#I had a whole breakthrough with my mental health while writing this post lmao

[whovianderson]

(TW) A very overly personal discussion of Mulder’s suicidality in Redux

Despite Mulder ending up faking his suicide, I immediately picked up on the implication that he was close to killing himself before the phone rang.

(Side note, but I’m virulently opposed to how they used this for shock value. Suicide should not be written as a cliffhanger. It is a serious issue that ruins lives, my family’s included, and not a writing device.)

Anyway, I don’t think this attempt is in character for Mulder.

Namely, he would never do that to Scully. A huge part of the reason he’s distressed at all is because he feels responsible for Scully dying. If he killed himself, Scully would know that, and would subsequently blame herself. He would effectively be making her feel responsible for his death in the way that he feels responsible for hers. Maybe I’m biased by my experiences, but he has to know that he’d be hurting her more if he did this. That’s why I was so relieved to discover that there was never a moment that Scully thought he did kill himself, because I know the horrifying emotions she would be experiencing in that position. This storyline reminded me of what it’s like to experience those emotions. It also made me think about what the people I love feel when they are suicidal, which in itself was distressing.

I’m aware that this is a very sensitive topic, and I hope this doesn’t come across badly. I know (from my own personal experience) that when one is in such a state, one doesn’t have the capacity to think of other people. I am by no means blaming Mulder, or anyone else who deals with mental illness as I do, for its effects on others. Mental illness is not a choice, and therefore can’t be blameworthy. Neither can one rationalise with mental illness, because it doesn’t make sense, so I’m not going to try.

I suppose what I’m trying to say is that from Mulder’s entire characterisation so far, his love for Scully transcends everything. He has proven time and time again that he cares about her more than he cares about himself. I don’t think he would risk putting her in a position where she could feel any guilt for his death, when such guilt is literally why he wants to die. She is dying already. He wouldn’t want to infuse her last moments with guilt in that way.

I don’t deny the fact that Mulder’s entire life has been turned on its head, and that’s had a huge impact on his mental state. I’ve written about this in other posts, but the strategies he developed to cope with his trauma and grief have suddenly been taken away from him. On top of this, the fact that he indulged in those coping strategies for so long has fatally harmed the person he loves most. It would be enough to make anyone feel this way.

I know firsthand what it’s like to hold yourself responsible for someone else’s life, what it feels like to believe that you are killing somebody. I can’t begin to describe how awful it is. To this day, I feel so guilty about not being able to fix other people’s struggles that it drives me to some very, very dark places to try and reverse the roles. So trust me, I understand where Mulder is coming from, and this episode is yet another way he is an extremely relatable character to me.

Perhaps I am being contrived for the sake of relating to Mulder, perhaps I am in denial. It’s hard to say. Overall, as a fandom, I think we need to treat all interpretations of this scene with respect - particularly because it’s such a difficult subject for so many of us.

Sorry, that was very self-indulgent. I just needed to write my thoughts out in order to be able to continue to enjoy the show that has brought me so much joy.

I’ve already started watching Redux II, and it has helped me so much! Mulder had found a productive way to help Scully, one that isn’t self-destructive. That’s what I aspire to achieve on my healing journey. He was also so happy to see Scully when he visited her in hospital, which made me emotional. He’s decided to savour the time he has left with her instead, because being present for the people you love is the most important thing, even if you can’t save them.

I’m so, so grateful for The X-Files. Not long ago, I wouldn’t have been able to watch the show because of this. Instead, the inclusion of this plot line has enabled me to challenge my biggest trigger, and rewarded me with the continued enjoyment of something I love with my whole heart. Recovery is possible, and this has shown me that I’m now one step closer!

#I had a whole breakthrough with my mental health while writing this post lmao #had to take a quick break to write an email to my therapist #tw suicide #tw discussion of suicide #whoops I trauma dumped again #pip watches txf for the first time and goes insane #5x01 #redux #the x-files

[lantur]

I typed up a whole long tumblr post since I haven't written in a while and wanted to process my feelings, and then my laptop froze and shut down and it got deleted lmao. So here's the quick verson:

wins,

Made homemade chicken stock for the first time ever last Thursday - a cooking milestone for me! I was so happy with how it turned out.

Had a wonderful weekend with Derek playing so much of our favorite board game, Spirit Island, together. <3

Delivered a presentation / training to a class of professionals about the disease I work with, and it went SO well - totally worth working 6-8 pm on Tuesday night.

Finished writing a proposal about why my job deserves to continue having its grant funding renewed for the next 2 years. The proposal was almost 10 pages long and I am very proud of myself for finishing and submitting ahead of time. The due date is tomorrow and I submitted on Tuesday.

Have been consistent with my yoga practice all month. <3

Loving Abbott Elementary!

struggles,

Spent most of last week very depressed.

Have spent most of this week mildly depressed to the point it feels like I have a cold. I have super low energy and low motivation. Doing anything feels like pulling teeth.

Had a breakthrough after therapy today, realizing that a lot of my current struggles stem from needing something new, needing a fresh start, after four solid months of struggle with my mental health and the (related) constant deterioration of my family situation.

I won't get a fresh start with my family. But I can get new creative projects and outlets. I think that it's time for me to get back to the scrapbooking project I started earlier this year. It's also time for another new creative project. I have been longing to write something lenghty and complicated like delicate again, but the fic inspiration is not there. Maybe it's finally time, after 15+ years of writing fanfiction, to try writing an original story, just for fun, even if no one else ever reads it.

