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adarkrainbow · 1 year

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Fairytales talk: Rapunzel

Rapunzel

You might know the story thanks to the recent Disney movie “Tangled” which loosely adapted the original fairytale. Of course, as you might expect, the true story is much different.

To recap the basic story as it usually goes: A lonely couple lived next door to a large walled garden belonging to a witch. The wife, pregnant at the time, saw in the witch’s garden some rapunzel growing. She had a craving for it, and asked her husband to get some. At first he refused, but she was so obsessed with it she refused to eat anything else and fell sick, so he stole the herb from the garden to feed his wife. But soon the cravings came back, stronger than before, and the woman fell ill again. The husband entered the garden to steal more, but is caught by the witch. When the husband explained his situation and begged for mercy, the witch agreed to give the mother her rapunzel. But in exchange, she would have ownership of their unborn child. The husband agreed, preferring to lose his child than his wife, and so when the baby was born the witch took the couple’s daughter, which she called (fittingly) Rapunzel. When Rapunzel reached the age of twelve, the witch decided to isolate her from the world. She placed her at the top of a tall tower without doors or stairs, deep in the forest, where the girl spent her time singing and brushing her golden hair (which grew very, VERY long). So long in fact that, whenever the witch wanted to enter the tower, she screamed “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair” and the young girl would do so through the only window of the tower – the witch using them as a rope to climb.

One day, a prince passing by heard Rapunzel singing, saw the beautiful young girl and then how the witch climbed in the tower. He used the same cry to convince Rapunzel to unleash her hair. She was quite surprised and frightened at first, but the man explained his love for her, and soon they developed a romance, the prince secretly visiting her (since the witch forbade Rapunzel from having any human contact). However, one day Rapunzel accidentally revealed the existence of the prince to the witch who, extremely angry, cut off the girl’s hair and banished her into a barren desert. When the prince came to visit her beloved, the witch tricked him with the cut hair. Once the prince was at the top of the tower, the witch violently pushed him by the window – down below were sharp thorns, which gouged his eyes out. The blind prince then wandered through the wilderness, blind, but still madly in love and seeking Rapunzel wherever she is.

Later, the prince ended up in the wasteland where Rapunzel was now living and the two met by pure coincidence – he heard her beautiful singing and knew he had found back his love. Rapunzel cried upon seeing what had happened to her beloved, but when her tears touched his wounds his eyes grew back. He then took Rapunzel back to his kingdom and their lived happily ever after. (Yeah!)

This is the most common version of the story, the German version as told by the Brothers Grimm. However this story is ancient. The Brothers Grimm put in their book (in 1812) their own interpretation of the Germanic fairytale “Rapunzel” by Friedrich Schulz (1790, roughly twenty years before). But this one was a translation of the French fairytale “Persinette” (1698), which ITSELF was inspired/an adaptation of the Italian fairytale “Petrosinella” (from 1634). There are also several other Italian fairytales which bear strong similarities to “Rapunzel” and might have influenced it, such as “Prunella” or “Snow-White-Fire-Red”. A common theory claims that the tale of Rapunzel can find back its root to legendary tales of an imprisoned sun goddess in pre-Christian Europe (probably towards the Baltic region). Of course, you can expect the tale to have a lot of variations Xp

# A minor variation can be mentioned – the name of the herb or plant the girl is named after. Indeed, “Rapunzel”, before being a woman name, was a plant name (the rapunzel is better known as rampion) and several versions change the name of the girl depending on the eaten forbidden vegetal. In the French and Italian versions “Persinette” and “Petrosinella”, the herb eaten is parsley (and the name of the girl is adapted). In the tale “Prunella”, the heroine is called as such because she ate prunes from a witch’s garden. In other versions, the pregnant mother rather craves for the witch’s lettuce – indeed, “rapunzel” can be the German name for rampion, as much as it can be the name of “corn salad” or “lamb’s lettuce”.

# Why oh why would the father steal away plants from the garden of a visibly powerful and vengeful witch? After all, it is just a pregnancy craving? Well, as I mentioned before, the craving actually get so bad that the mother starts falling ill – it is her life that is at risk. This is actually tied to an old medieval belief, that the cravings of the pregnant woman had to be satiated else it would endanger the life of the mother and/or the baby. It was quite a strong superstition. Some variations also explain that the peasants ignored that their neighbor was a witch, or even that they didn’t know they lived near a supernatural garden – since the plants looked wild, they assumed it was an uncultivated parcel of land.

# Some people have noticed that the parents aren’t quite reluctant with giving their child away. In one variation, the parents actually do move out of their house to settle somewhere else, far away from the witch’s garden. But the day Rapunzel is born, the witch appeared on their doorstep and asked for her due.

# The biggest change that the story knew was the one about sex. Because yes, Rapunzel was originally a tale about sex. There’s a reason why the witch decided to isolate Rapunzel when she reached twelve years old – the age of puberty and the discovery of sexuality. That’s also why the witch was so angry with a man coming into the tower. This is very much highlighted in the original version of the tale: you see, in its first versions the witch learned of the prince’s existence because Rapunzel complained she was gaining weight and her clothes were too tight. The witch quickly realized that Rapunzel was in fact pregnant (something the girl ignored all about since visibly she had no sexual education), which meant that a man was coming into the tower, and this is why she became so mad at the girl. The same way, when Rapunzel is banished into the desert, she actually gives birth to the results of her sexual encounter with the prince: twins, either two sons or a girl and a boy. Let’s not forget that women deemed “impure” had their hair cut short in medieval times – which reinforces here the sexual themes of Rapunzel.

However, fairytales being what they are, sexuality was removed from the tale as it became more “child-friendly” and Rapunzel accidentally revealed to the witch the existence of the prince by mindlessly complaining that the witch was much heavier than the prince when she climbed her hair. As a result, the witch’s wrath becomes rather a sort of jealousy at Rapunzel giving love to someone else than her – and this is this latest interpretation that many adaptations played on, representing the witch as obsessed for affection.

# The role of the witch as a villain is… variable depending on the versions of the tale. In the tale proper, the witch actually treats Rapunzel quite well, as her own daughter. Rapunzel is not abused or unhappy in her beautiful and luxurious tower, where her “mother” visits her regularly. Imprisoning her was the result of seemingly an obsession with protecting her/keeping her pure/having all of her love. Even more so, when you read the tale, you notice that Rapunzel does not ask the prince to save her and they make no plan whatsoever to get her out of there. Some versions even make her seem less villainous by her not harming or doing anything to the prince. But on the opposite side, many suggested that the strange cravings and illnesses of the pregnant wife might have been caused by the witch in the first place, in a twisted plan to get the couple’s child. In the same way, sometimes Rapunzel wants to escape the tower, and asks the prince to bring her skeins of silk that she wants to saw together in an escape ladder.

# Just imagine for one second what must have been Rapunzel’s torment. Giving birth in the desert, sometimes to twins, all on her own, without even knowing what a pregnancy is. She is incredibly lucky to still be alive when the prince finds her. [Though in some variations of the story, older and non-German, Rapunzel actually knew what a pregnancy is and actually tried to hide her growing belly from the witch.

# If you watched Tangled, you might know that the witch is called there “Mother Gothel”. It is based on the original tale, yes, but slightly different. You see, in the German fairytale Rapunzel calls the witch “Frau Gothel”, which literally means “Lady Gothel/Dame Gothel” but is actually a nickname given to godmothers. In a similar way, in Italian and French versions, the princess in the tower merely refers to the witch as “godmother”. In a similar way, while the “godmother” is now known as a witch, in older versions she was rather a sort of fairy (in the world of fairytales, the difference between witches and fairies is very thin – and it would make sense for a fairy to ask a baby as an “equivalent payment” for herbs).

# Of course, sexuality wasn’t the only thing toned down for the future generations. The prince being blinded by thorns was also sometimes simplified as him being simply the victim of a “blindness curse” by the witch. Other gory variations had actually the witch claw his eyes out herself, or blind him with the same scissors she used to cut Rapunzel’s hair.

# Despite commn misconception, no Rapunzel was never a “princess”. In fact she is noted to be the daughter of peasants. It is just that the witch is visibly quite rich and powerful.

# Of course, it is impossible for a human being to grow hair long enough to be used as it is in the story. Though it has been mentioned that, since Rapunzel lives with a witch who somehow managed to put her at the top of a tower without door or entrance, she might have enchanted the hair of Rapunzel to grow unnaturally long and strong (in fact, in some modern adaptations Rapunzel’s hair is of a normal length but simply grows magically when she uses a comb).

# It is usually not said what happens to the witch at the end of the story. Some versions say that the witch actually let the cut hair fell to the ground by accident after pushing the prince, and ended up trapped in the tower, unable to get out, but these versions are not the most common ones.

# Many trying to adapt the tale have a hard time with how randomly Rapunzel’s tears cure the prince’s wounded eyes. In some versions it makes a bit more sense because the prince is blinded by the thorns planted in his eyes, and the tears wash them away. But that’s still not very logical. That’s why many people go with the idea of the blindness being a curse that only “true love” can break.

# Just for the fun, let us remind the incredibly creepy rhyme that the Grimm had the witch say before punishing the prince. In English, it basically says: “The pretty bird is not sitting in the nest anymore, and it is not singing either. The cat fetched it. And now it will scratch your eyes out!”. She also mentions that she actually willingly intends the prince to lose his eyesight by promising him that he will “see her no more”.

Now, I mentioned some previous tales, and if you remember, I said that “Rapunzel” was first “Persinette” and before that “Petrosinella”.

# There isn’t much difference between Persinette, the French tale, and the German Rapunzel, except that for one big detail: in Persinette, at the end, the witch takes pity on the young couple who found each other back, and her wrath appeased she uses her magic to transport them (in modern days we could say teleport them) in the prince’s kingdom.

# The original Italian version however, Petrosinella, is quite different from the Rapunzel story. There is no husband stealing here – it is the pregnant woman herself (no husband is mentioned) that steals parsley from the garden to satisfy her cravings. The “witch” is here an “orca”, aka an ogress. While the mother, caught, promises to give her child, the ogress actually does not take the child away after her birth. She rather watches the child grow up, raised by her mother, waiting – but she regularly meets the little girl (named “Petrosinella” by her mother, a name based on “parsley”, yes the mother is clearly obsessed) and tells her that her mother made a promise she did not keep. Petrosinella always tells her mother about her encounters, and regularly asks her what the promise is (something the mother refuses to speak about). All until one day the mother, annoyed and tired at the constant questioning and harassing, screams that the ogress can take what she promised. The ogress immediately appears and drags Petrosinella by the hair to the tower deep in the woods.

It is mentioned in this tale that the ogress teaches Petrosinella “magic arts” during her time in the tower. Here the prince notices Petrosinella due to her long hair flowing in the air, not by her singing, and while the prince does make passionate love declarations to her from down the tower, she merely blows him kisses, never letting him – until one day the prince decides to imitate the ogress’ voice. Another difference: here the ogress is warned of their romance due to a wicked and gossipy neighbor who alerts the “orca”.

The ending of Petrosinella is also very different. In this tale, Petrosinella hears that the ogress intends on stopping this romance, and so she plans to escape with the prince to his city. The same night, the prince brings her a rope to escape, and she steals three magic gullnuts (or acorns). The two flee into the night, but the ogress was waiting for them and start hunting them down. Petrosinella throws the gullnuts one by one to stop the orca (here it is the “three obstacles flight”, a common theme of Mediterranean and Slavic fairytales) – the first gullnut becomes a wild dog but the ogress feeds it a loaf of bread to tame it ; the second gullnut becomes an hungry lion but the ogress feeds it a donkey nearby (and takes the skin of the donkey as a coat, because hey, you might be trying to kill a young couple but you still need to look your best) ; and the third gullnut ends up turning into a wolf, that swallows whole the ogress because he mistook her for a donkey due to her coat.

The couple arrives in the city, and thanks to the king’s authorization, the prince can marry Petrosinella.

#fairy tale #fairytale #rapunzel #brothers grimm #grimm fairytales #french fairytale #italian fairytale #petrosinella #persinette #german fairytale

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titties-and-trauma · 11 months

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tldr: how can i be intimate again after trauma?

TW: r*pe, trauma, severe mental illness

I posted this on reddit but I don’t know if I will get many responses. I really need advice. This is a cry for help.

Okay so I tend to get disorganized in posts so I thought I’d break it into subsections. I really need advice on this. I don’t know what to do. I tried looking up my issue but found nothing. i’m sorry if this is long it’s just the only place i know that i can get good advice.

Context:

I (f18) was touched by my mom in inappropriate ways as a child a lot. It happened every day some seasons, sometimes multiple times a day. My mother was extremely abusive to me, my sibling and my dad (who is noticeably mentally ill and was also abused as a child.) There was never a time when things went well in my family and a lot of really bad things happened. I started self harming at 10 years old, and my family knew (they took pictures while laughing about it.) I guess what I am trying to express is that my childhood was bad. I was bullied to the point of having the kids in my neighborhood come to my house and take pictures of me through my windows, being pushed in front of moving cars, and having 2 official bully clubs made in my honor (with the intent to drive me to kill myself.)

I was always sexually active. Since the age of 4. I was hypersexual and never really even learned about sex or what it was, but knew that when i did what i did, it felt good. As i got older, I had sex with a lot of people. At one point, I was taken on by popular “party” type girls from another school who basically taught me how to hide my personality in exchange for validation. I became a pill addict and a drunk. I acted out, but eventually found a really good group of friends. Good things never last though. After about a year of heavy substance abuse and my mom and dad both going batshit on me every day when they had anger left over from their own fights, I lost it. I had a manic episode. Over months it turned into a psychotic one. I believed I was God. I had this intense inner world that began to manifest in hallucinations. I told everyone about it. I scared everyone. A lot. I lost everyone. My mom knew i was in psychosis (she later admitted) but did not get me any help and instead laughed at me and the things i was saying. But I can’t really fault her for that because nobody else did anything different either. I lost so much. But most of all i lost respect for myself and my judgement. I hate myself so much because of that psychotic episode. It makes me feel so angry and ashamed and sad and hopeless. It makes me not believe myself and always doubt everything, even when a fact is right in front of me.

This was during COVID, so it was hard to go outside and get a taste of the real world. I would sit in my room for days just talking to (what i now realize) was just empty space. i had such deep connections to these hallucinations. Unfortunately, there was someone in my midst who wasn’t just apathetic to my situation, but wanted to take advantage. I was groomed and raped by a mormon priest. Shortly afterwards, (still in delusion) the girl i had had a crush on for three years sent me a text. She told me we needed to talk. I thought she liked me back. She proceeded to send me 100+ full length videos on instagram of herself talking, explaining how delusional and psychotic i was, how i could never recover from my mental issues, and how and why i should end my life.

fast forward past months of daily intense mental breakdowns.

i ended up in an abusive relationship. he told me nobody would ever love me but him. i believed him. what evidence did i have to prove otherwise? he turned my support system on me, cheated, hit me, and then finally pointed a gun at my forehead.

i didn’t leave willingly either. that’s the sad part. i begged for months and months obsessively asking him to please love me again.

eventually i stopped after i realized that i was very sick. and i would die if this continued.

i went into relationship after relationship with sexually coercive men who would get me fucked up and then fuck me. i had no hope.

friendship after friendship people would use me. i wouldn’t realize it or honestly wouldn’t even care until the friends of those using me messaged me. they felt it had become an issue. not from the way i spoke. but from the way those who had used me were speaking. that’s how low it got. i wouldn’t leave even when they told me. i thought it was a rough patch or that all friends were like this. i was wrong.

anyways fast forward to now. i’m a lot more reserved then i was before. i don’t talk a lot to a lot of people anymore. i don’t trust anyone. i suppress my emotions and don’t say how i feel, happy or sad. it’s not like i don’t want to though. it’s that i can’t. i try and try and muster up the courage but right when i try to speak i get this jolt of terror that just tells me to fucking stop. i cant do it after that. no matter how bad i want to.

i cant remember things anymore. i don’t know what day of the week it is. i don’t know my dads birthday. i don’t know when my next year of school starts. the only way i remember the things i wrote about here was because of diary entries and pictures/videos/other people. it scares me that i can’t remember things. really bad. i don’t want to lose my mind. i feel like i’m headed there.

ok now to the main part: my issue is that i have really bad intimacy problems. With my current boyfriend, (who is supportive, kind, has his shit together, and just generally a complete 180 from everyone else i’ve dated) I struggle to be intimate in any sort of way. I look away when he looks at me. I isolate myself when i’m feeling an emotion i cannot mask to my satisfaction. i cant even have regular sex.

my feelings toward him fluctuate a lot. one second i’m dying to profess my love but another i’m ready to just be alone and live my life in peaceful solitude. i don’t act on these feelings or tell him this. but i hate feeling this way. i want to feel stable. i want to know how i actually feel about him but all that’s happening is me breaking down from all the shit in the past. i want to leave it behind i really do but it’s effecting how i feel at a base level. how can i build the life i want when the way i feel drastically changes every second? it’s not fair to him, but he says he wants to stick around no matter what. it is hard to hear that.

anyways. i want to know if you guys have any advice to help me become intimate in any sort of way again. i am really really scared of it but i can’t be this unfair to him and myself.

so yeah

thank you.

(also i am in therapy and on meds)

#ptsd recovery #ptsd vent #actually ptsd #actually bpd #bipolar #support #advice needed #mentally tired #mental illness #intimacy issues #survivor #trauma #trauma survivor #help

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mirajanefairytailmage · 2 years

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Rambling About a Show (10/16/2022)

⚠️SPOILER?!⚠️

I finished this drama last night after starting it on Thursday (10/13/2022). I would have rambled about it then but I was suffering from a debilitating migraine. Anyhoo, I can’t remember the exact date that I saw the preview for this one/ What I do remember is being on tiktok and watching edits of the actor Kwak Dong-yeon. I ended up seeing an edit for his character Jerry, which piqued my curiosity, and made me look up what drama the character was from... Then BAM!!

But it took me awhile to get around to watching the drama. I honestly forgot I wanted to watch this one until I was looking up the title of a different drama on Hulu. I was looking up May It Please the Court so that I could add it to my list. Then I scrolled through the you may also like or whatever list and found Big Mouth. That’s when I remembered that I had been wanting to see it.

So this couple is going to be added to my favorite list.

Their relationship had several hardships that they faced together, which is what made me love them as a couple. Plus I loved the chemistry between the two of them. I laughed during the first episode scene where he told his wife, Ko Mi-ho, ‘congratulations on marrying me, babe’ on the night of their anniversary. (That’s what the Hulu subtitles said). I thought it was cute and funny. I also asked myself ‘who just says that?’ The only problem I had with this couple is the fact they didn’t get to grow old together. I’m mad at the writers for what they did to Ko Mii-ho and Park Chang-ho. Seriously, what the hell was the point of giving her a terminal illness and then killing her off like that?! The scene where she dies was so heartbreaking to me, I cried so much. In a previous episode she mentions how when the time came she’d like to fall asleep while holding his hand. That’s exactly what happened. I don’t feel like her death did anything for the plot. That’s just my honest opinion though. I mean, he does keep the promise of being a good Big Mouse. That was all she asked of him. I think Im Yoon-ah and Lee Jong-suk did a fantastic job portraying their characters. The way Lee Jong-suk was able to switch from soft Park Chang-ho to extreme Big Mouse was pretty impressive to me.

Then there’s this couple...

This couple is my least favorite. Both are horrible people, which makes sense why they’re together. I’ve told my friend that this is the villain couple. Choi Do-ha as individual, is vile. This is only my opinion of his character. I was wary of the character from the moment he asked Park Chang-ho to be the lawyer for his “buddies”. Honestly, I thought he was Big Mouse for a few moments. Hyun Joo-hee.. I honestly don’t have a lot to say about her. Aside from I found her to a bit annoying and I don’t like her. I think Ok Ja-Yeon and Kim Joo-hun did a fantastic job portraying these two. They did so well that they are the most hate-able characters to me.

This character ended up on my most annoying list...

I remember seeing Yang Kyung-won in Vincenzo as Lee Cheol-wook. I loved his character in Vincenzo. I didn’t like Kong Ji-hoon all that much. I found him to be annoying. I do think Yang Kyung-won did a fantastic job portraying this character.

So, the real Big Mouse isn’t revealed for awhile. Park Chang-ho has to survive under the guise that he IS Big Mouse. However, before the reveal, I thought I wouldn’t be surprised if Jerry or Warden Park Yoon-gab ended up being Big Mouse. I also thought at one point that it would be Mayor Do-ha. I was surprised, even though I shouldn’t have been, when it turned out to be No Park. I feel like I should have seen that coming. This show was interesting and kept me on the edge of my seat from pilot to finale. I should mention that Jerry ended up being one of my favorites and I honestly found him to be adorable. This series had a lot of unlikable characters, characters that were difficult to trust, and likeable characters. Though one question I have is why mention the serial killer son? I understand that his story ties into inmate Tak Kwang-yeon’s imprisonment. But like, they didn’t bring the serial killer into the show. They only name drop him, say his last known location, and mention that he is the son of Chairman Kang Sung-Geun. In my opinion that would be a great plot for season two, hunt down the son to clear Tak Kwang-yeon’s name. In my opinion that would be a great plot. Of course there would need to be more than that to make an entire season two, so that’s just one major plot point.

