea that byconducting rigorous tests we can learn more about the world. In a scientificunethical experimentation scenario the tests are the most important thing tothe abusers. The horror doesn’t so much come from the tests themselves as fromtreating the people being used as test subjects like commodities.

 The source I tend to recommend is TheImmortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta was the source of the cancerouscell line HeLa which has become thestandard in medical testing. Most modern medicines have been screened againstHeLa and many medical advances simply wouldn’t have happened without thesecells.

 And Henrietta herself is part of why I recommend the book, her story andthe story of the children she left behind is certainly important. But the otherreason is because of what happened to her daughter Elsie Lacks.

 Elsie was committed to a mental ward as a child in the 50s. Elsie wasmentally handicapped (the diagnosis of the time was ‘idiocy’) she was epilepticand deaf. She was also black. The hospital she was kept in was almost 800people over maximum capacity when she died. There were 225 patients for everydoctor. The wards were not separated by sex or age and some of the patientswere sex offenders. There were no toilets, just drains in the floor, thereweren’t enough beds. Elsie was used in at least two, and possibly more, medicalexperiments. There’s no evidence the hospital sought consent and given her ageand the fact she was non-verbal Elsie may not have been capable of giving it.One experiment involved inserting metal probes into patient’s brains. The otherdrained the fluid from a patient’s skull so the brain could be x-rayed, aprocedure that causes dizziness, vomiting, seizures and headaches for monthswhile the skull refills with fluid and can also cause permanent brain damageand paralysis. Elsie died after making herself vomit for six months. By the endshe was bringing up clotted blood.

 She was 15.

 For me that’s the horror inthis sort of scenario, not the neglect or high-tech abuse Elsie suffered butthe fact the people who were responsible for her health saw her primarily as apiece of equipment rather than a child.

 The way I personally would approach coming up with the series ofexperiments your villains use would be- well doing exactly that.

 Step back, forget these characters are people. Imagine instead they look like a HPLC system,a stack of interconnected boxy parts with a lot of buttons and tubing andlights you don’t understand. You know that somehow this weird magic boxproduces a super power result. You want to understand how. So far as you know anything could be effecting the box, theair temperature, the lights overhead, the person using it, anything. You can’t take it apart because it’s expensive and youcan’t afford to replace it. You need to be able to repeat everything you do(and hopefully any result you get) at least 3 times.

 That’s the mindset. That’s how you’ve got to think through theexperiments.

 With drugs that’s pretty easy. You establish a randomised control groupthat isn’t given the drug but is given something that could be mistaken for thedrug. So if the drug comes as a pill they’re given an identical looking pillthat has sugar in it instead of the drug. If the drug comes as an injection orIV the control group gets fluid normal IV fluid without the added drug.Sometimes if the drug is highly coloured the pill, injection etc contains aharmless food colouring of the same colour (the most common colour is yellowand one of the dyes used is basically turmeric powder).

 There would probably be multiple groups getting the drug itself but they’dbe given it at different doses. Usually there are at least two groups (gettinga larger and smaller amount of the drug) but sometimes as many as 6-8 differentdoses are used.

 Drugs are given in milligrams per kilogram, which means the exact amountof drug depends on the test subject’sweight. When I worked in an animal testing lab that meant weighing outdifferent pills for each individual animal. Something similar would make sensein your story and it would mean that the characters are all weighed very regularly.

 That could in turn feed in to your character’s eating disorder. Especiallysince a drop in his weight would have resulted in him being given less of the drug which could in turnmean that he’d suffer less nausea.

 For me there's a difference between 'high-tech torture' and a scenariofocused on unethical medical experimentation. From everything you've said itseems as though the torture elements in this story are secondary to the medicaltesting which means that it does seem like a scenario where abuse could be bothrealistic and high tech. You're not writing about some magical torture machine,or evil cold 'doctors' who claim to be studying pain (and yet show no basicknowledge of how it works).

 Basically you're not dressing torturers up in  white coats andpretending that makes it 'science'. What you're describing sounds as thoughit's already quite close to medical testing- just completely divorced from anyethical considerations.

 I'd recommend looking up how medical testing actually works. I thinkthat would really help you get the details right in this scenario. I'd alsosuggest looking up how medical animal testing is conducted in the UK. I'msuggesting the UK in particular because we have very strong animal rights lawsgoverning medical testing.

 I worked on the drug side when I was involved with animal testing and Inever actually saw the animals. The company was extremely cautious about lettingpeople into the animal enclosures, even if they worked there. I do know thatthe animals were kept in small groups within reasonably sized enclosures (thesize itself varied by species). Their enclosures were cleaned daily, they hadfresh water and food at all times. They were given different toys ('enrichmentitems') at least once a week.

 If you're treating this like highly unethical medical testing thenthat's probably an effective model to map on to your characters.

 From what I can remember animals were separated by sex to preventpregnancies and (in some species) fights. Whether you want to have that in yourstory as well is up to you. It's something I'd personally be less bothered byin a story.