There are things about my current situation that I can't change, and I need / it's time for me to change the things I can.

#lanturing

[zoeysdamn]

Hello, it's me

A quick heads up about my writing whereabouts: I feel like it's the twentieth post I make about how I'm late on posting lmao, I had a great breakthrough a month ago and it seemed to go rather well.

But shit had gone so very wrong really hard, really fast. Long short story, I inherited a whole new job with a lot of pressure and responsabilities, added to my current missions. There's some fights with my manager. Personnal things went down again. I tried to k!ll myself again. I have a hard time climbing the hill again and more alone than ever. This had been a pretty rough month to be honest.

I'm trying to continue writing, bc damn I really want to finish this fic.

So don't worry, it'll be finished; but maybe not as soon as I wanted, and I'm sincerly apologizing for that.

I'm also so sorry for being MIA and not chatting with the wonderful people I'm lucky to call friends here (you know who you are, you precious muffins). I'm sorry I haven't been checking on you for a while, truly I am and I hope you're doing well ❤️

I'll be back as a writter but I can't guarantee when, and until then you all take care of yourselves ❤️

(I use meme to deflect my mental health issues, don't mind me)

[mellarkandart]

top 5 fan works of 2021

rules: it’s time to love yourselves! choose your 5 (ish) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2021. tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

tysm for the tag @hailing-stars!!

2021 was like a breakthrough year for me as a writer, when I finally decided that in order to refer to myself as a writer, I needed to write! I’ve been blessedly welcomed into two beautiful fandom communities this year, Irondad and Severitus, and it all makes me so happy 💛 I posted 17 fics on Ao3 last year which is kinda crazy to me and it was a little difficult to narrow them down, but here we go! I’m bad at tumblr so I’ll just link all works at the bottom of this post 👇

1. Scissors

this is hands down my favorite work of mine, because it comes from a very personal place for me. I think that the main reason it’s so dear to me though is because of the tremendous amount of support that community has shown me, like just the outpouring of love towards my personal story and then the people in the comments sharing their own stories and struggles with mental health… it’s a fic I was very nervous about posting because of what people might think and in turn I feel like it’s become such a safe place to discuss the sort of things that the story is focused on and it just really means a lot to me that strangers on the internet are not only willing to be so kind to me but also brave enough to share their journey as well.

2. Illicit Affairs

this is kind of a dark story presented in such a light tone lmao I was super excited when I first started writing this and boy it flopped so hard, for like five solid chapters I didn’t think that anyone was reading it and I felt so discouraged but at the same time, you gotta write for yourself, right? I figured that this was a story that I wanted to read so I’d better write it. About midway through writing the original ten chapter layout one idea crossed my mind and pretty much changed everything, and so it took me awhile to finish but I’m so proud of it and the response it’s received now is mindblowing to me and while I was so relieved to finally finish that final chapter, I just couldn’t seem to let go of my innocent Hufflepuff Harry so I’m continuing the story as a series with one-shots, one of which is already posted and there’s a couple more in my docs just waiting to be polished up.

3. Itsy Bitsy Spider

only Irondad fic listed here? Okay… yeah XD there’s like four other ones that I posted this year are okay, but I feel like this one is a lot better. I was so excited to hop on the Friendly Neighborhood Gift Exchange, but I also had no idea what to write and was so nervous as to what my giftee would request… luckily @asyouleft said that they were cool with anything and so that somehow ended up here XD I had been reading a lot of Homeless Peter fics and identity reveals are always cool, and I thought I could have something like that occur around Christmas and while it’s barely mentioned in the fic, it does happen 😂 I almost didn’t do the whole repetitive “there was a spider” thing at the beginning of each scene but I mean… there was a spider XD

4. Calamity

gahh… I look back on this fic and see nothing but a contingency mess, but it’s one of my most popular fics and I guess I have to appreciate it for being the first real fic I’ve written. I mean I’ve been writing fic for several years but it was very, very bad and I didn’t really even seem to realize it which is the sad part 😂 I started when I was thirteen tho so let’s just say this was my first fic as an adult. Uh, anyway, I start to feel self conscious about my work after about six months (or hours but like whatever) so I haven’t actually looked over it in quite awhile, but I guess it’s what kickstarted me into really writing fic so yayyy!

5. The Boy Who Swung

this is a chaotic mess and I’ve never had more fun writing anything. I always like to incorporate humor into my stories bc that’s my coping mechanism or whatever but I never imagined that I would write a full on crack, or a crossover fic, but here we are. the best works to me are the ones that teach you how to write more and/or differently, and I feel like this one taught me that I don’t have to try quite so hard in order to achieve my writing goals because it didn’t take me long to write and it was perhaps the first time I really actually enjoyed writing something lmao

Tagging: I apologize if you’ve already been tagged or don’t wanna be tagged, I don’t really know people on tumblr that well so I’m just going at random here with users I recognize lmao: @asyouleft @joyful-soul-collector @wiceba @timberva @sherlockfreak05 @whumphoarder @yes-i-am-happyaspie @gzdacz-writes-fic @keep-a-bucket-full-of-stars @kohakhearts @zenzenhanashi @clairdeloon-abie @marvelous-writer @magnificentandstrange (I’m not sure if some of you lovelies even write but you’re really nice readers at least so I didn’t wanna leave you out 🙈😂) and anyone else feel free!