#rambling about a show #kdrama #big mouth kdrama #big mouth

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missmcspooks · 1 year

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THE WHITE HOUSE FARM MURDERS

When greed, hatred, and jealousy takes over someone’s mind, it can sometimes make someone snap. It can make someone snap to the point where they kill their whole family, just because they couldn’t stand the favoritism. Add on the fact that an inheritance could make them very, very, wealthy, but they didn’t want to share that money with their only sibling. At least, that’s what drove Jeremy Bamber to snap. For some time he played it off like it was his poor mentally ill sister who committed the crime, while his crocodile tears drowned him in his own web of lies.

THE BAMBER FAMILY

Ralph Nevill Bamber, 61, was a farmer and former RAF Pilot, and magistrate at the Witham Magistrates’ Court. He married his wife, June Speakman, 61, in 1949 and moved into the Georgian White House Farm, in Tolleshunt D’Arcy, Essex. They owned 300 acres of farmland that belonged to June’s father. Nevill was described as a well-built, strong man, who was 6ft 4, and in great health. This became important during the trial as Jeremy’s defense lawyers claimed that Sheila, who was a very petite woman, had been able to overpower, beat, and subdue Nevill, which the prosecution contested. The couple were unable to have biological children, and decided to adopt Jeremy and Sheila when they were babies, completely unrelated to each other. June suffered a lot with mental health issues and was very depressed. She was admitted into a psychiatric hospital in the 1950’s, including the year after she adopted Sheila in 1958. June was given electroshock therapy at least 6 times. She was treated by a psychiatrist named Hugh Ferguson in 1982, who would also later treat Sheila. The Bamber’s gave their children a good life, and were very financially secure. They had a good home and received a private education. However, June’s relationship with the children weren’t great, and her relationship with Sheila was particularly poor. June was extremely religious and would try and force her beliefs onto her children, along with her grandchildren. Sheila felt like her mother didn’t approve of her and that she was a constant disappointment. Her relationship with Jeremy wasn’t much better, as he eventually cut contact with her completely.

Sheila was born on July 18th, 1957, and was only 28 when she was killed. She was adopted by the Bamber’s in October of 1957, when she was only around three months old. She attended secretarial college in Swiss Cottage, London. When she turned 17 in 1974, she found out she was pregnant, the babies father being Colin Caffell. Her parents refused to let her have the child, and forced her into getting an abortion. Sheila’s relationship with her mother became worse when June found her and Collin sunbathing naked in a field, and began calling her the “devil’s child.” After her abortion she continued studying and was eventually trained as a hairdresser, and temporarily worked with the Lucie Clayton agency as a model. In 1977 she became pregnant for the second time, and the couple decided to get married. Unfortunately, she miscarried during the sixth month of her pregnancy. Her parents wanted to help them during their hard times and bought the couple a garden apartment in Hempstead. She became pregnant a third time and once again, had a miscarriage. Sheila didn’t give up and got pregnant for a fourth time, and gave birth to twin boys, Nicolas and Daniel, after being on bed rest in the hospital for four months. However, Sheila found out that Colin had started an affair before their sons were born, and left Sheila for the other woman just five months after they were born. They divorced in May of 1982.

Sheila became extremely upset after the divorce, and her mental health declined more and more as time went on. The boys were placed into foster care between 1982–1983 due to her mental health problems. That being said, both parents were involved in their life, and the boys were living with Colin for several months before the murders occured. Colin had plans to bring the boys on vacation to Norway, and scheduled a week long visit to the Bamber’s farm home so they could spend time with them and Sheila before their trip. Colin dropped them off on August 4th, and it was the last time he saw them alive.

After the divorce, Nevill purchased another apartment for Sheila, in Morshead Mansions, Maida Vale. She then decided to track down her birth mother who lived in Canada. The two met up briefly, but no relationship was started. Shortly afterwards she met a group of young women who nicknamed her “Bambi.” The women would later report that Sheila was very insecure and would often complain about her terrible relationship with her mother, and would also live on either welfare checks or low paying jobs. Sheila and these women would often partake in partying, drugs (usually cocaine), and fooling around with much older men.

As her mental health continued to decline, she began episodes of banging her head against walls. Her psychiatrist, Ferguson, claimed that she was in an agitated state, and was psychotic and paranoid. She was admitted into St. Andrew’s Hospital, a private psychiatric facility, where he later diagnosed her with schizophrenia. She was discharged in September of 1983, and began taking an antipsychotic medication. Ferguson claimed that she would talk about suicide, but did not deem her as a suicide risk. She also told Ferguson that she believed the devil had given her the power to bring evil onto others, and that she could even make her sons have sex and cause violence with her. She called the twins the “devil’s children,” which was the exact same thing her own mother, June, would call her. She also claimed that she was capable of murdering them or having them murder others. Five months before the murders, she was re-admitted into St. Andrew’s Hospital, after a psychotic episode where she claimed that others, including her boyfriend, were trying to hurt and kill her. It was at this point where the twins went to live with Colin. Four weeks later she was discharged, and would receive monthly injections of another antipsychotic medication.

Sheila’s mental health problems is exactly why the theory regarding Sheila causing a murder suicide was so believable in the beginning. However, Ferguson told the court that the kind of violence that was necessary for this type of crime was not consistent in her behavior or the way he viewed her. He claimed that her deep relationship issues were with her mother, not her father or her children. Her ex-husband Colin supported Ferguson’s statement, and said that even though Sheila would throw fits of anger, and sometimes hit him, not once did she ever lay a finger on their children. Sheila’s aunt and niece also told the court that she was not a violent person, and she had never used a gun, and was never taught how to use a gun. However, on the night of the murders where Jeremy was standing outside the house with the police, he told them that he and Sheila had went target shooting together in the past, and later told the court that he had actually never seen her use a gun as an adult.

Jeremy Nevill Bamber was born on January 13, 1961. He was put up for adoption when he was only six weeks old, and was later adopted by the Bamber’s when he was six months old. He attended St. Nicholas Primary school, then Maldon Court Prep School, which Sheila also attended. In 1970 at the age of nine, he joined the Cadet Force while attending Gresham’s Boarding School. Jeremy claimed he was very unhappy there due to bullying and other issues. He left Gresham’s with no qualifications and attended sixth form college. His father, Nevill, paid for him to go to Australia where he took scuba diving courses, before going to New Zealand. Jeremy’s former friends claimed that he had broken into a jewelry shop and stole a very expensive watch, and also bragged about smuggling in heroin. Jeremy returned back home to England in 1982 to work on his parents farm. Nevill set him up with a cottage which was just around a five minute drive from their farm, and 15 minutes or less by bike. Nevill also gave him a car to use, and eight percent of a family business, Osea Road Campsites Ltd.

THE MURDERS

Three days before the murders on Sunday the 4th, 1985, Sheila and her sons arrived to the farm to spend time with June and Nevill. The housekeeper claims to have seen Sheila that day and said nothing was unusual about her behavior. Additionally, two farm workers also saw her and the children, and said everyone seemed happy and normal. On the evening of Tuesday the 6th, Jeremy visited the farm house. In court he claimed that he had suggested that the boys be put into daytime foster care, and Sheila didn’t seem bothered by the suggestion at all. Ferguson challenged this statement by saying any suggestions of putting her sons into foster care would’ve actually provoked Sheila, but she would’ve been open to having daytime help at her home. A farm worker heard Jeremy leave at 9:30. The farms secretary, Barbara Wilson, called Nevill around that time and claimed that he was short with her and seemed to hang up quickly in irritation, leaving her with the assumption that she had just interrupted an argument, and claimed that he had never acted that way before. Junes sister, Pamela, called them around 10 PM, and said that she spoke to Sheila, who was quiet, and then to June, who seemed to be perfectly normal.

In the early hours of August 7th, Jeremy called the Chelmsford police station. It’s important to note that he did not call the 999 emergency number. He notified the police that he had gotten a call from his father, asking Jeremy to come to the house quickly, as Sheila had gone “berserk” with a gun. He claimed that the line went dead in the middle of the call. After he called the police, he drove slowly to the farm house. There��s a lot of contradictions in his story about these phone calls. In his early witness statements, Jeremy claims that he called the police immediately after he received the call from his father, and then called his girlfriend, Julie Mugford. After he called the police, the operator checked the Whitehouse Farm’s landline number at 3:56 AM, according to the police log, and at 4:30 AM, according to the Court of Appeal. The operator found that the line was open, and could even hear a dog barking. At the time they didn’t keep records of local calls, but experts during the trial claimed that if Nevill really did call Jeremy, and if he really did leave the receiver off the hook, the call would’ve only been open for two minutes, which means Jeremy would not have been able to use his phone. Additionally, he claimed in later interviews with the police, that it’s possible that he called Mugford first and then the police, and was confused about the sequence of events.

When asked about why he didn’t call the 999 emergency number, he claimed that he didn’t think it mattered how long it took for the police to arrive. Jeremy claims his father sounded terrified on the phone, and even though he asked him to come to the house quickly, Jeremy instead decided to not call the emergency number, spend extra time looking up the number to the local police station, called up his girlfriend, and then proceeded to drive SLOWLY to the house, and then waited outside the house until police arrived. He also acknowledged that he could’ve called one of the farm workers as well, but didn’t consider it at the time. Later during the trial the prosecution would argue that there was never a call between Nevill and Jeremy. Instead, it was Jeremy who picked up the phone in the farm house, called his own landline, and then left the receiver off the hook, in order to establish an alibi, and to further set the scene to paint Sheila as the culprit. Further evidence to support this claim is that Nevill, according to the Court of Appeal, was very bloody around this time, and the phone had “no visible blood” on it when police examined the scene. However, it was also acknowledged that no swabs had been taken either.

THE CRIME SCENE AND POLICE INVESTIGATION

Three officers from the Witham police station passed by Jeremy on Pages Lane and arrived to the farmhouse around two minutes before he did, and later testified in court that Jeremy was driving very slow. Even his own cousin, Ann Eaton, claimed that it was strange considering he was normally a fast driver. Everyone waited outside the house until 5AM for a tactical firearms unit to arrive. They then decided to wait until daylight to actually try and enter the home, and spent an additional two hours trying to communicate with Sheila, but all they could hear was a dog barking. All the entryways to the home were closed, besides the window in the master bedroom on the first floor.

While waiting outside the police began to question Jeremy, and said he was pretty calm considering his family was in danger and is likely hurt or worse. They asked him whether he really thought his sister had gone “berserk” with a gun, he replied: “I don’t really know. She is a nutter. She’s been having treatment.” He also let them know that he didn’t get along with his sister very much. Police then asked him why his father would call him for help instead of the police, which Jeremy replied: “my father was the kind of person who would want to keep things within the family.” The next few hours consisted of him talking with an officer about cars, and mentioned that he’d be getting a brand new Porsche soon. Jeremy also told police that when he was at the farmhouse a few hours earlier, he had loaded the rifle because he thought he heard rabbits outside, but ended up leaving the rifle on the kitchen table, fully loaded, with a box of ammunition right beside it. The doctor who was called to the crime scene later testified that the family could’ve died at any point in the night, and claimed that Jeremy was in a state of shock, crying, and seemed to throw up.

The police entered the home at 7:54 AM, forcing their way inside by breaking the the back door down with a sledgehammer. Five bodies were found with multiple gunshot wounds. Nevill was found downstairs in the kitchen, and everyone else was upstairs. A total of 25 bullets were shot, most of them at a close distance. The phone that Nevill apparently called Jeremy with was lying on one of the kitchen surfaces with it’s receiver off the hook, with empty .22 cartridge cases next to it. Chairs and stools were overturned, along with a broken sugar basin, a broken ceiling light, a broken crockery, and it looked like there was blood on the floor.

Nevill was dressed in pajamas and lying over an overturned chair near the fireplace. He was shot eight times, six times to his head and face while the rifle was only a few inches away from his skin. The remaining two shots to his body were from at least two feet away. Three empty cartridges were found in the kitchen and one upstairs, so the police concluded that Nevill was originally shot upstairs but was able to make in downstairs where the struggle took place. He was then hit with the rifle multiple times, and then fatally shot. He had two wounds to the right side of his body and two to his head that would’ve caused unconsciousness. His lip was wounded, jaw fractured, and his teeth, neck, and larynx were damaged. There were gunshot wounds to his left shoulder and left elbow. He also had linear bruising to his cheeks, a broken nose, and black eyes, along with linear bruising to his right forearm, lacerations to his head, bruising to the left wrist and forearm and three circular burn type marks to the back. It was also stated that the linear marks were consistent with him being struck with a blunt object, possibly with the rifle. It was brought up in court by the prosecution that Sheila wouldn’t have been strong enough to give such a harsh beating to such a big and healthy man.

June’s body and clothing were heavily covered in blood, and was found in her nightgown, barefoot. Based on the bloods platter on her clothes, police assumed that she was sitting up during part of her attack. Her body was found lying on the floor near the door of the master bedroom. She was shot seven times. One of the shots to her forehead, right between her eyes, was shot just under one foot away from her. That shot, along with one other to her head would’ve caused a quick death. There were also shots to her right forearm, right side of her lower neck, and two injuries on her right knee and right side of her chest.

Daniel and Nicholas were found in their beds, appearing to have been shot while in bed. Daniel was shot five times in the back of his head, once being over two feet away, and three times within one foot away. Nicholas was shot three times, all of them being in very close proximity.

Sheila was found on the floor of the master bedroom, also in her nightgown and barefoot. She had two bullet wounds under her chin, one of them being on her throat. The pathologist claimed that the lower shot was from three inches away, and the higher shot was on contact. He also said the higher of the shots would’ve immediately killed her, while the other one would’ve been a slow death. He believed that the lower shot happened first due to the amount of blood down her neck, and later testified in court that the injuries she sustained would’ve been possible for her to walk around, but considering the lack of blood on her clothes suggested that it was very unlikely that she had done that. He also said he believed that she was also sitting up when she was attacked, considering the pattern of the bloodstains on her clothing. Blood and urine samples were taken from Sheila and had found Haloperidol in her system, along with cannabis that she had taken a few days prior. There were also no marks on her body that suggested that she was in a struggle. Her feet and hands were clean, her fingernails were manicured and not broken, and she had no blood, powder, or dirt on her fingertips. There were zero traces of any lead dust. The magazine to the rifle would’ve been loaded two or three times during the murders, which would normally leave lubricant and materials from the bullets on the hands. Additionally, there was no trace of blood or other debris on her feet, such as the sugar that was scattered on the floor downstairs. There were also very low traces of lead on her hands, which a forensic scientist testified that it was consistent with the use of every day use of things around the home, and if she had really added 18 cartridges of bullets into the magazine, there would be a lot more lead on her hands. The blood found on her nightgown was also her own blood, and no one else’s. Sheila’s right ring finger was found on the right side of the butt of the rifle, pointing down. Jeremy’s right forefinger was on the rear end of the barrel, above the stock and pointing towards the gun. There were an additional three fingerprints that could not be identified.

“A farming family affectionately dubbed “The Archers” was slaughtered in a bloodbath yesterday. Brandishing a gun taken from her father’s collection, deranged divorcee Sheila Bamber, 28, first shot her twin six-year-old sons. She gun downed her father as he tried to phone for help. Then she murdered her mother before turning the automatic .22 rifle on herself.”

This was an article reported in the Daily Express, on August 8th, 1985, just a day after the murders. This article was the result of a very poorly done investigation. Not only was the murder scene not properly secured, evidence wasn’t recorded or preserved, the crime scene officer moved the murder weapon without wearing gloves, and it took several weeks before the gun was examined for fingerprints. The police also burned bloodstained bedding and carpets, supposively to protect Jeremy’s feelings. Within only three days of the murder, Jeremy and the extended family were given the keys back to the home.The police also did not find the silencer at the scene of the crime, one of Jeremy’s cousin found it on august 10th, and took it back to another cousin’s home, where they noticed bits of what looked like red paint and blood on it. It took the police three more days to retrieve it. Later, the cousins noticed scratch marks on a mantle that had red paint, which investigators assumed came from the struggle with the rifle. The police also didn’t take proper notes, and the officers who dealt with Jeremy that night didn’t write down the statements until weeks later. All the bodies were released just a few days after the murders, all but the children’s bodies were cremated. Additionally, Jeremy’s clothes weren’t examined until a month afterwards, and all blood samples were destroyed ten years later.

PECULIAR BEHAVIOR AT THE FUNERAL

Jeremy’s family became increasingly suspicious of him possibly being involved in the murders due to his strange behavior before and after the funeral. The family claimed that he was crying at the funeral, and seemed to be genuinely upset, but when everyone started to leave the funeral service and he thought no one was looking at him, a family member saw him smiling. They claimed that he literally wiped away his crocodile tears and had a huge grin on his face. Also, during the wake after the funeral, he was cracking jokes and laughing.

Not too long after the funeral, he and his girlfriend Julie Mugford traveled to Amsterdam with a friend and purchased a lot of cannabis. The travel agent testified that the group, especially Jeremy, seemed to be in very high spirits. He also began to sell off his family’s belongings, including both of his parents cars. He also tried to sell 20 nude photos of Sheila, and went on another vacation overseas to Saint-Tropez with a friend.

JULIE MUGFORD’S STATEMENTS

Julie had originally told police the day after the murders that Jeremy had called her at home in the early hours of the 7th, between 3 and 3:30 AM, to tell her something was wrong at the home and that he seemed worried. She told police that she was tired and didn’t think of asking him any questions at that time. Her statement changed a month later, following a series of arguments between her and Jeremy. On September 7th, Julie went to the police station, alleging that Jeremy had been planning to kill his family. Four days before she changed her statement, she claimed she and Jeremy got into an argument about ending their relationship. Jeremy wanted to call it quits, and during the argument she asked him if he had any involvement in the murders, which escalated the argument. In the middle of it, he received a call from another woman, and Julie found out he was cheating on her. She called him a psychopath, smashed a mirror, and slapped him, which in return caused him to twist her arm behind her back.

In her second statement she claimed that between July and October of 1984, Jeremy had said that he wished he could “get rid of them all.” He spoke awfully about his “mad” mother, and “old” father, and said that Sheila had nothing to live for, and her children were disturbed. He said his parents were trying to ruin his life, and the fact that his father was paying for Sheila’s nice apartment really annoyed him. Julie claimed that he told her that he would sedate his parents, shoot them, and then burn the house down, and said that Sheila would make a good scapegoat. He also told her that he would cycle along the backroads to get to the home, enter the house through the kitchen since the catch was broken, and he would leave through a different window that would lock from the outside. He would also make a phone call while inside the farm house to his home. She told police she never felt concerned about these conversations because she deemed them to be just “idle talk” and that Jeremy had claimed to have killed rats with his own hands before, so he could test whether or not he’d ever be able to kill, and concluded that he could never kill his own family, even though he had fantasies about it.

Julie further explained that she had spent the weekend with Jeremy before the murders back at his cottage. She said he dyed his hair black and saw his mother's bicycle there. She further claimed that Jeremy had called her at 9:50 PM on August 6th and told her he was thinking about the crime all day, and was “pissed off” and told her it was “tonight or never.” At 3:00 AM he called her again saying, “everything is going well. Something is wrong at the farm. I haven’t had any sleep all night… Bye honey and I love you lots.” He then called her once more later that morning to inform her that Sheila had gone mad, and the police were coming to take her away. When she arrived with the police at Jeremy’s cottage, he pulled her to the side and said, “I should have been an actor.” These statements from Julie is what lead to Jeremy’s arrest.

It’s important to mention that Julie had admitted to a brief background of dishonesty. In 1985 she was cautioned for using her friends checkbook when it was reported stolen, and claimed that she and a friend had repaid all the money they used back to the bank. She also said she helped Jeremy back in March of 1985 to steal from the Osea Caravan site that his family owned. She told them that he had staged a break in to make it look like it was strangers who committed the crime.

JEREMY’S ARREST

Jeremy was arrested and charged on September 8th, 1985. He told the police that Julie was lying and being spiteful due to wanting to get back at him for breaking up with her. He said that he loved his family and denied the accusations about thinking his parents shorted him on money. He claimed that the only reason he broke into the Caravan site was to prove that they had poor security. He told them that he saw his parents will and it stated that he and Sheila would both share the estate, and that the silencer on the gun wasn’t used often because it wouldn’t fit into its case if it was on.