 I think that's covered as much as I can on the effects of eatingdisorders and forced exercise, and hopefully given you some sources to look atand information on medical experimentation. You may also wish to look up theNuremberg codes for reference on what ethical guidelines your characters arebreaking. They're not actually laws but I personally found them helpful as away of thinking through fictional unethical experimentation scenarios.

 I think that leaves other characters challenging this ingrained idea of'weakness' your character has developed.

 Having the idea challenged is a good writing choice and I think youcould potentially use it to explore the different relationships he has withdifferent characters. His friends will all challenge this idea in slightlydifferent ways.

 I also think that having this idea of 'weakness' is a goodsymptom/behaviour to pick. A lot of survivors struggle with feelings ofself-blame. And indeed other irrational ideas.

 A straight forward challenge of an irrational idea isn't always enoughto get rid of it. Sometimes a person can appreciate logically that an idea isirrational or untrue and yet can't shift it or stop feeling a particular way inresponse to it.

 A common non-trauma related example is money: I've known a lot of peoplewith mental illnesses who have periodically become very worried about theirmoney. They could have a recent bank statement in their hand, look at thefigure and hence know logically that everything was fine and yet still feel anintense worry.

 It's reasonable to have his friends challenge this character'sself-blame, but his feelings may not be entirely rational. Knowing they're notlogical may not be enough to get rid of the feeling. That's probably going totake a lot of time and work.

 His friends might have an easier time understanding that, since they'vebeen through a lot of what he went through.

 Overall I think you’ve got a solid scenario here, the changes I’mtalking about are really tweaks and slight shifts in perspective rather thanlarge structural alterations.

 I hope this helps. :)

Disclaimer

Mental Health, Individual Experiences, and Stigma: An Honest and Personal Opinion

Okay, so, for once, I’m gonna use Tumblr to say something serious. I predict a ramble so it might get a little long and I will most definitely lose my grasp on the topic about half way through. Because consistency is not my thing.

Mental illness is something that I think, even today, does not find itself appearing in open and honest discourse as often as it should. I want to be someone who contributes to furthering the idea that it is not a taboo or shameful subject and, more importantly, that it deserves the respect and support that comes naturally with the concept of physical illness.

FYI: this will include references of personal experiences with depression and hallucinatory experiences, with references to schizophrenia and schizo-affective disorder. Also, and most importantly, the following represents my personal opinion as a non-professional.

I can say with some honesty that I have never been ashamed of having a long history of mental health issues. My history is, as with a lot of people, continuous with my present and no doubt my future. And, as is also the case with a lot of people, the long term experience - accounting for eleven of my twenty-seven years  - has resulted in my integrating these experiences and health conditions into my daily life and into my identity.

Many will agree with me, however, that there is always some level of hesitation that accompanies each incidence of the topic’s discussion with people. It is a fact often acknowledged that a few simple words (”I’m depressed” or “I have anxiety” or “I have XXX disorder”) can radically alter the filter through which people perceive you and your actions.

When people view you through the lens of mental illness, you often become distorted.

A few months ago I saw a doctor I had never seen before. She was a young, fresh-faced, brilliantly optimistic, and wonderfully progressive new doctor. She was effortlessly congenial, comforting, and supportive. She did not, however, hide her surprise at looking through my medical history for the first time. A “What’s this about schizophrenia?” and a distinct change in tone resulted from her viewing my “current” medical issues, which are as follows:

A touch of background: My first experience of depression at the tender age of fifteen brought with it a barrage of auditory hallucinations. Schizophrenia is often associated with what are known as positive and negative symptoms. To oversimplify somewhat, negative symptoms are the loss of normal functions or qualities (mood, etc) and positive symptoms are the appearance or addition of new (dys)functions or qualities (hallucinations, delusions, etc.) So, the diagnosis, although I consider it wrong, was understandable.

Now. That is going to be on my medical record for the rest of my life. I will never be able to escape that. Labelling is an unavoidable practice in a lot of areas of our culture and has both negative and positive effects.

Unfortunately, the inaccuracy of the label that I gained eleven years ago does not detract from its ability to be still impacting me now. I dread times when I know that someone is going to be looking at my medical record. Especially as I know there are times past and times to come when that may be viewed by someone who is not a mental health expert and someone to whom I cannot elaborate on the situation.

Further to this, my accurate diagnoses also heavily impact the attitudes I get from people. And I think one of the biggest problems is that a lot of people really just don’t understand the nature of the beast.

The range of reactions is very wide and a lot of them are positive and uplifting, but some are not. There are still those in the world who believe that depression is an inherent weakness that can be overcome with a positive attitude and just trying a bit harder. There are some who don’t quite understand it because I have no reason to be depressed. And because of its nature as something abstract and often invisible, there are those who really don’t think it even exists. I have met a lot of these people, and many other kinds besides.