THE TRIAL: PROSECUTION’S ARGUMENTS

The trial started on October 3rd, 1986, and lasted 18 days. He was very arrogant during this time, and at one point when the prosecutors accused him of lying, he said: “that is what you have got to establish.” The prosecution argued that Jeremy was motivated by greed and hatred. He went to his parents farm house for dinner on august 6th, and left around 10 PM to go back to his cottage. In the early hours of the next morning he went back to the farm on his mother’s bicycle, and went along the backroads to avoid detection on the main roads, and approached the farm home from the back. He entered the house through the bathroom window downstairs, grabbed the rifle with the silencer attached, and made his way upstairs. From there he proceeded to shoot his mother, June, while she was sitting up in her bed, and she was able to walk a few steps before collapsing on the ground and dying. He’s not his father, Nevill, as well, but he was able to make his way downstairs where he and Jeremy fought in the kitchen, where Jeremy was able to shoot him an additional four times, twice at the top of his head and twice in his temple. He shot his sister, Sheila, in the main bedroom next to her mother, and made his way to the children’s room where they were sleeping, and shot them in their beds.

Jeremy then arranged the crime scene by trying to make it look like Sheila committed the murders before turning the gun onto herself. Jeremy knew that Sheila could not have reached the trigger either the silencer attached, so he removed it from the rifle and returned it to the cupboard where the guns were stored. He then placed a bible next to her body to make it look like a religious theme. After he removed the kitchen phone from the hook, he possibly took a shower and then left the home through a kitchen window, and banged the window from the outside so the catch would fall back into place. Then he cycled back to his cottage and waited until 3 AM to call his girlfriend, Julie Mumford, then the police at 3:26 AM, where he claimed to have just received a call from his father and explained that his sister had “gone berserk” with a gun. He created a delay before the bodies could be discovered by not calling the emergency 999 number, and drove very slowly back to the farm, and told the police that Sheila was very familiar with guns to prevent them from going into the home sooner.

They also argued that Jeremy had never received a phone call from his father, and that he would’ve been too badly injured after the first shots he received to have been able to speak to anyone. There was also no blood on the phone that was left off the hook, and Nevill would’ve called the police and not Jeremy in such an extreme situation. They also argued that if such a call was made to Jeremy, he himself would have not only called the emergency 999 number, but he also would’ve called and notified the farm workers to try and get help, and then drive quickly to the farm house.

One of the biggest roles of the prosecution case regarded the silencer. It was concluded to have been on the rifle when it was fired due to the blood that was found inside of it. They said the blood was from Sheila’s head when the silencer was pointed at her. Had she discovered that she could not shoot herself with the silencer attached, it would’ve simply been found next to her body. There would’ve been no reason for her to return it to the gun cupboard. It was also argued that Sheila had not recently expressed suicidal thoughts, and a medical professional claimed that she would’ve never harmed her children or her father. There was no evidence on her body or her clothing that she had moved around the house or was involved in any struggle. The only blood found on her was her own.

THE DEFENSE’S ARGUMENTS

The defense argued that the witnesses who claimed that Jeffrey hated his family were all lying or had misinterpreted what he was saying. They claimed that Julie lied because she was hurt by his betrayal. No one had seen him cycling to and from the farm, and there were no marks on his body that suggested that he was in some kind of struggle. Additionally, to bloodstained clothing of his was ever discovered. They argued that the reason he didn’t drive as quickly as he could’ve to the barn was due to being afraid. They said that Sheila knew how to use guns since she was raised on a farm and went shooting when she was younger. She also had a very serious mental illness, and had told her psychiatrist at one point that she felt like she was capable of killing her children. She saw the loaded rifle and extra cartridges on the kitchen table, and became enraged at the recent argument about putting her children in daytime foster care, which caused her to snap. A former boyfriend testified that Sheila had a mental breakdown around him in 1985, where she started banging the walls because the phone died while she was in the middle of a call. He claimed she said the phone was bugged, talked about God and the devil, and how the devil loved her. He further told the court that he had feared for the safety of others around her, who had a deep and intense dislike for her mother, June. The defense continued to argue that people who have committed altruistic murders have been known to engage in ritualistic behavior before killing themselves, so she might’ve placed the silencer back into the cupboard, washed up and changed her clothes, which would explain why there wasn’t much lead on her hands or sugar on her feet and clothes. There was also a possibility that the blood inside the silencer was not hers, but the blood of Nevill and June.

THE VERDICT

The judge told the jury that there were three very important questions to think about. Who did they believe? Jeremy or Julie? Did Nevill make that call to Jeremy? If he didn’t, his whole story goes out the window, because the only other way he would’ve known about the shootings is if he had committed them himself. The last question was two fold: were they sure that Sheila wasn’t the killer who then committed suicide? And, was the second, fatal, shot fired at Sheila with the silencer on? If that answer is yes, then she could not have fired it.

The jury deliberated for more than nine hours, and in October 28th, they finally came to a conclusion: Jeremy Bamber was found guiltily by a majority of 10–2, which was the minimum required for a conviction. He was sentenced to five life terms, with the recommendation that he serve a minimum of 25 years. In December of 1994, Home Secretary Michael Howard told Jeremy that he would remain in prison for the rest of his life, which followed the decision by the Home Secretary of the day, Douglas Hurd, in 1988.

Jeremy is now 61 years old and still serving his whole life tariff in prison. He has applied many times to overturn his conviction and his whole life tariff, and all were denied. His extended family are still convinced of his guilt, however, he has many supporters who believe he’s innocent and have campaigned for his release for years.

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As many as one in five women develop a mental illness during pregnancy, or in the first year after having a baby – and while it is rare for someone with postpartum psychosis to harm their child, suicide is a leading cause of maternal deaths in the UK within a year after childbirth.

Yet, despite this, pregnant women and new mothers have no access to specialist community perinatal mental health services in almost half of the UK.

The problem has been exacerbated by the pandemic, with referrals to specialist perinatal mental health services at an all time high.

However, shows that as many as 70% of women hide or underplay their perinatal mental health problems, which likely means that the true figures for women suffering with their perinatal or maternal mental health are much higher.

In fact, a survey found that 40% of women are worried about any mental health issues being recorded in their medical records, preventing women from getting the help they need and deserve.

As we mark Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week and its theme, ‘The Power of Connection’, a group of mums whose businesses focus on maternal wellbeing candidly share their own struggles in a bid to break down the stigma that is still attached to these issues.

Maddy Alexander-Grout, 38, lives in Southampton

Around eight weeks after giving birth to my son, I knew something was seriously wrong.

I was having visions of throwing him down stairs, and of me walking in front of buses. I remember being in his room one night, visualising myself smothering him with a pillow.

I would later be diagnosed with postpartum psychosis.

I’d had an awful pregnancy and a traumatic birth; everything that you could imagine went wrong. I had gestational diabetes, one of my ribs popped out, I had Obstetric cholestasis – a condition that means your liver doesn’t function properly and your skin is excruciatingly itchy as a result. For a large part of my pregnancy, I felt like I had insects crawling all over me. It was horrific.

I gave birth to my first child in2015. The labour was extremely difficult and I ended up spending another week in hospital after he was born.

I was scared and didn’t know what was happening. I just remember feeling so, so tired. My son and I then went to a birthing centre for three days before going home. Here, things went from bad to worse.

My baby screamed constantly.

And I was struggling badly – I didn’t bond with him; all he did was cry from the second he was born.

In those first few weeks, I didn’t have control over my actions at all. I felt constantly angry or vacant. Sometimes I also felt alone and scared, and I didn’t want to talk to anyone about my experience for fear of being judged.

I didn’t want to admit to anyone that I didn’t want to be around anymore – and I didn’t want my son to be around either. I had always wanted to be a mum, so why did I feel so awful?

After having several disturbing visions of harming my baby and myself, I phoned my mum and said, ‘Something is really wrong with me. I’m thinking about killing my child.’

I was petrified. Before I had a baby I thought I was the most maternal person in the world, but now I had one, I wanted to kill him.

I went to Mum’s house, where she looked after the baby – and I slept solidly for four days. If I hadn’t had this intervention, I think that something truly terrible could have happened to me, and the baby.

With the support of my mum, I went private to see a psychologist who diagnosed me with postpartum psychosis. She gave me hypnotherapy and counselling, and it really helped. I started to feel more like me again.

After a few months, my therapist suggested I went to a baby group. My first thought was, ‘no way, I will get judged.’ But I gave it a go and it was the biggest lifeline I could have asked for.

I have ADHD and I am an oversharer which was why I was so anxious, as I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep it in. And I was right, I just blurted it out one day. It made everyone cry, and then they all hugged me and told me I wasn’t alone.

The mums didn’t judge, they supported and I realised the more I spoke about the experience I had the better I felt. I found my tribe.

Spotify Embed: Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week

View on Spotify.

When I had my second daughter, I went on to have complications and ended up with birth trauma and post natal depression. Luckily, this time, I was able to see the signs. I knew what I was looking for – and how to get help.

There’s still a huge stigma round this topic, though. Mums feel like if they are open about how they feel, they will get their babies taken away from them, which is awful.

Having been through it, I’m doing everything I can to stop this and get people to talk more and have set up Parenthood App to help other parents to feel less alone.

I know all too well how talking about how you feel really helps, especially with experts on hand to give advice.

And there is nothing like being told you are not alone by parents who are going through the same things as you.

Emma Jarvis, 31, lives Liverpool.

After going home with my first baby, Charlie, I soon started to imagine the worst case scenarios in every situation.

For example, I’d be walking down the stairs and imagine the baby had fallen. Or I’d be making a cup of tea and I’d imagine dropping the kettle of hot water on him.

It wasn’t that I wanted to do any of these things, it was that I was hyper aware that these things could happen.

I’d had a traumatic birth with Charlie, which ended in an emergency c-section, blood transfusion. I was also put under anaesthetic, which meant I didn’t witness my baby being born and missed the first five hours of his life.

It meant I missed out on those newborn bliss moments; like seeing him get weighed or giving him a cuddle. In fact, I have no memories of the birth at all.

After he was born, we weren’t able to go home for two weeks due to Charlie being treated for infection. During that time, the doctors were in and out of my room constantly, taking him away for tests, and giving him medication. It wasn’t until we got to go home that he was fully mine.

I become consumed with worry about the first two weeks of his life being so miserable, and how the lack of contact would impact him. He had gone from being so close to me for nine months, to being constantly poked and prodded by strangers. At one point he had to have a lumber puncture, which was horrifically painful for him, and it was traumatising to hear his screams. I felt like I’d failed.

Once we got home, my partner had to return to work so I was left to recover from major surgery, with a new baby to look after. I was still anemic from the blood transfusion and on a lot of medication.

Almost straight away, I started having horrendous nightmares – about being in hospital and being operated on. I’d wake up and feel paralysed in the middle of the night.

Any time I was asked questions about my birth, I felt anxious – as I had no memories of it.

I remember at one medical appointment being asked my baby’s date of birth and having to figure it out. The receptionist said to me, ‘you don’t even know the day your baby was born?’, as if that made me a terrible mum.

The weeks of trauma I went through weren’t enough; I was now being judged for not knowing basic things about my own child.

Looking around at other people, it seemed that other mums were up and about after a few days, I couldn’t even imagine walking to the shops after two weeks, it took me such a long time to recover.

Nobody ever asked me if I was having scary thoughts, and nobody told me this was common, or normal, so I continued to suffer in silence, too embarrassed to tell anyone how I was feeling. I now know that over half of new mums have these thoughts.

Once Charlie started to get a bit bigger and be able to show signs of happiness – such as smiling or laughing – I began to feel better, and the frightening thoughts started to lessen. I was able to take this as reassurance that he was happy, and he wasn’t traumatised by his birth.

I felt very alone throughout my pregnancy and birth, and then during my maternity leave. So much so, I quit my job to start my own business to make sure other mums don’t feel alone, like I did.

Now, I’m helping new and expectant parents with a workplace wellbeing programme and a free online 1-2-1 midwife support service. And this Maternal Mental Health Week, we’re asking people to take the time to ask a mum how they are really feeling.

Louise Daniel, 37, Leeds.

I had postnatal depression after having my first baby, in December 2013.

After a quick labour, everyone told me how lucky I was – but I didn’t feel it. I felt as though I had been through a trauma; strapped to the bed when I needed to move, told that if I didn’t push him out now, they would use forceps on me, refused pain relief because I was doing ‘so well’ without it.

I didn’t feel in control or listened to, and I experienced a huge amount of pain.

When I first got home from hospital, physically, I remember feeling like I’d been hit by a bus. Mentally, I just felt nothing.

It was as though I was living someone else’s life and I wasn’t really sure what I was supposed to be doing. I didn’t feel depressed straight away, but it developed within a few weeks of me giving birth.

Practically, I was doing everything I needed to to care for my son, but at that point, I didn’t feel as though I loved him, and that made me feel sad as I knew I should. I felt very low and like I didn’t know who I was.

I had mastitis [an inflammation of breast tissue common with breastfeeding] for this first time when my son was around three or four weeks old. I then had it twice more over the next three months.

Every time I fed him I cried. I curled my toes and gritted my teeth but persevered despite the pain, because I felt like I should be breastfeeding. I wanted to what I perceived as being ‘the right thing’.

Midwife after midwife told me to keep going, and that I was ‘doing great’. But I didn’t feel great. I felt nothing. Nothing for my son, nothing for myself, or for anything else.

Seeing how I was feeling, my husband suggested I spoke to a doctor when my son was around two months old. I was then prescribed medication and referred to the most wonderful counsellor, who helped me to start to feel better.

Although I was making progress within a few months, it took until my son was a year old before I felt like myself again.

Eight years later, in July 2021, I had my second child, and it was a very different birth. I had a wonderful midwife who listened to what I wanted and helped me to have a much more positive experience.

For the first six months, I felt well. But it didn’t last – the nothingness and anxiety started to creep in shortly after. I began to feel like a robot, doing all the practical things I needed to do, feeding my children, bathing them, even hugging them and apparently loving them.

But underneath it all, once again, I felt nothing. No happiness when I knew I should be feeling it, no sadness, no excitement – just nothing.

I have since been diagnosed with PND again and I’m undergoing treatment at the moment, in the form of counselling and medication.

Covid and running my online shopping business has made things even more difficult this time around – although I’ve been honest with my team about how I’ve felt, which has encouraged them to open up about their mental health too. We’re a group of all women and we encourage flexible working and act as a support for one another.

When I have opened up to mums – in and out of work – about what I’ve been through, most share their own experience of mental health problems. They didn’t share them at the time because they felt ashamed, embarrassed or as though they shouldn’t talk about it.

I’m not sure why people don’t feel able to be open and honest, but I know it needs to change.

Mental health is such an important thing to talk about, and being able to do so openly and honestly is a must for everyone, but especially new mums.

We need to ask questions and listen to women more.’

For support and advice on maternal mental health

Action on Postpartum Psychosis is the national charity for postpartum psychosis advice and help.

PANDAS also offers perinatal mental health support.

You can contact The Samaritans here

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residents-of-the-darkforest · 2 years

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Dark Forest Resident: Owlear

Aliases / Nicknames: Kit-Warrior, Kitten

Gender: tom

Sexuality: Asexual, aromantic

Family: unnamed mother, unnamed father

Other Relations: unnamed former mentor, unnamed mentor (mother)

Clan: Riverclan

Rank: warrior

Characteristics: kills in moments of extreme emotional torment

Number of Victims: 2

Number of Murders: 2

Murder Method: biting throats, slashing

Known Victims: Duskstream, Spottedbug

Cause of Death: greencough

Cautionary Tale: Beware of your protection over your kit, as your sheltering may do more harm than good

Story:

His mother was extremely protective of him. No matter what he did, she would hover over him to make sure that he was okay. If another kit so much as poked him too hard or a warrior spoke to him too harshly, his mother would be there to bring him away from them and close to her.

He knew not to stray too far from her, as that is exactly what she taught him to never forget.

He cried at his apprentice ceremony, not wanting to leave his mother. Angered by this, his mentor was incredibly harsh, but no one would listen but his mother. She was the only one that stood up for him, that put that horrible warrior in his place and demanded the leader give him someone kinder. In fact, appoint her as his mentor.

Normally, the leader wouldn’t put mentor and kin in one, but with Owlpaw’s peculiar behaviour, this seemed to be a unique case.

Every moon, every day, every second, Owlpaw grew closer to his mother. His dependency on her grew while his mental state seemed only to revert back to kithood.

She wouldn’t let him train with the other apprentices, as the moment they hurt him, he would cry as though he were still a young kit. It seemed that, inside, he was. The leader didn’t take him into battles, knowing the likely chance that he would hurt himself.

Just as he did during his apprentice ceremony, he cried during his warrior one, sniffling during his vigil while his mother held him close.

He had no desire to hunt, or fight, or do anything that a warrior should do. He only wanted to play and stay in the nursery and listen to the elders and have everyone stop being so mean to him!

One night, he woke up panicking because he couldn’t find his feather. Pretty brown with black stripes. It was gone! The day was windy, it must have blown all the way out of camp!

He hurried after it, sniffing for it. He found it hanging by the jaw of one of his Clanmates.

Their lips were curled in a terrifying grin. Duskstream and Spottedbug played a cruel game of catch, tossing the feather back and forth to each other while Owlears desperately tried to reach for it, wailing as he begged them to stop.

They only escalated until they tore the feather in two. Owlears had screamed his lungs out, holding the feather close, trying however possible to put the comfort toy back together.

They laughed, louder and louder. They needed to be quiet! Owlears barely made it out himself, so clawed and bruised and shocked and needing his mother.

Fortunately, she appeared. Horrified as she was, she held her son close, and helped him to bury their bodies before carefully cleaning every wound and spot of blood that dotted his fur.

He couldn’t stop crying. He didn’t mean to hurt them, he didn’t!

His mother convinced him to keep quiet for the next several moons. When she passed from heart troubles, he lost his will to keep fighting, and succumbed to greencough shortly after.

Additional Information:

--Owlears was mentally a child.

--I mentioned crying a lot, but that was just to say he was really sensitive. He also gets very excited and happy.

--His feather was equivalent to a teddy bear.

--Remember that people with mental disorders are more likely to be the target and not the perpetrator. This is a blog based on books about cats, it is not a place to confirm your thoughts on the mentally ill.

--Owlears would have never hurt anyone if the two had not pushed him too far. In addition, with the way he was sheltered, he possibly wouldn’t know enough to know exactly what his actions would do, only that he could get them to stop.

--In another act of Starclan sucks, I imagine his mother went to Starclan because ‘oh she was only looking out for her kit’ whereas Owlears actually did the deed. In addition, I imagine they prevent her from visiting him in the Dark Forest due to how many were already moving over.

#owlear #wc #warriors #starclan #dark forest #dark forest warrior #dark forest oc #dark forest resident #duskstream #spottedbug #wcoc #wc oc #warriorsoc #warriors oc #warriorcatsocart #warrior cats horror #place of no stars #mental illness tw

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psychreviews2 · 1 month

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Case Studies: The 'Wolfman' - Sigmund Freud Pt. 2

Early memories

Serge's autobiography The Wolf-Man by the Wolf-Man described a lot of challenges that would affect any person, not just him, and is a good companion piece to Freud's paper. His earliest memories included memories of illness. "I dimly remember that it was summer and I was lying in the garden, and although I had no pain I felt extremely miserable, because of the high fever, I suppose...I have been told that in my early childhood I was a quiet almost phlegmatic child, but that my character changed completely after the arrival of the English governess, Miss Oven. Although she was with us only a few months, I became a very nervous, irritable child, subject to severe temper tantrums."

Another memory was of Serge's parents who went on a trip abroad. "My parents were often away, my sister and I were left mostly under the supervision of strangers, and even when our parents were home we had little contact with them." His parents left "both Miss Oven and my Nanya to our maternal grandmother, who unfortunately did not really assume this responsibility." Later on Serge called Miss Oven "a severe psychopath or often under the influence of alcohol...I can remember, and our grandmother confirmed this, that angry quarrels broke out between my Nanya and me on the one side and Miss Oven on the other. Evidently Miss Oven kept teasing me, and knew how to arouse my fury, which must have given her some sort of sadistic satisfaction."

Serge's memories, like for most people, shift and change. Certain underlying patterns of who he liked or disliked would remain the same, but details like the story that scared him in Freud's analysis The Wolf and the seven little kids morphed into a similar story Little Red Riding Hood. "Unlike me, Anna got on with Miss Oven fairly well, and even seemed to enjoy it when Miss Oven teased me. Anna began to imitate Miss Oven and teased me, too. Once she told me she would show me a nice picture of a pretty little girl. I was eager to see this picture, but Anna covered it with a piece of paper. When she finally took the piece of paper away, I saw, instead of a pretty little girl, a wolf standing on it's hind legs with his jaws wide open, about to swallow Little Red Riding Hood. I began to scream and had a real temper tantrum. Probably the cause of this outburst of rage was not so much my fear of the wolf as my disappointment and anger at Anna for teasing me."

Serge described his mother in a more adult sense. "Although she did not suffer from depression, in her youth she...imagined she had various illnesses which she did not have at all. In fact she lived to a considerable age of eighty-seven...Since my mother, as a young woman, was so concerned about her health, she did not have much time left for us. But if my sister or I was ill, she became an exemplary nurse. She stayed with us almost all the time and saw to it that our temperature was taken regularly and our medicine given us at the right time." Serge learned about religion from his mother and Nanya. His doubts about God's omnipotence, not being able to stop evil, made him feel guilty that it was a terrible sin to doubt. Not knowing if there was a God or not influenced Serge to play it safe with faith. Ambivalence between faith and reason was with him throughout his life.

Another important memory related to Serge's sister is in the autobiography. "My sister and I both liked to draw. At first we used to draw trees, and I found Anna's way of drawing little round leaves particularly attractive and interesting. But not wanting to imitate her I soon gave up tree drawing. I began to draw horses true to nature, but unfortunately every horse I drew looked more like a dog or a wolf than a real horse." Serge lived on an estate that grew crops and raised sheep. The white wolves, who looked more like sheep dogs, may have influenced his dream. His memory of those sheep was that 200,000 of them were inoculated with a wrong serum and died.

The Wanderer

Between Serge's parents wandering around and he himself involved in moves, he was a wanderer from the beginning. I found photos of his former estate, Dubiecki Manor, that was purchased by his father one year before Serge's birth. It's a ruin now in modern Ukraine, nicknamed The Wolf Lair, but one can imagine the tree he saw out the window, like a Freudian psycho-archaeologist. Which window did he look out of? What were the walnut trees like back then? "We lived on an estate where I was born only in the winter. Our summer home was in Tyerni, a few miles away. Every spring we moved to Tyerni, and our luggage followed us in numerous wagons. In Tyerni, we had a big country house in a beautiful old park. Trips between the estate on the Dnieper and Tyerni took place during the summer."

The big emotional move for Serge was his first permanent move south. "We moved to Odessa when I was five years old. At that time there were no train connections between our estate and Odessa. One had first to take a little river boat down the Dnieper to Kherson, which took the entire night. Then one had to spend a day and a night in Kherson, and early the following morning continue the journey to Odessa, this time on a larger ship able to weather the possible storms on the Black Sea...My father bought a villa in Odessa, opposite the municipal park which extended to the shore of the Black Sea. This villa had been built by an Italian architect in the style of the Italian Renaissance. Almost at the same time my father acquired a large estate in southern Russia...Only after we were living in Odessa did I learn that my father had sold our estate. I cried and felt most unhappy that our life on the estate, where we were so close to nature, had come to an end, and I would now have to get used to a large and strange city. I learned later from my mother that my father, too, soon regretted the sale, as after a few years our former estate became a city. This recognition that he had made a mistake is said to have precipitated my father's first attack of melancholia."

"A few years later my father purchased a second estate in White Russia of about 130,000 acres. It bordered on the Pripet River, a tributary of the Dnieper. Although White Russia lay in the western part of Russia bordering on Poland and Lithuania, it was at the time, especially in comparison with southern Russia, a very backward region. Primeval forests, ponds, lakes large and small, and many bogs impressed one as a remnant of nature still untouched by man. There were wolves in the forests. Several times every summer a wolf-hunt was organized by the peasants of adjacent villages. During my high school years, I spent a part of my summer holidays on this estate in White Russia and felt myself transposed into the past of hundreds of years ago."

Serge described his uncles and their different personalities. "Alexis, was a sickly man whose first marriage went on the rocks and ended in divorce. He then married a Polish woman and had two sons. This second marriage was a very happy one. Uncle Alexis was a quiet and unassuming man who kept busy looking after his estate and playing chess, his great hobby. He did this in a thoroughly scientific fashion, one might say."

This uncle went from sad to happy, but unfortunately his other uncle went in the opposite direction. Uncle Peter, had a sunny happy disposition, but "soon [he] began to show signs of most peculiar behaviour and to express himself no less strangely. At first his brothers were simply amused, as they did not take his changed behaviour seriously and considered it merely harmless whims. But soon they, too, realized that this was a serious matter. The famous Russian psychiatrist Korsakoff was consulted, who, alas, diagnosed this as the beginning of a genuine paranoia. So Uncle Peter was confined in a closed institution. However, as he had a large state in the Crimea, his brothers finally arranged for him to be taken there where he lived many years as a hermit. Although Uncle Peter had studied agriculture, he later wished to devote himself exclusively to historical research. All these plans, of course, came to nothing, because of his delusions of persecution."

Nanya ended up living as a pensioner with the family, as well as a French governess who seemed to know the secret of happiness, which is concentration. "We visited her from time to time and always found her in the best of spirits. One never had the feeling that she was unhappy or lonely, as she was always busy with little things that absorbed her entire attention."

New Year's Day Guided Meditation: https://rumble.com/v1gvmab-new-years-day-guided-meditation.html

Another influence in Serge's religious life was an Austrian tutor who was an atheist. Being around him allowed Serge to accept that his religious doubts were personal and it was up to us individually to decide if we want to have faith. The problem with Serge was how to deal with the transference, that for so many people, keeps them feeling secure. "...What filled the vacuum thus created?...Perhaps it was a mistake that I took the loss of my religion too lightly, and thus created a vacuum which was only partially and inadequately filled." This would be a deep question that would resound for the rest of his life. How does one stop the search for a parental replacement and feel secure with oneself? The aimlessness wasn't affecting only Serge. His sister Anna seemed to feel isolated and lost.

Anna's trip

"During the two weeks which Anna spent with me on our estate I did not notice anything extraordinary in her behaviour. It struck me as strange, however, that she suggested that I accompany her to the Caucasus, although she knew that I had enrolled in the Law School of Odessa University and that the lectures were just about to begin. When I mentioned this to Anna, she did not insist but she made me promise to write her a letter one week after her departure. This also seemed somewhat strange to me, but I did not attribute any special significance to her request...I saw Anna off at the boat which was to take her and her companion to Novorossysk in the northern Caucasus. We took leave of each other this time with very special warmth. As the steamer took off from the dock, Anna stood in the stern of the ship and waved to me until I lost sight of her. I stayed on the dock a while longer, watching the steamer as it left the harbor and moved out into the open sea."

"Exactly one week after Anna's departure, I wrote her a letter as I had promised. Two or three weeks later we received news that Anna had fallen severely ill, and soon after came the news of her death...We later learned that my sister had taken poison. Following this she had suffered severe pains for two days, but nevertheless she had not told anybody what she had done. Only when the pain had become unbearable did she ask for a doctor. When he arrived she showed him the little bottle which had contained mercury and which had a warning label of a skull on the outside. Apparently this bottle had come from the laboratory which Anna had setup at home for her studies in natural science. Now after attempting suicide she wanted to go on living. There are evidently cases in which you have to be face to face with death to regain your interest in life and your desire to live. At first it looked as if the doctors had succeeded in saving Anna, and she was even said to be out of danger. But after two weeks heart failure set in and caused her death."

After the shock of her death Serge ruminated on reasons why she would do that. "In our childhood it had been said that Anna should not have been born a girl but a boy. She had great will power and a strong sense of direction, and she always succeeded in evading the influence and the authority of her governesses. As she was growing up, Anna's feminine traits began to appear. Apparently she could not cope with them and they turned into pathological inferiority complexes. She was enchanted with the classical ideal of beauty with which she contrasted herself. She imagined that she had no feminine charm, which was not at all true, and that if a man were to marry her he would do so for the sake of her money only, since she felt, among other things, that she was not attractive to anyone."

Rich Woman - Plant and Krauss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52YxdYmLq24

Late in life during his interview with Karin, Serge recounted more details of his sister. "She was aggressive, and that is the reason the complex did not go away, somehow continued to have effects...There was a childhood seduction when she played with my member. That's something very important when it happens in childhood. I was very small when this seduction took place. It must have been before my fifth birthday because my father sold that estate when I was five. I can remember that we had sat down between the doors and she played with my penis. But must that necessarily have such consequences, or is it already a sign of sickness that something like that has consequences? Perhaps it also happened to other little boys and had no effect, I don't know.

O: Most children do have sexual experiences.

W: So you see, that sort of thing happens, it's no reason for someone to turn into a neurotic. It had no consequences. I'll admit that it wasn't as systematic as what my sister did. But you see, when we looked at those pictures of naked women, I pressed a little against her...Freud describes that...I remember that I felt like expressing something sexual and moved closer to my sister. In any event, she got up and left...It was normal. She couldn't have done anything else, otherwise it would really have been incest. It should not have such consequences...and that must not happen between brother and sister...and that should have put an end to the matter. Well, this sister complex is really the thing that ruined my entire life. For those women who resemble my sister, I mean as regards social position or education, well, that was incest again. There may also be an inheritance of these psychological illnesses, but we won't discuss that...All she ever really did was sit around with a book. She had no interest whatever in clothes. She really should have been a man. It is a mystery to me why my sister killed herself. She was so talented. I cannot remember my sister except reading. She always said that she was no classical beauty. But then, who is? She certainly wasn't ugly. Do you remember her picture? She was fairly pretty. She did nothing for her appearance, nothing. And then that horrible death, mercury. It was horrible torture, her teeth fell out. Why does someone do a thing like that?...There would have been people to take an interest, but she didn't care for them, and then she always thought they wanted her for her money." Later Serge recounts an important story of his sister running away with the daughter of the chief gardener. They had the idea that they wanted to hire themselves out as maids. She later said "'being a maid is really the best profession. You do your work and the rest of the time is on your own...' It could be said that Anna's tragedy, in spite of her intellectual gifts, consisted in her attempt to suppress her female nature and that she failed in this attempt. Of course, I am referring not to conscious acts but to a mechanism entirely hidden from her conscious mind."

Grief travel

After Anna's death Serge noticed his father move his interest from his daughter to him. Serge also had depression and thoughts of suicide. "I had fallen into such a state of melancholy after Anna's death that there seemed to be no purpose in living, and nothing in the world seemed worth striving for. In such a state of mind one can hardly interest oneself in anything." He eventually changed his choice of studies in University and decided to take a trip to the Caucasus to improve his emotional state, and tagging along was a family acquaintance. He was enthusiastic about the region and owned property, 'a Green Cape', in Batum. The trip started in Novorossysk and "from Novorossysk we preceded by train to Kislovdsk, then a fashionable spa in the north Caucasus, famous for it's carbonic acid baths. From there we took a side trip by horse and buggy to Bermamut, a high spot offering the best view of the Elbrus, the highest mountain in the whole Caucasus. We started very early and arrived at Bermamut toward evening, under a cloudless, transparent sky. There we found a small, deserted mountain hut, furnished with only a few wooden benches. This hut was perched on the edge of a vast, seemingly bottomless abyss. Opposite us, like a gigantic sugar loaf towering to the sky stood the majestic Elbrus, which we could admire in all its greatness and glory. The valley separating us from the Elbrus extended on either side into immeasurable distance, and on both sides one saw more and more towering, snow covered peaks and steep rocky cliffs reaching down into the depths. Unique as the site was, my depressed state prevented me from really enjoying it or feeling any enthusiasm. Just when we were in Kislovodsk something occurred to me to deepen my already melancholy mood: namely doubts as to whether my decision to change my course of study was a sensible one. So I started weighing all the pros and cons, but without reaching any satisfactory conclusion. Always immersed in my own thoughts, I was not easily accessible to impressions from outside the world, and I experienced everything I saw as unreal and dreamlike."

"There were other similar spas near Kislovodsk, such as the sulfur springs of Pyatigorsk...[it] was famous not for only its sulfur springs, but also not far from there Lermontov, the second greatest poet of Russia, was killed in a duel. This alone was sufficient for me to visit Pyatigorsk." Lermontov who insulted a man named Martinov and his clothing, and didn't know he overheard him, was challenged to a duel. "Lermontov, being first, fired into the air, but his adversary, declining reconciliation, took sharp aim. His bullet hit Lermontov in the abdomen. Just at this moment a terrible thunderstorm broke out, and the critically wounded man could only be taken to Pyatigorsk only with great difficulty and after a long delay. No physician dared to leave his house in this frightful storm, and medical care could not be obtained in time. Lermontov died three or four days later from his severe wound. He was only twenty eight years old. [We] visited the spot where the duel had taken place. It was a meadow like any other at the foot of a wooded hill from which a beautiful view opened to the lonely mountain Maschuk which, standing apart from the other four mountains, looked like a pointed rock springing out of the plain. Hearing that among the sights of Pyatigorsk there was also a so-called Lermontov Grotto. We went to see it." Serge identified with Lermontov because a friend once said that he looked like him. Identification can be a lot of fun, but pathological if morbid elements are imitated too much, like tragic deaths. Lermontov had a bad end, his sister also had a bad end in the Caucasus, and Serge was veering in that self-destructive path.

After visiting the grotto, their trip became more rugged as they ascended to the glaciers on Mount Kasbek by mule starting from Vladikavkaz. "We rode our mules along a steep, rocky cliff, narrowly skirting the edge of an abyss several hundred meters deep. It was not pleasant to be haunted by the thought that if the animal made the slightest false step you would be hurled into the abyss. But the mules went so cautiously, at a slow and sure pace, that we could not help wondering at them." In a grief travel, the trip is more about dealing with emptiness and loss than to relax and have a good time. Anybody who traveled to escape, especially on long arduous journeys should identify with Serge's masochism and grief. "I am one of those people who feel drawn toward the depths as to a magnet. The anxiety which then overcomes one is primarily directed against this power of attraction, which one has to fight in order not to succumb to it." After an extended stay where Serge's friend caught up with his friends and acquaintances, they continued on the Georgian Military Highway. Along the highway Serge found a place where he could paint. "I got out my paintbox and oil paints from my suitcase and went to the nearer bank of the mountain stream Terek. It did not take long to find a suitable subject, as a very beautiful view opened in front of me after I had taken a few steps. I sat down on my stool and tried to transfer to my canvas the impression of the swift flowing river and the majestic mount Kasbek towering in the background...This was the first time I had done so well with a landscape, and it was the beginning of my activities as a landscape painter."

As they moved out of the mountains they descended into a vast steppe with a warmer climate. "It led soon into a fertile valley, in which corn and wheat fields spread out in all directions, with vineyards and orchards appearing on the hillsides. This cheerful southern landscape was in sharp contrast to the grim mountain world we had just left...We spent one night in Kutais and the next evening boarded the train for Tiflis, now Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia...I noticed that in Tiflis there were already electric streetcars, something which did not yet exist in Odessa...As the heat was becoming uncomfortable in Tiflis, we decided after a few days to proceed to Borshom, a health resort in the mountains not far away. Before leaving Tiflis, we took the funicular to the top of a small mountain in the vicinity to the enjoy the beautiful view over Tiflis and its surroundings. Altogether Tiflis made the impression of a handsome and modern town. This applied, however, only to the section called the European, for Tiflis on those days consisted of two separate districts, the European and the Oriental. The latter had all the characteristics of the Orient, with its shouting sidewalk merchants, its turmoil, and its colorful confusion. Borshom, apart from the advantages of its climate, was famous for the mineral water of its springs, which was used all over Russia as a drinking water, similar to Seltzer or Preblauer water in Germany. The landscape there impressed me by its gentleness and reminded me of places in the foothills of the Alps. The mountains were wooded and of moderate height, the meadows were green, and - a rare thing in the Caucasus in those days - the streets and roads were in good condition. After the heat of Tiflis, Borshom's fresh, invigorating air was most gratifying."

Their trip continued from Abastuman to Batum, their final destination. "Batum, situated on the shore of the Black Sea in the southwest corner of the Caucasus, is surrounded by mountains on its other three sides. One finds there eucalyptus and yew, myrtle, cactus, and various palm-like plants. The whole region is characterized by its luxuriant vegetation. Although summer had passed its height by by the time we reached Batum, there was, an oppressive mugginess. The air was not only warm but also very humid, and a thick, sweltering haze always hung over this exotic-looking countryside. Now I had the occasion to inspect personally the 'Green Cape' about which [my friend] had raved so much. It was a garden with some sort of weekend bungalow and it had nothing to do with a real 'cape,' which I had visualized as a promontory jutting out into the sea. We bathed in the sea twice a day but we nevertheless suffered so much from the humid, sultry heat that even [my friend] was not opposed to to my idea of starting our return trip somewhat sooner than originally planned. So after a week we embarked for Odessa and arrived there after a five day-sea voyage."

The waxy perception of narcissism

Despite having an amazing vacation, when major decisions are postponed, they have to be faced. When Serge returned from his holiday, he still had to decide on his vocation. He talked to his father in sessions lasting hours to figure out his problem. "...after a few days my father was succumbing to the devastating ambivalence and was even infected by it." Eventually he chose Law because his attempt to move to the Natural Sciences was more out of avoidance than actual interest. He moved to St. Petersburg with an uncle to continue his studies. He still had depressions and his father setup a meeting with his old doctor for him. "He is inhibited...he cannot get out of himself...I believe the best thing for him would be if he could fall in love." He tried to get involved in St. Petersburg life. Dating, museums, and lectures left him "in a state of indifference or boredom...There was too crass a contrast between the pulsating life around me and the bottomless, unbridgeable gulf of emptiness within myself." He eventually asked his father for advice on a sanatorium for him to really deal with this problem, which at the time was diagnosed as manic-depression, like his father was diagnosed. He consulted with Professor Bekhterev in Petersburg, Kraepelin in Munich, and Ziehen in Berlin. He met is love Therese in one of the sanatoriums in Munich, who was a nurse. But in regards to the success of improving his mental stability, he briefly felt better only to relapse, as was his prior pattern. He then describes the classic description of what narcissism does to your perception. "Then I found life empty, everything had seemed 'unreal', to the extent that people seemed like wax figures or wound up marionettes with whom I could not establish any contact."

When your mind is preoccupied with success, status, and advancement, and strategies of how to get there, there is a loss of appreciation of what is around you. It looks hollow because most of the environment is drained of meaning for your goals. The environment is taken for granted or is viewed as an obstacle. His "veil" was made of dreams and hopes projected onto an environment, like a fog separating one from reality. Narcissism can happen to anyone, but when the pathology is severe, it's a regular state of mind. Being lost in possibilities for power, control and managing fears of uncertainty, covers over your perception in the here and now. It can also act as a barrier to appreciation. You can see that in a prior video that includes some of Heidegger's meditation practices which was in response to the narcissistic method of Nietzsche. I still have to read more Nietzsche and Heidegger, but what it looks like now is that Nietzsche's method can easily turn into narcissism, with that style of rumination over success and power, and Heidegger blamed Nietzsche for that influence which lead him to his ultimate involvement with Nazism and all the rumination about power that it entails. As I read more, it could be a misreading that some people did when they read Nietzsche, or an inevitable consequence of obsessive self-development. The problem with self-development is that one is constantly seeking future improvements and getting addicted to only thinking about that. There has to be a balance between planning in your mind and appreciation in the moment. [See: How to motivate yourself - The Being of Beings: https://rumble.com/v1gv3zl-how-to-motivate-yourself-freud-and-beyond.html]

One of Serge's goals he was ruminating about was developing a relationship with his, then not yet wife Therese. He pursued her, but kept his desire secret from other nurses and doctors. He tried to meet her at Nymphenburg park, but was stood up while he waited into the night. He still pursued her. She eventually consented to walk in the English park with him and talk about her family, and her German and Spanish background. Her calm demeanor with her tragedies, such as her divorce, made her more attractive to him. He focused on finding rooms to rent to privately meet with her, but she rejected him to focus on nursing and her daughter Else. Serge was so depressed that he swallowed a handful of sleeping tablets, but in the end it did no more damage other than making him wake up more slowly. He still tried to meet with Therese only to get another rejection via a letter. Kraepelin and other doctors suggested that he focus on getting out of his manic-depression instead of pursuing Therese. Serge left the sanatorium and stayed at the Bayerischer Hof and pleaded with Therese to see her at least one last time before leaving Munich to never see her again. Later Serge welcomed a visit from his mother, who was able to soothe his ups and downs. They briefly went to Lake Constance where Serge's painful nostalgia returned. The location evoked "an aura of the remote past, and it seemed to me as if the spirit...was still hovering over the place. All this invited meditation about the evanescence and futility of human passion and striving, and about the wisdom of resignation."

Manic depression

Spending time with his family abroad, resuscitated Serge's positivity. Serge told his uncle in Paris of his love affair with Therese. "It was certainly fortunate for me to be in a city like Paris, where the quick pulse of life and even the sight of the streets helped to distract me." On the question of Therese his uncle chimed in. "He thought that it was not a question of 'love' but merely of 'passion' and expressed the opinion that in the view of all these complications at the beginning, no good could have come of it in the future. What is the thing to do if a young man is unhappily in love or if the object of choice seems objectionable to the family? One tries to divert his attention to other women. So my uncle advised me to frequent night clubs and cabarets where plenty of beautiful women 'for one night' were to be found." He also gave him connections to Odessa society ladies.