It can seem that once you’ve confessed your dark, terrible secret - once people know about that black cloud over your head or that dark shadow over you or that black dog following you around - they change how they react to you. Some people avoid you, some people refuse to leave you alone. There are those who view you as weak or broken, or those who think you are a malingerer. Of course, there are also those who are your saving grace, without whom you would never recover so quickly and so completely.

The supremely awful, completely mind-boggling thing is that people lose jobs and friends and partners and family members when they make the courageous decision to discuss their problems.

As I say, my openness to those who wish to know is complete. My name is Tom, I am often depressed and have been for over a decade. My first experience was as a teenager and it was accompanied by auditory hallucinations. Now, that’s the bit that usually scares people; hearing voices is the one thing that people often associate with utter and total madness (which, is of course, not a word we use). Thankfully, that’s the bit that I haven’t had to deal with all that often. I suffer with a more persistent flavour of depression that affects me the majority of the time, usually accompanied by one or two more intense, life-halting bouts a year.

Sometimes it’s not in the least bit obvious, but sometimes people find me crying for no reason and, trust me, even I don’t know the reason most of the time. I have a lot of genuinely good days where I feel like I’m on top of the world, I have a lot of genuinely terrible days where the weight of depression crushes me into a tiny wreck of a human. Do you know how often I can’t sleep because I’m brimming with energy and don’t want to waste wonderful time being unconscious? So many. Have you any idea how many nights I have fallen asleep because I’ve been that exhausted from crying in despair? I have lost count. On some terrible days I smile a lot, on some brilliant days my brain evidently hasn’t informed my face that I’m actually happy. How depression symptoms present and are experienced can be as unique as the person suffering them.

But one thing that must be impressed is that the nature of it can be hopelessly soul crushing and completely and utterly exhausting. Depression (for me) brings with it a seemingly infinite and impenetrable inner darkness. It is a blackness through which very little can be seen or understood. And, as anyone who knows me will probably attest, my ability to understand and think is my most personally important quality; the constant intellectual cloudiness that I experience often entirely robs me of who I most essentially consider myself to be.

There is also a distinct coldness. But a special kind of coldness. Not the kind of cold that you recoil from because it burns and tingles, but rather the kind that is all encompassing and prevents you from feeling anything at all. A numbness. A kind of hypothermia of affect. Any emotion is preferable to none at all.

And therein lies one of the most fundamentally infuriating barriers to dealing with depression; how can you heal yourself when the very thing that depression steals from you is your self? The nature of many mental illnesses makes them seem like utterly insurmountable obstacles. Being worn away from the inside by so completely abstract, destructive, and insidious a force allows it to take from you the very tools you need to rebuild yourself. And make no mistake, sometimes, for some of us, the idea of rebuilding oneself can seem like such an apt metaphor that it almost feels like physical reality; piecing together fragments of a pysche ripped apart by an unforgiving disease.

It is such a monumental task that it very often overwhelms myself and many like me. Obviously, it is not impossible, and with time and proper access to support, it gets much easier as you build up the necessary experience.

But do you know what often helps? People. Friends, family, work colleagues, strangers. A tiny little bit of knowledge can go a long way towards helping someone recover from a condition so cruel and so relentless.

Simple to say, but difficult to put into practise. I am well aware how difficult I can be to deal with when I’m having a bout. There are times when a single word from anyone thrown in my direction pisses me the fuck off. There are times when all of the company and support in the world is not enough. Depressed people can, by their very nature, be frustrating and inscrutable. And we know that. And sometimes we absolutely cannot stop doing the things we know are detrimental.

The key is to not give up. And sometimes not to take it personally. Support where you can and do what you think is best, but always make they know that you are there. You can’t cure someone with depression, and it’s not as easy as just loving the mental illness out of them.

You cannot heal people, but you can help to empower them so that they may heal themselves.

And so, so, so importantly, try not to view them as a different person just because they have an illness you can’t see. They are still the people you know and love, it’s just that they have a whole other distorted reality inside their own heads that they have to deal with on top of the reality they share with you.

Dear Misty,

@mercedeslackeyblog​ - please print this for her in the hospital! I want her to know we all love her and are rooting for her.

You have been one of the icons in my life for as long as I’ve been reading. Seriously. I picked up “Arrows of the Queen” when I was twelve and fell dizzyingly in love. So in love, in fact, that my father bought me the set of them leatherbound. It was one of the last things he ever bought me. They sit on my shelf with me wherever I move to (and I have moved a lot). They are the epitome of my childhood.

How do I even begin to explain what you have meant to me? I wrote you a fan letter in my teens, but I don’t think it ever reached you. Websites were less...polished then. I tried to find a copy to see what I had said, but I don’t have it anymore, so I’ll write this from scratch.