When Serge returned to Odessa, he waited for his father to return from Moscow. "But more than two weeks passed...Then came a telegram from Moscow with the news that my father had suddenly died." He wanted to go to the theater but a violent storm made him return to the hotel. He was found dead in his bed in the hotel the next day, despite being young and considered in good health. Crucially Serge surmised that "it is true that he suffered from insomnia and regularly took veronal before going to sleep. Perhaps his premature death was due to an overdose of this sleeping medicine." Serge received a condolence letter from Therese who found out what happened. After the funeral and the process of disposing the will, Serge got into arguments with his mother and her secretiveness. He wasn't to get his portion of the inheritance until the age of 28, but it was understandable due to his mental condition.

With this disappointment, Serge moved on with his life, and resumed his painting. He also took lessons. Some of his paintings got recognition, but he fell back into indecision about focusing on painting or continuing his law studies. Eventually he went back to Kraepelin to notify him of his father's death. Serge looked at himself now as a "hereditary case", but there was also a silver lining because he would be close enough to Therese to meet her again. They did meet and agreed to stay in touch by letter. He felt that his meeting Krepelin was just a pretext to see Therese again and that was why he was depressed. Her letter of condolence brought up desires of being with her. His depression abated when he met up with her again. He met up with her in Berlin at the Central Hotel. This time their desires reversed. He now was ambivalent about the relationship and she was more eager to be married since she had a daughter and was suffering financial hardship. It blew up in fight in the hotel. He left for the Schlachtensee and wrote a farewell letter to her with the excuse of his mental condition. As expected, Serge had feelings of regret and fell back into depression. Over time he eventually was referred to Sigmund Freud as an attempt to try something different, and like with many of Freud's patients, he was a last option when other modalities failed.

During this time Serge's Uncle Peter, who had paranoia, died. He was alone and only around animals. He was found later when his delivered food wasn't touched. Rats had been chewing on him during this time. Therese found out in a newspaper article titled "A Millionaire Gnawed by Rats." The law stepped in and Serge was included in the disbursement of his assets, relieving some of the resentment of having to wait until he was 28 to get his father's inheritance.

When he started with Freud, Freud pointed out that his behaviour was normal up until the final break where he was now falling into a pattern of "flight from the woman." But Freud wanted the analysis to continue for some months before returning to Therese. Freud's analysis was hourly, so Serge was able to acquaint himself with the pleasures of Vienna and learned to play card games. Despite Freud's prohibition on Therese, Serge sent a detective to find her whereabouts. "I had learned that Therese gave up her position in the sanatorium, and now was an owner of a small pension in which she and her daughter Else were living. She looked terribly rundown, and her no longer fashionable dress hung about her body which had become so thin that it was scarcely more than a skeleton...In this moment I determined never to leave this woman, whom I caused to suffer so terribly."

The vicissitudes of war

When the war broke out, there were anti-Russian sentiments, and Serge and his mother returned to Odessa for the summer before his planned wedding with Therese. Therese stayed behind in Germany with her daughter. Luckily for Serge, being an only child, he avoided being conscripted. After the war broke out he had to go through a lot of legal work to get Therese a permit to enter Odessa. When she arrived they finally got married, though she sold herself short by saying to Serge "I wish you great happiness in your marriage" as if he was marrying someone else. Despite anti-German attitudes Therese put effort into learning Russian until she was able converse with people. Unfortunately she didn't get a long with her mother-in-law who fought over who ran the household. During this time Serge focused on his law exams and passed, but when things were going well, there was an ever present danger to ruin circumstances. For example, during the Ukrainian independence attempt and the Soviet Bolshevik victory, Serge was caught in crossfire. "In the fall of 1917 the October Revolution broke out. In the late fall of the same year armed conflicts were expected in Odessa. I was advised not to venture too far into the city. Nevertheless one day I went to visit friends who lived at quite a distance from our home. When I set out to return home I was amazed to see how the city had changed in so short a time. The streets were suddenly empty and all the front doors were locked. It was uncanny to walk through this deserted town. Finally I had to turn into a street which ran parallel to ours, from which, in order to reach our house, one had to go either to the right or to the left. As I looked down this street I was terrified to see that it was blocked on the right and the left by armed men. They had formed fighting lines on both sides of the street and opened fire against each other at just this very moment...I crossed the parallel street and turned to the left. The bullets were whizzing and swishing past my ears, but I proceeded at a steady pace, reached the garden gate, and seized the latch."

With the constant flip flop between different revolutions and fighting forces, Odessa finally landed in the hands of the Austrians. This allowed Therese an opportunity to get to Germany to visit her daughter Else who was in serious condition with pneumonia.

The biggest devastation to Serge's independence came with economic shocks during the war. "Our fortune was almost entirely invested in government bonds, held in deposit by the Odessa branch of the Russian state bank. The bonds were destroyed in a fire. Furthermore a constant devaluation of money had been taking place. At the time of the German-Austrian occupation an independent Ukrainian currency had been created, which was expected to drop in value rapidly. The inheritance left to me by my father was still administered by my mother, but I had invested most of my inheritance from Uncle Peter in mortgages. My debtors were now very eager to make considerable payments to me, taking advantage of the devaluated currency."

By the time Serge made it back to Germany, despite a lot of red tape related to his Russian ethnicity, he brought what money he could. He saw Therese again, but now with a shock of white hair. Else was diagnosed as terminal with her tuberculosis and died a couple of months later.

During this dark time, Serge met Freud again who felt there was still a residue left that needed to be analyzed and this analysis stretched out until 1920. "After WWI there was a catastrophic fall in the value of German and Austrian currency, which finally led to a complete collapse...Because of the currency devaluation I had practically nothing left of the money I had brought with me from Russia. So I was forced to look for some sort of job as soon as possible. By exhausting his connections, including Freud, he was able to find an economics professor who got him an opportunity with an insurance company, a job that would sustain him for years."

Psychoanalytic Mindfulness

Some years after the war Serge was again stuck in obsessions. Freud assigned him to one of his followers Ruth Mack Brunswick. When she saw him he was "now earning barely enough to feed his ailing wife and himself. Nevertheless, things went smoothly with him until the summer of 1926, when certain symptoms appeared which called him to consult Freud. At this time it was suggested that if he felt in need of analysis he should come to me...He was suffering from [hypochondria related to his nose acne and treatments]. According to him, [an] injury [from treatment] consisted varyingly of a scar, a hole, or a groove in the scar tissue. The contour of the nose was ruined. Let me state at once that nothing whatsoever was visible on the small snub, typically Russian nose of the patient. And the patient himself, while insisting that the injury was all too noticeable, nevertheless realized that his reaction to it was abnormal. For this reason, having exhausted all dermatological resources, he consulted Freud. If nothing could be done for his nose, then something must be done for his state of mind, whether the cause was real or imagined. At first sight, this sensible and logical point of view seemed due to the insight won from the earlier analysis. But only in part did this prove to be the motive for the present analysis. On the other hand, the insight was undoubtedly responsible for the one atypical characteristic of the case: its ultimate accessibility to analysis, which otherwise would certainly not have been present." Ruth continued associating his complaint that "I can't go on living like this anymore" to his other statements going back to childhood when he soiled himself and thought that he had dysentery, and when he contracted gonorrhea before his sessions with Freud. It was an identification with his mother.

His obsession turned towards reflections. "The 'veil' of his earlier illness completely enveloped him. He neglected his daily life and work because he was engrossed, to the exclusion of all else, in the state of his nose. On the street he looked at himself in every shop-window; he carried a pocket mirror which he took out to look at every few minutes. First he would powder his nose; a moment later he would inspect it and remove the powder. He would then examine the pores, to see if they were enlarging, to catch the hole, as it were, in its moment of growth and development. Then he would again powder his nose, put away the mirror, and a moment later begin the process anew. His life centered on the little mirror in his pocket, and his fate depended on what it revealed or was about to reveal."

Despite starting a fresh analysis, Ruth announced that "all the childhood material appears [in Freud's paper]; Nothing new whatsoever made its appearance in the analysis with me. The source of the new illness was an unresolved remnant of the transference, which after fourteen years, under the stress of peculiar circumstances, became the basis for a new form of an old illness...At the end of 1919 he had come out of Russia and returned to Freud for a few months of analysis, with the purpose, successively accomplished, of clearing up his hysterical constipation." Unfortunately Serge didn't have enough money to pay for the analysis. With no work and dealing with a wife who was ill, Freud was able to collect money for him for six years. "The money enabled the patient to pay his wife's hospital bills, to send her to the country, and occasionally to take a short holiday himself." Ruth described Freud's interest in the patient as someone "who had served the theoretical ends of analysis so well..."

Despite the supposed cure, Serge not only continued identification with his mother, but also his sister. Before his analysis with Ruth, just like his sister, "[Serge's] preoccupations on his looks and health continued on his nose, teeth, and his constipation. In 1924- 1925 Serge found that his nose had healed..." Unfortunately the nose symptoms returned with a pimple on his nose. "He [then] saw the movie The White Sister which reminded him of his sister who preoccupied herself with feelings of depression over acne and not being beautiful enough." Serge had suicidal thoughts about his looks, and he went to his old dermatologist to have the pimple removed. The blood gave him a sense of relief, but he began to worry about scarring. In the end he had minor scarring that ended up being "the finest white line."

Like in my review on the treatment of Narcissism, [See: Treatment of Narcissistic Personality Disorder: https://rumble.com/v1gtj2d-treatment-of-narcissistic-personality-disorder-narcissism-part-4-of-4.html] Ruth appeared to fall into the trap of positive transference, where it's easy for both therapist and patient to flatter each other. "For a time, despite the patient's invulnerability on important topics, or because of it, my relations with him were mostly sunny. He brought the clearest dreams in order that I might show my skill at interpreting them, thus confirming his statement that he was better off in my hands than in Freud's." When Ruth mentioned the death of the dermatologist that worked on his nose, which was the first time Serge heard of the news, he admitted a desire to kill him, sue him or expose him. Ruth then tried to connect this hatred of the dermatologist back to a possible hatred of Freud. Here Serge defended Freud and viewed his analysis with him more as a friendly connection than a professional one. Ruth countered that Serge was not invited to visit Freud and his family, so was not really a close friend. She saw that the patient was stuck wanting to stay Freud's favourite son.

"Our entire concern is with a remnant of the transference to Freud. Naturally this remnant implies that the patient has not been wholly freed of his fixation to the father; but apparently the cause of the remaining attachment is not the presence of unconscious material, but insufficient living-through of the transference itself. I say this in the face of the fact that the patient spent four-and-a-half years with Freud and remained well afterward for some twelve years. It is one thing for the analyst to consider a case complete, and another for the patient to do so. As analysts we may be in full possession of the historic facts of the illness, but we cannot know how much living-through the patient requires for his cure." What he didn't live through enough was seeing his false self in action. Serge wanted to maintain the pleasant feelings of being the star patient to bask in Freud's success. He also had financial needs, needs for social praise and survival needs.

At the end of Ruth's analysis she declared a cure based on the awareness of his nasal obsession being the same as the gonorrheal infection. An emotional castration. This went back to his identification with his mother and dysentery, and a lingering attachment to his father. "He was now able to realize that his nasal symptom was not a fact but an idea, based on his unconscious wish and the defense against it which together had proved stronger than his sense of reality...At last the patient had sufficiently lived through his reactions to the father, and was therefore able to give them up. The modes of analytic therapy are twofold: the first is the making of hitherto unconscious reactions; the second is the working through of these reactions. The second point involves the primary bisexuality of this patient, obviously the cause of his illness. His masculinity has always found its normal outlet; his femininity on the other hand has necessarily been repressed. But this femininity seems to have been constitutionally strong, so strong, indeed, that the normal oedipus complex has been sacrificed in its development to the negative oedipus complex. The development of a strong positive oedipus complex would have been a sign of greater health than the patient actually possessed. Whether the patient, who has been well for a year and a half, will remain well, it is impossible to state. I should be inclined to think that his health is in a large measure dependent on the degree of sublimation of which he proves capable...All at once he could read and enjoy novels...He could paint, and plan work and study in his chosen field, and again take the general intelligent interest in life and the arts and literature which naturally was his."

In his interview with Karin Obholzer, Serge didn't think that Ruth's analysis helped him as much as his own determination, especially when he didn't agree with the diagnosis of paranoia. "I gathered all my strength, stopped looking in the mirror, and somehow overcame these ideas. In a few days it was gone...That is my greatest accomplishment...I believe I had most success while I saw Mack because I took a stand against the psychoanalysts, made a decision on my own. Stop constantly thinking about your nose!" Despite the accomplishment in using willpower to drop his nose obsession, Serge would have to face more losses and grief.

Endless grief

Things were going well for Serge with his paintings and vacations, until 1938, a bad year for Austria. "When I returned home the evening before the day of the referendum, I wanted to listen to a radio concert that had been announced. This concert should have began within a few minutes, but quite a long time passed without a sound...Suddenly came the voice of the announcer...[Chancellor] Schuschnigg spoke. His statement contained the information that German armed forces had already crossed the German-Austrian border, and that Schuschnigg - to prevent unnecessary bloodshed - had given the order that there should be no armed resistance." Despite Therese being somewhat sympathetic to the Germans, she was starting to deteriorate markedly. "Sometimes she would stand in front of the big mirror in the bedroom, look at herself for a while, and then say discontentedly: 'I am old and ugly!'...She gradually lost contact with her surroundings and wanted neither to visit the few acquaintances we had in Vienna nor to invite them to visit us."

As anti-semitism started to increase in Austria, and many Jews were starting to commit suicide, Therese made a strange remark. She said that "as only the Jews committed suicide and the Christians on the contrary were too cowardly to do so, it was unjust to consider the Jews cowardly. From this remark it was clear that Therese regarded suicide as a heroic deed." Later on she shocked Serge again and said "Do you know what we are going to do? We'll turn on the gas." She quickly spoke of other normal things as if she never said anything so extreme. A week later the couple went for an outing to Grinzing. "As we sat in a café there, I told Therese about the changes which had taken place in the office since the Anschluss [annex] and mentioned that the employees had been asked to produce their so-called family trees which would prove their Aryan descent, or - as people mockiningly said at the time - that they had no Jewish grandmother." Her reaction to this was curious and then one day when he went to work "Therese said goodbye especially tenderly, which I took as a sign that her mood had improved." The morbid scene when he returned home showed that Therese was serious about using gas to commit suicide, and had planned it out far in advance. "I stormed into our hallway where warning notes had been put up: 'Don't turn on the light - danger of gas.' From there I rushed into the kitchen, which was filled with the streaming gas as with a thick fog. Therese was sitting near the gas jet, bent over the kitchen table, on which lay several letters of farewell." She had been dead for several hours. "I lived this day and the following ones as though in a delirium in which one does not know whether what happens is reality or a dreadful dream."

Therese's last letters were cryptic of the cause of her suicidal thoughts. Did she think that she had a Jewish ancestor that would be found out? Did she have a terminal disease that she kept secret? In one letter "Therese tries to justify her suicide on the grounds that she would have died within two or three years, and it would be easier for me if this happened earlier."

"I ask you a thousand times to forgive me - I am so poor in body and soul. You have suffered so much; you must surmount this also. My prayers in eternal life shall protect you and comfort you, my blessing goes with you. God will help you to overcome everything, time will heal all wounds, the heart must endure the loss of that which is buried in the earth. It is hard for me to leave you, but you will rise again to a new life. I have only one wish, your happiness, this will give me eternal peace. Do not forget me; pray for me. We shall see each other again..."

"Be reasonable, do nothing rashly but act only after you have quieted down. Take care of your health; be careful not to squander your possessions, so that when you are old you will still have something besides your pension. I have saved only for you, I have loved only you, everything I have done has been from innermost love...Think it carefully before you marry again. Marriage could mean your happiness and salvation - or your doom and destruction. You must find a thrifty, hard-working, good woman - not some frivolous creature. Choose a woman from a good home. Then you can make new relationships. You must resume your life."

"W: ...There was considerable enmity between my mother and Therese. This enmity was Therese's fault. Nothing suited her; she wanted everything different. That's the reason I could not have my mother live with me until after Therese's death. It bothered her that my mother was so attached to her relatives and not to us. That was Therese's idea. Her relatives were the most important thing to my mother, you understand, but I was never really aware of it. Due to the quarrel with my mother, the fortune was lost because I couldn't discuss anything with my mother...And she was constantly with her relatives, and those relatives naturally also turned away from me. So it was an awkward situation.

O: Therese was jealous of your mother.

W: I'd say so. You see it correctly.

O: But your mother also had a prejudice against Therese.

W: Of course. My mother did not like my having married Therese.

O: Because it was a [mismatch]?

W: Of course. She was a nurse - that's a lower class. But you see how it is when a mother is jealous of her daughter-in-law, and vice versa. My mother was always jealous. My father said that he was unfamiliar with that emotion. But she had reason...

O: And a woman after your mother's heart, what would she have been like?

W: Rich, for one thing....Therese sensed her rejection. She was very much attached to her mother, to her parents. She wanted my mother to act toward her as her own mother did....Freud said I was looking for something inferior because she was only a nurse, although...there were difficulties, but...I had...received something very good, you see, because she was a very decent human being." Despite living with Therese, Serge couldn't clearly say why Therese committed suicide. Maybe it was Hitler and she was afraid that her Spanish ancestry had Jewish in it. She also complained about aging and her health..."Freud said that she was perfectly all right psychologically and that only physical illnesses need be considered in her case... Mack said, 'That's where the professor was very badly mistaken...You were married to a crazy woman for twenty-five years.' In the case of my wife, it was real hypochondria that she was so ill. She wasn't ill at all. She imagined she was ill, that she wouldn't live much longer, and so on..."

After the disaster Serge found Psychoanalyst Muriel Gardiner and asked for help "In early spring 1938, shortly after the Nazis had taken over Austria, I came face to face with the Wolf-Man on one of the busy Vienna streets. He did not greet me in his usual polite ceremonious manner but began to cry and wring his hands and pour out a flood of words which because of his excitement and his sobbing were utterly unintelligible." Muriel guided the panicked Wolf-Man to her apartment. Serge used to teach Muriel Russian grammar and talk about his favourite subjects, French Impressionists, Doestoevsky and of course Freud. Muriel couldn't keep up the lessons when she began studying medicine, but she would still be visited by Serge to renew her insurance, since he was working for an insurance company at the time. Serge was in a depressed mood. "My wife killed herself. I've just come from the cemetery. Why did she do it? Why did this have to happen to me? I always have bad luck, I'm always subject to the greatest misfortunes. What shall I do Frau Doktor? Tell me what to do. Tell me why she killed herself."

Serge found his wife Terese dead in the gas-filled kitchen and this was recognizable to Muriel. "Suicides were common in the early days of Nazi Austria, as I knew firsthand from my work in pathology in the autopsy rooms of the general hospital, so of course I thought first of political motives. But this was apparently quite out of the question; neither the Wolf-Man nor his wife was Jewish and they were politically completely indifferent. To my astonishment I found that he scarcely even knew that the Nazis were in power." Muriel managed to get a passport for him and he left for Paris to meet up with Mack Brunswick for more sessions. Muriel went to the U.S. Serge followed Brunswick to England and he returned to Vienna during the Munich Pact. Muriel continued to receive some letters in the United States from Serge until Pearl Harbour. After the war was over news of the Wolf-Man communicated his good mental health and acceptance of his lot in life. He continued to work in insurance and took care of his mother. Though, more sad news arrived about Ruth Mack Brunswick's untimely death. She had died of a fall in the bathroom while on opiates. She had a painful gastrointestinal illness which led to her dependence on painkillers.

On a later visit to Salzburg Muriel negotiated a meeting with the Wolf-Man in Linz. Serge talked about how he benefited from Ruth's comfort but also criticized saying "one could hardly call that a real analysis; it was more of a consolation." He also talked about the kind of women he was attracted to. Muriel pointed out that his taste in women was the same, and connected with his sister's influence. He gained some solace when his mother was opened up more about her own life, which "cleared up for him some of the problems which he had never understood."

Both Gardiner and Pankejeff continued sending letters to each other while Serge continued writing his memoirs. A highlight of those letters was when he got in trouble with Russian soldiers. One day in 1951 he went out to paint, and out of a nostalgia for the Russia of his boyhood he wandered away from the English zone into Russian zone by mistake. He went to the top of a hill and found a nice landscape to paint. When he returned to go home and walked towards a streetcar line he was surrounded by Russian guards. He was interrogated, but strangely, after a few days, the interrogator decided to talk about Russian literature instead. They made an agreement where he would return in 3 weeks to show his other paintings and provide personal documents. Out of a duty to make sure that his case was definitely resolved, he took another chance and returned to the Russian zone. When Serge went back, none of the interrogators were there but instead a different soldier who looked at the paintings and talked about his son who also painted. In the end, they showed no interest in Serge. They warned him that all he needed to do was ask permission and they would allow him to paint.