First off, for someone growing up in the 90s, sexuality was a difficult topic. My father was Catholic about it. My mother was liberal about acceptance, but not very liberal about giving us the tools to recognize it. I didn’t really accept the fact I was bi until I was 26 (last year). It was an embarrassing realization, because I had always been conditioned to already think women were interesting and cool and beautiful. But I honestly and truly believe one of the reasons I grew up being so tolerant of sexuality wasn’t my mother’s liberal attitude, but because of the fantasy I read, which didn’t use sexuality as a dramatic plot device. Your books, especially, in depicting queer relationships, poly relationships, and interracial relationships in such an ordinary light, in such a non-complaining, non special, non interesting way (as it should be!) that to me it became ordinary. I didn’t understand the big fuss when people started coming out in eighth and ninth grade. Well of course Brett could like boys. Silverfox did, and he’s one of my favorite characters, a fictional hero who I use to help combat my own anxiety and work through impossible situations. I didn’t understand why liking girls was so shocking. Keren was the impossibly cooler most perfect big sister/coach figure. I was into horse back riding until 16 (when, unfortunately, my horse died). Keren has a lot of the surly riding instructor in her, and it was a far more interesting aspect of her personality than her relationship with Sheri. Keren had even assured Sheri she would have been welcome as their third. As a kid, it hadn’t even occurred to me to make an argument against it. I - Talia’s age - agreed with her. When life gives you child brides and weird cult compounds, it’s better to find love where you can. Genuine love. Regardless of anything else.

Secondly, it was a book I needed when I didn’t know I would need it. A lot of fiction - especially geared at children - skates lightly over topics of depression, anxiety, and loss. Don’t get me wrong, I love Harry Potter with my soul. But even at the age I read it I felt the shallowness of their reactions when Sirius died. I felt my own reaction even crying while reading the book to be stronger. It would infuriate me that the next book they sort of conveniently forgot it had only been a few weeks/months. That Harry was “sad but manageable.” For context, my dad contracted Lou Gehrig’s disease at 44. They told him he had likely already had the disease 10 years. He lost everything; his temper, his dignity, bits of his mind at a time. Any filter between his brain and his mouth. His fine motor control, like holding a spoon. His major motor control, like being able to stand up. He was in a powerchair within the year. As the oldest daughter, it was expected that I would help turn him, change his catheter, and answer his shrill screams in the night. I was fourteen years old. 

Dad and I were inseparable. Father-daughter relationship compounded by the fact he had, in essence with a flexible work schedule, been a stay at home dad. He had been my primary caregiver, my confidante, my chef, my advisor, my everything. And now I was his punching bag as he lost a bit of himself at a time. “My friend, who’s a psychiatrist,” Mom always said it this way, to make sure we knew she wasn’t so weak as to need therapy. A challenge to dare us to say we did. “He says that he’s hardest on you, because he’s most assured of your love. That he can abuse you and scream at you and curse at you because he knows you’ll go back the next day. A moth to a flame.” And me staring blankly at her: “Of course I will.” Because even if it was my worst fear - it was, always had been - even if it hurt worse than I could have ever imagined - his death would have broken me, but only in half. His suffering crushed the pieces of me into dust and left me a gaping black thing sucking in the world - “I love him too much to miss a moment of this.” Even if every minute - every possible second - was me reminding myself I had to breathe and feeling my lungs on fire, my head was on the edge of a migraine, it was impossible to interact, but I had to. I had to smile. To go to high school. To turn in assignments on time regardless of the cost between going to bed at 2 and hearing him scream at 3. 

Your books, though, weren’t fake. I held onto them with the assurance of that one quote: life is the scream into the void; art is the answer you are not alone. I held onto the depression and grief and trauma of your characters and felt sane. If I hadn’t, I might have thought I was losing my mind. I was, of course. And I had been conditioned Catholically to think of mental health as a weakness, a secret shame. I had been told by my mother psychologists and medication were wonderful advancements for those people; sick people. Sick in their mind, she would say smugly. Her adamant assurance was: “We have to go on like usual. We can’t let people know we’re struggling.” And so we did. Social events. Big smiles. Sleepovers (somewhere else, my friends explained, your dad bums us out). People didn’t find out he was dying until prom of my senior year. I was on the receiving end of a lot of horror from teachers (why didn’t you tell us? Ask for an extension?) I had to be normal I wanted to tell them, but I didn’t even know how to begin to explain.

Once a pediatrician told my mom I was deeply angry and tired; I was losing my father. I was fifteen. I needed to see a counselor. My mom went ballistic in a public waiting room. She aggressively turned to me and asked if this was true? There was no chance, of course, for me to disagree. I didn’t even want to. My loyalty to my family was (is) so strong that seeing anyone upset her so badly had put my back against the wall and made me bare my teeth. I reflect a lot on it now; how poorly that doctor handled it, the way she would have bungled it much worse if it had been physical abuse. You never confront the person in front of the child. Never don’t have a safety plan in place. 

“She said you were so young,” my mother snarled on the way home. “When we both know you haven’t been young in years. I watched you. Watched you go from fifteen to twenty in months instead of years. Don’t you think?”

I could only nod, and when I covered my mouth, fingertips touched wet skin. I hadn’t been young in years. 

Darkwind was someone I identified heavily with. Someone who changed his name, cut his hair, let his grief consume him. Someone who shied away from Silverfox’s help. Someone who was glad when his father still got some. The day of my dad’s funeral, I cut off my hair. I was 19. The nightmare had lasted five years. I had stayed home to go to a local college so I could keep living at home, keep shielding my younger sisters, keep driving them to school and viola practice and karate. I had to give up my extracurriculars early on (and lie, of course, on my applications). It was actually a disaster at the hair cutting place (not important, but the lady called the police thinking I had stolen her cell phone which had fallen behind some tools). I went home. My mother took one look at my hair and told me it made my face look fat. “It’s for Dad,” I said steadily. In my mind, I was howling like Darkwind. I wondered if I could break my name into grief and sorrow, but it was too hard to think of the name I might have been, since the person I had been was as dead as dad was. 

On days where my two younger sisters were scared and confused (the youngest was 13 when he died), I read them The Fairy Godmother and One Good Knight. They liked that one especially well. I went on to absorb almost all of your works (I think it’s impossible though, to be honest. There are just so many that either you’re a witch or I keep reading the same ones again and thinking I’ve never read them. For instance, I have a Bard Song on my nightstand right now from a bargain bin. Never read it before. Recently read Four and Twenty Blackbirds). Of course, my favorite series was Valdemar. I know all those characters the best, having reread most of them over again several times. I liked Elemental Masters, 700 Kingdoms (some). I was sad that the Beauty & the Beast stories in both weren’t my favorites (The Fire Rose, Beauty and the Werewolf, since it’s my favorite Disney film (but as your stories follow the traditional fairytale a little closer, and that tale is a bit gross, I understand). I think my favorites were The Firebird, Phoenix and Ashes, Reserved from the Cat, The Wizard of London).

Honestly, I may be a tiny minority, but I ADORE Joust. I was sad there weren’t more of them. I spent much of the time I read them inventing my own dragon egg, my own falling through time and space. My own female girl rider takes on the Team without being just a sidekick who talked to animals. It is hard to recommend or talk about it without people laughing, and I appreciate it IS an incredibly hard-core nerd fantasy genre (ancient Egypt, jousting, dragons). It feels a lot like Anne McCaffery crossed with a Naomi Novik story (since Temeraire and Napoleonic Wars are equally hard-core nerd stories. I was lucky to stumble on that line recently - I feel like there’s not enough of the true blue 80s/90s fantasy voice anymore. Sometimes it feels all too dark and plot driven, lacking the characters and slice of life that your works have nestled in my heart, places like the Palace Compound that I know as well as I knew my middle and high schools. A place as real to me as they are, including my own room. My own Companion. My own Heraldic Whites when I turned 18 and took the leatherbound books from my father in an eyestinging rush of love. 

Even now when I was looking up a list of your work, I’m amazed and appalled to see I haven’t caught any of your works since 2009 or so. HOW MANY ARE THERE 100? 200? I thought there were 70 something, but no, you’ve far outstripped yourself. I usually pick up the books in secondhand shops. I’ll go straight for “L” and then just tip all of them into my arms if I haven’t read them. It’s one of my favorite rainyday activities. I noticed you even have a book out this year! CRAP! It should not be POSSIBLE you can write faster than I can read! I’m 27 and I still read a lot of the books that came out when I was born or in diapers. Sometimes I wonder which books you’ve written are your favorites. If there are books you’ve written you skim through like “hmmm I don’t even remember this” and read it with the same laughing intensity as the rest of us, resting your thumb on “oh yes, this was when I was...”

Anyway. I know this letter is long. You’ve been a saint for even getting this far. So let me say this. When I think of the BEST writers of fantasy in the 20th and 21st centuries, your name is among the greats. I’ll say something like: Anne McCaffery’s Dragonriders of Pern; Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game; Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time; Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar...and EVERYTHING ELSE. A lot more people know the names of George R.R. Martin, of J.K. Rowling, of Neil Gaiman. But none of them have put out the solid, unending stream of work that literally POPULATES what most people consider “fantasy.” Your ideas, your work, your world-building influence television, influence Dungeons & Dragons, other works. You are a Giant in your field, and even if you don’t feel it, you have laid the groundwork for an entire generation to lay themselves reverently on the altar of your sacrifice, your reflection of relationships, and taught young girls like me what it was to embrace themselves, in all shapes - black tar and bi pride. 

I know you probably tire of hearing this, but I want to be an author. And I’m a good writer. I don’t say it boastfully. I say it as something I’ve always heard, from teachers and friends and magazines. But mom said being an author was like being an actor - a pipe dream, a thing to do “on the side” and “as a hobby.” And it is a hobby of mine, for now. I did the Responsible Thing and became a lawyer. It was quite horrible. But I did it. For Dad, you know. Legacy and all that. 