As age creeped up on Serge he started to admit some of his struggles. "I too am growing older, although, I must sadly confess, not wiser. For many years I thought that I, through the many hard blows of fate which I have suffered, would at least in age become somewhat more mellow and would acquire some sort of philosophic outlook upon life. I thought that in old age I could at least spend my last years at a distance from the emotional struggles of which I had so many in my life. But it seems these are illusions also. I am still far away from the capacity for a contemplative life..." Quoting from later works of Freud he showed how difficult it was to deal with strong impulses. "It is interesting how the 'id' can be. How it can dissemble, apparently following the commands of the 'ego' and 'superego,' but in secret preparing its 'revenge' and then suddenly triumphing over these apparently higher courts. Then the old emotional conflict breaks out, and the apparently subdued mourning for the great loss which one suffered so many years ago makes itself felt again. Freud says that the unconscious knows no time; but as a consequence the unconscious can know no growing old...Unconscious processes [can] gain the upper hand." For Gardiner, much of Serge's complaints about losses, like in his family, and his loss of status, he handled it about as well as many people can. For her "there is no doubt Freud's analysis saved the Wolf-Man from a crippled existence, and Dr. Brunswick's reanalysis overcame a serious acute crisis, both enabling the Wolf-Man to lead a long and tolerably healthy life."

The Ego and the Id - Sigmund Freud: https://rumble.com/v1gvdo1-the-ego-and-the-id-sigmund-freud.html

The Wolfman and other cases - Sigmund Freud: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780142437452/

The Wolf Man by the Wolf Man - Sergei Pankejeff, Ruth Mack Brunswick, Muriel Gardiner, Anna Freud: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780465091973/

The Wolf Man: 60 years later - Karin Obholzer: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780710093547/

The Cries of the Wolf Man - Patrick J. Mahony: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780823610907/

Freud Standard Edition Vol 12: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780701205256/

The Correspondence of Sigmund Freud and Sándor Ferenczi, Volume 1: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780674174184/

The Assault on Truth - Jeffrey Masson: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780345452795/

The Wolf Man's Magic Words: A Cryptonymy - Nicolas Abraham & Maria Torok: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780816648580/

Freud and the Rat Man - Patrick J. Mahony: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780300036947/

Violent Origins: Ritual Killing and Cultural Formation - Walter Burkert, Jonathan Z. Smith, René Girard, Robert G. Hammerton-Kelly, Renato Rosaldo, Burton Mack: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780804715188/

The War that ended Peace - Margaret MacMillan: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780143173601/

The First World War - John Keegan: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780676972245/

The Origins of the War of 1914 - Luigi Albertini: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9781929631261/

Lothane, H. Z. (2018). Freud Bashers: Facts, Fictions, and Fallacies. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 66(5), 953–969.

Homosexuality Anxiety: A Misunderstood Form of OCD - Monnica Williams: https://www.psychologytoday.com/sites/default/files/attachments/72634/williamshocd2008.pdf

Misusing Freud: Psychoanalysis and the Rise of Homosexual Misusing Freud: Psychoanalysis and the Rise of Homosexual Conversion Therapy - Jonathan Barrett: https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1027&context=psi_sigma_siren

How do I know I'm really not gay? Fred Penzel: https://iocdf.org/expert-opinions/homosexual-obsessions/

Sigmund Freud urged his disciple to divorce: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-11-12-vw-20532-story.html

The Master's mad move: https://www.theguardian.com/books/1999/jan/30/sigmundfreud

Conditions for intuitive expertise: a failure to disagree. Daniel Kahneman, Gary Klein Am Psychol. 2009 Sep; 64(6): 515–526

Alan Cumming Is Bisexual — And You Might Be Too: https://www.advocate.com/bisexuality/2015/03/30/alan-cumming-bisexual-and-you-might-be-too

Alan Cumming Sounds Off On Being Bisexual And Being Married To A Man: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/alan-cumming-bisexual-_n_4460070

Psychology: http://psychreviews.org/category/psychology01/

#oedipus complex #sigmund freud #psychoanalysis #sergeipankejeff #HOCD #bisexuality #homosexuality #castration anxiety

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sunset-peril · 11 months

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Lore for Newbies - Special Project Cykes

*The Story So Far*

On October 7th, 2020, Los Kyoto First Responders arrived at GYAXA Space Enterprise's Cosmos Space Center after receiving a call about a dark-haired man carrying a bloody sword. After evacuating the building, police found the dead body of Dr. Metis Cykes on a table in the robotics lab. Her eleven-year-old chronically ill daughter was removed from the crime scene by paramedics before officers arrived and was erroneously declared missing when she was actually taken to the ER for neurosurgery following a stab in the head. Athena's bodily fluids (blood and other fluids associated with stabbing wounds, idk I'm not a biologist) were found on scene. The incident was ruled as a homicide, and the suspect turned himself in before apprehension.

A few days later, a bomb explodes on the HAT-1 rocket, leading to the HAT-1 Miracle. On October 13th, the trial of Simon Blackquill for the murder of Metis Cykes (and stabbing of Athena Cykes) begins and ends. Simon pleads guilty and is convicted with the death penalty. The only witness was young Athena, testifying only 6 days after her surgery. The FBI forcibly removed her from the courtroom, and Simon attacked them. Athena was not seen again after Simon's verdict. A memorial service was held and a gravestone was placed for her on October 15th despite the fact that there was no evidence she'd met with additional foul play.

Four years later, an Interpol field agent named Klavier Gavin was sent to infiltrate a facility owned by the French government. Inside this facility, he found a full-functional pit bull fighting ring. What shook him to his core were the fighters: not pit bulls, not canines at all. Children. Human children pitted against the largest and most aggressive dogs Europe had. He found himself face to face with a female teen, nearly undressed in preparation for her nighttime battle. He asked for her name, then a picture, then fled the facility to report to Interpol the atrocities he'd witnessed that night. A year later, he was in Los Kyoto as a rockstar and prosecutor, but never forgot what he'd done with Interpol. Her name was Venus, and that memory haunted him every day.

Shortly after meeting Klavier that night, Venus defeated the champion dog, becoming queen of the pit. However, she'd gone over the maximum weight requirement of the pits, and she was handed over to the EUAS asylum Sanatorium Lac de Libellules in Paris, France to be euthanized.

Back in Japanifornia, about a year or so later, Phoenix Wright had been exonerated of his forging crimes, allowing him to become reinstated if he so wished. Apollo joined the Wright Anything Agency and the Gramarye shenanigans were over. During the night, Edgeworth called Wright. His sister, Franziska von Karma, had notified him of a human rights case involving a child who was near the same age as the missing Athena Cykes, the sole witness in the Blackquill case he was trying to reopen. Unfortunately, due to the nature of this case, the child needed a place to stay and an employer before they could process her rescue. Knowing that Phoenix was a sucker had a good heart for hurt children, Edgeworth reached out to see if he would take her in. Phoenix accepted in late November of 2026, and a deathly ill Venus was rescued from the Sanatorium on February 15th, 2027 just minutes before her scheduled execution.

Interpol's chosen rescue team, who's specialty was rescuing and rehabilitating EUAS victims, found a shattered spinal tap needle in her spine. The surgery to remove the fragments caused three heart attacks and severe sepsis, Venus' spine had to be replaced from the ribcage down. Initial fears for her survival developed into fears for her rehabilitation, she was extremely fearful of men and the rescue team found evidence for physical, mental, medical and sexual abuse. Venus' was retrained to respond to the name "Athena Cykes", given new memories, had some cosmetic work done, had her PhD reissued under the new name and was given an attorney's badge before being sent to Los Kyoto.

Although her past caused her to interpret many social situations incorrectly, Venus/Athena adapted well to her new free life. The one snag was that she had to wear two medical ID bands on her arm that denoted her as "legally insane" since she officially had escaped a death-row level asylum on circumstances not related to being discharged. With that information, the right person could feasibly rip apart her entire impersonation. If her impersonation unraveled before the 1st-year-anniversary of her rehabilitation placement, she'd be returned to the rescue team where she ran the risk of her captors seizing her again. Despite her trauma and physical issues, she settled down (not in a marriage way, just in the no-more-kool-aid-man-energy way) and made friends. Athena's family and friends took her in as if she really was their missing loved one, and she even found a loved one of her own in her co-worker, Apollo Justice. A man.

Athena/Venus, after a midnight 911 call in November 2027, was readmitted to a Los Kyoto asylum known as Pavilion Crisis Care (why are there so many dang asylums in this lore?) and tentatively diagnosed with a genetic respiratory defect known as "pulmonary vascular endothelial dysplasia" (as far as I'm aware, this isn't a real medical name heheh I just asked an AI to spit something fancy-like out for me) PVED causes the blood vessels supporting the Oxygen-CO2 air sacs in the lungs to be abnormally thin and weak, leading to them bursting (and the patient coughing up blood) when blood pressure skyrockets. Due to her sketchy legal circumstances, PCC tried to retain her, but Apollo was able to get power of attorney over her so he could take her home, as he knew she had PTSD regarding asylums (but didn't know exactly why).

In December, Clay Terran was stabbed and killed in the same building Metis and Athena were stabbed in, directly beneath the robotics lab as two more bombs went off. As the last joint incident was found to be terroristic, this second bombing-homicide was labelled high-priority. As Venus/Athena tries to grapple with confusing fuzzy memories of the building, she finds herself front-and-center for the Courtroom #5 bombing and gains a hemorrhage of the brain from a severe concussion. While Venus/Athena is in neurosurgery, the hospital finds suspicious brain scans dated 7 years beforehand showing the brain death & damage present in Venus/Athena's brain and a scan showing complete brain death under Athena's name.

The day after, Venus/Athena returns to the court to try and defend Juniper, but is rehospitalized when her stiches break following a PTSD episode and upon finding Apollo assaulted in the courtroom ruins.

After Juniper is acquitted and both Apollo and Athena heal from their respective injuries, Apollo takes his leave of absence to investigate Clay's death, and Venus/Athena confesses to Wright about being instructed to impersonate Athena.

*The next chapter of the trilogy begins here*

So that's my nonsense. Make of my nonsense what you will.

If I forgot anything than I'll fix it tomorrow I'm tired. I purposefully left out a bunch of canon stuff because it's not my lore lol.

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sokoloffweinstein · 1 year

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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

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Initiative - aka NMJ and JYL get engaged - ao3 or tumblr pt 1, pt 2

Jiang Yanli’s first engagement had been announced when she was three and a half years old – there had been a big party, festooned in color, exquisitely and meticulously planned out in advance, and she’d been obliged to stand on stage next to a baby in a cradle that had done nothing but cry and spit as all the adults around her congregated and congratulated each other on the excellent match.

She hadn’t enjoyed that at all.

Her second wedding announcement was simultaneously more casual and more noteworthy, and she enjoyed it tremendously.

Madame Jin had sent several invitations to Jiang Yanli to come visit Lanling in advance of the hunt planned for Phoenix Mountain, speaking of how beautiful it was and how much she looked forward to seeing her good friend’s daughter – talking about she’d always regretted how Jiang Yanli had been obligated by circumstances to take shelter at the Unclean Realm rather than in Lanling City, although she’d been pleased to hear from her son that she was doing well – all the right sort of words. The words might have been more welcome if Jiang Yanli hadn’t known that Madame Jin was still intent on securing the marriage she had arranged.

If she hadn’t been engaged, she would have accepted the invitation, hoping to form an alliance for her sect through a close relationship with Madame Jin even if she didn’t have one with Jin Zixuan (no matter what Madame Jin hoped), but as she was, in fact, engaged to another – even if it hadn’t been formally announced – it would be inappropriate to go. So she instead played ignorant and responded graciously, protesting that she couldn’t possibly impose, that the rebuilding at the Lotus Pier needed her, but that she would of course be happy to attend the hunt alongside the rest of her sect.

She arrived at her brother’s side, smiling all the while.

Her second engagement was announced like this: Sect Leader Jin, using his newly legitimized son as his mouthpiece, had brought forward some ghastly ‘entertainment’ that involved shooting at helpless prisoners, tied up in chains. Jin Zixuan had complied, but Wei Wuxian had marched out and disrupted everything by showing off to a ridiculous extent – Nie Mingjue, who had been watching with a black face full of rage but unable to speak due to propriety, had started applauding very loudly and very enthusiastically – and Sect Leader Jin had ordered the prisoners taken away.

“Well, then,” he said, clapping as if he had impressed himself: as if they hadn’t just been subjected to a powerplay under the guise of hospitality, as if everyone would be over-awed by his might now that they had seen him abuse the helpless while they were all forced by the rules of etiquette to say nothing or else risk carrying the blame for trying to start another war. “Absent anything else, we should proceed to the hunt itself, where await you only the finest of prey and the sharpest competition among your peers.”

For the further display of the power of the Jin sect, he meant.

“Actually,” Nie Mingjue said, interjecting in a moment in which Sect Leader Jin had paused to take a breath so that it was technically not an interruption, “there is one thing. A request, in fact.”

Sect Leader Jin’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, but he maintained his false smile. “Of course, Sect Leader Nie. What can I do for you?”

“I’m getting married,” Nie Mingjue said. “The bride is Young Mistress Jiang, of Yunmeng Jiang, and I would like –” He raised his voice to overcome the abrupt explosion of talk that had erupted. “– I would like to have her accompany my sect in today’s hunt. I hope that doesn’t interfere with your plans for a competition between the sects?”

There were those who said that Jiang Yanli’s chosen husband was bad at politics, and they might even be right. But it didn’t really matter in the end if he’d thought of the idea on a whim or if it’d been a prearranged plan by Nie Huaisang, who was cleverer than he liked to let on to people, Jiang Yanli’s future husband had still wiped away in a single sentence all memory of the farce they’d all just endured and of the hunt that was yet to come, ensuring that the only thing anyone would remember about today was the shocking news of the engagement of the leader of one Great Sect to the sister of another.

(And if everyone remembered that at the last celebration hosted by Sect Leader Jin, he had proposed to resurrect the marriage between Jiang Yanli and his own son, instead, forcing her to publicly demur on vague terms…well, that just made it all the more satisfying.)

Now it was Sect Leader Jin’s turn to scowl and glare, and Madame Jin’s expression looked no less thunderous, but in the end Jiang Yanli got to go with the Nie sect on the hunt.

“You know I’ll only slow you down,” she said to Nie Mingjue, who snorted.

“No more than Huaisang will,” he said, and if his face was stern and his voice gruff then she still thought she detected fondness and humor beneath it. “Besides, it’ll be a good opportunity to measure you.”

It turned out that he meant that more literally than she might have thought.

Jiang Yanli was promptly whisked away to the back of the Nie retinue by a small cadre of Nie disciples, men and women both. She was presented with a number of training sabers shaped out of wood and made to hold them in a variety of positions as they murmured things about stability and reach and balance as if they really, truly thought that she would actually use the saber they were preparing for her.

“This one,” Nie Jiahui, a steely older woman with silver in her hair and fierce eyes, eventually announced, and the practice saber Jiang Yanli had been waving around was taken away. She was then presented with one that was twice as heavy, for “practice”.

“Do you always practice with something heavier than the actual thing?” she asked, and Nie Jiahui nodded.

“Strengthens the shoulders,” she said, curt but not standoffish. “Have some candy.”

Jiang Yanli blinked, but smiled and accepted the offer. It was licorice, which she liked.

“Do you often carry candy with you on night-hunts?” she asked, listening to the sound of fighting from up ahead. Every so often, a disciple or two would trot by carrying the corpses of larger and larger creatures, slain in the fighting; it seemed that the Nie sect was not, in fact, being slowed down in the slightest by her presence.

Of course, she also wasn’t being tended to as if she were their chosen lady, either, as she might have otherwise expected – all pomp and flowery language, Nie Mingjue by her side at all times to show her around as if they were on a pleasure stroll – but in all honesty that would have been a little bewildering. It was very much not the Nie sect’s character, all practical and straightforward, and she found that she preferred it that way.

“It’s important to have something to replenish energy,” Nie Huaisang said, having dropped back to join them from the front. He looked tired and grumpy, but his saber appeared to have been put to some work; he immediately climbed up into the carriage that people were taking turns riding and started cleaning it. “And licorice candy clears the lungs.”

“Clears the lungs?” Jiang Yanli asked.

“It’s good for more than that,” Nie Jiahui said. “But that’s one of the uses, yes. Do you ever feel like your chest is too tight, especially when you move too much? Leading to coughing, shortness of breath, your lips turning blue?”

Jiang Yanli blinked. “Yes,” she said. “But that’s just because I was born with a weak body.”

Nie Jiahui scoffed and Nie Huaisang laughed. “Good luck with that,” he said cheerfully. “I was born with muscles that didn’t keep their tone: too flexible, incapable of gathering strength, requiring more energy to do less, making me twice as tired twice as fast – even sitting up straight can be a struggle in some extreme cases, though luckily not mine. And do you think that helped me one bit in getting out of saber training? It did not.”

“Early childhood intervention is best,” Nie Jiahui said. “But the next best is starting today. I’ll show you some low-impact exercises that you can start working on to strengthen your shoulders and stomach, as well as some balance movements to center yourself and improve your posture – that way, by the time your actual saber is ready, you’ll be able to take it through one of the basic routines.”

“I’m happy to learn whatever you have to teach,” Jiang Yanli said, ignoring Nie Huaisang’s dramatic cry of ‘And here I thought you’d be on my side!’ “I only regret troubling you.”

“Not at all,” Nie Jiahui said. “It’ll be good to have someone watching the Sect Leader’s back on night-hunts.”

Jiang Yanli felt a surge of terror and excitement in her belly. “He would trust me with that? You would trust me with that?”

“I did tell you that you’d need to keep up with him,” Nie Huaisang said mildly, and it was true, he had, only she’d assumed it was a bit more metaphorical. “You don’t have to fight or even walk too much, if it doesn’t suit you – my grandmother was lame in both her legs from a childhood illness, she rode everywhere, scariest woman I’ve ever met by far – but you do have to be there. Someone needs to be able to tell my brother to stop. Someone he’ll listen to.”

And wasn’t that something of a thrill to think of?

Jiang Yanli wasn’t someone anyone listened to – not her parents, not her brother, not her sect disciples. She’d always been the one who comforted them afterwards, who supported them; she made them food and tried to convince them to be kinder to each other, and sometimes they even tried for a while before getting into another tiff. They would kill for her if she so much as hinted at it, tear down the sky for her, but it was more in the nature of indulging her rather than actually allowing them to guide her.

Yet here was Chifeng-zun, a war hero and a sect leader, one of the most powerful men in the world, a man admired by men and sought after (even if only in their hearts) by women, and his family was telling her that he would listen to her.

“If you say so,” she demurred, but they insisted, and by the time the hunt was over Jiang Yanli was surprised to realize that she hadn’t needed to resort to sitting on the carriage more than twice the entire time.

“We’ll send Auntie Jiahui to the Lotus Pier after today’s hunt is done,” Nie Huaisang chattered cheerfully in her ear as they headed back towards Jinlin Tower. “She’ll work you through your paces, believe you me, and all the supplemental things, too – making sure you eat the right thing, take medicinal baths to improve your meridians, apply massages to loosen your joints…those parts are nice, actually. Take care of your body as you would your saber, take care of your saber as you would your wife! That’s how the saying goes. Trust me, you’ll be regretting the whole thing soon enough.”

Jiang Yanli didn’t think she would. “You seem very confident that A-Cheng will allow you to do as you please, even in the Lotus Pier.”

“I’ll tell him it concerns secret Nie sect marriage rituals,” Nie Jiahui interjected. “When two women are involved, men tend to run away when the words ‘marriage’ and ‘secret’ are combined.”

Sadly, she was probably right.

“Show me those exercises again,” she requested, and Nie Jiahui climbed up on to the carriage to show her the ones she could do even while sitting down.

Jiang Yanli might never have had the opportunity to strengthen herself before, and she was moderately certain that she wouldn’t have too much success now, as the various tricks Nie Jiahui had taught her were largely body refinement, barely reliant on qi, and her cultivation was still as low as ever.

But she was good at devoting herself to learning something when she wanted to, and as soon the hunt at Phoenix Mountain was over and they had shifted over to the various feasts and meetings that Lanling Jin had planned for the rest of the week, she began her efforts at self-improvement in earnest.

The weak body her mother had always despaired of might always be weak – Nie Jiahui had been quite blunt on that subject, making it clear that nothing she was suggesting was some sort of miracle pill, and furthermore that there was nothing wrong with being weak as long as she made an effort (Nie Huaisang had been the recipient of several pointed looks there) – but Jiang Yanli was determined to at least demonstrate that she was trying.