But don’t you DARE die before I’m published. I’m not talking about the hospital right now. I’m talking about choking on a banana; slipping on the sidewalk; getting mobbed by adoring fans. It is literally my bucketlist to publish a book, to meet you, to dedicate the book to a woman who I’ve never met, who I’ve never known, but who had influenced and impacted my life SO profoundly I consider her characters as pieces of myself. Her worlds as places of safety when I’m sad. The helping hand she held out to a twelve year old girl, and fifteen years later the one I’m still gripping tightly. 

YOU are one of the best women in my life, and one of the best role models I’ve ever known. Even if we’ve never met, knowing that you could be a deeply nerdy human who loves horses and magic and reading every day and still be “successful” when the world outside told me I dressed wrong and looked wrong and felt wrong. That I needed to pick up a magazine, or watch sitcoms, or generally stop making them feel pitying and uncomfortable because of the things I liked. You made me proud to be a feminist, an ally, a writer, a dreamer, a reader, and maybe only lately of my sexuality, but still growing and going forward. 

So, here’s lots of love and adoration and gratitude flooding your way from:

One herald (whose companion was someone she knew in real life reincarnated too early, obviously grove born, with mindspeech, with magic, of course and lifebonded with a Kestra'chern. Predictably, I fought the lifebonding every step of the way, and consider him a great nuisance).

One dragon rider in the jousting wars (with a dragon named Altaira (high flying) who is such a deep dark color she seems black but ripples cobalt and violet).

One grateful apprentice to the Fairy Godmother, who herself was saved from one of a great many plots by the impetus of her father’s illness/death.

And of course, from one persnickety lawyer in DC, drowning in student loan debt and of course too many books, one cat too pretty to be a boy named Gandalf, and his Greyhounds (yes, two, who are very lowkey and I think you would like. They’re like large sleeping cats more than dogs, but very friendly with horses). Of course I named the cat Gandalf simply for the introduction of “Gandalf, the Greyhounds.” Originally I wanted to name a dog “Gandalf...the Greyhound” but because of who I am I went to the shelter and asked for the dog least likely to get adopted and sort of came out with a bonded pair and then it seemed they needed twin names so they’re named Fred & George after Harry Potter. 

But rambling aside, I adore you. I adore your books. I adore the world you’ve given freely for us to play in. Get well soon, and lots, lots, and lots of love. I’ll be playing in my worlds today especially a lot, thinking of you.

All the best,

Kaylee

DEATH WILL ONLY BE THE BEGINNING #2

2.Disconnected/ Dissociation/ Depersonalisation / Darkness

Most days I'm not sure that I would choose to look after me... I would like to give up and scream.

consistent healing with mental health is the most frustrating thing. like how do you justify yourself to the people getting annoyed at you for your tics when you barely even know what a tic is and why you’re doing what you’re doing? people never believe your explanations, or it would take them studying you to see the reality of the depth of suffering, why I’m doing these annoying things and it is hard to explain. I can’t say that I can’t control it because that’s not completely true- it’s not like a muscle spasm completely out of control, its more of an impulse a bit like OCD behaviour. My brain follows mental patterns n finds it difficult to not get out of the cycle. its like scratching at a mosquito bite where yeah technically you can just not scratch it but it feels agonising not to and takes all your concentration not to do.

I’ve been more uncomfortable with the idea of being a person lately. i can’t conceptualise time so I get this feeling sometimes where its like , I hate the fact that I’m a person and I exist and it usually makes me super confused & I go into a misty state of mind where everything feels like it’s piling up leaving me anxious n too deep & I just feel too disconnected from everything. I feel lost when I look at my limbs; they grow heavier.

I personally try to spend as little time looking in the mirror as possible because it can be a big trigger for my dissociation. but taking pictures of my day/ what I’ve eaten helps me remember i have been present in the long run. This is why I have a complex relationship with social media, sometimes when I go on it I get depressed even though I want to be active. I cope by only looking in the mirror with other people there or when I have a specific reason to. It’s like I know my soul but my physical form confuses me.

I don’t even tell my friends I’m dissociating any more cause it’s just,, a given. I feel really embarrassingly bad. It’s one of the few things with my mental health that I try and minimise and hide from my friends- but I end up hiding myself as a whole, when my soul wants to be present but my body doesn’t know how to comply. I’m really sorry people have to deal with that, it’s so scary to be disconnected.

it’s annoying to have sucky mental health cos even when I want to get help I get embarrassed & feel ashamed that my brain is the way it is. I feel like a burden, or I don’t care enough about myself to believe I deserve help & to be healthy & mentally okay. I often realise the depth of self hate & my brain tells me I’d be better off dead. 

I feel forced to engage in ‘the caste system of life’ . As humans were just expected to ‘keep calm and carry on’ but I’m genuinely tired. I can’t grasp that I ever used to work 2 jobs in a day at one point, I can’t grasp how. I feel an immense amount of distress about having to work in these times too, it’s like finally my mental is free to roam to whichever corner it deserves to feel peace without having to mask at all times, finally I get some extra time to organise my journals and paint & we’re actually still being made to feel obligated to go about our days as if everything is normal, while being tuned into a fear frequency. I feel like so many things are obfuscated with absolute lies & it’s hard to go on just because you have to but not cos you actually desire it.

I’m a great worker & communicator when I do have the energy, but I don’t have any dream job because I don’t dream to slave away to a capitalist system that perpetuates all kind of nonsense, i dream to dismantle it. Which I know I can’t do, so then I feel powerless, insignificant & small. for now I just can’t be arsed doing anything. maybe deep down I still have hope.

I’ve become more pessimistic that optimistic,I receive these death threats from my brain too In really dumb moments, & I’m like oh my gosh we have to just keep washing dishes & putting them away & putting more food in them & doing this over & over until we die. 

I am someone that needs people but I have these silly built in coping mechanism. it’s like this character in my brain needs to hop to the recharge centre,it often wants to hide in my mental cavern of preservation because it feels like it’s disconnected from everything else. like how is everyone holding up jobs or education ? how will I be able to have all these good times & spoil my family & friends like I want to, if I can’t hold up a job ? why can’t my head not be such a bloody mess & why can’t I seem to conform to normality ??? My brain starts asking the questions, my brain starts caving away. 

Even a long time ago my brain stopped planning for a future past 30 because of my individual situation & traumas, and mainly because the world is a horrible illusion once you grow & realise how truly powerless & insignificant it makes you feel. dissociation turns my memories into flat, unconvincing shadows.

thankfully I haven’t gave up & I’m still here with a bit more of a desire to go on- but only because of the inspiring creative loving caring people that surround me. over the years I’ve come across marvellous souls & I have the most beautiful family I could ever ask for. i would never want to seem ungrateful. I know the whole saying of ‘silence speaks volumes’ but as someone who’s always felt like they need to explain themselves for their entire life, I’ve learned that sometimes silence is necessary, to be able to fully be yourself & uplift the people in your life, you need to learn how to be comfortable & confident with your own self. I’m washing away my Shame and painting my shell shiny y’all!!!! Soon come you’ll see the armour I’ve been working on in the flesh.

My silences are not done in a sense of ‘I need to work on me only & FIRST, THEN I can worry about you’ but a ‘I’ve never put myself first & ALSO need to worry about me the way I worry about you I want all of us to eat together, I just don’t wanna be that friend that feels like they’re holding people back from doing things because I’m on pause. and of course there’s the fact that compromise is necessary to make friendships work, I want to make time & be present. 

I don’t feel obligated(I genuinely do want to be there) but in my head for things to run smoothly for everyone’s sake there needs to be consistency(I don’t wanna lose the people I love & want to grow with them) but someone said to me consistency is just obligation sprinkled. and sometimes it just be like that, I hate how all my messages start with ‘so sorry for these late replies’ I hate it. the people pleaser always feels the need to explain but i feel bad because I feel like I’ve let them down already & that I didn’t intend or want to ignore them I just have a terrible relationship with my phone,social media & I’m one of the worst communicators I know, even though In person & in a comfortable atmosphere-I’m someone who can speak for the whole of both Scotland and Tanzania. I have a very all or nothing type brain.

most time I’m restless too and its like..i get hyper aware of all my surroundings and its really scary and emotional for a little bit but then i just start dissociating hella and it sucks ,, it’s become a normal state of mind or thing my brain does to sort of reject humanity and stuff & when I do ‘zone out’ there has to be a sense of awareness in my brain, I care a lot & I’m aware that those on the other side will feel left the dark from the other end.

I just get embarrassed n I don’t wanna ‘be the fuck up’ even though my brain actively just keeps doing it. I’m not even exaggerating sometimes the anxiety builds up because some eedyat from my past that I wanted to avoid messages me. or because I can’t reply to all my people at once. (I have people & connects from Tanzania, Turkey & Scotland) so my messages will pile up & then I don’t know how to start the replies & then I freak out & feel like a failed shitty friend, I also don’t wanna be selective because I WANT to speak & hear from everyone I do maintain contact with, but then my brain dissociates.

sexual abuse, physical & narcissistic abuse sucks. It doesn’t control me - but it’s shaped a part of my brain. for the time’s I’ve had to ‘cope’ & go to work as if everything is okay, further masking. the times as a kid I felt like I’d get punishment or a beating for answering back or doing something or being disobedient or ‘wrong’, it fuelled my ability at being able to mask more. I could lie for as long as I could so remember thanks to pedo paul- he also distorted & lured me into feeling easy & comfortable in highly alarming uncomfortable scenarios no child should ever have to experience.

being myself fully, feeling comfortable to be myself & explain my brain has never been easy.

another example that also made me be able to mask, is growing up in a ‘perfect’ looking family with much more dysfunction than I realised the older I aged. there isn’t necessarily a lack of connection in my family-we have a lot of love & togetherness, we know how to be a team. we’re a fast & fierce intelligent,compassionate bunch & I’m thankful enough to have 2 very understanding parents that will listen..I could’ve spoken to them about certain things earlier, I wish I did but I can’t go back. I forgive & hope they forgive me for there were still years where I felt judged, or like I’d be disowned.