A gesture of good faith, perhaps. Some small show of initiative.

Nie Huaisang had said that Nie Mingjue appreciated her initiative.

“A-Xian,” she called one morning, only a few days later. “A-Xian, are you going out for a walk? Let me come with you.”

“You’ve gone on a lot of walks recently,” Wei Wuxian laughed, but allowed her to take his arm as they walked into the crowd. “Do you like Lanling City so much?”

“It’s the exercise I’m after,” she said, smiling at him. “The Nie sect is a martial sect, remember? I’ll be going on more night-hunts in the future, if all goes well, and I’ll need to keep up.”

“Oh, but surely they’ll bring a carriage..? I don’t know if you really need to go on night-hunts –”

“I want to! It’ll be nice. Don’t worry about me so much, A-Xian –”

Wei Wuxian was shaking his head, smiling, and he wasn’t looking where he was going; perhaps that was why he bumped into the young woman.

But then she looked up at him, and he looked down at her, and he froze.

“Wen Qing?”

#mdzs #jiang yanli #nie mingjue #nie huaisang #wei wuxian #my fic #my fics #initiative #the untamed #includes my medical HCs for JYL and NHS #but no actual medical incidents

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criminalmindzjunkie · 3 years

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Love Sick

Masterlist

Summary: A story about how Spencer’s worst decision ever somehow ends up being his best.

A/N: Happy Valentine’s Day, my loves! This fic is loosely based on a request I got about Spencer faking an illness to keep the reader from going on a date.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader

Content Warning: swearing

Word Count: 4k

Spencer has done a terrible, awful thing.

He wants to argue that he doesn’t know what came over him, but that would be untrue and he’s already met today’s quota on little white lies. Spencer knows exactly what possessed him to call you up at seven thirty on a Saturday night, and it wasn’t so that the two of you could discuss the weather or the recent upward trend in the stock market. Spencer’s spontaneous (panicked) phone call to you was a brazen attempt to abate the green-eyed monster that had been whispering dreadful things in his ear for the better part of a week.

To put it simply; Spencer is jealous, and he’s dealing with it rather poorly.

So poorly that he’s resorted to sabotage.

As he sits on his couch and worries at a hole in the bottom of his designated lounging sweatshirt, Spencer attempts to justify his actions. His tiny fib won’t hurt anyone . . . except, perhaps, one annoyingly perfect and stupidly handsome veterinarian. But Spencer can live with that. Potentially scorning an animal care specialist isn’t the thing that has his stomach in knots. That, he can live with. Spencer doesn’t even have pets, so there’s no longterm consequences as far as the vet is concerned. The notion of lying to you, on the other hand?

Spencer is positively sick with nerves.

He’s not sure why. Spencer’s gotten rather good at lying to you. Several months of pining for you from across the hallway of your shared apartment complex has turned him into quite the master of deceit, after all. He was a sucker from the moment he opened his door and lay his eyes on you, arms outstretched and wielding a plate of homemade sweets. The cookies were lovely, but the breathtaking smile on your face is what really did him in.

Since that first day, Spencer’s gone out of his way to ensure that he’s on the receiving end of that smile as often as possible. His efforts are never in vain; for reasons unbeknownst to him, you seem to enjoy spending time with him just as much as he did you. This mutual fondness results in most of Spencer’s off days being spent in your company. Spencer was certain that, with time, he would work up the nerve to ask you out on a date. He’s halfway to convincing himself that you might even say yes when your cat makes the unfortunate decision to steal a brownie from your plate and gulp the whole thing down.

Enter, aforementioned veterinarian.

The sound of your door opening from across the hall has Spencer breaking out into a cold sweat. His hand is halfway to his forehead, ready to wipe away the perspiration when he pauses. His body’s anxious reaction might just help him sell his story. Yes, Spencer thinks, this is a good thing. Authenticity, and all that.

Several soft footsteps are muffled by the door that separates him from you, and then his doorknob jiggles as you struggle to fit your key into the lock. A jolt of adrenaline surges through Spencer and in the blink of an eye he’s on his feet and sprinting to his bathroom in the name of authenticity. If he wants to keep up this ridiculous façade, and he really, really does, Spencer is prepared to fake it until he makes it. The alternative is far too mortifying. Failure is not an option.

Spencer cringes when he lifts his eyes to meet his reflection. He’s been told more than once that he’s an absolutely terrible liar, and the wide, guilty eyes that stare back at him confirm this. All it will take is one look at him and you’ll know something’s amiss. Perhaps it isn’t too late for Spencer to come clean. It would be embarrassing, yeah, but no less embarrassing than it would be an hour from now when you call him on his shit. But then again, there is always the possibility that you will get angry with him and leave, and Spencer isn’t willing to risk you walking away from him. Not tonight.

Spencer barely has the time to splash some cold water on his face and dive to the bathroom floor before you’re pushing open the door to his apartment and calling out his name. His brain, the part that isn’t rendered useless in his panicked state, reminds him of just how many germs can be found on the average bathroom floor. It’s enough to make him pause, but only for a moment. He takes a deep breath before slumping over against the toilet.

Showtime.

“M’ in here,” Spencer calls out in his croakiest voice. It comes out exactly as he intended, all rough and pitiful. Maybe he can pull this off, after all.

The soft pitter patter of your bare feet makes his heart rate increase exponentially. Spencer steels himself, recites a reassuring mantra in his head. I can do this; I can do this.

Spencer’s poor, overworked heart gets a much-needed rest when you step into the doorway. In fact, he’s almost certain it stops completely at the sight of you in a tiny red dress. A tiny red dress that leaves very little to the imagination. Spencer can’t even see past his mounting panic to enjoy the way you look. That damn red dress serves as a brutal reminder of why he’s sitting in his bathroom floor, clutching his toilet bowl and damn near drowning in a nervous sweat.

The thing is, Spencer hadn’t intended on sabotaging your date with the vet. He had every intention of staying in, wallowing in his sorrows and waiting up for you. Spencer even said this to Derek, who was kind enough to call him and remind him of how big of a jackass he was. Spencer didn’t need the reminder. He was well aware.

But then Derek said something that made Spencer’s blood run cold.

“And what exactly do you plan to do if she doesn’t come home?”

So, really, it’s Derek’s fault that Spencer promptly ended the call and dialed your number. It’s also Derek’s fault that Spencer is about to give the most convincing performance of his entire fucking life.

“I’m sorry I called you, but I didn’t know what else to do. I just feel so awful.” And he does feel awful, just not in the way you think.

You’re quick to close the distance between the two of you, dropping to your knees and brushing stray pieces of hair away from Spencer’s clammy forehead. His skin sings where your hand grazes it. If he didn’t have a fever before, he will if you don’t stop touching him.

“Don’t ever apologize, Spence. I wish you’d have called me sooner,” you murmur. Warm, concerned eyes drag across Spencer’s bedraggled appearance. “How long have you been feeling sick?”

Spencer gulps. “A few hours, I guess. I ate my leftovers from last night for lunch. Maybe that’s what’s wrong.”Lies, lies, lies!

Your brow furrows. “That’s strange. I ate mine, too, and I feel fine.”

Spencer doesn’t really have an argument for that, so he fakes a pained groan and rests his head against his arm. He closes his eyes and prays the intro to theater class he took in high school will pay off.

You must deem his act convincing enough because you press a soft kiss to the top of his hair and stand. Spencer hears the sound of a cabinet opening, followed by the sound of running water.

The tender touch of your hand on his shoulder has him raising his head and looking up at you, inquisitive. You place a cold washrag to his forehead, and Spencer melts into the touch. It feels heavenly against his hot skin.

“Do you think you could manage to take a shower?” you prompt, earning a feeble nod from Spencer. He doesn’t even have to fake the way he trembles as you run the damp cloth down his neck. “I think I have some broccoli and cheddar soup at my apartment. I’ll go change and grab it while you shower.”

Elation spreads through Spencer, pouring from his heart until it reaches the very tips of his extremities. He can’t believe his scheme hasn’t blown up in his face already.

With the help of your outstretched hand, Spencer rises to his feet and braces himself against the shower door. You make no move to remove your hand from his, and that gives him the courage to ask his next question.

“What about your date?”

You shrug and an easy smile spreads across your face. Spencer feels faint. He blames it on his imaginary illness.

“Don’t worry about that. The only thing I’m concerned with right now is taking care of you.”

Spencer bites down hard on the flesh of his cheek to keep a smug grin at bay. This is a victory he’ll have to celebrate at a later date.

Spencer enters his living room, freshly showered and donned in clean pajamas, to the sound of your voice speaking quietly into your cellphone. He halts just before he enters his kitchen, straining to catch a snippet of your conversation. As he leans closer to the sound of your voice, Spencer halfheartedly chastises himself. First, he deceives you, now he’s resorting to eavesdropping. Rock, meet bottom.

He’s just about to wrench himself away and retreat to the couch, when:

“I really am sorry about cancelling, especially on such short notice.” A short stretch of silence follows. “Next Saturday? Oh. Um, yeah, I’ll let you know, okay?”

Spencer is very much like a popped balloon; the earlier feelings of elation leave him in a harsh gust. Next Saturday? He barely managed to derail this Saturday’s date! No way he could get away with it a second time.

In the midst of his inner turmoil, Spencer misses you exchanging goodbyes with the vet before collecting Spencer’s bowl of soup. He’s still standing there, absolutely crestfallen, when you round the corner. You nearly collide with his chest, narrowly avoiding it by skidding to a halt in front of him. Your eyes run up his frame, assessing him, until they rest on his face.

“You scared me, Spence,” you chuckle. You cock your head to the side. Spencer imagines his expression is none dissimilar to that of a disgruntled frog. “You feeling okay? You’re not going to puke again, are you?”

Honestly, he might. The idea of you rescheduling your date with the vet is about as vomit inducing as it gets.

“I’m fine,” Spencer says on an exhale. Funnily, it’s probably the biggest lie he’s told all day. “The shower helped.”

His delivery is flat, but you don’t seem to mind. You smile up at him, relieved, and Spencer’s chest aches.

“I was thinking you and I could watch a movie?” you offer, and Spencer nods his assent. He can’t fathom turning you down. Not when you’re wearing an old sweatshirt you stole from his closet and a pair of fuzzy socks with little hearts on them. The ache intensifies.

“What are we watching?”

You plop down on the couch and look at him expectantly. He follows in suit, settling in beside you.

“I was thinking that you could choose,” you murmur as you place the bowl in his hands. Spencer shoots a teasing smile your way as he raises the spoon to his mouth.

“You mean, you’re actually going to let me pick the movie? I should get sick more often.”

His cheek earns him an exaggerated roll of your eyes.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” you mutter. “You always pick the movie.”

He can count on one hand the amount of times he’s gotten to pick the movie.

Spencer is about to launch into an impassioned rebuttal when the feeling of your fingers scratching against his scalp renders him speechless. His eyes dart to your face as you concentrate on scrolling through the TV guide, seemingly unaware of the effect the simple act has on him. Meanwhile, Spencer’s brain is short-circuiting.

You begin to read off a list of potential movies to him, but Spencer barely hears you. He’s practically purring as you twirl his curls around lithe fingers, his eyes threatening to flutter closed as an intense feeling of euphoria washes over him. Maybe it’s because he’s touch starved, or maybe it’s because it’s been so long since someone just looked after him. Whatever it is, Spencer embraces it wholeheartedly.

“-heard it’s pretty good. So, what do you say, Spence?”

Spencer pulls himself back to the present, blinking lazily at you. You’re looking at him, expectant, and Spencer’s eyes flit to the TV. His eyes skim its contents, reading briefly about a movie in which some family moves into a haunted house.

His face breaks out into a grin and he nods, because Spencer’s known you long enough to recognize that watching a horror movie usually results in you pressed tightly to his side and clinging to his hand. He also knows that nine times out of ten, you choose to watch a horror movie over anything else. No wonder he always lets you choose.

And sure enough, not even ten minutes in, Spencer is ditching his bowl of soup and pulling you into his arms. Once you’ve draped a blanket around the two of you settled in, you glance up at him.

“How are you feeling, Spence?”

Spencer responds by saying that he’s suddenly feeling much better.

Spencer Reid - 1, Veterinarian – 0

Spencer’s not sure at which point he fell asleep. All he knows is that he certainly does not remember sprawling out across your body, nor does he remember tucking his head into the crook of your neck. But this is how he finds himself when the sun begins to pour in through his windows the next morning, and Spencer can’t bring himself to care about how he came to be there.

Spencer guesstimates that it’s no later than seven in the morning. You’re still fast asleep underneath him, your chest rising and falling rhythmically with every breath. It’s early, and it’s Sunday, and Spencer can’t think of a single reason to wake you. Instead, he snuggles in closer, because he’d be a fool not to enjoy this while it lasts.

Unfortunately, the shrill sound of Spencer’s ringing phone shatters the serenity. He prays that it won’t disturb you, that you’ll remain oblivious and continue to sleep, but that hope is shattered when you begin to shift underneath him. Spencer makes quick work of peeling himself off of you before dashing to his kitchen and snatching his phone off the table.

He’s prepared to verbally assault whoever has the audacity to defile the sanctity of lazy Sunday mornings when a quick peek into the living room finds you still fast asleep on his sofa. He smiles, soft and fond, before pressing the accept button and bringing the phone to his ear.

“Hello?”

“I was beginning to wonder if you were still alive.” Spencer’s smile transforms into a grimace. Apparently, Derek Morgan doesn’t believe in lie-ins. “I was preparing myself for a rescue mission.”

“It’s seven in the morning. I was asleep.”

Derek lets out a low whistle. “Who pissed in your Cheerios, Pretty Boy?”

“You, when you decided that it was acceptable to ring me before eight,” Spencer whisper shouts. He knows that he’s being touchy, to say the least, but who can blame him? Five minutes ago, he was cuddling with the most beautiful girl he’s ever had the privilege to lay eyes on. Now, he’s shooting the breeze with a colleague. Obviously, Spencer would prefer the former to the latter.

“Jesus, kid. I’m going to take a wild guess and say that girl of yours didn’t make it home, after all. You okay?”

The guilty feeling returns and Spencer cringes. “Uh, define ‘okay.’”

Derek curses on the other end of the line. “I’m sorry, kid. Try not to beat yourself up about it, okay? There’s plenty of fish in the sea, you’ve just gotta put yourself out there. How’s this; you and me will go out next weekend and bar hop. I’ll teach you some Derek Morgan tricks of the trade. Soon enough, you’ll have forgotten all about her.”

“I don’t know, that might be hard.” Spencer scratches the back of his neck. “She’s asleep on my couch right now.”

A long stretch of silence comes from the other end of the line, and Spencer thinks for a moment that the call dropped. Unfortunately, he isn’t that lucky. A booming laugh erupts from the speaker and makes him jump out of his skin.

“My man!” Derek laughs, incredulous. “I didn’t think you had it in you, I’ll be honest.”

“It’s not what you think-”

“How did you manage that? Did the Good Doctor make a grand romantic gesture? Damn, I really hate that I missed that.”

“No, there were no gestures. And it’s not-”

Derek cuts him off. Again. “How’d she take the news? I’m assuming she took it well, if she stayed the night.”

“I didn’t tell her anything!” Spencer spits out, frustrated. “I… I told her I was sick. She came over to take care of me, and we fell asleep on the couch.”

Spencer’s proclamation is met with another long silence.

“So, you sabotaged the date?”

Spencer winces. “I did not sabotage it. I just… manipulated the situation a little.”

“Oh, you certainly did,” Derek chuckles. “How did you pull that off? I’ve seen you try to lie. That shit is laughable.”

Spencer opens his mouth to defend himself, but the pitter patter of socked feet approaching him from behind has his mouth running dry.

“Yeah, Spencer. How did you pull that off?”

Spencer had been correct in his earlier assumptions. The inevitable moment in which you called him out on his shit has arrived, and it’s every bit as mortifying as he expected. So mortifying that he can practically feel the blood drain from his face. And the thing is that he knows he deserves whatever you’re about to throw his way… it’s just that the thought of you being angry with him kind of makes him want to cry. And that would only add to the mortification.

He turns around slowly, his body rigid, until he’s met with the adorably rumpled vision of you with your arms crossed and your hair sticking up in all directions.

Spencer’s never seen anything quite so mesmerizing, and it hurts because he knows he’s ruined everything. He’ll never get to watch another scary movie with you tucked neatly against his side, or wake up in your arms again. He’ll never get to kiss you.

And the worst of all; Spencer will never get to tell you how he really feels. It’s a crying shame, because he thinks he could have been really good at loving you.

“Hey, Derek, I gotta go.”

Spencer presses the end call button and immerses himself in what has to be the most awkward stand-off of all time. You stand there, arms crossed, head cocked to the side with one hip jutted out. Spencer isn’t sure how you manage to look intimidating and endearing at the same time. He supposes the fuzzy socks are to blame.

Minutes pass, but they feel like hours. Spencer is approximately three seconds away from dropping to his knees and groveling when you finally speak.

“You sabotaged my date.”

Spencer lets out a strangled laugh. Perhaps humor is the way to go? It couldn’t hurt to try. In his opinion, the situation couldn’t possibly get any worse. “I think sabotage is a strong word. I prefer the term obstruct.”

You let loose a laugh of your own, but this one holds no humor. “And I prefer keeping the company of people who don’t lie to me.” Okay, maybe it can get worse.

Spencer visibly deflates. It was a stupid idea. He’s never been a funny guy.

“I am so, so, so incredibly sorry.” Sorry for lying to you, that is. Spencer isn’t in the least bit apologetic for ruining your date. Given the chance, he’d do it again - in a more tactful way, of course. Preferably, in such a way that didn’t involve him laying in his bathroom floor.

Spencer attempts to take a step forward, only to be rooted to the spot when you fix him with a look. He’s not funny but he is smart – smart enough to know better than to push it.

“Why did you do it?”

Spencer was really hoping you wouldn’t ask that.

“I-I…”

Apparently, an eidetic memory doesn’t stand a chance when it comes to confrontations involving pretty girls. One quirk of an immaculately plucked eyebrow and Spencer loses the ability to recall a single word of the English language. It’s tragic, really.

“Spit it out, Spencer.”

“I didn’t want you to go on the date.” It’s like ripping off a band aid, the way the words tumble from his lips. It’s painless at first, but then the sting sets in when he realizes what he’s done.

Your lack of reaction doesn’t help. Your face remains passive, as if he didn’t just offer himself to you on a silver platter. Spencer squirms uncomfortably.

“Why didn’t you want me to go on the date?”

God, this is excruciating. You’re clearly out for blood, and the twinkle in your eye shows just how much you’re enjoying this. Spencer would have never taken you for a sadist.

“Because…” Spencer trails off and allows his eyes to drift closed. If he’s going to do this, he’s going to do it his way. With his eyes closed, because he can’t bear the thought of looking you in the eye when you reject him. “B-Because I like you. A lot.”

Spencer hasn’t had a lot of practice at being wrong. In fact, he’s spent the majority of his life being right. It seems the universe is making up for that now, because he can’t seem to get a single goddamn thing right today.

You laugh at him. You actually laugh in his face. Mortified doesn’t even begin to cover it.

“You like me.” It isn’t a question.

Spencer keeps his eyes shut tight.

“Y-Yeah.”

You know how they say if you take away one of a person’s senses, all of the others are heightened? Spencer couldn’t disagree more. In the midst of his despair, he’s completely unaware that you’ve crossed the room and are now standing directly in front of him until you speak again.

“Well, that’s rather unfortunate,” you sigh. Spencer inhales a sharp breath when he realizes you’re close enough to touch. Still, he keeps his eyes closed.

“Uh, why is that?”

Spencer nearly jumps out of his skin when your hand reaches up and caresses the side of his jaw.

“Because, Spencer,” you murmur, silky and sweet. “I was hoping you just might love me.”

Spencer’s eyes fly open and he’s greeted by a lazy, contented smile. It’s similar to the one that greeted him when he opened his front door on that very first day, but it’s better somehow. Later reflection will determine that it’s better because it’s the kind of smile reserved just for him. And that’s all he’s ever wanted, really.

“W-What?”

“You heard me.” You tilt your head up and rest your palm on Spencer’s chest. His heartbeat is erratic, thundering hard against his ribcage. He’d surely be embarrassed if he wasn’t about to faint from shock. “Do you love me, Spencer Reid?”

Spencer doesn’t even have to think twice.

“More than anything.”

“Good.” Your thumb brushes across the apple of his cheek, eliciting a full body shudder. “I was beginning to think you would never catch up.”

Spencer must be hallucinating. That, or this is all a dream and any second now his alarm is going to go off. He subtly pinches himself on the thigh to test the theory. You can imagine his surprise when nothing changes. He doesn’t wake up in a pile of his own drool, and now the skin on his thigh stings.