I think it’s invalidating for parents to write off the so called ‘teen phase’ phase as the result of hormones and irrational teenage anger.

We now have more of a relationship yet there’s still that disconnect or connect only when I’m communicating with one of them at a time (depending on the subject matter/ setting).i can still chill with them both but sometimes chat feels forced. they have given me the reassurance that I’ll never be judged with what I share. Though at one point I felt (or in my head) like the downer child, they did project feelings of shame which I think stemmed from a ‘place of concern’ - and that was due to a lack of familial friendship. Both my parents were made to be parents & did a damn good job at raising us because despite the flaws. we remain tough, empathetic, polite,sensible, witty, charming, fun, respectable & decent which are all qualities from both of their seed.

I think they both deserved different loves or a more open one. because you see it sometimes felt they could’ve put their parent badge aside and talk to me like a friend, I’m not sure if all my siblings felt the same but I did. I’m also thankful for all the lessons & can’t discount my parents parenting, they are great. I’m not saying they failed, I just think that if you want your child to communicate with you, there needs to be a sense of comfort ability for them to be able to open up. If you force them to speak while you’ve ingrained fear, you end up pushing them further away. I guess to an extent the whole ‘ingrain’ fear into your child so they can respect you does work, but this creates sneakier children too- finding ways to get away with things because they’re worried you’ll get them in trouble for doing so. so if the communication lessens as the child grows, it’s because they didn’t feel understood, despite being listened to. Anyways I love my family still, I’m just an over thinker & sometimes I feel like there’s a lack of soul level conversation & genuine laughter. there’s grudges held but not expressed so then the atmosphere of the household begins to feel stuffy. whether or not everyone realises it, whether it’s because different personality types clash in the house, a bunch of reasons perhaps. But yeah in terms of dissociating & tying masking into it, it would happen whenever I felt in danger or like someone would think i was not good enough and hurt me. 

sometimes I can be dry & just wanna listen to my peoples. but I feel like I always need to talk because of my people pleaser brain that also feels the need to fill in silences or feels rude when it doesn’t respond but the reality is sometimes my brain doesn’t allow me to be able to be consistent with social media, messaging, calls etc- I have a disconnect from social media even tho part of me loves the concept so much & the communication aspect is such a bonus (especially with international friends & family£ in turn my life feels like a dramatic podcast. for a while now there’s been more a mentally tired feeling that reigns over my brain, it all just gets a bit blurry so I have this habit of ‘checking out’ when I feel like I’m under stress & there’s a chance of more overloaded- it sort of makes my brain disengage even more. for some people reality checks help, for others they make things worse. personally when I don’t feel good enough I start convincing myself I already failed & that I’m not worthy of my family n friends & all that yap, the brain mould grows!! whenever stress arises or my awkward brain starts conspiring against itself- the zone out will begin.

I don't even realise the weight of my words, how serious and ugly it is. I am floating around. for years. I don't remember what feeling real is like. I feel like everything is fake and even though I matter I’m unimportant until I wear my skin of confidence & the that life is a game. I want to be able to feel like a normal person and believe myself, to believe that life isn’t a dream. I can't. I am just floating all the time. I just want to feel real for once and not so fake.

I do use listening to music or a podcast as a coping strategy so i have something engaging for my brain to focus on. music grounds me when de realisation gets really bad. but then there’s always knowing that more and more is just piling up. It’s like an outer body experience where you’re watching your lifeless body turn blue & there’s a timer with spilling sand but you’re frozen.

I feel this pattern from childhood of escapism is gash coming into adulthood, feeling everything so intensely can genuinely get overwhelming my heart feels like a racing car. I’m keen & determined though. I’m hopefully going to learn more about the brain, human impulses, how we think, because learning about humans helps me understand why I do things more, and that sort of seems to help. I wanna be strong enough for the people I love, I want to support them in tough times too I just don’t always have conversations- I’m sorry. being half there isn’t nice,neither fun.

I also keep thinking there’s some bigger /thing/ Reason for the universe, maybe waiting for the aliens or government to blow us up with the push of a button lol. I spend more time thinking about the afterlife but don’t do enough in my present one. most days I feel like life is a game boy. Is there a reason why everyone does what they do etc? Is society too dead to mend ? Remembering that it’s just the laws of the universe (human instinct, physics) controlling everything can help me. The master key system helps. Vsauce Thoughty2, Dr Phil Valentine and Brother Panic, Infinite waters,studying, art, music & generally scrolling through youtube helps lol. but I really wonder does anyone else feel like they are interacting with the world but their head is wrapped in plastic, so they can see and hear but are still totally but imperceptibly separated from the world, so they just can’t quite..connect?