“You . . . You like me, too?”

You shake your head. “No, Spencer. I love you, too. Why do you think I bake you cookies and spend all of my free time in your apartment?”

“Because my couch is better than yours?” Spencer deadpans.

“I mean, that certainly doesn’t hurt. But it’s not the only reason.”

“What about the vet?” It must be his guilty conscious talking, because Spencer cannot conjure up any other reason he has for asking such a moronic question. He, personally, could not care less about the vet. Full offense intended.

“Cameron is a nice guy, sure,” you trail off. Spencer doesn’t miss the way your eyes drift down to his lips before returning to his eyes. “But he’s not really my type.”

“And what is your type, exactly?” A giddy grin finds its way to Spencer’s face. He’s notorious for being chronically clueless, but even the master of imperception himself can see where this is going.

You snort, and it’s adorable. “Liars, apparently.”

It’s impossible to determine who moves first, but that doesn’t really matter. What does matter is the end result of Spencer’s lips colliding with yours. It’s earth-shatteringly lovely; slow and sweet and tentative. There’s no rushing, no frantic fumbling of hands. Just the reverent drag of your lips against his, warm and intoxicating.

Spencer eventually regains the use of his limbs and when he does, he’s snaking one arm around your waist as the other entangles itself in your wonderfully unruly hair.

You sigh a happy sigh against his lips and Spencer’s heart soars. In a completely unforeseen turn of events, the possibility of more lazy Sunday mornings is now back on the table. Thank God he’s better at lying than he gave himself credit for.

God, and Derek Morgan’s meddling ass.

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid self insert #spencer reid #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid fanfiction #criminal minds fanfic #criminal minds fanfiction #spencer x reader #spencer reid fluff

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byunmyeon · 3 years

Text

Metanoia

↳ pairing: lee suho x reader

↳ synopsis: this is the sequel to philophobia. the world of red strings is one you haven’t been able to see for a long time, and now that you’ve found your unwilling soulmate, you have no interest in regaining that sight.

↳ warnings: language, angst, angst, and more angst, mentions of depression, mentions of death

— note: due to popular demand, here’s part two!

Something was wrong.

There wasn’t some pivotal event or action that made Suho conscious of the shift, he just knew. This premonition could’ve been assessed as an erroneous inkling that emanated from the vast rift between you two, but you hadn’t given any indication that the lack of recognition from your soulmate was the cause. In fact, you seemed perfectly content with disregarding Suho’s existence.

An entire month had gone by since you confronted him, and the entire situation had passed without further incident. Neither one of you had spoken since that ill-fated day.

However, it was impossible not to notice the drastic change in your character. The way you smiled was different in a way that seemed off, and there was also a certain enervation constantly embracing you. But the biggest difference was your lack of interest in just about anything. Suho might’ve thought it had everything to do with him, but again, there was no clear indication of that.

Nonetheless, ignoring you didn’t make him unaware of the unnamed sensation that had latched itself onto him since then.

It’s not like Suho wanted to notice the contrast in your behavior, but it was something he couldn’t help. Every time you came within a ten meter radius, his eyes would compulsively find their way over to you. Suho was always careful to not get caught staring, although it hardly mattered. It’s not like you looked in his general direction anymore. And even when you did happen to meet his gaze, it was for a fleeting moment that passed by so quickly that it couldn’t even be considered a full second.

Your uncharacteristic disposition made him worry. Not for you, but for him. Suho was deeply concerned that you might expose your shared secret in an abrupt moment of anger and hurt. That’s all it was. Nothing more, nothing less.

To his relief, that moment never came.

Even in the face of all the hurtful things he had said and done, you didn’t mention to Jugyeong that Suho was your soulmate. It was a development he hadn’t expected. Sure, you had told him, no, promised him that you would keep silent about the string that bounded you two together, but he was convinced that you could easily change your mind whenever you felt like it. You hadn’t.

Truthfully, your selfless act made him develop a fondness for you. Suho hadn’t expected you to be so understanding and considerate since it seemed like you were genuinely hurt that he didn’t care to acknowledge the bond between you two. That was the part he still couldn’t wrap his head around. You ignored the red string that tied you two together since the day you transferred without any qualm. Your actions convinced him that you wanted nothing to do with the soulmate bond, with him.

“What’s up with Y/N?” Taehoon wondered one day as he set his lunch tray beside Suho’s. “She isn’t looking so good these days.”

The rest of the group agreed.

“Maybe we did something to upset her.” Jugyeong said with a worried frown. Her pretty eyes drifted over to the lonely girl who was currently picking at her food. “She hasn’t wanted to hang out with us since we finished our exams.”

Suho let his own gaze fall over to you. It was true that you had kept your distance since before he officially asked Jugyeong out, but he didn’t think his girlfriend would care too much since you two weren’t that close to begin with. Seeing her so upset didn’t sit well with him.

Maybe he could convince you to start hanging out with Jugyeong and the rest of the group more often. Yes, that’s exactly what he would do. After all, doing him one more favor wouldn’t kill you.

Most people would say that you made a mistake for letting Suho go. Among those people would be your very own mother. You didn’t even want to think about what would happen if she came to find out that you gave up your soulmate without putting up a fight. It wasn’t something you were necessarily proud of, but you weren’t ashamed of your decision. Okay, so maybe refusing to acknowledge your other half wasn’t right or even sane, but you felt comfortable with your decision.

Well, that wasn’t exactly right.

The reality of your soulmate easily ignoring the string he could see was heart-wrenching. More often than not, seeing him and Jugyeong together would cause a stabbing pain in your chest. It would last no more than a second, but it was agonizing enough to have you regretting your righteous choice.

As time when on, the pain worsened and would prolong itself to the point where it became difficult to breathe. There were even instances where black dots would cloud your vision and had you feeling extremely lightheaded. Those times, however, were nothing compared to the occasions when you came close to fainting. Deep down you knew it was because there was a severe imbalance weaved in the depths of your bond.

But you couldn’t be bothered to truly acknowledge it.

Who needed a soulmate anyway?

There had always been an indescribable tension when you were around Suho. Before, you had wrote it off as nerves from being around someone who was as prickly as he was attractive. That was before you knew the truth, of course. You two had never been close, and after finding out that he was the one on the other end of your red string, you were sure you never would be.

Which is exactly why you couldn’t figure out the reason he suddenly came up to you while you were sitting outside on one of the lone benches. He didn’t hesitate to sit next to you, the action coming naturally like it was something he did everyday.

“Jugyeong says you haven’t hung out with her in a while.” Suho said in a slow drawl. “Is it because of me?”

You wished you could’ve scoffed and told him that the world didn’t revolve around him, but you couldn’t. Because even if the world didn’t, yours did.

“I haven’t been feeling well lately.”

It was the truth. Your chest pains were only getting worse as the days went on. It was hard enough to hide it from your mother, you didn’t need the pressure of also hiding it from your classmates.

Suho didn’t seem the least bit concerned for your not-so-well-being, and it had a familiar ache nipping at your heart. You longed to see his face change with even the tiniest bit of emotion. Just so you could feel, even for a fleeting moment, that the bond wasn’t one-sided. After seeing the indifference he looked at you with, you decided to look straight ahead to spare yourself any further heartache.

“Being alone won’t make you feel any better.”

It couldn’t make you feel any worse.

Suho frowned when he saw your unchanging expression. He could never get used to the blank nothingness of it. Not when your joyful expressions had once lit up an entire room.

“I thought you’d be happy that I’m staying away from Jugyeong.” You finally said, still unwilling to look at him.

It made him happier than he cared to admit, but it didn’t make her happy. The entire point of talking to you was to bring Jugyeong the same amount of happiness she’d brought him. If it meant having to swallow his pride and ask you for yet another favor, then so be it.

“She thinks she did something to upset you.” Suho explained. “So I came to ask you to start talking to her again—as a favor.”

His impassive attitude made you feel crestfallen. You knew he couldn’t care less about the bond, about you, but it still hurt to see that he didn’t care to spare your feelings at all. It took everything in you to respond in a strong, calm tone.

“And you’re okay with me talking to her again?”

“I’m fine as long as you stick to our agreement.”

You nodded slowly, pensively. If it would make Suho happy, then you would do it.

“Okay.”

That was his cue to leave, but he found himself unwilling to do so. Immediately, Suho assumed it was because your souls were intertwined with one another which, in turn, fueled the natural instinct to be close to you. That had to be it.

Suho cleared his throat and stood up. “I’ll see you around.”

Sitting across a psychiatrist was something you never thought you would have to do again. And yet, you found yourself sitting across from the infamous Dr. Kwon. The aforementioned doctor was known worldwide for his trailblazing research on the enigmatic soulmate bond. His fame soared when he revealed that he had successfully treated people who were rejected by their soulmates. For an entire year, it was all anyone could talk about.

And like a moth to a flame, your mother was quick to reach out to his office and make an appointment for a consultation. There was a five month waiting list for this, and now it was finally your turn to meet with the prestigious psychiatrist, much to your dismay.

“There’s no need to feel nervous,” he said kindly when he noticed your uncomfortable posture. “Anything you tell me will stay between the two of us.”

You had heard the same thing countless times, but the words always seemed disingenuous no matter who they came from. Even if Dr. Kwon had treated people who had soulmate problems, you were sure that he’d never met someone like you. His eyes were kind, but you didn’t know whether you could trust him. Plenty of the other specialists had also been kind at first until they realized that treating you like a lab rat would lead to a life of fame and fortune.

“Your mother tells me that you were unofficially diagnosed with philophobia. She believes the cause of your condition is due to the fact that you are unable to see your string of fate.”

You weren’t surprised that your mom had told him everything about you already. She had made the same mistake with all the other doctors and therapists. You could deny it, but you figured if you were to become a lab rat, you couldn’t be in better hands.

“She also mentioned that you haven’t been yourself lately.”

Shit. You hadn’t thought that your mom had caught onto your behavior. The simple thought of her finding out the secret you were desperately trying to keep hidden made your stomach twist with panic.

Your shrug was uncommitted as you fought to control your expression. “She’s thought that since I told her I couldn’t see my string anymore.”

Dr. Kwon hummed. “Your mother is convinced that a severe trauma led you to lose the sight of your string. Would you mind telling me about that?”

You clutched the sleeves of your uniform as a way of comfort. Talking about that was something you never wanted to do. Somehow, spending an entire year repeating the story to countless specialists never helped you get over it. Despite that, you knew your mother wouldn’t forgive you if you didn’t make the effort to “get better.”

“Around the time I turned eleven, I found out that my parents were getting a divorce.” You began. There was a harsh edge to your words that you couldn’t control. “They were soulmates, but my dad said that he didn’t love my mom anymore.”

Dr. Kwon nodded, encouraging you to go on.

“This one day, he decided to drive me to school instead of letting me take the bus. On the way there he told me about this woman he’d met like I’d actually be happy for him or something. I got so angry that I just– I just snapped.”

It was silent for a moment before you continued.

“I told him that I hated him. That I would never forgive him for hurting my mom.” You swallowed thickly. “That was the last thing I said to him before we got into a car accident. He died on the way to the hospital.”

You didn’t realize that the moisture in your eyes was dripping down your face until Dr. Kwon handed you a tissue. He didn’t say anything for a while, and it surprised you. Most of the specialists you had seen couldn’t keep their thoughts to themselves after hearing your story.

“It’s not your fault.” Dr. Kwon said. “You feel an extreme guilt, but you shouldn’t. We all say things we don’t mean, and parents know that better than anyone.”

His words were comforting, but his kind expression was marred when he started speaking like a doctor. You only half-listened to Dr. Kwon, not interested in his spiel about how making an attempt to picture your string might help. If only he knew that over the better part of your early adolescence, visualizing that stupid red string was all you did.

You hadn’t realized that your time with him was nearly over until he started writing on his clipboard. It made you feel relieved, in a way. But there was still one thing you needed. You couldn’t leave without asking him about the one thing that had been weighing on your mind.

“Doctor,” your voice was hesitant. “You’ve treated patients whose soulmates rejected the bond, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Has… Has anyone ever died from being rejected?”

Dr. Kwon shook his head. “Most of them complained about chronic chest pains, but they faded over time after they got used to being away from their soulmate.”

You swallowed thickly. That’s not what you were hoping to hear.

“So, if someone were to constantly be around the person who rejected them… it could be fatal?”

This time, you caught the subtle narrowing of his eyes. Shit. He was onto you. “Is there a reason you’re asking me this?”

“I’m just curious. You’re the only doctor who’s come close to figuring out the real effects of rejecting the bond.”

He didn’t seem convinced, but answered you anyway. “It’s possible, but I can’t be certain since I haven’t had a patient who was willing to be around their soulmate after being rejected.”

You nodded, not liking the ugly feeling in your chest.

“I’m willing to keep working with you.” He said, seemingly not interested in the motives behind your questions. “Hopefully, we can reverse your condition.”

“I have no intention of seeing the string again.”

Dr. Kwon was taken aback. “Y-You don’t? Why?”

Because I already found my soulmate and he loves someone else. The truth was on the tip of your tongue, but you knew you couldn’t tell him.

“I just don’t.”

The first time you went an entire day without experiencing the chest pains was the same day you spent an entire lunch period with Suho.

Since the back of the school was now tainted with horrible memories, you could no longer go back there to find solace. Now your new designated safe space was the school’s rooftop. You were content with listening to music and feeling the warm breeze on your skin. It was also extremely private, which meant that if you did experience the chest pains, no one would see.

Your eyes were closed in blissful peace when you suddenly felt a presence beside you. Unaccustomed to the sudden company, you jumped with shocked fear. Once you saw that it was Suho who was sitting next to you, your heart was racing for an entirely different reason. He hadn’t said much. Unexpectedly, he asked you what you were listening to.

That’s how you found out you shared the same taste in music.

The second time you went an entire day without feeling the chest pains was the day you stumbled on a crying Suho.

He was completely overcome with grief that he didn’t seem to care that he was in the middle of the hallway. You quietly took him to the roof where he collapsed on you. The way he clutched onto you reminded you of an inconsolable child—fearful and in need of comfort. You listened to him as he told you about his late friend and his battle with depression.

Your heart ached with every word he told you, but if countless hours of therapy had taught you anything it was that venting could do wonders for the soul. Eventually, his sobs turned into sniffles. He hadn’t let go of you and vice versa.

After that, Suho didn’t say anything and neither did you. Unbeknownst to the either of you, the connection between you two had gotten stronger. There was an inexplicable congruity between you now, one that allowed you to understand and empathize with each other’s feelings.

You two never mentioned it again, but something shifted after that day.

It had been a month since you last felt the scathing pain. Now it was only a tolerable discomfort that you grew used to. You and Suho weren’t close, he still had his girlfriend, but now there were these moments that you experienced every so often. Ones that seemed more intimate than any relationship you could ever have. Those times were the happiest you’d felt in years.

“Things are pretty serious between Suho and Jugyeong.” Soo-ah said when you two entered the lunch room. “He wants her to study abroad with him after graduation.”

This was news to you, and that familiar discomfort soon settled on the left side of your chest. In spite of knowing that nothing had changed, you still felt like a complete fool. How could you be so delusional? Suho had only been kind to you a handful of times, and you were sure it had only been out of pure instinct. It had been because the link between you two had pushed him to do it.

Suddenly, the discomfort grew into that familiar, unwelcome stabbing pain, one greater than all the others you had felt so far. You let out a loud cry, the high-pitched noise sounding horrifying even to your own ears. The dizziness never came this quickly, but now it was clouding your senses within seconds. It had you stumbling into Soo-ah, and you grabbed ahold of her sleeve to try to steady yourself. You could see her mouth moving, but her words were muted. Oh no.

The pounding in your head and the sharp pains in your chest came in waves. It didn’t take long for the dark spots to appear. Fuck.

The last thing you remembered was seeing Soo-ah and a gathering crowd above you before darkness overcame you.

“Y/N.”

The distant sound of your name being called was enough to have you slowly opening your eyes. Your vision was blurry and unfocused. All you could make out was being in a brightly lit place that had you wincing. Where were you?

In the next second, you felt a pair of arms wrap around you. The familiar scent of your mom’s perfume made you relax.

“How are you feeling?”

It was a man’s voice who asked the question, and you nearly choked on your own spit when you saw Dr. Kwon standing beside the hospital bed. His presence shocked you since you had only met him once and weren’t officially his patient. However, you managed to assure him that you felt fine.

For a second, you thought everything would be fine. After all, there was no technology that was capable of determining that your collapse was related to your fractured soulmate bond. That is, until Dr. Kwon decided to speak up.

“You’ve met your soulmate, haven’t you?”

It wasn’t really a question. Your panicked eyes fell over to your mom. The look she gave you had you wincing. Fuck.

“What!? Y/N—”

“Mom,” you said, panicked. “It’s not– I don’t—”

“I’ve spoken with the doctor who treated you. She said that there’s been an enormous strain on your heart.” His voice had an underlying hardness that tipped you off on the anger he was feeling. “That’s why you asked me about my patients the other day, isn’t it?”

You remained silent, and it gave him his answer.

“You know who your soulmate is. They rejected the bond, but you haven’t. That’s why your chest pains have gotten worse.”

Before you could try to refute any of his claims, your mother went crazy.

“Who is it!?” She yelled. “Tell me right now so I can tell him to stop hurting my daughter!”

You attempted to calm her down, but your attempt was in vain. There was no possible way to settle her emotions. Not when her worst fear had been realized. You tried to ease her mind by reassuring her that you would go away in order to receive treatment from Dr. Kwon, not realizing that Suho was standing outside the room and heard everything.

Dr. Kwon managed to calm your mother down and convinced her to take a walk with him. It was late in the evening now, and you felt extremely relieved to finally be left alone with your thoughts. You got all of two seconds of contemplation because in the next second, Suho pulled the door open and walked into your room.

He didn’t say anything at first, but his face was the picture of tortured. You furrowed your eyebrows, unable to understand why he seemed so distraught.

“You’re dying.” Suho’s voice trembled. “Because of me.”

The fact that he somehow found out went over your head. You wished you could say no. No it’s not because of you. But you couldn’t. Trying to reassure him would’ve been futile. He knew. You both did. The urge to cling onto the severed bond would be fatal if you didn’t get help. Despite knowing all that, you wished to ease his pain. You could’ve laughed at your own foolishness because right now it was you who was laying in the hospital bed.

“I won’t die.” You told him feebly. “I’ll leave. Once I get used to being away from you, I’ll be okay. We can both live normal lives.”

Suho wanted to tell you that he didn’t want you to leave. That his life hadn’t ever been normal, and he was fine with that as long as you could be part of it.

“You didn’t reject the bond. Why?”

You looked up at the white ceiling. The tears were pooling in your eyes, but you refused to let them fall. There was no point in hiding it anymore. Not when you were hospitalized because of him.

“I can’t see my string.”

Your confession hung in the air like a dark cloud. It was silent before you decided to continue with your revelation.

“I haven’t been able to see it since I was thirteen.” You tried to swallow the lump in your throat. “That’s why I didn’t acknowledge you when we first saw each other. I didn’t know.”

The candor of your words had Suho staggering back. It felt like someone shoved a blade straight through his heart. Finally, everything made sense. It’s not that you weren’t interested in your soulmate, it’s that you hadn’t known he was right in front of you. He couldn’t stop the tears from gathering in his eyes. What had he done?

“I’ve always wanted to meet my soulmate.” You confessed, feeling a bit embarrassed. “Even after I found out that it was you and you didn’t feel the same way, I never wished that I hadn’t met you. I never wished that the bond didn’t exist.”

You knew he couldn’t say the same since the evidence of just how much he didn’t want the bond was displayed in your current physical state.

“You should leave,” you told him even though the words pained you greatly. “My mom will get suspicious if she sees you.”

Only a small piece of your heart broke when he listened to you.

When Jugyeong and Suho broke up, it was the talk of the entire school. You yourself couldn’t make sense of the sudden separation, but you told yourself that it didn’t matter because it wasn’t any of your business.

You only said goodbye to a handful of people when the last day at Saebom High came around. Your short stay at the school didn’t give you an opportunity to make many friends, and it’s not like you truly wanted to remember your experience at the school.

Before you could walk through the front gates toward your new life, you were stopped by the sound of your name being called.

“Y/N!”

You turned, feeling your eyes widen when you were suddenly wrapped up in your soulmate’s warm embrace. His sudden change in attitude shocked you so much that you weren’t sure how to react.

“Don’t leave me. Please.”

For the first time since you’d met Suho, you felt no need to placate him. After everything that happened, you couldn’t go back on the promise you made to your mother. You needed to get better. Not for Suho, but for yourself.

“I’m sorry.” You were sincere. “This time, I’m leaving you behind.”

He pulled back. The pain in his eyes was another strike to your chest, but you knew you couldn’t give in.

“Goodbye, Lee Suho.”

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